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Enforcing the rules isn't necessarily being passive-aggressive. Some people just assume that the rules are there for a good reason.
Enforcing the rules isn't necessarily being passive-aggressive. Some people just assume that the rules are there for a good reason.
unless the rules being enforced are an arbritrary optional rule in a book of optional rules designed to weaken a set of concepts to the point of unplayability. age should be purely cosmetic in an RPG.
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Enforcing the rules isn't necessarily being passive-aggressive. Some people just assume that the rules are there for a good reason.
That's true in some circumstances. This is not one them. This is telling someone that if they want a certain meaningless cosmetic aspect for their character, one the DM doesn't happen to like, they have to be mechanically worthless. Offering a "yes you may do this concept that interests you, but you must use an NPC class because though the rules are stupid, they are obviously out my DM jurisdiction to change" is just real life trolling.
The only time I would consider this not being that is if the DM was one of those super strict "RAW in all things no matter what" types, which has its own baggage, but at least is consistent and unbiased.
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And we condemned them all for it. On the other hand, if we were fighting an enemy that outnumbered and outgunned us on our home turf, what would we resort to?IRL the Viet Cong fielded children not old enough, by american standards to watch violence in a movie theatre.
Same thing happens in Afghanistan Daily.Children in combat or dangerous places?
I bring you the tales of Oliver Twist.
We also generally condemn being evil and doing evil stuff. But there's no penalty for being a Chaotic Evil mass murdering Anti-Paladin.
This rule is just a poor attempt at "realism" that effectively invalidates whole character concepts because of what is just a cosmetic choice.
Hell! IIRC, Harry Potter was even mentioned as one of the examples of character concepts that could achieved through the Arcanist class!
EDIT: My mistake! It's in the blog post for the Ultimate Campaign book. So you can play Harry Potter... But you can't be a Wizard. That's just great...
This rule is just a poor attempt at "realism" that effectively invalidates whole character concepts because of what is just a cosmetic choice.
I don't ban it because realism. I borrowed enough from my favorite anime that realism isn't a thing. I ban it because I'm highly uncomfortable with it.
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All of you guys leaping to the assumption that a gm is being passive-aggressive when you can't actually know that is a bit irksome. What if the gm just believes that child characters should have the proper template since it exists? What if the gm doesn't know the details of the template but thinks it is a great idea and fitting? What if the gm doesn't see adventuring children as a thing in his world but thinks she is taking a step to meet the player halfway? What if.... What if....
But apparently, the real reason and motivation is irrelevant because you guys seem to know absolutely what the reasons and motives are and can there for make statements about the nature of said GMs actions.
Oh wait- you can't.
And Kudos to Lemmy for at least taking an open minded response and admitting that other possibilities exist beyond the gm being passive-aggressive.
You guys usually demonstrate pretty logical arguments. Seeing such responses without any evidence (unless I forgot or missed it) is getting annoying to read.
Moving on.
If I wanted to play a child character, I would ask or inform my gm ahead of time about who the character is. Some of you claim that you have a minimum starting age and concerns about adventurers who would bring a child along. In your game I would ask for special permission to play the character as a child. It's really simple. You'll probably evaluate the group of players and how a child would work ooc and ic and simultaneously evaluate my personal ability to rp a kid. You'll pair all that up with any other concerns you have and make a decision. So!e GM's don't think like that or at all and make responses as a decision or something in the middle. *shrug* it's their prerogative.
My adventuring crew went through a big rp and mechanical issue when my child character died. I was actually glad of it and all ready to make a new character when the group, in character, was so distraught that they donated a very expensive magic item to an organization in order to get my kid raised- much to my ooc dismay. In real life, the group was scared because my kid is so integral to group performance that losing him would leave a notably gaping hole that nobody else could readily fill. Any new character I brought in would likely not be able to compensate in the same ways.
As far as I can tell, the group I am with is a good group for having a child along with. They try to keep me from being alone with strangers, make sure I don't drink or do drugs, tell me what is good and bad. They care. I wonder what kind of heroes your parties consist of that a child's presence brings to light some unsavory aspect of the players or their characters?
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This rule is just a poor attempt at "realism" that effectively invalidates whole character concepts because of what is just a cosmetic choice.I don't ban it because realism. I borrowed enough from my favorite anime that realism isn't a thing. I ban it because I'm highly uncomfortable with it.
I assume you meant you ban young characters.
And that's okay. But if a GM doesn't want his players to play child characters, then he should just say it. There is no need to go "Oh, you can play one... But you have to suffer these heavy penalties that make your character completely useless..."
(Ironically, this all this rule does is make young character more likely to die.)
IMHO, using this rule instead of simply saying young characters are not allowed is as douchey as a GM who doesn't want to a player to play a female character and then goes on and says "Oh, you can play one, but women are not as physically strong as men, so you suffer a -4 to Str and Con".
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Enforcing the rules isn't necessarily being passive-aggressive. Some people just assume that the rules are there for a good reason.unless the rules being enforced are an arbritrary optional rule in a book of optional rules designed to weaken a set of concepts to the point of unplayability. age should be purely cosmetic in an RPG.
Age isn't cosmetic. There are penalties for old age in the core rule book. Your wis etc goes up, but dex and physical stats go down.
I can see similar things for an especially young character. Probably the young template rather than NPC class.
If you want to play it as purely cosmetic, no worries at all. As long as at some stage your not going to try and use age as a bonus thing for social situations, or for size category or other such things. No using it to sneak into orphanages, or infiltrate the street urchins working for the local,thieves guild etc. otherwise you're trying to game the system.
If you're effectively 8 years old, them you're the height of a halfling or gnome. However, according to your cosmetic thing, you should be a medium character. Maybe a kid with an over active pituitary gland?
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So, when a player asks their gm if they can play a kid and the gm doesn't simply say 'no you can't' because that is what you would prefer, but instead says, 'you can but...' They are a douche or passive-aggressive?
Wth?
I guess that when I ran a while back and a player wanted to be a divine caster and I said, 'you can but...' I was being a douche because I did not say 'no?'
What if I didn't want divine characters/kids but wanted to give the player the option to play one but with whatever conditions I set? Does my choice to compromise reflect negatively on me? Man, I have head the same nareowminded arguments about gm's who don't compromise. There is no winning when you guys make these kind of statements. You don't know my motivations or the GM's so why are you making judgements with so little evidence? This is rather bad form and in a rules forum no less (though the thread should be moved).
Age isn't cosmetic. There are penalties for old age in the core rule book. Your wis etc goes up, but dex and physical stats go down.
He didn't say age was cosmetic, but that it should be. I agree. There shouldn't be age modifiers outside of effects that treat them as a buff/debuff as it makes some concept unplayable (i.e. wanna be Yoda? Try doing that with -6 to every physical score) or make age another choice chosen only for optimization (100 year old human Synthesist doesn't even care about that body anyway).
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If you want to play it as purely cosmetic, no worries at all. As long as at some stage your not going to try and use age as a bonus thing for social situations, or for size category or other such things. No using it to sneak into orphanages, or infiltrate the street urchins working for the local,thieves guild etc. otherwise you're trying to game the system.
As a 'pure role-playing' aspect of a character, it's reasonable to give role-playing benefits in some social situations as long as it also gives penalties in other situations. Sure, you can infiltrate the orphanage, but when you try to get an audience with the king, the guards shoo you away without paying the slightest attention to what you have to say.
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I guess that when I ran a while back and a player wanted to be a divine caster and I said, 'you can but...' I was being a douche because I did not say 'no?'What if I didn't want divine characters/kids but wanted to give the player the option to play one but with whatever conditions I set? Does me choosing not to compromise reflect negatively on me? You don't know my motivations or the GM's so why are you making judgements with so little evidence? This is rather bad form and in a rules forum no less (though the thread should be moved).
The answer is that it depends. Did you offer an actual viable alternative (I don't like clerics because in my world X, but maybe you could add some signature divine spells to the arcane list in place of others, etc.) or did you offer something so terrible just so he would back down so you wouldn't have to say no (you can be an Adept)?
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You don't know my motivations or the GM's (...)
I don't have to. I'm not talking about you or your GM.
I'm criticizing a behavior that I disapprove.
I really don't see the point in "allowing" an option if the GM is going to strongly punish the player for actually taking that option.
Suppose I want to play a rogue with all my stat points going into charisma. Should the GM ban me from doing so, allow me to do so, or change the rules to make me as powerful as anyone else?
Is allowing it and not changing the rules a punishment?
Suppose I want to play a rogue with all my stat points going into charisma. Should the GM ban me from doing so, allow me to do so, or change the rules to make me as powerful as anyone else?
Is allowing it and not changing the rules a punishment?
You intentionally making a poor mechanical choice is an entirely different matter then cosmetic choices being arbitrarily punished by the rules.
A better parallel would be you claiming that your character looks sexy and the DM saying that sorry, you need to take Skill Focus: Profession - Hottie if you want that, or perhaps saying that only ugly people adventure in his world, but there is an NPC class called "beautiful person" you could take that functions as commoner... but damn are you hot.
Yes, but that defines 'being a child' as purely cosmetic. It isn't, any more than being blind is cosmetic. Realistically, being a child is a huge disadvantage when it comes to heroism.
If a player wanted to play as a blind character, I might say, "Yes, and you can have super-radar senses that mean you are exactly as good as everyone else," or I might say, "Yes, but you have to follow all the rules for blindness," or I might say, "No." None of these would automatically make me a bad GM.
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@Lemmy You are assuming punishment when there may be no punishment at all. It's subjective. The goal, is to determine what both parties intentions are and go from there. Labelling a behavior that has multiple interpretations and not knowing the actual motivation is basically jumping to a conclusion with little or no evidence. I guess we are not robots so we're bound to such ways of thought. It just see!ed that in this instance (and others) that this method of thinking was both obviously happening and clearly not accurate (without more evidence unless I missed or forgot some). If that gm thought he was doing the player a favor and you are calling it punishment, clearly someone is wrong: the gm maybe for not understanding his own decision very well and you for not understanding the gm and making invalid assumptions about his actions. This is an example, of course.
@chaoseffect, I did have a reasons I hated 3.5 clerics and decided to Nerf all divine magic as a result. My players knew this in advance before character creation. I offered no viable alternative. I offered no alternative at all. Healing was going to be limited, recovering from conditions would be harder. That was all there was to that.
If I had offered an alternative to divine casters, I would not have done so as a means to dissuade a player (but that depends on the player). I am not above using a tool that works. If the player is super excited about playing god-druid and cannot be dissuaded via normal social cues like body language or tone and I deem they also are so heedlessly heading toward an option that I genuinely find might be a problem or a lot of additional work, I may in fact offer an alternative as the only option and be sure to make it largely unappealing as a way to dissuade the player (if I think that will work best). If that fails or I decide not to do that at all, I might simply say 'no dude. Drop it and make something else or play in this other game until whenever my campaign ends' I might also see the adorable sparkle of insanity in their eyes and decide to let them have their character as a special case and to hell with my rules. It is never as ultimately as black and white as portrayed on the boards. It is always based on the exact situation and people involved, though some loose generalities come into play from time to time.
Some of the posters here would clearly hate me for compromising or for not compromising, for giving a reason or not giving one, and for the kind of reason I might give, etc. A player who has that much baggage to bring to my table needs to find another or leave it at home. In the end, I am going to run a game and go out of my way to make sure that, no matter what actually happens in or out of character, you walk away with a desire to return. All of these opinions about how a gm should run or shouldn't and personal rules about GMs that a player prefers but speaks of as though their preference is somehow a truth- that level of entitled thinking rubs me the wrong way so hard. I've actually met sreet preachers with bible pamphlets who displayed more tact and reserve. Normally these forums are logical (tediously so) but on this topic and related ones that logic seems to evaporate, you know? It's unpleasantly jarring man.
Another parallel might be stating that your character has a horrific demonic appearance resulting in the GM arbitrarily deciding that everyone you come across will have a much lower initial attitude than if you didn't look monstrous. The player may well feel this is the GM unfairly punishing the choice.
You can replace the horrific demonic appearance with young characters, female or male characters, gnomes, or any number of examples with varying degrees of offensiveness. The characters appearance is a purely cosmetic change but that can reasonably become mechanical effects (although the effect of the young character rules is a lot more debilitating than what I'm describing).
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It is within the GMs right to declare anything, but just because a rule exists in some book somewhere, he should not feel obligated to use it (when it doesn't work for the situation) nor use it as a passive way of stating that he will not allow the character.
I would suggest talking to the GM more about it. If you really want into the game don't get attached to this one character idea when it might just not work out with this GM in this game. Even if you push and get it in, it may not be that fun in this situation.
I would be more likely to ban the character outright from the few details I've seen, but (if the character was planned to be young through a long campaign/adventure) then I would never recommend using the young adventurer rules as written. As the levels go up the difference in class abilities will just add up and it is too hefty a price. I could see it for one adventure but not more than that.
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@Dark Immortal
Just saying no isn't necessarily what makes people angry so much as presenting an obvious trap option seemingly out of spite, a false choice, a false show of compromise. It's just saying no in the most dick-ish way possible. Just saying no to something and stating your reasons may mean that people disagree or be unhappy with it, but it's a response that can be respected as opposed to the alternative listed here, which is just playing petty mind games.
So yeah, if you don't want something in your game people may disagree with you or perhaps think you are too rigid, but people have differences of opinion. As long as you still have some mutual respect it's fine, but the passive aggressive false compromise technique undermines that.
You made a valid point though about assuming the motives of the DM in question here; who knows what he was thinking. We really don't. But based on the choice given by the DM, abandon your fluff or suck, I think you can make some logical guesses about what is happening (manipulation over honesty). Or perhaps the DM didn't see it as punishment, but instead as some kind of boon for the player in some strange way (doesn't understand what he is doing). Either scenario does not necessarily cast a positive light on the DM. There could of course be some other rationale, perhaps a religious devotion to RAW, but I'd still be inclined to bet on one of the first two.
Regardless just saying no kids because X is a better way to handle it if you don't want kid characters.
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Yeah, I kinda regret posting the question, I was verry annoyed last night, so I asked too see if I could garner any insight as to why.
Though it is intresting how the discussion unfolded.
The ultimate campaign book, where the child character rules are described, is about optional rules and guidelines, not actual rules.
Still, I'm totally okay with you. He made a compromising call, he is not enforcing anything. The one who tries to enforce something is OP.
The rules state that you need to "consult your GM before making a character that does not conform to [the vital] statistics", given in the additional rules of the CRB, and vital statistics are all about adulthood and older in this book. UCampaign gave us another guideline to follow.
AND, because nobody seems to take time to read this guideline, I'll give you exactly what it's all about: The guidelines give the possibility to take PC classes, but it's not direct. you need either a particular journey, to reach level 3-5, or go into the adulthood. The, you automatically retrain your NPC class levels, even if you keep the young age modifiers until you reach the correct age.
Available Classes: A young character does not have access to the same classes as adult characters. Not yet trained in the advanced techniques of war, arcana, faith, and varied other pursuits, a young character is a squire, apprentice, acolyte, or student on the path to expertise. As such, you can select only NPC classes while in this age category, beginning play and advancing in level as an adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, or warrior, according to your interests and social background. As soon as you reach adulthood, though, you may retrain those NPC class levels as levels in any base classes of your choosing.
Reward: The pace at which characters gain experience varies widely from campaign to campaign. In one campaign, a character might gain multiple levels in a single month of in-game time, while in another a character might spend years at the same level. If adulthood were purely tied to the passage of time in a campaign, a young character might gain extensive adventuring experience but still be restricted to selecting only NPC classes.
A GM may grant a young character the option of passing into the adult age category early after achieving some noteworthy goal. Potential accomplishments include surpassing your instructor's skill, defeating a powerful adult foe, overcoming a threat to your home, or completing a lengthy journey. The completion of a published module or adventure of similar length might warrant a youth advancing to adulthood, or perhaps attaining a certain level in an NPC class (perhaps at 3rd or 5th level). If your GM grants your young character the ability to advance into adulthood early, you may choose when to take advantage of that benefit. [b]Your ability scores do not change to reflect your new age category until you retrain an NPC class level.[b]
The only thing I'll say about realism and logic is that: It's freakin' subjective, and nobody's but the GM can tell what is "realist" and "logical" in his own campaign, maybe even in his own world.
Maybe he finds out that the UCampaign book is right, and I can understand, because I would probably do the same thing in my own games.
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Nothing wrong with being a DM who just follows the rules of the book 100%. At the end of the day, I don't blame the DM for making this decision. It's his choice really. I remember seeing a thread once posted by one of my players on another forum, where people on the forum made some incredibly dramatic comment about dropping the group because my player asked one piece of advice with an in game situation. We had a good laugh reading that thread.
As for me, as I a DM would I enforce this rule? I would and wouldn't at the same time. It would really depend on the kind of party. Like for example, I would never allow a child character in Way of the Wicked due to the content and nature of the adventure. In a home game usually heroic, I would allow a child character with a heroic class but would make sure that all players are okay with it and don't engage in their usual murder hobo behaviors (My players tend to avoid playing good characters, more toward antiheroes/neutral).
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He wasn't making a "poor mechanical choice", he was min-maxing his character, presumably with the thought of getting a further boost to his Intellect when he hit the Young Adult stage.Suppose I want to play a rogue with all my stat points going into charisma. Should the GM ban me from doing so, allow me to do so, or change the rules to make me as powerful as anyone else?
Is allowing it and not changing the rules a punishment?You intentionally making a poor mechanical choice is an entirely different matter then cosmetic choices being arbitrarily punished by the rules.
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Yeah, that's what I was fearing as well.
With my home games, I trust my players implicitly. We don't deliberately try to game the system. None of my players would have made that character for reasons I stated earlier. However, if they had, they would have accepted whatever stipulations I placed on it, knowing it was for balance and had been carefully considered.
When I read these boards though, I definitely come looking at it as if everyone is trying to squeeze every possible benefit and cheese possible. It's completely unfair of me to think so, but my experiences on these boards have certainly coloured my thinking.
I've read too many posts and debates on RAW vs RAI it seems.
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He wasn't making a "poor mechanical choice", he was min-maxing his character, presumably with the thought of getting a further boost to his Intellect when he hit the Young Adult stage.Suppose I want to play a rogue with all my stat points going into charisma. Should the GM ban me from doing so, allow me to do so, or change the rules to make me as powerful as anyone else?
Is allowing it and not changing the rules a punishment?You intentionally making a poor mechanical choice is an entirely different matter then cosmetic choices being arbitrarily punished by the rules.
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Believe it or not, I had no intent to do so. The reason was purely cosmetic and roleplay focused. I had no real intent to minmax, mostly just to make a intresting character.
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All of you guys leaping to the assumption that a gm is being passive-aggressive when you can't actually know that is a bit irksome.Did you miss the posts of us who said that the GM was right, or were you too busy with the donuts?
Honestly? When baked pastries are involved that is all that matters.
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I love how people assume the GM is being a passive aggressive douche and not just finding the rules and allowing the player to play it according to the rules. Especially without the actual GM here in question to explain their side of the story.
Always staying classy here at Paizo I see.
Personally, I like the Young Characters rules, but generally allow players to be PC classes. It's honestly been fine and I have not had terrible issues with my games with it. Honestly the penalties aren't even that bad.
But please, continuing bashing the GM. Clearly they must be a terrible person with evil intentions bent on controlling the PCs for their own amusement. Clearly, without knowing the person or hearing their side, they must be bad and punishing the player.
The GM should *NEVER* enforce the child characters rules. They render the young character completely useless. Any child character concept should either be blocked completely or allowed to use the normal rules (with or without the young template). There is no concept for which forcing an NPC class on a character is beneficial.
Those rules work fairly well in a campaign where ALL of the player characters are children who either never mature during the course of the campaign or all mature at roughtly the same time.
I suppose they could also be made to work in a balanced manner if the child characters get a level advantage to balance out their overall weaknesses -- but that does strike me as a bit counterintuitive.
There is a 3rd party product with traits that let child characters take levels in PC classes, so I suppose one approach could be to let young player characters do that at the cost of one trait.
The GM should *NEVER* enforce the child characters rules. They render the young character completely useless. Any child character concept should either be blocked completely or allowed to use the normal rules (with or without the young template). There is no concept for which forcing an NPC class on a character is beneficial.Those rules work fairly well in a campaign where ALL of the player characters are children who either never mature during the course of the campaign or all mature at roughtly the same time.
I suppose they could also be made to work in a balanced manner if the child characters get a level advantage to balance out their overall weaknesses -- but that does strike me as a bit counterintuitive.
There is a 3rd party product with traits that let child characters take levels in PC classes, so I suppose one approach could be to let young player characters do that at the cost of one trait.
You can do a mix, but even Ultimate Campaign suggests that the GM watches the encounters they throw at the party. Which is what I do, and things are honestly fine. I've allowed Children with NPC levels, children with Apprentice levels (using RGG book on it), and children with PC levels. And for each one, it was fine. But like the GM in question, I generally work with my players with the ruleset and compromise so that everyone has fun. Hell, I let a player play an awakened bear cleric in my last game. use the rules to be passive aggressive and punish any player that plays a concept I don't agree with. Cause I'm clearly an evil person with massive insecurities that I have to take out on my players to give myself some pathetic ego boost.
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No. If the GM doesn't want a child character in his campaign, he should just say it straight to the player. No need for passive-aggressive b%$~~**!.
I don't think this is the GM being passive aggressive, he is using the Young Character rules from ultimate campaign.
A young character does not have access to the same classes as adult characters. Not yet trained in the advanced techniques of war, arcana, faith, and varied other pursuits, a young character is a squire, apprentice, acolyte, or student on the path to expertise. As such, you can select only NPC classes while in this age category, beginning play and advancing in level as an adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, or warrior, according to your interests and social background. As soon as you reach adulthood, though, you may retrain those NPC class levels as levels in any base classes of your choosing.
As others have mentioned above the Adapt class is an arcane spell user.
The player has said "hey I want to be a young character" and the GM has said, sure here are the rules."
While I dislike the rules for stifling me stating up Arya Stark as a Slayer or Swashbuckler, I do actually agree with them mechanically.
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What might be more to the point is having a discussion with the GM about the "Leaving Youth Behind" section of the rules, in particular this:
A GM may grant a young character the option of passing into the adult age category early after achieving some noteworthy goal. Potential accomplishments include surpassing your instructor's skill, defeating a powerful adult foe, overcoming a threat to your home, or completing a lengthy journey. The completion of a published module or adventure of similar length might warrant a youth advancing to adulthood, or perhaps attaining a certain level in an NPC class (perhaps at 3rd or 5th level). If your GM grants your young character the ability to advance into adulthood early, you may choose when to take advantage of that benefit. Your ability scores do not change to reflect your new age category until you retrain an NPC class level.
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I assume you meant you ban young characters.This rule is just a poor attempt at "realism" that effectively invalidates whole character concepts because of what is just a cosmetic choice.I don't ban it because realism. I borrowed enough from my favorite anime that realism isn't a thing. I ban it because I'm highly uncomfortable with it.
Yes. I'm putting a clearly worded ban on non-adult characters into my house rules. I take a lot of my world building inspiration from anime, and I made some rules tweaks to make combat feel a bit more anime-ish, so I do expect the issue of child characters to come up eventually. That's why I'm specifically addressing the issue with my house rules, rather than waiting for someone to try it.
And that's okay. But if a GM doesn't want his players to play child characters, then he should just say it. There is no need to go "Oh, you can play one... But you have to suffer these heavy penalties that make your character completely useless..."
I agree with the general idea that it's better to say no than to totally cripple a hated concept, but from what I understand it is RAW in this case. Granted, I would still outright ban it, because under RAW the character would be a useless drag on the party and not fun for the player, and I outright ban other things that are RAW anyway (teleportation, resurrection, summoning).
I assume you meant you ban young characters.This rule is just a poor attempt at "realism" that effectively invalidates whole character concepts because of what is just a cosmetic choice.I don't ban it because realism. I borrowed enough from my favorite anime that realism isn't a thing. I ban it because I'm highly uncomfortable with it.Yes. I'm putting a clearly worded ban on non-adult characters into my house rules. I take a lot of my world building inspiration from anime, and I made some rules tweaks to make combat feel a bit more anime-ish, so I do expect the issue of child characters to come up eventually. That's why I'm specifically addressing the issue with my house rules, rather than waiting for someone to try it.
And that's okay. But if a GM doesn't want his players to play child characters, then he should just say it. There is no need to go "Oh, you can play one... But you have to suffer these heavy penalties that make your character completely useless..."I agree with the general idea that it's better to say no than to totally cripple a hated concept, but from what I understand it is RAW in this case. Granted, I would still outright ban it, because under RAW the character would be a useless drag on the party and not fun for the player, and I outright ban other things that are RAW anyway (teleportation, resurrection, summoning).
Having run children characters, I can definitely tell you that the rules don't make them a drag on the party, especially if you actually follow them. Are they weaker? Yes. But the rules also tell you to keep that in mind when making encounters for them. Which I do. And each time, the kid players proved their worth.
Different preferences is fine. If you think that young children shouldn't have a mechanical difference, then that's cool. I think they do. Different strokes and such. But the idea that the GM is punishing the player when we know absolutely nothing about them and they aren't even here to defend themselves for their decision is idiotic and frankly, the standard tripe I've come to expect from people on this forum.
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As others have mentioned above the Adapt class is an arcane spell user.
The Adept is actually a divine spellcaster. It does not work well for characters who are training to become intelligence or charisma based spellcasters and have already dumped wisdom.
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As others have mentioned above the Adapt class is an arcane spell user.The Adept is actually a divine spellcaster. It does not work well for characters who are training to become intelligence or charisma based spellcasters and have already dumped wisdom.
I stand corrected. The familiar thing makes the Adapt weird, actually so does the spell list. Both because it is limited and because the spells are from both the arcane and divine lists.
I think what we're suffering from is a lack of NPC classes as odd as it sounds. Historically we've never reach the point at which we say I need to make an NPC wizard and don't just make an NPC with heroic class levels. I might actually appreciate a supplement with some new NPC classes or some NPC archetypes for some nice DM curve balls as well as some new variation for child characters.
To be brutally honest, I would never allow a child PC in the first place. Given that I am an anime fan.
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait ... maybe I'm reading this wrong, but ...
You're an anime fan and you have trouble with adventuring pre-teens? That doesn't seem to line up.
Believe it or not, I had no intent to do so. The reason was purely cosmetic and roleplay focused. I had no real intent to minmax, mostly just to make a intresting character.
I figured that was the heart of it, and since you're not already invested in this campaign, you can always try the same character concept in a different campaign. Sooner or later, a GM will let you play your concept. Whether or not this GM should impose the penalties is irrelevant. He's chosen to do so. This is probably not the campaign for that character. If you were dead set on having that as the next character you play, another campaign will come along before too long.