I've grown tired of players who have every skill and feat planned to 20th level. It leaves no scope for the character to grow and develop because of the encounters and experiences they face.
Thoughts?
Thoughts? Yes, definitely.
There is one ultimate goal in this game: have fun. If your players plan their PCs several levels in advance, you can rest assured they're doing it because that's what they want to do.
There's no need to be a control-freak DM and worry about what's going on at the other side of the table. As long as there's no balance problem forcing excess work on you, as long as there are no social problems with players who make PCs that clash, as long as the players are having fun, you should just focus on the huge toybox of bad guys and plot elements you've got.
You you can't have fun because your players are planning their characters, something somewhere is wrong.
Yeah, for some people, planning out every facet of their characters and their progression is their fun. In fact, if something doesn't go according to plan or their plan has to be changed, that can really be un-fun for them.
A bit baffling to encounter as a dm honestly, but ah well, some want to be able to rely on their awesome planning to get them through everything. Luckily we have the dice and randomness, so challenge can still come about.
Back under his bridge, probably.
A depressing number of posters post that they're look for opinions, when all they really want is for people to agree with them. When that doesn't happen, poof.
Hey, people have lives off of these boards; and if you have been around you know some check in weeks to months later to restart the discussion or ask further questions.
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My favorite threads are the ones where the OP posts an unpopular opinion and then never posts in the thread again.
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LOL. We had a player drop out of our Shattered Star AP over a couple of "perceived" issues, one of which was that, yes, he had planned his Bonded Witch out to 18th level not just with Feats and weapons and Skills, but also planned out what magic items he wanted to get at what levels, then dropping hints every game what he was, "hoping for," at that level of the AP so I would conveniently, "seed," the AP with his wants...
I ignored it. And after I stuck to my guns regarding how, "Detect Magic," works, that was enough for him to quit after four sessions.
I went by the rules, he tried to get me to allow Detect Magic to be constantly on. Whenever it expired, he would recast it immediately, and he scanned as he walked everywhere, trying to get me to treat it like "Magic Radar" without him having to stop and concentrate for the 6/12/18 seconds to get the staged benefits the spell description required.
Well, That was the last straw --- he quit.
LOL. We had a player drop out of our Shattered Star AP over a couple of "perceived" issues, one of which was that, yes, he had planned his Bonded Witch out to 18th level not just with Feats and weapons and Skills, but also planned out what magic items he wanted to get at what levels, then dropping hints every game what he was, "hoping for," at that level of the AP so I would conveniently, "seed," the AP with his wants...
I ignored it. And after I stuck to my guns regarding how, "Detect Magic," works, that was enough for him to quit after four sessions.
I went by the rules, he tried to get me to allow Detect Magic to be constantly on. Whenever it expired, he would recast it immediately, and he scanned as he walked everywhere, trying to get me to treat it like "Magic Radar" without him having to stop and concentrate for the 6/12/18 seconds to get the staged benefits the spell description required.
Well, That was the last straw --- he quit.
If the guy wasn't an idiot he would have known there was a way for Detect Magic to be always on. It's called Permanency.
well he could have it on 100% of the time technically. but your right in saying he would have to focus for a round to get its beifits, and i think the party going at half speed as he constantly asks "do i see anything?" would be super annoying
So many people here have said things that essentially are saying that the players should have fun and be able to build their chars how they want, to have fun.
Players that think they must optimize everything, need to learn that no, you actually do not. It's like an arms race, if players constantly make characters as optimized as possible, the DM has to do the same with NPCs to balance it. Which can just turn a story flat; as certain NPC concepts become obsolete and NPC will become more cookie .......
Dont group people together. Quote specific people. I think you are misrepresenting people.
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I don't know, kestral287, some DMs have a special commitment to making sure crafters don't have crafting time which borders on mania. I think it might be better if they let folks craft what they wanted within reason but used the guidelines in Ultimate Campaign to limit the financial benefit a bit. I don't like the idea that saying, "I wish my PC had time to use his feat" would make me a jerk, but maybe that's because I'm a jerk...
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Crafting is broken enough that I can't really blame a GM for wanting to limit time to use it, but at that point it's better to just ban crafting feats.
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@Arachnofiend - Do you feel crafting is broken primarily because it increases WBL or because it allows the PCs to get the specific magic items they want? Also, are cheap potions and wands a problem in your opinion, or is it just the crafting of permanent items which bothers you?
What do you expect people to do, roll dice to randomly select everything?
I've played and run games where race and class were rolled randomly. We made up a list of 20 races and all the classes, then rolled to see what combination we got. Made for a lot of fun in a non-serious campaign.
Until I started playing pathfinder, all stats were rolled randomly. From as good as 4d6, drop the lowest, reroll 1s to as bad as 3d6 in order - you get what you get.
@Arachnofiend - Do you feel crafting is broken primarily because it increases WBL or because it allows the PCs to get the specific magic items they want? Also, are cheap potions and wands a problem in your opinion, or is it just the crafting of permanent items which bothers you?
For me it's the first not the second, and it comes down to really what sort of game I'm trying to GM or what sort of game we are trying to play.
Personally as a player I like custom crafting my items but I understand how it can cause issues.
@Arachnofiend - Do you feel crafting is broken primarily because it increases WBL or because it allows the PCs to get the specific magic items they want? Also, are cheap potions and wands a problem in your opinion, or is it just the crafting of permanent items which bothers you?
Breaking WBL is absolutely my concern with it, and in retrospect I should have made that clear. I'm in the camp (as both a player and a GM) that thinks the Big Six and items key to a player's build should be readily available when it would be appropriate for their level.
As a kind of antithesis to the OP, has anyone else had a character that they wanted to take in a certain direction because of what happened in the campaign but couldn't because of what happened in the campaign? As an example, I have a ranger who just found out that his animal companion was gifted to him from a chaotic evil goddess and so he wants to mount an expedition into the Abyss to confront her directly (gaining levels in Horizon Walker while doing so) but the rest of the party is more concerned with the current BBEG and won't help him out so I plan on temporarily retiring him so that he can go off on his adventure and then return when the party is the same level as I need to make the concept work.
Are there any players out there who do not plan out their characters level progression?
I've grown tired of players who have every skill and feat planned to 20th level. It leaves no scope for the character to grow and develop because of the encounters and experiences they face.
A common example is the "I must wield one type of weapon and commit all my feats to it!" then a nice piece of gear is found and they PCs just sell it.
I'd love a game system where you don't know what you get at the next level, of course this would only work once per player per class.
Maybe a more gestalt approach would work. You build a base character who can fight and as she progresses in levels she seeks out things she'd like to do - become a mage, a rogue, join a church etc
Thoughts?
The weapon example seems silly to me. I believe tabletop RPG's should be like playing your way through an epic fantasy series. The story shouldn't be set in stone, but I think what most DM's are looking for at the end of a campaign is a sense that an epic story was achieved and the characters feel like important, momentous heroes. I can't remember the last such series I read where any of the main characters just switched weapon types midstream. The only one I can think of is Mat Cauthon from Wheel of Time using a quarterstaff then switching to the ashendarei (a polearm), but even those weapons were basically used the same way. Drizzt Do'Urden skipped a freaking artifact longsword because he favored his scimitar. Heroes stick with the same weapon.
Although, doesn't seem like you're interested in discussing this, just starting a "get off my lawn" style thread. You ask for everyone's thoughts then don't bother reading them, or if so not responding?
Breaking WBL is absolutely my concern with it, and in retrospect I should have made that clear. I'm in the camp (as both a player and a GM) that thinks the Big Six and items key to a player's build should be readily available when it would be appropriate for their level.
Big six?
Breaking WBL is absolutely my concern with it, and in retrospect I should have made that clear. I'm in the camp (as both a player and a GM) that thinks the Big Six and items key to a player's build should be readily available when it would be appropriate for their level.Big six?
the big six are the six item slots the game expects you to have as you level. I think they are Belt/Headband, cloak of resist, Weapon, Armor, amulet natural armor and ring of protection.
Are there any players out there who do not plan out their characters level progression?
I've grown tired of players who have every skill and feat planned to 20th level. It leaves no scope for the character to grow and develop because of the encounters and experiences they face.
A common example is the "I must wield one type of weapon and commit all my feats to it!" then a nice piece of gear is found and they PCs just sell it.
I'd love a game system where you don't know what you get at the next level, of course this would only work once per player per class.
Maybe a more gestalt approach would work. You build a base character who can fight and as she progresses in levels she seeks out things she'd like to do - become a mage, a rogue, join a church etc
Thoughts?
The weapon example seems silly to me. I believe tabletop RPG's should be like playing your way through an epic fantasy series. The story shouldn't be set in stone, but I think what most DM's are looking for at the end of a campaign is a sense that an epic story was achieved and the characters feel like important, momentous heroes. I can't remember the last such series I read where any of the main characters just switched weapon types midstream. The only one I can think of is Mat Cauthon from Wheel of Time using a quarterstaff then switching to the ashendarei (a polearm), but even those weapons were basically used the same way. Drizzt Do'Urden skipped a freaking artifact longsword because he favored his scimitar. Heroes stick with the same weapon.
Although, doesn't seem like you're interested in discussing this, just starting a "get off my lawn" style thread. You ask for everyone's thoughts then don't bother reading them, or if so not responding?
When people make certain post and get a certain amount of resistance they sometimes do not come back.
In this person's defense however he has not posted at all on the site since making this thread so it could be real life getting in the way.
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I am quite sorry to say this so bluntly, but the first post stinks of "Other people are playing this game wrong".
The sad fact is, that only a very small number of character concepts work perfectly at level 1, and players tend to plan to get the character to a point where it fits their concept.
My advice would be to allow retraining, and not to expect the Paladin to invest skill points into profession sailor or swim after an adventure on the high seas. The same is true when players are not interested in loot, you can't and should not try to force it upon them.
If the players want to pawn the intelligent sword inhabited by a long lost hero... let them.
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I think a more interesting question (for me anyway) is whether players should plan their characters with foreknowledge of what's coming ahead.
The problem with this is that if, for example, a GM kicks off a giant-killing campaign, and players produce giant-killing PCs, what happens when half-way through the campaign the AP goes into an undead theme for one of the modules and the PCs aren't set up for it?
Do the PCs then have the right to complain to the GM that they were misled?
Does that mean the GM should have told them, say, "this is a giant-killing campaign but round about 8-10th level expect to have to deal with undead"?
That doesn't seem right to me.
Richard
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"It leaves no scope for the character to grow and develop because of the encounters and experiences they face."
Planning a build doesn't remove all scope for growth and development, except in purely mechanical terms. That still leaves character growth in role-playing terms.
Although even then, characters don't always grow in terms of their personality. I keep seeing players, given the opportunity to have their character question their way of life and develop as a person, choose to reject the opportunity for change and keep on playing them the same way. It's almost as though they want to play the character they originally conceived, rather than the one the GM would like them to play...
I build my world fully sandbox, and adventures aren't built around CR and killing things, and there are no adventure paths.
That's what I do, too. I litter the world with things they could choose to do, but ultimately everything gets down to their choices. I prefer long-term campaigns, rather than simple multi-meeting adventures.
I make my NPC or BBEG or Monstrous Nasty Thing to be a challenge, mechanically, and whatever the **** I want, flavor wise. Rules are for players, let them abuse them however they want within reason. I'm the dietific figure of the campaign, I decide what armor my evil sorcerer gets to wear, regardless of arcane spell failure chance. I decide how much HP my rude barbarian bar bouncer needs. I decide whether my rogue fails his fortitude save or not.
If you are choosing to spend hours optimizing your NPC's to keep up with your rules intensive PC crowd, you have forgotten who you are, Simba. This is your land, go take it back.
Yep, definitely. The GM is god. I'm a benevolent deity, and will modify things on the fly when necessary to keep things challenging. If I want some NPC fighter to be able to cast a few spells, (s)he can. It's not random, though - I have to justify it to myself first.
If I realize that I have thrown way too much at the characters and they don't even stand a chance if they try to flee, I adjust it so that they have options. I gear things so that they have a decent (but not guaranteed) chance to succeed at challenges if they play intelligently.
Any notes I make for myself are guidelines only.
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I have yet to see a argument against character planning... so what is it really?
To me its just an immersion breaker. The 'plan' seems to imply that no matter what a character's life experiences, at 20th level, this is how he's going to be. Doesn't hold water for me, and just leaves a bad taste in the mouth regarding that player. Is is 'wrong'? No, there's not a 'wrong' way to play this game. But this thread wasn't asking if it was wrong - it was essentially asking if it bothered people.
Crafting is broken enough that I can't really blame a GM for wanting to limit time to use it, but at that point it's better to just ban crafting feats.
I wish I could get players who really wanted to get into crafting. I would love to play that out with them. I might do it as a separate one-on-one session that happens between regular game meetings, though, to keep things flowing while others are playing.
Breaking WBL is absolutely my concern with it, and in retrospect I should have made that clear. I'm in the camp (as both a player and a GM) that thinks the Big Six and items key to a player's build should be readily available when it would be appropriate for their level.
I'm the exact opposite. Players get what they are able to beg, borrow, steal, or win. I put some stuff out there, and see what happens. Nobody has a guaranteed level of wealth or items due to their level.
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I think a more interesting question (for me anyway) is whether players should plan their characters with foreknowledge of what's coming ahead.
The problem with this is that if, for example, a GM kicks off a giant-killing campaign, and players produce giant-killing PCs, what happens when half-way through the campaign the AP goes into an undead theme for one of the modules and the PCs aren't set up for it?
Do the PCs then have the right to complain to the GM that they were misled?
Does that mean the GM should have told them, say, "this is a giant-killing campaign but round about 8-10th level expect to have to deal with undead"?
That doesn't seem right to me.
Richard
If a GM knows he will change monsters mid-campaign I dont think he should advertise it as an undead campaign.
However I also dont think a player should build a character that can really only fight well against one creature type.
There is a such thing as too much specialization, even in Pathfinder.
@Arachnofiend - Do you feel crafting is broken primarily because it increases WBL or because it allows the PCs to get the specific magic items they want? Also, are cheap potions and wands a problem in your opinion, or is it just the crafting of permanent items which bothers you?
Permanent magic items don't have to be permanent with rust monsters, rust lords and nishruus.
I have yet to see a argument against character planning... so what is it really?To me its just an immersion breaker. The 'plan' seems to imply that no matter what a character's life experiences, at 20th level, this is how he's going to be. Doesn't hold water for me, and just leaves a bad taste in the mouth regarding that player. Is is 'wrong'? No, there's not a 'wrong' way to play this game. But this thread wasn't asking if it was wrong - it was essentially asking if it bothered people.
It depends a bit on how the player handle their plan, and i think there is a way of planning that wont break your immersion and thats basically not sharing your plans with other players or make demands of the party to make these ends meet.
A "general" plan for a character is a benefit, but not to the level of detail that doesnt allow for experiences to shape the character.
Characters set of abilities and skills for me that hold water as thats their combat style is set to improve over time as their training progresses. ( Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Rangers etc. ) or in the case of arcane casters it make sense that their studies of the arcane arts would lead them to breakthroughs ( Metamagic, Spell Penetration )and the divine casters as they reap the rewards of their deities.
I am a rather mechanical based player, but i like to build a mechanic on top of a concept and then a personality and then a story. For some this might sound backwards and weird, but for me i am the kind of player that fascinate himself into the number crunching and "can it actually work" mindset.
However, there's the iffy bit of "How will your character react to event X and will your character change because of it?" and this is rather hard to play out as you cant really plan for every possible event.
Just know i dont particulary disagree with you that some elements is immersion breaking, but to me Pathfinder is a game first, experience second and thus our views will differentiate from there.
When some DMs see a PC who takes Weapon Focus (Falchion) and maybe Weapon Specialization (Falchion) their gut reaction is to drop a magic longsword and then get upset if the PC doesn't "grow with the story".
I always have a plan for my PC. Heck, I usually have two or three plans. I also have plans for dozens of PCs I'll probably never play. Some become NPCs. Some just adventure in the realm of theory.
The thought struck me that some similar complaints could be made about real life. Some people plan carefully, focus their efforts, and become specialists. Others are more spontaneous and just kind of "go with the flow".
All I can say is you guys play with the wrong DM's. If his first gut reaction is to hose you, might what to find a new game.
And for whoever it was saying I should "check out the tier system", it's a joke. It was made up by the same people that say the Monk is under-powered.
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IME, the players that plan their character to a T are doing so in order to optimize their character's mechanical power. I can understand that from a theoretical concept, as seeing what kind of characters are possible when you wade through thousands of options can be fun.
But my preference is that character concept should take priority over mechanical power. Regardless of what TTRPG system I'm playing, I should be able to write down my character's concept even if I am unsure of what's possible rules-wise.
I should then be able to look at the rules and get them to match up to my character concept as close as possible.
I also believe that the GM has to have a constant hand in maintaining the balance of the game. If all the players made characters that are weak mechanically speaking, the GM should reduce the challenges to compensate. If one PC is incredibly powerful as compared to the others, the GM should boost the other characters with additional loot, special abilities, etc.
When some DMs see a PC who takes Weapon Focus (Falchion) and maybe Weapon Specialization (Falchion) their gut reaction is to drop a magic longsword and then get upset if the PC doesn't "grow with the story".
I always have a plan for my PC. Heck, I usually have two or three plans. I also have plans for dozens of PCs I'll probably never play. Some become NPCs. Some just adventure in the realm of theory.
The thought struck me that some similar complaints could be made about real life. Some people plan carefully, focus their efforts, and become specialists. Others are more spontaneous and just kind of "go with the flow".
All I can say is you guys play with the wrong DM's. If his first gut reaction is to hose you, might what to find a new game.
And for whoever it was saying I should "check out the tier system", it's a joke. It was made up by the same people that say the Monk is under-powered.
Until Pummeling Style came out, they were. Lack of a to-hit bonus and inability to wear armor meant that they were weak combatants (sohei and zen archer excluded) and they don't really have any class features that add to out of combat utility, so even post Pummeling Style monks are still only Tier 4 (sensei is borderline Tier 3) which is still a notable step up from the CRB monk, who was definitely Tier 5.
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Personally, I see nothing wrong with planning out the character. As a GM, having a detailed plan of the player's idealized arc is just going to make my job easier. It tells me what notes I should hit, and gives me a good idea of what will make for a good challenge deep into the campaign.
This tendency of players to plan out advancement is a natural result of Pathfinder being two games: there's the role-playing game and then there's the elaborate deck-building character creation/advancement game.
Many people just play the latter, actually. A kind of character-creation solitaire that keeps them amused but confuses the hell out of me.
When you choose Pathfinder as the game du jour, you are inviting the players to play both games. Unless you make it explicitly clear that there will be special exceptions for how the character creation/advancement game will play out, you should expect this behavior. There are good reasons for this: the core rules are filled with trap options and things that seem great but are not in practice. Any player who wants to have fun in this game quickly learns the value of planning!
There are games which, by design, force the players to grow organically in the manner you seem to crave. If you're not a fan of the character building game aspects of Pathfinder, you should consider those games! Because it's an awfully big part of Pathfinder's appeal.
One such game is Torchbearer. In that game you can only advance by actually making skill tests, and you don't always get to choose your situation. So a character repeatedly getting captured will have a better chance to work on his Criminal skill while escaping. Even a Warrior could end up with Thief-level lock picking skills. In this way, if you want to advance in a particular direction, the player must actually role-play in that direction. This completely eliminates the issue you raise in the OP.
Yes, it's horrible when your players have a sense of direction with their characters and understand what it's going to take to make them effective. Wanting to play a person who is amazing with a whip, coupled with planning to take whip mastery and improved whip mastery so they can actually deal damage is totally game breaking.
On top of that, it's likely the player will want a whip. I mean, what the heck is that player thinking? He should totally give up his ideas.
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Man, I have never seen the OP clear out so fast. Dude is halfway to Mexico by now.
IME, the players that plan their character to a T are doing so in order to optimize their character's mechanical power.
In my experience, it's done for fun (though optimizing may be part of that fun). D&D 3.X RPGs are unusual for being games you can 'play' between gaming sessions. It gives you something to do while you wait for Sunday afternoon (or whenever you play) to come around again.
Over-planners are better than players who under-plan their characters, by making one that isn't effective enough to contribute, or by doing all their leveling up at the gaming table while everyone else has to wait for them to finish.
Don't be mad that people are building their character ahead of time to be the best at what they are built to do. That is like being upset that someone seeking a degree in college has planned out their classes. Instead seed story feats into the lives of the PCs.
While I side with you, and those who feel it's perfectly fine to plan ahead, I think the OP probably sees this as more like planning out your kid's college choices at around the same time you're trying to get him into the Best Possible Preschool.
If I made a thread like this it would be more along the lines of "I'm sick of planning out campaigns for players that never play more than a handful of sessions."
As a storyteller, my natural inclination is to foreshadow events to come so I enjoy setting up tiny hooks that will eventually pay off later down the road. Just can't seem to find a group that plays on a regular basis.
I'm learning to pare everything down and just think about one module at a time. Now nothing is set up and there is no payoff for later adventures. :(
Hey, people have lives off of these boards; and if you have been around you know some check in weeks to months later to restart the discussion or ask further questions.Back under his bridge, probably.
A depressing number of posters post that they're look for opinions, when all they really want is for people to agree with them. When that doesn't happen, poof.
Well your name is "DM Under the Bridge" so I think that was meant more as a joke. ;)
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Ok, I've read through this and am still a bit baffled at why anyone ever thought "planning your character is bad, mmkay."
The only thing I can think of is that this was a case of "you're not playing the way I want you to play so I'm gonna get mad and say it's your fault"
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Ok, I've read through this and am still a bit baffled at why anyone ever thought "planning your character is bad, mmkay."
The only thing I can think of is that this was a case of "you're not playing the way I want you to play so I'm gonna get mad and say it's your fault"
I'll defend it.
Sometimes you want to tell a story about how events change people.
Pathfinder is particularly ill-suited to this kind of story, so I'm not surprised there's some friction for the OP.
But that doesn't invalidate that narrative desire on the part of this particular GM.
The trouble is, in this case, that organically advanced Pathfinder characters tend to be kind of crappy, because first level choices are not necessarily going to pan out at higher levels.
This is just a case of a GM wishing for a style of play that doesn't work for this particular system.
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This is just a case of a GM wishing for a style of play that doesn't work for this particular system.
Or, ya know, ... tell players in advance that's what you want to do. I can see wanting to have some kind of huge plot twist/change in the story, but if that's the case you can still use Pathfinder, just allow the retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign and provide both the gold and story means of allowing retraining.
This is just a case of a GM wishing for a style of play that doesn't work for this particular system.Or, ya know, ... tell players in advance that's what you want to do. I can see wanting to have some kind of huge plot twist/change in the story, but if that's the case you can still use Pathfinder, just allow the retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign and provide both the gold and story means of allowing retraining.
Yes, that is also very good advice, especially if they're married to Pathfinder (and many are). I've had some really good experiences with this type of story in other systems, and I thought it worth a mention.
Retraining is a great patch for organic PC advancement in PF, but it is still just a patch -- which means communicating your expectations to the players beforehand is that much more crucial.
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Ok, I've read through this and am still a bit baffled at why anyone ever thought "planning your character is bad, mmkay."
The only thing I can think of is that this was a case of "you're not playing the way I want you to play so I'm gonna get mad and say it's your fault"
I'll defend it.
Sometimes you want to tell a story about how events change people.
Pathfinder is particularly ill-suited to this kind of story, so I'm not surprised there's some friction for the OP.
But that doesn't invalidate that narrative desire on the part of this particular GM.
The trouble is, in this case, that organically advanced Pathfinder characters tend to be kind of crappy, because first level choices are not necessarily going to pan out at higher levels.
This is just a case of a GM wishing for a style of play that doesn't work for this particular system.
'A story that changes you' is best done through roleplay and personality. It in no stretch has to be modelled in the mechanics.
This thread sounds more like 'I like fighters that use longswords, so I don't care that this guy took exotic weapon proficiency bastard sword, weapon focus bastard sword, and weapon specialisation bastard sword, I'm going to throw magical longswords at him and whine if he doesn't use them'.