I've been playing in an online game for a few months now. Starting off, the game was balanced and everything was going well. Just before the holidays however one of our players dropped and slowly but surely the party began to turn on my character (the party is LG, and though my character isn't evil, she was... morally ambiguous - the player that dropped was the same, so it balanced out and we had a very neutral-leaning good group of opportunists). After talking with the gm, we came to the conclusion that what would probably be best would be to semi-retire the character and move on. I enjoyed playing her, but c'est la vie. I created a generally likable halfling fighter who specialized in mounted combat. I was really just looking to play a character that could do well in a fight and otherwise sit on the sidelines and out of the spotlight (since my previous character was a bit of an attention hog).
Well, we just had our first session where I played this new character and, i guess for a lark, our gm thought it would be fun to have our level 5 barbarian fight a much higher level character from another game (judging from the battle, I would say that the other character was at least level 9 or 10). He required us to fight this character for critical information, and the barbarian had to wager his sword (+1 greatsword) against the other guys (+2 nodachi). The alternative was that our barbarian could get assistance, but wouldn't win the nodachi if he won. My new character offered assistance and against the odds (one round of attacks nearly killed our barbarian) we managed to beat him, thanks to a timely critical on my part.
Well, it seems like the gm isn't too happy about my new character. He messaged me later and said "That character is really annoying though. Mounted combat is the #1 thing I don't like". He's also basically said that he's going to be targeting me and my mount and/or designing encounters where I won't have the ability to utilize any of this characters potential.
So, I'm wondering if I should redesign my character (he just sent me a message saying that he would prefer if I would, but he won't make me), create a completely new character, stick it out with this new guy... I've played for a long time, but it's pretty rare that I make a character that the gm specifically wants to target (as in, I can't think of another time that it's happened, or at least where it was so apparent). I'm also questioning whether or not I fit in with this group and should continue to play with them. I enjoy playing with the, but I'm not sure they feel the same (it wasn't an established group before this game, its our first)
If I do redesign, are there any good suggestions? I normally play a magic user or a rogue and wanted to switch it up some, get out of my comfort zone with this fighter. Any thoughts or opinions are welcome.
This sounds like a pretty uncomfortable situation with no good answer. It is wrong for a GM to play favorites and it is especially wrong for the GM to 'target' someone. That being said, you can't force them to change their mind any more than they can force you. You can try talking it out, but I wouldn't change the character, on principle. Your character can ride off into the sunset until a more accommodating GM comes along, and you can roll a new character, but you should not rewrite them unless you think you should rewrite them. The character is yours, not the GM's. If they allowed you to play at the table, they gave their tacit approval, and are trying to play take-backsies. Unfortunately, there's not much to be gained from debating the point though. Before making a new character, you should ask them for a list of approved classes/rulebooks to play with. That is, if you even decide that you want to play with them at all. I can offer no advice on that point.
All that being said, if you want to try something that isn't magical or roguish, I'd recommend trying a swashbuckler or gunslinger. I have 3 players (divided across 2 campaigns) that all enjoy those classes.
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Ruke Unlimited wrote: ..I created a generally likable halfling fighter who specialized in mounted combat...(The DM) said "That character is really annoying though. Mounted combat is the #1 thing I don't like". He's also basically said that he's going to be targeting me and my mount and/or designing encounters where I won't have the ability to utilize any of this characters potential. Lame. But not exactly uncommon. The real issue is the GM is banning a class/archetype but doesn't have the grit to just farking ban it. You got a problem with a class? Fine. We might disagree, we might argue, but in the end we'll accept it or not accept it HONESTLY instead of pulling two-faced BS.
Of course, I'm only hearing one side, maybe you spent 3 days lobbying and whining and got what you asked for with bitterness and you misinterpreted "I'm not going to be nice to your character because you already got something I wanted to just ban" as "I'm going to kill your character with a grudge-monster." I don't know, I'm not there. I'm also not a therapist so I don't care.
First, you need to actually talk with your GM, get these "things I don't like" hammered out and either properly banned from the game or gotten over. If you can't agree, better to make a clean break NOW than going back and forth with layers of two-faced dealings and dishonesty.
Second, you probably need a new character. Since you're trying to roll supportive, NOT spotlight-stealing, and martial I recommend Invulnerable Rager/Urban Barbarian, a sprinkling of Shielded Fighter, and go for Stalwart Defender to be the attack-soaking wall of defense for the other characters to dance around.
Or some build from the Tankity tank thread
Or AM Skillmonkey.
boring7 wrote: First, you need to actually talk with your GM, get these "things I don't like" hammered out and either properly banned from the game or gotten over. If you can't agree, better to make a clean break NOW than going back and forth with layers of two-faced dealings and dishonesty. This.
It sucks to create a character, put time and care into it, and then show up and have the GM say "well, I never told you before, but I don't like that and I'm going to try to screw you."
If he had said it up front, that's 100% his decision and that's fine. But waiting until after you build the entire character and introduce it to the campaign, and then have him strong-arm you into retiring the character, not for anything you did, but just because of his own prejudices, is pretty crummy.
I would suggest you try to talk it out with this GM, find out why he's grinding this axe against mounted characters. Maybe it's something you can work out in a way that makes both of you happy. Maybe he's just a jerk, and it's not worth playing in his game anymore. Since it's an online game, it seems like the disadvantages of just walking away are relatively minimal.
Thanks to everyone who's chimed in so far. My character is pretty a-typical. Fighter with mounted combat feats (mounted combat, ride by attack, spirited charge), weapon focus (lance), weapon spec (lance), and power attack. It's a CRB character, really. In the future I was planning on taking some feats that were from non-crb sources, but right now it's pretty vanilla.
He's not FORCING me to change the character, I'm just considering scrapping it or changing it to keep from being targeted, which he's pretty much said he's going to do. Before I made the character, I was talking to him about what I wanted to do, and had originally considered giving the character 7 levels of Paladin to get a magical mount. He said something to the effect of not liking companion creatures at that point, but after I decided to drop the paladin and go full fighter (explaining that my wolves I was riding on weren't really going to be attacking at all) was basically told that was fine.
I think he didn't realize how devastating the character could be in combat until I helped win a battle that I think he wanted to be unwinable. It was pretty unfair in the first place, and I'm more than certain that we would have lost it had I not scored a crit on one of my attacks. That's when the whole "I really hate mounted combat" thing came up.
The GM isn't really a jerk at all. We butt heads sometimes because he's more strict about what he allows in play than I would prefer (pretty much CRB and APG is all he allows - he uses Hero Lab (shudder) to keep track of peoples characters and doesn't like us to venture outside of the modules that he has for it), and I tend to confuse various Pathfinder rules with their 3.5 counterparts. But up to this point hasn't played favorites toward or against any particular character.
As for a character, I was trying to go for something with a high average damage output, since we lack one of those. We have a few sub-optimized characters - a barbarian who rarely rages, a fighter who wants to be a rogue, and a paladin archer. The barbarian and fighters are both relatively new players, and go off of a lot of the gm's advice (who I think only has a moderate amount of experience himself). The Paladin is pretty decent at what he does, but as a archer he's not really healing people in the thick of battle (what I'm used to from a Paladin). Still, what we really lack is any sort of major damage output. My character that I semi-retired was a flame oracle, and it wasn't uncommon for me to kill more dudes than the fighter or barbarian via burning hands and heat aura, and even that character wasn't really optimized for battle (low str, low con, ranged weapon, etc...), I made her strictly for the roleplaying aspect.
Anyway, I'll look into threads linked above and see if anything feels right to me. If anyone else has any more advice for character concepts, etc... feel free to send them my way. As far as I know, the only class that's outright banned from the crb/apg is gunslinger, so...
Ruke Unlimited wrote: We have a few sub-optimized characters - a barbarian who rarely rages, a fighter who wants to be a rogue, and a paladin archer. That's the party? How do you feel about playing a Bard? Or a Wizard or Sorcerer or Arcanist?
I'm trying to do something that isn't a magic user/rogue type since that's my normal character, step out of my comfort zone a bit. I decided to make a new character, a monk/rogue (for a couple of rogue talents and sneak attack damage). I'll work it out somehow, at least this character won't be so OP I have to change it after 1 encounter (hopefully).
Thanks everyone!
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