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Personally, I love the teamwork aspect of Pathfinder, but I hate the whole concept of having specific roles covered, and particularly making someone take on a role they don't like, ie traps and stealth, healing, etc.
I'm of the opinion that everyone should play what they like and work together as much as possible, and if we don't have a stealth guy or healing guy, so what?
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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To me, the more the game mechanics push you toward needing to coordinate party roles in a pre-defined way (such as fighter/mage/thief/cleric) in order to succeed, the more strain it puts on the narrative potential. Every combination of skillsets that a party can assemble has the ability to tell a different set of stories than other combinations are able to tell. The more of those combinations that are viable (whether mechanically or socially), the more narrative possibilities there are.
That was actually one of the nice things about organized play when I was involved in it: you could sometimes get bizarre party compositions that allowed the telling of certain story types that can't be told with more traditional make-ups.
Perfect example: there's a PFS scenario where you have to go to an inn, beneath which some VIPs are captive; you're supposed to rescue them. One group happened to be all (almost all?) bards, so they decided they'd form a rock band. They went to the inn and convinced the staff that they were famous and were on tour. They held a concert and, amid all the adrenaline and excitement of the show, threw a party in which they seduced the woman who happened to be the BBEG. While she slept it off, they scouted the area. Next night, same deal: show, party, sex, satisfied slumber, and they do a sneaky rescue. When they finally leave and finish the scenario, the BBEG is a smitten fangirl waving goodbye, not realizing that her captives are all gone.
Wanna guess how a well-balanced party handles that scenario? Wanna guess how many well-balanced parties' stories you'd be able to tell apart from one another?
Now, some amount of coordination makes sense narratively: if you have a swordsman and an archer, it makes sense for the archer to target the guys the swordsman can't reach so you can both be doing what you do best. But deciding prior to character creation that the party even needs to have both an archer and a swordsman and it's just a matter of who plays which one this time around? That just sounds so constricting, from a narrative point of view.
ok
what if we just take a group of smart peeps
who get along and enjoy having rad times
and let them play the game
even if it is in a way
that you personally do not like
I swear that saying either of these words is like saying candyman three times to a mirror
pfs
herolab
srsly just stop an-*DIES*
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oh god his hook is so sharp and I am covered in bees
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Combat maneuvers are a good example of this: they can be very effective if specialized in, but it's really not an option to "dip" into a combat maneuver build. You simply will not have the ability to make the CMD checks of the larger, non-humanoid monsters of the mid-to-high levels if you aren't putting all of your resources into doing so.
Yeah - Brawler is about the only decent way to do that. It can't get the CMB #s of some classes - though it can be respectable - it can always pick the optimal maneuver for any situation, and if no maneuver will be handy, they can grab something else entirely such as Amateur Swashbuckler.
When I GM, I like the group to discuss their builds so that I can design for the group.
As a Player, I like to know what others are playing. It doesn't determine my choice, but it does influence it. If we already having someone doing what I'd like to do in terms of both flavor and mechanics, I'll opt for something else. But if I have a different take on, say, a Magus - I want to go Kensai or Kapenia Dancer - then I'll go ahead and play the same class but a different build.
I'm less concerned with an "optimal" group because I'm more interested in what would be fun and interesting to play. If my GM is going to throw us into dungeons when we all wanted to play Sylvan druids and rangers, they're not doing a very good job respecting that. If my players want to build fighters and wizards, then I'll design accordingly.
From my pontification on the idea of party unity, I think what I've articulated is:
1. for my own experiences, this probably boils down to a gamer issue, not a game issue
2. It also is probably just me
3. PCs in my games never seem to have a reason to be adventuring together or any common goals once they do (other than the obvious plot devices I hand out) which for some reason bugs me
Now part of this may be me as the GM. The one thing I like about the Paizo APs is that each one of them has a player's guide, a general theme the players know ahead of time and some even have a mechanic or event that ties the party together right off the bat.
I have 2 current games; one is a sandboxy kind of megadungeon game meant to be a beer-and-pretzels game, but the other was a full-on campaign. I still have a non-linear style to it but there's definitely things going on that require heroes.
In the full-on campaign I followed the AP style. I didn't do a full player's guide but I made a hand-drawn map of the town and area, made up a stat block for the town, and emailed out all common knowledge of the area weeks before the game started. I also made up an organization - an adventurer's guild to which the PCs all belong in the first adventure. They can choose to leave the guild after their first mission but so far they haven't.
I noticed something: among all that detail (the map, town write up, info on the region, the adventurer's guild, etc) the only thing I got questions/feedback on was the guild. The players showed up to the table and everyone had forgotten most of the background I'd sent but they knew the NPC they were working for, the rules of the guild and their place in it all. They looked forward to completing their first mission and getting the reward promised.
This shared goal instantly unified everyone and galvanized their play. Sure, they all had individual PCs: one's a druid and orphan with no other motivation than adventure, one's a swamp druid looking to gain vengeance on a Lamashtan cult; one's a drunken barbarian looking to perfect a bunch of beer recipes from her homeland, one's an elf wizard (Spirit Binder) looking to maintain the spark of his dead wife living on in his familiar, and finally one's a hunter with a dream of writing a definitive beastiary on the new wilds to the south. But for all their differences these 5 PCs were all motivated to work together and support one another from the beginning.
This is what I've been missing, at least at my own tables. Going forward I'm going to strive to work with the players from the beginning. I won't always force a story-driven unifier on them but I will at least try to interweave their disparate PCs together for a commonality between them on which to build.
Oh, and Pan: check your PMs.
I tell my players straight up.
"Stand together or die horribly torn apart."
They usually take the hint after the first casualty.
In the full-on campaign I followed the AP style. I didn't do a full player's guide but I made a hand-drawn map of the town and area, made up a stat block for the town, and emailed out all common knowledge of the area weeks before the game started. I also made up an organization - an adventurer's guild to which the PCs all belong in the first adventure. They can choose to leave the guild after their first mission but so far they haven't.
I noticed something: among all that detail (the map, town write up, info on the region, the adventurer's guild, etc) the only thing I got questions/feedback on was the guild. The players showed up to the table and everyone had forgotten most of the background I'd sent but they knew the NPC they were working for, the rules of the guild and their place in it all. They looked forward to completing their first mission and getting the reward promised.
This shared goal instantly unified everyone and galvanized their play. Sure, they all had individual PCs: one's a druid and orphan with no other motivation than adventure, one's a swamp druid looking to gain vengeance on a Lamashtan cult; one's a drunken barbarian looking to perfect a bunch of beer recipes from her homeland, one's an elf wizard (Spirit Binder) looking to maintain the spark of his dead wife living on in his familiar, and finally one's a hunter with a dream of writing a definitive beastiary on the new wilds to the south. But for all their differences these 5 PCs were all motivated to work together and support one another from the beginning.
This is what I've been missing, at least at my own tables. Going forward I'm going to strive to work with the players from the beginning. I won't always force a story-driven unifier on them but I will at least try to interweave their disparate PCs together for a commonality between them on which to build.
It does help to orientate characters with varied goals.The guild acts as a recognizable social support structure for these kinds of characters. That serves as a fine compass so they can get a handle on the direction they are going.
It gives them a chance to earn money with their talents (mostly focused on knocking or blasting off heads), and it can be a source of information and connections for their personalized goals (strange unheard of monsters for a beastiary; aductions and murders associated with cults; etc.). It means that doing work for the guild gains them reputation, prestige, and weight to throw around for their own goals, and thus the guild's goals are their goals (to an extent). That lets them find their own way to get invested at their own pace.
I can also see different methods like a knight order (either they work there, they got hired, or it is 'community service'). Or maybe a joint guild adventure (mage guild hiring mercenary body guards). Really, any big social, government, or trade institutions work. As social creatures, we try to find a group that suits our needs, and stick with it.
This approach works well as short hand for motivation. Otherwise, they would each have to work deeply with you and each other to pry into the setting and NPCs...and that might require you to give away the hidden BBEGs. Otherwise, they might decide they have a vengeance against some low midboss...and that guy got killed two sessions in. Which brings up the question of 'why stick around after that?'
No, some nice backbone like a guild is simpler for just a quick character creation.
We pick the classes we want to play and then work out how we compliment each other. With the support of my Witch our Bard/Gunslinger one shotted a blue Dragon (Named Bullet + other buffs). We work as a party and maintain our individuality. We discuss our concepts before the game but we don't define roles.
PFS I turn up with a Half Orc Cav and everybody tells me I have a subpar character and I should have made a Barbarian. Final battle my character and the cleric are the last ones standing and we take down... Never played PFS again too much like a sport.
Look at a list of the classes who are most popular and you'll come to this exact conclusion. No one wants to have to rely on others. Normally, that wouldn't be so bad, if you weren't playing what is supposed to be a cooperative party game.
Look at a list of the classes who are most popular and you'll come to this exact conclusion.
Will I? That's an experiment I'd like to try. Where is this list published?
*looks at his group* If they didn't work together, I'd tear them apart. So, you may feel that the party is outdated, but I'm not going to agree with you anytime soon.
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As always there's a tension between both. People want to be independently viable and do not want to be locked in to a specific division of labor where their character has a different responsibility.
I think there's also a factor that may not have been considered, which is not as much viability as flexibility (which is directly related to fun, since doing the same thing over and over again can easily become boring). If you've built a character spec'ed for one thing and one thing only, whether that be a fighter with a single maneuver, or a Johnny-one-spell wizard, that's more difficult to enjoy playing long-term.
"You see an orc in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see an ogre in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see a giant in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see a dinosaur in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see dread wraith in front of you,... and, I know, you kill it with a fire spell. Can you pick me up a Diet Coke while you're down there?"
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If you've built a character spec'ed for one thing and one thing only, whether that be a fighter with a single maneuver, or a Johnny-one-spell wizard, that's more difficult to enjoy playing long-term.
"You see an orc in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see an ogre in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see a giant in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see a dinosaur in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see dread wraith in front of you,... and, I know, you kill it with a fire spell. Can you pick me up a Diet Coke while you're down there?"
This was my realization upon playing a 3.5 Warlock.
I loved, loved, loved the idea of a superhero like blaster, with unlimited blasting goodness.
Within two levels of playing said character, I was bored to *death* of eldritch blast, eldritch blast, eldritch blast, round after round.
"It's your turn, what do you do?"
"Take a flying guess."
And so I seem to gravitate towards utility / support characters, since with a bard or cleric or druid, you are at least likely to be doing different things each round (summons, spell attacks, shapeshifting, healing / condition removal, buffsong, etc.).
Because of how fighters in d20 tend to specialize in a specific weapon and / or tactic (trip specialists, weapon specialization and improved critical being keyed to a specific weapon, etc.), I tend to also find that their optimal action in 90% of situations is the same darn thing they always do.
Not having a mage becomes an evident weakness when encountering swarms or something swooping overhead out of reach.
...
And of course someone will gainsay every example anyone uses because - that's the internet for you.
Sorry, I just noticed I forgot to gainsay the 'swarms' example. So: Swarmbane Clasp.
Let me know if you need anything else gainsaid.
Is gainsaid a word? Google says... yes. Good.
I agree completely with this; I think versatility is probably the most important part of building characters. Which is why I never understand people who think specialization is important.
I think there's also a factor that may not have been considered, which is not as much viability as flexibility (which is directly related to fun, since doing the same thing over and over again can easily become boring). If you've built a character spec'ed for one thing and one thing only, whether that be a fighter with a single maneuver, or a Johnny-one-spell wizard, that's more difficult to enjoy playing long-term.
Well, effectiveness is also important, and (IMHO) more important than versatility. If you can do anything you like, provided it has literally no effect on the game world, it doesn't make for a very fun experience despite limitless versatility. (I can't remember the last time someone took presitidigitation as a preferred spell....)
The CR guidelines provide a baseline for what counts as "effective." If you want to hang with other 5th level characters, you need a reliable way to deal with CR 5 monsters. This means you need to be able to hit AC 18, throw debuff or SoS effects that will be able to pass a +8 save, stand up to a +10 attack, make a DC 15 save, and so forth.
If you can do one of those, you're effective. If you can do two of those, you're versatile. And most wizards can easily do all four (all six, if you realize that there are three separate saves they can pass) of those. Hence wizards are among the most versatile.
This means at at 5th level, if you want to be able to be effective in melee combat, you'll need at least a +7 attack bonus (which would mean you'd hit about 50% of the time) and would prefer more. If you're a 3/4 BAB character, you get 3 of that from your BAB so you need to find +4 more in bonuses somewhere to meet a minimum standard of "effective." That's just basic math. How many feats/class features/attribute points/gold pieces will it cost you to make that threshhold?
I have been with a few different gaming groups over the last 15 years. But for the last 7 I have been gaming with (more or less) the same one. In the beginning we were just of characters who were good at killing stuff and occasionally flanked with one another. But over the last several years, as we have played new adventures, new systems, etc. we have become a true team.
We RARELY ever buff before fights (we are all GMs at some point and rarely allow situations where the party can sit outside a door and buff before charging in) but we don't need to; within a few sessions of a new adventure we know what each person is going to do and how they are going to do it and we all know how to take advantage of eachother's actions. We have built several parties now that were not built to work together but do so seamlessly. Usually the only conversation before making characters is to make sure none of us is stepping on one another's toes mechanically (don't want two grapple based characters) and no major RP conflicts (like a vampire hunter paladin in a group with a vampire rogue).
TLDR: If the gaming group is a good team the character party will work together. The concept of party is not outdated but doesn't mean the same thing to every gaming group.
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Well, effectiveness is also important, and (IMHO) more important than versatility. If you can do anything you like, provided it has literally no effect on the game world, it doesn't make for a very fun experience despite limitless versatility. (I can't remember the last time someone took presitidigitation as a preferred spell....)I agree completely with this; I think versatility is probably the most important part of building characters. Which is why I never understand people who think specialization is important.
I think there's also a factor that may not have been considered, which is not as much viability as flexibility (which is directly related to fun, since doing the same thing over and over again can easily become boring). If you've built a character spec'ed for one thing and one thing only, whether that be a fighter with a single maneuver, or a Johnny-one-spell wizard, that's more difficult to enjoy playing long-term.
Personally, I would say the issue is that you don't really count as having versatility unless all of your options are reasonably effective. Spread yourself too thin, and you'll find that character's versatility boils down to "I can be terrible at everything!"
Look at a list of the classes who are most popular and you'll come to this exact conclusion.Will I? That's an experiment I'd like to try. Where is this list published?
You should cut on pathfinder ruleslawyering. It has this bad side effect of making you take everything to the letter.
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Look at a list of the classes who are most popular and you'll come to this exact conclusion.Will I? That's an experiment I'd like to try. Where is this list published?You should cut on pathfinder ruleslawyering. It has this bad side effect of making you take everything to the letter.
Wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. I'm a scientist, and I'm reflexively skeptical of anyone or anything who tells me in advance the conclusions I will come to. Especially when, by their own admission, they haven't actually looked at any data when they came to those conclusions.
Not sure how one would measure the "most popular class" at any rate. I suspect PFS might have some information to that effect since stating the player's class is part of the reporting system, but that's still a subset of the community that is operating on different rules than most (the ban on crafting removes a significant amount of the wizard's early/mid game exploitation for example).
If I were to guess who the most popular class is by sheer numbers it would probably be the Fighter to be honest... Most people A) like to hit things and B) play in games where the GM puts forth very few problems that can't be solved with a big stick or a diplomacy skill check and the players don't know what spells to use to solve those problems and more.
If it was at all possible to control for a certain level of optimization (completely impossible I know but bear with me here), it would almost certainly be the Oracle. Massive build flexibility as well as the constant love the class gets from Paizo makes it a really attractive option no matter what role you like to fill in the party.
I find that players and GM (usually me) prefers to make characters together. This isn't so much to cover every "role" as much as it is to make sure a group meshes together and for the GM to know what kind of adventures would be appropriate.
If everyone decides to make monk characters, then it may be a fun opportunity to make an adventure that runs like a Shaw Brothers film. It allows the GM the time to plan and play to the PC party strengths and weaknesses. You don't want to TPK a party just because you plan a swarm heavy campaign and everyone is playing weapon-based characters with no AOE type attacks.
Pathfinder society, or pick-up/brief games do not have the luxury of such things.
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I think I've just resolved this is a player thing. There's just always some player at my tables who doesn't seem to want to engage with the others. Its nothing against anyone in most cases. No one's trying to hurt anyone else's feelings. There's just one player usually (sometimes more than one; rarely none at all) who simply wants to sort of shine on their own.
Usually with these folks it's not about combat. They're more than willing to fill a "role." Like "we've got three melee types and a squishy arcane caster. I'll play a ranged cleric for divine spells and distance damage" or whatever. But then once that immediate need is filled their character is always sort of... off, doing their own thing.
The most frustrating common trait with these folks (at my tables anyway; your experiences are probably different than mine) is that if you offer any suggestions as to how they can engage with the group, optimize their tactics or get more use out of spells or whatever they are at the very least offended and at worst defensive. They don't want to be told how to play their character so how dare you?
If I'm being a tool at the table, I want someone to tell me. Other folks may not be so... open to feedback. But to me this is the essence of party unity and part and parcel to the using buffs and heals and tactics to support your fellows.
You need to be willing to be part of the group, and not just for the experience points. Some of this involvement will be rewards and accolades; some of it may be critiques and feedback. I feel like all players should be willing to accept the good with the bad.
I've been wondering about some of these very issues raised myself lately, and pondering how to take the "I" back out of team.
One thing I'm considering is having "Party Feats"; essentially like regular feats, but every time the party hits a level milestone, they can collectively choose a feat.
Ostensibly, these will be Teamwork Feats that just function for everyone in the party provided they meet the other requirements of placement, but in theory they could be other types of feats as well that grant party-wide boons (not necessarily all combat).
For one thing, it makes these feats more worthwhile and frees up feats for individual choice. It also gives the party reason to coordinate and position themselves better, perhaps even creating certain "group" fighting styles.
I'm not sure if that would be too unbalancing from a mechanics standpoint- possibly- but I like the idea of it. Has anyone else tried this?
Wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. I'm a scientist, and I'm reflexively skeptical of anyone or anything who tells me in advance the conclusions I will come to. Especially when, by their own admission, they haven't actually looked at any data when they came to those conclusions.
I didn't understand the part about the sticks ends. Anyway, I hope you realize that
1) the part about ruleslawyering was a joke not a personal attack (I just culdn't resist)2) I checked some data, and the "list" was simply an abstract construction to represent those data I collected and not necessarily physically existing somewhere.
Being a scientist I'm positive you are familiar with the concept of brain-storaged data.
That being said I would love if PFS actually posted some data about the spread between classes among the registered characters.
I find that players and GM (usually me) prefers to make characters together. This isn't so much to cover every "role" as much as it is to make sure a group meshes together and for the GM to know what kind of adventures would be appropriate.
If everyone decides to make monk characters, then it may be a fun opportunity to make an adventure that runs like a Shaw Brothers film. It allows the GM the time to plan and play to the PC party strengths and weaknesses. You don't want to TPK a party just because you plan a swarm heavy campaign and everyone is playing weapon-based characters with no AOE type attacks.
Pathfinder society, or pick-up/brief games do not have the luxury of such things.
If you're looking for a class with zero spells to build a full party out of, the Monk is a surprisingly attractive option, if only for the existence of the Sensei.
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If you're looking for a class with zero spells to build a full party out of, the Monk is a surprisingly attractive option, if only for the existence of the Sensei.I find that players and GM (usually me) prefers to make characters together. This isn't so much to cover every "role" as much as it is to make sure a group meshes together and for the GM to know what kind of adventures would be appropriate.
If everyone decides to make monk characters, then it may be a fun opportunity to make an adventure that runs like a Shaw Brothers film. It allows the GM the time to plan and play to the PC party strengths and weaknesses. You don't want to TPK a party just because you plan a swarm heavy campaign and everyone is playing weapon-based characters with no AOE type attacks.
Pathfinder society, or pick-up/brief games do not have the luxury of such things.
I agree. Have a Sensei, a Tetori, a Sohei, and a Drunken Master. (All also qinggong of course) It'd be a pretty decent party, and no one would be stepping on each-others' toes too much, though the campaign would obviously have to be designed with them in mind.
The main disadvantage of the monk (if you know how to build them with archetypes etc) is that it's more defense focused than most classes, which means that it has trouble dealing enough damage to pull their weight before the other party members start to be in trouble.
However, if everyone is a monk with defenses out the wazoo, you won't have any glass cannons to protect, and while combats will just take a couple of more rounds than usual, the whole group will have the defenses to survive those couple of rounds.
For a different take on a party concept, you might also be interested in this thread, this thread, and this thread.
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If the party is meeting up in a tavern, it breaks things for me if they all just so happen to work wonderfully together. I just don't like how contrived that is.
Maybe.
Imagine this:
It's August, 1960, in England. Pete Best (a rock drummer) walks into an audition for a new group. They like him and ask him to join them. But in this imaginary alternate world, John, Paul, George, and Stuart are not guitarists, they're drummers. Now the Beatles are a 5-man band where everyone is a drummer.
Do you think those Beatles would have eventually been known as the most influential rock band ever?
I doubt it.
In that scenario, Pete would have walked away and looked for a group that wasn't a bunch of idiots.
Pathfinder is no different. You COULD roll up your characters in a vacuum, show up in a tavern, meet each other, and form a group entirely without contrivance. But if that group sucks, it's far more likely that these guys would look around at each other and say "Guys, I think this is not the right place for me; I need to find some other group that actually might succeed." And they each go their own way, without contrivance.
But this is tedious, because now those players need to make new characters in a vacuum again. And maybe their next tavern meeting will also see them go their own way. Again. And again.
Or they form a sub-par group and head off to the AP and probably die to a TPK (or their GM is always coddling them).
Nobody wants that.
So we make good characters that ALSO mesh well with the other PCs at the table.
Contrived? Yes, of course. But the alternative has all 5 founding Beatles being drummers.
If the party is meeting up in a tavern, it breaks things for me if they all just so happen to work wonderfully together. I just don't like how contrived that is.Maybe.
Imagine this:
It's August, 1960, in England. Pete Best (a rock drummer) walks into an audition for a new group. They like him and ask him to join them. But in this imaginary alternate world, John, Paul, George, and Stuart are not guitarists, they're drummers. Now the Beatles are a 5-man band where everyone is a drummer.
Do you think those Beatles would have eventually been known as the most influential rock band ever?
I doubt it.
In that scenario, Pete would have walked away and looked for a group that wasn't a bunch of idiots.
Pathfinder is no different. You COULD roll up your characters in a vacuum, show up in a tavern, meet each other, and form a group entirely without contrivance. But if that group sucks, it's far more likely that these guys would look around at each other and say "Guys, I think this is not the right place for me; I need to find some other group that actually might succeed." And they each go their own way, without contrivance.
But this is tedious, because now those players need to make new characters in a vacuum again. And maybe their next tavern meeting will also see them go their own way. Again. And again.
Or they form a sub-par group and head off to the AP and probably die to a TPK (or their GM is always coddling them).
Nobody wants that.
So we make good characters that ALSO mesh well with the other PCs at the table.
Contrived? Yes, of course. But the alternative has all 5 founding Beatles being drummers.
Imagine an all Bard group, good lord...
Or all Wizards? The ego!
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Beatles stuffImagine an all Bard group, good lord...
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the worldYou may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one
(Ok, that was only one Beatle, the most famous of the Drummers from alternate-Liverpool - but I couldn't resist the segue)
I find the concept that a group of people would go into life threatening situations together without making sure they had the skills they needed to survive to be bizarre.
Beyond that, from a meta-perspective, we are telling the stories of heroes. Even if it 'strangers thrown together' it is appropriate that they have the capacity to form a successful team, because a group of strangers that didn't most likely would end up as the subject of a heroic story.
If you don't like the concept that your group of random heroes is a balanced party, then it seems to me you should equally expect to be playing commoners and experts, since they are far more common than PC classes. Just as we assume an individual is exceptional when playing the game, we can also assume that the group is exceptional.
None of this should be taken as I think a player should be 'forced' to play something they don't want, in my experience given vast number of ways to cover the significant roles though this is almost never necessary.
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Now I've got that superhero audition scene from Mystery Men stuck in my head . . . .
Um, how to say this. It sounds like you kind of are being a tool at the table. You're telling people how to run their characters and getting upset when they don't play like you want. Maybe from your point of view you're right. Maybe they're even such anti-optimization hipsters that I'd agree with you, but it sounds like you should try to look at things from their perspective.The most frustrating common trait with these folks (at my tables anyway; your experiences are probably different than mine) is that if you offer any suggestions as to how they can engage with the group, optimize their tactics or get more use out of spells or whatever they are at the very least offended and at worst defensive. They don't want to be told how to play their character so how dare you?
If I'm being a tool at the table, I want someone to tell me. Other folks may not be so... open to feedback. But to me this is the essence of party unity and part and parcel to the using buffs and heals and tactics to support your fellows.
You need to be willing to be part of the group, and not just for the experience points. Some of this involvement will be rewards and accolades; some of it may be critiques and feedback. I feel like all players should be willing to accept the good with the bad.
I think this is one of those cases where delivery matters a lot. I mean, there's a big difference between giving advice in a polite and friendly manner versus going: "God, why are you so stupid? Everyone knows that X is way better!" Granted, the problem might be that Mark is saying the former, while the people he's talking to are hearing the latter.
If you've built a character spec'ed for one thing and one thing only, whether that be a fighter with a single maneuver, or a Johnny-one-spell wizard, that's more difficult to enjoy playing long-term.
"You see an orc in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see an ogre in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see a giant in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see a dinosaur in front of you!" "I kill it with a fire spell."
"You see dread wraith in front of you,... and, I know, you kill it with a fire spell. Can you pick me up a Diet Coke while you're down there?"This was my realization upon playing a 3.5 Warlock.
I loved, loved, loved the idea of a superhero like blaster, with unlimited blasting goodness.
Within two levels of playing said character, I was bored to *death* of eldritch blast, eldritch blast, eldritch blast, round after round.
"It's your turn, what do you do?"
"Take a flying guess."And so I seem to gravitate towards utility / support characters, since with a bard or cleric or druid, you are at least likely to be doing different things each round (summons, spell attacks, shapeshifting, healing / condition removal, buffsong, etc.).
Because of how fighters in d20 tend to specialize in a specific weapon and / or tactic (trip specialists, weapon specialization and improved critical being keyed to a specific weapon, etc.), I tend to also find that their optimal action in 90% of situations is the same darn thing they always do.
That's not fair to the class, they got super fun invocations too! I don't recall which level, but unlimited use wall of fire? Yes please!
Eldritch blast did get a bit dull after a while though, yeah...