More a need to rant than a call for advice

[GreenDragon1133]

My nephew asked about a year and a half ago to join my friends and I for game. We invited him and started Giantslayer.

Initially, one of my room mates DMed, another played a rogue, my nephew played a ranger, and I played a witch (with the healing patron).

A while later, a friend of ours was looking to get his son involved in a game. The boy says he enjoys gaming, but when playing just with his parents, he would fade into the background. (Fighter)

Initially, the father was playing (bard), but one time the mother (Brawler) came instead, and later both.

And we have a friend from out of town who pops in when he gets a chance (wizard).

Seven players. (I hate large groups, and this story is exactly the reason why).

The last few months, I've basically slept at the table, and have almost no clue what is going on. Because the only contribution I needed to offer was "Cure ___ Wounds, #" every twenty minutes.

Early on, we (DM and I) had decided I'd take Improved Familiar, and upgrade to a Faerie Dragon. As I was feeling irrelevant in the game, I talked to him, and I took Leadership, upping the familiar's Sorcerer levels.

Then the wizard came back, and a 10D6 Lightning Bolt or 7D6 Fireball were pretty pathetic next to a Maximized Empowered CL10 Fireball.

I had been looking at being the one to provide the group with a mobile base via spells/items. But the Wizard has already one bettered that as well.

If it weren't a game with my nephew, I'd have just walked away.

So again the DM and I talked. And character ditching was the only option that seemed viable.

Paladin of Shelyn - because my nephew doesn't understand how hard playing a paladin is, and I said "challenge accepted". With both the Hospitaler and Warrior of the Holy Light archetypes.

Session starts. The witch has to leave. And everyone says goodbye.

To the familiar.

Meanwhile the bard arrives, and first words out of his mouth are about how he thinks the paladin is drawn up. While another player (not the rogue) is mumbling about how a pally and a rogue can't be in the same party - despite assurances of many campaigns where this combo was devastating. (Because the player thinks a pally will curtail some possible actions he might take.)

So I spent the night in my room while everyone else played. Because I am tired of the bard's player assuming every character I play will be identical.

The bard player - after been told off by the table (who all wanted an apology) apologized to me. Then told me of his plans to character ditch and build a cleric, because without my witch the party will need a healer.

Because a 10th level paladin with separate lay on hands and channel pools (and a phylactery of positive channeling) won't be able to do enough healing for the group.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

[blahpers]

I'm a little surprised that a witch player feels useless in a campaign that's ostensibly full of creatures who have terrible Will saves and can be hit by mind-affecting effects. Why did you feel limited to using cure spells when you have all kinds of wonderful curses, mind-affecting spells, and (of course!) hexes?

Edit: Apart from that, it sounds like there are a lot of out-of-game problems that can't be solved in-game. My condolences.

Edit the second: Not enough healing? In the worst case, carry a few CLW wands and fuggedaboutit. We've almost finished Curse of the Crimson Throne and the primary healer in the party is a bard cohort with a couple of wands as backup. The druid can cast healing spells but needs to so rarely that he ended up making a few scrolls just in case and packing wands for the rest of the time.

[Decimus Drake]

I play a witch in a group of 8 so I get the frustration of playing in a large group. There are moments that I question if my presence makes any difference whatsoever but then I just fly around, vomit wasps, give my allies poisonous claws and psychologically torment my enemies before trying to tear the skeletons out from their still living bodies. I’m the party healer but combat wise I focus on stopping enemies from doing damage in the first place with debuffs and crowd control (inevitably I end up asking myself ‘did that enemy miss because of the penalty I inflicted or would it have missed anyway’) After the fight I’ll poke people with the appropriate wands and admonish the wounded for making me waste resources on them instead of a paying customer. Yes I might roleplaying the party physician but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to always heal and I ensure people know this.

I wonder if in your case it was a matter of encounters not being sufficiently challenging and thus not requiring thus the full range of talents that the witch has to offer? Looking at the party composition the damage output must be rather high, possibly resulting in a reduced need for witch’s remarkable talent for shutting enemies down. Afterall, what’s the point in using Slumber or Evil Eye on an enemy that’ll be dead in a round to two?

[GreenDragon1133]

blahpers wrote:

I'm a little surprised that a witch player feels useless in a campaign that's ostensibly full of creatures who have terrible Will saves and can be hit by mind-affecting effects. Why did you feel limited to using cure spells when you have all kinds of wonderful curses, mind-affecting spells, and (of course!) hexes?

Edit: Apart from that, it sounds like there are a lot of out-of-game problems that can't be solved in-game. My condolences.

Edit the second: Not enough healing? In the worst case, carry a few CLW wands and fuggedaboutit. We've almost finished Curse of the Crimson Throne and the primary healer in the party is a bard cohort with a couple of wands as backup. The druid can cast healing spells but needs to so rarely that he ended up making a few scrolls just in case and packing wands for the rest of the time.

Thanks.

Yeah, I left my witches Cure Mod. Wand with 39 charges to the rogue. (the party's only healing without me on Saturday night.

Decimus Drake wrote:

I play a witch in a group of 8 so I get the frustration of playing in a large group. There are moments that I question if my presence makes any difference whatsoever but then I just fly around, vomit wasps, give my allies poisonous claws and psychologically torment my enemies before trying to tear the skeletons out from their still living bodies. I’m the party healer but combat wise I focus on stopping enemies from doing damage in the first place with debuffs and crowd control (inevitably I end up asking myself ‘did that enemy miss because of the penalty I inflicted or would it have missed anyway’) After the fight I’ll poke people with the appropriate wands and admonish the wounded for making me waste resources on them instead of a paying customer. Yes I might roleplaying the party physician but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to always heal and I ensure people know this.

I wonder if in your case it was a matter of encounters not being sufficiently challenging and thus not requiring thus the full range of talents that the witch has to offer? Looking at the party composition the damage output must be rather high, possibly resulting in a reduced need for witch’s remarkable talent for shutting enemies down. Afterall, what’s the point in using Slumber or Evil Eye on an enemy that’ll be dead in a round to two?

Not sure what it was. It just seemed like everyone else was contributing more than I was. Add to that that everyone was more interested in talking to my Familiar (played by the DM), and I was just bored the entire session.