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Neko Toast
2009-02-14, 12:33 AM
That's right, folks. It's time for another Slayer Draco rant.

All three subjects stated in the title describe one person. Someone who is so ungodly annoying and childish when it comes to D&D, that it's causing me to lose my marbles.

Granted, this person makes a somewhat good DM. If by DMing you mean BSing it/improvising for every session. I mean, I know being a DM is hard, and improvising is great in a pinch if you're good at it, but for every session?

But now on to the topic of the title. I thought him DMing was a tad irritating at first, but it was nothing compared to when he plays PCs.

He believes that he absolutely has to play a character who at least messes with the entire campaign (displayed in one example later), and he only does this if his original option is unavailable, which is to create a character so controlling, so powerful, so 'perfect' (ie. Gary Stu), that none of the other PCs (or NPCs for that matter) can match him (example is also displayed later)

Example #1: My friend (Kara Kuro on the forums) created a campaign dubbed "The Ashen Wars", a homebrewed story where the humans and elves, after an extensive war, reign supreme over the other races. While they rest comfortably in their large mansions while their dwarf/drow/feral (ferals are a created race for this campaign. Basically, half-human-half-beast) slaves do their bidding, a rebellion is being planned by a team of dwarves and drow. The two races aren't in a very close alliance; it's more of a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" relationship.

Anyway, things were going somewhat well during character creation. I created a feral who is a spy for the resistance, another made a bear feral, who until my character set him free, was a slave for the human's battle arena. There was a human monk who was in a noble family, but given his class-type, has some potential to have racial sympathies. Then we have the old, senile elf wizard, who has a -15 to Sense Motive, just to make things interesting. He doesn't really disrupt the story; every campaign has one character who's purely comic relief.

And then there's his character. He is a human paladin who is presumably "lawful good" (and claims that he's found a way to torture people and still maintain that alignment), who is the town's biggest butthole and racist biggot. If he's on a quest, it is purely for material gain. Already this is a problem, since most of us chose characters of an opposite 'alignment', so to speak. And it only gets worse from here. He's a total dips**t, too. One fine example of this is when we were on a mission to exterminate a bunch of captured creatures that escaped and were running rampant. We were having some issues with a Displacer Beast (my DM loves those little f***ers), when one of the monsters who was still caged up, but not in our field of view, managed to escape and drive the beast away. It was a Sphinx. Well, the dorkadin (who had been knocked out for half the battle) decides that it's a threat, even though it was able to speak Common, and had clearly stated itself that it meant us no harm. We literally (in-game, of course) had to knock him out again before he endangered us even more.

Thus ending example one. The DM of this campaign is also highly annoyed by this person, and is arranging a dragon to eat him the next time we meet. He will no longer be allowed to game in this campaign if his behavior continues.

So you ask, why did he make a character like this? Simple. He was forbidden to use any of the whacked out races/classes that were not only contradictory to the campaign's story, but were also very over-powered. He basically did what a four-year-old would do: He didn't get his way, so he ruined the game for everyone else.

Example #2: This was actually just a couple of days ago. Some of our other gamer friends decided to try a hand at DMing. I was interested, and decided to roll up a human bard. Everyone else rolled up rogues, so I felt a little alienated, but if you think about it, a bard is kind of like a rogue who casts spells instead of sneak attacking.

Now, if any of you saw my last rant on this forum, it was on a character that a PC had created for the one-shoter I was "running" (running is a relative term. You see, I had asked the person I have been ranting about this whole time to write up a fairly simple campaign that I could run, just so I could get the hang of it. This was back when I thought he was a decent person. When the day came for me to run it, he eventually butted me out and ran it himself. I blame mostly myself for not being very assertive). She is co-DMing this one with her boyfriend. And I admit, the two of them make good DMs together. I now regret every trivial issue I had with her. The BF does most of the technical stuff and the rolling, while the GF works on more of the roleplaying aspects. It worked well.

The two other players merely recycled the characters they had created for my one shoter. Meanwhile, he created a rogue as well, and of course, he used some sort of bizarre, power-player race I had never heard of (when I was given a physical description in-game, he was supposed to be a toad-like thing, only immensely attractive. Evidently, his CHA score was obscenely high, no doubt a racial aspect. If anyone could identify what this race is, that would be great). He was in charge of a regiment of men who were, of course, on the opposing side of several of our characters (Kara's drow char and GF's main NPC. My character and the halfling are drifters, so we are very neutral in the current conflict.) My character arrived on the scene, where it wasn't long before a skirmish broke out due to a weapon's deal and an assault attempt. This only went more haywire when a small pack of winter wolves entered the town. I helped dispatch the wolves, and when that was all said and done, my bard went back to the cart he had hitched a ride in, despite the cart-drivers being dead. That's when the toad-thing rogue came in. He demanded that I stated my business. My character was silent at first, because he was a bit confused as to what just happened only moments ago. When this didn't please him, he decided to toss out a Command (which he apparently has). No problem; my bard has Countersong, a masterwork sitar, and several ranks in Perform. But no, this won't work because his Command inolved psionics, which is nonverbal. Well, la-dee-frickin'-da. Could it get any more Gary Stu than this? I managed to slip past it due to a naddie 20, so my character is safe for the time being.

I really want to give this campaign a chance, and it doesn't look like he's getting booted from it anytime soon. This is all among a group of friends, so some of the others aren't as upset with him as I am. This may explain why this atrocious character was accepted in the first place. I'll try and tolerate it for now. If it gets worse, I'll have no choice but to drop it. I won't play in a game that I don't enjoy.

-----

Thus ends my (long-winded) rant. I've already decided to drop the campaign that this person runs, because I'm not enjoying it anymore, and the character I created for it wasn't really going anywhere. And now that he's being booted from Kara's campaign, I won't have to deal with him as often.

If all of this seems over the top to you readers, I admit that I have personal issues with him as well. I will explain why only if I'm inquired about it.

Now that the rant is over, I do have some discussion topics to throw out.
-Your opinion on the matter: is it reasonable, or does it seem too much like a personal vendetta?
-Other instances involving other power-players/Gary Stus and Mary Sues/people who screw with the campaign as means of entertainment or spite.

I calmly await for your comments.

Temp.
2009-02-14, 12:55 AM
I must have missed the point when passive-aggressive in-game conspiracies and long forum rants became better ways to solve life's problems than words.


[edit:] It sounds like the rest of your group is okay with this guy if they're going along with the any-race-goes mentality and don't admit to taking issue with him. You didn't once say you spoke with this guy about where you saw the problem. And you mention your group is somewhat accepting of quirky or flawed characters.

I dunno. From what you say, he doesn't seem to be in the wrong. Maybe he has different senses of taste and humor than you, but I wouldn't try to tell his friends to abandon him. That's just bad form.

Avor
2009-02-14, 02:49 AM
The dip****'s problem is that he values power over fun and party balance. The solution, play a true N rouge and ace every character he comes up with untill he gets the idea and leaves. If he doenst get, who cares, you looted him 17 times by now.

Also, don't tell him where and when the next game is :smallbiggrin.

Urthdigger
2009-02-14, 03:27 AM
I had a player like that in a game I was DMing over a MUD. Picked a race/class that was technically within the rules, and spent all his starter money on a nice weapon. "No problem" I thought. That was up until we actually tried to do combat and he pretty much wasted the monster in a single round. I talked with a few of the other players, as well as a few other people on the MUD who I knew played D&D, and we all agreed that he just values power over all else. He hardly attempted to roleplay, his character didn't even have a name (Not being mysterious, he just didn't make one), argued with the other characters, and worst of all, there was no way for me to make a challenge for him that wouldn't wipe the floor with the rest of the party. I eventually wound up stopping the campaign, though I'd like to pick it up again sometime without him around.

Starshade
2009-02-14, 06:31 AM
Did he play a Yuan-ti Halfblood with the psionic rules of the Expanded Psionic Handbook? If he did, he'd have 5 monster levels, who mean with 1 level of rogue, he could take a Leadership feat.
No idea if i guessed correct, but its the best guess i can do, atm i dont know of many Psionic toad like creatures, just, the Halfblood is humanoid with snake head, so, would it fit the describsion? :smallconfused:
It would be a psionic charm, a psionic version of "charm person" who target 1 person/level, hmm, it mean he can hold 5-6 persons in permanent charm? :smallamused:
If he's using psionic powers, he got power points. Buy a Brain Mole, the 3d ed books dont got prices for them as 2. ed did, but it would get rid of him i think. :smallbiggrin:


Well, he do something hideously wrong, but, is he not *getting it*, or dont he get anything in his life?
If he upsets ppl enough they dont want to play with him, he looses by default, since now he dont got any friends who want to play with him. Basic lesson of life. Perhaps D&D is not his ideal game? Like, if he like to win, perhaps miniatures or Magic would fit better? If he want to RP, he'd need to respect his fellow players.

Paramour Pink
2009-02-14, 06:36 AM
The paladin sounds Lawful Evil.


He condemns others not according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank.

That was the DM's bad for letting him keep a good alignment. But the example about him using control seems fine. I'm not sure of the exact scenario, but you getting annoyed over that one sounds more like outside preference stepping in.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-14, 07:01 AM
I find it odd that he didn't fall with that attitude. If he didn't want to pick a race which fitted the game, why didn't he just not take part? Also, please could you post the stats for Ferals? (I like playing as half animals, but it's just because I like them more then humanoids rather then for powergaming purposes).

Tsotha-lanti
2009-02-14, 07:10 AM
Sounds like a bad player and a bad GM.

You shouldn't play with either type. If the GM is good other than at dealing with bad players, I guess you could just get rid of the player. (And it looks like you did? Great!)

Zincorium
2009-02-14, 09:43 AM
1. Has anyone made it clear that odd-critter-out races bug you guys? I know that I personally love the wierd things, not for powergaming purposes but just because I don't have to deal with existing stereotypes (I get to make my own :smallbiggrin:). If you haven't said it, he might not understand that it's an issue. If the group has made it plain, then he shouldn't be playing that type of thing with you, and it shouldn't have come up more than once.

2. A group I was in a while back had a problem with a guy who based all his characters off of anime characters (without any sort of irony or personalization), pleaded for a *magic butterknife* and used it to stab other characters with it after the DM relented, and metaphorically-then-literally backstabbed the party immediately after we saved him (we were hoping he'd come around to what sort of game we were playing).

If someone can't figure out what's wrong after the third time explaining it to them as clearly as you can, you boot them. It worked for us.

Kara Kuro
2009-02-14, 10:23 AM
To clarify a few things:

I am/was the GM for the first situation Draco described, and as such, I have a little more information on the subject.

This person and I talked, a lot, about what he wanted to do for the character. He seemed really intent on playing a paladin, so I allowed his wish given that he compromised on the basis of several pre-determined factors.

1. He could be lawful good and still torture and be a racist bigot until he was shown the error of his ways. Considering that we built up a back story for him that fit that idea, and he was a member of a fairly corrupted theocratic society any way.

2. However, after finding the error of his ways. He'd obviously have to deal with the baggage that comes along with finding that. And he would loose certain paladin abilities until he found either another religion or an actual deity on the plane that could give him console.

There were a few others, but they're not as important to the point any more. At a certain point, he refused to comply with pre-dertermined rule number one, in the given situation because he didn't think it was a big enough shock for his character. We started talking about other situations with which it might work and none of them seemed to make since - and I was pulling out lots of them, in increasing order of severity. Essentially I felt that he really never agreed with me and just wanted to screw over the campaign on the basis that I told him he could only play the first race he wanted: A watcher, on the basis of having to deal with almost no social acceptance in the society in which he lived.

Just a little more information about the situation from my side. And it is too bad, because he's not a horrible guy (a bit childish, yes certainly). I haven't quit his campaign because he functions very well as a GM, not so much as a player.

Aquillion
2009-02-14, 10:26 AM
I'm not convinced that the player is really using these strange races for super-optimization purposes. Some people just like strange races.

There are really very few obscure races that help you optimize, and the more monstrous ones in particular tend to suck (generally you can spot the Mary Sue powergamer races a mile away, because they're usually near-exact duplicates of an existing race with some additional benefit.) It's easy to make the assumption that "doing something weird" + "beat me once" = overpowered, but it doesn't necessarily follow. It's also important to note that races with a specific special ability (as opposed to an important stat bonus) are generally underpowered in the long term -- sure, the guy who picks a race with a nice SLA will kick ass on the very first playsession, but chances are every time your party levels up he's going to suck more and more.

The fact is, humans are really awesome. Very few races can compete with humans, period. This is especially true for rogues, who need both the skill points and the feat badly.

There are only ways other races can really be used for powergaming. The first would be you're using Alter Self cheese or something, which (as a rogue) he's unlikely to be doing. Illumians are good/broken depending on what you do with them. Some of the halfling subraces are good for certain things (esp. Strongheart Halflings, because they get the human bonus feat.) There's some fighter builds based on being really big/having lots of reach, but who cares, those tend to be situational and the spellcasters still kick your ass. Other races have tricks that are highly situational or confined to specific builds, but it's real hard to pull much with a rogue.

Psionics not being affected by countersong is a somewhat... rare thing to actually come up. I mean, it just isn't a big deal. Nobody optimizes against countersong, because who on earth cares? It's not like there are very many dragons with countersong out there. So it seems odd that you'd claim it was a big marty stu thing. I mean, yeah, he noticed an unusual interaction between his ability and the thing you were trying to use to counter it... but it's not something that actually matters in the long term, unless you expect to be running an anti-bard campaign where all your opponents are bards all the time.

Of course, I can't really tell what his attitude during all this was from what you said. But generally if someone really is a 'power-player', they wouldn't be playing a rogue in the first place... rogues are not terrible, no, but as a core noncaster there are severe limits with what you can do with them if you're really just interested in being as powerful as possible.

Kiero
2009-02-14, 10:49 AM
Granted, this person makes a somewhat good DM. If by DMing you mean BSing it/improvising for every session. I mean, I know being a DM is hard, and improvising is great in a pinch if you're good at it, but for every session?

Taking just this specific point, since when was it Written that a GM must have everything written down and prepared for every session? For any session? Absolutely nothing wrong with a GM improvising the entire game.

hewhosaysfish
2009-02-14, 11:01 AM
Could the toad-like creature be a Neraph (half-slaad) or a Chaond (slaad equivalent of aasimar or tiefling)?

Nohwl
2009-02-14, 11:26 AM
neraphs dont get a large bonus to charisma. i dont think they get any change to it. im guessing its something with a level adjustment.

what level was everyone in the game?

Neko Toast
2009-02-14, 11:37 AM
@Temp: I have been trying to talk out these things with him, and am going to still try (next time with a level-head, of course). But the main issue I have is that he doesn't take anything seriously, and if he does, I've never seen it. So talking to him is a challenge in and of itself.

@Tempest: Ferals
+2 to Strength, Dex, and Constitution.
-2 to Intelligence and Charisma
+10 ranks in survival
+5 ranks in Listen, Spot, Search, Move Silently
+10 feet movement when in Beast Form
Animal Empathy Feat
Back Alley Brawler (ie. fists do lethal damage due to claws, hooves, etc.)
Polymorph into animal of choice

The main disadvantage to ferals is RP based. Of the races, they're the most looked down upon, and most are enslaved, like the other feral in our party was.

@Starshade: You see, the reason why he plays the game the way he does is because that's how everyone else played the game back at home for him. I've heard stories. One of his friends takes advantage of some situations with his characters if he's not DMing and he believes the DM is unskilled. And when he does DM, his main objective is to kill all of the PCs off, a playing style that I don't quite understand. The person I'm dealing with now seems to find inspiration in this guy.

@Kiero: Again, I see nothing wrong with improvising. If you've been busy during the time span between sessions, and you didn't have time to think of anything for the campaign, then improvising is fine. But if you improvise because you were too friggin' lazy to come up with anything for the campaign in that time span, then it's just annoying.

@Nohwl: The starting level was 5. He had even made a comment about level adjustment during creation. He tossed out some race that I hadn't heard of, and declined it because the L.A. was too large. The max L.A. was 3 for this campaign.

Starshade
2009-02-14, 11:42 AM
Doh, just noticed there isnt any option to drain psionic like racial abilities to power points, so my idea is back to scratch.
Think 2. ed had it, who or i mixed up with some 2. ed's magic draining ability.

Did the characters start on a higher level than first? If he started with a Level Adjustment 2-3 or so race and you others at lvl1 with LA +0, he got a unfair advantage for a few levels, then, possibly, wrecking his characters on higher levels, depending on how much LA he got?

Edit: Slayer: Doh. The guys i learned about RP from what, frankly, hideous RPers, i'm still able to understand what D&D is, just by opening the books, though. They still didnt kill each other off.

Kiero
2009-02-14, 11:42 AM
Again, I see nothing wrong with improvising. If you've been busy during the time span between sessions, and you didn't have time to think of anything for the campaign, then improvising is fine. But if you improvise because you were too friggin' lazy to come up with anything for the campaign in that time span, then it's just annoying.

You obviously do have an issue with improvising, as you seem to consider it inferior to preparing stuff. As long as the session runs smoothly, and the GM is able to keep things together, why do you care whether or not they spent time between the sessions with prep?

As a GM, I do the minimum prep possible, sometimes none at all besides having a brief think about some things I'd like to see. Players rarely need to prepare for a session and manage just fine, the same can be true when GMing. More often that not, my entire prep is a single sheet of paper with a few ideas on it, or even just a relationship map so I know how the various agents in the world might react.

I see no point whatsoever in preparation as make-work, which is what you seem to be suggesting a "good GM" should be doing.

Neko Toast
2009-02-14, 11:51 AM
You obviously do have an issue with improvising, as you seem to consider it inferior to preparing stuff. As long as the session runs smoothly, and the GM is able to keep things together, why do you care whether or not they spent time between the sessions with prep?

As a GM, I do the minimum prep possible, sometimes none at all besides having a brief think about some things I'd like to see. Players rarely need to prepare for a session and manage just fine, the same can be true when GMing. More often that not, my entire prep is a single sheet of paper with a few ideas on it, or even just a relationship map so I know how the various agents in the world might react.

I see no point whatsoever in preparation as make-work, which is what you seem to be suggesting a "good GM" should be doing.

My view of improv is very different, yes. It mostly has to do with the fact that I was spoiled with an awesome DM over the summer. On the car ride over to gaming, he would tell me that he had already prepared the next two or three quests after the one we were currently on. Improv was never really mentioned.

Back to the topic at hand: I've seen him DM when he has something prepared. It is infinitely more enjoyable when he has at least thought a few things over than when he wings it, mostly because of the roleplaying aspect. I tend to prefer RPing over the actual fighting, which I think he knows. But when he improvs stuff, the RPing aspect isn't really that fun at all.

In other words, though he does it most of the time, I really don't mind the improv itself. I mind the fact that the improv is not enjoyable. The main reason why I'm quitting the campaign is that I don't find it fun anymore.

DiscipleofBob
2009-02-14, 12:16 PM
I've dealt with this type.

The player I've dealt with has done the following things in various games:

During character creation, insist that he play a gestalt character while everyone else play normal characters and that it wasn't that broken. Imagine playing a Marshall in a game with Goku from Dragonball Z. Not literally, but a gestalt Monk/Arcane Disciple with DM-given domains and frenzy ability while complaining about the brokenness about ToB because I had to take levels in Warblade eventually just to keep up?

For his first 4th edition character (now he won't shut up about how much he hates 4th edition) he never ONCE used his daily (Sleep) on a hostile NPC. It was always either a PC or some innocent townsfolk, and usually for selfish, insane reasons.

For what I hoped to be a campaign but ended up being a one-shot, insist that he play some obscure doll-like monster from a 3rd edition Ravenloft book that didn't even have STATS for a PC race, then complaining all session about how he couldn't do anything.

The next game he ran after this, he decided to run it on a night I had classes and then complained when I dropped out of the game due to said scheduling issues. My character ended being the only one to survive that campaign because shortly afterwards, he introduces some MacGuffin item that the PC's retrieve, and when one of the PC's instinctively tries to smash it thinking that the bad guys couldn't use a broken MacGuffin, the only rational conclusion he could think of as a DM is the MacGuffin explodes, killing hundreds of innocent NPC's and injuring the party severely, ticking off the bad guy's wizard enough to teleport down there personally and turn all the PC's into mind-controlled women (no save) or slowly kill them (without any chance of success otherwise) and then complain that the PC's didn't want to continue the game HE HIMSELF said was doomed. No, this wasn't storytelling or setting the mood, he did nothing but complain for the next week about how his precious storyline (which was kind of disgusting), was ruined and that the only thing that could happen was for the PC's to get the "bad ending."

He tried to sabotage a game he arranged for his girlfriend so she would end up hating 4th edition like he did. He failed, and then broke up with her in a very poor manner [/understatement] that left the rest of us consoling her and watching to make sure she didn't commit suicide until she could get a flight back to Delaware.



How good friends are you with this guy out of game? I ask because I don't want to throw out the "Ditch this guy, he's nothing but trouble" line if he's a good friend otherwise. If he's anything like the guy I mentioned, drop him and don't invite him to anything ever again. Otherwise, tell him what your problem with him is straight up.

Nohwl
2009-02-14, 12:31 PM
witchknife (mm3). he is ecl 12. minimum.

edit: buy a scythe, wait for him to sleep, coup de grace.

Neko Toast
2009-02-14, 01:28 PM
@DiscipleofBob: I suppose I should explain my personal issues with this individual now. It's quite simple, actually.

I'm a sensitive individual, due to much teasing in my childhood, so I don't take it very well. To describe this person in one sentence is easy: He likes to toy with people's feelings, emotions, and opinions for his own enjoyment.

And trust me when I say I'm not his only target. His roommate (who also games with us), after I had mentioned this person's favorite hobby, stated "try living with him". If he can take advantage of someone, he finds every possibility.

I was able to tolerate it for a while, since I used to be friends with him, but it only got progressively worse. Now I'm finding every opportunity I can to avoid him.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-14, 01:52 PM
:smallfrown: It sounds as though you're better off avoiding him at all costs. What are the stats for the Feral races?

Nohwl
2009-02-14, 02:03 PM
witchknife fits almost perfectly. its la +3, has sneak attack dice, has an ability called psionics that has command as an at will ability, and it has a +6 bonus to charisma. i could see toadlike being used to describe it very easily.

Vonriel
2009-02-14, 02:15 PM
What are the stats for the Feral races?

He did posted them already:


@Tempest: Ferals
+2 to Strength, Dex, and Constitution.
-2 to Intelligence and Charisma
+10 ranks in survival
+5 ranks in Listen, Spot, Search, Move Silently
+10 feet movement when in Beast Form
Animal Empathy Feat
Back Alley Brawler (ie. fists do lethal damage due to claws, hooves, etc.)
Polymorph into animal of choice

The main disadvantage to ferals is RP based. Of the races, they're the most looked down upon, and most are enslaved, like the other feral in our party was.

I would suggest tweaking it a bit if you use it. :smallwink:

DiscipleofBob
2009-02-14, 02:19 PM
@DiscipleofBob: I suppose I should explain my personal issues with this individual now. It's quite simple, actually.

I'm a sensitive individual, due to much teasing in my childhood, so I don't take it very well. To describe this person in one sentence is easy: He likes to toy with people's feelings, emotions, and opinions for his own enjoyment.

And trust me when I say I'm not his only target. His roommate (who also games with us), after I had mentioned this person's favorite hobby, stated "try living with him". If he can take advantage of someone, he finds every possibility.

I was able to tolerate it for a while, since I used to be friends with him, but it only got progressively worse. Now I'm finding every opportunity I can to avoid him.

Sounds like a plain old bully to me. I'm stuck with said person from my post as my roommate until May as well. Yea, I'm going to go with try to avoid any games or contact with him, tell him off if you feel like it. If any of your other friends ask why you're ducking out of certain games, tell them straight up you don't feel comfortable with him in the game and you don't want to hang out with him. If they take his "side," (not that there should be any sides among a mature group of friends) then find a new gaming group.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-14, 02:24 PM
Sorry about missing that. I agree about how it would be overpowered in the sort of games I run (I use a lot of half animal races).

Bandededed
2009-02-14, 02:38 PM
witchknife fits almost perfectly. its la +3, has sneak attack dice, has an ability called psionics that has command as an at will ability, and it has a +6 bonus to charisma. i could see toadlike being used to describe it very easily.

It also has 9 racial HD to compliment that +3 LA. With one level of rogue, he's looking at ECL 13, minimum. Uh, what level did you guys say you were playing at again?

Neko Toast
2009-02-14, 02:44 PM
It also has 9 racial HD to compliment that +3 LA. With one level of rogue, he's looking at ECL 13, minimum. Uh, what level did you guys say you were playing at again?

Level 5. Plus, rogue is a relative term. It's not common for rogues to carry Greatswords, is it?

Kyouhen
2009-02-14, 02:52 PM
Sounds like a fun guy to mess with. One suggestion I would make is to have your DM (who's not him) make a campaign where you all start as prisoners/slaves/etc. The people managing the prison/slave pit/etc want to keep everyone in line but don't want to expend the manpower to do it. As such Mark of Justice is put on every prisoner/slave/etc with the terms that they shall not cause harm of any kind to their peers or any of the guards/slavers/etc. Either make the Mark extremely difficult to remove or make it a special spell that can't be removed with a simple Dispel or Remove Curse and laugh as he's literally unable to harm the other PCs without immediately becoming too weak to kill them. If you really wanted to have fun make it so that the condition only applies to not harming anyone with a prisoner's Mark or a guard's Mark. The second he attacks he loses the mark and the rest of the party can kill him without problem. If that doesn't get him to behave I don't know what will.

Kara Kuro
2009-02-14, 02:54 PM
Sorry about missing that. I agree about how it would be overpowered in the sort of games I run (I use a lot of half animal races).

Yup - they are a bit over-powered in the sense of character stats. I made them that way on purpose for the scenario of the game (as Toast Draco described), as otherwise it wouldn't be worth taking the obvious RP-related problems associated with playing one - and there were/are a lot in the campaign.

I could see why you'd want to tone it down a bit for something where they didn't suffer those negatives, though. They'd be terribly broken in the instance.

Neko Toast
2009-02-14, 02:58 PM
Yup - they are a bit over-powered in the sense of character stats. I made them that way on purpose for the scenario of the game (as Toast Draco described), as otherwise it wouldn't be worth taking the obvious RP-related problems associated with playing one - and there were/are a lot in the campaign.

I could see why you'd want to tone it down a bit for something where they didn't suffer those negatives, though. They'd be terribly broken in the instance.



Speaking of toast, you still haven't sent me that icon, Kara.



Anyway, I looked at a picture of these witch knife things... Ew. How could something like that have +6 to Charisma?

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-14, 03:09 PM
Cha is mainly about force of personality. For instance, if a race was cute but lacking in confidance, a Cha penalty would fit (a lot of hideous Abberations get Cha bonuses for this reason).

Yahzi
2009-02-15, 12:08 PM
insist that he play some obscure doll-like monster from a 3rd edition Ravenloft book
I don't even get this.

When I started my campaign, my players began as 0th level, 16-year old, human peasants. With 8's in every stat. The only things they had to choose was a name and a gender. Everything else gets developed in-game.

Random, wandering, inexplicable creatures without any history or community ties aren't PCs. They're encounters.

kjones
2009-02-15, 12:38 PM
I don't even get this.

When I started my campaign, my players began as 0th level, 16-year old, human peasants. With 8's in every stat. The only things they had to choose was a name and a gender. Everything else gets developed in-game.

Random, wandering, inexplicable creatures without any history or community ties aren't PCs. They're encounters.

0th level? Your group is a bunch of pantywaists. I start my players as newborns, and they have to battle their way out of the crib when demons come to kill their families!

And if you die, I tear up your character sheet and feed it to you!

</sarcasm>

Seriously, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't think D&D is the right system for you. Gaining levels is one thing, but there's not really much of a mechanic for gaining stats in D&D, and you've just denied your players the opportunity to play any kind of caster. Or, for that matter, any race besides human... come on, the most famous adventuring party of all time had Men, an elf, a dwarf, and hobbits halflings! (And a maiar, but he was a DMPC, so...)

Kiero
2009-02-15, 01:36 PM
When I started my campaign, my players began as 0th level, 16-year old, human peasants. With 8's in every stat. The only things they had to choose was a name and a gender. Everything else gets developed in-game.

Each to their own, I guess, that sounds like concentrated un-fun to me. I don't play characters as young as that, for one, and I won't start any D20-ish game at less than 3rd level.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-15, 02:11 PM
Why do you do that, Yahzi? I can't really see any reason to do it like that due to how you could easily develope personalities before people roll up characters (that would be no good for me; ignoring the fact that humans aren;t half-animal, they are pretty much my least favourite race:smalltongue:).

togapika
2009-02-15, 02:15 PM
Hit him in the ****. End of story.

Flickerdart
2009-02-15, 02:54 PM
(that would be no good for me; ignoring the fact that humans aren;t half-animal, they are pretty much my least favourite race:smalltongue:).
Chief grukgruk half orc too. Other half, also orc.

kjones
2009-02-15, 08:20 PM
Chief grukgruk half orc too. Other half, also orc.

Half-orc? That imply ugly backstory.:smalltongue:

masamonkey
2009-02-15, 09:35 PM
This guy really doesn't seem all that bad besides his RP style grating on you. Not that you should just grin and bear it; he has all the annoying traits of a backseat GM, but it doesn't sound like he can play well enough to be a real problem.

I used to play with the worst backseat DM in existence though, so my tolerance is pretty high.

He would constantly cheat, when he couldn't argue book text to get exactly what he wanted, he would make his rolls off in the corner, and nickel and dime mysterious experience points up to as high as three levels over the rest of the party. One hilarious instance of this, our GM alluded that we'd all have little individual quests eventually and might get a level off that and this guy decided to add that level onto his character as soon as he'd heard that and outright said he did that to force the GM to run the miniquests ASAP. The GM ran him through the miniquest and the player was livid when he didn't get (additional) exp when it was done.

He also had a thing for wanting to break games when he couldn't have his way. We played a Ravenloft game once and when he wasn't allowed to start off with some dark traits (purely for RP purposes, he assured the GM) he went ahead and made a 'mage' who was some 60s rocker transported to the Realm of Dread complete with an electric Guitar, sunglasses, jeans and a sack of weed. We did our best to ignore him, but he was still there the whole time making his asinine character a part of the game. After the game, the GM had a long talk with him about his future as a gamer in the group and the next character he made was a wild mage who was pulling diamonds out of his butt to pay for things, casting fireballs at twice his caster level and using some crappy wild effects table he got at some con. Dire tigers were appearing out of nowhere to destroy streets, houses of key NPCs were being sucked into the ground killing said key NPCs and players alike, Batmobiles would drive by and TVs would fall from the sky. My character ended up getting him drunk and cut his head off as soon as he passed out. He didn't really like that.

Phew. Maybe I'll post more about him later, there's a -lot- more to tell about him, but this is pretty well long enough. He was a competent DM and player, but he just couldn't be satisfied unless he was the sole focus of the game.