Awesome vs annoying

[Thajocoth]

It's sometimes difficult to tell when you create a character whether or not their tricks are awesome or annoying. An example... A previous character of mine was designed to crit more often, and get many free attacks when he did so, at the expense of not doing much when he's not critting. Seemed to me like it'd be awesome, but the other players found the delay more annoying than anything else.

Specifics:
Crit range: 18-20. 4e crit = max damage, including sneak attack dice. Main hand crit = +1d10 per plus of the weapon, which gets dealt again at the start of my next turn, +1d6 fire, +1d10, grants free offhand basic attack.
Off hand crit = 1d12 per plus of the weapon, +1d6 fire, +1d10. Free when I crit, 1/encounter, I had a solitaire that'd grant me a free melee basic attack. As a Minor Action on a turn that I crit, once per encounter, I had another attack. Nasty Backswing let me make an attack once per encounter when I miss another attack. Most I crit in one round was about 7 times... Those being my only crits in that encounter.

So what sorts of things have you done when creating a character that you thought were going to be awesome, but others at the table thought was annoying? What sorts of things did you almost do and decide against? What sorts of things are you unsure of whether they're awesome or annoying? How annoying would you find the things other people have posted in this thread if for a character in a game you're playing?

A couple such things I'm not sure of... (A spare character of mine has these in his current build. If I ever use him, I'd ask the other players about these things first.)

A Bugbear with a Large Execution Axe with the Vorpal enchantment.
Specifics:
A Large Execution Axe is 2d6 Brutal 2. Brutal 2 means you reroll all 1s & 2s. In 4e, Vorpal lets you reroll any weapon damage die that lands on it's maximum value, after adding that die. So all damage dice are d6s that get rerolled on a 1, 2 or 6 (Adding 6 whenever they're rerolled for being a 6). Can deal massive damage, which can be awesome. Can take a long time of rolling & re-rolling & re-rolling...

A Bear Warrior Barbarian who can make three free attacks each encounter.
Specifics:
The Bear Warrior Paragon Path makes your Second Wind a free action while you're raging, which a Barbarian generally is. In 4e, Second Wind heals a character by 1/4 their health, and gives them a +2 bonus to defenses for a round. It's normally a Standard Action. Being a free action now, they can do it at any time, on anyone's turn. With a feat and a specific armor enchantment, you can get two additional Second Winds per encounter. Another feat lets you make a free Melee Basic attack when you Second Wind instead of taking a +2 to all defenses for a round. This means that three times per encounter, you can simply decide to make an attack, at any time.

[Snake-Aes]

Generally speaking adding more actions can make the whole thing more annoying.
That's why they arbitrarily cap the attack iterations at 4 on epic levels.
Then comes the warblade/psion gestalt with girallon windmill flesh rip, a psicrystal concentrating on a telekinetic maneuver while your schismed mind hurls stuff at other people and you combine the girallon with a Time Stands Still. That's 13 dice rolls in one round even before considering crits.

[ryzouken]

Frenzied Berserker. "Hey I get a +10 to my Strength score and can't die from damage!"

"That's nice, but you just killed the cleric."
"Crap. I'll go get two character sheets."

Other than that? I once played a kobold with leadership that used his cohort and followers to create a phalanx. "My turn? Kobolds 1-16 attack with their shortswords, 17-23 attack with longspears, the cleric drops a chain cure moderate and my character drops a quickened scorching ray and readies to counterspell." -cue 10 minutes of rolling dice for maybe 30 damage-

[Snake-Aes]

I recommend moderation in the use of stuff with too many rolls.

On our groups, when we know we will just hurl a large scale combat, we don't bother rolling dice for what isn't directly linked to us. Let the mooks suicide over the rounds till we turn our faces to their direction.


A good way to hasten the dice problem is a portable with a dice rolling APP. Put in number of dice, size of dice and modifiers and roll away. I use the PPP Dice Bag (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20dicebag.htm) on my psp when we game.

[The Shadowmind]

Haven't done it but the Font of Inspiration stacking/cunning surge factotum could get annoying from being able to get around 11+ standard actions.

[kenb215]

If you're going to play a build that needs a lot of re-rolls using colored dice can help speed things up. Instead of waiting to re-roll when you need to, just roll all of the dice you may need at once. The red dice, for example, are basic damage; the orange are fire damage; the yellows are critical hit damage, and so on.

[Snake-Aes]

It also helps to be generous on your character sheet drafts.
Take note of what changes when you buff, before the actual fight!
This way you look at your sheet and your cleric casts protection from evil. Go on your draft sheet and note the modified stats!

[Ubercaledor]

As a striker, I don't think other players should get annoyed at you dealing max damage and possibly one-hitting- that's kinda your job.

As has been said, if it's only when critting that you're rolling alot, I'm sure most players won't mind because you're at least progressing in battle, and earning them XP. A good DM will play multiple-brute with allied controler/skirmisher/lurker setup to make sure that you're occupied long enough for the other characters to do their bit to stop you from pressing the "WIN" button.

I think it's more annoying to have characters that sit there and roll 76 dice to do 2d4 damage, than it is to roll 100 and end up one-hitting pun-pun.

[Grumman]

My Drow Murderer build revolves around making 2-3 full attacks full of precision damage by initiative count ~50 of the first round of every battle.

This would obviously not work very well in a multiplayer game, where the other players would presumably like to take part.

[Thajocoth]

As a striker, I don't think other players should get annoyed at you dealing max damage and possibly one-hitting- that's kinda your job.

As has been said, if it's only when critting that you're rolling alot, I'm sure most players won't mind because you're at least progressing in battle, and earning them XP. A good DM will play multiple-brute with allied controler/skirmisher/lurker setup to make sure that you're occupied long enough for the other characters to do their bit to stop you from pressing the "WIN" button.

I think it's more annoying to have characters that sit there and roll 76 dice to do 2d4 damage, than it is to roll 100 and end up one-hitting pun-pun.

I never 1-hitted an enemy. That time I crit 7 times was on a giant spider of some sort. I was playing a Rogue at the time... The party's melee Striker. 1d4 for weapon dice... But plenty of bonuses. Sneak Attack added 3d8, which can only be applied once per round, so only one of the crits could benefit from it. I reached about 200 damage, with about 50 being dealt again at the start of my next turn. This was about level 15. Damage most rounds from me was in about the 30s-50s. The character was actually having very little impact on anything usually, except for his crits which came, on average, thrice per encounter. This combined with the fact that the other PCs would be annoyed at the delay whenever he did what he was designed to do is why he retired and I brought in Cedarsting. I swapped at level 17. We're level 22 now.

I expect Cedarsting to need to be switched out soon. He's got a personality flaw that directly conflicts with another party member, though the other party member hasn't let him know. We both expect them to wind up fighting. My character would win such a fight if 1 on 1, but I'd expect the rest of the party to intervene. (I don't particularly want to kill his character either, but I don't mind too much if mine dies. Though I know he can afford the cost of a Raise Dead.) That and my character's got a bit more management than I'd like, and one of his daily powers is a bit annoying to everyone, including myself, as it's complex & takes a long time to resolve.

The power is a close burst 3 attack, and I'm Large size, so that's every enemy in a 8x8x8 square cube that I'm the center of. (40x40x40 feet.) I roll one attack roll per target, but compare it to Fort, Ref AND Will for three different effects and dealing the damage up to three times (for simplicity I roll one damage roll instead of separate damage rolls for Fort, Ref & Will like I'm honestly supposed to). The effect for hitting Reflex moves the enemies, which adds further rolls from the DM to save from falling off cliffs & such.

So I'm thinking that when he does need to be replaced, I'll go with a Barbarian. They're fairly simple to play. A Bugbear Bear Warrior Barbearian seems like a fun idea to me... Again though, some of the bonuses this character might have are either awesome or annoying, it's hard to tell. I put them in the first post... The Triple Second Wind and the Large Vorpal Execution Axe.

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Ryzouken's Kobold army sounds like something that'd probably annoy me, not just as another player in the game, but also if I were to try to manage something like that. I'd think it'd be kinda like having 2 DMs... Also, doesn't having a whole army make things feel less personal to your character?

[Prplcheez]

Taking Supreme Cleave.

And then fighting against a horde of goblins.

:smallbiggrin: