I feel guilty. Lets have a guilt-fest!

[veven]

Our regular DM couldn't show up tonight so we played a pre-made with another player running it. We started at level 3. I played a goliath dungeon crasher fighter with the knockback feat in a group with limited optimization (dwarf cleric with 13 wisdom...what? and a tiefling beguiler). In the first battle i won initiative and dealt a total of 71 damage between my power attack and the dungeon-crasher bull rush. While this is admittedly awesome i feel kinda bad. I consistently was dealing 30-50 damage a round at level 3. In my low-op group this is pretty messed up.

Do you guys have any stories in which you felt guilty/awkward for doing really well in your play group?

[Jarian]

I once disabled three of four head mages in a magical academy of sorts with Feeblemind used repeatedly.

The DM just sorta gave me a blank look after the last one. I wasn't really sure what to make of it, but... yes, I felt a bit guilty.

[GoatBoy]

Playing the Wizard in a level 3-4 group with a melee/healer Cleric, Rogue, Swift Hunter, and Trip Fighter.

So I felt guilty every time I cast Web or Glitterdust.

Today we fought nothing but incorporeal undead GAWSH I WUNDUR Y LAWL

[veven]

Playing the Wizard in a level 3-4 group with a melee/healer Cleric, Rogue, Swift Hunter, and Trip Fighter.

So I felt guilty every time I cast Web or Glitterdust.

Today we fought nothing but incorporeal undead GAWSH I WUNDUR Y LAWL

Yeah, I've been there before. Same group, lvl 9 unseen seer/wizard/rogue with acidic splatter reserve feat and hunters eye for sneak attack fun. At least glitterdust makes everyone else's jobs easier instead of doing the job for them.

[NichG]

In a high-end game we were hosting an inter-cosmic tournament of fighters. The party had, between announcing the tournament and the date of the event, received a massive power buff due to fortunate circumstances. I had sort of felt that we'd pretty much steamroll the competition with the new level of power, so I had abstained from the power buff, figuring that'd be enough, and that it'd make the fights more challenging.

To put it in perspective, the NPC combatants were things like a great wyrm red dragon with class levels in casting classes and played to its intelligence (Ashardalon), a high-epic wizard with the resources of a planetary empire (whose fighting style involved time-stop delayed blast fireball stacking inside a prismatic sphere dropped on his enemy, followed by multiple quickened Frostfells in a single round, followed by any other horrible thing he could think of at the time), and so on.

My fight was against a guy who seemed to use grappling and pugilism almost exclusively, but I kind of got the vibe that he was, like me, just holding back to give other combatants a fight. So I fight kind of playfully, doing things like throwing floating islands of dirt at him, flying up and making him jump to get me, and turning his multi-round suplex maneuver against him by conjuring a wall of iron and combining with gravity reversal so he ended up suplexing himself. I considered these to be cute tricks but not overpowering given the sort of competition in the tournament.

Turns out he was the one token mundane guy. Totally non-magical level 15 fighter or monk or something. He surrendered without laying a single damaging blow on me. I felt incredibly guilty about it.

[Vangor]

Mountain Orc Spirit-Lion Totem Whirling Frenzy Barbarian at level one. We destroyed an orc fortress in about a minute. Feeling guilty because I did this intentionally to note a lesson about his habitually empty dungeons, ignoring any description except where the door was because searching about was useless. Feeling less guilty because he has reformed his ways.

[LordBlades]

Back when I was a new guy in a group of new guys:

Playing a druid to full potential(as much as I could back then) in a group with monk, ranger and hexblade without realizing how strong it really was until my whole party turned on me (I was NG, they were secretly evil-ish) and I defeated all 3 of them without suffering even 1 point of damage.

[only1doug]

The group (can't remember specific levels)

Druid / warshaper / Master of many forms (melee or nuke, always rolls lower than average on damage)
Cleric / warpriest (likes to melee, no Persist spell)
Rogue / swashbuckler (good damage when he hits)
Sorcerer (crowd control focused)
paladin / stonelord (decent attack bonus, very little damage)
Barbarian / dervish (decent attack bonus, very little damage)

and my character
duskblade5/wizard1/abjurant champion5/eldritchknight 7

I was hitting (with a Greater mighty walloped 2 maul used 2 handed and Knowledge devotion) at +28/+23/+18 for 6d8+2d6+14. regularly hitting for more than the rogue could backstab for.

not over optimised, i could of made a more powerful character (i was trying to tone it down) but the GM explained that we were fighting more powerful stuff than we would have been because I ripped through his normal monsters too quickly.

Example: exploring a cave complex there was a chasm in the floor surrounded by grease, we had to pass through so set up ways of crossing, i failed my reflex save and fell down the 60' deep pit (featherfall, no damage). the rest of the party passed and immediately got in a fight.
At the bottom of the pit was a Skeletal tyrannasaurs. I destroyed it in 3 rounds without getting hit and still got out of the pit in time to help kill the bigger monster everyone else was fighting.

[Warlawk]

We had just hit level 6 and were fighting 4 hill giants with our party of 4 people. Between my haste and empowered chained ray of enfeeblement (easy metamagic and arcane thesis) we dropped all the giants while only taking I think 1 hit in return, for low damage considering the thing had -12 to str.

Our group is kind of low optimization, and this is the first time I've picked up a wizard since 3.0 was released. Yeah... I switched characters starting at the next weeks session, I was just going to completely blow the curve for the game.

[Doomboy911]

You know every time I'm not dming I make a human bard. Because of this I'm not a wrecker as I usually play straight bard to the end. I tell people that I play the bard because it has little direction. If I were a fighter I'd play the best bloody fighter I could and no one would stop me. If I play the wizard I will break physics. I tell the people that is why I play the bard so I don't destroy everything.

I feel guilty for misinforming them.The bard is the best of them all.

[Alleran]

I occasionally feel guilty for letting another player die just because I'm trying to avoid breaking the game with a wizard.

[Tyndmyr]

Thanks to using my wizarding powers to make the Hover-tank 10,000, I don't have to feel anything when I roll over the rest of the party. Not even remorse.

[TroubleBrewing]

I'm playing a DMM: Persist Cleric in a party with a paladin/grey guard, a mounted fighter/cavalier, and a VoP monk.

I... I... There are no words.

Wait, this is the "Feeling Guilty" thread. I meant to post this in the "Feeling Godlike and Unstoppable" thread. My bad.

[onthetown]

Enchantment-focused Wizard puts entire encounter to Sleep in the first round.

Rest of players boredly coup-de-grace the enemies.

To my credit, I didn't expect that the entire encounter would fall asleep... Alas, low leveled campaigns.

[Doc Roc]

Forcing Ernir to handle my use of my minions as sounding charges, in an attempt to echolocate my silence-bearing foe.

Being responsible for the Jacob's Ladder trick.

Not being a better GM for the Test of Spite.

[Jarian]

Forcing Ernir to handle my use of my minions as sounding charges, in an attempt to echolocate my silence-bearing foe.

I remember that one.

"Full run north, cawing the whole way, stopping if it ever stops hearing itself" or some such?

[TroubleBrewing]

Being responsible for the Jacob's Ladder trick.


This was a... Favored Soul trick? How did it go, again?

[Jarian]

From here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137447) Tread lightly, for you cannot unlearn what you see in this thread.


For this, I'll use the most extreme example.
Imagine for a moment, that you are a human favored soul of third level with precocious apprentice, sanctum spell, and magical training. Now let us suppose that you made a specific Dragonsblood Pool your sanctum, or used an Acorn of Far Travel to treat it as such. So now, you can cast 3rd level arcane spells. So now you can get a third level arcane spell slot from the pool. This means that you, a third level favored soul, have third level spells. Third level arcane spells. If you can't break this, don't speak to me.

[Moriato]

I play a lot of Druids. Need I say more?

Really though, it hasn't been much of a problem. I tend to hold back a lot of power until it's really needed, so in your average fight, I don't really overshadow anyone, and when I do go balls-out and stomp the battlefield, it's usually to pull our hindquarters out of a bad situation, so no one seems to mind all that much.

[TroubleBrewing]

I think I'm actually going to use the sandwich of doom trick in-game.

[big teej]

I don't have a guilt story yet... but I will as soon as I get to play an incarnate

one of my fellow player's jaw literally dropped when I told her about Mantle of flame.

and I was like

"hm.... maybe I shouldn't do this"


also,
I'm taking Leadership in the future.

[togapika]

I made a level 5 character with an AC of 35....
DM couldn't hit me unless he sent like CR9 stuff against us or something if I recall correctly.

[Yukitsu]

My DM adjusts the CR up by 5 when I'm in the party, so I felt kinda bad when they got wiped when I didn't show.

This is, BTW, why being an optimizer and the buff caster is awesome.

[Lucid]

The party:

Wild Elf Mystic Ranger/Scout/Spirit Lion Barbarian with wing grafts (my character)
Human Dread Necromancer optimized for controlling undead
Human Druid with Dragon Wildshape and Greenbound summoning

We are in a desert city in Ravenloft, searching for information on one of the BBEG's, a darklord known as a great hunter. We've split up and are mostly talking to the few townspeople that will talk to us.

I'm having a pleasant conversation with a local priest when the druid awakens the darklord by bursting into his tomb (he wasn't exactly subtle).
Everywhere people shut themselves in their houses and others hide in the temple, and I decide to go check out the commotion.

I turn invisible and fly up to see dozens of skeletons rising from the desert sands, and our druid facing a large and ancient mummy. I start buffing myself and the dread necromancer arrives and immediately begins controlling the nearest skeletons. The druid decides to seek higher ground, turns into a dragon and flys up to start summoning.

The skeletons start shooting fireballs, none of which hit.
I start charging the darklord getting away each time using travel devotion, the druids' summons start tearing through the skeletons, who are soon almost all under control of the dread necro.

In 5 rounds the darklord is defeated, the town is overrun by undead and the druids summons.

None of his spells got through our defenses, none of us took any damage.
The druid only summoned elementals and magical beasts, taking no advantages other than flight from his dragon form.
I didn't even use haste or whirling frenzy, and the dread necro just stood on a roof overseeing the carnage his undead wreaked.

The DM was flabbergasted as we shared a guilty grin and said: "Wow, that went fast..."

tl;dr: We defeated a major big bad in 5 rounds, without even playing to full strength.

[Draz74]

One word: Polymorph.

The best was the time our group was considering a kidnapping attempt of an important NPC. The DM made it clear to us that this was not going to be easy -- that the local law and the NPC's own strength made this a dangerous option for us to pursue.

So, of course, being typically reckless adventurers, my party went for it anyway. With little absolutely no planning -- they just saw him and two friends, apparently unarmed, walking down a quiet street, and charged in. I was late to the session, so I didn't get to attempt to be the voice of reason who stopped them.

I arrived with the battle in full swing, no telling which side was winning (the NPCs were all at least as high-level as the party; the main target was merely a Fighter with Improved Unarmed Strike, but his cohorts included a Wizard. Still, it was an ambush, and we did outnumber them.) Half my party was nicely separated from the target by a Wall of Force.

A moment later, the Fighter and Monk in my party were Gryphons. And another moment later, the target and one of his cohorts had been grappled, lifted into the air, and cleared from the area before the town guard could respond to the alarm.

... But I guess that's a little off-topic, since it's hard to feel guilty when even the DM thinks it was awesome. I guess there were other Polymorph incidents that I actually felt more guilty about.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Warning, wall o' text:

In my current group there are two players who have less-than-powerful PCs (an Iron-Man-wannabe incarnate and a ninja/rogue/monk) and three who I helped with building but aren't super-powerful in play (pixie warlock, astral construct-spec psion, and treant crusader). To help shore up these PCs, the DM asked me to, quote, "build a buffer who mostly boosts the party's defenses and stays out of the spotlight, but who can pull out all the stops if necessary." Challenge accepted.

My character is a Hathran/war weaver/prestige bard/spellguard of Silverymoon (among other things) with a celestial bloodline and a Vow of Nonviolence. My character can't directly attack enemies...but has all the benefits of spontaneously casting off the entire cleric and bard lists, giving the entire party any 7 buffs (including personal ones) as a move action at the beginning of combat, and Inspire Courage/Dragonfire Inspiration shenanigans. Oh, and I have a coure eladrin cohort, for constant magic circle against evil from an incorporeal scout. And several permanent buffs. And some other stuff. Yeah...I may have gone a bit overboard, but the DM was insistent that this would be an exceptionally difficult campaign, and he approved everything after I explained what everything did.

It turns out the reason he wanted me shore up the party's weaknesses was that the campaign is war-themed and now that we were mid-way through we were about to start fighting some of the major evil forces. Our first large-scale battle was against 2 balors, 4 mariliths, 6 vrocks, several hundred mid-level yuan-ti archers, and several dozen mid-level tiefling arcanists; the party was 14th level and on our side were a few hundred low level martial types, mostly barbarians for melee and rangers for ranged. The DM expected us to have to make a tactical retreat. What actually happened:

Before combat: "I scry some casters, huh? I'll empty my wand of battlemagic perception."
Surprise Round: "Okay, party, here's your list of buffs. Bottom line, you're immune to everything up to and including HP damage."
Round 1: "Dismissal on the vrocks. I hit all of them and they need nat 20s to save. Bye bye vrocks. Oh, and as a swift action, every ally in sight gets +10d6 damage to their attacks. Yay Focused Performance."
Round 1.5: "Those casters? Yeah, all of them are counterspelled. Yeah, I have enough dispel magics for that."
Round 2: Twiddle thumbs. Combat over. Every baddy is chunky salsa.

The DM at this point was giving me that deer in the headlights stare, and we were about to call it a day and rest up, when the incarnate's player said, "Wait, didn't you mention two other armies like this one, when you said we could probably only save one city?" When the DM nodded sadly, I 'ported the party to the second city, all buffs still up, where we proceeded to wreck the balors, mariliths, and vrocks, then teleported to the third city, wrecked the demons there too, teleported back to the second city (where our Dragonfire Inspiration'd troops were making short work of the enemy army and the enemy casters didn't have a chance to hit us) and wrecked the rest of the army there, then teleported back to the third city and wrecked the rest of the army there.

Total in-game time: 9 rounds. Total enemy survivors: the 6 dismissed vrocks. Total aspirins taken by the DM: probably at least 4. Next session, my character goes back to being the kindly old healbot who quotes scripture and provides a moral center for our party he has been all this time...but I doubt the warlock will complain about that sissy exalted pacifist stick-in-the-mud again anytime soon. :smallamused:

[Doc Roc]

Wait. Wait. You used one of my weaver builds?!

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Wait. Wait. You used one of my weaver builds?!

Not exactly, no; I came up with my particular build independently, but it's close enough to Algernon of the White Lilies that they'd probably play out fairly similarly (though mine uses a different counts-as-arcane method, has a different buffing focus, etc.). If I'd thought to search for a war weaver handbook beforehand, just using the Algernon or Joker build would probably have been easier, but then where's the fun in using a pre-built handbook character? :smallwink:

[Doc Roc]

Not exactly, no; I came up with my particular build independently, but it's close enough to Algernon of the White Lilies that they'd probably play out fairly similarly (though mine uses a different counts-as-arcane method, has a different buffing focus, etc.). If I'd thought to search for a war weaver handbook beforehand, just using the Algernon or Joker build would probably have been easier, but then where's the fun in using a pre-built handbook character? :smallwink:

If it's Algernon? There is none. For anyone. Ever.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If it's Algernon? There is none. For anyone. Ever.

I don't know, turning a vanilla 14th-level rogueish character into something capable of popping balors sounds plenty fun to me, pre-built or no.