your experience being useless [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

big teej

2011-04-11, 12:19 AM

greetings playgrounders,

I was reflecting upon a recent session and it occured to me that it involved the 2nd session I'd ever been 'useless'.

it's a sucky feeling.

so I come asking you what your experience with being 'useless' at the table have been.

let me get the ball rolling by providing two examples (the two times I've been useless)

the first, a session that took place nigh on a year ago.

I was playing a Dwarf Knight
everyone else played a taller race and most of them focused on ranged combat.

enter the first dungeon.
encounter 1
2 kobolds/orcs (don't remember which)

I go 3rd or 4th.

player A pops an arrow at an enemy
player B (being faster) charges another
player C moves and readys an action to fire another arrow at a target
MY TURN! distance is measured and -lo and behold- it's outside charge distance but inside running...
so I double move, determined to clobber the foe on my next turn.
player D goes, moves up behind me, playing cautious

intiative resets.
player A and C plunk arrows at their chosen foes, slaying them.
player B finishes off his opponent in combat before I get there.
combat ends.
I have done.....
nothing.

encounter 2
a hobgoblin and 2 goblins.
I think I went last this time.
Player A pops an arrow at a goblin
Player B rushes into combat with the hobgoblin (despite me callin dibs)
player C fires an arrow at another goblin
Player D ... -attacks- one of said goblins.
MY TURN!!!
I rush the hobgoblin.... who is again, outside my double move.

intiative resets.
player a and c again drop their opponents
player b and d work together to cut down the hobgoblin.

I
do.
nothing.

session ends.

the second incident, which took place a few weeks ago, which I've come to nickname "meanwhile, out in the alley"

I'm playing a knight, I'm in battle armor, complete with tabard and noble symbols, the whole shabang.... the rest of the party is.... less spiffy, to say the least.

so we chase a -plot character- into an alley, where we see him enter a door, which turns out to be a tavern,

the party decides to enter the tavern, and after having it described and deciding upon our course of action
-here's where it happens, not that I knew it-
my character decides "this place is beneath me" and furthermore "I'll attract far to much attention"
both of which are true.
however, the ENTIRE REST OF THE SESSION took place within that tavern.
okay, this is a slight exageration. about 95% took place in the tavern.
the remaining 5 percent took place in the market place (pre-chase) or in the palace talking with the king and head of treasurery (post chase)

so while I did get to role play a wee bit (haven't gotten a handle on interacting with royalty yet) I essentially sat there the whole session. it made me sad.

now, far be it from me to be the hack-n-slash player, because I"m usually not.

but to be honest, if a player's character is DESIGNED for combat (almost exclusively) I think there should be at least one token battle, even if it was just some drunks who wanted to start crap...

furthermore, the more I think about it, the more I realize I came into this campaign with the wrong assumptions... oh well.

so what are your experiences with be uselses?
this could be because
a) poor* encounter design
b) poor** campaign design
c) a party member being better than you at your job
d) a party member casting a spell makin you completely redundant/etc.
e) etc.

anything that had the net effect of either
a) ruining your fun/enjoyment
b) made you just kinda sit there the whole session
c) etc.
*poor in this case being 'accidental circumstances that combined to make your presence unneeded or redundant'
**poor in this case being a 'failure to understand what the campaign would be like'

Mutazoia

2011-04-11, 12:34 AM

Well the last time I can remember was playing a rogue in the Iron Hero's setting. I had my character all built up to be a sneak attack/critical hit god. I chose feats and talents that give extra sneak attack dice, spent a crap load of money on a dagger that had a high crit range and crit modifier. By the end game I had a feat that let me ad +1 to hit and +1 D6 sneak attack damage for every round I spent observing my target. The downside was...I was only using daggers.

Come the boss fight, the DM decided to go with a Final Fantasy style boss...who changed forms....and wouldn't you know it ...all three forms were immune to crits. And all 3 forms had d12 +5 DR (the DM was openly rolling the d12..found out the modifier later). If i was extremely lucky I could have done 1 pt of damage with each attack....So basically I spent the entire boss standing around contemplating my navel

Crossblade

2011-04-11, 12:45 AM

Well the problem with your first scenario is that you were out of range both times. Why would someone with such short range be at the back of the party/so far from the action to begin with?

For your second, if you're chasing someone, why would you suddenly stop chasing him just because he went into a certain tavern? If he ran into the town dump, and stopped 10 feet past its gate, then turned around and made faces at you, would you stop before entering the gate, because going into the town dump is beneath you? Same scenarios, both involve lousy areas.

As for myself:

My gaming group is playing an Agent campaign based in the future. We recently started over because we replaced half the group for a few reasons that's not relevant.
Now the game in question is heavily skill based, even attacking is based on a skill of sorts. The GM had given me a heads up on the types of builds the other players were going to make, so to compensate, and help the new players get into the game, I decided to go intense in support and non-combat skills; so much so that it's the only thing I can do. (Which in theory is a good thing because the rest of the team can barely do anything non combat, so it turns out)
To date, every combat roll I've made has missed. Not that I've had many, because the damage output of the other characters are pretty high.
...and when I do do things out of combat, my dice roll VERY poorly.

Every week, our GM does his friendly taunts saying how our characters are going to die. It's been 4 games now, and only once has anyone actually taken any damage in combat (surprisingly though, he did drop); I keep hoping and secretly wishing it'll be my character so I can remake a better one (he's already half done, he just needs level wealth so I can pick out his gear).

I've even been helping/encouraging and giving the GM ideas every week to throw heavier guys at us. He never takes my advice... but we're all still pretty green to the system, and he's only now [last session] figuring out what power level of enemies are appropriate power level for us.
(Game is called Corporation, it doesn't really have a CR rating system, the book actually suggests to "keep throwing waves until you think the PCs had enough"... which can make sense in most scenarios for this game, but still..)

big teej

2011-04-11, 01:07 AM

Techsmart

2011-04-11, 01:08 AM

this one happened last week.
I'm playing a wizard focused on transmutation. I also dabble in enchantment, conjuration and necromancy, depending on the situation. We went into a dungeon with a couple consecutive combats with creatures that weren't worth using single-target spells, but worth more than a bat on the head with my -1 strength modifier, so I spent some spells to remove them. Boss fight came around, and all I had left were 2 Tasha's hideous laughter, a knock, and a sleep. We fought three golems...
I spent the entire combat lobbing alchemist's fire, rolling 1's and 2's for damage. Not entirely useless, but close enough to count.

Another one happened a couple weeks ago. We fought an elemental, and I rolled a 1 on initiative, which gives everyone else 2 go's before I even get to do anything. By the time I had a chance to do something, the golem was pretty much dead, and my one attack roll was a 3, which definitely missed.

I guess that's what I get for complaining about tanking for the party as a wizard.:smalleek:

TurtleKing

2011-04-11, 01:18 AM

Lets see the session that I was sitting idle most of the time was also the session my character did a u-turn and went from epic fail to McAwesome. The character I am talking about can withstand a non-serious blast from the God of Death....yea. The balancing part is I almost auto fail social situations. So at the beginning of the session my character ends up away from the party again. Most of the next five hours are spent with them instead of me with about two or three 10 minute brief scenes with my character. Since I could stay later than everyone esle we finished up with the focus on me. I then ended up making one of Baphomet's personal guard suiciding. After that gathered a Gnoll Ranger and some Ogres. On the way to a portal to leave the Abyss we ran into a Purple Wurm. We managed to defeat it (not kill), and train it to be our pet thanks to the Gnoll. The next session waiting an hour since not with the party. They have been getting their rears handed to them when a large portal opens up as 5 Ogres, a Gnoll Ranger, and my character riding the Purple Wurm to save the day. This was done in a low magic world as well.

Safety Sword

2011-04-11, 01:21 AM

I once played a Monk for 10 levels. I got better

It was the most frustrating experience I've ever had playing D&D. It was like being an NPC in most combats, couldn't hit a damned thing and when I did the damage was rather underwhelming.

Just_Ice

2011-04-11, 01:23 AM

Rogues against constructs, undead, etc. before 4E.

Even Macguyver rogues tend to be really awesome against human opponents, really terrible against everything else.

I've played characters where 14 is my highest stat and everyone else averages 15-20 on their relevant statistics, as well as having -1 str mod. Some fights, generally dungeon fights against non-humans, were rough and I roll badly.

Some fights, I would either solve completely non-violently (ask for food from azers, get "firecicles", bribe fire elementals, disguise entire group as black lizardmen long enough to escape along river) or be MVP (knock guy off raft by unfurling kite, smoke a guy and push him in the water, finish someone off and then jump on the last guy that was hanging on in the water while on a horse). I wouldn't have lasted a single round with any of these guys in regular combat.

It very much goes both ways. It pays to be the most creative person in your group, but staying versatile is always good. At the very least, you have a lot of hitpoints and can protect those lucky archers should anything go wrong.

Basically, big teej, you just being there is helpful because they can't just rush you. Still, get a crossbow or some throwing axes; I promise you'll feel less useless very quickly.

EDIT: Also, think outside the box. I've played Knight before, and I know what you're on about; not a single person will expect it when you lob that flail like a bola, or you chuck the lance like a javelin. Alternatively, grease the floor and _slide_ across. Use every trick sparingly; once if you can manage it. Just because you're an honourable Knight doesn't mean your method of _getting_ to the fight need be too honourable.

Also, don't be a prude when it comes to location. If it's serious (like a strict timer and pissing off the inmates screws everything), stay out of the inn, but otherwise it's going to be a good roleplaying experience and possibly a bar brawl. None of the other players will give you crap, most likely. It's about saying "yes" rather than "no", just like in improv.

Hope this helps.

LordBlades

2011-04-11, 01:31 AM

The first one is just due to bad tactics. You were a char with low mobility in a party loaded with long range DPS; it's only expected they should finish easy encounters fast (even if that meant before you got to do anything). I'm sure you got your time to shine in harder encounters (that weren't over in 1 round).

Second one is either bad encounter design or DM oversight. Deliberately designing an encounter that requires a player to either not RP his char properly or be left out. However, due to the sheer amount of effort one has to put in preparing a session, sometimes is easy to overlook stuff like this.

As for me, only time I felt useless was when I made a nice TWF sneak attacker (was before owning either MiC or Dungeonscape) and the DM failed to tell me that for the first 3 months of the campaign we'd be fighting almost exclusively undead; changed my char about 3 sessions in the campaign though.

The Shadowmind

2011-04-11, 01:32 AM

A pbp post game with one of the encounters was a randomly rolled flesh golem. My character was a 6th level gestalt warlock//hexblade, with a str score of 10, and using a rapier with no invocations or spells with SR:No. so the entire time if I was lucky and hit and rolled a 6 on the d6 could do 1 point of damage. The goelm has a average to 79 hp.

ffone

2011-04-11, 01:52 AM

I've noticed that rogues in all-undead campaigns seems to be common - in this thread, and from what I've heard elsewhere.

I've seen this happen to other people. I played an archer in a campaign which featured almost exclusively skeletons and zombies...who have DR /bludgeoning and /slashing. I spent months regretting not packing a sling or some throwing axes/hammers.

Obviously the party rogue was also annoyed by the undead. The party cleric was happy (esp as he rebuked them). The party cleric also had a skeleton sidekick - I forget the feats involved, but long story short, the skeleton overshadowed every actual HP: did more damage, had more HP, and of course the DR 5/bludgeoning is amazing at low levels.

Oh, and this was PBp with the DM never giving us battle maps or much spatial information, so my archer never knew when she was taking cover penalties or provoking AoOs by firing.

Curmudgeon

2011-04-11, 02:24 AM

I played a Rogue in a high-level Con game, and the whole thing was one prolonged battle against flying monsters with ridiculously high DR. The scenario started by the PCs Plane Shifting to a featureless plain, with immediate ranged magical attacks from above. I had no melee flight capability. (Potions of Gaseous Form and scrolls of Wind Walk to get around, yes.) They never came within the 30' sneak attack range of the ground, and without sneak attack bonus damage my arrows had almost no chance of getting through DR 20/-.

There was nothing to do except fight continuously. No puzzles, nowhere to go, nobody to communicate with, no traps, no treasure.

I managed to inflict 1 point of damage, once (with a lucky critical), in the whole 8 hours. :smallmad:

Aharon

2011-04-11, 03:41 AM

2nd ed 1st level Paladin with bad stats in group of 5th level characters. We used this idiotic "New characters come in at 1st level" rule for a while...

3.0 Psywarrior, shortly after Matrix. Took Up the Walls. Had nearly no PP. Was useless.

Vangor

2011-04-11, 06:00 AM

This is why I try to create characters with broader application than merely combat, and whatever shortcomings my character has I recognize, play to, and enjoy. For instance, my current bard is able to do effectively anything and enjoys babbling, but he has negatives to strength and constitution and the noncombat and frail flaws; he does not enjoy combat. He throws a song and when he needs to takes full defense until someone helps him. Despite campaigns being combat heavy at times, I never feel useless though I never land a single blow which would be a pitiful 1d4-2.

so we were trying to be rather inconspicious (something my character realizes he is not.) so the rest of the party could move in to the tavern essentially un-noticed... whereas I was.... well, extremely noticable....

More than one thing should be available in a campaign at a time. Meet with a contact, research, assist some local merchants, whatever, but more than one thing should be available. My party goes separate ways constantly because six people do not need to speak with the locals in a tavern about strange disappearances.

There was nothing to do except fight continuously. No puzzles, nowhere to go, nobody to communicate with, no traps, no treasure.

At a con of all things? Ugh. I mean, unless this was specifically mentioned as an unending combat one-off, I would've left fairly quickly with such an uninteresting beginning as plane shifting to a featureless area to be attacked for no reason. Usually con DMs have short but solid adventures and experience in making the campaign feel worthwhile despite time constraints.

Firechanter

2011-04-11, 06:22 AM

The worst experience of being useless I ever had was not in D&D but in Runequest. For the reason that I entered a campaign that had been running for about 2 years, and the GM made me roll a newbie character (there are no levels in RQ but you get the idea: 0XP).
The effect is pretty much the same as if you dumped a level 1 D&D character into a level 15 party. Need I explain more?
There wasn't even any fighting that session, but I'd seen enough when I realized that my key focus skills were a few points lower than the next character's worst side-skills (and by far not sufficient to reliably fill my niche).
I even talked about it with the GM afterwards. He simply didn't see my point. Suffice it to say, it was the first and last time I ever played with that group.

Curmudgeon

2011-04-11, 06:23 AM

At a con of all things? Ugh. I mean, unless this was specifically mentioned as an unending combat one-off, I would've left fairly quickly with such an uninteresting beginning as plane shifting to a featureless area to be attacked for no reason.
Oh, I should have left. But I asked the DM if that's all that was going to happen near the beginning, and he said that there would be new developments if I stayed. The new developments were different flying monsters with ridiculously high DR. :smallfurious:

CTrees

2011-04-11, 06:52 AM

(In Pathfinder) range-focused halfling Rogue5/Shadowdancer1. 20'x20' room made up of a 5' walkway around a pit filled with water and two enemies with blindsight, reach, damage resistance, immunity to sneak attack (yes, I know that RAW, very few enemies are immune to sneak damage in PF. I know this...), and grab. Design of the hallway leading in meant anywhere I could shoot from was still probably within reach of the monsters.

I moved thirty feet down the hallway and around a corner, rolled something over forty on my stealth check, and played that kinect dance game for the duration of the fight. This was after another overly long fight in another tiny room against multiple enemies with reach and damage resistance, seemingly designed to nullify every decent tactic available to my character. He was primarily a skillmonkey, okay?

EDIT: Oh, and I'll point out - out of combat? Character was great. Unfortunately the DM was extremely unfriendly to solutions to encounters planned as combat which weren't "use sword on monster." When I talked our way past the guards so the party could enter the city? The guards that had a colossal creature with them, and which were in front of a lot of witnesses, which would make it seem like our characters would do everything possible not to get into a fight? Yeah, he was pissed. I'm seriously suprised he even let me roll social skills to try a non-combat solution. And, of course, zero experience for that.

Jolly

2011-04-11, 10:03 AM

I don't know that "There was one encounter where my character didn't get to do anything" is the same as "My character was useless." You make a PC with no social skills, you're gonna suck in social situations. You make a skill monkey with no combat ability, you aren't as good in combat. You crit miss on a mounted charge, roll bad on the recovery, and spend the combat pinned under your horse (as has happened to a friend of mine) and you aren't useless, it's just a bad roll.

That being said, as DM you should try hard not to intentionally nerf your PC's. When they finally get to that last epic battle, throwing a force cage type spell on the melee so he gets to watch the entire battle and do nothing is a jerk move.

VarianArdell

2011-04-11, 10:16 AM

I played an Artificer, and one of the PCs had requested that I make him a few potions. My character was in good standing with the other guy, so I stayed in town while the rest of the group went out on (what was supposed to be) a reconnaissance mission. Fast forward 2 1/2 hours of combat, and the character who had requested the potions was being hauled away for being a vampire, and was executed the next day. I wasted 2 1/2 hours, and all I had to show for it were a few lousy potions of cure moderate (?) wounds.

big teej

2011-04-11, 10:38 AM

Basically, big teej, you just being there is helpful because they can't just rush you. Still, get a crossbow or some throwing axes; I promise you'll feel less useless very quickly.

EDIT: Also, think outside the box. I've played Knight before, and I know what you're on about; not a single person will expect it when you lob that flail like a bola, or you chuck the lance like a javelin. Alternatively, grease the floor and _slide_ across. Use every trick sparingly; once if you can manage it. Just because you're an honourable Knight doesn't mean your method of _getting_ to the fight need be too honourable.

Also, don't be a prude when it comes to location. If it's serious (like a strict timer and pissing off the inmates screws everything), stay out of the inn, but otherwise it's going to be a good roleplaying experience and possibly a bar brawl. None of the other players will give you crap, most likely. It's about saying "yes" rather than "no", just like in improv.

Hope this helps.

RE: ranged weapons.
my Knight's seem to have a chronic problem with having a dex of 10 :smallredface: thus, I rarely invest in something I'm going to suck at.

RE: creative.
I like these ideas, and am probably going to use them. the flail-bolas made me smirk (laughing is out, because I'm in class) no I'm not)

RE: the tavern.
in hindsight (wonderful thing that it is) yes there were a few things I could have done, like go into the ritzier upstairs area. (not that I could, my character had no way of knowing the upper level was spiffy enough for his tastes, heck, even I didn't know until someone mentioned it a week later)

but yes, I was worried about screwing up the party's plans with my prescence, so admiring the alley I remained.

The first one is just due to bad tactics. You were a char with low mobility in a party loaded with long range DPS; it's only expected they should finish easy encounters fast (even if that meant before you got to do anything). I'm sure you got your time to shine in harder encounters (that weren't over in 1 round).

Second one is either bad encounter design or DM oversight. Deliberately designing an encounter that requires a player to either not RP his char properly or be left out. However, due to the sheer amount of effort one has to put in preparing a session, sometimes is easy to overlook stuff like this.

.

RE: 1 round combat.
thankfully, the campaign got transplanted 3 levels later to start the temple of elemental evil, the party composition changed greatly (I was the only person to carry over their original character) and I became the party melee person.
especially in the fight with the dragon.

RE: encounter design/DM oversight.
yea, he should probably have thrown me something aside from an occaisional "meanwhile, out in the alley" but he's new, so I'm not gonna bug him for it.

I managed to inflict 1 point of damage, once (with a lucky critical), in the whole 8 hours. :smallmad:

you sir.... are far more patient than I.

This is why I try to create characters with broader application than merely combat, and whatever shortcomings my character has I recognize, play to, and enjoy.

More than one thing should be available in a campaign at a time. Meet with a contact, research, assist some local merchants, whatever, but more than one thing should be available. My party goes separate ways constantly because six people do not need to speak with the locals in a tavern about strange disappearances.

RE: shortcomings.

its more a case of me misunderstanding the roleplay/combat mix than anything else, I expected a mostly combat oriented campiagn, with the occaisional role play bit with some nobles roughly on par with my character in rank.

what I got was a HEAVY roleplay campaign where we interact with royalty
it's simply a bit outside what I had in mind for the character, and I've yet to manage to get back into the character's head.

RE: more than one thing going on at a time.
again, like I said, he's new, I'm not going to try and make him DM for a split party.

....
what does RE: mean? :smallredface:

MarkusWolfe

2011-04-11, 10:38 AM

You guys do know that there's a special anti-undead prestige class for rogues, right? Skullclan Hunter, from Miniatures Handbook?

Etrivar

2011-04-11, 11:05 AM

I am playing a Sorcerer/Spellthief/Daggerspell Mage/Invisible Blade. He is spectacularly versatile; his bluff (for feinting) and sneak attack meant that even in an AMF or against high SR creatures, he can deal decent damage, and he has magic to use against anything immune to SA's (and Gods help anything that is immune to neither). But one final showdown was against a BBEG litch and his undead minions, inside an AMF. My character was completely nerfed. down to 6 attacks for 1d4+1 apiece per round :smallfrown:

super dark33

2011-04-11, 11:12 AM

It happens to evryone:level 1 {insert class name here}, orc with an axe brings you to -1, the rest party members kill the orcs.
you did nothing and dont like it

Telonius

2011-04-11, 11:20 AM

Vow of Poverty Monk/Tattooed Monk, levels 1-20. This happened right after Book of Exalted Deeds was published; we wanted to see how it would play, and were just starting Shackled City.

The answer: About as well as this forum would lead you to expect it to play.

The "Flurry of Misses" trope was very true for poor Mordechai. He rarely hit; when he did, he didn't hit hard. Stunning Fist is forever dead to me, since not once in 20 levels did I connect with one. (And not for lack of trying - it got to be an in-joke that by declaring a Stunning Fist attack I was guaranteeing a miss). He had trouble with flying enemies. He was behind the entire rest of the group in terms of power level. His Dwarf Fighter cohort out-damaged him. While the rest of the group was getting 50+ damage per round, I was lucky to connect for 10.

The combat uselessness was not due to poor campaign design, nor poor encounter design, nor spells making me redundant. It was totally, flat-out 100% due to the class and feat combination being inadequately powerful compared to the other players and monsters of the "same" level. I'd eyeball it as LA negative 2.

That's not to say he was totally useless. He did have some good points. He never died. His battlefield mobility let him be the Rogue's best friend and flanking buddy. High defense and good mobility let him basically tackle and isolate single monsters from the fray, allowing the rest of the party to concentrate fire on other foes. Fluff-wise, he was really the team's leader (but that's completely due to roleplaying, and has nothing to do with game mechanics - I could have been playing a Commoner/Samurai/Truenamer and gotten the same result there). And in the final fight with the campaign's BBEG, he actually managed to disarm him of his super-weapon and take off running. Much hilarity when the BBEG spent two rounds running after him to try to retrieve it before giving up and blasting.

Cartigan

2011-04-11, 11:30 AM

You guys do know that there's a special anti-undead prestige class for rogues, right? Skullclan Hunter, from Miniatures Handbook?

Real optimizers just shill out for the magic items that let you sneak attack everything immune to sneak attack anyway.

Dwarven Knight in a party with a Rogue/ToB class, a Sorcerer/Crusader/Druid/Abjurant Champion/Arcane Heirophant, Dragonfire Adept. The rest of the party didn't matter because they quit by the time it was important - at which point, I was a frontline Fighter without enough armor to avoid hits, not enough HP (despite having close to 200) to take hits, and I couldn't hit anything. I think I ended up doing more damage with my bow over the lifetime of the character before it was killed and I rolled a Cleric (after which the DM immediately effectively ended the campaign by giving a character Disjunction that otherwise wouldn't have had it and made us all crunchy snacks for a Dracolich and some other high-powered undead)

Sacrieur

2011-04-11, 11:59 AM

but to be honest, if a player's character is DESIGNED for combat (almost exclusively) I think there should be at least one token battle, even if it was just some drunks who wanted to start crap...

Your character was designed for combat, but it sucks at combat. Knights are tier 5, and can feel like one-trick ponies or completely worthless with parties that have tier 3s or above. Even tier 4s can outshine you.

Do not think for a minute that just because your class is in an official WotC book makes it decent or well-designed. Actually it is quite to the contrary, and most official classes perform just as terribly yours does.

Safety Sword

2011-04-11, 06:02 PM

dspeyer

2011-04-11, 08:20 PM

big teej

2011-04-11, 08:30 PM

I had the flip-side once. I DMed a one-shot where the player with a cleric didn't know what most of his spell list did. I suggested he should skim them, and then I suggested that he switch to a different class. He refused. Played as an inferior warrior. He didn't complain, but I was frustrated that he was so useless.

I have a chronic player like this....
thus far
ranger, bard, cleric.... all played exactly the same way.

as a barbarian.
doesn't remember class features, doesn't remember class 'purpose'

runs in, and hits things.
success debatable.

Doughnut Master

2011-04-11, 10:10 PM

Ambushed in the forest.

Round one.
Hit in chest by arrow. Run into the woods to assist an NPC being attacked by a Gnoll. Attack and miss.

Round 2.
Attacked by gnoll, but dodge the blow.
DECISIVE STRIKE!....natural 1. Accidentally trip self and fall down.

Round 3.
Stand up. All of the gnolls have been killed. Bugbear leader is fleeing. Decide to pursue. Roll a constitution check to keep pace...natural one. Asthma attack.

In summation, my greatest contribution to the fight was getting shot. Possibly one of the funniest battles I'd been in.

erikun

2011-04-11, 11:10 PM

1st-level dwarven fighter. I designed him as a shield basher, and made sure that the DM was okay with such a character in the game. Everything was alright, I gave him shield spikes and a locked gauntlet, and started the game.

First thing of the session? Getting out of the wagon into town required a jump check. A untrained dwarf in heavy armor is not going to make a very impressive roll. One failure later, he was on the ground trying to shake off some subdual damage.

A short while later, we were off to the catacombs. Winning initiative first, he took a swing with his shield... and rolled a natural 1. DM said he dropped his shield. I pointed out that he was holding it with both hands, that it was a shield, and that it was strapped to my hand with a locked gauntlet to boot. DM decided that I was prone instead.

On the opponents' turn, three zombies took a swing at me. All three missed, but provoked three fortitude saves. Contracted filth fever - twice.

I did not bother to come back for a second session.

Jack Zander

2011-04-11, 11:16 PM

double fail

I really hate it when DM's use critical fumbles. It would probably be a dealbreaker for me too. I wouldn't have come back.

TroubleBrewing

2011-04-11, 11:52 PM

Sacrieur

2011-04-12, 12:04 AM

I made a character for a 1st level D&D game with a group I didn't know. I'd met one of the other guys in the party in an English class, and he was my go-between for the DM.

He told me the party needed some kind of full caster, but didn't specify farther. I rolled up a Dread Necromancer, thinking I'd go for something low-optimization friendly, but not useless if the party turns out to be full of Batman and CoDzillas.

I show up for the first session as this undead-flavored Necromancer, and what does the party consist of?

2 paladins, a cleric of Hieroneous, and a Barbarian that the DM allowed to be Lawful Good, also a worshiper of the big H.

Before I could say "Wait, I'm TN!" they killed me.

They're lawful good, they're not allowed to kill you without you doing something against the law or something evil.

I hope the DM penalized them up the ass for killing you, I would.

TroubleBrewing

2011-04-12, 12:05 AM

You'd hope so, but no. The GM was actually 100% behind their initiative. When asked to explain why, he replied simply "Undead are evil."

Well, ipso facto columbo, I guess.

Sacrieur

2011-04-12, 12:08 AM

You'd hope so, but no. The GM was actually 100% behind their initiative. When asked to explain why, he replied simply "Undead are evil."

Well, ipso facto columbo, I guess.

Your DM is some nutjob =/. I feel for you man, I really do.

Element Zero

2011-04-12, 12:29 AM

I made a character for a 1st level D&D game with a group I didn't know. I'd met one of the other guys in the party in an English class, and he was my go-between for the DM.

He told me the party needed some kind of full caster, but didn't specify farther. I rolled up a Dread Necromancer, thinking I'd go for something low-optimization friendly, but not useless if the party turns out to be full of Batman and CoDzillas.

I show up for the first session as this undead-flavored Necromancer, and what does the party consist of?

2 paladins, a cleric of Hieroneous, and a Barbarian that the DM allowed to be Lawful Good, also a worshiper of the big H.

Before I could say "Wait, I'm TN!" they killed me.

I had a near miss with a similar situation...luckily I avoided it early by asking what everyone was playing before I rolled my character...I was going for LN necromancer in a party containing a Paladin and an Exalted Cleric of Pelor...

Instead, I roll up a telepath...only to find out partway through the game that it's an undead-heavy campaign using Atropus from Elder Evils..y'know, the giant MOON that makes undead even more powerful. Almost nothing but mind-affecting abilities against an army of undead...fun fun fun.

ffone

2011-04-12, 01:21 AM

It's interesting how many of the anecdotes in this thread involve 'critical fumble' houserules.

More evidence they're a bad idea...

big teej

2011-04-12, 01:26 AM

It's interesting how many of the anecdotes in this thread involve 'critical fumble' houserules.

More evidence they're a bad idea...

my group has fun with them.:smalltongue:

Canarr

2011-04-12, 04:06 AM

Kind of did that to a player once as GM, although he helped...

He's the boyfriend of one of our semi-regular players, and wanted to get in on the game - a city-based, kinda-rogueish group trying to work their way up in one of the local Thieves' Guilds. He wanted to go the enforcer-route and made a character with high stats in Str, Con and Cha - with Dex as the dump stat. Couple of Ftr levels, then Blackguard. Oh, yes: and a full plate armor.

Now, at that time, the group was fighting a rival Guild who'd allied with a Death Priest (local god of death and undead) and who had thus gotten the aid of Ghouls and Zombies. Of course, the priest turned on his allies in the end, and had his creatures try to kill all the living in the climactic end battle, but that's another story.

During the very first gaming session where our new guy was playing, the PCs chased a couple of Ghouls into the sewer and managed to corner them at an intersection - which was slightly lower than the tunnel they came from. I ruled everybody had to make a Balance check at DC 14 (10 for being narrow, +2 each for sloped and lightly slippery) and of course the Blackguard failed. Abysmally - no ranks, no Dex mod, and ACP from the full plate. He fell, slipped under... uhm... water, and could not get back up (Balance check at DC 10). The other players figured that, with the ludicrously long drowning times, they didn't have to hurry getting him back up, and proceeded to kill the Ghouls first.

Sacrieur

2011-04-12, 04:10 AM

bokodasu

2011-04-12, 10:07 AM

My last uselessness was built right into D&D. I knew it was going to be a rp-heavy campaign, but there would be some fighting, and everyone else was picking sneaks or faces, so I thought I'd fill in a support role as a psiwar. So every three weeks, I'd get to roll a die or two, and it would be a 4 or a 2 or whatever, and then have nothing to do until next week. While it would have been a fun character in combat, out of combat she had no useful class skills - seriously, who thought that people who stay alive through keen observation of their opponents and the battlefield should lack spot and listen? And not know anything about anything? I tried using aid another, but half the time I'd fail anyway, and the other half would be "ok, so you add 2 to her roll of 38, so, um, yeah."

So I sent her packing and rolled up a thrallherd, who could take on all the encounters (both combat and non-) solo if she wanted to. Which is also boring, but we're using SRD-only, so all the fun in-between classes (beguiler would be perfect for this campaign) are out.

But hey, learning experience - I learned I'd rather have to hold back and not utterly destroy everything with my pinky finger in the spirit of team play than sit around and watch everyone else play because I don't have any other choices.

Cartigan

2011-04-12, 10:24 AM

My last uselessness was built right into D&D. I knew it was going to be a rp-heavy campaign, but there would be some fighting, and everyone else was picking sneaks or faces, so I thought I'd fill in a support role as a psiwar. So every three weeks, I'd get to roll a die or two, and it would be a 4 or a 2 or whatever, and then have nothing to do until next week. While it would have been a fun character in combat, out of combat she had no useful class skills - seriously, who thought that people who stay alive through keen observation of their opponents and the battlefield should lack spot and listen? And not know anything about anything? I tried using aid another, but half the time I'd fail anyway, and the other half would be "ok, so you add 2 to her roll of 38, so, um, yeah."
This (figuratively) is my 4e campaign. The rest of the group all know each other and run an Exalted game. The 4e game the next day is mostly about them hanging out and making Exalted in jokes from the previous day and doing RPing in 4e. My Fighter largely stands around like a twit except when we finally find something that I am allowed to beat up.

I like the combat, I hate the tedious non-combat stuff where I have no skills - I can't sneak, don't have any worthwhile knowledges, and can't use any face skills. Those things usually last 3/4 of the session - by which point if we have gotten to combat, we can't do it because combat in 4e lasts forEVER and by the next game we manage to mitigate the combat so I just sit on my laptop and play games.

erikun

2011-04-12, 01:54 PM

It's interesting how many of the anecdotes in this thread involve 'critical fumble' houserules.

More evidence they're a bad idea...
They're fine as long as everyone is aware of them. It's when DMs surprise people with them that they become an issue. Although in my case, it was more getting disease for being drooled on and taking damage from just walking around town.

Of course, a critical fumble at the key time can make your character quite useless. It depends on how much the group likes that kind of thing.

Firechanter

2011-04-12, 03:11 PM

Critical Fumbles in D&D are a stupid idea whether you are aware of them or not. For one thing, it would be really stupid to play a TWFer in such a game -- twice the number of attacks, twice the chance to fumble. Anyway, where's the logic in a level 20 Ranger being seven times as susceptible to hurting himself than a level 1 Anything?
Even if you have "just" 4 attacks per round, your chance to blunder in ONE ingame minute would be 87%, in words, EIGHTY-SEVEN PER CENT! That's just stupid, stupid, stupid; words fail me to describe how stupid Critical Fumble rules are in a language that's fit for children and the elderly to read.

(P.S.: fwiw, for the level 16+ TWF character, the fumble chance is >98% per minute.)

Etrivar

2011-04-12, 03:22 PM

Might I direct all this to here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10763959#post10763959)

Karoht

2011-04-12, 03:49 PM

My goal every session I play is to be as useful as possible. Maybe not inflict the most damage or kill the most mooks, but to be extremely useful. My problem is, I tend to have to tone it down, or I make other characters feel less useful. I've actually worked this into some characters, and will even bluff to convince others that one of my good ideas was actually thought up by someone else.

I played a Swashbuckler/Duelist once. Fun combo, not the most effective though, or at least I certainly didn't stat/spec to the character's optimum potential. But she was incredibly fragile, while having a respectible damage output if she remained standing for longer than 1 or 2 rounds. That time, I felt useless. I also have extremely poor luck with dice.

So I came up with a rule. Minimize the times I have to roll dice against something else, and minimize the times I have something else rolling dice against me. The character had to use her mobility and utilize terrain/cover to her benefit, get in, deal damage, get out. This actually helped the character feel more Swashbuckly. I was Errol Flynn with a dash of Ninja. Then, years later, I discovered that I could have got her the feat Pounce, and I felt like a complete and utter fool. I had been doing it the hard way for a two year session. Pounce would have made EVERYTHING I was doing signifigantly easier.

TroubleBrewing

2011-04-12, 04:12 PM

Then, years later, I discovered that I could have got her the feat Pounce, and I felt like a complete and utter fool.

Good lord, your DM was letting people take Pounce as a FEAT?!

Jealous. Very, very jealous.

Gnaeus

2011-04-12, 04:34 PM

Element Zero

2011-04-12, 07:18 PM

Critical Fumbles in D&D are a stupid idea whether you are aware of them or not. For one thing, it would be really stupid to play a TWFer in such a game -- twice the number of attacks, twice the chance to fumble. Anyway, where's the logic in a level 20 Ranger being seven times as susceptible to hurting himself than a level 1 Anything?
Even if you have "just" 4 attacks per round, your chance to blunder in ONE ingame minute would be 87%, in words, EIGHTY-SEVEN PER CENT!

I agree, though probably not on as extreme a level as you do. I don't know if it's an 'official' rule, or just something my friends and I do, but when we roll a 1 in combat it a) provokes an attack of opportunity, and b) ends the attack chain. That's all we have.

Jack Zander

2011-04-12, 07:26 PM

I agree, though probably not on as extreme a level as you do. I don't know if it's an 'official' rule, or just something my friends and I do, but when we roll a 1 in combat it a) provokes an attack of opportunity, and b) ends the attack chain. That's all we have.

Wow, that's even worse than dealing damage to yourself. Words cannot describe how I feel about that rule.

byaku rai

2011-04-12, 08:03 PM

2 scenarios, the first is more general, the second specific to tonight.

So I played a tank character in a group with three high-level casters (druid, warlock, and sorcerer). See the problem already? My job was divided fairly evenly between the following:

1. Move in alongside the Dire Bear druid to do what I could to soften people up.

2. Stand around idly while Ranger, warlock, and sorcerer blow baddies to hell.

3. clean up survivors.

Maybe, while I was at it, and if the battle lasted long enough, I could run interference to prevent the squishies from being gunned (bowed?) down. otherwise, that was it for my contribution.

Tonight, we were up against a lich. I shredded his githyanki minions (closed-in space so I could actually get close enough to fight without worrying about getting fireballed or anything), then moved near the creature itself. Tasha's Hideous Laughter. I rolled a 13 total on my save. I spent the rest of the encounter literally ROFLing while the rest of the party got slaughtered.

Greenish

2011-04-12, 08:09 PM

Another one happened a couple weeks ago. We fought an elemental, and I rolled a 1 on initiative, which gives everyone else 2 go's before I even get to do anything. By the time I had a chance to do something, the golem was pretty much dead, and my one attack roll was a 3, which definitely missed.Man, whatever game you were playing seems to have really screwy initiative system.

Your character was designed for combat, but it sucks at combat. Knights are tier 5, and can feel like one-trick ponies or completely worthless with parties that have tier 3s or above. Even tier 4s can outshine you.

Do not think for a minute that just because your class is in an official WotC book makes it decent or well-designed. Actually it is quite to the contrary, and most official classes perform just as terribly yours does.Meh, knight is actually quite okay in less optimized parties. The challenge is, after all, one of the few ways to 'tank' in D&D. Combo with reach & tripping and Bulwark of Defense.

Critical Fumbles in D&D are a stupid idea whether you are aware of them or not.I, too, absolutely detest them.

Element Zero

2011-04-12, 08:22 PM

Wow, that's even worse than dealing damage to yourself. Words cannot describe how I feel about that rule.

If you don't have some negative effect to the dreaded critical 1, in addition to an automatic miss, then you had might as well eliminate the vaunted critical damage...A 5% chance of double, triple, possibly even quadruple damage...in exchange for a 5% chance of getting an attack of opportunity...I'll take those chances.

true_shinken

2011-04-12, 08:23 PM

Real optimizers just shill out for the magic items that let you sneak attack everything immune to sneak attack anyway.

Nah, magic items don't cover everything.
What you want is lightbringer's penetrating strike.

Tvtyrant

2011-04-13, 12:35 AM

GoodbyeSoberDay

2011-04-13, 01:35 AM

Almost all of my experiences with uselessness are due to DM fiat. In my first ever session of D&D I was a goblin prisoner, who during the first fight of the session was bound and gagged. Didn't matter much, as the DM basically did a RFED with a high level wizard, so everyone was useless.

I once played in a 4e campaign where my wizard cast sleep basically once per session. I think one minion actually fell asleep. Gee, I wonder if it's more than bad luck. That said, he was pretty useful on the other turns. Automatic damage against homebrew solos with ludicrously high defenses is very useful.

I've played in a 3.5 session where the enemies weren't immune to my save or X spells (was careful to grab a variety), but they might as well have been. Bosses and mooks alike passed every save. Gee, I wonder if it's more than bad luck. Didn't play with that DM again.

I've also played in multiple sessions involving DMPCs which overshadow the rest of the party in multiple systems, if that counts as feeling useless.

Firechanter

2011-04-13, 02:44 AM

I don't know if it's an 'official' rule, or just something my friends and I do, but when we roll a 1 in combat it a) provokes an attack of opportunity, and b) ends the attack chain. That's all we have.

The official rule in D&D is: you miss. That's it.
You don't provoke, you don't lose your iteratives, you don't drop or break your weapon, you don't hurt yourself, you don't strike an ally, you don't fall prone or whatever other atrocities certain DMs still like to inflict on their players. You just miss even if your Attack bonus alone would be enough to hit the AC.

Rei_Jin

2011-04-13, 05:45 AM

I play with a fun, if very "interesting" group, who seem to enjoy Tier 3 and 4 classes. I played a Wild Elf Spirit Shaman in our last game, and at many times made the choice to be useless, rather than flat out win the encounter, because all they wanted to do was beat up mooks.

As an example, I turned up to a game 2 hours late. They had spent that 2 hours working through the horde of badguys, of which they had killed maybe 25%. I cast one spell, and killed the rest off, which left them furious that I would take away their fun. Of course, when I do something less than optimal, they make fun of me for it, but hey, they're friends and as long as we're all enjoying ourselves, it doesn't bother me.

Our party had in it;
- Swashbuckler/Duellist
- Pure class Monk
- Warlock/Beguiler/Eldritch Theurge
- Spirit Shaman/Mystic Wanderer (Me!)

Now we've started a new game, and I made the choice to play something weak this time... and the choices they've made have me even more worried.

New party is
- Ranger who uses gauntlets for Dual Wielding
- Ninja who uses alchemy
- Barbarian who likes to set himself on fire
- Human Monk (Me!)

We play with the "Critical Fumble" rules, but the way we play it, is that if you roll a 1, you then have to roll again. If your second roll would hit your enemies AC, you don't drop your weapon. It's in there simply for amusement, and is why the Ranger is using gauntlets... the last game, he was the duelist and he rolled an inordinate amount of 1s.

Because I'm a good optimiser, my monk is the strongest member of the party, and is likely to continue shining through. So far, he has 4 levels of monk and I have some shenanigans planned with the DM to have him useful at the higher levels (we normally go to about level 25). Already he's working out nicely, because the DM allows me to use ACF (Decisive Strike) and he lets Decisive Strike be used where-ever I could use a normal attack (on a charge, as a Standard Action, Full attack action, whatever) which means that I have a monk who is highly mobile and does great damage.

Do I foresee situations where he will feel useless? Probably. It's a freaking monk. Does it worry me? No, because the rest of the party is likely to be even more useless.

Cartigan

2011-04-13, 08:28 AM

I mostly agree, however your much more likely to hit an enemies artery then to suddenly bury your sword in a wall or something.
You're really not.

Gnaeus

2011-04-13, 09:21 AM

We play with the "Critical Fumble" rules, but the way we play it, is that if you roll a 1, you then have to roll again. If your second roll would hit your enemies AC, you don't drop your weapon. It's in there simply for amusement, and is why the Ranger is using gauntlets... the last game, he was the duelist and he rolled an inordinate amount of 1s.

That is essentially the rule that we use, with an added rule that you can only fumble on your first attack of any round, so that the weapons master with 8 attacks per round doesn't fumble more than the wizard rolling a ranged touch attack.

Greenish

2011-04-13, 09:24 AM

That is essentially the rule that we use, with an added rule that you can only fumble on your first attack of any round, so that the weapons master with 8 attacks per round doesn't fumble more than the wizard rolling a ranged touch attack.Does a wizard fumbling drop her head? Or just a finger?

Gnaeus

2011-04-13, 09:31 AM

DM call. He could shoot an ally in melee if he is using a ranged touch. Drop a component pouch. Maybe trip. Even injure himself with his magic. Of course, since he has to confirm his critical failure (and he is usually aiming at touch AC), it doesn't happen too often.

big teej

2011-04-13, 10:15 AM

if you're using the spell-roll variant you could just have the spell fizzle

Tael

2011-04-13, 10:28 AM

I tend to rarely feel useless, mostly because I optimize the **** out my characters.

My players have only really complained about being useless twice, once when one of them had just atrocious rolls (Exalted, player had a pool of 19 dice, which should average to 10 successes, but only got 2-5 successes on like 6 rolls)
The other was unfortunate case of unfortunate enemy design. Character didn't have any methods of meaningfully hurting the enemy, and was mostly ignored by it (Spirits can do that sometimes).

Totally Guy

2011-04-13, 10:37 AM

I remember playing Fochlucan Lyrist. It was a level 15 two shot and my ultimate magus got killed off in the first of the 2 sessions. The character brought nothing to the table that the other characters didn't already have.

But the session was pretty bad for other reasons.

The session started with a fight between the cleric and the rogue. The DM wanted the rogue to win. But the cleric had prepared all the right things. And so the fiat came in thick and fast to sabotage the cleric player.

And I hadn't even appeared yet. And when I did I felt really uncomfortable having to pick who to side with... It made no sense.

Jack Zander

2011-04-13, 10:40 AM

If you don't have some negative effect to the dreaded critical 1, in addition to an automatic miss, then you had might as well eliminate the vaunted critical damage...A 5% chance of double, triple, possibly even quadruple damage...in exchange for a 5% chance of getting an attack of opportunity...I'll take those chances.

The problem here though is that the negative consequences vastly outweighed the positive benefits. One a critical success a character essentially gains +1 attack for the round. In the post I quoted, if a character fumbles on the first attack of a full attack, not only do they lose that attack, but they get an attack on them AND lose all of their other attack that round. How is that fair?

Element Zero

2011-04-13, 12:04 PM

The problem here though is that the negative consequences vastly outweighed the positive benefits. One a critical success a character essentially gains +1 attack for the round. In the post I quoted, if a character fumbles on the first attack of a full attack, not only do they lose that attack, but they get an attack on them AND lose all of their other attack that round. How is that fair?

It's not...that's the thing. I know it's only a game, but real combat -isnt' fair-...bad stuff happens. Mistakes are made, people get hurt for it.

Also, the rule goes both ways...it's not only players that have to deal with it, but NPCs. A 5% chance to attack, on my opponents turn, and stop them from hurting me? Yeah...I'm in favor.

Jack Zander

2011-04-13, 01:17 PM

It's not...that's the thing. I know it's only a game, but real combat -isnt' fair-...bad stuff happens. Mistakes are made, people get hurt for it.

Also, the rule goes both ways...it's not only players that have to deal with it, but NPCs. A 5% chance to attack, on my opponents turn, and stop them from hurting me? Yeah...I'm in favor.

1) If you want a real combat simulator, you shouldn't be playing DnD and you shouldn't be implementing a rule where you have a 5% chance of stabbing yourself with your own sword. Even unskilled everyday people can swing a pointy thing without hurting themselves in the process.

2) With this system, a high level character with multiple attacks per round ends up provoking more attacks of opportunity per minute of combat than a level 1 commoner. If higher level characters are more skilled in combat, then why are they fumbling more often?

3) This rule only screws over melee characters, which have it bad enough already. Finally, just when your fighter got into a position where he can 5' step and then full attack, he rolls a 1 and fumbles, provoking an attack of opportunity and losing all his other attacks for the round. Meanwhile the wizard is maniacally casting save or suck/lose spells everywhere, avoiding rolling any d20s and forcing his opponents to suffer the dreaded effects of the critical failure instead.

Also, you are saying you are in favor of a system with a drawback but no benefit aside from what is already RAW. Why?

Gavinfoxx

2011-04-13, 01:21 PM

If you want a melee combat simulator, go play The Riddle of Steel. If you want a melee combat simulator on a 3.5 chassis, go play Codex Martialis combined with E6 and get rid of supernatural classes, using the options in Codex Martialis to dramatically increase interesting options for Fighters....

Element Zero

2011-04-13, 01:43 PM

1) If you want a real combat simulator, you shouldn't be playing DnD and you shouldn't be implementing a rule where you have a 5% chance of stabbing yourself with your own sword. Even unskilled everyday people can swing a pointy thing without hurting themselves in the process.

2) With this system, a high level character with multiple attacks per round ends up provoking more attacks of opportunity per minute of combat than a level 1 commoner. If higher level characters are more skilled in combat, then why are they fumbling more often?

3) This rule only screws over melee characters, which have it bad enough already. Finally, just when your fighter got into a position where he can 5' step and then full attack, he rolls a 1 and fumbles, provoking an attack of opportunity and losing all his other attacks for the round. Meanwhile the wizard is maniacally casting save or suck/lose spells everywhere, avoiding rolling any d20s and forcing his opponents to suffer the dreaded effects of the critical failure instead.

Also, you are saying you are in favor of a system with a drawback but no benefit aside from what is already RAW. Why?

Every one of your points is valid, and I accept that...but it doesn't change my mind. It's worked for me and mine for years with no complaints. I guess that's the reason I like it...it's what I know. It would just feel...weird to change it now.

nedz

2011-04-13, 02:24 PM

Fumbles:
I play in one group who don't like them, and run a game for another group who love them.
They only happen if you roll a '1' and then fail to hit AC20, otherwise its just a miss. Even then the actual AC you hit generates a result from a table which is quite mild for results in the AC15-19 range. This means that high level characters rarely have to worry about them.
At the other end of the scale we also run open-ended criticals.

It fits the D20 paradym where:
If an event has a probability of 1:1,000,000 or 1:1,000 or 1:100 then that transaltes into a flat 5% chance of occuring.

big teej

2011-04-13, 06:00 PM

hey guys, this is a thread about feeling useless in the party. regardless of reason or fairness.

not critical fumbles.

that's its own topic.....

heck, I even generated a rather extensive thread about it a while back. (granted, the fumble debate was off topic there too.....)

Jack Zander

2011-04-13, 09:40 PM

Well critical fumbles make characters useless, but I think we've already said as much as we can on that matter anyway.

Provengreil

2011-04-13, 10:23 PM

If you don't have some negative effect to the dreaded critical 1, in addition to an automatic miss, then you had might as well eliminate the vaunted critical damage...A 5% chance of double, triple, possibly even quadruple damage...in exchange for a 5% chance of getting an attack of opportunity...I'll take those chances.

we had our own rule about "confirming" critical failures. you roll your attack, get the 1. you then roll again, as though confirming a critical hit; if you miss the monster, something bad happens, we had a small table. damage, weapon drop, etc.

the reason for this is that you can go outside and whack a tree with a bat twenty times, and if you don't hurt yourself, you're better than a trained warrior under the rules that don't require confirmations. it also makes characters with good attack rolls even less likely to critically fail than those who wouldn't be so used to melee combat.

Cog

2011-04-13, 10:30 PM

My very first character was a gnome Ranger (chosen solely for the pun; alas, he never got his riding dog, to be named Silver). This was an entirely unoptimized group of first-timers, but there were about nine players, so we tended to solve things anyway through means of Zerg rush tactics. Unfortunately, we tended to have nice big battle maps... and while there were two halflings as well, one was a wizard and so didn't need to get close, while the other was a monk. Even the reach of his spiked chain didn't get him into combat fast enough unless he started in range, so there was a lot of time spent getting to the fight just as the battle was moving on to the next area.

big teej

2011-04-13, 10:41 PM

the reason for this is that you can go outside and whack a tree with a bat twenty times, and if you don't hurt yourself, you're better than a trained warrior under the rules that don't require confirmations. it also makes characters with good attack rolls even less likely to critically fail than those who wouldn't be so used to melee combat.

my pedantism requires me to respond, but after this I'm leaving it behind.

a bat would be an improvised weapon, you're liable to roll a 1 and damage the weapon whacking that tree.

Canarr

2011-04-14, 09:04 AM

Also, the rule goes both ways...it's not only players that have to deal with it, but NPCs. A 5% chance to attack, on my opponents turn, and stop them from hurting me? Yeah...I'm in favor.

In theory, yes. But in reality, any one PC will make a lot more attacks than any one NPC - since the PCs are normally present in every battle, while the NPCs are usually dead after their first. So, any increase in random effects will benefit or penalize a PC more than the NPCs.

As for that, we use a modified fumble rule: you roll a '1' on an attack, you make a Dex check against DC 10. You make it, no sweat (though the attack is still a miss). You fail it, there's a negative effect, depending on the difference between your roll and the DC. You never hurt yourself, but you may lose an attack, gain a negative modifier to your AC or attack roll until your next round, drop your weapon, or something along these lines.

big teej

2011-04-14, 09:17 AM

In theory, yes. But in reality, any one PC will make a lot more attacks than any one NPC - since the PCs are normally present in every battle, while the NPCs are usually dead after their first. So, any increase in random effects will benefit or penalize a PC more than the NPCs.
.

I see this used as a counter-argument all the time...

but the more I think about it, the more I think it doesn't apply.

yes, the PC's will make more attacks than any ONE npc...

but think about it, how many enemies will they face over the course of their career?

the averages will come out to be the same I think. the nature of dice would indicate such a pattern.

so sure, maybe this goblin makes it through combat (well, until he's slain) without rolling a 1
but what about his 20 buddies who are in the fight with him?

or his 300 kinsmen the adventureres will smite before they hit level 10?

Firechanter

2011-04-14, 09:21 AM

My very first character was a gnome Ranger (chosen solely for the pun

What pun?
[useless extra filler blurb because the forum script doesn't allow me to ask a simple short question without some spam on the side]

Cog

2011-04-14, 09:37 AM

What pun?
[useless extra filler blurb because the forum script doesn't allow me to ask a simple short question without some spam on the side]
Gnome Ranger / Lone Ranger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Ranger) (and thus the name for his riding dog).

Particle_Man

2011-04-14, 09:59 AM

I took a Warlock and felt slightly useless in a battle vs. a ton of kobolds (no serious mass damage capabilities).

Right now I feel useless with my Treant Crusader, but that is because it is part of a large war scenario and it is taking so long for the two sides to get near each other (lots of artillery shelling). I will feel better once I am in the thick of things, I am sure. :)

Oh, and I hate fumbles. Particularly since my DM has fumbles on skill rolls, saves and attack rolls. I like crits because they make me feel good, but I could live without them (autohit is fine). I hate fumbles because they make me feel bad, and they make my hero turn out to be a schmuck instead of a hero. I don't care how NPCs feel, so the "everyone else gets it too" thing doesn't work on my as a counter-argument.

Canarr

2011-04-14, 10:20 AM

I see this used as a counter-argument all the time...

but the more I think about it, the more I think it doesn't apply.

yes, the PC's will make more attacks than any ONE npc...

but think about it, how many enemies will they face over the course of their career?

the averages will come out to be the same I think. the nature of dice would indicate such a pattern.

I'm not convinced.

Example: one of the games I DM is around lvl 8 now. The fighter-types in the party are one ranger and one fighter/scout. The ranger is a melee build, the scout went the Improved Trip route. Thus, with a full attack, they'll make four attacks each per round - the ranger due to Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, the scout gets two regular touch attacks to trip, and then two more attacks against the poor trippee on the way down.

With a 5% miss chance per attack, each of them will fumble every fifth round of combat on average. Considering the length of our combats, that's two or three fumbles per PC per combat (10-15 rounds). I'm not good enough at statistics to find out how high the chance is that the fumble will be at the beginning of the attacks for the round, so I couldn't tell you the average number of attacks the PCs will lose according to your system - I just know I wouldn't like it.

Fact is: the GM can always get more mooks. If I find the encounter isn't challenging because I keep rolling fumbles and my NPCs practically kill themselves, then I just throw in a few more, or chalk the encounter up to "just a round of stretching before the real workout". But the players only have their one character; and (at least for me) the fun thing about playing a melee guy is to walk around and smash puny NPCs, see them driven before me... you know the drill. Losing one of my attacks to a fumble is annoying; but losing all of them, eating an AoO on top, and then get to watch the Sorcerer lay the fiery smackdown on the guy I *almost had* - that would probably piss me off.

It's hart enough for the warriors to shine in comparison to casters; I see no need to make it any tougher on them. After all, most of the wizard's spells don't get that chance to fumble, do they?

Now, I'm not trying to say you're wrong for playing it that way; whatever floats your boat, and you said it's been working well for you. It just wouldn't work for me.

Firechanter

2011-04-14, 10:32 AM

It's a simple statistical fact. The possibility of extreme results ALWAYS works against the players in the long run. That's not a matter of opinion, it's math.

Larpus

2011-04-14, 10:59 AM

Well, I have had quite my share of uselessness (especially in combat) due to failed rolls, such as failing against the daze and be dazed for 4 rounds as a Barbarian or failing the fortitude against the poison as the Wizard.

However, as far as character interactions and the such go, never really experienced it.

Most situations I've faced were the players' fault, however that is not to say that the DM has never been wrong, yes, there are times that the DM misjudged what he put us against or was just a jerk (such as removing a PC from the final fight without allowing him any sort of save or move), but more often than not, some creativity always help.

In the OP's examples:
1 - As mentioned already, using ranged and/or reach weapons would've helped you miles, so it was lack of hindsight on your part.

2 - Well, creativity plays here. If you're such a sore thumb that can be seen from the moon, then simply enter the place a bit before or after your party, this way you become a great diversion for them as mostly everyone will be busy looking at you to notice them.

Of course, it's impossible to shine all the time, but you can still be useful such as in social scenes with my Barbarian, I often use Intimidate left and right or physically threaten people (if your DM doesn't allow Intimidate rolls using Str, then simply grapple or something the poor fool and threaten him, no need for a check if it's actual danger).

Or with a Rogue against undeads and constructs, you can make use of traps (since the undeads and constructs will most probably be busy with your party to notice you there), you can lure some away from the group or you can ditch the party to look for their master if he's nearby.

Again, you might not be the MVP, but you can still at least drag your weight through the situation with some clever use of your options.

Karoht

2011-04-14, 11:38 AM

I'm not convinced.

Example: one of the games I DM is around lvl 8 now. The fighter-types in the party are one ranger and one fighter/scout. The ranger is a melee build, the scout went the Improved Trip route. Thus, with a full attack, they'll make four attacks each per round - the ranger due to Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, the scout gets two regular touch attacks to trip, and then two more attacks against the poor trippee on the way down.

With a 5% miss chance per attack, each of them will fumble every fifth round of combat on average. Considering the length of our combats, that's two or three fumbles per PC per combat (10-15 rounds). I'm not good enough at statistics to find out how high the chance is that the fumble will be at the beginning of the attacks for the round, so I couldn't tell you the average number of attacks the PCs will lose according to your system - I just know I wouldn't like it.

Fact is: the GM can always get more mooks. If I find the encounter isn't challenging because I keep rolling fumbles and my NPCs practically kill themselves, then I just throw in a few more, or chalk the encounter up to "just a round of stretching before the real workout". But the players only have their one character; and (at least for me) the fun thing about playing a melee guy is to walk around and smash puny NPCs, see them driven before me... you know the drill. Losing one of my attacks to a fumble is annoying; but losing all of them, eating an AoO on top, and then get to watch the Sorcerer lay the fiery smackdown on the guy I *almost had* - that would probably piss me off.

It's hart enough for the warriors to shine in comparison to casters; I see no need to make it any tougher on them. After all, most of the wizard's spells don't get that chance to fumble, do they?

Now, I'm not trying to say you're wrong for playing it that way; whatever floats your boat, and you said it's been working well for you. It just wouldn't work for me.

As far as gameplay and fun are concerned, I agree with you. As far as combat realism, I disagree. But DnD isn't the best context to discuss such realism in the first place, so take that with a grain of salt.
Also, this post regarding critical fumbles is semi-relevant.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10777609&postcount=17
But I will once again point out that my discussion on realistic combat does fall sort of flat in a DnD environment. In another game system it might be more relevant.

If the martial classes are to be treated as paragon's of martial combat (for sake of rule of fun), where such mistakes are incredibly unlikely/don't happen, that should be built into those classes as a class feature (perhaps built into weapon proficiencies?), or could be house ruled in.

Malimar

2011-04-14, 12:36 PM

My first real character was a fighter/barbarian. You might think that tells you all you need to know right there, but there's more.

This wasn't a particularly high-optimization party. We had a VoP monk/drunken master, a rogue, a drow cleric/rogue, a ranger/rogue, a druid who couldn't decide what role to concentrate on, and a barbarian whose player pretty much forgot to ever even level up.

The reason my character wound up useless was because the DM doled out hundreds of thousands of gold before I joined the campaign (at about level 4). Once I joined, he started giving somewhat less than standard amounts of treasure, which meant I didn't even have enough for a magic weapon by level 8.

"Oh, yay, a pyrohydra and a cryohydra. I'll, um, stay in back and operate this ballista." "Oh, yay, incorporeal foes. I'll spend the entire combat with an action readied in case something I can actually hit comes along." "Oh, yay, creatures with DR higher than my max damage, I'll just be over here inspecting this fine yet rustic architecture." It was pretty failtastic.

My character only became a useful member of the party once we picked up a healing longsword, which I guess was a homebrewed artifact that worked just like a weapon in every way, except it healed living things and damaged only undead. My character just went around doing power attack called shots to the heart with the healing longsword. He was a much more effective healer than the cleric and the druid, and a much more effective healer than he was a fighter.

Jack Zander

2011-04-14, 01:14 PM

Also, this post regarding critical fumbles is semi-relevant.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10777609&postcount=17

I actually like your reasoning with regards to the 1=AoO. The only thing that would drive me crazy about HellbredWarlock's method is losing all of my attacks for a round due to an unlucky die roll.

Element Zero

2011-04-14, 02:23 PM

I actually like your reasoning with regards to the 1=AoO. The only thing that would drive me crazy about HellbredWarlock's method is losing all of my attacks for a round due to an unlucky die roll.

I understand that, and I personally would get rid of that part, if literally everyone I play with didn't think it was a good idea. Then again, I only play casters...so it's never really hurt me much.

Firechanter

2011-04-14, 02:31 PM

Then again, I only play casters...so it's never really hurt me much.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Element Zero

2011-04-14, 03:43 PM

Actually, my last post sort of segues back into the -actual- topic of discussion. One of the few times I tried to play a gish, I decided to add levels of fighter then eldritch knight to my wizard late game...like, level 11 or so...didn't really make me useless, but it was dumb as hell and set me behind the only other caster by a couple of levels, and I was nowhere on par with the fighter, ranger, and paladin we already had.

Luckily, the DM let us all do a rebuild at about 15th level and I got my Wiz levels back...still...it sucked hard.

Ozymandias

2011-04-14, 05:45 PM

my pedantism requires me to respond, but after this I'm leaving it behind..

It's "pedantry."

Just for the irony.

Safety Sword

2011-04-14, 06:24 PM

It's "pedantry."

Just for the irony.

^^ That was.

Hidden irony, clearly. :smalltongue:

big teej

2011-04-14, 06:34 PM

I would assume it counts if your character is killed before the session is over and you basically have to just sit there?

I have a player who is convinced I'm out to get him. :smalltongue:

Eldariel

2011-04-14, 06:50 PM

Most of mine are simple poor character design on my part. For example, no warrior living in a D&D-world would ever say "I don't need a ranged weapon" with all the flying monsters and what-not; but I was dumb enough to not give certain Dervish of mine even a token bow (not that it would've done anything since Dervish is a one-trick pony).

There was this one instance of a level 10+ game (started on level 7, progressed to 15 IIRC): We fought Demons, we fought Dragons, we fought...well, you get the point. I'm not gonna list individual cases since it kept happening but sufficient to say, things that fly fast and aren't interested in melee combat are pretty hard to catch, especially in wide-open spaces.

We also fought a Wizard who had Ironguard on himself; spell makes all metal pass through you harmlessly. Guess who only had metal weapons available? Again, I've wised up since then.

I've also been in countless situations where my attacks were simply inefficient due to DR, damage types and all that good jazz. Again, I've played this game a lot; I'm not going to list individual cases.

Incidentally, I have developed a strong hatred towards all weak classes; playing one in a game will just result in one being useless half the time, which has lead to me:
1) Employ common sense in building my characters mechanically.
2) Learn optimization.

Never since have I been useless in any situation whatsoever since I strive to make sure that whatever I'm using, the character is decently versatile and doesn't have any gaping holes any character actually living in such a fantastic world wouldn't have. Like lacking capability for ranged combat or bypassing damage type/weapon type/spell type immunities or such.

Other types of scenarios have been far more rare though; I only remember one RP case where my character was completely unable to participate. Basically, there was this tower with certain magical instrument capable of prophecising the future. We needed to get in there and get the prophecy. Thing is, it was a Lawful Good place and my character, being Chaotic Good, was not allowed to enter. As basically everything that happened that session too place inside, I was pretty much relegated to taking random NPC roles since my character spent that time shopping.

Canarr

2011-04-15, 02:25 AM

Other types of scenarios have been far more rare though; I only remember one RP case where my character was completely unable to participate. Basically, there was this tower with certain magical instrument capable of prophecising the future. We needed to get in there and get the prophecy. Thing is, it was a Lawful Good place and my character, being Chaotic Good, was not allowed to enter. As basically everything that happened that session too place inside, I was pretty much relegated to taking random NPC roles since my character spent that time shopping.

Okay, that is seriously bad GMing; I mean, what kind of GM would build a scenario that clearly excludes one or more of the PCs for extended periods of time?

Eldariel

2011-04-15, 02:34 AM

Okay, that is seriously bad GMing; I mean, what kind of GM would build a scenario that clearly excludes one or more of the PCs for extended periods of time?

Well, it was a premade module; certainly he could've altered it but on the other hand, it made sense from a story perspective (and he hadn't actually caught on that particular detail until we actually got there so he hadn't had time to alter it beforehand) so I didn't mind that much.

Firechanter

2011-04-15, 04:59 AM

Here's a little anecdote of what happened in my party once or twice. For instance, we had to clear out some barrows (I don'remember what level), which came complete with the appropriate barrow-wights, which had an aura of fear about them. Another character was an optimized Fighter/Kensai or something, where "optimized" means "everything into offense, dump Wis and Cha". I don't remember exactly, either there was no cleric at hand or the Protection from Evil had already expired.

So you can already see what I'm getting at; we have to make a Fear save, and Mister-I-dish-out-100-damage-per-round inevitably botches it and is PANICKED. So the rest of us had to fight these buggers by ourselves, which was not easy but we made it.

I felt good that day because my more balanced approach paid off. ^^

true_shinken

2011-04-15, 09:22 AM

Okay, that is seriously bad GMing; I mean, what kind of GM would build a scenario that clearly excludes one or more of the PCs for extended periods of time?

Probably the kind that sees the game as the simulation of a world rather than a game custom built for anyone to have fun. Seriously, I think he is in the right. Now and again you won't be useful, yeah. Now and again you will be killed, yeah. So what? That's not bad DMing, it's playing the game as it was meant to.

Karoht

2011-04-15, 09:35 AM

Fact of life, a character can't be amazingly good in every situation imaginable.

"The more you are a swiss army knife, the less you are a machette."--Unknown

Canarr

2011-04-15, 10:23 AM

Probably the kind that sees the game as the simulation of a world rather than a game custom built for anyone to have fun. Seriously, I think he is in the right. Now and again you won't be useful, yeah. Now and again you will be killed, yeah. So what? That's not bad DMing, it's playing the game as it was meant to.

It's not about not being useful every moment of the time; it's about being able to actually participate in the game.

If I play the tricked-out fighter guy with Int and Cha as dump stats and no social skills, I *know* that information gathering in the tavern, or translating old books in forgotten libraries, or checking the dungeon floors for traps, are *not* the areas where I'm going to shine. And that's fine, because every PC should get their time in the limelight; I know that when it's time to roll initiative, it's my turn. The game is for *everyone* to have fun, and it's the GM's job to make sure that it happens.

(Conversely, it's the players' job to make sure the GM also has fun, by not spending hours looking for that one broken rules combo that will let them wreak havoc on his campaign world, but I digress.)

In any case: deliberately excluding one or more players from participating in the game that they all came to play together, for several hours - that just plain sucks. Now, I understand that it wasn't the GM doing that, so I apologize in absentia to Eldariel's GM - but that just makes it shoddy adventure design, instead of shoddy GMing.

It's a game. We come together in a group to play the game and have fun. If someone's not having fun, then something's wrong, plain and simple.

true_shinken

2011-04-15, 10:35 AM

It's not about not being useful every moment of the time; it's about being able to actually participate in the game.

He was. He just played other characters.

Karoht

2011-04-15, 11:01 AM

Story Time!
"I Felt Useless, Even if I Wasn't"

So there I was, playing a druid. And we go into this underground cavern. We're a level 4 party with a Paladin, a Sorcerer, some kind of summoner, an Oracle, and myself, the Druid.

There's an underground lake with a shallow spot, and then an incredibly deep spot. On a small island in the middle of the deep spot is some kind of frog looking demon, CR 8 if that matters. After an attempt to parley with it and maybe get some information out of it (like why it was there, and how the Orcs got their hands on a giant mithral woodcutting machine), combat breaks out.

It summons some kind of copy of itself, right next to the Paladin. Does the paladin take a swing at it? Nope, the Paladin decides, in heavy armor, to go swimming to the lake and try to go for the big bad there. Luckily, he never failed a swim check. However, he spent quite a while grappled and very nearly ended up drowned. The demon also summoned some water elementals.

Me being the clever sort, took a look at my spell list. Seeing as I had largely fire based spells prepared (all of which would do nothing with the water) I decided to use them to cast Summon Nature's Ally II. Well, the only water creatures I could summon were a squid and an octopus (Pathfinder core and bestiary were my only sources), so I summoned two squid on the basis that the squid had a higher grapple and a poison attack.

Back to the paladin. After a few rounds of grappling and getting his face bashed in, the demon decides to teleport away over to where the rest of us are doing our thing. And proceeds to grapple my bear companion (in it's jaws) while clawing at me. I spent the next few rounds kinda tanking it, or at least holding it's attention. Seeing as this thing had DR 10 and I had no way to bipass it, I couldn't actually inflict damage unless I rolled max. So I sat back and sort of annoyed it for a few rounds, while directing my Squids to go after that water elemental and his copy.

So the squids. Eventually the copy got wise to the grapple attempts and killed one, the other managed to grapple it and poison it. Oh look, immune to poison. Shoot. But, the grapple at least made it semi-vulnerable for a bit.

Paladin eventually crossed the lake (after nearly drowning) and charged, used his smite, and proceeded to chop up the demon in the next two rounds.

So the fight ended, and the DM pointed out that had I not held the demon's attention for a bit, it WOULD have eaten the healer and sorcerer alive. I sure didn't feel useful in the process though. Oh well. Nothing the DM could have done differently to make me feel useful, and I well respect that I won't be useful in each and every situation all the time.

We got about 1100 XP each (no idea if thats right for a CR 8 against a LVL 4 party of 5) and quite a bit of decent gear, so I was happy enough with that. Stand there. Take damage. Get XP and loot. Win? Sure.

Canarr

2011-04-15, 01:23 PM

He was. He just played other characters.

And that's why you go to a game? To play other characters than the one you actually want to play?

Eldariel

2011-04-15, 01:30 PM

And that's why you go to a game? To play other characters than the one you actually want to play?

I go to a D&D session to enjoy myself by playing D&D. I'm not big into instant gratification; as long as the whole is awesome, small details don't matter.

true_shinken

2011-04-15, 01:34 PM

And that's why you go to a game? To play other characters than the one you actually want to play?

You go to a game to play the game. If your character end up being useless during the better part of session, that is part of the game. The DM offering you an NPC is a nice attitude of his.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2011-04-15, 01:37 PM

Fact of life, a character can't be amazingly good in every situation imaginable without getting a DMG chucked at the player's headFixed that for you.

Karoht

2011-04-15, 01:58 PM

"Fact of life, a character can't be amazingly good in every situation imaginable without getting a DMG chucked at the player's head"

Fixed that for you.I concur. Though the ratio of Batman Wizards to poorly optimized and poorly played is not quite what one might think. For every Batman Wizard doing it well there are easily scores of others doing any number of things poorly, including their intended role, let alone their side-role stuff. But that is a matter for another thread.

Again, at some point, you are going to be useless. There are many things you can do to minimize the incidence where you find yourself being useless, but it will eventually happen.

Then again, we should probably define what constitutes useless and useful, but that is subjective and context dependant/variable.

wormwood

2011-04-15, 02:35 PM

I built a wizard around using cold-based spells for a one-shot dungeon crawl. The only thing in the dungeon that wasn't undead was some sort of slime. I froze it up good. Rest of the time, I ran around trying to come up with ways to productively make things less warm.

MarkusWolfe

2011-04-15, 03:51 PM

Fact of life, a character can't be amazingly good in every situation imaginable.

"The more you are a swiss army knife, the less you are a machette."--Unknown

That's 'machete'. And a machete still has a lot of uses, they just all happen to involve cutting or stabbing.

Cog

2011-04-15, 03:56 PM

That's 'machete'. And a machete still has a lot of uses, they just all happen to involve cutting or stabbing.
That's the point of the quote. Some amount of specialization and focus is useful.

DM_for_once

2011-04-15, 10:39 PM

....
what does RE: mean? :smallredface:

Not sure if you were serious, but re: is short for "regarding." I kinda lost interest reading the thread and have nothing relevant to add, I just felt like answering this. :smallbiggrin:

Karoht

2011-04-18, 10:38 AM

That's 'machete'. And a machete still has a lot of uses, they just all happen to involve cutting or stabbing.

*sigh* I'll explain I guess.

The more you specialize, the less adaptable you are. The more you strengthen a core group of skills and abilities, the weaker all the rest will be, typically making them less useful or less adaptable, etc.

The machete is very useful for cutting. Is it usable as a corkscrew? Is it useable as a screwdriver? Toothpick? Bottle opener? Wrench? Plyers? If you're car is broken down and you forgot your tools, are you going to want a machete or a Leatherman multi-tool?

Sad that I have to explain this.

Cartigan

2011-04-18, 10:40 AM

That's 'machete'. And a machete still has a lot of uses, they just all happen to involve cutting or stabbing.
If the back of the blade isn't sharpened, you can use it to bludgeon things. Poorly but you still can.

Karoht

2011-04-18, 10:55 AM

If the back of the blade isn't sharpened, you can use it to bludgeon things. Poorly but you still can.

It isn't that the machete can or can't bludgeon things or cut things. It does both decently well actually. And it will do both of those roles signifigantly better than a multi-tool.
The multi-tool has other uses, one could even call them situational uses, and has more uses than the machete. But it isn't very good at cutting or bludgeoning, even though it can.

Bottom Line: The multi-tool will probably see situations where it isn't as useful as a machete, but it will likely see more situations where it is more useful than the machete. See the example of the broken car for a moment.

Eldariel

2011-04-18, 11:10 AM

It isn't that the machete can or can't bludgeon things or cut things. It does both decently well actually. And it will do both of those roles signifigantly better than a multi-tool.
The multi-tool has other uses, one could even call them situational uses, and has more uses than the machete. But it isn't very good at cutting or bludgeoning, even though it can.

Bottom Line: The multi-tool will probably see situations where it isn't as useful as a machete, but it will likely see more situations where it is more useful than the machete. See the example of the broken car for a moment.

Which is why tier 1s are so ridiculous; they are multi-tools that are better at what machete does than a machete.

MarkusWolfe

2011-04-18, 11:14 AM

The machete is very useful for cutting. Is it usable as a corkscrew? Is it useable as a screwdriver? Toothpick? Bottle opener? Wrench? Plyers? If you're car is broken down and you forgot your tools, are you going to want a machete or a Leatherman multi-tool?

I imagine that if I stabbed the cork on the diagonal, I might be able to pull it out. It may function as a screw driver if it's a slot or a Phillips. It may work as an awkward toothpick, and a bottle opener could be installed in the pommel.

If my car broke down and I forgot my tools, I would have neither a machete nor a Leatherman multi-tool. Your analogy doesn't work.

Tael

2011-04-18, 11:22 AM

Cartigan

2011-04-18, 11:23 AM

Bottles are easy to open if you don't want to close them.

Greenish

2011-04-18, 11:24 AM

And why is everyone obsessing over this one stupid quote?!?Because machetes are cool, as the movie demonstrates.

Karoht

2011-04-18, 11:31 AM

I imagine that if I stabbed the cork on the diagonal, I might be able to pull it out. It may function as a screw driver if it's a slot or a Phillips. It may work as an awkward toothpick, and a bottle opener could be installed in the pommel.So you acknowledge then that you can perform the task with the improvised tool, and in all cases, not very well.

If my car broke down and I forgot my tools, I would have neither a machete nor a Leatherman multi-tool. Your analogy doesn't work.I keep my leatherman on me at all times. I also travel with swords and other impliments (not that different from a machete). I guarantee you that I'm not going to be able to change my oil or remove a sparkplug with a machete. Could I hack jungle brush with my leatherman? Yes, but rather poorly.

I find it sad that I have to overexplain this analogy to people. Remarkable how pedantic people will be for little to no reason what so ever.

How about a Fighter? Sure, he can do all kinds of melee awesomeness. Can he heal people? Sure, if he takes the heal skill, and he won't be able to do it in combat. Can he remove curses? Meanwhile can a Priest melee? Certainly, though not as well. Can the priest heal and remove curses and turn undead and cast other spells? Yes. The priest is more general in some aspects and more specific in others, and the Fighter is more general in some aspects and specific in others.

The overall point of the analogy is, there are certain situations where certain classes are going to find themselves useless. If they have specialized in some way, even more likely.

Toofey

2011-04-18, 11:34 AM

MarkusWolfe

2011-04-18, 11:59 AM

@MarkusWolfe: Unless you want to destroy your cork, Strip your screw, seriously cut up your gums, and pay money to install a bottle opener on your machete, why would you ever want a machete for those things? What point are you trying to make?

I find it sad that I have to overexplain this analogy to people. Remarkable how pedantic people will be for little to no reason what so ever.

No, see, the analogy doesn't work firstly because it does not take into account the ability to improvise (I trust you've heard the phrase "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail"), second because it doesn't take into account that something can be very good at something it wasn't designed to do (and to hammer in this point, I will now present exhibit A: Duct Tape. It was meant to seal ducts. Since its creation, it has been used to repair thousands of objects that do not even resemble ducts. You can make a wallet, a bra, a bridge or a sailboat out of it.) and finally because a simple cutting and stabbing tool has a comparable amount of uses than a 'multitool'. A machete can cut and stab a variety of things by it's own nature.

Riddle me this: What can you do with a corkscrew other than open something that has been sealed with a cork?

Toofey

2011-04-18, 12:25 PM

stab someone

Greenish

2011-04-18, 12:28 PM

In the eye.

Firechanter

2011-04-18, 12:29 PM

Can we get back to topic, please? Anecdotes and stuff?

MarkusWolfe

2011-04-18, 12:43 PM

Well you make an excellent point.

Karoht

2011-04-18, 01:11 PM

Can we get back to topic, please? Anecdotes and stuff?Sure.

There was this time where I was on giantitp, and I had to completely explain every nuance of a generally accepted analogy that applied to the discussion, and I felt utterly useless in continuing the discussion.

So there I was, playing a rogue in an undead campaign, and was limited to core 3.5 + PHB. Yeah, that sucked.

Eldariel

2011-04-18, 01:37 PM

I am generally loathe to critisize DMs but if your DM put you multiple rounds away and had few enough opponents for the ranged fighters to put down before you got there, there is an element of encounter design flaw there.

In general I think it's on DMs to make sure that characters have chance to be useful. This can be hard sometimes but I think in your case it's pretty clear cut. If you're a knight you should be allowed to fight.

I disagree. I find it pretty ridiculous to expect that every encounter involves some opponent you can stab with a sword. A world is full of creatures of magic (capable of flight, floating and what-not); what kind of a warrior seriously ignores all training with ranged weapons? Seriously, even humans (Wizards and the like) are capable of flying.

It breaks verisimilitude, in my eyes, to even have such a character in the game let alone expect to be able to contribute with one. Never in all my AD&D games did we have a Fighter without at the very least proficiency in some type of a bow. It greatly restricts the type of adventure a DM can give his players if he has to account for the fact that one of them can only affect things he can walk up to and smack in the face. Seriously, that's like saying you can't use Dragons at all (or you can use them in closed rooms where they cannot fly), Outsiders can't be played up to their intelligence, no casters can be used, etc. That's just...meh, I can't see myself ever enjoying a game like that.

It's not a part of a role-playing experience, in my eyes, to have the world somehow conform to the players. The players are perfectly capable of making characters that could plausibly adventure; if they do that, they've now conformed to the world and the DM is free to throw whatever at them and they'll cope and you get to have that epic adventure in a fantasy world that feels like an actual world instead of a series of engineered encounters that are made to be difficult but beatable. Such a game misses the whole epic feel of a bigger-than-life world that you are a part of, in my opinion.

nedz

2011-04-18, 04:05 PM

I disagree. I find it pretty ridiculous to expect that every encounter involves some opponent you can stab with a sword. A world is full of creatures of magic (capable of flight, floating and what-not); what kind of a warrior seriously ignores all training with ranged weapons? Seriously, even humans (Wizards and the like) are capable of flying.

It breaks verisimilitude, in my eyes, to even have such a character in the game let alone expect to be able to contribute with one. Never in all my AD&D games did we have a Fighter without at the very least proficiency in some type of a bow. It greatly restricts the type of adventure a DM can give his players if he has to account for the fact that one of them can only affect things he can walk up to and smack in the face. Seriously, that's like saying you can't use Dragons at all (or you can use them in closed rooms where they cannot fly), Outsiders can't be played up to their intelligence, no casters can be used, etc. That's just...meh, I can't see myself ever enjoying a game like that.

It's not a part of a role-playing experience, in my eyes, to have the world somehow conform to the players. The players are perfectly capable of making characters that could plausibly adventure; if they do that, they've now conformed to the world and the DM is free to throw whatever at them and they'll cope and you get to have that epic adventure in a fantasy world that feels like an actual world instead of a series of engineered encounters that are made to be difficult but beatable. Such a game misses the whole epic feel of a bigger-than-life world that you are a part of, in my opinion.
+1 to this.
Players have to be free to create their own characters, even bad ones.
Its possibly a little different with novice players, but thats a different issue.
I know a couple of players who like playing incompetant characters, its their choice.