Good Builds Wasted.

[panaikhan]

I post this because I'd like to hear about people's failures.
Not failed builds, but builds (or parts of builds) that have, through one thing or other, proved useless.

My most recent experience in this was with my Synthesist Summoner in PF.
Decent enough build - lots of HP, decent AC, damage output could get reasonably high. The bit that failed? Step Up.
I took the chain - Step up, Following Step, Step Up And Strike.
I figured that, in keeping with the 'tank' role I had assigned myself, that these feats would prove useful. I was wrong.
So far, NONE of the opponents he has faced has ever tried to back up out of combat. Not one.

[Hirax]

The new group I've tried joining is currently being run by a DM that places random restrictions on melee characters for the sake of verisimilitude. For instance, my ability to cleave with a piercing weapon is restricted. I'm reasonably sure my use of a piercing weapon is also part of the reason knockback seems to fail to work in bizarre and unexplained circumstances. Facing rules are also in effect, though I'm pretty sure they're entirely whims rather than rules. They don't take corrections to rules well, because rules are only a suggestion. Taken together, it's havoc on my goliath dragonborn.

[Coidzor]

Huh. I'd thought that step-up was for if you managed go get through the blockers and get near an enemy caster, rather than for tanking.

[Wings of Peace]

A group I was in some time ago lacked any dedicated melee frontliner so I rolled up a level 1 Warblade with a greatsword. On a given round he did 3d6 + 6 (str bonus) minimum and 5d6 + 6 tops. Rather than just inform me that I should tone the character down I was given full permission to play the character as I liked however I noticed enemies had the uncanny habit of only dying when somebody other than me hit them two or three times.

[panaikhan]

Huh. I'd thought that step-up was for if you managed go get through the blockers and get near an enemy caster, rather than for tanking.

In other campaigns, I had seen tactics using 5-ft step to set up flanks, get around mooks, as well as getting out of combat for spellcasting. I intended the step-up feats to enable me to stay in anyone's face, caster or not, or use it to step around and flank opponents myself.
But, if no-one ever triggers the feat(s), then it's a moot point.

[Lappy9001]

In other campaigns, I had seen tactics using 5-ft step to set up flanks, get around mooks, as well as getting out of combat for spellcasting. I intended the step-up feats to enable me to stay in anyone's face, caster or not, or use it to step around and flank opponents myself.
But, if no-one ever triggers the feat(s), then it's a moot point.Have you talked to your DM about it? I know I always try to accommodate for people's builds so everyone has a chance to shine.

The DM might just not really use backing up enemies that much. I don't, since I tend to shy away from heavy casters when DMing.

[Amphetryon]

I once built a Warlock-into-Chameleon character who used Shatter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shatter.htm) to bypass a lock that was otherwise pick-proof to our party. The DM ruled the noise made from shattering the entire door (which I hadn't intended or stated as the idea) brought the entire population of the dungeon after us. My Warlock died from sustained fire. :smallyuk:

[Krazzman]

I thought for fun make a Fighter/Barbarian Horsecharger. Except the DM ruled that my mount was afraid of the monster we face... (the Monster I charged was a Huge Green Dragonlike creature with int 3)

And I tried to introduce the Psionics to our group...I made an Elan Psion with 20 powerpoints and the Psionic feat to not need to eat or drink. For powers I took mindblast, skate and animate object and jeah I now was a gimped Wizard, since the enemies all were resistant against mind effects (kobolds and one Elf that was Immune).
Furthermore I was stopped by a AMF(!)...on level 1 or 2! I dealt about 30 damage that whole 2-day oneshot 10 with mind blast, 8 with animate object and 12 damage with a crossbow...with 8 in dex. And we faced about 40 Kobolds + said elf (boss) + a giant spider we killed via fire to his webs...

[Rejusu]

While we haven't started our campaign yet I've made a half-giant psychic warrior with a spiked chain based on fun with Improved Trip/Knock-down/Expansion/Powerful build. I fully expect all the enemies we fight to either be huge, have 8 legs, or fly. Or possibly all of those things at once.

[Kalmageddon]

A group I was in some time ago lacked any dedicated melee frontliner so I rolled up a level 1 Warblade with a greatsword. On a given round he did 3d6 + 6 (str bonus) minimum and 5d6 + 6 tops. Rather than just inform me that I should tone the character down I was given full permission to play the character as I liked however I noticed enemies had the uncanny habit of only dying when somebody other than me hit them two or three times.

Similar to your experience me and a friend of mine were playing in a low-magic combat oriented campaign and we both had pretty powerful characters. Mine was a barbarian furious berserker and his was a cleric that never entered battle without at least 3-4 buffs casted on him.
We both had the ability to do some really heavy damage with our weapons but this never amounted to anything because every single enemy always died at the third round of combat, no matter how much damage was or wasn't inflicted upon him.

We both charge an enemy soldier and deal 100+ damages on the first round alone? No problem, he manages to stay in battle for another two rounds.

The thief shoots another solder with his crossbow doing 10-12 damage per round? Third round comes and the soldier dies.

I once did a test and fought an enemy warrior alone, only I didn't do any damage, I only tripped, disarmed and pushed the guy, commenting these acts as very brutal but without doing any actual damage. Third round comes and the guy drops dead, probably because of a heart attack or something.

[Voyager_I]

The new group I've tried joining is currently being run by a DM that places random restrictions on melee characters for the sake of verisimilitude. For instance, my ability to cleave with a piercing weapon is restricted. I'm reasonably sure my use of a piercing weapon is also part of the reason knockback seems to fail to work in bizarre and unexplained circumstances. Facing rules are also in effect, though I'm pretty sure they're entirely whims rather than rules. They don't take corrections to rules well, because rules are only a suggestion. Taken together, it's havoc on my goliath dragonborn.

I've noticed that new DM's love to pick on mundanes doing things that "don't make sense". I guess it's somewhat understandable, if only because magic doesn't have any basis in reality to conflict with, but it still irks me a bit to see a Fighter get gimped because "how can you cleave with a hammer?"

[Coidzor]

With us it was "How can you cleave with a trident?" :smallsigh:

[Myou]

With us it was "How can you cleave with a trident?" :smallsigh:

Quite easily: http://i56.tinypic.com/kd9y14.jpg :smallsigh:

[CTrees]

While we haven't started our campaign yet I've made a half-giant psychic warrior with a spiked chain based on fun with Improved Trip/Knock-down/Expansion/Powerful build. I fully expect all the enemies we fight to either be huge, have 8 legs, or fly. Or possibly all of those things at once.

"Behold... the kingdom of the oozes!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had a lovely ranged rogue/shadowdancer with a good bit of skill monkey, once (fairly low-op group; the two druids were by far the worst performers, and the monk generally took the damage crown. also, sniper goggles are amazing). We spent the next several weeks of gaming fighting enemies with reach, grab and usually blindsense in tiny, featureless tunnels made of magic-immune adamantine (oh, and the sentient enemies were all fanatics, immune to social skills and anything mind affecting). Yeah...

Then there was my beloved cavalier, who never in his life succeeded on a ride check. The build itself wasn't that exciting, but it most certainly didn't live up to it's potential. He killed two allies - the first gave him no choice*, but the second was by fumbling a ride check, getting picked up by an huge enemy, and being used as an improvised club to bash the cleric to death. His career ended when he saw a tough, but stunned, enemy on the edge of a cliff. He attempted to bull rush the enemy off the cliff, and managed to fumble the attack roll, fumble the ride check I got to not go plummeting off the cliff, AND fumble the (I think) reflex save I got to grab onto the cliff edge/vegetation/something and not go tumbling into the abyss. He died as he lived - hilariously badly.

*Party member randomly turned CE and, with no warning, CDG'ed a helpless noncombatant who happened to be the same race as my cavalier, with no provocation or benefit. I went above table and asked anyone if there was ANY in-character way I could get away with not attempting to kill the guy. I really tried to not be "that guy" who kills his teammates. There wasn't, so I did.

[Rejusu]

I've noticed that new DM's love to pick on mundanes doing things that "don't make sense". I guess it's somewhat understandable, if only because magic doesn't have any basis in reality to conflict with, but it still irks me a bit to see a Fighter get gimped because "how can you cleave with a hammer?"

That's kind of ridiculous, while definitions of cleaving are linked to cutting it's most basic definition is to part/divide/split something. If your DM can't figure out how you could cleave with a hammer he obviously doesn't have much of an imagination.

[CTrees]

That's kind of ridiculous, while definitions of cleaving are linked to cutting it's most basic definition is to part/divide/split something.

Well, cleave can mean either to split or to join or cling. This isn't relevant, but auto-antonyms amuse me.

[SaintRidley]

I've noticed that new DM's love to pick on mundanes doing things that "don't make sense". I guess it's somewhat understandable, if only because magic doesn't have any basis in reality to conflict with, but it still irks me a bit to see a Fighter get gimped because "how can you cleave with a hammer?"

Spinning hammer of death.

[danzibr]

If your DM can't figure out how you could cleave with a hammer he obviously doesn't have much of an imagination.
This made me lol.

[stack]

Well, I didn't realizes my swiftblade couldn't combine spring attack and shock trooper. Wasted a few feats, but still playable.

[subject42]

So, your party consists of a bard, a beguiler, a Paladin, and an Enchanter?

WELCOME TO ROBOT COUNTRY!


I'm still a little bitter about that one.

[Rejusu]

"Behold... the kingdom of the oozes!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See, this is why I'm also packing a large (large size is fun size!) greatsword as my secondary weapon to my (also large) Spiked Chain +1. Then again I'm not sure I really need it except in cases where I lose my chain. While I lose the benefits of trip against enemies that can't be tripped the chain still has a +1 to hit and damage (can't afford to put it on the sword too) AND the benefits of reach. But the sword does give me an extra 1d6 base damage. I'll probably use the chain the majority of the time, but a spare weapon is probably a good thing to have.


I had a lovely ranged rogue/shadowdancer with a good bit of skill monkey, once (fairly low-op group; the two druids were by far the worst performers, and the monk generally took the damage crown. also, sniper goggles are amazing). We spent the next several weeks of gaming fighting enemies with reach, grab and usually blindsense in tiny, featureless tunnels made of magic-immune adamantine (oh, and the sentient enemies were all fanatics, immune to social skills and anything mind affecting). Yeah...

Wow, how do you perform badly with a druid? It's like the one class that doesn't need optimisation. Heck you can't really optimise it. Last time I played one I tried to and I found that most attempts to optimise them actually make them worse. Most level dips, multi-classing, PrC's just don't give you anything better than pure and simple druid.


Then there was my beloved cavalier, who never in his life succeeded on a ride check. The build itself wasn't that exciting, but it most certainly didn't live up to it's potential. He killed two allies - the first gave him no choice*, but the second was by fumbling a ride check, getting picked up by an huge enemy, and being used as an improvised club to bash the cleric to death. His career ended when he saw a tough, but stunned, enemy on the edge of a cliff. He attempted to bull rush the enemy off the cliff, and managed to fumble the attack roll, fumble the ride check I got to not go plummeting off the cliff, AND fumble the (I think) reflex save I got to grab onto the cliff edge/vegetation/something and not go tumbling into the abyss. He died as he lived - hilariously badly.

That's probably one of the more hilarious deaths I've heard of. In a campaign I played a while ago the DM gave one of our players the opportunity to swap out one of his feats mid combat. To prevent his character dying in the first session for flubbing a reflex save. A reflex save for an AoE spell that was cast by another member of the party (Psion/Wiz).

Oh and did I mention his character was a Monk? I think he rolled a 1 or something. So to save him from a super premature death the DM let him change one of his feats (one he'd misread anyway and then realised it didn't do what he wanted) for one of the luck feats that gave him a reroll on his save.

I was playing a fun character that game. A heavily tweaked Soulbow whose build was Barbarian 1, Fighter 2, Soulknife 2 and Soulbow 1. I had no strength to speak of, was incredibly SAD (Wis and Con being all I really needed with the Zen Archery feat) and just had one very powerful attack per round.

[Keld Denar]

I have a fairly decent Dragonfire Adept character. I picked up Frost Breath as my first breath effect, a solid choice. I figured, anything that is immune to fire is probably vulnerable to frost. Then, our first really hard fight...a burnskull. Immune to fire AND frost. Drrrr....

[CTrees]

Wow, how do you perform badly with a druid? It's like the one class that doesn't need optimisation. Heck you can't really optimise it. Last time I played one I tried to and I found that most attempts to optimise them actually make them worse. Most level dips, multi-classing, PrC's just don't give you anything better than pure and simple druid.

"I don't want to have my bear fight; he could get hurt!"

You can proceed from there, but that nicely exemplifies the thinking.

[Novawurmson]

Not my build, but relevant: Had a friend play a diplomacy/bluff focused sorcerer. The DM would sometimes make him roll 3 separate bluff checks for a single sentence, failing if any other them were under around a 20. On the other hand, my Cleric (Diplomacy: +1) rolled a 15-16, that was fine.

[Namfuak]

I had a level 1 monk that died after 2 sessions, because we fought this group and one round he happened to be the only character with no cover from the 5 archers, so they all targeted him, not to mention the one dude who had TWF in front of him. Before that, he nearly died from a group of rats.

Also, I took the run feat for my human bonus feat, because I thought I could just zoom around the battlefield jumping and jump-charging everything. I guess the build wasn't that good huh.

[Venger]

"I don't want to have my bear fight; he could get hurt!"

You can proceed from there, but that nicely exemplifies the thinking.

"I have spells?"

"What all are my spells again?"

"I turn into animals?"

"What animal should I turn into?"

"What page is that on?"

the druid is the classic example of the difference between something in D&D being actually difficult and it requiring a certain degree of system mastery. spellcasting? that's legitimately difficult, and a new player shouldn't try to tackle a caster the first time. wild shape? less so. lion -> bear -> dire lion ->win D&D. but how is a new player going to know to turn into those things?it's not based off common sense, it's based off lions having pounce, and how are they going to know that lions have pounce/what it does/etc.

you can follow this progression on your own as well.

tl;dr: druids are the most powerful class, but the most work to play

[Aegis013]

Not my build, but relevant: Had a friend play a diplomacy/bluff focused sorcerer. The DM would sometimes make him roll 3 separate bluff checks for a single sentence, failing if any other them were under around a 20. On the other hand, my Cleric (Diplomacy: +1) rolled a 15-16, that was fine.

How infuriating for the Sorcerer player. I would've sat the DM down and given him an earful if I were the sorcerer player.

My builds always work great... because they're always magic. It's hard to make buffing oriented wizards useless in a party. Although I did have a DM who let me get a lesser metamagic rod of persistent spell (which I used to basically create contingencies to escape bad situations, like persistent detect magic to avoid AMFs, and I ended up purchasing custom bracers of +20ish competence bonus to spellcraft to recognize and identify magics detected) and despite all of this, the bad guys foiled me by casting undetectable magic from undetectable scrolls inside of my detect magic, having undetectable enchantments inside my detect magic and AMFs on every major area of concentrated bad guy forces. Including a magic flying ship with magical weaponry that operated in an AMF.

I still warped all the macguffins onto the positive energy plane, destroying one of the BBEG's major minions and baffling my DM. (I told him after the session how the BBEG could easily get the macguffins back, but he apparently was fed up with our party of tier 1's (Wizard, druid and cleric) + a tier 3 (warblade) and was done DM'ing)

[Mystify]

I made a master diplomat at level 2. In fact, he was so amazing at it I toned him back in that regard. I had a casual +22 to the check, and my other build could get a +20 easily. For reference, a +30 will automatically make a hostile enemy unfriendly with a standard, and has a really good chance of making htem indifferent. Oh, and I could reroll if I wanted.
I get to the session, pull off the diplomacy check to get the guy we were fighting to talk... and the DM tells me he doesn't use diplomacy rolls, and it is pure role-playing. All diplomacy does is allow me to ask the party what I should say. I had told him I was making a master diplomat beforehand, and he hadn't mentioned this. They poiinted out that it was ridiculous to think I should be able to do that at level 2. I pointed out I had the diplomacy skill of a level 10+ character.

[subject42]

wild shape? less so. lion -> bear -> dire lion ->win D&D. but how is a new player going to know to turn into those things?

Maybe it's just been my personal experience, but I've never seen anyone play a Druid and not immediately unleash maximum bear.

[Ernir]

I'm playing an artificer.

We recently leveled three times in one in-game week. BYE, crafting pool. :smallfrown:

[Zeta Kai]

You could change the title of this thread to "When You Should Leave the Table" or "How to Know If It's Time to Punch the DM", & it wouldn't change a thing. :smallsigh:

[ArcGygas]

In a game of Pathfinder, the GM told us to make whatever we wanted! So, a friend and I went and made a Cavalier/Paladin duo chargers on mounts. The goal was to Smite/Challenge the big bads, with Power Attacks, Spirited Charge, large strength, etc.

Dungeon crawl was obviously what the GM had in mind!

And then, back in 3.5, I played an Artificer. It was supposed to be a grand campaign that went on for years, bringing us from 1-20+. While it did go on for some time, I wasn't allowed to craft anything ever because the group wanted to keep moving, rather than wait around for me to do my friggin' job!

[Icestorm245]

My friend's first character was a fallen paladin/blackguard/legendary leader/fighter. At level 11, he traded 10 of his paladin levels for blackguard levels, which was his intent from the beginning of the character. He really, really liked the idea of commanding an army, so he took legendary leader. Fighter is unremarkable, if already spoken for.

The crux of the issue was that my DM had a rule where PrCs don't give you extra attacks even if you gain the appropriate amount of BAB. So, as soon as he traded paladin 11 for paladin 1/blackguard 10, he went from 2 attacks to 1 attack. So while he could at least have been decent as a melee character, he was ultimately gimped by a poor house rule.

Also, because of another rule of his, you get two standard actions per turn, instead of one move and one standard. That means my cleric character was way more powerful than he ever should have been. Ever.

[Ernir]

You could change the title of this thread to "When You Should Leave the Table" or "How to Know If It's Time to Punch the DM", & it wouldn't change a thing. :smallsigh:

I think "when stuff just happened to not work out so well for my character" would be more like it in my case...

[Laniius]

I thought for fun make a Fighter/Barbarian Horsecharger. Except the DM ruled that my mount was afraid of the monster we face... (the Monster I charged was a Huge Green Dragonlike creature with int 3)


Did you invest any ranks into handle animal? You need to teach it a trick to attack, and even if it knows the attack trick, attacking weird things counts as a second trick.

From hte SRD, the DC refers to the DC to train the animal.

Attack (DC 20): The animal attacks apparent enemies. You may point to a particular creature that you wish the animal to attack, and it will comply if able. Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks.

[Medic!]

I once had a wee-gnome beguiler with VoP, VoNV, VoPeace.
The party thought it sounded neat!
Some even made their PCs
To synergize with me,
By careful selection of feats.

We awoke in a cellar
Our possessions all gone,
But found one-another
Before too awful long.

We wondered the halls, deep in the night
Until we found a room with baddies to fight.
The party fought off the undead
But quivered with dread
When an Ogre arrived full of spite!

They rushed the brute
Hoping for phat loot
And the DM cried, "No, he's not there!"
His mini gone from the mat
We continued to splat
The undead across the room.

The beguiler kept out of the battle,
He's not for fighting, but prattle!
Then suddenly upon the battle grid, what appears?
An empty-handed ogre, ever so near!

Through Calming Aura he smashes,
And into the wall his fist crashes.
The beguiler smirks, "Like that AC?"
But before he can squeek out, "Tee-hee"
The fist is retro'd to Full-Blade and SLASHES!

The blade whistles in
And becomes Dust in the Wind
Because it's only a manufactured weapon.
Then it's all over bub
It's suddenly a +3 Great Club
And the gnome is a grease smear on a curtain.

I didn't mean to make this rhyme.
Until I finished writing the very first line.

[Roaan]

I'm playing an artificer.

We recently leveled three times in one in-game week. BYE, crafting pool. :smallfrown:


Depending on your DM, just say "I choose not to level". Spend some time crafting and then level up. I couldn't find any rules on the subject for or against in 20min of browsing the DMG and PHB.

[Acanous]

Pretty sure the rule is in magic item creation, you spend the XP before levelling. If you spend the crafting pool, then level, spend crafting pool and repeat, you should be able to get it all.

There's a thread on the Wizards website (Think the title is "XP is a river" or sommat) that pertains to this.

I once had a paladin who went for a basic charger build. Power attack, WF Lance, mounted combat, ride-by, spirited charge, shock trooper.
He dealt enough damage to kill most CR appropriate enemies in one shot. Not bad.
There's plenty of ways to stop a Charger from his schtick. Terrain, magic, items.. The DM instead decided that my character would break his lance whenever it did over 100 damage.
I went through a lot of lances, 'til I got an Adamantine lance!

..then the DM ruled my character broke his arm. >:/

[kulosle]

So I use the kensai fighter variant that specializes in a weapon and the kensai prestige class on top of it. This man was the best with a great sword, feats and what not put into it. I also had the wendigo template which under the entry of attacks it says "the wendigo's only attack is it's bite" My DM looked at this after the game had already started and said that i wasn't allowed to use my sword at all. He said that the wendigo is to impulsive to do this, even after letting me play a lawful good wendigo. So instead of being nice and switching all my stuff over to my bite he decided that i became a wendigo after i had trained with my greatsword and my character instantly became useless.

[Killer Angel]

I once did a test and fought an enemy warrior alone, only I didn't do any damage, I only tripped, disarmed and pushed the guy, commenting these acts as very brutal but without doing any actual damage. Third round comes and the guy drops dead, probably because of a heart attack or something.

Cool. You only had to focus your feats and WBL on defense, stay alive and the enemies will die by themselves. :smalltongue:

[sonofzeal]

Wow, how do you perform badly with a druid? It's like the one class that doesn't need optimisation. Heck you can't really optimise it.

wild shape? less so. lion -> bear -> dire lion ->win D&D.
:smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:

Have I taught you so little? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223072&page=3)

[Rejusu]

Maybe it's just been my personal experience, but I've never seen anyone play a Druid and not immediately unleash maximum bear.

Last time I played Druid I unleashed maximum flying crocodile.


Also, because of another rule of his, you get two standard actions per turn, instead of one move and one standard. That means my cleric character was way more powerful than he ever should have been. Ever.

Those are some odd house rules. I'm glad the only DM's I've played with have been fairly reasonable people that actually aim to make the game fun rather than being too stubborn about rules. Heck I really wanted to use a spiked chain for my current character but didn't want to drop a feat on the proficiency. I managed to wrangle it with my DM to get it for free, only now I have to draw my character using it...

Still we only ever tend to house rule for the sake of simplification. Most of the games I've played just don't use EXP at all. It's more you level up when the DM says you level up. Means that some things that involve XP costs have to be fudged a bit but overall it's less hassle and makes for faster paced games.


You could change the title of this thread to "When You Should Leave the Table" or "How to Know If It's Time to Punch the DM", & it wouldn't change a thing. :smallsigh:

Yeah, I have to say that I wouldn't like to play with some of the DM's mentioned.


:smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:

Have I taught you so little? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223072&page=3)

Well I'd never say they're completely newbie proof. But even a druid that doesn't really know what they're doing is still fairly powerful. At low levels your animal companion ALONE can easily outdamage other members of the party.

[Rhaegar14]

Maybe it's just been my personal experience, but I've never seen anyone play a Druid and not immediately unleash maximum bear.

Still, your average nooblet isn't gonna go "FLESHRAKER MWAHAHAHAHA."

[Darth_Versity]

I had my first ever DnD character, a lvl 5 human Paladin. I joined the party half way through a dungeon crawl and managed to kill some mummified offers with turn undead. I then took a lvl in Kensai and all was good.

I then got in a fight with some pirates and got stunned by poison. In an attempt to save me from being surrounded my half dragon ally tried to breath on all of us. The pirates succeed their reflex and have evasion. I failed and died.

So ended the shortest career of a character I've ever had.

[DemonRoach]

Medic, that was awesome :smallbiggrin:

[sonofzeal]

Well I'd never say they're completely newbie proof. But even a druid that doesn't really know what they're doing is still fairly powerful.
I went to rather absurd lengths in that thread to demonstrate, repeatedly and mathematically, against a vast array of opponents and with a wide range of starting assumptions, that a mid level Druid dies if they don't really know what they're doing and take Venger's advice. Subject42 kind of hit the nail on the head here:

Maybe it's just been my personal experience, but I've never seen anyone play a Druid and not immediately unleash maximum bear.

Posters on these boards very much play into the message that that's what a good Druid should do, and that they'll be inordinately successful if they do so. While there's some truth to that, it's also a fast way to get yourself killed in the first round of combat unless you also pick a method of wearing armor while in Wildshape. Such methods do exist, but the issue is non-trivial as the last third of that thread indicates.

The question you asked was "how do you perform badly with a druid?" The answer is, turn into an animal and attempt to bite face, without armor or magic item support. It leads to dead Druids. I've seen it happen in practice, and in the thread I repeatedly demonstrated it's not merely a possibility but a mathematical likelihood. I ran dozens of simulations and posted the results, each showing severe vulnerabilities. Not one of my doubters ever ran simulations of their own that I saw, but merely expressed skepticism until I posted the raw source code. Strangely, nobody expressed skepticism after that.

I consider it effectively proven now that you need armor before Wildshaped melee combat is a viable option. The only issue really under debate was how easy it would be for an average Druid to acquire suitable barding and/or "Armor for Unusual Creatures". I happen to be of the opinion that it's likely to vary by campaign and shouldn't be assumed as a default starting point. Part of that's shaped by my first campaign where I played a Druid, and the DM was leery even on the idea of barding-up my animal companion. I thought it was unfair at the time, but I've come around to realizing that's probably RAI, though obviously RAW allows it. I also think a DM for a Druid player in the same group as T4-T6 melee characters could do well to limit access to barding/A4UC. It's not strictly a "nerf" since the class remains unchanged, but it does mean the Druid can't just charge off into combat sans armor.

Or perhaps I should say shouldn't, since repeated experience has shown me that Druids often do. And then die, gruesomely and repeatedly.

Can you tell I've soured on the notion that Druids are the "one class that doesn't need optimization"?

[Voyager_I]

So I use the kensai fighter variant that specializes in a weapon and the kensai prestige class on top of it. This man was the best with a great sword, feats and what not put into it. I also had the wendigo template which under the entry of attacks it says "the wendigo's only attack is it's bite" My DM looked at this after the game had already started and said that i wasn't allowed to use my sword at all. He said that the wendigo is to impulsive to do this, even after letting me play a lawful good wendigo. So instead of being nice and switching all my stuff over to my bite he decided that i became a wendigo after i had trained with my greatsword and my character instantly became useless.

I can't decide if this or the DM with the houserule that doesn't give martial types their iterative attacks from prestige classes but lets caster have two spells every round makes me angrier.

[panaikhan]

Wow, people have been busy :)

Chipping in on my own thread:
I put together an Illumian Druid/Beguiler, put a lot of work into planned progression to get into Arcane Hyrophant (I think it's called).

The Adventure starts. Undead. Undead, Undead, Undead, Constructs, Undead, Insects, Undead, Constructs.

Then I died.
I replaced the character with a Drow Cleric.
Yuan-Ti, Lizards, Yuan-Ti, Dragons, Godling.

:smallsigh:

[CTrees]

I can't decide if this or the DM with the houserule that doesn't give martial types their iterative attacks from prestige classes but lets caster have two spells every round makes me angrier.

For me, it's definitely the wendigo. If that happened to me, my character would immediately commit suicide (I'm too impulsive to weild a sword? Fine, impulse this! *runs through the dungeon setting off every trap and chain every monster available until dead*). The latter, I'd just either build a gish or (more humorously) a War Hulk of some form.

[Greenish]

I'm going to agree on the wendigo. At least in the other case, the houserules basically tell you to play a caster before you even start planning your character, but in the wendigo one the DM went out of his way to ruin a specific character already in play.

[Voyager_I]

I'm going to agree on the wendigo. At least in the other case, the houserules basically tell you to play a caster before you even start planning your character, but in the wendigo one the DM went out of his way to ruin a specific character already in play.

Yeah, I think you're right. At the first table, I would probably just roll a Wizard and have fun abusing the rule as hard as possible until the DM took the hint.

Something like the Wendigo ruling, though...that table probably gets flipped.

[Venger]

Maybe it's just been my personal experience, but I've never seen anyone play a Druid and not immediately unleash maximum bear.

oh yeah, theres black bear

[Kalmageddon]

I put together an Illumian Druid/Beguiler, put a lot of work into planned progression to get into Arcane Hyrophant (I think it's called).

The Adventure starts. Undead. Undead, Undead, Undead, Constructs, Undead, Insects, Undead, Constructs.

Then I died.
I replaced the character with a Drow Cleric.
Yuan-Ti, Lizards, Yuan-Ti, Dragons, Godling.

:smallsigh:

I hate when DMs only use enemies that make one or more character useless but... Why would snake people and lizards be a problem to a drow cleric?

[shadow_archmagi]

In a game of Pathfinder, the GM told us to make whatever we wanted! So, a friend and I went and made a Cavalier/Paladin duo chargers on mounts. The goal was to Smite/Challenge the big bads, with Power Attacks, Spirited Charge, large strength, etc.

Dungeon crawl was obviously what the GM had in mind!

And then, back in 3.5, I played an Artificer. It was supposed to be a grand campaign that went on for years, bringing us from 1-20+. While it did go on for some time, I wasn't allowed to craft anything ever because the group wanted to keep moving, rather than wait around for me to do my friggin' job!

That's why you play a warforged and craft while everyone else is asleep, and then 'sleep' in the wagon during the day. Infusions are pretty sweet, but you're not totally gimped without them since you've still got medium BAB and whatever it was you spent all night making.

[Greenish]

Yeah, I think you're right. At the first table, I would probably just roll a Wizard and have fun abusing the rule as hard as possible until the DM took the hint.Though ToB should work with those rules. Duskblades and Totemists likewise.

Of course, few of them could match two spells a round in usefulness, but eh. If that's a problem, it'd probably be even without said houserules.

[CTrees]

I hate when DMs only use enemies that make one or more character useless

That reminds me of a minor case at my table... The party got a choice of what to go after, which at its simplest was, "you can go fight sahuagin, undead, or what's in the mystery box!" Party chose undead. THEN one of the players started optimizing Intimidate. It's only a side trick in his build, but... still. I blame that one fully on the player, not myself as DM.

[Voyager_I]

Though ToB should work with those rules. Duskblades and Totemists likewise.

Of course, few of them could match two spells a round in usefulness, but eh. If that's a problem, it'd probably be even without said houserules.

It's actually an early game buff to a lot of martial types as well, since they get to make two attacks at full BAB per round and can probably abuse the hell out of a few feats in the process.

Of course, they still need to spend the equivalent of a full-round action already being in melee range to do that, so it doesn't really help that much.

[Venger]

That's why you play a warforged and craft while everyone else is asleep, and then 'sleep' in the wagon during the day. Infusions are pretty sweet, but you're not totally gimped without them since you've still got medium BAB and whatever it was you spent all night making.

if you're crafting, you're a caster. if you'e a caster, you still need to rest 8 hours to regain spells, even if you don't need to sleep. this is why undead/construct PCs have to twiddle their thumbs while all their livingfriends sleep

[Gwendol]

Hobgoblin monk: with stunning fist and using either unarmed strikes or a staff... DM has us stepping into a portal into the Twilight Tomb (undead heavy campaign). Fun interacting with the orcs and goblins, not so fun fighting waves of undead.

Rogue, suddenly realizing the campaign will essentially only be fighting formians (I left the game after making that realization).

[Tar Palantir]

if you're crafting, you're a caster. if you'e a caster, you still need to rest 8 hours to regain spells, even if you don't need to sleep. this is why undead/construct PCs have to twiddle their thumbs while all their livingfriends sleep

Yes, but the point was that the warforged artificer can rest in the wagon or whatever, since he doesn't need his casting for any actual fights that interrupt his rest.

[Corlindale]

My first ever D&D char was an illusion-focused sorceror. And of course our adventure started in a dungeon full of constructs and undeads :smallsmile: I guess it taught me a lesson about diversifying spell selection, no matter how cool a theme you think your sorceror should have.

When one of my wizards first got access to Glitterdust, I noticed pretty quickly that our GMs homebrew adventure started to contain lots of sightless/blind-immune enemies...

[Rubik]

My first ever D&D char was an illusion-focused sorceror. And of course our adventure started in a dungeon full of constructs and undeads :smallsmile: I guess it taught me a lesson about diversifying spell selection, no matter how cool a theme you think your sorceror should have.Illusion is awesome against constructs and undead. Just avoid the [mind-affecting] phantasms.

[mikau013]

Rogue with two-weapon fighting and daggers and then being told of the dm's houserule that you can only apply sneak attack once per round. :smalleek:
And then it turned out it was a heavy undead campaign, with some oozes, construct :smallsigh: and kobolds

[Rubik]

Rogue with two-weapon fighting and daggers and then being told of the dm's houserule that you can only apply sneak attack once per round. :smalleek:
And then it turned out it was a heavy undead campaign, with some oozes, construct :smallsigh: and koboldsFriends don't let friends make rogues.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

In several campaigns I have found that defensive illusions are self-defeating in the metagame. Access to invisibility? Every enemy has see invisibility or invisibility purge. Access to Displacement/Greater Mirror Image? Every enemy has true seeing or Pierce Magical Concealment. Ham, meet fist.

In a 4e game I tried to specialize in Sleep, increasing my WIS to decrease its chance of saving, nabbing the right pre-errata items, et cetera. I foolishly kept trying to use this spell in almost every fight. Nothing in the entire campaign actually fell asleep until the last battle, where a couple major baddies were put out of commission, at least for a round. I suppose the DM finally realized what he was doing and threw me a bone? Immediately after they fell asleep my partymate did an AoE damaging thing on them which, apparently, woke them up, because that made sense to him...

[absolmorph]

I once made a character who was intended to be a Handle Animal guy with some skill monkey thrown in.
The campaign has been on hiatus for over a year, starting immediately after he was captured by a drow...

[Seerow]

I made a bard recently for a core only game, right at the start of an adventure I roll a effective 0 on a climb check to descend a rope down a cliff face, which is 5 lower than the DC5, and fell down the rope, getting knocked down to -3 hit points instantly, and triggering an encounter at the bottom, with me being the only one down there for 2 rounds while the rest of the party climbs down and dire rats gnaw me to death.

[Gavinfoxx]

I made a bard recently for a core only game, right at the start of an adventure I roll a effective 0 on a climb check to descend a rope down a cliff face, which is 5 lower than the DC5, and fell down the rope, getting knocked down to -3 hit points instantly, and triggering an encounter at the bottom, with me being the only one down there for 2 rounds while the rest of the party climbs down and dire rats gnaw me to death.

Why didn't you take 10??

[Seerow]

Why didn't you take 10??

That was actually what I tried to do. I said "Okay climbing a rope is like DC5, I'm the lightest person here so I go first, taking 10". DM says "Okay, roll your climb check" I'm like "But I was taking 10.." he answers "Sorry can't do that, now roll, you already said you're climbing"

I then rolled a nat 1 with a -1 climb check. Woops.

[Zeta Kai]

I want to punch every one of your DMs. To death. I hope that they get a paper cut every time that they open the DMG.

[Chained Birds]

I made a Warlock for a monster PC adventure and vouched to pick a race that didn't give me level adjustments or extra HD so I could be an effective caster-ish character. I also prioritized his skills for Bluff and UMD and was able to use divine and arcane scrolls level 1-8 without fail by level 4. I had also purchased an Artificer's Monocle to make identifying magical items a free deal with my at-will detect magic. I should have went for extra HD...

Most of the party we way above me ECL as the DM waved Bonus HDs when calculating their effective levels. So we've got an ECL 4 (4HD) Warlock, and an ECL 15 Yuan-Ti Psion fighting the same monsters.
Also no one wanted to use my free identifies for magic items due to me complaining about how my character is pretty useless in a world where scrolls are the rarest for of magic item... And the larger characters took some of the only scrolls for themselves and I had to due a bit of trading for me to be allowed to use those items.

I was kicked out of the game later for being too disruptive and rules lawyering the a lot (I know I shouldn't now, but I thought I was being helpful pointing out stuff like incorporeal creatures can't be harmed by mundane weapons). I get that way when I become frustrated.

[Voyager_I]

I once made a character who was intended to be a Handle Animal guy with some skill monkey thrown in.
The campaign has been on hiatus for over a year, starting immediately after he was captured by a drow...

If we count characters that were wasted by campaigns which failed to start or fizzled out in the middle of the first scene, that would include every time I've tried to get into a PbP.

It's really cool because you spend a week writing up a multi-page concept and backstory to earn the DM's approval only to have them evaporate two days after the game starts.

[Emmerlaus]

I made a raptoran cleric... The DM didnt 4told us but we were teleported in a world where only psionic magic worked O_O

I wanted to punch him in the face.

============

A other time, we were playing a orc campaign with race made by the GM (that was cool) but I choosed to play a Monk. He did so little damage since the GM love construct and Elemental, sigh... BUt however, I was the one who was saving the party neck most of the time! Why? Ingeniosity.

Like we were facing a pixie who could send daggers from Etheral and nobody had the strenght to fight it or to hurt it in the Astral. HOWEVER, the little pixie had made a crucial mistake: it went after my dagger.

It wanted to disarm us with invisibility and HIGH hide, move silently and sleight of hand skills check. But my dagger had a sting: it was a intelligent item.

It was a magic item who could cast Faerie Fire. Next thing I do, I take off my cape, make it into a bag, teleport where the Pixie is, with her in the bag. We fall on a free action, end up right in front of a other player with a HUGE hammer and make the thing go splat before it flee in the Etheral plane (or Astral or whatever)

The GM checked THREE time if it was legal and turns out it was. I may tell the story wrong but thats overral what happen.

So overrall, bad build can be overcome with brain :p

[kulosle]

I want to punch every one of your DMs. To death. I hope that they get a paper cut every time that they open the DMG.

Yeah this. This so very much.

Oh and I can't have my wendigo commit suicide because i'm a believe that if you do that then your next character gets cursed. He turned into a tank, he had fire immunity due to something that i can't remember, or maybe just a high fire resist, but add damage reduction on top of that and he was pretty durable. I made him whine and complain about it all the time and I derailed the plot as much as possible. Saying "well my i'm craving blood have to go off this way now" And being the only one in the party that could take a hit, they pretty much had to follow me to get it done quicker or twiddle their thumbs for a while. I was the biggest pain i could be that whole campaign till the GM did a TPK.

Does any one know if this text has been changed anywhere. I really don't think that WotC intended for wendigos to only have a bite attack, for one the build listed has spells. And I like the template, but don't want to have to go through this again.

[onemorelurker]

Does any one know if this text has been changed anywhere. I really don't think that WotC intended for wendigos to only have a bite attack, for one the build listed has spells. And I like the template, but don't want to have to go through this again.

It actually makes a lot of sense to me that a standard Wendigo won't use anything except its bite--Wendigos are supposed to be insane and eternally hungry, so ignoring better weapons in favor of getting some grub seems like a legitimate course of action for one.

However, if you've re-fluffed your Wendigo into being sane, then the bite-attack-only thing should probably go, since your Wendigo should be able to choose to use the weapon he's better with.

[Rejusu]

Does any one know if this text has been changed anywhere. I really don't think that WotC intended for wendigos to only have a bite attack, for one the build listed has spells. And I like the template, but don't want to have to go through this again.

Play with a better DM next time. Reading this thread makes me realise how lucky I've been with my DM's. It sounds like a lot of DM's don't understand that their job is to make the game fun for the players, not to try and crush their spirits.

[MagnusExultatio]

Quite possibly the worst game I have ever played involved me, two other people, and... the DM's Girlfriend. The other two people I don't remember because I don't care. I only have beef with the DM's Girlfriend, who played a druid. I played a Warblade, much to the DM's displeasure.

I didn't force him into it either, I asked nicely if I could play a Warblade, and after a bit of hesitation and me physically handing him Tome of Battle to look over with the explicit condition that he wouldn't ruin my book. Oh, he didn't do anything to my book, but when game time went around...

Apparently while I lent him the book for a few days, he decided that Warblades were "too magical", and that thing called "ask the guy who lent it to me so he can give an actual educated opinion" was for sissies, so instead of simply emailing or finding some other way of saying "no" to me, he decided to do this the good old fashioned passive-aggressive way, by heaping terrible houserules on me.

One, they stopped working in an AMF. Flat out. Two, every time I recovered a maneuver past the first time in a day, I had to pass a ginormous Concentration check, or else I couldn't refresh it. Third, every time I initiated a maneuver past the first time in a day I had to pass a fortitude save or be fatigued for an hour. Yes, an hour. Fourth, and finally, if I used the same maneuver more than once in the same encounter, any enemy who saw me would get a +2 stacking bonus to AC. I'm desperate for a game, so I shrug and go "why not".

I'm already kind of rambling, so I'll get to the point. Session 1 highlights: Enter game, get railroaded into Quest NPC. Get railroaded (dominate person or whatever with a LOLHIGH DC) into attempting to attack quest NPC. Did I mention I was at sixth level? Because I was totally at sixth level and had magical gear. Which promptly got disjunctioned into nothing. Meanwhile DM's Girlfriend's Druid was decked out in enough magical gear to blind anyone casting detect magic at her, and was the de facto party leader because everyone else was forced to. We run around and kill things. Nothing I do matters while the Druid murders absolutely everything and wins forever. This is where I should've left, but I was kinda really wanting a game, so I decided to stick around for session two.

Session two! More of the same. Except this time the DM decided to throw me a bone or whatever, so my RPing actually lands me something. Potentially. Maybe. I think.I won't bore you with the details but it was story relevant. Probably. I challenge a fancy pompous swordsman who was an extremely thinly veiled self-insert of the DM to a duel.

I manage to go first in the fight, so I unleash an Emerald Razor with full power attack. I roll a 20. And I roll another 20 to confirm. I somehow miss. For the rest of the battle, no matter what I roll I can't hit this dude's AC, so naturally I get knocked unconscious. And then the DM's Girlfriend who was apparently randomly assigned as my second (something I should have known and actually picked out) decides to fight this super cool amazing untouchable NPC.

She wild shapes into hell if I remember, it was hella kawaii and sugoi and majestic and all those adjectives. She rolls nothing above a 10 for the entire fight but still somehow manages to constantly damage the swordsman guy, while he barely manages to nick her. She wins and then gives a speech about love, peace, having sex with animals, and dating the DM. I may have added extra things in there, but I don't care about or for this person.

So at this point I lose my top, rant out the DM and his Girlfriend for several minutes about how they were awful people and how herpes would be ashamed to have them, and then pack my crap and leave. And a month later the grapvine tells me the DM and his Girlfriend broke up because she was cheating on him.

[Rejusu]

Meanwhile DM's Girlfriend's Druid was decked out in enough magical gear to blind anyone casting detect magic at her, and was the de facto party leader because everyone else was forced to.

That's kind of funny because the last time I played with a DM's girlfriend I was the druid and her Barbarians gear got melted by acid a few sessions in. The DM didn't hand wave it or anything, though he was very apologetic about it. She ended up re-rolling (some kind of wizard I think) in frustration. They're still very much together though.

[Kalmageddon]

That's kind of funny because the last time I played with a DM's girlfriend I was the druid and her Barbarians gear got melted by acid a few sessions in. The DM didn't hand wave it or anything, though he was very apologetic about it. She ended up re-rolling (some kind of wizard I think) in frustration. They're still very much together though.

My experience with a DM and his girlfriend as a player is not bad at all. They were kind of funny in that she basically always failed and the DM was extra hard on her, at which point she would threaten him of "no sex for you ever again if I fail this roll too". They both had fun and never took it seriously.

[Badgerish]

My story is nothing compared to most of these stories (but most of these stories are UTTER TRAVESTIES that justify GM-punching) but I think it will add to the thread.

So, I'm not a very social person but I end up really caring about them, thus I end up doing a lot of talking, despite how I don't play social characters and how every single 4ed PC I played before this point had 8 Cha.

Starting a new campaign with a good, trustworthy GM so I decide that it's time for a change. A Dragonborn Warlord with 16 Cha and two trained social skills! That's DOUBLE my normal charisma! This warlord gets a brief history, a secret hook, a possible unknown-by-the-character goal and a distinct voice/method of speaking. Time to take the lead in social situations (instead of waiting for someone else to do it, then stepping up when no one does), time to actively go for social solutions to problems (normally I avoid these as social solutions just don't last).

All is good, so let's see what the rest of the group has made:

A female half-elf Ardent with 20 Cha.
A male Changling Rogue with 18 Cha.
A male Halfling Rogue with 16 Cha.
(and a warden with 8 Cha, but that doesn't matter)

The Ardent gets a ton of attention for 20 Cha and being a female adventurer, the player doesn't like this and the character quickly shifts into an almost-mute warrior-nun.
The Changeling leads most social situations and gets plenty of solo-social situations by sneaking away from the party and using magical disguise.
The Halfing doesn't say much and quickly gets replaced with a Invoker.

So, my plans for being the social-leader quickly fall apart, but I'm still having fun. I am considering retiring the character though, so I can re-use it in another campaign with the group... but then all but the Changling and Invoker get killed by Orcs :(

[panaikhan]

I hate when DMs only use enemies that make one or more character useless but... Why would snake people and lizards be a problem to a drow cleric?

I'd optimized the cleric build against undead, obviously.
{edit} Oh, and being two levels weaker didn't help (drow was about the only 'replacement' race available capable of being a cleric)

[Telok]

I've got one that isn't DM related. Sometimes I make 'theory builds' just to test out ideas and I usually write out a half-finished character sheet to go with them. Well I had a psychic warrior / warblade build that was designed to Power Attack with Emerald Razor and Deep Impact on alternating rounds (2hander PA with touch attacks and not spell/item dependant). In addition it had things like Energy Adaptation, Force Screen, Pearl of Black Doubt, and Battle Leader's Charge.

During one game another player's character died. He brought in a barbarian, who died to a critical hit from an artificer's wand in his first combat. So I gave him the psi-war-blade build and explained what it did. He finished filling it out and threw on the normal +x basic magic items, weapon, AC, saves, Ring of Protection, the usual stuff. The party took a pit stop at a tavern and recruited the character in time for the next fight.

He never used Emerald Razor and Power Attack at the same time. The psionic focus was used for Psionic Weapon, a prerequisite for Deep Impact. All the power points were used for Lion's Charge, which was never in the original build, instead of the defensive powers. I could go on but it was just bad all over.

One day I may pull the build out and use it the way it was meant to be played. But what I saw that day was almost a bad as hearing a level four druid saying "I'll tank! I have a wand of Cure Light, it doesn't matter what my AC is."

[Kalmageddon]

I'd optimized the cleric build against undead, obviously.
{edit} Oh, and being two levels weaker didn't help (drow was about the only 'replacement' race available capable of being a cleric)

Ah, right. That makes sense.

[Acanous]

I had this great Dungeoncrasher/trapkiller Fighter/Barbarian build, really not very optimized, but exceedingly fun to play.
Now he's being forcibly respec'd to pure pathfinder. I'm losing pounce unless I go pure barbarian 10 (Despite the wording on the "Rage options" keying to level, not class level, but melee never gets nice things) and dungeoncrasher/trapkiller altogether :<
Really kills the whole idea of the character. If anyone has a really awesome level 10 barbarian build for Pathfinder, I'd appreciate some advice.
Had to trash all the items I had, too. Re-buy with 62k. 20 point-buy re-doing stats.

>.<

[Krazzman]

I had this great Dungeoncrasher/trapkiller Fighter/Barbarian build, really not very optimized, but exceedingly fun to play.
Now he's being forcibly respec'd to pure pathfinder. I'm losing pounce unless I go pure barbarian 10 (Despite the wording on the "Rage options" keying to level, not class level, but melee never gets nice things) and dungeoncrasher/trapkiller altogether :<
Really kills the whole idea of the character. If anyone has a really awesome level 10 barbarian build for Pathfinder, I'd appreciate some advice.
Had to trash all the items I had, too. Re-buy with 62k. 20 point-buy re-doing stats.

>.<

Sorry for Off topic but jeah I've got one (as adviced by other ones in my Thread about a dwarven barbarian).
Be Human (else miss out on Combat Reflexes)
Take Totem Invulnerable Rager Barbarian.
Take Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, Extra Rage Power,Improved Overrun, Greater Overrun, and Extra Rage power as feats.
Take Guarded Life, Strength Surge, Overbearing Advance, Overbearing Assault, [Beast Totem Chain or Superstitious Chain].
Else look into Novawurmsons Barbarian Handbook.

Hope this helps you.

[Aeryr]

Once while I was DMing (a twoshot) we had a discussion about how stupid it is that there is critical failure in 1 and critical exit in 20 so we decided to do CRITICAL FAILURE OF DOOM on 13.

Guess what my two feral jungle elfs scout barbarians rolled after raging and charging with leaping charge and full PA. Well they had two heart strokes...

[Dimers]

I want to punch every one of your DMs. To death. I hope that they get a paper cut every time that they open the DMG.

Nooooo, please don't discourage them from opening the book! How else can they learn how badly they're screwing up?

[CTrees]

Once while I was DMing (a twoshot) we had a discussion about how stupid it is that there is critical failure in 1 and critical exit in 20 so we decided to do CRITICAL FAILURE OF DOOM on 13.

Guess what my two feral jungle elfs scout barbarians rolled after raging and charging with leaping charge and full PA. Well they had two heart strokes...

That's actually hilarious. As a DM, I love that sort of thing, because it's a story that gets recounted and the players find it hilarious. Admittedly, it's a little bit more annoying on a BBEG, but my response is to chuckle along with everyone else, make up some dramatic explanation (the barbarians rage so hard their hearts EXPLODE! Everyone make a will save versus METAL!), and then pencil in anothe encounter a little later in the adventure.

[Aeryr]

Yep that's what happened.

As a DM I always try to prepare at least 4 possible encounters and depending on the players decisions one or another will take place. Mostly I do everything on the fly scramble some notes and go comando to my sesions. For me DMing is a storytelling experience shared with the PCs. Most of the time is fun, some times there are smartasses that during an encounter with a white dragon will open the monster manual and ask questions like: how big is it? On those cases I am nasty but otherwise I am open for the LOLs.

In that same game we also had so much fun when the bard (who had to came up with a song whenever he used bardic music) rolled a 13 on convincing the elfs that he was just a normal random dude. They started revering him as a God. He got all the loot (and the bitches, oh elvish amazon bitches) but the elfs won't let him go, and the party had to come up with a plan to rescue (kidnap) the elfs' God.

[Greenish]

This is where I should've left, but I was kinda really wanting a game, so I decided to stick around for session two.You know, I love gaming as much as the next guy, but when you're that desperate for your fix, it's time to seek professional help. :smallamused:

[Maximillian]

Back in...what, June of last year? I joined a PbP game of Monsters-vs-Evil-Empire (http://www.myth-weavers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18883), where the empire has enslaved all the non-humanoids around, and treat them really badly. We're freedom fighter monsters, fighting against The Man in order to free our kin and find a better place for ourselves.

I'm pretty good at optimizing, and I spent a good two weeks looking for a really good combination that seemed like it would be really fun to play, and would fit into a group of misfits fighting against oppression, and I settled on a 10 year old boy (Dragonwrought kobold refluffed as an anthro-raccoon) whose natural talents for sneaky mind magic and general roguery made him a great fit as a mole in a family high in the empire's social ladder, especially since he was already a 'pet'.

The DM made one post, and we went through 5 pages of really good roleplaying before he quit a week later. So we found another DM after a couple of months, and I rebuilt my character using a huge laundry list of houserules. And then the DM disappeared. He came back a couple of months ago to tell us he can't do it. And so we found another DM and co-DM who wanted to do it, but then they banned most of the books all of the players were using (see: ToB, MIC, MoI, and SpC), and everyone in the group would have to scrap their characters and start with completely different ones. Now, keep in mind that the entire group has stuck with this since last June in the hopes of getting to play with these characters, so having to scrap them was not on the list. So goodbye DMs.

And we're STILL looking, after a good portion of a year and 4 DMs.

Anyone interested in DMing for a group of level 10 gestalt monster characters is welcome to look us up. We're willing to be flexible and rebuild to another set of houserules, but we're NOT willing to give up the base sources for our characters. That's the whole reason we're wanting to play them, after all. We're still interested after all this time, so I don't think you need to worry about us dumping you halfway through.

Someone? Anyone? :smalleek: :smallfrown:

[Myou]

...

Wow, that's ridiculous. :smallsigh:

Good luck finding a DM who doesn't make promises they can't keep.

[MagnusExultatio]

You know, I love gaming as much as the next guy, but when you're that desperate for your fix, it's time to seek professional help. :smallamused:

I regret very little! Besides, its given me a bad game story to tell, and I have inordinate amounts of patience anyways. So it's not a complete loss. Also I was bored.

[veven]

...

I know that feel :smallfrown:
The only time a played a PBP was here and I was really excited about it. We had an awesome, diverse party and the campaign seemed really unique and cool. After some heavy railroading, a rescue by the most Gary-Stu-DM-porn-NPC I've ever seen, and like 1 round of actual combat the DM never posted again.

I've tried multiple times to get into other games but all the ones I'm interested in never get off the ground.

Good Samaritan Veven took a look at your MW posts and all the characters but I sadly doubt I could really devote the time that campaign needs to operate in it's full glory :smallfrown:.

[SleepyShadow]

<snip>

Sure. I'll DM for you guys.

[Maximillian]

Sure. I'll DM for you guys.Wh-What? Really?

Meet us over on Mythweavers (http://www.myth-weavers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18883) and give us a post telling us about you and your interest, and we can talk aaaaall about it.

Woot!

[SleepyShadow]

Wh-What? Really?

Meet us over on Mythweavers (http://www.myth-weavers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18883) and give us a post telling us about you and your interest, and we can talk aaaaall about it.

Woot!

Met and greeted. :smallcool:

[veven]

Met and greeted. :smallcool:

I love happy endings!

[Rubik]

I love happy endings!That's what s/he said.

[panaikhan]

I love happy endings!

~plays cheezy "love at first sight" music on violin~

[SilverLeaf167]

Reading this kind of thread makes me feel like a great DM :smallbiggrin: because we don't really have any truly bad experiences.

Congratulations for finding a new DM! I hope it works out! (of course it will, it's SleepyShadow after all)
Related to that topic but not really the thread in general, I'm worried about my own MW game: we got it started quite well, with a nice pace and no problems. After about a week of playing I had to go on a trip for five days, which I announced in the game forum a couple days before I left.

Now that I'm back (which I announced too), it has been three days and only one player has posted anything. I hope this won't die.

[Venger]

~plays cheezy "love at first sight" music on violin~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsiS-v6_6M

there you are.

allow me to tell you the tale of Aranea the beguiler.

way the hell back in 2009, I was starting my first year of college in the big city and was optimistic about actually getting to play in a D&D game. I'm from a smallish town, and no one back at home played, so moving to a big city I figured increased my chances of finding a game. a couple of months into the year, I heard about a game being run and got an invite from a player and friend of mine who I knew to be pretty cool, in-game and out (I'd played non-D&D games with him) so I figured I'd take his word and come to the game.

back when I was a kid, I'd picked MM1, MM2, and fiend folio at a bookstore and I'd read them a million times, mistakenly thinking they were some kind of "wayne d barlowe's guide to fantasy" type thing. I loved the art, and once I found out they were D&D splats, I mistakenly thought that every PC and npc was a ghoul or a mind flayer or a kaorti or something (didn't have a PHB or know of its existence) so I thought "sickened" and "flat-footed" were just general terms instead of being specific mechanical conditions.

when I found out my gf played D&D, I figured it would be a fun thing to do together so decided to learn the rules so, as a result, the months prior to this I'd spent devouring every splatbook I could get my hands on. once I was satisfied with my knowledge of the basics of character creation and the like, I wanted to pick a class for my first time that would let me practice all the rules regularly and wouldn't be too much bookkeeping to play (summoner, druid, archivist, etc) and I settled on straight beguiler with a mindbender dip.

characterwise, I wanted to use someone I already knew pretty well because I'd never had the chance to play in a roleplaying game before and was excited as hell about it. Aranea is based loosely off Tarantulas from "Beast Wars" in personality. his eartha kitt voice and predilection for kidnapping the maximals rather than killing them and talking circles around megatron while always managing to escape the blame along with his canonical psychic powers made him the perfect beguiler base.

in-universe, I said he was a monstrous spider that was cursed by robbing a dragon's hoard alongside his boyfriend, an elephant riding swashbuckler. the curse got the elephant too and turned him into the creature he found most distasteful (a horse) and when it zapped Aranea, it turned him into a human and left him that way. I had wrote this as a fairy tale/ light fantasy parody for nanowrimo the year before and figured it would make for a fun backstory.

I had my level 4 beguiler sheet in hand. being a noob, I'd foolishly actually taken the phb2's advice into account when allocating stats and gave him points in dex (for armor class! I need it, obviously, since I can only wear light armor) in wis (for my will saves, of course) and in cha (because social skills mean you need a cha) the dm had some weird rules for abilities that weren't exactly point-buy, but wasn't rolling either. I don't think the array he passed out had any ability below a 12, which in retrospect should've told me something

I finally arrived at the frat house it was being held at and saw a huge table of 10 people (plus myself) and asked where the game was. they said this was it and again, I should have known better, but unfortunately, I did not. the ones I can remember were:

dragon shaman- showed up an hour late, did nothing but turn his useless healing aura on.

paladin- obviously only calling himself such because of wow

cleric-spends the entire game flipping through a booklet of cleric spells trying to figure out what to cast, because apparently clerics are spontaneous casters with a list of spells equivalent to their entire spell list. keeps claiming to be batman, but never does anything remotely batman-like or roleplay at all

druid-plays wow the entire time, the only thing she says throughout the game is "what?"

sorcerer-doesn't know he has spells besides magic missile. has some kind of staff the dm gave him that blows up and damages him whenever he pushes buttons on it. does not stop using it

fighter- craft as a class skill apparently means he can make magic weapons

warlock- legitimately a pretty cool guy and the only person there besides me who had any sort of clue as to the rules of this game. naked the whole game because the dm didn't give him any clothes

ranger- DM's frat bro. clearly his favorite, getting stuff that beat WBL to death in a dark alley and did bad things to its corpse. constantly bragged about the stupidly overpowered **** the DM gave him in earlier games as though it was some kind of accomplishment on his part that required planning or effort from him. throughout the game, people referred to him as "hunter", and I rolled my eyes at the lack of effort. later on, I learned that was his name, which in retrospect was pretty funny. it also meant that his character didn't have a name, which would be noteworthy if the same didn't apply to literally every single character here except the cleric (bruce) and aranea.

cleric2- didn't say a word or take an action the whole game. I legitimately didn't notice he was there until I left.

rogue- halfling with the same name as his player.

beguiler- good old Aranea, played by me. tragically in the worst sort of game possible for a beguiler.

I think there might've been one other person I don't remember very clearly, but with the rest of the cast, you can kind of see why:


I rolled a beguiler because I wanted to do fun roleplay things and troll everybody with my disguise/bluff/etc.

first game: DM says "herp derp, left 4 dead, guys"

all undead. all the time. mindless zombies. cue 4 hours of damage rolling (roll damage to see how many zombies you kill, no atk/dmg roll)

we go to fortify ourselves behind a building and he randomly gave everybody guns and stuff (roleplay and story? what's that?) that don't precisely materialize out of the air so much as we just have them. everyone but me that is, I was graced with a weaboo katana, so I had to wait until the zombies were crawling up the wall (I guess they are all spider-man) to be effective.

the ranger, the DM's frat bro, has a brilliant energy everythingbane +5 force bow (we are level four) that makes touch attacks against everything that ignore armor and nat armor and let him shoot through multiple guys even if the arrow doesn't drop the first one

the fighter, since he owns 3 weapons, apparently gets to make 3 attacks as a full attack action. at level 4.

we finally finish mindless dice rolling and then the zombies suddenly morph into a corpse gatherer (again, we are level 4)

the halfling rogue climbs up it for some reason and steals a shiny that is in its forehead and that kills it. he falls a million feet and dies. the DM says "oh no, you're alive, it's ok"

we GTFO and go back to a magic iceberg (no explanation in-game either) that teleports us to random places when you cast magic on it (no it doesn't matter what kind) I indulge myself with an ontological quandary by casting detect magic on the nonfuntional iceberg. I detect no magic, but as I keep my concentration up, more magic comes and eventually it turns into lasers (I am unfortunately serious) and we go find ourselves in new york city

unfortunately, I am serious.

through the DM's failure to describe anything right, I eventually determine we are in the 30s. no one will take our gp, because I guess gold wasn't valuable back then. we go to get some normal clothes because my character is a beguiler and damnit I am finally getting the chance to be fabulous.

we go into a hotel and the concierge makes a joke about me keeping the halfling, who we say is a child for simplicity's sake, as an illicit sexual companion

our characters are both dudes, but my beguiler is, as I wrote in the backstory that unfortunately never saw the light of day in this campaign, an absolute queen, so I just make a come-hither face at the DM and that shuts him up, because calling someone gay is only funny if they react negatively or something.

I realise at this point that the party never stays anywhere more than one game, they're just derpaported at the end of each session so there's no opportunity for my beguiler to build social networks

there's also no one following us.

I ask the concierge if there is work in this town, if he gets my meaning, and the DM has him ask what his hourly rate is, because since my character is gay, that obviously means he is a prostitute.

I use charm person to teach him some manners and tell him I'm looking for mercenary work since I might as well make a little money.

I duck into the coatroom and disguise myself as al capone (32 disguise check, beguiler, you are the best) to talk to the contact on the off chance that there is continuity in this cluster**** of a game

he tells me to kill a union member who lives at such and such location and I get to show off my chicago accent. I agree because there's nothing else to do in this awful game. the fighter is upstairs rolling "knowledge: architecture and engineering" (yes fighters get that as a class skill, didn't you know?) and sticking forks in the electrical sockets.

I go to the contact and become irish since the target is living in an irish ghetto. I masquerade as one of his coworkers to warn him there's a hit out for him and that I'm here to help him fight off those lousy mafia goons.

he foolishly lets me in (sense motive rolls? what are those?) and starts packing. I cast sleep and coup de grace him with my rapier, which I didn't bother hiding just to see if the DM would notice.

I make an open lock check to lock the door from the inside and it's okayed. I climb out the window with spider climb and down to street level wearing the target's face (metaphorically)

the party in my absence has decided to rob a bank, which sounds like it might be more fun than ganking commoners, so I tell them that I acquired in a totally legitimate manner, the accoutrements of a bank security guard (where the mark worked)

no one questions it, not even the paladin. it sucks being the only one that roleplays.

I use my cover ID to unlock the doors, spam sleep while the paladin (vanilla) kills everybody. I blink and look around the table. no one comments. I ask him if he played paladin because of wow and he of course says yes.

we empty the vault into my bag of holding (which can apparently hold the new york mint) and there's a secret tunnel in the vault leading underground.

we go down instead of, y'know, running away from the bank we just robbed and the people we just killed (democracy sucks) and we see a design on the floor with a cup in the center.

paladin casts create water (but it's create beer because everyone else at the table is a drunken frat boy) in the cup and something happens.

lich comes out and I leap on the opportunity to roleplay before a million hours of boring combat ensues.

beguiler:"why, hello there. you appear to be temporally displaced as well. we were just on our way out, would you care to accompany us?" (some obscene number on diplomacy)
lich: no, Imma kil u guyz, lol
beguiler:"why? we've just met. surely we can make some sort of arrangement." (I'm not getting anywhere with little piddly numbers like 35 at lvl 4 with diplomacy, no sir)
lich:uh, cuz imma lich and im evil.

I repress a sneer OOC and cast my advanced learning, entice gift, just to see if the DM has any idea what he's doing.

the lich fails his save and gives me his mundane light crossbow. against a mind affecting spell.

I run back and the party opens fire. cue a million hours of boring combat. none of my spells do damage, and even with the DM apparently forgetting that undead are immune to mind affecting affects, there's nothing I can do but cast silence centered near the lich so he can't cast any spells with verbal components.

ranger does a bazillion damage a round but combat still drags on for 2 hours. every round, we roll a ref save and those of us who fail get damaged as if by fireball (at lvl 4) I am a beguiler and since this is my first game, mistakenly thought I cared about dex, so I'm able to make them easily enough, even when they start at DC20 and get higher every round. I ask if the lich is getting burned since he has no visible means of protecting himself (not wearing any items)

dm says "it's a fire lich"

well gee willickers, I didn't know there was any such monster. :smallfu rious:

the ranger kills it with his pretty rainbow bow and he and the pally brofist and celebrate. I ask where its phylactery is. the DM gives me a blank stare and says he's wearing it. I say that when no one else is looking, I pocket it with an amazing sleight of hand check (beguilers have all the skill points) I do so because no one ever pays attention to anything that's not watching the ranger roll dice.

I quietly pack up and never come back.

moral of the story?

don't play D&D with people you don't know, they might all turn out to be *******s.

this was not the best first game.

[Particle_Man]

Worst result for me was pretty mild compared to this. The half-orc fighter specialized in bastard sword and then the party is all "you awake as prisoners with no stuff". I shoulda been a monk I guess. This was a one-shot, btw, so no I did not get my bastard sword back (got a greatclub, at least).

I did play a rogue in an undead-heavy game, but I knew what I was getting into and was the locks and traps guy, not a combat rogue.

[Jodah]

Made a Factotum 10 / Swashbuckler 3 / Master thrower 5 / Swordsage 2 / Fac 1 for a replacement for my Binder that had died in an epic campaign. The thing could deal over 500 damage a round (on average) with Iajutsu, Insightful strike, factotum abilities, etc. And this was with normal daggers. His AC was over 60 and his initiative was over 20. He attacked vs. touch AC only and could attack multiple adjacent opponents. It took down a Tarrasque single-handed in a play-test. It was probably one of my favorite builds to date -- and the campaign was canceled before he could see the light of day...