A small problem.

[Temporal]

Hello playgrounders. I'm faced with a bit of a dilemma.

Our party Druid is fine. Great player, great character, I have no complaints whatsoever. Our party Wizard is fine. Great sense of humor, strong character, no complaints. Our party Beguiler is fine. Easy going, relaxed, creative... and then there is the Rogue.

Here are a few excerpts of the Rogue's activities:

Rogue tries to sneak in and stab a giant. The giant notices him and the AoO nearly kills him in one hit as he has a very low Constitution.

Rogue tries to find and detect traps. Rocks fall, Rogue is unconscious. The Wizard was standing right next to him but still had plenty of HP left.

Rogue tries to pick a lock after the person with the key fled through that door. He fails attempt after attempt until Grizzly Druid breaks the door (he got away from them).

If it were just that his character was entirely ineffective I could overlook that. The rest of the party is quite powerful and is managing well regardless. What's more troubling is his attitude. The moment anything starts to go unfavorably for him he accuses me of deliberately singling out his character. Bad things happen to everyone's character at times, not just his. They just deal with and react to adversity a lot better. According to him when his level 10, 25 HP character is reduced to -8 in one hit that's me hating Rogues. I'm not buying that, but his constant negativity is starting to bother the other players. He insists the group is not playing and working together as a team. They are, one of their recent fights involved a nice trick with the Beguiler and Druid working together and creating real and illusionary summoned animals to hedge enemies in the Wizard's area control effects. He claims that the teamwork should involve him more. That's how he ended up almost dying from a single giant AoO. They tried that. He's just never satisfied.

There's also a party Fighter. He's not as strong as the three casters, but he does decently enough and doesn't complain.

[Righteous Doggy]

Ahh, well, you have a bunch of higher tier characters for one. Its can be difficult for a rogue to keep up. Does he understand what he as a rogue is? A skillmonkey or backstabber rather than a combatent? is he using those skills wisely? and with 25 hp of course he's going to have trouble!
I think he's just feeling down becuase of some nasty luck and having 3 casters to outshine him. The beguiler can even do some of his job... You could throw him a bone with a decent magic item or two. Maybe rogue isn't right for him?
Of course, sometimes you always have a player you don't like or is genuinely bad. Like that guy who never read the book and has little to no idea what his class is, never prepares spells and has to open a book to remember what they even are, or never roleplays...

[Temporal]

Fighters are a lower tier and the Fighter is doing better. I don't think this is a tier problem. The Beguiler doesn't care about traps and locks at all. When the Rogue tries to deal with them it usually results in him springing the traps on himself.

When the party tried to leave locks to him the person they were chasing got away.

I have no idea what he's trying to do. If he goes near an enemy in combat he dies or almost dies, if he tries to do something out of combat it almost never works... All he does is talk about how awesome he is then act like anything but. As much as he thinks it I'm not singling him out but there's just no way you can run around with 25 HP at level 10. He claimed that "Dexterity was better than Constitution".

That isn't panning out so well.

[Jeraa]

25 hitpoints at level 10? Did he roll badly, of have a constitution below 10? With a 10 constitution, a 10th level rogue should average 37 or 38 hitpoints.

Does he just roll badly on the skill checks, or is he doing something wrong? Is he focused on his skills (fewer skills, maximum ranks), or a generalist (many skills, fewer number of ranks in each)?

[hymer]

Why are traps/locks so hard for him? How about making DCs appropriate for the character? Why did the giant notice him, they're not exactly spot-machines, are they?
Give him some Con-boosting item, for chrissakes. He needs it badly.
That the fighter does better doesn't mean that there is no tier problem. The fighter may be played better, may be better equipped, better built, etc. Or the player may just have a better attitude about it.

[nedz]

What is it with low Con Rogues ? They seem quite common at the moment, I'm guessing that they will die out soon however.

You could point him at the Improved Toughness feat - that will add 1 HP / level; but really he needs more AC and miss chances.

Why is he unlucky ?
Are his skills maxed out, or are they spread all over ? The latter will cause him to be be good at nothing.

[Temporal]

Jeraa: Both. He has a low Constitution and got slightly below average results.

He got a 12 on the Disable check and sprung the trap on himself. I don't remember what he got on the lockpicking. At least two were high but not high enough. He has the skills maxed, just that the standard DCs are even higher.

hymer: The giant noticed him because he doesn't understand the hide rules. Even if he had that leave him standing next to an alive and angry giant. I tried giving him a Con item. He claimed that was for tanks and he preferred his current amulet. I don't even remember what it does. He never uses it. The Fighter is able to deal with the sorts of challenges he faces. Tiers are only about interparty balance, not about what sorts of things they are fighting. It's not a tier problem.

nedz: He claims Dex is more important and tries to get a high AC. His AC is not actually high. Most enemies hit him easily or could hit him easily. When he gets hit anyways he gets angry.

[Akal Saris]

He might just be a terrible player...in which case all you can do is keep running the game, toss some nice items his way, lower DCs on traps and doors, and basically lower the bar for him to succeed.

[Yawgmoth]

What is it with low Con Rogues ? They seem quite common at the moment, I'm guessing that they will die out soon however.Probably because they have low hp. :v

But seriously, low-con rogues have been around since 2e. Are you posting from the 80s somehow?

[Fatebreaker]

A tale of two players (and a rogue):

Back in college, we had a player who was a lot of fun to play with... until the first time he failed a role. Then we would never hear the end of it, and every roll after that was another opportunity to complain. If he succeeded, he would complain about his previous failure. If he failed, he could complain about his new failure. No matter how much we reminded him that low rolls were part of the game, he refused to listen.

Success was what was "supposed" to happen. If the dice rolled low, then the dice were "cheating him."

We had another guy who, during a crucial moment in play, rolled five 2's in a row. This was so statistically unlikely that after a certain point, we all just began laughing in sympathy, because what else could we do? Five 2's, man. You can't fight that. He was such a good sport about it that it was more fun this way than if he'd succeeded.

From what you describe, it sounds like your rogue is the first guy. He can't see beyond his own failure. He can't see that failures are part of the game. He can't see that the game is just as much about the times you fail as the times you succeed.

You can't win with people like that.

If you want him to stick around, maybe let him try another character. Have him get advice from the folks around here. If that doesn't work, boot him. Play with people who are fun. Don't waste time on people who refuse to have fun.

[Temporal]

He might just be a terrible player...in which case all you can do is keep running the game, toss some nice items his way, lower DCs on traps and doors, and basically lower the bar for him to succeed.

I don't think that'd really help. I'm already sticking to standard traps, and I'm already ignoring the level loss for resurrections for him only as otherwise he would be level 3 by now. In his own mind Rogues are amazing, but anything good they could do he's not doing. The Fighter player had a Warmage before this. He did fine for a while and eventually got killed with a greataxe crit. He could have came back but he wanted to play a melee character.

Fatebreaker: His problem is being a bad sport about losing and frequently losing. I'm not sure what his problem is. When he starts getting angry he just starts rambling and it doesn't make any sense at all. A part of me wonders if he has mental health problems but none of us are willing to directly ask that sort of sensitive question.

[Righteous Doggy]

I had a full game where I rolled nothing but ones... and one 2. but I laughed and had fun with it still, and that made it worth it. Again, if he's not doing what a rogue would do, maybe its not his class... and if he can't handle a bit of failure and if he's starting to ruin the rest of the groups fun, then he's more than just a small problem.

[Namfuak]

Considering the tank comment, maybe part of the reason he gets so angry at low rolls is that he is thinking of the game the wrong way. Consider a video game - you "win" by succeeding at everything, either the first time or after going at it a bunch of times until you win. Even in a persistent game world like WoW this is true - your group fights the boss and wipes until they finally get it.

D&D is different. In D&D (and most tabletop RPGs), you get one shot, and in the end it is mostly based on luck, unless whatever you are trying to do is particularly trivial or unimportant. When he fails, he wants to go back and try again, but he can't, so instead he gets mad. As such, it isn't so much that he is failing, but that failure is definitive, rather than something to be retried and overcome.

One thing to note though is that you should check his character sheet to see if he is missing something or did something wrong. If he is going to be a serious lockpicker/trapfinder, he needs to have full ranks in disable device and search at minimum, and should probably look into boosting his intelligence (which you can do with magic items, by the way). If you think he'll parcel it off to the wizard, give them two headbands of intellect or similar.

[Ziegander]

Level-appropriate locks and traps will kill a Rogue all day long. Maxing out the skill ranks, like a sane player would expect to work, unfortunately, does not work at all. A Rogue that does nothing but max his skill ranks will consistently fail to open locks or find traps.

A Rogue already has d6 hp per level, no shields, and only light armor to show for its defenses (aside from Evasion). Compound that with a Con score below 10, and you have a recipe for disaster.

What you have here is a player that has systematically built his character to fail at everything and succeed at nothing.

Perhaps you should try to explain to him that you are following all of the standard rules, and that, through the choices he has made for his character, he is failing, and will continue to fail, to contribute anything relevant to the party. Show him math and stats. He has an abysmal chance of finding traps or of surviving any level-appropriate attack, and given his focus on AC and skills, his offense has got to be suffering badly.

Partly, this is a problem with D&D 3.5 skills. A Rogue has a lot of skills, so players logically assume that he must be good at skills, but the trouble is that nobody is good at skills, and even those that are "good" at skills find that the skills themselves aren't actually good for much of anything.

Partly, this is a problem with the Rogue player's system mastery, which is drastically low. Failure to understand that above-average Constitution should be a top priority for all characters, and that below-average Constitution will get you killed, shows that he doesn't know how a game of D&D works.

[nedz]

Probably because they have low hp. :v

But seriously, low-con rogues have been around since 2e. Are you posting from the 80s somehow?

Low-con rogues have been around a lot longer than that, its just that there is another thread featuring a rogue with the same kind of issues.


Jeraa: Both. He has a low Constitution and got slightly below average results.

He got a 12 on the Disable check and sprung the trap on himself. I don't remember what he got on the lockpicking. At least two were high but not high enough. He has the skills maxed, just that the standard DCs are even higher.

nedz: He claims Dex is more important and tries to get a high AC. His AC is not actually high. Most enemies hit him easily or could hit him easily. When he gets hit anyways he gets angry.

He's right, Dex is more important, as is Int (for skill points), its just that Con is not a dump stat if you're going to be in combat and setting off traps.

He ought to have a reasonable AC, but that takes effort. The best ways of doing this is to have lots of cheap sources of AC which stack. I'm guessing he doesn't bother because "He's not a tank" or something.

[Alefiend]

You might also want to find a way to make failure fun. I'm not blaming you for the rogue's attitude, but if the result of each failure is punishment/pain/death, it's understandable.

Think of some of the classic failures in genre films. Indiana Jones failing to bypass the trapped pedestal in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Chewbacca failing a Search check (or Will save, Wisdom check, or however you see it) to realize that a dead animal impaled on a stick just might be a trap. Conan failing his Bluff/Disguise checks when infiltrating Thulsa Doom's citadel. All of these set up more story options, whether or not they also lead to harm.

[prufock]

Level-appropriate locks and traps will kill a Rogue all day long. Maxing out the skill ranks, like a sane player would expect to work, unfortunately, does not work at all. A Rogue that does nothing but max his skill ranks will consistently fail to open locks or find traps.

13 ranks + 3 int/dex + 2 MW thieves' kit + 2 Nimble Fingers feat = +20. You can take 10 and succeed at any of the non-magical CR 10 traps in the SRD with no real optimization, even without the feat. The magical traps have a bit higher DCs, but should be doable with some basic buff support (Heroism/Greater Heroism, for example). A "good lock" has an open DC of 30. Again, should be able to hit this by taking 10.

He sounds inexperienced at character creation, which is fine; he also sounds like he rejects suggestions, which is not so fine. I think the key would be to work out some way to help him with his character. He's flat out REJECTED a con-boosting item, despite his low HP and frequent near-death experiences, so I'd say you have your work cut out for you in that regard.

If he wants to hang back, let him use a crossbow and slip him a few potions of Invisibility or even a ring of Invisibility in the next treasure haul. That will let him make sneak attacks without getting too close. Does your wizard have Invisibility or Invisibility Sphere? That would help.

Help him find tactics where he can be useful.

[Ziegander]

13 ranks + 3 int/dex + 2 MW thieves' kit + 2 Nimble Fingers feat = +20. You can take 10 and succeed at any of the non-magical CR 10 traps in the SRD with no real optimization, even without the feat. The magical traps have a bit higher DCs, but should be doable with some basic buff support (Heroism/Greater Heroism, for example). A "good lock" has an open DC of 30. Again, should be able to hit this by taking 10.

Yeah, okay, but of CR 8, 9, and 10 traps, there are 21 total traps, and only 9 of them are non-magical. Spending a feat on Nimble Fingers is a terrible move, I think we can all agree, but even taking that into account, okay, he auto-succeeds at finding some traps if he isn't distracted, but just having high enough Search skill doesn't actually mean that he finds them before they become dangerous.

That also means that over half the time, even if he does find the trap before it goes off, he has to pit his +20 disable device modifier against DCs as high as 34. Any magical trap with a DC higher than 30 is a very dangerous enterprise, because has at best a 50% chance of not getting instantly killed. Seriously, 1 in 4 traps will just kill the Rogue. Those are atrocious odds if the character is supposed to be "good" at finding and disabling traps. Though, as a point to the DM in this situation, DO NOT THROW MAGICAL TRAPS AT THE PARTY EVER. Some of them can even kill the entire party if he fails to disarm them, which he is likely to do.

Does the Rogue realize that if his only contribution to the game is [automatically opening super low-level locks, and strictly mundane, level-appropriate traps in non-stressful situations] that playing his character will be exceedingly boring and unfulfilling? Or maybe he's into that sort of thing, in which case, suggest he try to sneak attack things much less often, and that he optimize for this stuff (then throw lots of this sort of thing into the campaign so that he feels special).


If he wants to hang back, let him use a crossbow and slip him a few potions of Invisibility or even a ring of Invisibility in the next treasure haul. That will let him make sneak attacks without getting too close. Does your wizard have Invisibility or Invisibility Sphere? That would help.

Eh, it would, maybe, help him not die, but this is 10th level. Monsters are starting to get totally scary. Non-traditional detection methods are becoming more and more common, things like Scent, Blindsense, and See Invisibility have a very real possibility to thwart this type of defense. But suggesting that the Rogue use a Crossbow + Invisibility to sneak attack from 30ft away isn't really going to help him out in the offense department.


Help him find tactics where he can be useful.

Well, when the player's choice of tactics are "dump Con," "dump Str," "try to melee," and "spend all of my resources on AC and thief skills," well, the DM definitely has his work cut out for him. The best advice he could give to find tactics where he can be useful would be, "make a new character, your current one doesn't function."

[Temporal]

Level-appropriate locks and traps will kill a Rogue all day long. Maxing out the skill ranks, like a sane player would expect to work, unfortunately, does not work at all. A Rogue that does nothing but max his skill ranks will consistently fail to open locks or find traps.

That does seem to be true. Trap DCs at this level are around 34. He comes nowhere close unless he rolls very high. I asked the rest of the party why they usually insist on just running through traps. They just took for granted that trapfinding was useless and they did it because they knew the trap would hit them anyways.


Perhaps you should try to explain to him that you are following all of the standard rules, and that, through the choices he has made for his character, he is failing, and will continue to fail, to contribute anything relevant to the party. Show him math and stats. He has an abysmal chance of finding traps or of surviving any level-appropriate attack, and given his focus on AC and skills, his offense has got to be suffering badly.

I have tried this. He's under the impression it's just me hating Rogues and then he goes on a long, almost incoherent rant about people that hate Rogues. He also doesn't seem to realize that he is almost never getting sneak attack damage. A part of it is because he doesn't understand the Hide rules but most of it is because he doesn't realize how many creatures could still see him even if he were hiding correctly. I can't convince him otherwise because he's convinced the reason creatures almost never attack him is because they don't know he's there. They almost never attack him because the vast majority of the time he is doing 1d4 damage with his crossbow and even on those rare occasions he does get a sneak attack, he's still only doing 20 something most of the time.


Partly, this is a problem with D&D 3.5 skills. A Rogue has a lot of skills, so players logically assume that he must be good at skills, but the trouble is that nobody is good at skills, and even those that are "good" at skills find that the skills themselves aren't actually good for much of anything.

I've seen a few people say things to this effect. They get shouted down by a lot of people. It's hard to tell who is right there.


That also means that over half the time, even if he does find the trap before it goes off, he has to pit his +20 disable device modifier against DCs as high as 34. Any magical trap with a DC higher than 30 is a very dangerous enterprise, because has at best a 50% chance of not getting instantly killed. Seriously, 1 in 4 traps will just kill the Rogue. Those are atrocious odds if the character is supposed to be "good" at finding and disabling traps. Though, as a point to the DM in this situation, DO NOT THROW MAGICAL TRAPS AT THE PARTY EVER. Some of them can even kill the entire party if he fails to disarm them, which he is likely to do.

It's a bit late for that. I already have. The party triggered a Wail of the Banshee trap about two sessions back when they were just running through traps. It killed the Rogue and didn't kill anyone else. I ended up having to change the rules so that a Raise Dead could bring back those killed by a Death effect because higher level spells were not available at the time and to get him to stop complaining about how unfair 9th level spells were (even though in trap form, the save DCs are much lower than what a caster would have and it's a one and done affair).

The Beguiler lied to him and said it killed a few other people to make him feel better. In hindsight, I don't think that helped matters any. It's what led to the rocks fall, Rogue is unconscious incident.

The Beguiler also started making use of Silence and line of effect rules (so it isn't hindering casting when it isn't needed) so that that would never happen again.


Does the Rogue realize that if his only contribution to the game is [automatically opening super low-level locks, and strictly mundane, level-appropriate traps in non-stressful situations] that playing his character will be exceedingly boring and unfulfilling? Or maybe he's into that sort of thing, in which case, suggest he try to sneak attack things much less often, and that he optimize for this stuff (then throw lots of this sort of thing into the campaign so that he feels special).

I'm not sure what he realizes. He has his own ideas of how his character works and no one seems able to convince him otherwise. If the reality doesn't match his perceptions it's because people are out to get him.


Eh, it would, maybe, help him not die, but this is 10th level. Monsters are starting to get totally scary. Non-traditional detection methods are becoming more and more common, things like Scent, Blindsense, and See Invisibility have a very real possibility to thwart this type of defense. But suggesting that the Rogue use a Crossbow + Invisibility to sneak attack from 30ft away isn't really going to help him out in the offense department.

He's already trying the crossbow approach. When he isn't detected by one of scent/blindsense/blindsight/mindsight/lifesight/strong but non special senses and is able to get ranged sneak attacks in... it still doesn't do much. The most damage he has ever done was to a member of his own party when he got hit by a Dungeoncrasher Fighter and launched at the party Druid.


Well, when the player's choice of tactics are "dump Con," "dump Str," "try to melee," and "spend all of my resources on AC and thief skills," well, the DM definitely has his work cut out for him. The best advice he could give to find tactics where he can be useful would be, "make a new character, your current one doesn't function."

I've asked him if he wants to play something else. He doesn't, and the question just provokes another tangent.

[Diarmuid]

He's already trying the crossbow approach. When he isn't detected by one of scent/blindsense/blindsight/mindsight/lifesight/strong but non special senses and is able to get ranged sneak attacks in... it still doesn't do much. The most damage he has ever done was to a member of his own party when he got hit by a Dungeoncrasher Fighter and launched at the party Druid.

Not to nitpick too much, but many of the abilities you're listing there have absolutely no bearing on whether the rogue can sneak attack the creature.

Blindsight merely makes concealment and invisibility irrelevent. Hiding |= Invisibility, but I could see this one negating being hidden, but not if you're using cover.

Blindsense even has verbiage stating that the creature with it is still denied its dex against attacks from things it cannot see

Lifesight only lets you discern if visible things are alive or not, if he's hiding...he's not visible (unless Spot > Hide).

Mindsight also states that knowledge of the creature's location does not negate the effects of concealment, and having total concealment still denies you your Dex.

Scent lets you pinpoint the square something is in if close enough, but again doesnt actually let you see them.

While the whole disable device, open lock thing seems like it might just suck for the Rogue, it sounds like perhaps you are unintentionally stacking the deck against him...especially if creatures with those abilities are the more common things the group is facing. Of course, with ~ +11 Search at level 10, who knows if his Hide is level appropriate either.

Just wanted to point out that those abilities are not "See Rogue in hiding" as you seem to have represented them.

[Temporal]

In order to sneak attack creatures they must be denied Dexterity to AC... which let's call catching them unawares for simplicity. Those abilities detect the Rogue early, preventing him from getting the drop on them.

Concealment is one of the many things needed to hide, which Blindsight bypasses. Lifesight causes the kobold to radiate a large amount of light, and is also only available to undead who are immune anyways.

The group has fought one devil that had Mindsight and two undead that had Lifesight. The other abilities are much more common, occurring naturally on a very large number of creatures. Simply seeing the Rogue without a special ability is also common. For one reason or another, he's almost never able to get the drop on things and if he were, they'd likely knock him on the ground in one hit due to his low HP. It might be better in a way he doesn't understand the Hide rules. If he did, he'd get off more sneak attacks, but then the things that notice him would have much more reason to attack him.

His Search and Disable at higher than 11. I'm not sure how high but I remember him rolling high several times and still not getting it.

[Diarmuid]

Concealment is only one thing can be used to enable hiding. Cover is yet another. Negating concealment does not mean hiding is completely impossible. Standing behind that wall, or attempting to blend in with the local fauna are still perfectly viable.

Lifesight, at least the version from the goggles of lifesight, only applies to visible things. If you're hiding, you're not visible. If this is different from an actual monster special ability, I apologize.

Mindsight also does not negate concealment.

The rogue already has enough cards stacked against him...you misusing special abilities to counter one of the few things he actually has going for him likely isnt going to help the situation.

If he got a Disable of a 12 (per your example where he sprung a trap on himself), then the highest his DD can be is 11. That may have been a few sessions/levels ago..again if so sorry for the confusion.

[Temporal]

Cover isn't always available, and the hiding with cover rules are just atrocious.

Lifesight is a feat from Libris Mortis. All living creatures shed light, the amount depending on their size. For the undead, him and the rest of the party appear as shining beacons of life to be extinguished. This has only come up in two fights though.

All of those abilities warn the creatures with them that someone is coming so that they will get ready.

I said he rolled a 12 and that sprung the trap on himself. Not that the total result was 12.

And if he were using the hiding rules well, he'd get to sneak attack more, which means that things would want to kill him more. With 25 HP this isn't a good idea. Right now he's dying very frequently when all he's doing is taking an occasional AoO, springing traps on himself, and being caught up in attacks aimed at other party members. He also got killed by his own party once by accident*. I can only imagine how often he would die if enemies were actively choosing to attack him. Usually they end up focused on one of the three casters.

* - At the time, the Fighter player was playing his Warmage. The group's plan was to lure the enemies in, STAY BACK, and then after the Warmage and others launch their opening volleys go in and start fighting. The invisible Rogue snuck off alone without the group's knowledge and against the plan, went straight into the radius of the Fireball he knew was coming as a part of that plan and rolled a 1, and then died. The group didn't know he was there until his now visible and charred corpse appeared. He then got mad at the group for this and me for not stopping it.

[Doug Lampert]

...but there's just no way you can run around with 25 HP at level 10. He claimed that "Dexterity was better than Constitution".

That isn't panning out so well.

14 Con is the adventurer's tax. You can maybe avoid it and go with a 12 if you are rolling a d10 or better for HP, but otherwise, you must have at least this much Con to play.

Seriously, Dex is more important for a rogue, but this does not mean that Con doesn't matter, just that it should be your second or even third highest ability.

And why's he taking AoO anyway, he's a level 10 rogue, Tumble.

And why's he depending on hiding for sneak attack, the casters deny dex bonus to AC or give you improved invisibility or you flank (not with 25 HP and no ability to tumble you don't, but that's a build problem).

Are you using rolled ability scores? If he rolled a 14, 12, 10, 10, 8, 8 array then his problems make more sense. But it's mostly self-inflicted, and I don't think you can fix it from your side of the table.

[Gavinfoxx]

By this point, the rogue should have significant magical boosts to his search and disable device scores. Seriously. Like so he can take 10 and find a good chunk of the traps automatically, and disarm a good chunk of the ones automatically, and have a good idea of which ones he can't succeed with a take 10 on, and will have to roll. That means, lets see.

Rogue 10
14 ranks in Search and Disable Device
Int 16, after magic boosts from items (+3)
+5 competence to disable device
+5 competence bonus to search
Maybe a permanencied (or goggles of) Detect Magic or something.

So 14+3+5 = 22
Taking 10 gives him a 32 search and disable device, which, when combined with a permancied or goggles of detect magic or whatever, works for a good chunk of the traps around this level. If, at the 'likely' places for traps, he spends 6 seconds on take 10 once, and then rolls to see if inspiration hits him, as standard operating procedure, and uses detect magic or whatever, he should have a good chance of noticing most traps. Also, if he does this, you should let him figure out if he can disable a trap by rote (take 10), or if he as to push himself to do so (roll). Sometimes it should be one. Sometimes it should be another.

You need to throw more magical support at this character.

Also, he needs to have those cloaks or whatever that can let him teleport 10' as an immediate action 3/day, to dodge out of the way of traps and such.

Also, why doesn't he have a ring of improved blink to sneak attack?

If he likes hiding, why doesn't he have Darkstalker?

And why doesn't he have an item to help his survivability? Dole out Amulets of Health +4 / Amulet of Tears / Brooch of Stability (a combined item) to everyone.

And why isn't his tumble mod +14 by this point?

[Cespenar]

Do not throw CR 10 traps at the party. CR 10 means that if the group survives the trap, it's the equivalent of a full blown level 10-appropriate encounter. That only one person deals with. That's wrong.

Also, note that stuff like Wail of the Banshee traps are made by minimum level 17 wizards, and cost 76,500 gp. They are not stuff a level 10 party should encounter every day. They are highest end stuff, supposed to guard, I don't know, artifact rooms or divine relics or whatnot.

I seriously think that the trap CRs mislead people.

I repeat. Do not throw "level = CR" traps at the party.

Well, that's one part of your deal, anyway.

[Telonius]

It really sounds like he's built about the weakest Rogue he can possibly build. What are his ability scores exactly? What's he putting his skill ranks in, and what's his feat selection currently?

From what the OP has written, it sounds like he doesn't understand just how weak he's built himself. This would be fixable, except that he also doesn't want to accept any help or advice on how to fix things. You've tried to solve this OOC, and it doesn't sound like it worked. At this point I personally would let him learn his lesson the hard way or get out of the group.

If you still want to make an effort to keep him in the group, try to give him some specialty item that is "obviously" intended for a Rogue. Maybe some sort of "Gloves of the Master Thief" that let him apply Dex to HP and grant search/disable bonuses. (Normally I would price those as really high, but you could slip them in as an Intelligent Item or an Artifact or otherwise make him not want to sell it). Talk to the other members of the group before you do that, since it's a significant power-up they won't be getting for their own characters; but it's for the sake of group harmony so you kind of have to.

[Gwendol]

Help him rebuild the character! Or send him over here to ask for advice himself. Give him a Blur item or a ring of blinking or something to help offset the lousy AC and low HP at least.

[Clustered Chaos]

I have a solution. Throw a Truenamer at your party.

[Stormageddon]

Wait the average DC for your traps at this level is 34!? That means with disable device maxed at 14 ranks for his level and say a 20 dex he has a 25% of time succeeding in disarming a trap and that's only on average. pretty bad odds. What resources does he have? Magic thieves' tool? anything to help this poor hapless guy out?

[nedz]

Partly, this is a problem with D&D 3.5 skills. A Rogue has a lot of skills, so players logically assume that he must be good at skills, but the trouble is that nobody is good at skills, and even those that are "good" at skills find that the skills themselves aren't actually good for much of anything.

I've seen a few people say things to this effect. They get shouted down by a lot of people. It's hard to tell who is right there.

They can work, but the DM has to set up the environment so that they can work. Cover for hiding, Traps with appropriate DCs, etc. Now it may seem like fiat, but if the DM doesn't do things like this, then skills are a poor investment.



It's a bit late for that. I already have. The party triggered a Wail of the Banshee trap about two sessions back when they were just running through traps. It killed the Rogue and didn't kill anyone else. I ended up having to change the rules so that a Raise Dead could bring back those killed by a Death effect because higher level spells were not available at the time and to get him to stop complaining about how unfair 9th level spells were (even though in trap form, the save DCs are much lower than what a caster would have and it's a one and done affair).


Well Wail of the Banshee does seem a little strong for level 10 so I can see why you bent the rules to allow the raise.

With hindsight: having the Rogue die might have been better. It would have made the game more poignent and made him a new character. YMMV.

[moritheil]

Fighters are a lower tier and the Fighter is doing better. I don't think this is a tier problem. The Beguiler doesn't care about traps and locks at all. When the Rogue tries to deal with them it usually results in him springing the traps on himself.

Well, does he not know that he has to keep his skills maxed?

Actually I find that rogue is harder to play than fighter, even if a properly twinked out one is more effective. The fighter has to know who he should be hitting. The rogue has to know when to hide, when to be visible, what item looks like it would be crucial to steal from the enemy spellcaster if he can't assassinate her, when he CAN assassinate her and get away with it, and so on. Not to say that the fighter doesn't have to build very very carefully, just that in the actual combat the rogue has a lot of snap judgments to make. It can be a bad class for those not used to it.


I have no idea what he's trying to do. If he goes near an enemy in combat he dies or almost dies, if he tries to do something out of combat it almost never works... All he does is talk about how awesome he is then act like anything but. As much as he thinks it I'm not singling him out but there's just no way you can run around with 25 HP at level 10. He claimed that "Dexterity was better than Constitution".

That isn't panning out so well.

It sounds like he knows that, but is taking his frustration out by yelling at you instead of finding a way to fix things.

[moritheil]

Wait the average DC for your traps at this level is 34!? That means with disable device maxed at 14 ranks for his level and say a 20 dex he has a 25% of time succeeding in disarming a trap and that's only on average. pretty bad odds. What resources does he have? Magic thieves' tool? anything to help this poor hapless guy out?

14 ranks +10 competence (ring) +5 dex +2 circumstance (MW tools) = +31. You can get it higher with morale bonuses. Asking someone to roll vs. DC 34 isn't that unreasonable if you have a dedicated trapsmith.

[Ceaon]

14 ranks +10 competence (ring) +5 dex +2 circumstance (MW tools) = +31. You can get it higher with morale bonuses. Asking someone to roll vs. DC 34 isn't that unreasonable if you have a dedicated trapsmith.

It becomes a bit more unreasonable if the party doesn't have access to every magic item they want.

[JKTrickster]

Here, be patient. Lower the CR of the traps because he can't deal with them. Play enemies somewhat dumb at first. Let him survive.

Is this playing with the kiddie gloves on? Yes.

But be patient.

There are really only two things you can do. Make things easier for him, or continue as you are. You haven't tried the first yet. See what might happen.

Later on? When he has had successes to make him feel better? Try to encourage more optimization. Show him how he can be even better - that tone implies that he can improve instead of accusing him of being an idiot now.

That's really important if you want to help someone. No one really likes being looked down upon. Perhaps you can try another method?

[Slipperychicken]

After a few near-death experiences, I've learned to always keep a 14 or more in Con (or whatever stat my character's using for hp). In my experience, Con<12 is a death sentence.

You could let him switch his character to be a Faerie Mysteries Initiate (Int to hp feat) Factotum. More/better skills, and way more hp. If he keeps dying, something's seriously wrong.

[Kesnit]

It sounds like he knows that, but is taking his frustration out by yelling at you instead of finding a way to fix things.

The player is taking out his frustration at one of the causes.

The Rogue can almost never sneak attack because of houseruled changes to how monsters sense hiding PCs? (This was discussed on the previous page.) Habitually throwing traps at the party that the Rogue - who the DM has admitted has kept up his DD skill - has a 1 in 4 chance of disabling? These are not the fault of the Rogue's player. A player can only do so much within the rules without help of the DM. When the DM is actively working against a PC, there is nothing that can be done.

As an aside, all these times the Rogue has died to traps, has he ever been able to use Evasion? Or do all the traps require FORT saves?

Did the Rogue make some mistakes? Obviously. But his CON of 8 is not the only problem. Setting things so that the Rogue does not automatically fail (and then having you blame him for failure you set up) will go a long way to fixing the situation.

[Temporal]

And why's he taking AoO anyway, he's a level 10 rogue, Tumble.

He thought he was hiding, so he didn't see the need.


And why's he depending on hiding for sneak attack, the casters deny dex bonus to AC or give you improved invisibility or you flank (not with 25 HP and no ability to tumble you don't, but that's a build problem).

The last time they made him invisible, he snuck off without their knowledge and got killed. They decided as a group, no more invisibility.


Are you using rolled ability scores? If he rolled a 14, 12, 10, 10, 8, 8 array then his problems make more sense. But it's mostly self-inflicted, and I don't think you can fix it from your side of the table.

No. He ended up taking low Con (and Str) because he thinks that's how Rogues are supposed to be.

@ Everyone suggesting item based solutions: Those won't work. He's deep in debt from his diamond dust habit and while I've already cut him a break several times I can only bend my game so far before it breaks. Even when he had plenty of items he was still dying frequently, and he has actively refused several items that would help him, including a +4 Con item (which every other party member either crafted themselves or got someone to make it for them or found one). The party and me have gone out of our way to work with him.


Do not throw CR 10 traps at the party. CR 10 means that if the group survives the trap, it's the equivalent of a full blown level 10-appropriate encounter. That only one person deals with. That's wrong.

Also, note that stuff like Wail of the Banshee traps are made by minimum level 17 wizards, and cost 76,500 gp. They are not stuff a level 10 party should encounter every day. They are highest end stuff, supposed to guard, I don't know, artifact rooms or divine relics or whatnot.

I seriously think that the trap CRs mislead people.

I repeat. Do not throw "level = CR" traps at the party.

Well, that's one part of your deal, anyway.

No one had any problem with level 9 spell traps, including the Wail trap except him. The party also only encountered a Wail trap once and it made sense for it to be there. After that, the Beguiler incorporated a cleverly used Silence into the group routine so that it would never work again.

If characters can deal with fights at their level or even higher, then why not traps at their level at the people that are supposed to deal with traps? The party usually just runs through traps and takes the hits so traps can't be that scary.


I have a solution. Throw a Truenamer at your party.

Huh? How would that solve anything? Are you sure you posted in the right thread?


Wait the average DC for your traps at this level is 34!? That means with disable device maxed at 14 ranks for his level and say a 20 dex he has a 25% of time succeeding in disarming a trap and that's only on average. pretty bad odds. What resources does he have? Magic thieves' tool? anything to help this poor hapless guy out?

The average DC of level 10 traps is slightly lower than 34. All magical traps are 34. It's all right there in the DMG. According to both some posters here and the other members of my group this is normal and the reason they just run through traps. They specifically assured me trapfinding is useless no matter what and not to worry about it, and that it's better this way. I'm not sure what they meant but they don't seem bothered by deliberately triggering traps on themselves.


Well Wail of the Banshee does seem a little strong for level 10 so I can see why you bent the rules to allow the raise.

With hindsight: having the Rogue die might have been better. It would have made the game more poignent and made him a new character. YMMV.

I only bent the rules to get him to stop screaming. Everyone else knew and understood the risks and knew it was more than their body at stake when fighting a necromancer and friends. Everyone else was fine with playing another character for a while if they died until the old one could get somewhere where there was a high enough level caster if they wanted to return.


Well, does he not know that he has to keep his skills maxed?

I think he has them maxed. Just based on all of the other things people are assuming he has or should has that isn't good enough. The whole impression I'm getting from this is that Rogues are an extremely weak class. Otherwise why would they need so much help in order to deal with level appropriate challenges they are designed to deal with? A Fighter wouldn't need that much help to kill a CR 10 enemy... he'd need a good bit, but not as much as people are assuming the Rogue needs to deal with traps. People are assuming some method of breaking the skill point level limit. I'm not even sure how they're doing that.


Here, be patient. Lower the CR of the traps because he can't deal with them. Play enemies somewhat dumb at first. Let him survive.

Is this playing with the kiddie gloves on? Yes.

But be patient.

There are really only two things you can do. Make things easier for him, or continue as you are. You haven't tried the first yet. See what might happen.

I haven't tried the first? Um, yes I have. He's already been fiated out of death multiple times, he's been cut an incredible amount of slack on Raise Dead, he doesn't get hit as hard as anyone else (but drops often anyways, due to his 25 HP) and rarely gets attacked at all...

Everyone else is having no problem, or perhaps being a little annoyed I'm making things easier.

So what then? Should I make it even easier? I think that'd just result in all of the other players complaining, and the Rogue complaining anyways.


Later on? When he has had successes to make him feel better? Try to encourage more optimization. Show him how he can be even better - that tone implies that he can improve instead of accusing him of being an idiot now.

That's really important if you want to help someone. No one really likes being looked down upon. Perhaps you can try another method?

He does 1d4 damage most of the time, at level 10. Even when he does get sneak attack off it's only about 20 something damage. There is not anything I could throw at him that would make him successful with his current build. I am also not a fan of lying to people. I'm not going to call his build "even better" when it's clear low Con alone makes it a bad build. Especially when all of us have already tried to improve his character and he wasn't interested.

[Diarmuid]

He thought he was hiding, so he didn't see the need.

It definitely seems like you've got quite a bit of "can lead a horse to water but cant make him drink" so I sympathize with you to some degree.

But, WRT to the quote above I'm curious why he thought he was hiding? A creature who's aware of your position should be pretty obvious as compared to one who isnt. If the target is trying to pretend that they dont see you they should be required to make some kind of Bluff check.

We dont have the specifics of the situation, but the guy has 25HP at level 10 which is completely unacceptable. His AC sucks, and he appears to have nonmagical crossbow as his only weapon. All of these things are complete player control items and you cant force change on him.

What about the "diamond dust habit" debt? Is this some kind of drug that he's addicted to? This is a game based external impact on his ability to try and plug the holes in his build as he doesnt have any money.

Do the other characters have similar money issues?

[Temporal]

It definitely seems like you've got quite a bit of "can lead a horse to water but cant make him drink" so I sympathize with you to some degree.

But, WRT to the quote above I'm curious why he thought he was hiding? A creature who's aware of your position should be pretty obvious as compared to one who isnt. If the target is trying to pretend that they dont see you they should be required to make some kind of Bluff check.

We've explained the hide and sneak attack rules to him several times. He doesn't get it. I've taken to just making mental notes of what the situation actually is, which usually results in ignoring everything but the caltrop rolled. In terms of things not noticing him, that's more because they have more pressing threats.


What about the "diamond dust habit" debt? Is this some kind of drug that he's addicted to? This is a game based external impact on his ability to try and plug the holes in his build as he doesnt have any money.

Do the other characters have similar money issues?

Diamond dust. As in he frequently needs to be returned to life. At 5,000 gold each, at level 10 this gets expensive. If I were to be strict about it he'd be about 50% of his WBL... in debt, in addition to being penniless. The rest of the party doesn't have a money shortage because the rest of the party isn't dying that often (they've also offered him items at their own expense, which he has refused).

He certainly does treat it as an addiction though!

[Kesnit]

We've explained the hide and sneak attack rules to him several times. He doesn't get it.

Because you aren't doing them RAW (explained last page) and you are screwing him over by denying him SA when he should get it. Why would he bother to try, when you have already made it clear he will fail? (If you explained your houserules to him about Hiding prior to him building his character, then I take back that comment.)

[Temporal]

Houserules? No, you're misunderstanding the situation that's happening here.

[Metahuman1]

Ok, here's what I'd do if he's refusing Con boosting Items. I'd either

A: Make him take some kind of character rebuild to get Farie Mysteries Initiate or the Ritual Of Blood so that he doesn't need Con anymore, if he has an Int or Cha respectively that is significantly better (If he has both and combined there a fair bit better, I might even give him both at the same time if I could swing it. )

Or

B: Have them go through some kind of magical area were in everyone in the party get's something nice, but it's rolled for randomly. Roll the rolls were they can't see it. Make everything something nice, but not, according to this guys specs, "For there class." His, when he get's it, should be a large Inherit boots to Con.

As for wanting to do sneak attacks, give him a ring that activates a persistent blade spell at will and make the blade keep setting up flanking so that he can go up and stab the crap out of things.




After throwing nice things like that at him, inform him not to complain anymore.



Edit: The Truenamer would suck even more then the rouge, so that he'd feel more awesome by comparison.

[Temporal]

Ok, here's what I'd do if he's refusing Con boosting Items. I'd either

A: Make him take some kind of character rebuild to get Farie Mysteries Initiate or the Ritual Of Blood so that he doesn't need Con anymore, if he has an Int or Cha respectively that is significantly better (If he has both and combined there a fair bit better, I might even give him both at the same time if I could swing it. )

Or

B: Have them go through some kind of magical area were in everyone in the party get's something nice, but it's rolled for randomly. Roll the rolls were they can't see it. Make everything something nice, but not, according to this guys specs, "For there class." His, when he get's it, should be a large Inherit boots to Con.

As for wanting to do sneak attacks, give him a ring that activates a persistent blade spell at will and make the blade keep setting up flanking so that he can go up and stab the crap out of things.




After throwing nice things like that at him, inform him not to complain anymore.

I don't know what these things are.

[Clustered Chaos]

Huh? How would that solve anything? Are you sure you posted in the right thread?


Edit: The Truenamer would suck even more then the rouge, so that he'd feel more awesome by comparison.

PM sent to Temporal.

[Slipperychicken]

I don't know what these things are.

Faerie Mysteries Initiate is a feat, one of whose possible benefits is using Int instead of Con to determine bonus hp. It's in Dragon 318 or 319. Usually, I wouldn't suggest it because it's pretty strong on the right build, but this guy seems to need it.

Basically, the fluff is you do a ritual (with mild sexual connotations, usually in backstory) with a member of a cult (the Faerie Mysteries) and get the benefit.

[Kesnit]

Houserules? No, you're misunderstanding the situation that's happening here.

No, I'm not. Seems to me you have set things up to ensure the Rogue fails.

1) You said that the Rogue keeps dying because of failure to disarm traps. You also said you are pretty sure the Rogue has DD maxed. You mentioned that the Rogue rolled as 12 and still had the trap explode on them. Since failing by 4 or less means the "you have failed but can try again," (see DD description), that means that the Rogue would have to roll a 17 or better to succeed. Meaning the Rogue had a 1 in 5 chance to disarm the device. As the DM, you can set them DC where you want. You are choosing to use traps that are nearly impossible. His death from traps - 75% your fault. (He has a 20% chance of NOT dying, and a 5% of chance of dying because he rolled a 1.)

2) Given that he has Evasion and is still dying, either the DC for the REF throw is incredibly high, or all the traps target FORT. If the issue is high REF, I have to wonder how any of the PCs are surviving, since they are even less likely to make a REF throw than a Rogue who has (by your own statement) been boosting DEX. (Even with a higher CON, they are going to fail more rolls because they have lower base REF and lower DEX, giving a better chance of dying.) If all the traps are targeting FORT, you are setting him up to fail since you know his FORT save is low - especially since you are setting up the traps so that the Rogue has almost no chance of actually disarming the trap. (Using FORT-focusing traps some is one thing. But if he dies to just about every trap, sounds like you are overdoing it.)

With respect to Hiding...


Not to nitpick too much, but many of the abilities you're listing there have absolutely no bearing on whether the rogue can sneak attack the creature.

Blindsight merely makes concealment and invisibility irrelevent. Hiding |= Invisibility, but I could see this one negating being hidden, but not if you're using cover.

You replied that cover/concealment is not always available, which is understandable. But since you said the Rogue has only managed to SA twice, it sounds like you have set it up so that cover/concealment is almost never available.


Blindsense even has verbiage stating that the creature with it is still denied its dex against attacks from things it cannot see

You did not address why the Rogue is not allowed a Hide check against creatures using Blindsense.


Lifesight only lets you discern if visible things are alive or not, if he's hiding...he's not visible (unless Spot > Hide).

This was addressed and the answer is valid.


Mindsight also states that knowledge of the creature's location does not negate the effects of concealment, and having total concealment still denies you your Dex.

You did not address why the Rogue is not allowed a Hide check against creatures using Mindsight.


Scent lets you pinpoint the square something is in if close enough, but again doesnt actually let you see them.

You did not address why the Rogue is not allowed a Hide check against creatures using Scent.


Cover isn't always available, and the hiding with cover rules are just atrocious.


Your Hide check is opposed by the Spot check of anyone who might see you. You can move up to one-half your normal speed and hide at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than one-half but less than your normal speed, you take a -5 penalty. . .

If people are observing you, even casually, you can’t hide. You can run around a corner or behind cover so that you’re out of sight and then hide, but the others then know at least where you went.

If your observers are momentarily distracted (such as by a Bluff check; see below), though, you can attempt to hide. While the others turn their attention from you, you can attempt a Hide check if you can get to a hiding place of some kind. (As a general guideline, the hiding place has to be within 1 foot per rank you have in Hide.) This check, however, is made at a -10 penalty because you have to move fast.

Sniping

If you’ve already successfully hidden at least 10 feet from your target, you can make one ranged attack, then immediately hide again. You take a -20 penalty on your Hide check to conceal yourself after the shot.


You can use Bluff to help you hide. A successful Bluff check can give you the momentary diversion you need to attempt a Hide check while people are aware of you.

What is hard about any of that?

Hide is opposed by Spot. You can only Hide if you aren't being observed, though distracting the target allows a Hide check (at -10). Sniping and then hiding is allowed (at a -20).


All of those abilities warn the creatures with them that someone is coming so that they will get ready.

Here is what I referred to as "houserules." You have decided that awareness that something is there automatically negates SA. If that was true, then Rogues could never get SA with a flank because the enemy knows the Rogue is there.

If that is how you want to run SA, that's fine. But it is a houserule since awareness does not automatically allow DEX bonus. (Heck, as Diarmuid pointed out, Mindsight specifically says creatures lose their DEX bonus to enemies they cannot see.)


And if he were using the hiding rules well, he'd get to sneak attack more, which means that things would want to kill him more.

They have to know where he is to target him. If he is making his Hide checks, the creatures don't know where to target. This would also give his AC some worth.

[Temporal]

Faerie Mysteries Initiate is a feat, one of whose possible benefits is using Int instead of Con to determine bonus hp. It's in Dragon 318 or 319. Usually, I wouldn't suggest it because it's pretty strong on the right build, but this guy seems to need it.

Basically, the fluff is you do a ritual (with mild sexual connotations, usually in backstory) with a member of a cult (the Faerie Mysteries) and get the benefit.

I'm not sure if I want to introduce that with a Beguiler and a Wizard in the party. It doesn't matter if they can take it or not. That just seems like a bad idea (even with it, his Int isn't that high... lower than the 18 or higher Con everyone else has).


No, I'm not. Seems to me you have set things up to ensure the Rogue fails.

If I did he would die far more frequently than he has.


1) You said that the Rogue keeps dying because of failure to disarm traps. You also said you are pretty sure the Rogue has DD maxed. You mentioned that the Rogue rolled as 12 and still had the trap explode on them. Since failing by 4 or less means the "you have failed but can try again," (see DD description), that means that the Rogue would have to roll a 17 or better to succeed. Meaning the Rogue had a 1 in 5 chance to disarm the device. As the DM, you can set them DC where you want. You are choosing to use traps that are nearly impossible. His death from traps - 75% your fault. (He has a 20% chance of NOT dying, and a 5% of chance of dying because he rolled a 1.)

I am using standard DCs. If standard DCs result in triggering the trap, then the various people that have mocked trapfinding are correct. Fighters can hit enemies, spellcasters can cast spells on them, so why can the Rogue not disarm traps? Kevin, is that you? You're sounding like a more behaved version of him.


2) Given that he has Evasion and is still dying, either the DC for the REF throw is incredibly high, or all the traps target FORT. If the issue is high REF, I have to wonder how any of the PCs are surviving, since they are even less likely to make a REF throw than a Rogue who has (by your own statement) been boosting DEX. (Even with a higher CON, they are going to fail more rolls because they have lower base REF and lower DEX, giving a better chance of dying.) If all the traps are targeting FORT, you are setting him up to fail since you know his FORT save is low - especially since you are setting up the traps so that the Rogue has almost no chance of actually disarming the trap. (Using FORT-focusing traps some is one thing. But if he dies to just about every trap, sounds like you are overdoing it.)

The traps are mixed. Some Fort, some Ref, some Will, some attack based, some automatic. The other PCs survive because they have much better than 25 HP and can take the hits from the damage traps and also have high enough saves to deal with the save traps. That and the Wizard and Beguiler aren't dying to the Fort traps. They also have the same or better saves but that's a different subject.


You replied that cover/concealment is not always available, which is understandable. But since you said the Rogue has only managed to SA twice, it sounds like you have set it up so that cover/concealment is almost never available.

I don't recall saying twice. It isn't frequent. Part of it is he doesn't understand hiding rules, part of it is because he does things with very low chances of working, such as sneaking off against creatures with all manner of abilities to detect him then wondering why he gets detected. A situation you continually misunderstand.


What is hard about any of that?

Hide is opposed by Spot. You can only Hide if you aren't being observed, though distracting the target allows a Hide check (at -10). Sniping and then hiding is allowed (at a -20).

Yes, those rules are atrocious. You take large penalties for doing even simple things such as attacking and then hiding again, moving from one tree to another, or moving past an open door. They have resulted in his detection numerous times.


They have to know where he is to target him. If he is making his Hide checks, the creatures don't know where to target. This would also give his AC some worth.

All of those abilities can and with the exception of scent do by default tell them where he is. Scent needs an action to do it. His AC is hit on a 2 (so is everyone else's) which I've been assured is normal for level 10 play.

The only reason he hasn't died a whole lot more is enemies usually are more bothered by one of the casters and would prefer to try and kill them.

[Diarmuid]

One thing I think you're missing is that while they may give the square he's in for targetting purposes...unless the ability in question specifically says it negates concealment then they still would suffer the 50% miss chance.

Now, I know it's not a huge thing...and you're not targetting him all that much because he's not being perceived as a threat, but still every little bit helps when this dude's HP are 25.

I would say he should try to work the flanking angle more than the attacking from hiding angle, but with that HP and no AC/Miss chance to speak of that would just get him killed more often.

In a party with casters who have full WBL, a Rogue with limited WBL and who is severely mechanincally unsound (8 Con, I'm looking at you) stands zero chance of contributing on any meaningul level and is just going to keep dying.

I dont really know what else to say on this. I dont think there's a fix that doesnt involve you nerfing the whole game and alienating the peopleb with decent characters or having this guy roll a new char.

Next time he dies, make him lose the level. He'll probably just opt to make a new character...which would probably be for the best at this point.

[Temporal]

One thing I think you're missing is that while they may give the square he's in for targetting purposes...unless the ability in question specifically says it negates concealment then they still would suffer the 50% miss chance.

In all of the cases where he was detected and something had chosen to attack him it was because he was actually seen - no special senses involved (they still might have had those senses, but it was failing a skill check or not being able to make that skill check that killed him).

There were plenty of other instances where special senses ruined his plans to get the drop on them but didn't get him killed because it had bigger things to worry about than finding the guy that isn't doing much.


I would say he should try to work the flanking angle more than the attacking from hiding angle, but with that HP and no AC/Miss chance to speak of that would just get him killed more often.

He's focused around a crossbow. Going even closer than normal sneak attack range would not help him.


In a party with casters who have full WBL, a Rogue with limited WBL and who is severely mechanincally unsound (8 Con, I'm looking at you) stands zero chance of contributing on any meaningul level and is just going to keep dying.

I dont really know what else to say on this. I dont think there's a fix that doesnt involve you nerfing the whole game and alienating the peopleb with decent characters or having this guy roll a new char.

Next time he dies, make him lose the level. He'll probably just opt to make a new character...which would probably be for the best at this point.

He was dying often before his diamond dust habit started costing him equipment. I've offered him the chance to make something else several times. He refuses. I'm really not sure why. It isn't as if he's that big on the roleplaying or anything.

CC has presented me with an... interesting solution. I will give it a try and let everyone know how it goes.

[Doug Lampert]

No, I'm not. Seems to me you have set things up to ensure the Rogue fails.

1) You said that the Rogue keeps dying because of failure to disarm traps. You also said you are pretty sure the Rogue has DD maxed. You mentioned that the Rogue rolled as 12 and still had the trap explode on them. Since failing by 4 or less means the "you have failed but can try again," (see DD description), that means that the Rogue would have to roll a 17 or better to succeed. Meaning the Rogue had a 1 in 5 chance to disarm the device. As the DM, you can set them DC where you want.

As a DM, I should be able to assume that a trapfinder character can beat the DCs given in the DMG for a reasonable on level DC trap.

Backfiguring from the character's abilities means you're not even attempting to make a generally ballanced world or encounter set (and simulation is frequently claimed to be an advantage of 3.x), instead you're carefully constructing an eigen plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotTailoredToTheParty?from=Main.EigenPlot) for your party to follow.

Hear that train whistle as build decisions are completely negated, the DC of the trap depends only on the ability of the character, so +0 or +50 it's all the same.

Bah!

DC 34 is perfectly reasonable at level 10 for a trap DC (based on the DMG rules and listed examples).

Either that listing is wrong, and the given traps are seriously broken; or eating the trap is in fact the expected way to deal with it; or the character is too weak for his chosen role due to his build choices.

Given that he deliberately chose to take a negative Con modifier and ALSO deliberately chose to REJECT +4 Con items I know which way I'm betting!

+13 ranks +3 Int modifier +0 anything else +12 roll = 28, fails by 6, trap goes off. There are lower DC traps available, but if you're going to try to claim trapfinding as a specialty when the rest of the party has decided it's better to simply take the hit, then you should be able to deal with the tough ones.

Edited to add: Note that finding the trap with search, which is more easily optimized in core, and then having everyone else back off to a safe distance while you try to disarm and take the hit if you fail is a good way to deal with traps, it reduces total damage and gives a chance of reducing it to 0. But then we're back to the absurdity of 25 HP at level 10.

The wizard has 53 if he rolled nothing but ones and has the second lowest con in the party, and the rogue has 25 because he INSISTS on keeping a negative con modifier.

[Larpus]

Well, on the concealment thing, there's one armor enchantment that turns it into myst (or something) that gives the wearer some concealment, so that should give him some bonuses in staying hidden.

Yeah, money, yadda, yadda, but if memory serves me right, it wasn't all that expensive.

As for rules for hiding and trapfinding...they're bogus and overall stupid. Crafted to prevent people from abusing them and ironically becoming abusive to people trying to use them. Throw the guy a bone and lower the DCs and penalties for doing his stuff.

You're the DM, you make the rules, if you say that everyone died because no one mentioned that their characters were breathing, then they died for no breathing. You shouldn't do it, but the point is you can do it. So if the book specifically states that you can be such an donkeyhole, why can't you be a good guy greg?

As for his HP....wow...just...wow...does the campaign setting have active deities? If yes make the death one being fed up with him appearing and disappearing from his realm and "cursing" him with either some extra HPs or limited immortality (but make sure you make him feel lots of pain and have issues when 'dying' just so he doesn't think of himself as cursed with awesome and start acting like a complete idiotic douche).

Seriously, if he's saying no to Con boosting as one's supposed to say no to drugs, then a wizard did it is the sole way I can think of a workaround. Still, he mostly gimped himself on this one and there isn't much you can do about it other than make him realize...makes me remember bad things about a certain bard once complaining for not doing melee damage with a Str of 10 or the same player complaining about his 18 Cha Fighter who wasn't in any way, sort or form a social (or Intimidate-based) character.

[Temporal]

Edited to add: Note that finding the trap with search, which is more easily optimized in core, and then having everyone else back off to a safe distance while you try to disarm and take the hit if you fail is a good way to deal with traps, it reduces total damage and gives a chance of reducing it to 0. But then we're back to the absurdity of 25 HP at level 10.

The wizard has 53 if he rolled nothing but ones and has the second lowest con in the party, and the rogue has 25 because he INSISTS on keeping a negative con modifier.

The Wizard has 81 HP. Everyone else has at least that much... except the Rogue of course. They usually just run through the traps as quickly as possible. Even the non damage traps. This seemed odd to me but it seems to work for them.

[Malachei]

It seems his attitude is in part based on the fact that other characters outshine his, and in part overreacting. The former can be addressed with option 1, the latter with option 2.

Option 1: Work with him to rebuild the Rogue. Make him strong. Perhaps Rogue 1 (Able Learner) Sworsage +X? Unseen Seer? Or just let him reroll stats or reassign stats and feats. In any case, make him better at withstanding damage and better at filling his core role.

Perhaps lower DCs. At level 10, he should find most traps and open most locks, or at least not rely on other characters for trapfinding and door-opening.

Option 2: Talk to him about his attitude and whether playing the glass cannon is actually giving him what he wants from the game. I.e. don't make him be the "cleric" if he doesn't want to. But if he really wants to play a rogue, then he needs to understand and appreciate the weaknesses and not think it is your fault when those come into play.

[Mirakk]

Long time DM here. Thought I'd give my 2cp. Sounds like something the DM should be helping with.

First, lower the DC on those traps if it's really that much of a problem. This can be done arbitrarily.

Second, help the guy understand those hide mechanics better! If you want him to improve, you should help him.

Third, when a player isn't having as much fun as they'd like, toss them a challenge that they can easily knock out of the park. It goes a long way to resetting their temperament.

Possibly, some of the party problems might be stemming from him wanting to behave as a mischievous rogue, but not really knowing how to direct that. Maybe you can sit down and brainstorm with him about his character's background and motivations more, so that he can get a better feel for what he should be doing, instead of just hindering people across the board.

And lastly, if he's really being problematic to the group in an in-character manner it's up to the other players to bring him in check in an in-character manner. This is kind of out of your hands in the active sense. If you act in any way against him as the DM he will see you as singling him out. If you follow my above suggestions, you can ease this tension with him, and maybe the party will be able to equalize itself. By mentoring him a little, he'll see you less as an adversary, and more as an ally.

Hope that helps!

[Malachei]

The Wizard has 81 HP. Everyone else has at least that much... except the Rogue of course. They usually just run through the traps as quickly as possible. Even the non damage traps. This seemed odd to me but it seems to work for them.

HP-wise, unless you want to rebuild the character, making him undead might help :)

[Temporal]

It seems his attitude is in part based on the fact that other characters outshine his, and in part overreacting. The former can be addressed with option 1, the latter with option 2.

Option 1: Work with him to rebuild the Rogue. Make him strong. Perhaps Rogue 1 (Able Learner) Sworsage +X? Unseen Seer? Or just let him reroll stats or reassign stats and feats. In any case, make him better at withstanding damage and better at filling his core role.

We've already tried this. He wasn't interested.


Perhaps lower DCs. At level 10, he should find most traps and open most locks, or at least not rely on other characters for trapfinding and door-opening.

He is literally the only person in the party concerned about such things. If it weren't for him the party would just have the Druid smash doors with the help of the Beguiler's Silence and would just run through traps.


Option 2: Talk to him about his attitude and whether playing the glass cannon is actually giving him what he wants from the game. I.e. don't make him be the "cleric" if he doesn't want to. But if he really wants to play a rogue, then he needs to understand and appreciate the weaknesses and not think it is your fault when those come into play.

He insists he wants to be a Rogue. He insists he wants to do things the way that doesn't work. He insists that it should work anyways and it's my fault if it doesn't.


Second, help the guy understand those hide mechanics better! If you want him to improve, you should help him.

We've tried this. He didn't get it.


Third, when a player isn't having as much fun as they'd like, toss them a challenge that they can easily knock out of the park. It goes a long way to resetting their temperament.

He does 1d4 damage most of the time. When he does do a decent amount of damage, it survives that damage and can very easily kill him. There is not a single thing I could throw at his current character that he could "easily knock out of the park" and he is unwilling to change his character in a way that would allow him to do anything, even the things he should be good at.

We've all tried helping him and he isn't interested. The only reason the party is putting up with this kobold is the metagame concern of not wanting to effectively kick the player out, since he's unwilling to play a different character.


HP-wise, unless you want to rebuild the character, making him undead might help :)

That would give him 70. Much better than 25, still less than anyone else in the party. And he would become nearly impossible to raise. I'm not sure if that would help.

[GreenSerpent]

Been lurking here for a while, reading the thread and decided to give my two cents on it.

What I suggest you do is get us here (the Playground) to consolidate a post on why CON is incredibly important and how there are virtually no builds that can dump CON (apart from Necropolitian Dread Necromancers)

I also suggest that you get him to go with Rogue/Swashbuckler and explain what the Daring Outlaw feat will do and how much stronger it will make him. That won't ruin the theme, will up his BAB and health a bit and give him a few benefits.
If you want I'll type up two level 10 builds with his stats and you can show them to him to highlight the differences.

[Arbitrarious]

At this point I think we would really benefit from hearing the player's side of the story. I am not saying that you are being unreasonable or in anyway unfair, but I doubt your player thinks he is either. Sometimes there is simply a disconnect and you end up talking past each other rather then having an actual dialogue. If you can get him on the forums we can hear his view of events and may be offer a compromise you guys can work with.

[Temporal]

Been lurking here for a while, reading the thread and decided to give my two cents on it.

What I suggest you do is get us here (the Playground) to consolidate a post on why CON is incredibly important and how there are virtually no builds that can dump CON (apart from Necropolitian Dread Necromancers)

I also suggest that you get him to go with Rogue/Swashbuckler and explain what the Daring Outlaw feat will do and how much stronger it will make him. That won't ruin the theme, will up his BAB and health a bit and give him a few benefits.
If you want I'll type up two level 10 builds with his stats and you can show them to him to highlight the differences.

Unfortunately we've given him the Con lecture, and that was one of the proposed alternative builds. He's already shot that down when he refused the +4 Con item.

We've also tried talking to him directly many times. It isn't as if I'm going behind his back and posting this. Forum posting about what should be an intergroup problem was a last resort.

[Leon]

He's focused around a crossbow. Going even closer than normal sneak attack range would not help him.



Give him a Ring of Invisibility and ease off the Traps.

[Malachei]

We've all tried helping him and he isn't interested. The only reason the party is putting up with this kobold is the metagame concern of not wanting to effectively kick the player out, since he's unwilling to play a different character.

That would give him 70. Much better than 25, still less than anyone else in the party. And he would become nearly impossible to raise. I'm not sure if that would help.

It seems you are pretty frustrated, and he is, too. Maybe it is a bad player-DM fit, and if he is undead, he isimmune to all kinds of things, and if he still takes 70, you at least "help" him to get rid of his character.

Imagines a 25 hp rogue die, get resurrected and lose a level, and thus lose more HP... *shudders*

[Temporal]

It seems you are pretty frustrated, and he is, too. Maybe it is a bad player-DM fit, and if he is undead, he isimmune to all kinds of things, and if he still takes 70, youat least "hel" him to get rid of his haracter.

Imagines a 25 hp rogue die, get resurrected and lose a level, and thus lose more HP... *shudders*

It might be. He seems to be under the impression he's supposed to automatically succeed at everything and if not I am stopping him from succeeding. Some things just don't work, and a player that refuses to do anything to make their character work and according to what I have seen wouldn't be that great even if their character did work is one of those things.

Someone here has already provided me with an excellent solution and in a few weeks I'll go with it.

[Malachei]

It might be. He seems to be under the impression he's supposed to automatically succeed at everything and if not I am stopping him from succeeding. Some things just don't work, and a player that refuses to do anything to make their character work and according to what I have seen wouldn't be that great even if their character did work is one of those things.

Someone here has already provided me with an excellent solution and in a few weeks I'll go with it.

I think I can imagine

shudders again

[GreenSerpent]

I think we all can imagine *shudders*

[Greyfeld85]

I think you should give the rogue a "cursed" item of +Con. It appears to be a +Dex item, but when he puts it on, it gives him Con instead, and he can't remove it. And just so that it fits the whole "cursed" idea, it turns his character into a chick or something.

If he doesn't want to take it upon himself to learn the rules or actually build a functional character, refuses to build a new character, and you don't want to kick him out of your game, your only real option is to force-feed him character optimization until the lights go on upstairs.

[Gavinfoxx]

Talk to the other players about your plan, and get their buy in for it. Tell them that you want their cooperation in forcibly changing his character build in character, because the player's antics are getting downright depressing.

Then, kill the character. Next time he dies, instead of having him resurrected, have him turned into a necropolitan by a Level 8 Dread Necromancer, with the feats Corpsecrafter, Bolster Resistance, Nimble Bones, and Hardened Flesh, while inside the radius of a Desecrate effect (he was wearing a Deadwalker's Ring), In the effect of an altar to an evil god. Make all of his hit points 6.5/level, except the first hit dice, which would be 12. This also gives him:

Con --
+2 Natural Armor
+4 Initiative
+10' land speed
+4 Enhancement to Strength
+4 Enhancement to Dexterity
+6 Hit points per hit dice
+4 Turn Resistance
Undead type (so he is immune to LOTS of types of traps...)

at level 10, with all of that, that's 130 hit points.

Also give him a portable automatic reset, repeating trap of inflict minor wounds (or a wondrous item that continuously casts that or something, see next post), so he can heal himself.

[Leon]

Undead type (so he is immune to LOTS of types of traps...)


Plus 130hp

Equals: Able to just blunder into traps and shrug them off

[Gavinfoxx]

You can also use that time to forcibly change some aspects of his build, too. Have the group that does this Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle some of his feats out for other feats, or a Psion do a Psychic Reformation away some aspects of the character for others. Get him Darkstalker or Two Weapon Fighting or Lifesight or Craven or whatever, and Tumble ranks or whatever, as well as a Hat of Disguise (I guess you could make that the auto repeating trap or continuous wondrous item or whatever, so he essentially has fast healing 1 or whatever, and the hat only has one 'disguise' setting... you could even make it cursed so he can't remove it permanently without a Remove Curse), so he looks alive.

Also have them cast several Permanencied spells on him, at high caster level. Here, look at the list, and choose useful stuff:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080416113118/http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-332210

Basically, have it be like, 'the group delivers the corpse to a mysterious group, along with some payment, and a few days pass. He wakes up in a neutral place, and finds that things are somewhat different'.

Then tell the player to hand me your character sheet, and you erase and change several aspects of his character sheet, and then hand it back to him. Then describe the changes in how he sees the world (from the permanency spells and the lifesight or whatever).

[Answerer]

I would have kicked him out a long time ago. He sounds insufferable.

[Mirakk]

I think you should give the rogue a "cursed" item of +Con. It appears to be a +Dex item, but when he puts it on, it gives him Con instead, and he can't remove it. And just so that it fits the whole "cursed" idea, it turns his character into a chick or something.

If he doesn't want to take it upon himself to learn the rules or actually build a functional character, refuses to build a new character, and you don't want to kick him out of your game, your only real option is to force-feed him character optimization until the lights go on upstairs.


THIS. OH GOD THIS. (I just used this same type of scenario to combat a player's vow of nudity he took to be a pain in my butt. Gave him a ring (So it wouldn't interfere with his nudity, that made him into a woman). Then I had every NPC within visual range hound him mercilessly until he agreed to put clothes on and go find someone to remove the curse.

Then I set it up so the person removing the curse said this was special, and he had to have an Atonement first, where he had to agree to a permanent loincloth cursed item in exchange and personally write an apology to the local magistrate before he'd be let inside the town again.

[Doug Lampert]

I would have kicked him out a long time ago. He sounds insufferable.

Yeah, all the "Force extra HP on him whether he wants them or not" sounds like HORRIBLE advice to me.

Seriously, has any player in the history of D&D ever said, "Oh yeah, and our GM gives Bill's character a ****load of special beniees he doesn't give the rest of us and lets him raise dead without level loss, but I'm cool with that and with the fact that I'm playing by the rules and he's not"?

[Answer, of course they have, but "Bill" in that case is either some other player's girlfriend (not the DMs) or about 8 years old or less.]

Why annoy 4 players who are presumably having fun, and two of them running tier 1 without overshadowing the fighter, by favoring jerk boy?

Seriously?

Just play the game, if he dies then he should learn that Con is GOOD.

[Gavinfoxx]

Just play the game, if he dies then he should learn that Con is GOOD.

The thing is, his character is dying all the time, and the player isn't learning.

[Temporal]

Doug, you sound like CC. Do you two know each other?

You and others have convinced me. I could make him an undead with 70 or 130 HP, and chances are he'd die anyways (and now could not be raised).

I've also been told there are plenty of people out there like this guy. Really? That truly is scary. I'm glad I've only met one, but I've been convinced that by giving into him I've only helped make the problem worse and I should have just played the game normally from the beginning, and let him die repeatedly until he wises up and plays better.

[Gavinfoxx]

You should really do the Undead thing...

If you make him Undead, the price of Reviving him goes down to 500 gp. So this is a REALLY GOOD idea.

Revive Undead, from Libris Mortis, only requires that much GP to cast. It's a Win/Win situation!

[Shadowknight12]

You have to decide whether you want to swallow your pride and acquiesce in order to keep the peace (give him free stuff to let him keep up with the rest, like items, feats, skill points, etc. and lower the DCs of everything he attempts to do) or if you want to stand your ground and have a final talk with him telling him that he has to take responsibility for the things that happen to him.

Debating and half-measures will not do any good. You have to pick a course and follow it to the end.

[Greyfeld85]

Yeah, all the "Force extra HP on him whether he wants them or not" sounds like HORRIBLE advice to me.

Seriously, has any player in the history of D&D ever said, "Oh yeah, and our GM gives Bill's character a ****load of special beniees he doesn't give the rest of us and lets him raise dead without level loss, but I'm cool with that and with the fact that I'm playing by the rules and he's not"?

[Answer, of course they have, but "Bill" in that case is either some other player's girlfriend (not the DMs) or about 8 years old or less.]

Why annoy 4 players who are presumably having fun, and two of them running tier 1 without overshadowing the fighter, by favoring jerk boy?

Seriously?

Just play the game, if he dies then he should learn that Con is GOOD.

This is a great idea if you don't give a **** about the people at your table. But I got the impression that this is a group of IRL friends that are playing together. And with few exceptions, kicking a friend out of your gaming group tends to cause a lot of hurt feelings and unnecessary drama, especially when it's over something like a game.

If I'm incorrect and it's just an amalgam of random people, then yeah, boot him and be done with it. But if that's not the case, then the best approach is to teach the player how the game really works, even if you have to beat him over the head with it for a while.

[Doug Lampert]

Doug, you sound like CC. Do you two know each other?

Not to my knowledge, but I know that a substantial fraction of the gaming horror stories I hear are the rest of the players being forced to play with this guy and the GM giving him stuff.

One of the best GMs I've ever met (Eric Rowe) once gave a (mildly) disruptive player two peices of advice for building a character:
1) Try to build a character that could plausibly have survived past the age of 5.
2) There is no glowing rune on your forehead that says PC and forces the other PCs to treat you as special or different from anyone else that they meet. It's your job to build someone the rest of the group can plausibly work with, not their job to accomodate you.

That turned the player in question into a reasonable gamer, if it hadn't, we'd have kicked him out, Eric was running for 17 players and making it work, losing one wasn't going to kill the game.

Similarly, forcing 16 other players + the GM to play this guy's delusions wasn't going to work.

If talking hadn't worked, we've have said, "Good riddance".


You have to decide whether you want to swallow your pride and acquiesce in order to keep the peace (give him free stuff to let him keep up with the rest, like items, feats, skill points, etc. and lower the DCs of everything he attempts to do) or if you want to stand your ground and have a final talk with him telling him that he has to take responsibility for the things that happen to him.

Debating and half-measures will not do any good. You have to pick a course and follow it to the end.

If it were just the DM swallowing his pride I'd be all for it. The DM's JOB is to enable nifty stuff!

The problem is that unless the other players are cool with this guy getting all sorts of special stuff you're offending the 4 good players to keep the one bad player happy.

And if the other players are cool with special beniees for him, then you can give the PARTY stuff and they'll arrange for him to get it.

Openly and consistently favoring one player, for whatever reason, is usually bad. Individual adventures and items can clearly be stuff for character X, no problem there, and if you're playing a game with one clear lead character and everyone knows it going in, that's fine too, Doc Savage and the other five guys can make a fine game.

But don't change in mid-game to "Joe's big adventure" where everything is tailored for Joe.

[Gavinfoxx]

That's why you talk to the rest of the group, minus him, about some options. "So I have some ideas of how to manage him. One, I could make the character undead and forcibly rewrite his character using in-game abilities next time he dies, but I will need your characters' help to enable that, and make it happen without him catching on until it is done and can't be taken back. Two, I could just remove the houserules, and eventually the character won't be able to be raised. Three, I could put on the kiddy gloves, and lower the difficulty of challenges that he is expected to face. Four, I could dump a bunch of items for him specifically that can only be used by rogues, perhaps even cursed items that the character can't remove or that seem to be other items or something. Five, I could kick him out of the group for being disruptive. Six, I could say he is not allowed to play until he comes in with a character that could survive in adventuring, and if need be, he tells us the archetype and lets one of us do the numbers for it. What do you all think?"

[Shadowknight12]

If it were just the DM swallowing his pride I'd be all for it. The DM's JOB is to enable nifty stuff!

The problem is that unless the other players are cool with this guy getting all sorts of special stuff you're offending the 4 good players to keep the one bad player happy.

And if the other players are cool with special beniees for him, then you can give the PARTY stuff and they'll arrange for him to get it.

Openly and consistently favoring one player, for whatever reason, is usually bad. Individual adventures and items can clearly be stuff for character X, no problem there, and if you're playing a game with one clear lead character and everyone knows it going in, that's fine too, Doc Savage and the other five guys can make a fine game.

But don't change in mid-game to "Joe's big adventure" where everything is tailored for Joe.

If the players are not cool with the DM's decision on how to solve a problem that affects them as well, they can talk to him outside the game (without the rogue's player) and basically do what Gavinfoxx says. If the players are cool with it, problem solved. It's really not that big of a deal.

[shaga]

The game should be fun for everyone, if he isn’t having fun with his character, help him improve him.

First I will suggest giving him automatic average HP for all his levels so far, or if the others don’t object, give him maximum HP for all his levels so far, it shouldn’t bother the other players since they are already having fun.

Explain him some of the mechanics of the game. He could have easily tumbled around the Giant and avoid the AoO. Make sure you are clear about the light conditions of the rooms and explain him where there are shadows for him to hide and where there are not.

Designee some encounters where they HAVE to use the rogue`s abilities (what ever those are, depending on his build). Designee some encounters where its easier to stealth and sneak attack.

Try to include him more into the story. Perhaps create a villain/ally out of his background.

Finally try to phrase the failed checks better. If a 20 lvl paladin charges towards the epic villain of the campaign down some stairs and he fails’ a balance check. Don’t tell him he trips on his own feet and falls, classing and clinging all the way down. Tell him a piece of the stair breaks while he is charging but he manages to tumble down in rolls, landing in front of the villain in a position ready to strike on the next round. Same failed roll, different description.

[Temporal]

What are those, exactly? No one in the group cares about traps and locks. The Fighter and Druid do plenty of damage. Even if I were willing to try to force them to use the Rogue's abilities (something that sounds as if it would doom the whole party as much as he has doomed himself) I have no idea just what that would involve. All in all, it seems a terrible idea.

[nedz]

Some suggestions

Use a mentor
He doesn't like taking advice, well you can't tell some people anything. Is there ONE person in the group he might listen too ? If so - give them the job - out of the session.

Teach him
Create a DMPC Rogue. Have this character accompany the party for a brief period. Make sure that this character demonstrates the use of hide etc.

Stop using traps
They are obviously not fun, do not use things which are not fun.

Force the Change
The next time he dies - raise dead is not available. Only Re-incarnate is possible. Cheat and fix the roll - his new form will have Con (and possibly Str)
(If you don't know how to do this, or are unhappy with it, you shouldn't have a DM license)

[Temporal]

We're getting together for another session today. I've decided on a solution and should be able to work it in later tonight before the session ends.

[GreenSerpent]

Can I make one final suggestion?

Show him a 3.5 Rogue Handbook and point very emphatically to where it mentions which stats are important.

[Temporal]

Can I make one final suggestion?

Show him a 3.5 Rogue Handbook and point very emphatically to where it mentions which stats are important.

The first one I found didn't mention stats at all. The second told him to do what he is doing with the only difference being a 14 Con. While the low Con is certainly a problem and getting a lot of attention it isn't the only thing wrong here. That said, the problem has been solved.

[Gavinfoxx]

This Rogue handbook?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8711233

The one that talks about having a con of 14 or higher? The one that talks about Tumble? Being undead? Several alternative class features? Skill tricks? Solid feats like two weapon fighting and Craven and Darkstalker? The one that mentions several forms of combat for a rogue?

[Larpus]

The first one I found didn't mention stats at all. The second told him to do what he is doing with the only difference being a 14 Con. While the low Con is certainly a problem and getting a lot of attention it isn't the only thing wrong here. That said, the problem has been solved.
Oh really?

Now you gotta tell us man, not sure about the others, but I am curious as hell.

Unless your solution was killing the player, I don't wanna go to jail for a murder that I didn't even witness.

[Temporal]

The player is alive and well. His character is another matter...

The only thing criminal about this is that I did not take advice to this effect much sooner before things got so far out of hand.

[Gavinfoxx]

So tell us what happened!

[nedz]

You seem to enjoy the tease ?:smallbiggrin:

How soon until the reveal ?

[Answerer]

Wow, forum software. It's been like a day, and still swallowed the post?

OK, well, trying adding another, sometimes that fixes things.

[Answerer]

Wow, forum software. It's been like a day, and still swallowed the post?

OK, well, trying adding another, sometimes that fixes things.

[TuggyNE]

The player is alive and well. His character is another matter...

The only thing criminal about this is that I did not take advice to this effect much sooner before things got so far out of hand.

The curious thing is that the only "solution" I can think of that fits this description (and various other hints) is the brute-force use of Unname to prevent resurrection.

Which seems a little strange, in light of this quote.

[Temporal]

Truenaming abilities did not prevent him from being resurrected. You're closer than you think though!

I'm not being evasive intentionally, I just haven't been given the go ahead email to release any details.

[mattie_p]

Druid casts reincarnate, rogue comes back as a kobold with a con score of 6?

[Particle_Man]

Oh, if the rogue feels put upon when a trap goes off on him, you could always pull a Grimtooth and have the trap go off on everyone *except* the rogue occasionally, just to switch things up. :smallsmile: