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VariSami
2013-07-23, 06:16 PM
I DM'd a short-lived Eberron campaign which ended in a TPK this week and we are starting a new campaign in a fortnight or so with the same players. I consider myself a very lenient DM - probably among the most lenient 1% in the world - since I allow players basically anything in the official books as well as any third party installments I happen to own (D&D 3.X; I own Arcana Evolved, Chaositech and Dragon Compendium). However, it only seems to make a certain player want to stretch my limits even further. He could have just about anything but he wants exactly the few things out of reach. This is something of a rant, admittedly, but I am honestly curious about your similar experiences. If you have anything you wish to contribute or share, please do.

Yesterday, a player asked me if he could take Incarnate Construct with his Warforged and add templates to it in order to "buy back" the -2 LA. One of the templates he wanted was Mineral Warrior from Underdark. Being something of a theoretical build appreciator (but nothing spectacular although I know quite a few ways to abuse the rules), I had already thought about that one myself and come to the conclusion that any additional templates would have to be added at the exact time the character becomes Incarnate. Since both Incarnate constructs and Mineral Warriors are made using spells, the exact circumstances seemed quite impossible to fulfill outside of an Epic Spell. As such, I declined him the possibility, like I had previously declined his Archivist being able to add spells from ANY divine list (including the divine bard and magician variants) during character creation. He could get the Oracle domain spells he asked for due to worshiping Aureon and spells from either the Druid or Adept list, though. And the House Cannith reduction in price (75% off) included everything non-magical, including spell components. When he had asked for a venerable Dragonwrought Kobold, I had replied that it was theoretically okay but that he had better prepare a damn good reason for the little guy's existence. He had also asked me if his character could be a Dragonborn Warforged, to which I reminded him about the pseudo-template's strict alignment and storytelling restrictions which he had thought I would let him by-pass just to allow a stronger character.

So, there were two things I had flat-out denied during character creation (level 5 in both cases, by the way): one was about abusing the possibility of his character not needing to actually find the things he wanted because of higher level character creation and another about extremely shady rulings (and the best thing is - the players had themselves thought up the idea of an expedition of nothing but Warforged exactly because the idea that non-breathing, non-sleeping and non-eating people would make the ultimate explorers, and what he wanted to do would have stripped away those very features). I had also hinted that some design space would be best left unexplored for the sake of the story.

His reaction? Telling me that I never allow him anything he wants. I could not help bursting to laughter at that point, having played with a DM with the exact opposite philosophy as me: no full casters, PHB and UA only (and previously but no longer the books with base classes in the Complete series), Point Buy 29 for Tier 4-5 classes, 25 for Tier 3 (my campaign has Point Buy 36, originally 32 and +4 points or a "free" +1 LA), and the DM considers a successful session to be one where at least one character dies.

So, have any of you had similar experiences with players demanding more despite already being privileged in that regard? I think I might have pampered mine a bit too much.

AuraTwilight
2013-07-23, 06:52 PM
Yesterday, a player asked me if he could take Incarnate Construct with his Warforged and add templates to it in order to "buy back" the -2 LA.

This wouldn't of worked anyway, since it's impossible to go below 0 LA even in char-gen. He'd of had to apply the templates he wanted first, THEN Incarnate Construct, which would've lost their benefits in the first place.

TuggyNE
2013-07-23, 11:07 PM
This wouldn't of worked anyway, since it's impossible to go below 0 LA even in char-gen. He'd of had to apply the templates he wanted first, THEN Incarnate Construct, which would've lost their benefits in the first place.

The OP mentions a proposed houserule to the effect that simulcasting mineralize warrior and incarnate construct on the same character would result in the best of both, but notes that the extreme difficulty of achieving this puts it out of reach.

vasharanpaladin
2013-07-23, 11:22 PM
So, have any of you had similar experiences with players demanding more despite already being privileged in that regard? I think I might have pampered mine a bit too much.

Not personally, but I tend to define myself as that player. Restrictions of any kind chafe and I tend to walk upon hearing the detested "PHB only." I'm at my happiest when I have multiple sources to hunt through, and I've yet to pull the proverbial wool over my DM's eyes when using unfamiliar subsystems!

I used to keep cheat sheets for all the different "magic" systems and made sure to give the DM a copy of any relevant ones. :smallbiggrin:

Krazzman
2013-07-24, 02:25 AM
Not directly that way but I was called Powergamer or similar things in our old group quite often when I tried to replicate a trick(Mounted Charging or as many arrows as possible for example) someone else brought to the table.

A Ghostwise Halfling Barbarian going for Spirited Charge and Halfling Outrider was actively nerfed. My Mount (a Trained Riding Wolf as I described) was degraded to a bighearted bernardiner that didn't want to fight the "Dragon" (some big lizzard) despite me describing multiple times that this thing was Trained. Then I dm'ed an Eberron Campaign. One Player going for Goliath Barbarian Ubercharger (he changed chars at level 5 because I couldn't kill him due to the weak nature of the module despite him having an Ac of 10 touch 8) or in another campaign a first level char with a 24 AC.. the Bossmob of the module had a +4 to hit and could only hit on a 20...

I asking to bring new sources to the game (Complete Mage, Scoundrel, Champion and Unearthed Arcana as well as PHB2 and so on) vetoed in their oneshots, abused in mine.

VariSami
2013-07-24, 05:22 AM
Not personally, but I tend to define myself as that player. Restrictions of any kind chafe and I tend to walk upon hearing the detested "PHB only." I'm at my happiest when I have multiple sources to hunt through, and I've yet to pull the proverbial wool over my DM's eyes when using unfamiliar subsystems!

I used to keep cheat sheets for all the different "magic" systems and made sure to give the DM a copy of any relevant ones. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, I am that kind of a player as well but I play where I can. Admittedly, I still have not tried Magic of Incarnum despite owning a copy, so I cannot claim to be at the same level.

In general, there are multiple ways to create limits - and having limits *somewhere* is crucial. Here are a few I can think of:
1. Limited supplements: You may only have something from sources S(s1, s2, s3... sN); for example "PHB only".
2. Predetermined choices: You may only choose among a set of choices provided (for classes/races, etc.); for example "Tier 3 or lower only" or "humans only".
3. DM approval: check whether or not something is fine with the DM, a case by case style; for example "May I play a Kenku from MM3?"
3.1 DM ruling: sub-class of the previous; interpretation of the rules may result in different possibilities; for example "Can I make an Incarnate Warforged with +2LA worth of other templates without an LA?"

In effect, the first two are also sub-classes of the third, since they represent prior DM approval instead of a case by case version. Essentially, I suppose, the are like something of an heuristic: you save time by creating a set of rules to limit the possibilities. However, at least I think that case (1) is merely laziness since there are no real criteria to determine which books fit a game and which do not. Even if the setting you are using does not support extra systems such as Psionics or Incarnum, there might be something useful (such as feats) in those books and disallowing on a book by book basis is crude.

SethoMarkus
2013-07-24, 07:31 AM
There's also DM familiarity with content in the various sources. If the DM doesn't own a specific sourcebook, it is entirely understandable that he/she wouldn't allow that content in his/her game. Or, by limiting the sources available, the DM is attempting to set the tone and environment for the game.

To me, interesting character ideas come from how I can apply what I am given to work with. There is no such thing (to me) as an interesting character when the players have access to absolutely everything; throwing a bunch of templates on a character does not necessarily make it unique, however it makes it complicated. As far as powergaming goes, isn't it more of a test of skill to create the best character from the most limited resources? Everyone can make pun-pun if they are given full access to everything.

This then boils the argument down into two paths:
1) the player wants a unique and interesting character
2) the player wants to create a powerful character

The first can be achieved through fluff and character background, whether they are a Dragonwrought Kobold or a Human Commoner.

The second, in my opinion, is a greater achievement when there are limitations in place (perhaps not restrictive limitations, but as the OP said he already is fairly lenient with sources and there are only a handful of sources the player is not allowed to take from).

DigoDragon
2013-07-24, 07:50 AM
So, have any of you had similar experiences with players demanding more despite already being privileged in that regard?

I had a player who was a monk in our campaign, but he really hated the alignment restrictions. Alignment gets enough arguments in my group so I loosened up the restriction quite a bit for him. Then he tried to get around how some rules worked, like two-weapon fighting, tumble, and the 5-foot step. After clarifying some of those rules so that he could at least have something to work with (without breaking rules), he then tried to get on this quest fo a 30,000 gold piece magic item that doubles his 5-foot step into a 10-foot step.

But he refused to pay for it and expected I'd just toss it in random treasure for him.

At level 5.


No.

valadil
2013-07-24, 08:16 AM
I had one of those players once or twice. My take on it wasn't that he was insatiable for power, but that he wanted his character to be the exception. Anybody can throw together a a dwarven cleric with a mace. This guy expressed himself by finding an obscure race, designing a custom weapon, and slapping that on a class that didn't really make sense.

Anyway, I tried to compromise with him. It sometimes worked. The problem was that he wasn't just happy with being the exception at character creation. He always wanted to have the rules circumvented around him. On top of that, he was a stickler for other people following the rules.

I wish I could tell you how I overcame this problem player, but he moved away before I could figure it out.

Hyena
2013-07-24, 08:31 AM
I once had a player, who demanded 7000 gp from the NPCs to gear up for the quest, given by the same NPC. When he was told firm "no", his character left and decided to adventure alone, without the rest of the party.
Yeah.