Rediculous Players

[Osiris]

My party is made up of a sorc, druid, duskblade, paladin, and rogue-guy

Rogue-guy's player is insisting on being sub-optimal, but then he complaind when he misses with his main attack. What do I do?
Also, how can I optimize his attack rolls with his Katana? We're level five, and since he's a human, he gets an extra feat. His three feats are (drumroll please) Run, Stealthy, and Skill Focus (Disguise).:smallannoyed:

[Azoth]

Have you tried striking him with a DMG?

Also, get him to change weapons. He should be taking -4 to hit for non proficiency.

Explain to him Run is useless. Statistically a level of normal barbarian for its +10ft speed boost is just as effective as the run feat.

100gp replaces his +2/+2 skill. 150gp replaces skill focus (disguise) 100 for custom magic enhancer of +1 to his skill and 50gp for a disguise kit.

So if he has 250gp (chump change) he can replace both feats with slotless items. The speed thing...well no rogue ever really cried foul of a barb dip.

[Emperor Tippy]

Give him a magic weapon if you feel like catering to him.

Perhaps a +2 ability that adds +5 to attack rolls made with it while adding nothing to damage.

[eggynack]

Tell him the thing you're telling us here. If he says he wants to be suboptimal, then optimizing his attack rolls just isn't going to be plausible, because he apparently doesn't want his attack rolls optimized. If he complains about his character failing on so many levels, ask him if he wants to stop being so suboptimal, and if he does, offer to help rebuild his character to be less craptacular. If he doesn't, tell him to stop complaining, because he's actively choosing to suck, and complaining about your mighty success at your goals just seems stupid. If he continues to not be optimal, and he also continues to complain about that, I agree with Azoth that this might be the time for some DMG throwing. Maybe toss him from the game, or find a way to ignore him if you're not doing that already.

[prufock]

Wand Chamber (300gp) and a wand of True Strike (750gp). He will burn through his charges quickly, though. Eternal wands are only 2/day but last forever, so if they have few combats per day that might be the better bet.

Then again, if he's poorly optimized he probably doesn't have ranks in UMD.

[Afgncaap5]

If a magic weapon doesn't do it... what about magic items to represent his other feats, and offer him a chance to retrain at a mystical wellspring or in a sacred grove where the local druids are holding a festival of rebirth? A tunic that grants Skill Focus (Disguise) but doesn't stack with the feat itself wouldn't be game breaking.

[Zombulian]

Have you tried striking him with a DMG?

+1 to this.

>proclaims he wants to be low op
>complains when he can't hit

[Raven777]

Let him suck until he gets himself killed?

[(Un)Inspired]

Have you tried striking him with a DMG?


A lot of the time the problem is that you hit a player but youre just not hitting hard enough.

As a DM you should have all knowledge skills as class skills so put points into knowledge local and take knowledge devotion for your next feat. This should help your blows actually connect with him especially if he has a dodge bonus from somewhere. What's your DMGs enhancement bonus?

It can be hard to get an enhancement bonus without spell casting but the pathfinder feat master craftman should help.

Good luck and don't stop hitting till he apologizes and changes his character.

Edit: as a DM your int should be pretty high. See if you can convince the great DM of the cosmos that runs the game we are all but players in that the edge of your DMG is pointy enough for it to count as a piercing weapon. Then take some levels of swashbuckler. Then you can really give it to that player.

[OldTrees1]

Is it just me or is this "Ridiculous player" merely someone surprised by a low optimization floor and has some biases against optimization(possibly by equating optimization to powergaming or high op play)?

If I am correct then perhaps the ideal course of action is to describe that feats highlight what you are going to be good at. Rogues are not as trained at hitting as Fighters are. As such they need to put in some extra training in order to hit as accurately as Fighters.

The three things you should not do in this case are:
1) Throw the DMG
2) Force the player to respect their character into the way you want it built
3) Ignore the player's position by joking about throwing DMGs

[Coidzor]

Have you checked to see if they know how to do so in the first place?

Have you inflicted rogue (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8711233)handbooks (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1028051)upon them?

[Azoth]

I am sorry but even low-op has its limits. Low op for what this guy's build plan is (I am assuing sneak in, impersonate someone close to the target, then gutting him) could be as simple as Rogue4 (penetrating strike ACF)/Ranger2 (alternate combat style that gives power attack)/Dread Commando5 (concealment in natural terrain ACF)/Swordsage2/Nightsong Enforcer7. 18BAB, good save, massive skill points. Can actually do something in combat too. He even gets to take 2 crap feats (Dodge+Mobility) so he can really feel low op.

Human (darkstalker)
1 EWP:Bastard Sword
3 dodge (prereq)
rng2 power attack
6 mobility (prereq)
9 improved initiative (prereq)
12 craven
15 open
18 open

The build is great for stealth, infiltration, and can actually fight. Still low-op at that.

Also right now he is probably swinging a +1 bastard sword. With the above build as soon as he hits the swordsage levels give it the Discipline Focus property keyed to Shadow Hand for +3 to hit. Find a god who has the bastard sword as his favored weapon and has the war doman, then slap on those bracers that give +4 to hit/damage when those conditions are met. Shoul help his hitting problem just fine.

[skyth]

Out of curiosity, what is the AC of things that they are facing?

[Captnq]

Well, lets see... He's fallen into at least four of the Noob traps.

Give him a copy of my EVD and encourage him to munchkin.

Send him THIS (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9479.msg153181#msg153181) link and encourage him to read it.

Just so you know, I got sick of rewriting the same thing over and over, so I just put everything in a handbook and now I just refer people to the correct link. I figure after I finish my DM handbook and my Psiononicon, I can cut and paste answer 80% of the threads out there.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It looks like he's guilty of committing The Stormwind Fallacy (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2861636). The entire post in full is at that link, but the logical fallacy itself is as follows:


The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy
Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.

Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game.

Generalization 1: One is not automatically a worse roleplayer if he optimizes, and vice versa.
Generalization 2: A non-optimized character is not automatically roleplayed better than an optimized one, and vice versa.

What that means is, having a bad character doesn't make you a good role-player, and having a mechanically strong character doesn't make you a bad role-player. That he wants his rogue to be dangerous in-character but has failed to mechanically represent that automatically makes him a worse role-player for making a bad character. Tell him that his character should know he's bad at fighting, and that he should role-play that, because that's what he built that character to mechanically represent. If he doesn't like that, then maybe he should make another character and try to make better decisions this time.

[Spore]

+1 to this.

>proclaims he wants to be low op
>complains when he can't hit

ThereÄs a distinct difference between low op and plain old sucking. He is playing towards a skill monkey type but he shouldn't expect to be great in battle then. You just have to give him Katana proficiency one way or another. Do not fear that his combat ability gets out of hand. Just give them something as quest reward. the rogue gets to train in the art of katana, the druid gets a small/diminuitive trainable animal cohort, the sorcerer some kind of SLA 1/day and so on.

Tell him that this is the most you can do for him. He really likes his weapon so cater to him. But only once.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I don't think it would be fair to the rest of the party to reward this player's behavior by giving his character hand-outs. He built a character that's bad at combat, if he wants to be a role-player then he should role-play being bad at combat, not try to pretend that his character is something that he's not.

[Coidzor]

I don't think it would be fair to the rest of the party to reward this player's behavior by giving his character hand-outs. He built a character that's bad at combat, if he wants to be a role-player then he should role-play being bad at combat, not try to pretend that his character is something that he's not.

Is that what insisting on being sub-optimal means? :smallconfused:

Granted, my biases are showing here, but the player seems... newish, between the katana fixation and build. Throwing a "story reward" of proficiency in the katana for using it for a bunch of sessions of quixotically using it as a bone to the player doesn't seem too out of line just this once, provided the player does make agree to start taking build advice and makes use of an opportunity to rebuild his character or sub a new one in.

Honestly, this sort of weapon proficiency kerfluffle is why I like the weapon group feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/weaponGroupFeats.htm) variant rule so much. But the proficiency issue seems secondary, maybe tertiary to the rest anyway.

[Darth Stabber]

Why with the bastard sword? I have had exactly one character use one well, and he would still be better off with a greatsword (he's a warblade and it's the only weapon that's a discipline weapon for diamond mind and iron heart, so it's for fluff reasons, and just having an ewp on a warblade is a reasonable choice, even if it's not currently invested in a good weapon).

My personal suggestion would be tell him he made his bed and now he's lying in it. His character is very likely to die in any given fight if he sucks so bad, so just let nature take it's course and when he's rolling up a replacement inform him of the stormwind fallacy so he doesn't make the same mistake twice.

[Talya]

There's no "red" in "ridiculous!" :smallfurious:

That's okay, at least you didn't type "rouge."

[Brookshw]

Try to refocus to be bluediculous.

[Mootsmcboots]

We've suffered similar problems in our game(build wise), with less whining/stubborness.

Our DM is super experienced, but all of our players are very new. We mostly are willing to take build advice, and he'll give us options and info no problem. But he kind of gives us general results of certain build options, leaving us to read, crunch numbers, and make the final call. Which has been nice, guidance but not making our choices for us.

If we make a not so great choice, or our choices have had an impact we do not like/seriously hinders our characters he will present us with a fix ,but at a cost.

In this situation, if my DM were to give me a weapon/item to address the issue, he'd for sure not just give it to me as a quest reward. A weapon that I find while adventuring that just happens to solve the problem I'm having atm? Too overhanded.

However he may offer me that weapon as a quest reward, but maybe it's given to me at the end of the quest by an NPC, and taking it has a consequence. I'm just choosing arbitrary consequences here, but he may let me take the weapon, but I take a penalty to a specific save for a level or 2 or something. Or it must be traded for, a minor magical item of somekind. He won't punish us, so he won't hit us too hard with a consequence. Just something annoying enough to make us really think our choices through in the future.

As we've played, these fixes are fewer and fewer as we think or progression through more and more not only as individual players, but as a party.

[Sir Chuckles]

I've had rediculous players.
It involved the Large Barbarian dual-wielding Balanced Greataxes, penguin sliding through a city main street that was filled with zombies that was frozen by the party's Wu-Jin.
That's ridiculous. Not a poorly built character (I just pointed out a TWF-Barbarian).

What you've described is a player who wants to play his way. *le gasp!*
Is he honestly insisting on being suboptimal? As in he directly states "I don't want to optimize, I want to make a non-combat character with poor skill and feat choices." Because if that's the case, than politely, eg NOT beating him (beatings are reserved for munchkins and rules-lawyers), ask him why he wants this.

The big key that makes me believe that he's not doing it entirely on purpose is that he's complaining about missing. Only the worst of people willingly build a "bad" character and then complain they're not good.
If that's the case, you have my blessing and my +1 Throwing DMG of Bane (of annoying people).

What I'm saying is that it sounds like an optimizer DM getting mad at a somewhat inexperienced player.