My wife having problems in my game

[lytokk]

So I've often posted about my wife playing in my 3.5 game, which is nice, but for the last 2 games we've hit sort of a snag. She's a first time player, in any tabletop game, and rolled out a changeling druid. After toting how nice wildshape was going to be, she was excited to use it for the first time. Unfortunately, the first time she used it, she went black bear, and got manhandled by the ankheg she was fighting, mostly due to poor rolls. The next session, she resigned herself to spellcasting, but couldn't make a concentration check to cast a spell while she was in a threatened square. She's really starting to have less and less fun in the game, and is feeling overshadowed by the rest of the players.

Part of her problem is she's starting to feel like her character is just a piece of paper. Another part of the problem is she doesn't know how to build a character, and I've been trying to be somewhat hands off, as I don't want to tell her what to do (with the exception of taking Natural Spell at level 6). Tonight I'll be auditing her character sheet to make sure she's been levelling up properly and has taken everything, but I don't know how much I should actually do to make sure she's at an appropriate power level. I can understand talking strategy, but at what point do I end up crossing the line since I am also the DM? New players need help, but she's got full access to me and I really don't want to pick her spells for her, but they're tending to be a mess.

A little addition, she wants to start taking a craft skill to feel like her character is actually a person, and I figured as a druid, an appropriate skill would be armor/weapon smithing using animal parts. Since its more than just animal hide (insect shells, dragon skin, manticore tail spikes) what exactly would you call that?

[Tohsaka Rin]

Introduce an NPC Druid whom can tutor her a bit.

Little things, like how useful wilding clasps are, and the barkskin spell, bear's endurance, other buff spells ect, and how wolves are cunning (Improved trip, why aren't you taking improved trip?! *Much smacking about the head.*) and the like.

Phrase it, perhaps, a bit like one might approach chinese martial arts. Way of the Bear, Path of the Lion, Winding Snake's Way, ect.

It's not hard to take a small bundle of feats, and present them as a package suited to a particular animal (that she could easily take the form of with wildshape) that would be a nudge in a right direction.

For a craft skill, I'd say leather/hide working. Nothing like having a party member who can turn a caribou into a tent or blankets, once it starts to rain/snow hard.

EDIT: The wood shape spell also makes profession: carpentry a no-brainer. Need a box? Here's a box. Need a cart? Give me a day or two. Want a boat? You got a boat. Utility is a beautiful thing. Instant results is beyond that.

[Spore]

First of all: "Craft (Primitive Armorer)". I am not sure if the sounds as nice to a native speaker than it does to me.

Secondly you shouldn't pick her shapes or spells but you should definitely help her building her character. I've had two new players on the table: one who I've helped actively to create her character, and one where I didn't do anything. The ranger I helped build is the most useful character in the group (en par with both characters from experienced players), but the fighter and the sorcerer are a mess (to a point where the sorcerer gave up her character already and the fighter being the slowest and weakest member).

Give her choices but force her to take necessary feats and attribute distribution. For a druid there are common spell pointers (if you tell her to get Barkskin no one will bat an eye, only if you prepare Flame Blade for her and you introduce a White dragon you will see angry faces) and some good ideas on which creatures to turn into.

Big cats for pouncing, bears for grappling, bats for AC, blindsight and maneuvrability, big birds for carrying the fighter. One aquatic form just to introduce her to the idea of having water based transforms and later on some prepared elementals. She may see a creature and go: "Oh that's really cool right now." not realizing that morphing into a huge bear is not smart when you need touch AC vs. the diminuitive sorcerer casting ranged touch spells.

[HighWater]

Craft (Armor of Nature)? Was gonna go with Natural Armor but that gets confusing pretty fast with other gameterms. ;)

A downside of the Craft and Profession skills is that they sometimes scare-off playercharacter development. They want to "deepen their experience" by giving themselves a blacksmith past (for instance), but then see Craft/Profession and think: gosh darn, I'll have to invest precious skillpoints in order to be able to roleplay somebody who used to work in a smithy! They may decide not to "waste" skillpoints, and more importantly, feel that it's illegal to roleplay having a histoy and interests without having the appropriate Craft/Profession. In order to fix this, you can just blanket-okay roleplaying having an actual history in the world without skillpoint investment, or you can give out a bonus skillpoint that is to be used exclusively for craft/profession to everyone for each level, so they can develop a mechanical part to their backstory.

As for the Druïd issues... Yes, sometimes the dice hate the player. Just tell her that. Bad luck can happen to anyone and a bad choice can be rewarded and a good choice can be punished. That the Ankheg is a better melee chassis than a bear is just something that's called "darn, bad luck". That the dice do not cooperate aggrevates that situation. You can't easy-win every fight or it will be boring.

Before I start saying you should help her out in the optimisation department, what's the rest of the team like? What were they doing during the whole Ankheg thing? Express to everyone that it's a teamgame (including your wife) and that everyone needs to help eachother out ingame. As for the spells: can you name any examples? And yes, you could help her with spell selection, or instead, you could introduce situations in which those selected spells could actually come in handy. This can lead to new gaming situations for you and the group and can be a fresh breeze that brings about more original encounters.

Lastly, if she feels her character is too much like a sheet of paper with some numbers, advise her to do something with the things she experiences in game. This can include outgame aversions. So she hated the episode with the Ankheg: she almost got killed and felt useless. Suggest that perhaps she roleplays this insecurity as part of her Druid. It is very likely that the Druid-character liked the whole episode even less than the player did (wildshaping into something you think is awesome and then almost ending up as giant-bug chowder does NOT a positive experience make). The character may develop a fear of wildshaping (like the player did), or a disproportionate hatred or fear against Vermin, or Magical Beasts. It can lead to all kinds of crises of identity. These quirks are just as much character-building as putting ranks into Craft(Armor of Nature).

[lytokk]

The rest of the party I wouldn't say is incredibly high in the optimization, but they have their moments. Probably the most highly optimized would be the Phrenic Human Psychic warrior. No armor, high dex, but using his power points in order to get up to a steady 25 AC. High wisdom makes for an exceptional will save, but he's going twf with quickdraw and corrosive weapons. The next would be the Afflicted Werebird Halfling rogue. The last session involved a castle invasion, which she did very stealthily, and shined as a rogue, which is what the class is pretty much built for. Then there is the Halph-Nymph Sorceress, whos basically taken the idea the blasting is the best method, roleplaying her character having sort of OCD with cleanliness, but never took prestidigitation. There's the Shadow Halfling Bard, who does more archery than bard stuff and in my opinion is the least effective member of the group, but hey, everyone contributes. Then there's the DMPC Aasimar Cleric, who I get to keep doing whatever I want and thus keep him as effective as I want him to be.

She uses Shellei.. sheighl... the stick into magic club spell, a bit, but with her low str she can't hit anything. She used her nature's ally 3 to summon a thoqqua, which for the fight they were in was prb the least effective thing to summon, but she liked the idea of summoning a lava rape monster, which against a flying opponent was a bad move. Some of it is just very bad choices, some bad strategy. Though I guess I could work with her on strategy pretty easily.

Part of the problem may be she forgets what she can do. She was also starting to get very frustrated in the last game which could explain it. Everyone else does things on the characters downtime and she's got nothing. Example: they were stuck in the ankheg hive after clearing it out the previous session. 80 foot pit, 50 foot rope, and the sorceress couldn't make the climb check to get up to the rope. Werebird flies up to the surface to get more rope off the wagon, but everyone else stays in the hive waiting. 4.5 hours of downtime. There were some humanoid corpses in there, so she decides to make corpse marionettes, basically to do something on the downtime. NG character. I think she really needs to flush out a personality, and I think I'm just ranting at this point.

[John Longarrow]

Personally, I'd ask her to get an account on here and seek out some help from long term gamers that are not her hubby.

We may be able to give her some ideas/tricks/techniques that will make her Druid just OWN your next few encounters and surprise the heck out of you.

Course for RPing, we can also help her with character development..... Much to your detriment... :haley:

[Telonius]

A little addition, she wants to start taking a craft skill to feel like her character is actually a person, and I figured as a druid, an appropriate skill would be armor/weapon smithing using animal parts. Since its more than just animal hide (insect shells, dragon skin, manticore tail spikes) what exactly would you call that?

I'd probably call that Craft (Leatherworking) or Craft (Tanning). Possibly Craft (Taxidermy); while it's usually more about art than armor, it would probably cover stuff like making a spear out of a tyrannosaurus tooth.

[Red Fel]

Part of the problem may be she forgets what she can do. She was also starting to get very frustrated in the last game which could explain it. Everyone else does things on the characters downtime and she's got nothing. Example: they were stuck in the ankheg hive after clearing it out the previous session. 80 foot pit, 50 foot rope, and the sorceress couldn't make the climb check to get up to the rope. Werebird flies up to the surface to get more rope off the wagon, but everyone else stays in the hive waiting. 4.5 hours of downtime. There were some humanoid corpses in there, so she decides to make corpse marionettes, basically to do something on the downtime. NG character. I think she really needs to flush out a personality, and I think I'm just ranting at this point.

I was going to talk about optimization level, but I think this is also a thing that should be addressed.

Druid is one of the most daunting classes to prepare, because of the paperwork - Druids do more than any other class. Let me be clear - Wizards can do anything, but almost exclusively through spells. Clerics can do a ton, with spells and a melee chassis. But Druids have spells, and Wild Shape for melee, and summons... It's a ton of paperwork. It's easy to get lost in all of the paperwork, and end up resigning yourself to a lesser role than the class deserves. For all the talk about Druids being optimization kings, they require a remarkable amount of skill to play effectively. And if you play them less-than-effectively after all that hype, it can be a pretty big downer.

The personality is another issue that can't be resolved by optimization alone. Oftentimes, when a player says that they worry that the character they're playing is just numbers on a sheet of paper, they're probably right. What you can do on that front, at least, is take her aside and give her the character background talk. It basically takes the form of an interview - tell me about your character's upbringing, wants, desires, principles, etc. Oftentimes, in simply talking it out, the player creates the personality that they want for the character.

The thing to remember is that paperwork kills characterization. Let me be clear again - this isn't the Stormwind Fallacy. I'm not saying that optimization is antithetical to roleplaying. Rather, I'm saying that if you spend a lot of time crunching numbers and charting spells and abilities, it takes away from the attention to character depth and development. Smoother mechanics tend to promote greater characterization, and the Druid's pile of paperwork can get in the way of that. So I would advise you to advise her to take shortcuts. Make a short list of stats and uses for summons and Wild Shapes. Keep a short list of spells and their effects, ideally in the form of note cards that can be easily organized and referenced. Basically, make everything mechanical super-convenient. When the crunch becomes easier, the fluff will be easier.

[lytokk]

Anythings possible, though I'd rather her not be on this board, I post questions about waay too many spoilers for my campaign here. She does frequent reddit though, and I think they've got a good tabletop section right? Another question is, should I open up her spell selection to outside of core? I've kept her there to attempt to make things less complicated.

And she has surprised me on more than 1 point. Her first session she calmed a charging raging ogre with an octopus offering a cookie. Much intel on the enemy followed. I really don't know why she stopped doing stuff like that.

[Shining Wrath]

First rule of marriage = first rule of DM: COMMUNICATE.

Talk to your wife and say you don't want to run her character, you don't want to show her favoritism, but you do want her to enjoy the game. And then just see how the conversation goes. Ask her what her druid is like. Ask some off the wall questions - does her druid like honey? What about mead? What's the druid like when drunk, or does she drink in moderation?

Then see if you can get her to set up an account on a certain website you may know of where people offer helpful advice to noobs. If she posted a thread asking for help she'd get it.

As for the Ankheg, may I suggest that a druid who believes nothing Nature gives us should be wasted and turns the remains of her natural foes into armor is a natural fit - you should pardon the expression. After a tough fight, she claims the chiton of the ankheg and crafts ... armor. Armor which will help to protect her the next time she runs into an ankheg, or anything else.

I agree with Highwater - a good background story can easily be rewarded with free skill points. Our DM did that in our current campaign - we all buddy generated as a team of traveling chefs who just happened to have character classes, and then he took that idea and worked it into Session 1. And we all got 6 skill points for Craft and Profession skills related to our buddy generation, so my sorceress has 3 ranks each in craft(meal) and craft(drink).

Do it for everyone if you do it for your wife - give them some one-time skill points related to their background story.

[Fouredged Sword]

Send her to yea old handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0) for a reading. That should sharpen her tactics.

Don't get caught up in the craft. Craft armorsmithing covers ALL armor. Craft Weaponsmithing covers ALL weapons. Craft woodworking covers wooden weapons and armor (add ironwood to make it useful). Pick one of the three.

[lytokk]

I forgot to mention, she was somewhat reluctant to come up with a background, other than she never knew her parents and had been raised in this forest by the fey that inhabited it. When everyone else got their above posted templates, she got one herself, with explanations regarding the circumstances of her birth. I think we called the template quasi-elemental, born of each of the 4 elements in the body of a shapeshifter to bring a balance back to nature after the apocalypse. I should really have a conversation with her regarding what her character feels about that reveal. And pick up note-cards for wild shape and summons.

[Bronk]

It sounds like her druid is at least level 6, if she has natural spell. I agree that she could be introduced to wilding clasps and some better fighting forms or tactics, but also the possibility that she could just take the form of a hawk or eagle and fly around casting her spells from relative safety, if she wants to do that for a while.

Is she being helped by her animal companion?

Maybe throw her character a few bones too... perhaps some fey encounters that can help make her druid feel more 'alive' to her, that she can take point on, if only because of possible language barriers... I'd imagine she knows 'sylvan' if she was raised by fey, and if she didn't take it maybe give it to her as a free language because of her background.

[Trasilor]

And she has surprised me on more than 1 point. Her first session she calmed a charging raging ogre with an octopus offering a cookie. Much intel on the enemy followed. I really don't know why she stopped doing stuff like that.

Did you reward her for this type of out of the box thinking? If you want your players to be creative, reward creativity. Be prompt (at the end of the encounter), be specific ("For not only stopping the Ogre without violence, but also getting important intel; you get..."), be public.

Do this for all the players and watch the creative minds flourish.

And if you did reward the player, but they have stopped this kind of playing, a simple reminder to all the players of the additional rewards they can earn will help.

Rewards can be simple XP (especially if certain players want it for crafting). To special "reroll" tokens - earn tokens to reroll any die once. Or something fun, like Rule of Cool points - character wants to swing on the chandelier, back flip off, spring off the wall and attack the BBEG with an overhead chop - instead of Jump check, touch attack, Tumble check, Jump check, Attack Roll, character burns 2 Rule of Cool points and simply makes the attack roll (with bonuses for being on higher ground, from above, etc... :smallamused: ). And earns extra XP for doing something awesome :smallbiggrin:

The point is, as a DM, you have the ability to influence players through the use of rewards.

[Xerlith]

This is a problem with a player that got too many options and got overwhelmed. Druid is a 3-in-1 class (Fighter, Caster, Petmaster), so naturally it might be hard on her. Hell, after ten years in D&D I still am reluctant to roll a druid because of the paperwork needed.

If she wants a tad bit simpler class, show her the Wildshape Mystic Ranger. Self-buffing melee fun. Allow for Large sized animal shapes so she can bear the change (horrible puns are awesome).

If she prefers to stay druid, she might enjoy a more streamlined in play, homebrewed fix found here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?230514-A-Better-Druid-for-a-Better-World-(PEACH)) Oh, here's a newer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?321588-The-Druid-(Fixed-list-Caster-Project)-3-5-PEACH) one.
Simpler wildshape, full access to whole (adjusted) spell list... May be simpler.

Finally, the simplest option would be:
1. Sit down with her and point her to the best spells (utility, buffs, combat disablers) and explain how she can use them best (out of threat range, open with BFC, etc)
2. While sitting down, prepare a few animal forms that may be the best and the most useful. Explain how to use them out of combat.
3. Still sitting down, point her to the best summons. Show her how to use them effectively.
4. She's got some roleplaying issues as well, so help her flesh out the character. MAYBE let her roll a new one instead. if it's helpless.

A good backstory is not needed- it's always more or less only a few sentences. But what matters is the character's personality.

Make her start from outwards (How the character behaves?) and proceed inwards (Why? What made them the way they are? What drives them? What do they like/dislike?).

Or inwards - the character's motivations, likes/dislikes, then work from there - habits, methods -> everyday behavior. It's somehow streamlined but effective. Really effective.

[lytokk]

I always try to reward my players for out of the box thinking or acting in character with misc role playing experience.

Something I just thought of was running a one on one session with her, between her druid and the DMPC cleric. Since she did don an amulet of undead creation and control, and then decide to want to use it, before the succubus inside the amulet suggested to her to destroy it (which released the succubus). Bit of a therapy session, but could use it to maybe flush out some personality. Also can use the proximity of said amulet to explain her against my percieved version of her character's actions for that last session, which was all a result of her frustrations.

[Metahuman1]

I'd suggest introducing her to a druid circle, having her get an account on here, and then have her just post a thread asking for druid help. Then, you both follow it, find out which ideas she likes, and use the druid circle to give her in game "training" to do those things.

Apart form that, look and show her the 10 minute background and have her write one out between sessions for the two of you to go over.

And one more question: What's the rest of your party running? That matters cause it will help determine the optimization level needed. Rouge, Fighter, Blaster-Sorcerer is very different form Factotum, Warblade, Beguiler, and different still form DMM:Persist Cleric, Artificer, God-Wizard.

[Bronk]

Also, sometimes new druids forget to use the new stats of the animal they wildshape into... maybe she said she was in the form of a bear but was still using her original strength and so on.

[lytokk]

She was using the black bear stats, but just rolled bad for the rest of the fight. Unfortunately for the castle infiltration her animal companion had to sit out. A wolf isn't exactly able to stealthily climb and boulder across walls. Though if she had spider climb prepared that would have worked nicely.

[Ferronach]

She was using the black bear stats, but just rolled bad for the rest of the fight. Unfortunately for the castle infiltration her animal companion had to sit out. A wolf isn't exactly able to stealthily climb and boulder across walls. Though if she had spider climb prepared that would have worked nicely.

I would remedy this by proposing that she learn the "air walk (http://dndtools.eu/spells/players-handbook-v35--6/air-walk--2772/)" spell and train her pet so that in future, she can bring it along in that type of a situation.

I think that she would most likely appreciate your help with her character. I would ask her if she would like your help with feat/spell selection and/or tactical and general advice.
If she says yes, ask her what her goals are - let her know what her options are and explain how each option is different and what the pros/cons of each are. Offer to narrow the options down to two or three based on your knowledge of the campaign. Always give her a choice though! this is important as by choosing one thing over another will make her feel more involved and cause her to feel the character more than if you hand her a complete one.

[John Longarrow]

lytokk,
If possible, I'd have her character do a couple one on one RP sessions with the other charaters.

This is basically an experienced RPer sitting down and, in character, playing out their time in a tavern or while riding down the road.

[lytokk]

John, do you think the more individual characters she coudl one on one with the better? Currently, the most readily available for her to RP wth is my DMPC cleric as well as a Warforged tracker/blacksmith travelling with the group.

In addition, I had made plans for the next session for the group to hopefully come across a settlement deep in a neighboring forest, so her finding a new druid conclave wouldn't be difficult.

[John Longarrow]

lytokk,
I think the more chances she gets to run her character interacting with the other players, the more she will get comfortable with the character.

Running a Druid from a combat POV is difficult.
Running ANY character when you only RP with one person is very difficult.

As these are two different issues and it sounds like she's having a hard time with the RPing, I'd suggest getting her chances to interact with other characters that are run by different people so she gets more comfortable in game. Once she feels like she can play her character, then she can start building the skills for running a druid in combat.

Oddly, in a past game this was the hard part for a friends wife when she jumped in. She wanted to be the Druid, but in a group of mostly guys it was hard for her to get in charater.

[eggynack]

There's a lot of advice here on the macro issue related to druidry, and it's good advice, so I thought I'd just focus on this individual micro issue. She should probably stay away from black bears. It's a form that gets a lot of hype, because it's a bear, and because there's high strength with a lot of attacks, but the AC is dismally low, and it's a form that really does nothing but damage. It's possible to boost the AC, especially out of core, but it's still not the best.

If you're stuck in core, point out the deinonychus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#deinonychus), which is significantly better. Same strength, 17 AC, frigging pounce, higher speed, and even an extra attack. It's great stuff, and should help a lot if she wants to beat stick. If you're using non-core materials, then ignore everything I just said and mention the fleshraker dinosaur (MM III, 40). It's a form that gets a lot of hype, as a whirling ball of amazing, and unlike with the black bear, it's pretty much all accurate. Between 20 AC, three attacks, tons of combat maneuvers (including pounce), and poisonous attacks, it's a form that can really let you beat stuff up.

However, if she's going for the spell side of things, she should likely be none of those creatures. I think this has been mentioned some already, but it deserves emphasis, that what you really want here is a good flying form. Boosting concentration checks is one way to cast in threatened squares, but a significantly better way is to just be where the threatened squares are not. Unfortunately, options in core are somewhat limited where small/medium sized flight is concerned. I don't think there's a single creature in core, within these wild shape parameters, that has good maneuverability, and that means that you lack access to hover, which is important for stuff like summoning in the air. Later you get dire bat, which does have good maneuverability, but for now, she'll probably need to land before casting. Out of core, point her to the desmodu hunting bat (MM II, 65), which has great AC, great initiative, and good maneuverability. Incredibly useful form all around.

Returning to the macro level for a moment, you don't really need to worry about build stuff. These things I'm telling you right now, they'd apply equally well on just about any druid build in existence, as long as they're running natural spell. Druids have little to do with build (though more than some think, especially if you're trying to really optimize), and everything to do with in game stuff. Your wife's character's power is inextricably linked to how much she understands the druid, and by extension, the game as a whole. It's a thing that comes with time and effort, and if she's given that time, and puts in that effort, perhaps guided a bit towards good options, then she should slowly but inevitably become the most powerful character in the party.

[lytokk]

She's expressed an interest in wildshaping into dinosaurs definitely, but we're currently limited by the familiarity rules, which after the next session should be a non-issue, so long as they actually go to the town in the forest. I have mentioned the fleshraker as well, but as I've been told how broken that one dinosaur is, I'm hesitant to allow it. It would be fine for now to help her get the leg up she needs, but I'm worried that it may later come back to bite me. I'd think the deino and later the megaraptor could do well to get her going. She only went black bear on my advice since I thought it would be a decent first wild shape. Unfortunately she's only level 5, so she can shape, just can't cast while shaped. I'm open to non-core, but if she's overwhelmed with options now, I can't imagine how bad its going to get if I give her all 5 monster manuals.

[eggynack]

She's expressed an interest in wildshaping into dinosaurs definitely, but we're currently limited by the familiarity rules, which after the next session should be a non-issue, so long as they actually go to the town in the forest. I have mentioned the fleshraker as well, but as I've been told how broken that one dinosaur is, I'm hesitant to allow it. It would be fine for now to help her get the leg up she needs, but I'm worried that it may later come back to bite me. I'd think the deino and later the megaraptor could do well to get her going. She only went black bear on my advice since I thought it would be a decent first wild shape. Unfortunately she's only level 5, so she can shape, just can't cast while shaped. I'm open to non-core, but if she's overwhelmed with options now, I can't imagine how bad its going to get if I give her all 5 monster manuals.
Familiarity isn't really all that problematic. The rules compendium sets the standard for this stuff at creatures the druid has seen, or could reasonably know about. That means that a simple 10+HD knowledge (nature) check is generally sufficient. In the meantime, before natural spell, she should probably focus more on casting, rather than wild shape, as casting is much more powerful. Wild shape is solid, and it can be used if she's running out of spell resources, but she should usually be hanging near the back, sending out her animal companion in attack mode, slinging spells, rather like a durable wizard. On that note, what's she using her slots for, and what kinda stuff does she want to do with magic? I could always PM over the handbook I've been working on, if I haven't already (recently fwooshed all of the messages, so I gots no idea), and the spell information there is pretty crazy.

[shadowseve]

I got hit with there are no dinosaurs in this world. I loved my black bear :smallfrown: him with Girallon's blessing, luminous armor and bull str and I out fought our crusader. I will admit the hunting bat is the shinizzle of flying forms at low levels and awesome for spells and battle field control. Wind Wall kept the arrows off. a touch of ashbound and greenbound summoning and I was set.

[Brunks]

Well even disregarding classes and tiers entirely, it is still a fairly complex game. If your other players are already experienced in the game that too can overshadow her. They'll quickly figure out the most effective uses of actions, realize the dangers they face, and employ superior tactics. Anyone would feel a little overshadowed by that. It is a little like playing any game with high level of play for the first time.
The same holds true with roleplay, is she timid at the table?
You havn't really mentioned the other players aside from their builds, are they accomodating to her?

Also does she like playing her druid at all? Maybe the playstyle is just wrong for her.


I forgot to mention, she was somewhat reluctant to come up with a background, other than she never knew her parents and had been raised in this forest by the fey that inhabited it.

Maybe you can kill two birds with one stone here. A little side campaign with just the two of you. Maybe take her from a lvl 0 commoner to her first druid level. Slowly fasing in class features, as well as diffrent game elements.
Having her learn what it means to channel the divine magic from a spirit of the well, or the feeling of wildshaping.
If these are precious gifts given by dear friends she'll treasure them more than just a simple class feature.

Also be sure to give her a big win!

[Fitz10019]

Maybe you can kill two birds with one stone here. A little side campaign with just the two of you. Maybe take her from a lvl 0 commoner to her first druid level. Slowly phasing in class features, as well as different game elements.

I second this advice. Say in her dreams she walks the 'fey dream realm', and somehow her animal companion is with her, and they can communicate freely there. Give the animal a personality for her to react to / RP with, and throw escalating challenges at her. In the dream realm, let her spontaneously cast from her spell list, so she'll be very free to experiment with spells. Those challenges could be do-overs of the real campaign's encounters that went badly for her, or completely new stuff.

I wouldn't direct her toward optimization advice.

[lytokk]

Well, the audit of her character sheet revealed a few things. Firstly, she never added in her HP for her last level, and never added skill points for the last 2 levels. Her BAB was 1 lower than it should have been, and she never added in the bonuses from the quasi elemental template she recieved, so she was missing 4 nat armor, 2 wis and 2 cha.

She's open to some one on one roleplaying with me and any other player we can get involved. I also went through her spell list and made a few tweaks. I'll post the one she had at lunch and the one I thought up to replace it. I've also directed her to this forum and made her aware of the D&D subreddit to come talk if she wants to.

[Kalmageddon]

To be honest (if a bit blunt) your wife just sounds like a bad D&D player. Which is unsurprising, considering that D&D is really hard to get into for a new player. Not much you can do about it, my experience has been that either someone is really into D&D straight away, remembering the rules every time they come up and reading the manuals on his own, or they will pretty much forever doomed to play a game they can't fully grasp.
I've had players still asking me what they needed to roll to hit an enemy a year after the game had started.

So how about you try some other system, possibily a much simpler one, with a focus on narrative instead of number crunching? There's FATE, I personally don't like it because I like number crunching and hard rules a lot, but others on this board would swear by it. And since it's a universal system you can adapt the campaing you are running pretty easily.
I think that would solve the issue, but it might be too radical of a solution.

[lytokk]

Truthfully, she's only been involved in about, 4, maybe 5 sessions so far. Her spell list wasn't badly picked, and most of her spells were ones that I had recommended, and now pretty much regret ever suggesting. Never seen a druid played in my games before, and I didn't realize how pointless some of the spells could be.

Before every session she's picked a new set of spells, paging through the players manual looking up the spells and asking me what I thought. When a lot of people start playing they don't always grasp how to level, and it usually takes a while before it all sinks in.

[Phelix-Mu]

At the next town or cool, safe place (elven tree village, serene glade, desert mesa ranch overlooking the sunset, house of retired so-and-so, etc), have the druid in question and maybe one other player separated out for a bit of diceless role play. I always find that a lot of the best role play is done without dice, maybe part of an investigation or a bit of learning about an npc or organization; they've already made some Gather Info checks (which have conveniently succeeded), now they have to talk to the person with the information or something.

Also useful for fixing the paper-character syndrome is some background exploration, if she hasn't already done such. How many siblings did the character have? Poor family? How did she get introduced to the druid organization (if that's a thing in this instance)? By trying to get inside her character's head and learn to intuit their emotional and rational states, the OP's wife can take a step away from the rather dry pass/fail rolls of combat. The mechanical and strategic aspects to the game are hardly the only thing there is, anyway, and it would be doing her a disservice to let her lose interest before having a good role play bit.

Finally, I don't know if it will work at the OP's table, but I often take single players aside (or communicate 1-on-1 via e-mail or skype) for some private role play with a certain character that has some bit of personal subplot/sidequest going down. Don't show favoritism to the wife, of course, but a good couple solo scenes or quality-time with the druid wandering in the woods to meet [insert interesting and enigmatic npc] might help bolster her irl spirits.

In short, the play style can be very dynamic, and if the dice have been getting her down, encourage her to do some less-pressured stuff out-of-combat that is less reliant on the dice (like taking the lead talking to npcs, or role playing the bonding of druid and one of the other party members). Good luck.

[lytokk]

Alright, her most recent spell list

Level 0
Flare x5
Detect Magic x2

Level 1
Entangle
Shillelagh
Magic Stone
Speak w/ Animals

Level 2
Fog Cloud
Fairie Fire
Flaming Sphere

Level 3
Poison
Remove Disease

Remove Disease is on there mostly due to my sugestion. There's a corruption on the land and it causes good people to become evil. The group they're tracking isn't normally evil, and an RD is good enough to bring one of them out of it, and spare a life, which is something I really thought she wanted to do. Unfortunately the DMPC cleric is a level lower than the group so he doesn't have it yet, otherwise he'd prep it instead.

Now my edited list

Level 0
Create Water
Flare x3
Detect Magic
Light
Mending

Level 1
Longstrider
Magic Fang
Entangle
Produce Flame

Level 2
Countermoon (only a suggestion since our rogue werebird is having problems making her control shape checks)
Flaming Sphere
Spider Climb

Level 3
Cure Moderate Wounds
Remove Disease

Any thoughts or suggestions on either of our lists would be helpful. Oh, she loves Flaming Sphere, one of her favorite spells.

[Phelix-Mu]

shillelagh: shuh-lay-lee

Sorry, should have included that above. Just remembered it when I saw it again on the spells prep'd list. Shillelagh goes well with either brambles or spikes, I think, though if she is wild shaping and covering combats that way, it might not be so effective a combo at this level.

If she likes flaming sphere, I seem to recall there being a cold version out there somewhere. Might be a good scroll to have around for the odd enemy immune to fire (I always suggest this kind of thing for people with elementally-based signature spells...pick a second, backup theme of a different element).

Probably my innate bias, but I always prep'd create water twice on my druids. If she's good about carrying around quantities on her person, that is probably fine; most of my own, favorite druids are halflings, and thus can pretty much only manage to carry water for themselves, and so a backup copy of the spell is called for. Actually, that's another good one for a scroll.

[Ferronach]

If she decides against Countermoon, I would suggest one of the stat buff spells or barkskin as these tend to be helpful at lower levels.

[Phelix-Mu]

Also, things like guidance or, if memory serves, a copy of owl's wisdom might help the werebird, if the checks are Wisdom-based. There is also a reroll spell for druids, I think, in PHB2, off the top of my head. Alter fate? It costs a bit of xp, but keeping a party member from wigging out at a crucial time might be one of those things worth a bit of xp.

Or that might go well on a scroll. Owl's wisdom and guidance are generally useful spells to have prepped.

[Shining Wrath]

Spider Climb may not be that useful if you have a member of the group that flies, and is a rogue to boot.

[eggynack]

Level 0
Create Water
Flare x3
Detect Magic
Light
Mending

Level 1
Longstrider
Magic Fang
Entangle
Produce Flame

Level 2
Countermoon (only a suggestion since our rogue werebird is having problems making her control shape checks)
Flaming Sphere
Spider Climb

Level 3
Cure Moderate Wounds
Remove Disease

Any thoughts or suggestions on either of our lists would be helpful. Oh, she loves Flaming Sphere, one of her favorite spells.
On this list, out of the spells for whom you did not present a particular purpose, I would ditch just about all of the flares, longstrider, magic fang maybe spider climb, and cure moderate. Flare, you should swap for either more detect magic, or cure minor. The former is just an amazingly useful spell, and the latter is only really if you need to stabilize someone, and it can be tossed out at the end of the day for minor value. Flare, on the other hand, just isn't worth the action it takes to cast it. She'd be better off just using a sling by that point. She might also want to get rid of light, and toss it in the cure minor/detect magic/create water pile. You're heading into levels where you shouldn't particularly need a spell based light source, because non-spell light sources are so inexpensive.

Instead of longstrider, you should, at the very least, make use of snowshoes (SpC, 194), which is strictly better in a number of ways. Otherwise, it's a decent choice, as she's heading towards the levels where low level slots might be better off used for passive abilities. At the same time though, magic fang, with its short duration, just isn't worth it. I'd advise doubling down on the high powered first level BFC's, with either impeding stones (City, 66) or wall of smoke (SpC, 235). You could also continue with the passive/utility slot thing, and pick up something like spider hand (BoVD, 104) or wood wose (SpC, 242). Alternatively, if you do want a buffing angle on that slot, something like instant of power (FoW, 114), with its low casting time, could work out.

For spider climb, it's a spell with reasonable utility, but that utility is often going to be made obsolete by wild shape. Maybe not completely, especially if she wants to be in a beatstick form most of the time, but it'd likely be better to do something a bit less redundant. I'd advise blinding spittle (SpC, 32), kelpstrand (SpC, 128), or mass snake's swiftness (SpC, 193), which are all very powerful options. Additionally, if she likes flaming sphere, then she might be interested in its cold counterpart, numbing sphere (Frost, 102). It's a less resilient and damaging threat, but it debuffs on every hit, so that's a neat thing.

Finally, cure moderate wounds. Your wife should generally avoid in combat healing, unless it's to stabilize a fallen ally (this is what cure minor is for), and should instead tend towards out of combat healing, which mostly takes the form of wands of lesser vigor. As a replacement, my inclination is either towards one of the high powered long duration buff spells of that level, heart of water (CM, 107) and primal instinct (DrM, 72), or with one of the more active high powered options, like stone shape or sleet storm. In the former case, she may want to consider swapping one of the second level spells for the spells synergistic with those options, heart of air and primal hunter. Working things in that way grants light fortification and uncanny dodge, respectively, though the second level spells themselves aren't great.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmm. Was there a reason that the OP is sticking with almost all core spells? Is there a book restriction that I glossed over?

[lytokk]

Currently the party has a wand of owls wisdom, but no ones thought to use it.

The party has a wagon which hauls around 2 30 gallon barrels for water. Normally she doesn't prep it since the DMPC cleric has it prepped twice, but he dissapeared for a session when the wagon just hapenned to get overturned by some ankhegs, only time that came into play, but I recommended she keep it prepped once as a backup.

If countermoon was off the table, I was going to suggest to her Bull's Str. Her humanoid shape has 23 AC, and 4 of that carries over into wildshape just by the nature of her template (because rule zero)

I'll look out for that frozen sphere spell, or whatever it is. Edit Numbing Sphere, frostburn. Exactly where I figured it'd be.