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BobVosh
2008-09-06, 12:08 AM
I'm just curious what stupid mistakes everyone here has made when they first made characters. Espically if they whole group didn't know better.

In high school noone had played before when we picked up books, except in 2nd ed. So we grab the core 3, and made chars which ended up getting to 14 which is a monument to how wrong we played them.

Notice how the BAB and saves all have +1/whatever? We added them up the whole way. Missing wasn't an option. Plus with that much BAB power attack was incrediably OP.

Then we had these really nice saves. Our DM was a killer, he HATED letting us live past 7th. He just couldn't kill us, as he mainly used wizards and we could make the saves.

Then for cleave we missed a few things. Such as you couldn't move between cleaves. Or even if you could somehow you couldn't move across the whole map. So our arcane archer would do the rain of arrows thing, and our pally would cleave the room. Well. Improved cleave.

chiasaur11
2008-09-06, 12:10 AM
Playing as a CE jerk.

Trying to attack the DM in game.

These were separate games.

To be fair, I apologized profusely for that first one.

arguskos
2008-09-06, 12:14 AM
I've attacked the DM. To be fair, the DM in that game let it slide, and when I rolled a crit and asked how much life he had, he sorta got pissed off.

My first wizard ended up casting from his spellbook, cause no one understood the idea of "preparing spells." We thought everyone was spontaneous (and wondered why the guys at the hobby shop said sorcerers sucked; they got more spells!).

-argus

Sholos
2008-09-06, 12:18 AM
Does not knowing how to best optimize spell selection for wizards count?

Other than that, not much, I'm afraid. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I like reading through rules beforehand. I also immediately caught onto the crap that is Toughness and those feats that give you +2 to two different skills.

Sinfire Titan
2008-09-06, 12:30 AM
I once thought a Wizard had acess to spells of his level (IE a 6th level Wizard had 6th level spells and lower, a 9th level one had 9th level spells). GOod thing I never cast a spell during that game!

Ceric
2008-09-06, 12:39 AM
I was playing a sorcerer once, and I accidentally cast Ghoul Touch on the NPC rogue that was supposed to help us. So we had to carry him around, and by "we" I mean "I" because no one else could go near him because of the smell. And the DM gave our ranger's wolf all kinds of penalties because it had an extra-sensitive nose.

Later, when the rogue unfroze and started running, I panicked and cast Scorching Ray. Apparently the rogue had like 50 bottles of Alchemist's Fire in his backpack. Oops.

busterswd
2008-09-06, 01:08 AM
Greater Weapon Specialization? More damage for my trusty greatsword? WHERE DO I SIGN UP?


Also, picking up a kid and slamming him into a wall for an intimidation check... the guards didn't react very kindly to tha.

FMArthur
2008-09-06, 01:35 AM
I didn't know which things to add to my attack rolls. Basically, I was useless in combat. Oh, and I tried to grapple in my first session. The lack of grapple-rule knowledge meant that I didn't know how many rules for it there are. Too many.

ghost_warlock
2008-09-06, 01:44 AM
Trying to attack the DM in game.

All of my vs. DM attacks have been OOC. Usually involving donuts and nutty bars hurled at his missile-attracting crotch. :smallbiggrin: I don't think that's what he had in mind when he wanted us to bring food for him...

My current DM has had a fair share of cheese balls (the puffy kind, not the deep-fried ones) chucked at his head but has so far avoided getting cheese powder in his hair. :smallannoyed:

The biggest mistake we made as a group was 3.0 before Savage Species came out. We decided to play a monster part, substituting CR for character level...yeah. Playing a half-celestial young adult bronze dragon paladin was loads of fun. The campaign was pretty much canned when we found out the average ECL of the characters was in the thirties, though. :smallsigh:

Dode
2008-09-06, 02:40 AM
Testing my leatherworking skill on the dead DMPC so I could get some free armor

really, that was a mistake on many levels

Justin_Bacon
2008-09-06, 03:00 AM
I'm just curious what stupid mistakes everyone here has made when they first made characters. Espically if they whole group didn't know better.

In the 1984 red box Basic Set, there was a chart for ability scores that looked something like this:

18 +3
15-17 +2
12-14 +1

I won't swear to those stat ranges (I haven't got the book in front of me and it's been many years), but that's the general gist of it. In the era of 3rd Edition, the meaning of that table is probably crystal clear to everybody.

But we played for a good 6 months thinking those numbers were supposed to be applied to the raw die roll to determine the actual ability score. So if you rolled a natural 18, for example, your ability score would be 18 + 3 = 21.

Totally Guy
2008-09-06, 03:33 AM
I remember making a cleric with high wisdom that got bonus spells equal to his wisdom modifier every spell level. The +1 bonus spell for each spell level up to wisdom modifier just seemed wrong, I thought these were the guys that just flung spells all over.

Then I had the good aligned cleric that occassionally prepared a cure wounds spell or two. But that kind of mistake was in fact a character flaw. He just made mistakes or poor choices in his spell selection every so often.

Jerthanis
2008-09-06, 03:36 AM
I still remember in 2nd edition, we didn't understand how "spell level" could be different from "character level", so 3rd level wizards could cast 3rd level spells and 7th level Clerics were basically gods.

Oddly, we never noticed it being imbalanced. We felt like it was your reward for struggling through the first 2 or 3 levels.

Oh, I suddenly remember WHY we didn't find it imbalanced. We thought Casting Time was measured in rounds... not in initiative... thingies. Oh boy did wizards suck.

Crow
2008-09-06, 03:50 AM
For my first 3.0 character, I mistakenly assumed multiclassing was done the same way as 2nd edition. Nobody else was interested in multiclassing at the time, so nobody bothered to check.

Man that was one kickass Fighter/Wizard!

Eldariel
2008-09-06, 04:38 AM
Let's see, my first 3.X character was an Elven Fighter. Then, out of peer pressure, I took a level of Wizard on 7 (and thought "man it sucks how I'd have so much more BAB AND caster levels as just Wizard 6...") into Arcane Archer - before this point, I didn't know multiclassing was even possible (AD&D vet), which kinda made me pissed off as I had done so many suboptimal choices up until the point and people didn't let me rework the character. I took 3 levels of Arcane Archer until I realized how much the class sucks. Then I homebrewed a playable Arcane Archer, started multiclassing in Gish-classes and overall did everything I could to make Fighter 6 work. Luckily I was TWFing and into Archery, so I had use for the feats I got even though it was Core-only (and yes, I did the math and figured out that 99% of the core feats are worthless).

Oh, and I fought with Two-Bladed Sword ('cause it's cool!). I actually took Quick Draw, which was houseruled into Quick Sheathe too and always used my turn shooting with bow and switching into Two-Bladed Sword in case someone swum up (and then Wraithstrike-kill - we had acquired few more books by midlevels). Once we acquired splatbooks, things started to work a bit better. Oh yeah, and since we started with a combination of 3.0 and 3.5, all the Hastes, partial actions (vs. standard actions), Ambidexterity and so on confused the heck out of us.

bosssmiley
2008-09-06, 05:17 AM
Back in 1E days. Modules used to have a little cover blurb saying something like "Suggested for levels 7-9."

"To heck wi' that! We want to play this adventure now. Let's run our 1st level characters through it. Eh? Why are they dying like flies?"

We tumbled to our own stupidity about the same time that the pair of Rocs started to attack us on the mountainside. It was back to orc-punching and kobold-kicking for a while after that. :smalleek:

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-06, 07:16 AM
But we played for a good 6 months thinking those numbers were supposed to be applied to the raw die roll to determine the actual ability score. So if you rolled a natural 18, for example, your ability score would be 18 + 3 = 21.

We did that with MERP. Adding racial modifiers and "class modifiers" (we mistook the "average ability modifier per class" for a modifier applied to the stats...). Characters ended up with Vala-level stats, in the 120s. Someone ended up killing Sauron in straight-up combat.

That game had way too complex math for 11-year-olds to figure out all by themselves, I guess. (Mind, I still don't bother reading rulebooks front-to-back, but at least now I get everything right by skimming.)

shadow_archmagi
2008-09-06, 07:46 AM
My group confused leaving a square with entering one, meaning every fight started with multiple attacks of opportunity.

Hal
2008-09-06, 08:50 AM
Well, I confused "standard point buy" with "roll 4d6, drop the lowest." I thought that WAS standard!

Funny thing was, even with no stat under 10 I wasn't over powered. That's the promise of a 3.5 paladin for you.

Let's see, what else? I thought that you could enhance magical gear with anything you wanted, not having to start with a +1 enhancement bonus first. I kept wondering why my players had such overpowered gear.

I made wizard bad guys for my players . . . and then always had them confront the PCs within the fighter's move distance. My wizards did not fare well.

If I come up with any more, I'll be sure to think of them.

Morty
2008-09-06, 08:52 AM
I used to think that Spell Penetration gives +2 to DCs against my spells. Man, was my GM mad when he found out.

Tallis
2008-09-06, 09:46 AM
In the 1984 red box Basic Set, there was a chart for ability scores that looked something like this:

18 +3
15-17 +2
12-14 +1

I won't swear to those stat ranges (I haven't got the book in front of me and it's been many years), but that's the general gist of it. In the era of 3rd Edition, the meaning of that table is probably crystal clear to everybody.

But we played for a good 6 months thinking those numbers were supposed to be applied to the raw die roll to determine the actual ability score. So if you rolled a natural 18, for example, your ability score would be 18 + 3 = 21.

I believe it was:
13-15 +1
16-17 +2
18 +3

just to nitpick in case anyone cares...

Only mistakes I can remember from when I first started playing (it's been a while) were more from the DMs side.

I had a a character who's AC was the equivalent of -10 (the equivalent of about 30) at lvl 3. We weren't allowing auto-hits on a 20 so he never got hit.

Another time I got hold of an amulet that could cast any 1st to 3rd level spell at will (granted there were only 12 spells per level at this point and I only had rules for 3 3rd level spells). Again this was at level 3 (the red box set only went to level 3). I blew up the enemy fortress by myself...:smalleek:

Pie Guy
2008-09-06, 09:54 AM
I thought you were supposed to use d20s for stats. This led to a monk being the stupidest and ugliest character in the party, but all my other stats were 18-20! I was dealing the most damage in the party!

Prometheus
2008-09-06, 10:29 AM
-Playing a blaster mage.
-Making a Goblin ranger with barely enough Str to carry his equipment.

Ascension
2008-09-06, 10:33 AM
I completely misunderstood sneak attack and thought that, while a nice feature, it would only apply occasionally. It took me a long time to figure out how to make sneak attack work for more than just the first attack of an encounter. Instead, I focused on the rogue's other great skills, like forgery! Yeah, it also took me a while to figure out that no DMs ever put you in a situation where you can actually use forgery.

Green Bean
2008-09-06, 10:35 AM
My first adventure in DnD involved me, my brother, and a borrowed set of rule books and module. Of course, the books were 3.5 and the module turned out to be the original Keep on the Borderlands. We kept wondering why all the powerful NPCs were so easy to hit. Also, I misunderstood the Sneak Attack rules, so literally all my brother had to do to get the bonus damage was move to the enemy's back (we were using models).

Edan
2008-09-06, 12:08 PM
I used to think monks were cool and powerful because they had tons of "special" abilities.

I learned the hard way.

Xallace
2008-09-06, 12:20 PM
I initially played a social character in a game about zombie hunting. It was about half-way through before I acquired a large weapon and actually became useful.

Then, I gave a character a Helm of Brilliance at level 7. I figured out later that the loot I gave players was about 3-4 times as much as they were supposed to get per level. I found this out later because none of them decided to tell me during the campaign.

Biggest mistake as a newbie player: not quiting the campaign as soon as the DM spontaneously decided to have Nightmare from the Soul(blade/edge/Calibur) games show up to Deus Ex Machina us into submission. I wasn't informed we were in the same universe as those games. Because we weren't.

KIDS
2008-09-06, 12:56 PM
Ouch, it pains me to remember...

First thing first, I was DMing and told a player who made a sorcerer that he got his charisma modifier as extra spells known and extra spells per day of each level. So it was a first level sorcerer with 8/5 spells known and 8/6 casts per day... he had a good time!

Then when I played, I made an elf bard and multiclassed into a sorcerer. Yes that's it --- on lvl 4 I could cast like 2 lvl 1 spells per day and my best weapon was the weasel familiar :)

Knaight
2008-09-06, 02:00 PM
Well the first time I GMed fudge, I decided to use a lot of stuff off the internet before I really understood the system. And changed the word scale. It actually worked, but not well. Now I use the system with the good stuff off the internet, and not the bad stuff. That and the expanded rulebooks good rules.

Zocelot
2008-09-06, 02:44 PM
I didn't realize that point but had an increasing cost, or that you couldn't go past 18.

My 32 STR barbarian was pretty awesome though.

GrandMasterMe
2008-09-06, 04:14 PM
.....i played a warmage, and then went greenstar adapt:smalleek: enough said!

Kurald Galain
2008-09-06, 04:19 PM
My first DM ruled that a fighter should get 200-500 xp for killing a bunch of rats (reasoning that "no creature can have less than one hit die because they'd have 0 hp otherwise, and a fighter gets his level x hit dice of monster killed x 10 XP).

Jarawara
2008-09-06, 04:21 PM
A friend of mine told me of one misconception he had early on, back in 1st edition. He saw that a first level fighter had "one hit dice" of hp, and at 2nd level, he got "two hit dice", and so on.

So he rolled one dice for his HP at first level, and then at 2nd level rolled two more dice, and then at 3rd, rolled 3 more dice... by 9th level, he had 45 hit dice worth of hit points!

The game was strangely balanced, however, by the fact that there was no cleric in the party. Nobody ever healed from any damage, at all, ever, unless they found a rare and much valued Potion of Healing (which the DM didn't hand out very often).

Ravyn
2008-09-06, 08:40 PM
I don't have anything near as good as this. Though there was the time in my first session when the guy who introduced me to the game demonstrated his lack of knowledge of what happens when you fire into melee. (Since I was the one in the melee at the time, I was somewhat less than amused. Doubly so since I'd somehow managed to figure out that that might happen, and couldn't see why he hadn't.)

Eighth_Seraph
2008-09-06, 09:29 PM
Erg. So. Many. Terrible. Mistakes. And all on the GM's part.

The guy who introduced me into D&D had a strange mix of 2e and 3e concepts mixed together, and never actually read the rules for either. Everything in his world was basically an enormous deus ex machina. I wanted to play a druid once, just for the flavor. He never let me get a spellbook. I got a single spell that would required that I roll 1d20. On a 1-15, I could dazzle my opponent. 16-19 was a knockout. Natural 20s were auto-kills. There were no saves in this game. I would roll to react to anything in the game, and the DM would set the DC after I rolled. There was little to role-playing in the adventure. Just battles and cutscenes. Occasionally I would be allowed into a conversation, but the DM would veto anything that didn't go along the railroad tracks.

Anyway, the DM ALWAYS had a barbarian DMPC with 20 strength and a greataxe. And he got every kill in the game. EVER. Eventually, I got sick of it. I had read through the PHB, Monster Manual, and DMG by myself, and was appalled by how absolutely terrible my DM was. I got so sick of my druid's worthlessness, that once, when we were in the middle of a forest in "destroy the thing tainting the trees" story arch, I decided to get revenge as the DMPC conversed with the rogue (only other party member) about how worthless my character was.

I used my one nameless spell on the DMPC, and rolled a natural 20. Insta-kill. No save. Booya. Of course, the rogue came after me. That's fine, I'm a druid. The DM had ruled earlier that I move at normal speed through the forest while everyone else moves at half. I ran away and used the spell again. Knocked the dude unconscious. I was feeling pretty good. But the DM was not happy.

"Forty red dragons come from the east. One of them lands on my character with a potion of Resurrection in its claw and force-feeds it into him, then picks him up in the other claw. Another dragon picks up the rogue. Then they burn down the forest. You die."

There were other games, and none were too much better.

drengnikrafe
2008-09-07, 12:13 AM
There were 2 things I massively screwed up my first and third times playing.

First, I didn't know much about good or bad stats. My DM did this weird thing where we got a 12, a 10, rolled 3d6 for 3 stats, and took some number minus whatever the 3d6 stats were and got that as our last stat. Sadly, I couldn't have my 12, 10, 28, 6, 4, 6 character, so we switched to Point Buy.

Third, my first time playing as a wizard. He specialized in Evocation, banning Necromancy and Divination. At first I tried to ban Universe, since it had so few spells, but then I was told I couldn't, so I took out Necromancy instead. This broke the rules (Div), and was otherwise appearantly stupid (Necro). He still rocked, though.

EDIT: How could I be so foolish as to forget my first time DMing. I didn't know anything about BBEGs, so I assigned a pack of people arbitrary levels and attacked my PCs with them every now and again. A mistake inside of that was making a Samurai, who's getaway plan was drink a potion of Expeditious Retreat, and running away. Hint, he didn't make it...

BobVosh
2008-09-07, 12:41 AM
There were 2 things I massively screwed up my first and third times playing.

First, I didn't know much about good or bad stats. My DM did this weird thing where we got a 12, a 10, rolled 3d6 for 3 stats, and took some number minus whatever the 3d6 stats were and got that as our last stat. Sadly, I couldn't have my 12, 10, 28, 6, 4, 6 character, so we switched to Point Buy.
44? 44-6-4-6=28 :/ Most bizarre thing ever.


Third, my first time playing as a wizard. He specialized in Evocation, banning Necromancy and Divination. At first I tried to ban Universe, since it had so few spells, but then I was told I couldn't, so I took out Necromancy instead. This broke the rules (Div), and was otherwise appearantly stupid (Necro). He still rocked, though.

Also stupid for being an evocator :D

This reminds me. Almost all of my first characters were monks or wizards. All my wizards specialized in necromany, giving up transmutation and conjuration. They ALL had scythes. For whatever reason we though you could cast quicken spells with smiting if they were touch. So I would run up with my scythe and had to hit a touch ac. With my touch spell. Also if I critted the spell would get the x4 that was on the scythe. I STILL sucked though, due to the fact that all new characters joined at level one, and most of the other PCs were 8 or so.

The monks were even worse, level one monk with level 8 pallies that cleave battlefields, and arcane archers, etc.

Kurald Galain
2008-09-07, 03:48 AM
I STILL sucked though, due to the fact that all new characters joined at level one, and most of the other PCs were 8 or so.

That reminds me... I've had three separate DMs who thought it'd be a good idea to combine level-1 and level-10 characters in one campaign. Let me tell you that it's not.

BobVosh
2008-09-07, 04:08 AM
That reminds me... I've had three separate DMs who thought it'd be a good idea to combine level-1 and level-10 characters in one campaign. Let me tell you that it's not.

Just because with leadership they had so many level one followers that you would be obsolete if they DID find something they needed another level 1 for, doesn't mean anything...

Ya it is a terrible concept, dating back to as far as I can tell, 2ed. So many people I know who love 2nd do it. It is bizarre, as a level 5 wizard back then was our level 20 batman. One fireball was godly. Then enlarging the fighter/barbarian equals win.

Mr Pants
2008-09-07, 10:07 AM
For some reason I thought that BAB was added to damage rolls as well.

I had also misread the rules on flaws and missed the limit of two per character; so I had a character with over a dozen flaws.

Talanic
2008-09-07, 11:15 AM
Well, in my first DMing, I was at least good enough to immediately remove my character from a pivotal role in the party (took over another group that I had played in) and removed him completely soon after. Doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes.

I tried making monsters that had no relationship between stats, hit dice, saves and BAB. Sure, they had ALL of those things, but there was no actual relationship between them. I made something like a monster with 40 hit dice of undead with a BAB of +10, full attack of +14/+9, and strength of 30.

I'm also pretty sure I factored in LA into the challenge rating of a vampire NPC. Three sessions of build-up and planning as they fight their way into his lair and the cleric one-shots him.

RebelRogue
2008-09-07, 02:05 PM
In the 1984 red box Basic Set, there was a chart for ability scores that looked something like this:

18 +3
15-17 +2
12-14 +1

I won't swear to those stat ranges (I haven't got the book in front of me and it's been many years), but that's the general gist of it. In the era of 3rd Edition, the meaning of that table is probably crystal clear to everybody.

But we played for a good 6 months thinking those numbers were supposed to be applied to the raw die roll to determine the actual ability score. So if you rolled a natural 18, for example, your ability score would be 18 + 3 = 21.
As a person who plays D&D with kids for a living, let me assure you, that this indeed still a common misunderstanding among beginners/kids!

Tengu_temp
2008-09-07, 02:15 PM
As a person who plays D&D with kids for a living

Wha? Explain.

Bob the Urgh
2008-09-07, 02:48 PM
My first game, dm made my character and the party was level 16. wish i had known that barbarians can rage, really would've helped.

Morandir Nailo
2008-09-07, 03:41 PM
Back when I started playing, the DM (who was used to 2nd, 3e had just come out the year before) threw us up against a group of Drow - we were level 3 or so at the time. Not being familiar with all the special materials rules in 3e, he gave them all adamantine gear. Anyway, the sleep poison almost took us all out, but we ended up killing them and looting their corpses.

Then the DM checked the DMG to see how much all that adamantine gear was worth. :biggrin: The look on his face was hilarious! But, rather than take it away, he let us keep the tens of thousands of gp. To keep things sane, we decided to use the money to buy something useful and fun, rather than tracking down +9 OMGUBERZ stuff; looking through the DMG, we settled on a Daern's Instant fortress (though IIRC the fighter got a set of +1 Mithral Full Plate out of the deal). It turned out to be pretty great, because that tower served as a mobile base of operations for the rest of the campaign, and that mithral plate served as the fighter's signature trait - he never got rid of it. Lots of good memories there.

Mor

Flickerdart
2008-09-07, 04:21 PM
Level 1 elf blasting sorcerer. Can someone say "no effect on the battle at all due to Magic Missiles being very bad"? I don't think I ever contributed to that short campaign. Should've taken Sleep and Grease and whatnot, instead, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Kurald Galain
2008-09-07, 05:38 PM
Level 1 elf blasting sorcerer. Can someone say "no effect on the battle at all due to Magic Missiles being very bad"?

Ah, that also sounds familiar. I played a beguiler once in a low-level campaign that also had an invoker. That meant that I was one-shotting monsters with the nifty that is Sleep spells, whereas he was doing four or five points of damage with burning hands. Not good.

Rei_Jin
2008-09-07, 06:39 PM
Hhmm... mistakes we made.

We'd played 2nd edition a few years prior, and started up on 3rd when it was released. We had no idea as to how different the systems were and we made some dumb mistakes.

Things we screwed up and did.

1. All skills are class skills for all classes
2. All arcane spells are available to sorcerors spontaneously
3. Initiative is rolled with a D10
4. Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation add +1 and +2 respectively, to BOTH attack and damage
5. Multi-classing rules, what are those?

weenie
2008-09-07, 07:31 PM
I payed a core-only blaster sorcerer in a 3.0 campaign, where my DM ruled that magic missiles require a ranged touch attack to hit and thought that caster level equals the spell level of the highest level spell you can cast and we stopped playing at lvl 5. Saddest sorcerer ever.

Hadrian_Emrys
2008-09-07, 07:48 PM
Tried playing a bard as a flashy swordsman. :smallfrown:

Da Beast
2008-09-07, 09:11 PM
My first character was a 3.0 psion. He was terrible. To make things worse, the DM let the party wizard cast spontaneously from every spell on the wizard list of his level and misinterpreted burning sphere as being able to move thirty feet a round, hitting everything in it's path. We fought mostly the level one warrior monsters in the MM so the wizard would be wiping out huge mobs every turn while I would sit around targeting things with concussion for 1d6 damage a round. Eventually we figured out how wizards are supposed to work and I switched to a barbarian, but those first couple of levels weren't much fun.

Thurbane
2008-09-07, 09:35 PM
I'm just curious what stupid mistakes everyone here has made when they first made characters. Espically if they whole group didn't know better.
My first 3.X character was a Sorcerer - I took the Maximize Spell feat, misreading it entirely. I thought you just chose one spell to apply the feat to, and the spell was then forever maximized (with no level adjustment). I went around at first level throwing a LOT of Sleep spells around. :smallbiggrin:

Xenogears
2008-09-07, 10:57 PM
Not realizing the difference between a CR increase and LA for templates. A lvl 18 vampire monk that drained two levels each time he hit you. So awesome. It was 3.0 so it didn't say that the vampires negative level only worked once per round and I convinced the DM that having vampires be CE didn't make much snese.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-07, 11:05 PM
When my group first started playing we thought that you could take two standard actions in a turn. Needless to say, this made alot of things much more powerful.

Shosuro Ishii
2008-09-07, 11:10 PM
And I quote:

'Monks are really strong...stunning fist is awesome, and they have a built in death attack.'

I've since learned otherwise, but I also still consider bards to be awesome, so it's just one step at a time.

Shazzbaa
2008-09-08, 12:47 AM
My very first D&D character was a werewolf barbarian. Because I thought being a werewolf would be cool.

And being a first time player trying to calculate what the heck kind of stats I have while in hybrid form AND raging (they stack!) was... swell.

LA traumatised my young and innocent mind. And it wasn't until about Level 12 or 13 that I figured out exactly how many hit dice I was supposed to have. I'm still pretty sure I never had quite the right number of hit points in hybrid form.

Also worth mentioning that by the time I was done with him, that character had written in big, bold letters on his character sheet, "DAMAGE REDUCTION 5/SILVER, YOU IDIOT!" with three large arrows pointing at it.

I jumped in the deep end, and learned as I went. ^^;

Eldariel
2008-09-08, 02:00 AM
And I quote:

'Monks are really strong...stunning fist is awesome, and they have a built in death attack.'

I've since learned otherwise, but I also still consider bards to be awesome, so it's just one step at a time.

Bards are awesome - you're in the right there. Especially if you know what you're doing.

RTGoodman
2008-09-08, 02:24 AM
'Monks are really strong...stunning fist is awesome, and they have a built in death attack.'

One of my fellow players still says this. He swears constantly that the Monk is the most overpowered class in D&D and refuses to play anything but a Monk (unless it's a Monk/Sorcerer, a Monk/Ninja, a Monk/Cleric, or something like that). The only other class I've seen him play that he says is as good is the Soulknife. Oddly, he doesn't ever seem to want to listen when I explain WHY the Monk is mechanically not that great at all.

My mistake was playing a Wizard as my first character and, basically, shooting all my magic missiles in the first combat. I relied on a crossbow the rest of that session...

OneFamiliarFace
2008-09-08, 02:40 AM
My second 3.5 character was a half-orc fighter who took Improved Overrun. I had planned on focusing on that ability, picking up Improved Bull Rush as well...

2 PrC's later, the DM allowed me to change the feats I took as per the PHB II rules, so I switched over to an Iron Willed defensive monster. Actually not a bad character after I got rid of the feat of doom, but I. Overrun has to be the worst feat ever to exist.

Nohwl
2008-09-08, 12:49 PM
thinking it was a good idea to prepare cure light wounds as a cleric. i figured it out later that session.

Blackfang108
2008-09-08, 03:35 PM
Picking up the BoVD.

Thankfully, when the DM realized that it should have zapped me, he handwaved it as me using a cloth.

But I was a CG Barbarian in that campaign. I played it more like good-leaning CN.

which is my default alignment since.

I was going to play a Monk, once (evil to boot) but, well, the DM had a forced three car draw from The Deck.

He lost his soul. My CG Silvanesti Noble who came next drew the Sun.

Hzurr
2008-09-08, 04:29 PM
Hmm...I think my biggest mistake was not understanding that stat bonuses from the same source didn't stack. I had my gloves of dex +2, my ioun stone of dex +2, and cat's grace all one me at the same time. I was one freakishly nimble rogue.

I also played a lot of monks, but honestly, I don't think that was a mistake. My group tended to play with high stats, so the MAD thing didn't come up all that often, and we weren't power gamers, so I never felt really lacking. I had more fun with some of those monk characters than I've had with any other.

Eorran
2008-09-08, 04:54 PM
AD&D 2e had a feature, wherein if your "Prime Requisite" ability score (str for fighters, int for mages, etc.) was a 16 or higher, you got 10% extra XP from encounters.
We added the 10% to our existing total XP. That group levelled pretty fast at first...

(Later, instead of arbitrary/story XP, if we were levelling too slow we'd come across a bunch of Abishai, who were worth way more XP than their difficulty would suggest. I think there was a typo in the MM giving them one extra digit.)

Skaven
2008-09-08, 08:28 PM
I made a half elf in 3.0. Who took the entire line of two weapon fighting, as a Druid.

TricksyAndFalse
2008-09-09, 08:32 AM
In AD&D (I guess some might call it 1st ed.), the Player's Handbook had a chart showing which classes could use which weapons. My character was a thief (we rolled 3d6 in order, and it was the class he was qualified for). I think the line for thief looked like:

dagger, dart, sling, quarterstaff **

It turns out that the asterisks had a key underneath the table explaining that thieves can also use a variety of swords, and listed which swords they were eligible for. I didn't see that part. Instead, my thief spent his first few precious weapon proficiencies on these four weapons during his early career before I noticed that all important note underneath the table.

hotel_papa
2008-09-09, 03:13 PM
Ooohh... boy.

I

1. Ran a game without knowing that bonuses of the same type stacked. No wonder everyone kept winning.
2. Once played a kobold druid, thinking that since a kobold w/ NPC class levels has a CR equal to their level -3, I could play one three levels higher than the rest of the party and be balanced. DM was convinced.
3. Monty Hauled like woah.
4. Played with entire parties of Marines.
5. Played in Iraq.
6. Played a Gnoll fighter and thought that having an attack bonus of +6 or higher gave me extra attacks, not just a base attack.
7. Made a TWF fighter with a double-bladed sword because it was the best pick in KOTOR.
8. Seriously. Marines. DON'T DO THAT!
9. Let players increase the size categories of their animal companions when the hit dice indicate. To be fair, that was only errata'd in, but still...

HP

Ascension
2008-09-09, 03:28 PM
7. Made a TWF fighter with a double-bladed sword because it was the best pick in KOTOR.

Yeah, I made some mistakes based on KOTOR too. The mechanics look the same, at first glance...

The Glyphstone
2008-09-09, 04:33 PM
Ooohh... boy.
4. Played with entire parties of Marines.
8. Seriously. Marines. DON'T DO THAT!
HP

...

Why Marines?

Kobold-Bard
2008-09-09, 05:02 PM
Not a mistake as in misreading the rules but just a very stupid thing to do, I joined a game at level 9 and deciding I wanted to be a diplomat so I spent 36 points on Speak Language Points. Have you ever tried to find 36 languages in a DnD game. Its easier than trying to find NPC's that can speak them all.

Have added Dex bonus to ranged attack damage all the time.
Misunderstood multiclassing. Resulted with a wizard/ranger that had a BAB of +4/+6.

BlueWizard
2008-09-09, 10:11 PM
How does one attack the DM? Isn't that the PCs job?

Masked Jedi
2008-09-09, 10:21 PM
Oddly, he doesn't ever seem to want to listen when I explain WHY the Monk is mechanically not that great at all.

Monk at base is kind of weak, but there's a bunch of feats that make it better. It's a hard class to play, but I like it. Plus, you'll never realize just how often DMs get rid of PC equipment until you play one.

Anyway, I joined a new group lately, and we're all level 15. I noticed that the barbarian was kinda weaksauce even though he had great stats. Then I realized that the player didn't know that you added strength bonus to attack and damage.

He's been playing for two years.

feghoot
2008-09-09, 10:51 PM
...Then the DM checked the DMG to see how much all that adamantine gear was worth. :biggrin: The look on his face was hilarious! But, rather than take it away, he let us keep the tens of thousands of gp. To keep things sane, we decided to use the money to buy something useful and fun, rather than tracking down +9 OMGUBERZ stuff; looking through the DMG, we settled on a Daern's Instant fortress (though IIRC the fighter got a set of +1 Mithral Full Plate out of the deal). It turned out to be pretty great, because that tower served as a mobile base of operations for the rest of the campaign, and that mithral plate served as the fighter's signature trait - he never got rid of it. Lots of good memories there.


That's a wonderful story Morandir. Your DM let you keep the loot he mistakenly gave out, and the party was kind and used that loot for something cool and pratical rather than buying uber swords. I wish I could hear storys like this more often.

As for my mistake, I seem to recall my first character being an orc ranger with all his stats below 14.

Dr Bwaa
2008-09-09, 11:37 PM
Well, we have one campaign, the first campaign we ever played, which is still ongoing. We haven't bothered to fix all the mistakes we made early on, so things have gotten a little nuts at times, but it's fun.

1. Once a class skill, always a class skill. The guy with the fey'ri ranger/rogue/shadowdancer was... maybe a little uber.
2. Someone did some very bad things with the TOB. He was the only one who had the book at the time so none of us had taken the time to read it all and figure out all the mechanics. He was playing a ninja/(warblade or swordsage, don't really know). He somehow was:

Always invisible.
Always had at least 43 AC.
Could go ethereal as an immediate action x/day.
There were...many more. This player stopped playing, which made it only one super-uber-powered player.
3. My first character was a monk with 16 dex and nothing else above 14. Can't believe she made it to level 9 before getting disintegrated.
4. We (somehow) bought a plot of land and hired a bunch of guys to build a castle for us there, in the middle of Shadowdale. The walls were stone with a 1/8" layer of Adamantine on the inside and outside.
5. Just remembered how we payed for that. We found an illegal fighting ring-type place, where this guy would summon demons or whatnot and various people would fight. We figured out quickly that if we pooled our collective WBL, and bet it all on ourselves at terrific odds, the DM still wouldn't have the heart to kill us :smallbiggrin:
6. The DM often homebrews items, like the rogue's Bracers of 3.0 Haste. Or, he'll give something an effect that he didn't realize was actually a couple of +5 enhancements. He's let us keep these items, and in return, we (most of us) have tried not to abuse them too much.
7. We found a leyline that was recently reopened. All the groups full-or-partial spellcasters (Arcmage, bard, paladin, etc) then proceeded to invent circle magic because we'd heard about it from this Red Wizard we'd Programmed Amnesia'd, and cast various spells at CL53 without damage or size caps. There was a 200-foot-tall Flaming Sphere rolling across Darkdale that night. I think he used energy substitution and Prismatic Something to make it a disco, to boot.

There are so many more; maybe I'll compile another list at some point here and post them a bit at a time :smallsmile: