[4e] Helping my player's rogue

[Burley]

My group's rogue has an absolutely terrible AC. 17 at level 5. He has had plenty of opportunities to equip, but he's happy with his +1 cloth, for some reason.
Our session yesterday showed him that he needs a bump. So, I threw in a "replacement" set of leather. His Bloodcut Cloth for a Level 5 set of Leather. I dunno if he's picked anything yet, though.

Anybody have any suggestions? I'm willing to let him have a set of level 6. (He's the least optimized in the party, and he's been nerfing himself by using STR instead of DEX for his melee attacks, because he doesn't read his powers...)

[Master_Rahl22]

I'm not sure what kind of AC should be expected there, just throwing Leather at him will make it 19. Yes the fighter and most certainly the paladin will have higher AC than the rogue, but that's because they're supposed to. Perhaps instead of trying to rely on AC that will always be several points lower than the defender, he should play like a striker and use mobility/positioning to keep from getting hit. He should either be hanging out near the defender so that they can keep things off of him, or he should be in the back row taking out artillery/controllers that don't usually target AC.

[Artanis]

Level 5 will give him two points, and +1 Leather will give him another three, for a total of 15. Add DEX to that, and he should have an AC of at least 18.

[Leon]

you can make suggestions to what he could be doing but don't force it, being told how to play you PC is never fun. if he is happy with the cloth let it slide or reward him with more cloth

on the Str/Dex: remind him when he forgets, he should get it eventually or keep a note of what the abilities are and correct them as part of the flow of combat


Oh and Good for him on not being "optimized"

[Burley]

Well, nobody in the party is optimized really, he's just the least of the bunch. He's an artful dodger with a higher strength than charisma. He's also a poor tactition, but takes suggestions poorly and it slows us down a lot when we suggest things.

He said himself at the end of the session that he was going to upgrade when they got to town. I didn't think he'd survive, until then at the current rate, so I threw him a bone. Nothing is forced, and he thanked me. But, I want to be able to make suggestions where I may. Suggestion a couple different armors will go better than suggestion he stops moving into the middle of fights. Or suggesting he get a magical ranged weapon to replace the magical short sword that he doesn't use...

[wadledo]

Oh and Good for him on not being "optimized"

....So the fact that he's slowing down the rest of the group is a good thing?

[Yakk]

Do you use power cards?

Having a power card with the text all printed out, and the bonuses calculated another card for basic attacks, might help.

Note that pre-calculating everything "with combat advantage" and "with sneak attack" also helps, even if you have to do that by hand.

[Grynning]

you can make suggestions to what he could be doing but don't force it, being told how to play you PC is never fun. if he is happy with the cloth let it slide or reward him with more cloth

on the Str/Dex: remind him when he forgets, he should get it eventually or keep a note of what the abilities are and correct them as part of the flow of combat


Oh and Good for him on not being "optimized"

Ok. I agree with statement 1, no one likes being told how to play.

Statement 2 is a good suggestion, however, there comes a point where you can't sit there and explain the bonuses to someone every time (I had to do this with a couple members of one of my groups and it got really annoying. It's first grade math, people!). One suggestion I would make is to have at least one member of your group invest in the DDI character builder. While you do have to do some checking on the power cards to make sure it has the right weapon equipped, once you've done that it displays the correct total for attack and damage for each power, so all he has to do is look at the card for the power he's using and ta-da! No more math headaches. Conditional bonuses you may still need to remind him of, but those won't cripple his attacks if forgotten.

As for statement 3, that is not a sentiment I would view as positive. 4th edition, more than any other tabletop RPG, pretty much requires at least some level of optimization. It's not hard to do because a lot of it is marked with big glowing signs for you, but if you don't put at least a little effort into making your characters good at what they do it really drags the game down for you and everyone else, because you just won't be effective. This is why the OP is requesting help, and a player should not be praised for playing badly.

[Aron Times]

Okay, I don't mind playing suboptimal characters, but what we have here is someone who refuses to use basic tactics, which is a problem.

He's a rogue. He knows he's squishy because he's only wearing cloth armor, which is basically normal clothing. And yet he rushes blindly into battle despite this?

Tell him to stop being a Leeroy before he gets the party killed. It's hard to change his stats, but it doesn't take much to have him change his tactics.

[Leon]

....So the fact that he's slowing down the rest of the group is a good thing?

His level of Optimization is not whats slowing them down from what i read, the player doesn't play well tactically and doesn't take suggestions well
He could have the most tricked out optimal PC and still have issues

As to needing to optimize no, not really from the little that Ive experienced of 4e, playing badly and playing a optimal PC are separate things

[Tengu_temp]

As to needing to optimize no, not really from the little that Ive experienced of 4e, playing badly and playing a optimal PC are separate things

Then why have you congratulated him on being non-optimized on the first place?

[Artanis]

re: optimizing

There's non-optimized characters, which aren't necessarily a bad thing and can be a refreshing change of pace. Then there's characters that are downright bad. His official secondary stat is lower than his STR - which would rarely, if ever be used at all - and he's using cloth armor as a class designed for leather?


re: the player himself

He needs to read his powers. There is absolutely no excuse not to know what stat it says to use. Having trouble with the math is one thing, but not to know that he's supposed to use DEX and not STR?

[Burley]

We will take steps to double check his character through the character creater, now that my PC is fixed. I will also make him, and the rest of my group, a set of power cards.
Sorry to interrupt your derailment, but I haven't gotten an actual answer about which magic armors I could suggest.
There is no sense in arguing about the playstyle of somebody you've never met.

[Artanis]

We will take steps to double check his character through the character creater, now that my PC is fixed. I will also make him, and the rest of my group, a set of power cards.
Sorry to interrupt your derailment, but I haven't gotten an actual answer about which magic armors I could suggest.
There is no sense in arguing about the playstyle of somebody you've never met.

Sorry

You could give him Bloodcut Leather. You say he likes his Bloodcut Cloth, and Bloodcut can go on Leather (and it says can't go on cloth anyways )

For other armors, some to look at would be:
PHB: Sylvan
AV: Agile, Summoned (level 6, but strictly better than Magic)

[Eorran]

All I've got is the PHB at the moment, but I'll put in for Deathcut or Sylvan leather. Sylvan for the bonus to Athletics and Stealth, and Deathcut because constant damage reduction (against necrotic and poison) is easy to keep track of and can be very helpful. Plus, as you climb levels, it's fun to collect resistances to as many things as you can find.

[Burley]

Sorry

You could give him Bloodcut Leather. You say he likes his Bloodcut Cloth, and Bloodcut can go on Leather (and it says can't go on cloth anyways )

For other armors, some to look at would be:
PHB: Sylvan
AV: Agile, Summoned (level 6, but strictly better than Magic)

Erk! My bad. He has Bloodthread Armor. Too much blood.

He'll probably end up going against Deathcut, since he has a Viper Belt, and I doubt he'd see the armor as superior to his "totally awesome belt." (Quoting him from yesterday, when he took 2 ongoing poison.)

[Grynning]

Was he wearing cloth for flavor reasons? Because you can make him happy via re-flavoring if that's the case. Just have an encounter drop an item that looks similar to the outfit he has (clothing, robes, w/e) and when he asks what the stats are, just say that it's a special (magic, extraplanar, whatever) cloth that grants +2 to AC like leather, and has the magic properties of whatever suit you're giving him. I know that seems kind of obvious but no one had brought it up yet.

As far as the actual type of armor, none of the +1 leather armors are really bad for a rogue. I would say just pick one you think sounds cool (this player seems like they go for style over substance, a neat name may be all it takes for them to like it). If you want to give him +2 armor there's only 2 level 6 choices (magic and summoned), and the level 7 ones start to have some nifty powers that might make other players jealous.

[Yakk]

Ooo, summoned leather could work wonders. It is armor that looks like cloth, until combat, where it pops into place.

And mechanically, leather+2 is probably better for an under-AC character.

Reverse engineering:
17 at level 5 in Cloth+1
10 + 2 (level) +1 (cloth) +4 (dex) = 17. Ok that is on track.

Putting them in summoned leather boost this to:
10 + 2 + 4 + 4 = 20 AC.

That moves the character from being 12+L AC to being 15+L AC. Back 'on track'. And the item (leather that disappears at will) is fun. As a bonus, you can let the character keep their cloth armor -- and say that the cloth armor isn't usable while the leather armor is 'deployed' as the magics interfere.