Good trio to mess with GM?

[Lothak]

My friend invited me to join a campaign with semi new GM and we thought it would be funny to see how far we could derail his campaign only using 3 characters. After talking about it we thought 3 rogues archetype tabaxi thief, grung assassin, kenku mastermind would do the trick and try to completely take over. Each would specialize in a specific aspect to make this work. Any ideas if this would be a good combo or is there something better?

[bored_acel]

My friend invited me to join a campaign with semi new GM and we thought it would be funny to see how far we could derail his campaign...

Rocks fall and you all die.

Not that this is a guaranteed outcome, but trying to screw with the narrator of your shared story will only end in frustration for the GM until they take it out on you.

Collaborative storycrafting is what D&D can be, being a prick to the narrator will hurt you. I've killed most of a party for having a natural 1 axe clip a flintrock in a tunnel near a powder keg for less- it will blow up in your face.

[Whyrocknodie]

I concur. You could instead NOT derail the new GM's game. Wouldn't that be exciting!

[Jerrykhor]

Maybe you should try being DM for once, and let some morons derail your campaign and undo all your hardwork.

At that point, why even bother playing? The DM has no plans for whatever you are about to do, so might as well put you in more F-you situations and kill your stupid character.

[JNAProductions]

I’ll echo those who say “Don’t.”

Don’t feel like you need to slavishly follow the DM’s directions, but don’t TRY to screw things up.

[Lothak]

You all automatically assumed it was to completely derail which is kinda sad. I said see how far we can we would still do it. Also before you assume I haven't been a DM I have of you get that hurt over people having fun maybe you shouldn't play?

[KorvinStarmast]

You all automatically assumed it was to completely derail which is kinda sad. I said see how far we can we would still do it. Also before you assume I haven't been a DM I have of you get that hurt over people having fun maybe you shouldn't play?

They responded based on what you posted.
If you'd put a bit more detail into your intro, perhaps you'd have gotten a different result.

Let's see, three PCs whose purpose is to make the DM grind his teeth.

1. Divination Wizard
2. half elf Skill Monkey Rogue/Thief or Lore Bard
3. Paladin(Ancients)

Make sure that they all have the Lucky feat.

[bored_acel]

My friend invited me to join a campaign with semi new GM and we thought it would be funny to see how far we could derail his campaign only using 3 characters....and try to completely take over.

You all automatically assumed it was to completely derail which is kinda sad.

Welcome to a text based medium, where your words stay- etched in bits for the eons. {Scrubbed}

[stoutstien]

You all automatically assumed it was to completely derail which is kinda sad. I said see how far we can we would still do it. Also before you assume I haven't been a DM I have of you get that hurt over people having fun maybe you shouldn't play?

It about respecting the fact someone new is taking the responsibility of being a DM. If your fun is derived from making the task of learning to DM harder you probably shouldn't play with them until they get settled in.
It's a great way to make sure they have a negative experience and make them either not DM or pick up bad habits to try to control the players trying to be abtuse just for laughs.

[HPisBS]

Let's see, three PCs whose purpose is to make the DM grind his teeth.
...
2. half elf Skill Monkey Rogue/Thief or Lore Bard

How teeth-grindy is a skillmonkey to gm for?

[Zhorn]

Please kindly don't.

Learning to DM is hard enough and it's already too small a portion of the player base willing to DM as it is.
Going into this with the plan as you've laid out is either going to scare someone off from ever DMing again, or drive them to just not Dm for you ever again.

Have fun with your DM, not at the expense of your DM.

[Lothak]

Please kindly don't.

Learning to DM is hard enough and it's already too small a portion of the player base willing to DM as it is.
Going into this with the plan as you've laid out is either going to scare someone off from ever DMing again, or drive them to just not Dm for you ever again.

Have fun with your DM, not at the expense of your DM.

I said semi new kinda of like someone who has a year or 2 experience but isn't completely experienced 100%

[carrdrivesyou]

Having more than one person play a class can be irritating for players because they tend to want the same gear, and have very similar abilities. Having three rogues in a group could be the makings of your very own crime syndicate. I like the idea. While your subclasses certainly make sense, every good group needs a bruiser. Some muscle. I would suggest swapping out the thief for a swashbuckler or the mastermind for an arcane trickster. Also, hire an NPC moron with a club to protect you. He's a muscle head and a fall guy in case things don't work out.

For battle strategies, just pick on one person at a time. surround it and sneak attacks should make quick work of it. Better if you are all kobolds with pack tactics. This gives the DM some breathing room for designing encounters, and gives you as players, a chance to use your class abilities.


As a complete alternative, you could play warlocks of a single patron that gave you all different powers (i.e. fiend, hexblade, etc.). Start a cult and go nuts!

Hope this helps!

[Hail Tempus]

My friend invited me to join a campaign with semi new GM and we thought it would be funny to see how far we could derail his campaign only using 3 characters. After talking about it we thought 3 rogues archetype tabaxi thief, grung assassin, kenku mastermind would do the trick and try to completely take over. Each would specialize in a specific aspect to make this work. Any ideas if this would be a good combo or is there something better?

"Hey guys, let's screw with someone who's put in effort and is trying to create an enjoyable experience for us."

{Scrubbed}.

[1Pirate]

You all automatically assumed it was to completely derail which is kinda sad.

No one assumed anything, you outright said you were trying to take over the campaign:

After talking about it we thought 3 rogues archetype tabaxi thief, grung assassin, kenku mastermind would do the trick and try to completely take over.

From the way you’ve written you posts it sounds like you’re trying to have your fun at the expense of someone else’s and that’s why everyone is jumping down your throat.

So, I advise against it. Attempting to substantially derail a GM’s campaign(regardless of how experienced they are) is always a crap thing to do and there are RL consequences to consider. You run a risk of never being invited back to their table, or even put them off GMing altogether(a year or two of experience is a little vague—it’s the number of sessions DM’d that counts). This could also strain the relationship between your friend and the GM. If it’s just you three at the table, it’s disingenuous to join his campaign since you never had any intent of trying to go along with it. If there are other players at the table, you risk alienating them as well.

[JakOfAllTirades]

How teeth-grindy is a skillmonkey to gm for?

The Rogue in our party has a Reliable talent. Her minimum roll with her expertise skills is a 24.

[stoutstien]

The Rogue in our party has a Reliable talent. Her minimum roll with her expertise skills is a 24.

Where is the last +1 coming from? Ioun stone?

Either way the rogue auto passing DC 5-20 at no additional cost is the point of the class.

[Damon_Tor]

You can push things pretty far with a zealot barbarian and a "pacifist" law cleric/divine sorcerer who runs sanctuary to protect himself while using a nigh-infinite supply of 1st level spell slots to give the barbarian free attacks. The cleric can keep the barbarian standing through just about anything, and even if he falls ressurection spells are free.

Your third character is free to be a sneaky rogue who just stays in the shadows during combat.

EDIT: none of this "derails" a campaign. If you're looking for a party that can simply ignore the story that was prepared for you and do something completely different, I'm not inclined to offer advice.

[Tawmis]

My friend invited me to join a campaign with semi new GM and we thought it would be funny to see how far we could derail his campaign only using 3 characters. After talking about it we thought 3 rogues archetype tabaxi thief, grung assassin, kenku mastermind would do the trick and try to completely take over. Each would specialize in a specific aspect to make this work. Any ideas if this would be a good combo or is there something better?

Just going to echo what others have said...

Consider this person is semi new to being a GM.

Being a GM takes an arse amount of time and planning. Even if you're putting someone through a module. You need to look and see where the potential is for something to (unintentionally) veer off. You need to be ready to take notes of NPCs, or names of stores, you're randomly making up on the fly.

Someone who is new to GM is probably going to need the support of their players, to encourage them to continue to GM.

Not a pack of players who are intentionally going to ruin the DM's experience of trying to provide a good story for his players to interact with.

[Lothak]

No one assumed anything, you outright said you were trying to take over the campaign:



From the way you’ve written you posts it sounds like you’re trying to have your fun at the expense of someone else’s

Again assumed taking over is being vague. Did i say take over campaign? No i did not all i said was take over.

[Galithar]

Again assumed taking over is being vague. Did i say take over campaign? No i did not all i said was take over.

Might I suggest posting a new thread with a clearer explanation of your goal then? Either that or at least explain it clearly here. Just saying nuh-uh when people call you out for what most of us see as 'red-flag drop that player' behavior doesn't explain what you apparently meant. Leaving us all thinking you want to wreck this DMs campaign for the lulz and are simply getting defensive when called out.

Now giving you the benefit of the doubt that you AREN'T trying to wreck a campaign, what ARE you trying to do? It sounds like you're trying to create a party that can skip a pillar or two of the Game while still progressing the story? If that's the case, which aspects would you be trying to trivialize? Combat is the most boring one, and it'll likely get met with the DM ramping up to stronger enemies faster. A Rogue/Wizard(with Rogue dip)/Ranger group can effectively bypass most exploration obstacles with stealth and magic. And it allows you to trivialize an aspect of the game while still interacting with it, which I would think would seem less off putting to the DM. You aren't ignoring the obstacles, you're just using passwall to make a whole in them etc.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Where is the last +1 coming from? Ioun stone?

Either way the rogue auto passing DC 5-20 at no additional cost is the point of the class.

I think that was a couple of levels ago, actually. We're 18th level now, so her minimum roll with expertise would be 10+(6x2)+5 = 27!

Off-topic:

Spoiler

Show

My Warlock is no slouch either. When he casts Glibness his minimum roll with most Charisma skills is 26.

[Keravath]

I'd have to say that there isn't such a combination for any DM with even modest experience.

Why? It isn't the mechanics that will EVER derail a DM's campaign. The DM knows what the characters can do (this is where the modest experience comes in) and the campaign flows from and around that knowledge. The only way to derail a DM's campaign is with the PLAYERS. Player's can easily derail an inexperienced DMs campaign by intentionally going off plot, intentionally ignoring hints or other hooks that might be designed to draw in the character as written. However, the player makes the decisions even if they are out of character, an evil cult infests a town, the lawful good devotion paladin can STILL decide to head up the road to the next town or go adventuring in the wilderness ignoring the plot hook since it is a PLAYER decision. This is really the only way to derail a campaign.

An experienced DM rolls with it and no matter where the characters choose to go a story will appear even if the DM is making it up as they go along or moving plot elements that were supposed to be elsewhere. A less experienced DM sometimes gets stuck, gets a deer in the headlights look, can't figure out what to do or what would fit the story, or tries to force the party back to the planned storyline .. this is not a pleasant state to be in for the DM and it isn't really fair for the players to intentionally do it. It happens often enough when the players don't try to do it intentionally :).

Anyway, I've DMed games where the players either wanted something different or were playing a very chaotic character and decided not to follow up on the existing plot hooks. So wherever they wandered something came up for them to do and eventually they either stopped trying to break it because there was nothing they could break or they found a plot they could relate to and followed that up.

---

I think the three rogues sounds like lots of fun but it is a role playing choice and mechanically weak. It's a pretty weak party with no healing, no magic, no tank, no support, no crowd control. They will be amazing at stealth but stealth won't get them everywhere - you need something to hide behind :) in order to stealth. Kenku don't have darkvision, Grung don't have darkvision so as a bunch of rogues you will be crippled in the dark. It will be hilarious to watch you trying to infiltrate somewhere with a light source. In addition, a tabaxi, a grung and a kenku walk into a bar sounds more like the start of a joke than a role playing group .. in most game worlds which are dominated by humans and the more standard races, that group will stand out and likely face a lot of persecution, especially the frog guy with the poisonous skin. Honestly, the described party is probably awesome for the DM since they are such an oddball group with limited skills ... rather than derail anything, the DM won't have any trouble dealing with this party for combat, exploration or social encounters since they just aren't that good at any of them.

P.S. A better three rogue party would be all races with darkvision, then probably an arcane trickster, a swashbuckler and either a mastermind or an inquisitive. Swashbuckler gives a character with charisma for social skills and some melee ability. Arcane trickster gives a familiar for scouting and some useful cantrips, Inquisitive focuses on insight and can enable sneak attack without an ally adjacent. One big issue with any all rogue party is that they won't get sneak attack unless they have some way of either creating advantage (hide, help action from familiar, swashbuckler in melee, inquisitive ability). The original group of thief, assassin, mastermind has very little opportunity to enable sneak attack without an ally adjacent.

[ScoutTrooper]

1. Centaur Monk, with Mobile Feat
2. Tiefling Draconic Sorc, fire of course
3. Warforged Cleric of the Forge

Out maneuver, Out Burst, Out last.
If you don't like the Monk, sub in a Druid. Summon 8 woodland creatures every time.
NPC Governor being a ****? 8 boars, run the podium over
NPC shopkeeper not budging ? 8 rats in their shop
NPC Gatekeeper upcharing the toll? 8 Elks, knock him and the door over.

Edit: I've had a DM who thought it was him vs the players. So it was the first time I actually played with the intention of messing with them. Went Padlock (Paladin + Warlock). Had the whole 3d20 to hit, crit on 19 and 20s. He tried to gang up monsters on me. I pulled out that misty step and just floored them.

[bendking]

"Hey guys, let's screw with someone who's put in effort and is trying to create an enjoyable experience for us."

Pretty much. Maybe just don't be a d*ck?

[CorporateSlave]

Again assumed taking over is being vague. Did i say take over campaign? No i did not all i said was take over.

This is some nice backpedaling you're doing here, de-mincing your words to make it sound like you meant something besides what was your original intent.

Why mess with your DM? They're doing a lot more of the work in your campaign that all three of you put together. Right, because you three decided it would be "fun."

I'm sure the primary school playground game where three people surround a fourth and push them until they fall to the ground and start crying is pretty "fun" for the three bullies. "Oh whats the big deal, we were going to stop before anybody got really hurt!"

Don't pick on the guy who is making your game possible. You want to try and "derail" a campaign and "take over completely?" Maybe have that discussion with the DM, and make sure he will have fun trying to foil your best efforts within the RAW?

My favorite bit about this thread is the irony that the OP who came here posting about advice on a good maximized combination for him and his friends to mess with their DM is now clearly upset when the exact same thing that they wanted to do to his DM is happening to him on this forum.

Apparently it isn't fun to come into something thinking the others there want to participate in the manner you had in mind, only to find out they'd rather mostly gang up against you?

Who knew?

[Teaguethebean]

I have an idea to derail and take over the campaign. Make characters with lots of connection to the world and interesting backgrounds. The DM could be "tricked" into exploring the character backstories and moving away from the main campaign. Truly a devilish scheme.

[Man_Over_Game]

semi new GM [...] it would be funny to see how far we could derail his campaign only using 3 characters.

Is he cool with it?

All's fair if everyone's trying to play the same game. But the DM is more important than any player. His opinion matters more than everyone's, since everyone's fun is dictated, strictly, by him. Your choice only impacts 1 DM, but a DM's choice impacts 3 players. Without him there is no game, but without you there is no third player.

DMing is hard enough when things go right, and you might not be making it any easier.

I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong. But I am saying that you should find out if what you're doing is right.

Doing weird stuff like sexy times, PvP, or destroying the world are all fine as long as everyone playing it wants to play it. Does he?

[Lothak]

It sounds like you're trying to create a party that can skip a pillar or two of the Game while still progressing the story?

Right here actually doing what he wants in a way he wasn't expecting instead of the normal path most would do. Trying to figure out a good way to go about it. Since most players do the same thing and just go with the flow of how the gm wants it done.

[Kaiwen]

Welcome to a text based medium, where your words stay- etched in bits for the eons. {Scrubbed}

Oh, the irony.