Hey /tg/,
So one of my players just quit the campaign.
Long story short, he spent literally 3 weeks trying to min max his character, played his first session and was OP af.
Later on he spent a week thinking his character progression and came across some rules.
That's when he realized that he "made mistakes" on character creation.
Frustrated, he quit the campaign and left the group.
What's your experience with this kind of players? Are RPGs just a "numbers" game to any of you (or anyone you know)?
>>46516770
That is some petty shit to get rage quit over. A least the problem got rid of itself rather than needing outside intervention.
We had a guy who came in with a character optimised for sneak attack damage. It didn't even start to work until level 13.
On the first round of the first fight that character got into, DM killed him in one hit with a barbarian / fighter town watch captain.
Then the DM kept throwing monsters with improved grapple at us. The rest of the party could handle those just barely because we were more balanced, but the sneak attacker pretty much spent all fights being grappled and unable to do anything. He eventually got sick of it and rerolled another one trick pony, but this time he spent a feat to counter grapple. DM then countered him again using things that attacked his weak areas.
Many rounds of this and many characters later, the optimizer had a character's who was "min-maxed" to counter all the different kinds of threat DM has been throwing his way. He now had no obvious weakness and many different options in a fight. At this point the DM said to him:
>"Guess what anon, you've optimised yourself into a well rounded character. You've become what you've always hated"
>>46516770
Depends on the game.
In something like 3.5/PF I'd be hard-pressed not to min-max.
Guess it depends on whether I feel that the system punishes me if I don't min-max.
But yeah, good riddance.
>>46516931
that dm is a complete cunt. railroading from character creation? that's bullshit,
>>46516931
I'm not sure whether that's brilliant or just a massive dick move.
Either way, I'm impressed.
>>46516931
That is fucking hilarious
>>46516993
Found the min-maxer
>>46516931
I'll take "Things That Never Happened" for five hundred, Alex
>>46517028
>>story about being forced to min-max
>me- that's bs
>you- you must min-max... also I'm apparently retarded
>>46516931
sounds like a problem that could have been solved day one by talking things out like adult human beings
>>46517063
It's about being forced to balance and not minmax, you nob
>>46517055
His second character was an ubercharger halfling that rode a silver dragon that appeared as a ditzy young girl when not in combat. The halfling was her bodyguard.
3.5 have this rule where you cannot ascend or descend by more than 5ft when performing an aerial charge. Our DM made a flying waith boss that would dodge his charge by hovering and move up and down by 10ft every turn.
I managed to get into a game finally and wanted to use a leadery character with leadership. Only now, several sessions in did I realize all the mistakes i made and how its gimping me, plus the whole deal about bringing a bunch of lvl 1 npcs with us would mean them getting insta-killed by pretty much anything at lvl 7 (even our own cleric who insists on using channel negative energy).
But I didnt quit, im pondering how to save this and at the same time thinking about a different build to maybe "reroll" later on if this really does not work.
>>46517176
I took Leadership knowing full well that the followers would be useless in a combat situation.
That's why they take care of our HQ and run errands while my cohort accompanies me on our adventures.
>>46516770
Personally I've always been quite lucky with my group. We are the kind of people who would pass time trying to create a 9x9x9 tank anti mage fighter paladin shredder.
Then, when we actually play, our characters are rarely more than one class and one prestige.
>>46516931
So, he moved from T5 classes to T3 classes?
>>46517132
Why did the DM have such a hard-on for that guy, literally tailored all these encounters for one dude's benefit.
What's wrong with specializing? It's how the game is classically played... unless he's not planning on keeping the party together n shit. Wizards not specialized in a specific discipline or a warrior not specialized in a specific weapon just seems weird.
>>46517284
>Wizards not specialized in a specific discipline [...] just seems weird.
Haven't played much 3.5/PF, have you?
>>46517305
I like basic and ad&d 1st ed, but was thinking about jumping to 5e to check it out. Why? What's the deal with 3.5/PF?
>>46517284
I don't think our DM was specifically tailoring to that guy, its just he throws up balanced and really challenging threats that then to have ways to punish really specialized builds that need very specific conditions (flanking, room for aerial charge) to work.
He also warned us that min-maxing is self defeating as he will tune magic items so that the weakest members of the party get the most boost and strongest get nothing, so as to reduce any power gap within the party.
Our min-maxer guy just can't resist doing his thing. He just find maximising a single aspect of his character a very rewarding logical puzzle. He's a total sticker for the rules in game. Like in one instance he's character went down in a burning puddle of oil. We forgot to apply the fire damage to him in the heat of battle. Afterwards he INSISTS rolling for fire damage even though the dm offered to fiat and say our guard dog managed to drag his body out of the fire and save him.
So he rolled for fire damage and got another dead character.
>>46517377
>What's the deal with 3.PF?
You fool, you've doomed this thread.
>>46517391
Oh, ok. It just sounded like he was giving him extra attention in that first post, but if he was keeping things fun and that guy lagged behind, then that's on him.
>>46516770
I'm confused as to what his problem was. Was it that he was only "OP af" and not "super OP af?"
And, personally, I tend to optimize my characters fairly significantly (though so does the rest of my group), though we all try to avoid making a character who will overshadow other characters in the group.
>>46516770
Wow that's a pretty extreme guy. What was his character?
>>46517377
>What's the deal with 3.5/PF?
Way too much.
This particular issue is that Wizards are best if they "specialize" for extra class features, then cherry pick the most useful spells from all schools except their two forbidden ones that don't have any too useful spells anyway.
Meanwhile the Fighter is forced to hyper-specialize in order to not completely suck at a very specific, narrow thing which the Wizard can do better anyway.
Also don't bother with 5e.
It's a product without vision or drive, intended as an apology for 4e and designed to not offend the 3.5 fans they lost to Paizo.
>>46517391
Honestly, I don't think I'd enjoy your DM. He sounds like he's wonderful for people new to the game, or who don't put much thought into things, but for someone who does enjoy system mastery and fine-tuning and tinkering with their character, he's literally The Anti Fun.
It's not even about being OP. Maybe you just really want to be The Acrobatics Guy, or maybe you just really love your sneak attack silliness. Right now I have a character who has all of the Perception/Sense Motive. All of it. She's not terribly strong otherwise, but I didn't want her to be well rounded; I wanted her to be perceptive, and then kind of bumbling and clumsy otherwise. In a previous campaign I got to play with a friend of mine and we took some PF Teamwork feats that let us AoO chain for days, and we were specialized to do that. It's what we wanted to do, we had a blast.
So I mean, personally I wouldn't enjoy playing with your DM. He seems like the kind of person who tries to teach people about Bad Wrong Fun rather than just letting them enjoy their game of make believe and/or logic puzzles.
More power to you if you're having fun with him, but I hope that sneak attack guy found a group that fit him better - Or at least a better DM for his playing preference.
>>46517468
In PF you don't even lose the schools entirely, you just need to prep those spells in two slots; which means, since you get an extra slot/level for specializing, as long as you don't prepare more than 1 banned spell/level you literally lose nothing.
>>46517494
I did not know that.
So much for Paizo "fixing" 3.5...
>>46516770
How do you spend 3 weeks optimizing? I've never come across a game where choosing the best option took longer than five minutes, and I've played fucking Pathfinder.
>>46517468
Hmm... I thought I read that that could be fixed by having the dm have more of a role in what/which spells wizards could have.
Yeah, I'm not too trilled over 5e, but apparently the "new thing" is abandoning classic eds and doing what's new... sucks, but whatevez, man.
>>46517470
The sneak attack guy is now the dm! He's doing a pretty good job, although he has this wierd fetish with trying to kill our donkey. So far the donkey has been victories.
Fun story before we switched to 5e in our current long campaign we tried out a short 5e campaign to try out the system. The anti-minmax dm asked everyone to write down what magical item they wished to have before facing the BBEG. True to form the minmaxer put down "circlet of +30 int" and the DM actually gave it to him, except the circlet also reduced the wearer's con to 1.
The minmaxer did put it on for the final battle and promptly died when a mook punched him in the face. Afterwards the DM said to him "you know you could have just put the circlet on the BBEG's head and then kick him in the shin".
>>46517081
but anon, that would require social skills.
why act like an adult when you can act like a petulant child
>>46516770
I had a mate of mine telling me he wanted to end up with a Warforged Mage that could end up with 20 AC by level 4. Tried explaining how he'd just be unstoppable and nothing would be a challenge, unless I scaled everything up, and he literally didn't understand the problem, and also wanted to make him even harder to damage. Fuck that was annoying.
I've never met a minmaxer. I've had some GMs who got mad at me for not minmaxing before, though. No idea why, but I tend to choose spells/abilities that make sense to me/my character. I'm not gonna sit around trying to honestly break the game by trying to be OP for no reason. That's not fun. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't be playing a game of pretend and would just say to myself "I win" and go about my day.
>>46517227
Isn't T1 being so good at one thing that nothing else matters?
>>46517527
>I've never come across a game where choosing the best option took longer than five minutes
>I've played fucking Pathfinder
One of these is a lie.
>>46517636
Yes, but someone who understood Tiers would've never even bothered making a sneak attacker or some one-trick pony "optimized" thing.
That means it was more of a munchkin who might've actually figured out the basics of Tiers unadvertently.
>>46517636
Obviously other things mattered.
Hell, just pull in undead or constructs for the sneakattacker.
T1 is all max, no meaningful min.
>>46517509
It was never a fix. It's artificial life extension so they can keep publishing shitty adventure paths.
>>46517649
He probably googled for broken builds and found it that way in some sort of list, not just looking through all of the shit himself. But if he looked through all the PF shit himself in 5 minutes and had no prior knowledge of what was broken already? Then, yeah, he's clearly full of shit.
>>46517540
No, 5e is specifically about NOT doing what's new.
4e did something new in that it was WotC's personal take on D&D unlike 3e, which tried to do 2e with incompatible game design.
The problem with 5e is that it tries to recapture the 3.5 audience WotC lost to Paizo, while evoking nostalgia from the pre-3e crowd, while also not losing any of the 4e fanbase.
As a result, its design space is spread incredibly thin and the whole thing is about as bland as hardtack without a pinch of salt.
There were interesting things in the playtest, but they were cut out post-haste in order to not offend anyone.
>>46517636
No, T1 is about being so good at everything that nobody else matters.
>>46517470
As a DM I find that the most fun that comes out of the game is trying to find scenarios that require critical thinking. People who just want to play "The Acrobatics Guy" will have to think critically about any scenario that isn't Acrobatics. DOn't get me wrong, I would throw acrobatics challenges at them, but I would also even it out with non-acrobatic challenges where they actually had to find a non-acrobatic way to fix things.
That's basically what I get out of what the DM says here >>46517600. Saying "you know you could have just put the circlet on the BBEG's head and then kick him in the shin" is actually just the DM wondering why the character didn't think critically about the situation and find some way to actually use the circlet to his advantage instead of putting it on and actually using something that would cripple him.
>>46517618
Why didn't you just say that because everything gets scaled up he'll be the only one being able to kill things and everything will be deadly for the other members of the party, i.e. it won't be fun because they'll just be getting their asses kicked while he's shooting lasers from his eyes? Seriously, godamn man, put some thought into how to fix your situation.
>>46517757
The guy probably made the classic game mistake. He saw "+30 int" and probably thought that seemed great. In most games when you see anything with + on it, you take it. He probably got excited and misread the con as -1 or something and fucked up. Most minmaxers it seems tend to come from video games where stats are fairly simple that way. Whereas tabletops are more like roguelikes in that you usually have to weigh out the pros and cons of each item.
>>46517813
No he explicitly know it sets his con to 1.
After the final battle he was asking on reddit weather or not his 30 something int would have told himself that wearing it in battle was a bad idea and they told him it's fair game. Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can't also suffer from hubris.
>>46517786
He literally doesn't see the problem. That's the issue here, he still thinks that's fine
>>46517865
>Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can't also suffer from hubris.
Hell I would argue you're actually more likely.
>>46517451
He was the only op in the group, but apparently he could have bbeen way better.
I don't get ut either
>>46517600
+30 INT in 5e means that literally noone can save against his spells.
He could have hypnotic patterned the entire room. Once he casts tasha's hideous laughter on you, you'll fail every save even if attacked. If bladesinger was out and allowed at the time, he could have gotten AC that's unhittable by anything but a nat 20.
>>46517874
Then explain it to him in a way that everyone can understand. "We're all playing baseball, and we all have to bat and play all the bases, but you're the only person who has a glove or a bat, and you're also the only one who can use the glove or the bat. Now you could argue that you could let people borrow the bat or the glove, but you can't do that with stat points."
>>46517462
Melee character, rolled well and got 20 str at lvl one, secondary stat was 17
>>46517527
Every day he would get a different idea and debated for hours whether X was better than Y
Most of the time he would go back to his previous choice
>>46517470
>keyword: system mastery
>keyword: fine tuning
Found the minmaxer.
Literally every minmaxing cunt I've met was always trying to make a machine, not a character. They just picked the most op shit they could, without thinking if it fits their character personality wise.
Or they make one trick ponies who browse their phones when nothing related to them is going on.
Keep minmaxing in vidya - it matters there, semi-decent Gm with a brain(not just a rulebook) will make you balanced(if you are too weak) somehow. Give you better magic items, special power, anything.
Tldr make a characters, then think: what would he do?
>>46517391
What kind of a fucktarded GM is that, who accepts a "but I really want to roll for damage" after he ruled something else happened to prevent it? At that point it doesn't matter that the player roll some dice because the damage never happened.
>>46517600
How can a dm fail to kill anything if he tries?
>a bolt of lightning strikes out if the blue. It hits character X. Roll 15134d20 for damage.
>>46517906
Hah, I imagine the "rules" he found were the tiers system and "don't play martials"
>>46517986
You don't need to have roll for damage. Just make the classic "dungeon collapses and you die", but don't except that the players will want to play with you again.
>>46517986
Because saying that a bolt of lightning kills or damages your character is a direct attack on a person and not their character? Basically this >>46518015
>>46517969
Well normally when you think of a rule lawyer, you're thinking about a guy who lawyer the rules when it's to his advantage but shuts up when it's the other way around.
Our friend insists on following the rules even if it's to his detriment. You have to admire him a bit for that.
I often like to min-max call the character Aida Mana and be a complete Mana Sue for the rest of the game.
>>46518026
I don't really admire that as much as I am just confused by it. I mean, it's just kind of weird. Normal people don't act that way.
>>46516931
>well rounded martial
So he was shit? Why would a DM be proud of being a passive aggressive idiot?
>>46518050
It's called autism. The real deal. Not just meme-autism.
>>46518083
Yes, I know, but saying "Sounds like he has autism" is kind of stupid on this site since people won't take you seriously and will just think you're memeing
>>46517896
You've not met this guy I can tell
This is the sort of person who will take every advantage a system can allow, regardless of how unbalanced or broken said advantages are. He honestly does see issue, or care. There was one point he was dual-wielding Warhammers for his Dwarf Cleric. First, not sure that's even meant to be possible in 5E, second, but we let it slide, first time playing, no proper experience, didn't have the proper rulebook, but second, he was insistent that he only had to roll 1d20 to hit with both hammers. As soon as we realized our mistake, he demanded that as it had been going on so long, we may as well keep it the same way. This is someone who only cares about the kills, would easily be happier with 4e and I can't tell him to fuck off as he's my roommate and shit would be awkward. Also seemed insistent that he didn't need a god for his cleric, which stemmed from when we looked up the god on his default character sheet, and it isn't mentioned in 5e. Also, as said god is the Dwarf God of Wanderers, travelers and the like, he seems to think that making people homeless is a way of worshipping the god. Said God is LG, as is his supposed character sheet (Default sheets with Starter set) Essentially, he's just the worst of the people I run the game with, which is saying something.
>>46518095
Whether or not he has autism, what is clear is that he has an overdeveloped sense of fairness.
>>46518133
Yeah I understand. I know someone very similar.
>>46518113
That just sounds like, very unlikely. But on the off chance that is true, you should think about the psychology behind the way he's acting and why he's doing it and then talk to him about the psychology behind it. Just be genuinely curious about why he's acting in such a weird way, I know I am. Sit down, have a glass of scotch, and be like "Dude, so like you know how you're the weirdest fucking D&D player? Why that is tho?"
>>46517649
>>46517688
>Have idea for a character
>Look at options A, B, C and D
>A and C are shit
>B is okay if combined with F, but weak to X
>D is good on its own
>Pick option D, look up feats that make it more powerful, finishing touches
It's not hard unless you're autistic.
What are some terrible things that come with having a min/maxer at the table?
I only ask because I've played with a small group of people over my time with DND/Cthulu and I think the closest thing we have to min/maxing is my roommate whom I've never had any problems with. His characters are generally stronger than the rest of the party but he always has some sort of weakness the rest of us needs to cover for so it doesn't really ever feel like a one man show.
I mean I can just go ahead and guess or imagine some of the problems but some stories might be better to give perspective. Is it just people using game-breaking builds that are a problem, or is any level of min/maxing a bad thing?
>>46518245
I like min-maxing because it allows me to play in an otherwise sub optimal manner instead of relying on luck.
I think it's only bad when the min-maxer takes all challenge away and acts like an one man army.
>>46518158
We're talking about PF, not 13th Age.
>>46518287
I agree, when I'm making a character I essentially start with a one sentence description, usually something silly like
"I wanna play an Orc/Half-Orc fisherman who uses nets and harpoons as his weapons."
or
"He's a local fantasy-equivalent-of-hockey hero who's been forced into adventuring."
I then research good classes, feats and prestiges to make these build not only interesting but also at the least useful. Most of the time I'm successful and I immediately have something to distinguish my character from FighterTron 3000 with a greatsword and scale mail.
>>46518372
Yeah, so? Pathfinder has a lot of options, but it doesn't take a genius to instantly see when something is shit or not.
>>46518245
The main problem usually lies with them raising the effective power level of the party beyond what the rest of players can compete with. So then if you want to throw an obstacle at the party, you're faced with the choice of
a) Making it difficult enough to challenge the min/maxer, which means that the other character's contributions will be marginal at best, or
b) Balance the difficulty to the capabilities of the rest of the party, which usually means the min/maxer will blow through it without any difficulty.
That said, that's not necessarily an impossible obstacle. In my current game, on of our characters is a complete combat monster who's far deadlier in a fight than anybody else. (Note that this isn't the player's fault, it's just a part of the setting and system). The game still goes pretty smoothly for a few reasons:
-The party often gets split up for short stretches at a time. This of course easily allows the GM to include fights appropriate to the capabilities of the smaller sub-group.
-Combat's fairly rare. So when combat does happen, the killy guy gets to shine, but there are also lots of situations where the other characters can leverage they particular skills and advantages.
-Combat is pretty vicious and deadly. It's fairly easy to land a hit and both armour and HP buffer of most combatants tends to be small, so even a fairly low-powered character can have a pretty huge effect even if they just land a single hit on an enemy.
>>46516931
Why not counter him at some times to let the rest of the party shine, then throw him some encounters where he gets a chance to shine too and then everyone is having fun?
>>46516931
>somebody wants to play a specific type of character
>DM goes out of their way to stop and force them to play a generic rounded character like everyone else
>DM doesn't provide a few occasional encounters where he can assassinate a lone guard of something
As a DM, your job is to facillitate gameplay and allow the players to enjoy themselves. He did nothing wrong except choose to play the stealthy assassin archetype. You need to have a word with your DM about his shitty behaviour.
>>46517968
>Literally every minmaxing cunt I've met was always trying to make a machine, not a character.
Not the dude you were replying to, but technically they're all "characters" and "machines". Everything a character statistically is and does are "machine functions".
Everything a character physically/emotionally is and why he does what he does is "character".
I think I get what you're saying though, people doing the former and forgetting the latter, but let's not diss mechanics in general.
>>46518413
Yes, it does. Because it's so obtusely designed that even its own content creators push feats, features, spells, archetypes, etc. that to someone with a lot of experience are obviously shit.
A more accurate description of the process is:
>Have idea for a character
>Look through 7 classes, none of which really fit the idea
>Look into multiclassing
>Look into prestige classes
>Map out prerequisites
>Pick between 10 archetypes for each class
>Look through 200 feats
>Discover a feat that opens up new build options
etc., etc.
>>46518245
It's a problem when somebody is being a dick with it.
In crap systems you flat out NEED to minmax to make some concepts work at basic competence level.
The problem is in the population of guys that come into group game in order to powerwank their ego, and minmaxing is the tool for them.
System allowing it to happen is still pretty bad, but the worst lies in the player who wields the systems faults to furthest extent.
>>46518015
>>46518020
>taking things personally
And why.
I do this to my players (well, not arbitrarily killing them, just sheltering my rails) sometimes and they do keep playing with me, because I do it fairly and in a way that they don't notice.
>your spell fizzles.
>"why?"
>your character doesn't know. Maybe there is some reason for it.
There is always some reason for it, even if I have to add one later. Usually I come prepared though.
>>46518451
>>46518468
The DM does also give him moments where he does his thing, particularly the flying halfling ubercharger. He just also have really bad dice luck:
>Party get attacked with a pair of huge beetles with a ton of HP. Everyone starts beating up on one while he gets his dragon lady to transform into a dragon and mounts her
>Next turn totally executed that he's going to do his ubercharge, he needs to roll a 3 or above to hit (the DM told us later about the beetle's AC).
>He rolls a 2, get grappled off his dragon next turn until end of combat.
>>46518431
Oh that might also explain it, ever since we started playing in high school we've always used maiming/permanent scar rules so our combat has always had risks beyond death to think about. I honestly forgot that we could play without them, getting a few hits to stats over the course of a longer campaign is something we're all used to .
>>46518026
>rule lawyer
I was always amazed by this. Some guy who says that a rule is a rule, yet ignores the rule that says that the DM adjudicates everything that happens in the game. If you stand in the middle of a fire and the DM says you don't take damage, you don't take damage.
>>46518535
Huh... I've never heard that term used outside of tabletop wargames before.
>>46518528
Way to add this well after the fact retard
Evey time I see these threads all I get out of it is that ~60% of the people who play tradition games, at least here, are awful people. The fuck is it with this hobby and it just attracting the worst kind of people? Is it just us?
>>46516770
We've got one dude in the party who tries to be a power player, but he keeps wanting to do too much, making his characters actually lag behind due to the MAD and too much spread of his feats/skill points/etc. His solution is to regularly make new characters because he feels like his old characters are being ineffective in the group. We recently recently had a bit of a word with him about it when he wanted to retired his character in my campaign but we talked him out of it. I'll admit I was probably a bit too lenient with allowing him a reroll of his character (but not the stats he rolled at the start), but I'm fairly new at GM'ing and was afraid that if I wasn't he'd run into the same problem again one or two levels further.
>>46516931
Let me guess, he still had 0 abilities that were useful outside combat.
>>46518630
Forgot to add, I really do like his RP with his characters, and one of the main reasons that I didn't like him retiring his old character was because of the difficulties RP-wise in the campaign. It made a lot more sense to me to let him remake his character than to retire him and suddenly have someone show up (in a place which was kind of hard to do in-story) and be accepted into a pirate crew immediately as an officer. Especially their captain wouldn't just take someone new as officer so it'd have been very weird.
>>46518612
I think it's the combination of a somewhat elitary hobby (TTRPGs) and an anonymous internet community (4chan).
It's an amplification of the GIFT-effect.
>>46518630
Honestly, I can't imagine a character (even a tank) I'd want to make that wasn't in some way a "support" unit. Not like a healer or bard, but someone whose skills and actions are tailored to work with the rest of the party.
>>46518638
He had really high bluff and intimidate, but otherwise nothing.
Although that bluff did come into play and he was decent at RPing so we didn't really have any problem with it.
>>46517028
Nah, it's a dick move to try and screw over any one of your players. He didn't even mix it up. Not him, by the way.
>>46518652
Don't feed the trolls, we're civil as fuck compared to most boards. If we were filled with sperglords, then there'd be waaay more shit-posting.
>>46516770
What's the point? Why wouldn't you just play a videogame?
The GM is just going to give you what he thinks you need and put you in encounters he thinks you can handle. It's what makes playing with sub-standard stats viable.
>>46518655
His problem was that he wanted to do that while also being a dedicated damage dealer. He wanted to act as a full-time damage dealer plus full-time party support and part party face, and then he realised he couldn't do all three optimally.
>>46517636
That's not really how tiers work.
The higher the tier the lazier the GM can be with planning encounters, because casters can pretty much prepare a spell, make a magic item, etc to help them solve an encounter granted they have enough time, gold, and levels.
A lower tier character is kind of straight jacketed into one thing, which is often combat related. You don't just give them gold tell them to buy whatever and then blame them for being unprepared for your underwater encounter. On the way you're gonna have to throw a potion or wondrous item or something their way when faced with a problem that can't be solved by "doing damage".
>>46516770
Currently I've got the weirdest player I ever had, and I'm GMing for past 16 years.
The guy is pretty decent role-player and is great at actually pulling off a scheming, greedy type that is in it only for the money, so his schemes are at least interesting and/or effective.
What kills everything is how fucking greedy the player behind the character is. And I'm not talking about Russian mobster type of greed, where any profit below 200% of investment is treated as a good reason to kill,
Meaning - the player is going through NPCs like wet tissue paper when things aren't as profitable as he was expecting from them, be that money, stuff or whatever else that was to gain. So far it's only problematic, but the rest of the group is starting to get tired of this shit on regular basic after a year of such bullshit.
But what's THE most annoying aspect of this guy is how he's a compulsive min-maxer, doing half of his schemes in some pursuit toward getting stronger and stronger in a game that is definitely not designed for OP AF characters. He's rule-lawyering pretty much everything, he's constantly pulling bullshit during negotiations to increase stakes/pay/prize/whatever.
>TBC
>>46518801
>continuing
I have no fucking clue how to handle this guy at this point, but it completely kills the game, because no matter what the scenario is about, the guy will go Gordon Gekko on it, turning it into idiotic money-grinder. At this point he already amassed enough cash and equipment to fully equip entire team in top-tier stuff and is slowly gearing everyone in the team with exeptional, custom-made stuff that normally is reserved for super-special occassions and/or as a great prize. This in turn makes any kind of situation trival and pointless, because where is a thrill of fighting against few brigands blocking your road, if the team is geared with stuff that will allow to literally plow through said brigands. Numbers and enemy type means shit at this point, because I would have to turn every single enemy on the way into some super-badass with even better gear... which would be then instantly looted, only making this worse. I literally can't pick any fight for my players to be compelling, hard or even create the basic tension of "there is no way you stand a chance against those", because their characters are wearing what is worth about 10 years of regular game sessions thanks to that fucking guy.
Any help aside "kick him out" will be gladly taken.
>>46517176
Leadership is pretty good, especially for lower tier characters.
I had a generic two-hander Fighter get it for free at like level 16, but the GM gave me a level 2 halfling bard. I got her a ring of invisibility a wand of dimension door and pretty much got pounce. I also bought her some other stuff the wizard wouldn't have time to cast on me since apparently low level casters can use any wand as long as the spell is on their list.
>>46518801
>he's rule-lawyering
Wtf, that's a major disrespect, bro.
I say 'let him have it', because it'll only get worse if you don't.
Rule-lawyering is only for competitive games where judge is split between players and has no fucking business in rpgs.
>>46518789
This.
Tiers are about the different ways and means a single class has to approaching difficulties before them.
The more ways and means at the classes disposal OUTSIDE THE USE OF ITEMS, the higher it is in the tiers.
>>46518855
Let me explain it further to avoid confussion.
What I mean by "rule lawyering" is him talking how spells are worded in the rule book and there is a SERIOUS rift about it each time, because most of them is pretty open-ended. What started as funny trickstery with use of telepathy now is just fucking annoying "I pull their weapons away" opening every. single. fucking. battle.
He fucking turned his character into overweight blob just to increase the "three times the weight of caster" limit imposed on telepathy. Who cares if he's slower and easier to hit, when there are no fucking weapons to hit him with. And everyone carrying a spare one just to counter this... you are getting the picture.
Fuck, I know I should kick him out, but then I know for sure that the rest of the players will be discontent about it, as they are only getting half of the problems out of his behaviour, while I am constantly fucked over as GM, because there is just no way to fully tell any of the stories or pull any scenario in other way than "they are all dead, Dave".
At this point I'm openly considering giving all the past scenarios to the rest of the team, so they will learn how much interesting stuff missed them, because of this pursuit for profit and more numbers they are more or less forced to follow. Maybe if they will get properly agitated, they will kick the guy themselves and I will have clear conscious.
>>46518928
Um, telekinesis, not telepathy, my bad
>>46518811
I'm sorry if this might sound a bit silly, but... Don't let him?
Tell him "no, that piece of equipment you can't get here, you'll have to go on a quest of some kind for it". If he goes through NPC's that quickly, have him face the consequences. Let entire kingdoms be their enemies. Powerful kingdoms with ties to hell or heaven or something so you can throw high level demons, devils or angels at them.
>>46518928
There's a limit on how good gear one can possibly get. What system is this?
I mean, if the best gear possible in the world is what they have thne take note of all the people they've pissed off along the way, since I get the feeling they have. Then you take inspiraiton form terrorists and guerilla warfare. Strike at them from the shadows and when they're not using that heavy gear.
Do they sleep, shit and fuck in that armor? Are they in an invulnerable penthouse suite? If yes, then is the campaign not kinda finished with?
>>46518954
Let me get this straight - he doesn't care. At this point, he's banished from two kingdoms and highly wanted criminal in another four. His solution? Not going there. Random bounty hunters? Usually dead in first turn, with a bit of luck - second.
>Powerful kingdoms with ties to hell or heaven or something so you can throw high level demons, devils or angels at them.
It's a low fantasy, anon. And there aren't even creatures like that in the setting.
I've already tried numerous times to pull the basic "this shit won't work". He also doesn't care. If it doesn't work, then the next scheme will work. And if that won't too - then another. And another.
So my only choice would be to rail-road the fucking scenario from point A to Z, going through the entire plot on tight leash... which isn't fun at all.
>>46518989
I've made entire campaigns based on the idea "you've pissed wrong people and too many of them". Note the plurar form.
Players endured and most of them actually had fun with it.
But the most important part is - why should I punish rest of the team for this guy?
>>46518158
>A is just shit
>B's weakness to X can be overcome by the right magic item
>C is shit, but a necessary prereq for the awesome G -> H -> I chain later
>D looks good but suffers from diminishing returns since most high-level enemies are immune to it
>>46519039
Well, this is a case I've had to deal with before. One of my players being such a nusiance that the campaign simply wasn't fun for me.
The problem for me was that he had a different goal in mind for the campaign, what he thought of as fun wasn't what I thought of as fun. He liked being a manipulative bastard that played the politics lottery and won. I wanted heroes saving the world.
THe best way for me was to talk to all the players about this. Ventilate to them about it, how you simply can't find acceptable challenges for the group. They have better insight into your situation. But the way to solving this will be difficult.
I mean, even if you take all their shiny toys away from them and reset it all. The group will look to him to get them back up the power level again. And he will do it, again, because he feels pressured by his fellow players. It will be a bad relation between the two of you.
I think that the player expects you to keep raising the challenges. While you feel the strain on your suspension of disbelief to keep making more enemies on that level, much less enemies that have that kind of gear. Apart from the options of;
1 talk to him, see what makes him want to stop.
2 Get the rest of the group on your side
3 kick him
4 end or finish the campaign and never play with him again
Then I don't really know enough to give you solid advice
>>46519018
Retire those characters, or at least consider it. Tell everybody that the game has pretty much run its course and they've pretty much got anything you can throw at them beat before you even start the throwing. Tell them you that the only way you can continue is by getting increasingly dickish and playing cheap (destroying or negating their items and wealth), and that you don't think that would be fun for anybody. So propose starting over with new characters, possibly after a climactic adventure to cap everything off. (Or you could always flood the entire world in a biblical-type deluge and effectively wipe the slate clean like I did in one campaign.)
In my games he would probably never have gotten so powerful because I give short shrift to monetary wealth and the economy. It's not a capitalistic society, and commerce isn't nearly as open or as free. I'm not saying it isn't nice and can't do anything good for you, but you can't just sell your treasure on ebay or order shit online. And it doesn't buy you the respect that comes with being landed aristocracy. And even if you are allowed to buy land and titles (and there isn't the same kind of social / class mobility, so that isn't a given), you'll still be looked down on as rabble (like you're the cheerleader who got on the squad by sucking dick). Mostly though, I find economics boring and treat them almost like an afterthought once you get past the basics of supply.
>>46517081
Don't expect too much from nerds without social skills.
>>46519161
Well, actually you just gave me idea. You see... the players NEVER asked for any of those toys and most of them takes them on the rule of "ok, if you REALLY insist", because they are perfectly aware how this turns the challenge into nothingness.
Meaning it's the moment to agitate them hard against the whole thing, since they won't miss loosing the toys at all.
1 It's the classic "how much is enough, Gordon" - he just wants to gain, without any target; I still remember how I was hoping he will stop after finally gaining enough to buy amulet increasing his mana pool (a pretty expensive trinket). Ho boy, how wrong I was
2. Already got the most level-headed player on my side, because her complains were super-important here
Still would like to just talk this through, but the longer I think about it (it's getting out of hand since late January), the more it's getting clear I will have to dump this guy one way or another, since nothing worked on him so far
>>46517081
>adult human beings
>playing TTRPGs
>>46519233
>The only people playing TTRPGs are teens
>>46516770
The few I've encountered didn't stay that way long, or didn't stay in our group long.
We run a pretty narrative experience a lot of the time. Unless a battle breaks out we can spend session after session without rolling dice. The old school "don't roll Perception, tell me where you're looking and what you're looking for" style of it, you know what I mean? However the DM keeps copies of the stuff he needs from character sheets and still does secret rolls to see if you're able to succeed or fail at a lot of the things you do, so the one time we got someone who assumed that meant he could make his character 110% optimized towards fighting and not anything else but still play a socially-minded investigator he got a bit of a rude awakening when his character turned out to not be as smooth as he imagined himself to be.
So they either get bored of playing with us and go or they learn to focus on that part since that's what our group focuses on.
>>46519247
>implying adults playing TTRPGs are human beings
>>46519247
>implying we're still human after playing RPGs for 10+ years
We're all bridge trolls, didn't you know?
>>46519260
>Basing entire concept of humanity on tertiary characteristic of past-time hobby
>>46519285
>deluding yourself that you're still human
>>46519340
>Meming for dorfs
>>46519285
>pointless gif
>women side-glaring
>hashtag
You should've left the tumblr filename on that, we all know where it came from.
>>46519405
It's from giphy, so go fuck yourself
>>46517176
I once turned a pet rat sentient, made it a mage, then took Leadership. In had my Shadowdancer, her shadow familiar, the mage (casting buffs in my pocket), its familiar, my follower, and their familiar. I was a fucking zoo.
>>46519434
>giphy
>not the gif repository for tumblrfags
pick one
>>46519394
>being this deep in denial
>hating on dorfs on /tg/
>>46519018
It sounds like you're DMing for Xanatos.
If you can't challenge him, perhaps you can use him to set up the next campaign. Give him an opportunity for more stuff/power, but make the path to getting it essentially require him to become the BBEG, let it climax when he gets there.
Next campaign, that character is the villain and they've got to rectify the trail of destruction he's left in his wake.
>>46519521
I pick easy search for gifs. Seriously, I want to be you, since you apparently lack real problems and have to create new ones just to have some challenges in life
>>46517468
>Also don't bother with 5e.
>It's a product without vision or drive, intended as an apology for 4e and designed to not offend the 3.5 fans they lost to Paizo.
Underrated statement, thank you anon for feeling the same way i do.
>>46518811
You might need to restart the campaign to fix things. Consider bringing your current campaign to a conclusion soon.
I suggest this because you have allowed the damage to be done and 'fixing' it may cause more damage. I mean, you could have them captured and all their gear (his gold) stolen from wherever it is kept. But that is likely to cause drama at this point as it will be obvious.
Instead let him 'win' the campaign. Start a new one. Do not allow this shit again.
In regards to NPC deaths. Never punish, but allow things to play out naturally. People get dead, other people notice. Someone is going to care. It may not matter now with their God Gear, but back when they were low level it would have mattered.
Which is why you start a new campaign.
(and limit magic items / gold in general)
>>46518468
I did something similar as a DM.
One player did the "one hit kill rogue" shit. And sometimes there were victims to him. But when the team faced some boss, after they kill everyone in their way and the boss had time to prepare, he would bitch about"never finding anyone who was vulnerable to his UBER ATTACK" and that he was going to the "plane of necks" just so he could sneak attack someone.
Moral of the storysome players are just bitches
>>46518612
Oh come on. We're one of the boards with most original content in the site, there's always something fun in the catalog, and our autism isn't terminal.
/tg/ is the best board.
>>46516931
>>46517016
It's just being a HUGE dick. Seriously, what the fuck? This is That GM in full glory.
Unless player is going to openly derail your scenario, it's absolute taboo to pull such shit, period.
>>46519674
But what if the player and everyone else enjoyed that struggle?
>>46519715
From the way the story is told, the player clearly wasn't enjoying any part of it.
And if you take joy from dicking with people, you have a serious mental problem, mate
>>46519739
No looking back he said he enjoyed it as a sort of battle of wits between him and the DM.
>>46519739
>>46519674
spotted the rollplayers
you won't be missed
Some things that can limit the power of the party's wealth.
PCs can only sell things for a fraction of the price it would take them to buy them. It's not a capitalistic society and there is no brisk competition between merchants. Guilds actively discourage this sort of thing, in fact.
Productivity and efficiency aren't particularly high in the society in general, and this has a tendency to drain away potential profits at every level (as does a much higher level of corruption, resulting in people skimming money and resources). The merchants have to pay all sorts of fees ranging from taxes, guild fees, and money for protection (and expensive, high-level protection when powerful magic items are involved, because otherwise some band of adventurer jackasses would sure knock the place over).
Additionally, merchants have reason not to pay full value on the items adventurers recover from dungeons. They may be damaged, cursed, dangerous in some form or fashion, and there may not be much of a market for them. If you can't find somebody to buy your shit, it really isn't worth much, and merchants may have to deal with the costs and risks of long-term storage. Alternately, it may just be a matter of dropping their prices or paying the cost to ship items elsewhere and find buyers there. And many merchants probably don't think it's even worth it to buy shit from adventurers. It's just too much hassle and danger.
Once all of this is taken into account, it's not unreasonable to think that the PCs might be selling magic items for as little as 1/10 their buying price, or maybe 1/4 or 1/5 under more favorable conditions. Jewelry and such would probably fetch a bit of a higher price, and gold coins higher still, but you still have to consider things like taxation and the hyper-inflation that would likely result from you suddenly dropping great riches into a small, local economy. Also, as far as coins go, adventurers may have to pay a significant percentage to a money changer...
>>46519856
>Also, as far as coins go, adventurers may have to pay a significant percentage to a money changer...
...to change their currency to coins they are legally allowed to spend in town.
And even if they do amass great riches once they've gone through all this, the PCs still have a lot to worry about. Now the thieves guild wants to steal their shit. Nobody in power respects what they see as savages without a hint of nobility and they will rarely get a fair shake. The people the PCs may hire are not necessarily trustworthy (especially if they are hired for criminal or at least violent purposes) and may not respect them any more than the powers that be. The PCs won't be able to live in an insecure hovel and certainly not in an inn. They will need an expensive and secure house and will probably need to pay for guards (who they only hope they can trust).
At the end of it all, the party isn't going to be nearly as well off as they may have once thought they were.
>>46519787
I will take "Logical fallacies" for 200, Larry
>>46519787
>If you don't like being ass-fucked by GM imposing what you are "supposed" to play, you must be a roll-player
>>46518612
Thing is: the bad players are very overrepresented. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying you don't read enough of the stories about average, mediocre, good or excellent players cause the ones about the bad ones are MUCH more interesting.
>>46518612
If only 60% of /tg/ players are awful, we're still beating the Sturgeon's Law average of humanity.
>>46518612
>>46520178
>>46520300
I have 3 groups going.
One is awesome fantasy adventures in ancient greece, using themes of mythology and politics all over the place. Great fun.
One is more lowkey fantasy but that's escalating quickly. This being exalted. THis group is decent, because the ST is used to munchkins, while this group of players prefer to be more chill about things and take our time.
The third is a parthfinder camnpaign that is starting up.
All are good and the only thing I have to complain about is that my exalted ST is a cheapskate so I can't have 1 dot in said after spending 2 months on a ship without saving for 2 sessions.
I have it great! But generally this isn't interesting to talk about on an anonymous imageboard.
>>46520372
>One is awesome fantasy adventures in ancient greece, using themes of mythology and politics all over the place. Great fun.
This sounds like my jam AND peanut butter. What system are you using? How does it deal with social/political contests?
>>46519856
That can help, but I really don't think it is a full solution to the general problem. Basically you are giving the PCs 10k gold and then going 'lol, nope, it was only 1k'. You could have just given them 1k up front instead.
If you use your points to lead in to roleplay opportunities or further game challenges, I think it is fine. Good suggestions for general improvement of many games I think.
I personally think that just stopping it at the 'buy magic items' end is the way to go. Just don't have it. It is super rare, doesn't happen, etc.
This is a 3.x thing right? Tons of cash, everyone is supposed to have ###$ gold to buy stuff, make your own items by inserting gold...that sort of thing? I see that as the main problem.
>>46519787
>If you don't agree with me you're a rollplayer.
Not even one of those posters.
I've spent countless more hours of my life roleplaying in non-stat based social(no powers, no bullshit just humans doing human things) sci-fi rp than any tabletop game with dice rolls, and I agree with them.
>>46517132
>3.5 have this rule where you cannot ascend or descend by more than 5ft when performing an aerial charge.
Well that's bullshit.
>A dive attack works just like a charge, but the diving creature must move a minimum of 30 feet and descend at least 10 feet. It can make only claw or talon attacks, but these deal double damage. A creature can use the run action while flying, provided it flies in a straight line.
>>46518612
How many stories do you think weren't just made up?
>>46521214
>Flying creatures can use the charge action. A flying charge must be in straight line and most cover at least 10 feet (2 squares). A flyer can charge while diving, but not while gaining more than 5 feet altitude (unless the flyer has perfect maneuverability and can climb without losing speed).
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040706a
He couldn't use the diving charge because he wanted to charge to the side of the target and go way pass it out of range after making the lance attack. A diving charge will make his dragon end up in front of the enemy after the attack.
>>46517968
Boo fucking hoo.
Real Roleplayers are the most condescending douchebags in the hobby.
You're actually worse than the munchkins, because their problem is immaturity - at least they don't think they're the only adults at the table.
An effective character build means nothing for its roleplaying potential and says nothing about the roleplaying abilities of its creator.
>>46516931
>optimized SA build
>not throwing flasks at range
Bullshit post
>>46520910
It's more about selling off magic items than treasure.
>I personally think that just stopping it at the 'buy magic items' end is the way to go.
See, to me this is one of the most legitimate uses of treasure. Otherwise what are you doing with all that gold? Sure, there are uses for it outside the standard dungeon crawl (land and manor and that sort of thing), but that's often external to the main focus of the game and if it doesn't interest you, it's kind of pointless. I think a better solution is to make magic items expensive and not have them lined up on shelves like it was Walmart. For the rare and powerful stuff, you have to go looking for them--have your rogue/thief put out word on the black market, have the local merchant or local collectors contact merchants or collectors in other towns, etc.
>>46517132
>>46521214
>>46521296
I occasionally forget what an overwrought piece of trash 3.5 is.
>>46521398
Wew, but how?
I can't see a couple dozen posts without someone at least offhandedly mentioning the heap known as 3.5e.
>>46521358
The question of what to do with cash has always been part of D&D, and a problem. Back when gold=xp in earlier editions I settled the problem by saying that 'if you turn gold in to xp, the gold goes away'. I then let them build RP type stuff that happened to the gold, but no in game advantage came from it. Worked well.
Helped given that Conan vibe, where he has a fist of gems at the end of one story and has not a single penny at the beginning of the next. The game mechanic would be that he cashed it in for XP, the RP description is that he spent it on booze and women, the end result he is ready for next sessions adventure.
Doesn't really work that way now.
>>46518801
>>46518811
>>46518928
>>46518989
>>46519018
>>46519039
>>46519161
>>46519220
>>46519193
Found a solutions with my players today, since all the rest of the team phoned me. Guess it was eating all of us recently.
The team decided enough is enough. Since during recent "campaign" the guy went through 29 people and handled over two kilos of fucking cocaine, he is oficially fucked. The investigator of the party already helped local guards to track clues toward the player, the merchant guild he was trying to double cross was always designed to fuck him over with good old poison, the mage he is planning to double cross will handle him to the Capitule (the governing body for all licensed mages) and if for whatever reason he will survive all of those and won't end up with entire town guard organisation on his ass, there is also the mafia which will "cut the loose end" after dealing with him for those two kilos... and since he did that behind the backs of everyone in the team, they have a plausible deniability to simply ignore his cries for help.
In short - the guy is set up for humiliation conga and if everything will go smooth, his character will end up on gallows the very same day for pretty insignificant things (at least given his usual scope), pissing him off enough to quit on his own
Thanks /tg/ for bunch of ideas that were discussed during the team brainstorm
I would quit if I was prevented from minmaxing in 3.5 or basically any RPG that relies on numbers to succeed in the game.
If it's a primarily narrative game then I wouldn't give a fuck.
