Post/Author/DateTime	Post
albinomonkeyking 11-21-06, 12:38 AM	I recently made a character I felt I put a lot of time and effort into. Of my group of friends I am the story-guy. I make up the characters that they (most of them) believe are the most unique and played truest, I also, unfortunately, will sacrifice a lot for this image without realizing until later. The most recent character I made is in a class lacking in skills, due to the scores I got (I got the lowest scores of the group) I have the worst saves of the group, I have least amount of gold because it was spent on my story and 'flavor' purposes. I also poured 4 feats (I am not a fighter) into the way my character fights. (He fights in a tweaked, unique way that had to be made by working with the DM). And he does the least damage of the group, and in my opinion, poor damage for any melee damage class. (rogue, fighter, barbarian, ranger, etc.) My character is lacking in many areas, I feel. My friend, however, recently made a Hexblade/fighter/disciple of dispater who is leaps and bounds more powerful than I or any of the pcs for that matter. The DM's response was simply "I can handle it." when we asked why he allowed such a powerful character. Seeing his generosity with my friends character, I ask if he can help me out with the system we worked on for how my character fights, because it is lacking in the damage department. We talk, we debate, we argue. I point out, "Let's categorize everything according to you. There is In Combat, there is Out of Combat (skills), and there is Story (roleplaying and back story), what you are telling me is because of how I made my character I get story, but I can't have the other two? That seems unfair considering Jesse (the disciple character) is planning on trying to become a lord of hell and we will likely end up following his path. If we do that he will have just as big a part in the story, be amazing in combat, and good out of combat." His response, "This is what makes me want to never play with you guys (our group), all you guys ever do is compare your characters to one another and see how they stack up, which is retarded." I conceded and quit complaining. When my friend playing the Disciple found out he threw a fit. He doesn't live nearby but is planning on confronting the DM on my behalf because he feels I have been gimped, having to choose story over the other aspects of the game. (The rest of the group likes my character immensely and doesn't want me to quit him, they want him to work. The DM also loved his back story so much he made my character a central character in the story, meaning, if I quit him I fudge up the course of the game) It seems I have been pigeonholed into playing this character (who I love the idea of) who I may have very little fun playing in any combat or skill area. The fact that he is a knight and protector doesn't stack up when I see that the disciple character is a more efficient combatant in everyway. I understand that PCs are a group and should have this mentality. No matter how strong one character is he won't accomplish much without allies and friends. This is reasonable, but, if one character shines so much more than the others, it is hard to continue having fun. When you feel like you are the tag along to 'Conan the Barbarian' who is hacking his way through the demon masses and all you can utter is, 'You're the greatest!' like his Don King wannabe it can detract from the fun. My DM argues no one is useless, which, I cannot deny. That is not my problem, after reviewing it several times I believe it is this: I wanted an image so bad I would do anything for it, but once I finished I realized I had given so much I had left myself little to no leeway. As my friend put it, "You limited yourself too much. By your characters fighting style, code of honor, backstory, and mission you have limited yourself so much you can't do anything." I think this has become true, the only thing to keep me playing this character would be some tweaking of his fighting capabilities. If my character will not be tweaked by the DM, I want to play a new character, but the DM will only get angry at me, yelling I only want to do it because I feel weak in comparison to the others, what do I do?
Salla 11-21-06, 01:09 AM	what do I do? If possible, could you give us more info on what you do have? I can't give you much advice without knowing more specifics ... what class and race you are, that sort of thing, and those feats you spent. Past that, I'm not sure. You can play your character less-than-optimally in hopes that he gets whacked, but that's not satisfying and most DMs get savvy to those kinds of tricks early. The good news is, your backstory has no effect on your character advancement. Does your group use the PHB2? There are rules for retraining your character in it, so what's written isn't necessarily set in stone. Also, whatever classes you've advanced in so far may be stuck, but the classes you pick in the future are not. It's perfectly IC that your character may realize his weaknesses and attempt to circumvent them in whatever way possible.
Tempest Stormwind 11-21-06, 01:15 AM	I would recommend posting your character's mechanics as they stand. I guarantee I can provide a method that is fundamentally identical (i.e. can represent your character the same way you envisioned him) that isn't mechanically weak. Granted, it may not be as powerful as a disciple of dispater (which is a VERY strong PrC out of a broken 3.0 book), but the rebuild will be at least able to contribute in battle well enough that between that and your story skill you should feel right at home. Do note: A lot of things can be reflected out of pure description, by the way. That seems to be your strong point, so why not draw upon it? If your character attacks via, say, spinning on the ground and kicking people breakdance-style before immediately righting himself, fundamentally, that can be expressed via unarmed strikes and creative description. Granted, a thief-acrobat (in this example) is a better representation mechanically, but sometimes the mechanics just aren't workable in any sensible manner.
Toloran 11-21-06, 01:22 AM	Well first of all, lets cover how you got into this problem in the first place: You wanted to make a certain character (from a story flavor perspective) and you sacrificed his combat usefulness. Building a character with a story in mind isn't a bad thing: Far from it. However, you should ALWAYS be cautious if doing so requires you to gimp yourself in the campaign. A character should always be useful to the group in the campaign as a whole. If you build a character that is weak in combat but strong in roleplaying encounters, then that is good. The trick is your character should be useful for SOMETHING. Just because you have an awesome idea for a character with 5 levels of commoner, it doesn't mean you should make a character like that. Your character doesn't have to be uber powerful, just powerful enough to not be a liability to the party. Also, a character should always fit into the campaign he is designed for. If a campaign is heavy combat, then you should design a mostly combat-centric character. If it is a heavy roleplaying campaign, then make a roleplaying character. If it is heavy story, make a heavy story character. It seems to me that you made a heavy story character in a heavy combat campaign. Second part: One character being much stronger then the rest. You are perfectly correct in thinking that if all you do is tag along, you won't have any fun. There is nothing worse then being constantly overshadowed. However, a properly designed character should have at least SOME skill set (combat or otherwise) that makes them useful in occasions when the other characters are useless (A bard in social situations, a ranger tracking an enemy, a barbarian in combat, etc). Although this seems to tie into the first part: You didn't design your character with ANY use beyond his story. Third part: How do deal with this situation. How do you know your DM will yell at you? Unless the campaign itself already started, there shouldn't be any reason why you can't just roll up a new character for the campaign (now knowing what the rest of the party is like). Now, this doesn't mean you should throw away your character. You should just save it for a campaign when he fits in better. Just explain to him that you don't want to be a burden on your party. If he still yells at you, he is probably just being a jerk (IMO). BTW, what IS your character? Your character might be more useful then you think he is.
Elemental_Elf 11-21-06, 01:47 AM	I agree, we need more info to help you. What class are you? What are these special feats you took? We just need info about your build to help you more. From what I've read it shounds liek you need to either roll up a new character, or convince your DM to allow you to rework your character. We can help with the latter (and even the former, if you want it) but we need to know the basics about your current build to help solve your problems.
Caliborn 11-21-06, 09:10 AM	I can't say this for sure without knowing the specifics, but you probably didn't have take (underpowered?)homebrew feats just to have a special fighting style, you could have probably just left it up to in-battle description. As for wealth, if you funneled all your gold and such into non-pc enhancing entity, such as a family, kingdom, charity, buisness or something the DM coulkd rectify that by having you find/recieve character enhancing magic items directly, instead of just giving you gold that you won't spend on yourself. If you've dedicated yourself to an heirloom type weapon or something than take a look at the Item Familiar feat in Unearthed Arcana. And finally, if your stats are really so terrible compared to your party members then your DM shouldn't have a problem dropping a stat boosting Tome or 3 your way to put in line with the rest of the party. I could give you better, or at least more accurate, advice if I knew some of the specifics of your predicament
albinomonkeyking 11-22-06, 02:46 AM	Alright, specifics. Here goes. My idea was a knight of a kingdom which falls. He is out on a escort mission when he returns to his kingdom in ruins. Everyone is dead except for the love of his life, who is inexplicably left without any memory of him whatsoever. She remembers (roughly) near the time of meeting him, but nothing more. He was planning on asking her to marry him and is crushed. He offers to take her on a journey to return her memory and regain his honor by revenging his kingdom. However, having shamed himself by not preventing the tragedy he vows to not use his sword against a single opponent until he is worthy. It is at this point that a combat idea I had been throwing around came in. I had discussed it with a few friends and they all thought it sounded very cool, when I shot it to the DM he liked it and altered accordingly. SO! Being a bit of the strong arm type in the kingdom (he is intelligent but extremely strong) he doesn't know how to fight without his sword, so, he simply starts grabbing people and hurling them, preferably into objects. Now, the pros, and there are many, to these fighting style are as follows: The DM generously allows my character to grapple and throw someone in one round. After being thrown the afflicted individual will be prone. The distance for the throw is 5 x (characters strength modifier). He is also only able to throw a light load. The feats spent (as per DM suggestion, and enforcement) : Throw anything, brutal throw, power attack, natural heavyweight (doubles load capacity, actually allowing me to throw people) and, of course, improved grapple. As is, I have spent 5 feats (I am level 9), which is all my feats, on this ability. My damage is the persons weight (based off damage from complete warrior) plus distance thrown. Thus, throwing one person, if they weighed, with armor, 200-400 pounds, I would do 5d6 plus distance, and I have a 17 strength. The problem I see is if I throw a person, lets say 30 feet, they take 8d6 +3 str, for a max of 51. My damage is unchanging though, as everyone else advances and does higher damage I remain doing the same. Also, keep in mind my grapple is not a sure thing. It will only be viable on large creatures or smaller, and large creatures are doubtful to lose against my grapple. As for stat raising, well, not so easy. The DM is upset about last game because the disciple of dispater player powered a wizards intelligence to 40, so he made the game low magic. He said, and I quote, "The highest you guys will probably see is +4 to a stat." That would leave me, if I continued to put all my points into strength, with a 24. The problem is races are extremely good then because of stat pluses. He already made a barbarian for us to fight, who, without improved grapple, beats me hands down. (he is part of a team against us also, not an individual fight) Perhaps I am being silly, it just seems that with only a +7 the grapple is far from a sure thing, which means there could be a few rounds of uselessness. Not a problem except that the one fight we have done (yes the game has started) I threw something at the baddie, missed, attempted to grapple, failed, attempted to punch (I have spiked gauntlets) and missed. That was the entire battle before the other 2 players had wiped the floor with every other villian and sent mine packing. I am also going straight knight, another suggestion of the DM because it fits my character, which it does. With Knights limited skills, my useful, but not exactly reliable combat, and most of my feats gone, as well as money sunk, (The money went to a tower shield which protects the girl he travels with.) it seems I may be out of options. The DM has already yelled at me about quitting my character, saying it is only because I compared him to others characters that I feel weak. As I said, it is also frustrating to be stuck with him because the DM wants him for story. So, what should I do? Should I focus on con (the highest I can get by items is 18, 23 if I put all my stat points up to 20 in it) and the knights d12 and simply go with meat shield? It isn't what I envisioned for the character but I suppose I should take what I can. Any suggestions? (I have tried talking to the DM, as I said. I am looking for advice on any new angles or points to bring up to him though, as far as speaking to the DM about it goes.
Tempest Stormwind 11-22-06, 03:07 AM	Speak to your DM about one book. Tome of Battle. You can get *exactly* this approach with a Warblade with a few Martial Study feats for the Setting Sun discipline. The warblade itself will provide you with battle training similar to that of a knight (although the default fluff is that of the fighter, one should note that originally the Fighter class was used to represent knights -- and the alternate name for the warblade is Sword Prince), including great abilities for when you actually do regain your honor and once again rightfully wield your sword in battle. For instance, it's a capable combat class in its own right, and its maneuvers are drawn from Diamond Mind (discipline, focus), Iron Heart (sheer weapon skill), Stone Dragon (defense and raw strength), Tiger Claw (not *quite* up your alley, since this is acrobatic and feral), and White Raven (teamwork, tactics) -- all of which seem fit for a knight, no? Furthermore, you can invest feats that require a weapon choice in, say, "unarmed strike" -- and change them over to your sword when you regain your honor later. Now, the Martial Study feat allows you to learn a single maneuver from any discipline. The warblade normally lacks access to Setting Sun, so you'll need to spend feats to gain these (luckily, he gains bonus feats). The Setting Sun school is *all about throwing* (well, technically, using an enemy's strength against him, but throws are a huge part of that). Taking a few martial study feats means that you'll be able to use these throw maneuvers in combat without much difficulty, and because you're a warblade, after you use them up, all you need to do is spend a swift action and either flourish or attack normally (which a grapple counts, by the way) to regain them all. EXACTLY your fighting style. And the RP even works! You're a knight character who, after having been dishonored, takes it upon himself to learn to get by without using a weapon he feels unfit to wield. This leads to advanced training (feats) in the art of unarmed combat, grappling, and throwing. And the character remains competent without serious feat investment *even after* you restore your honor, and will remain effective if you don't. If your DM is mad at you for complaining, and allows the Disciple of Dispater, he shouldn't have a problem with that book. The Warblade is *exactly* the cure for this situation. Powerful, effective, by-the-book, and able to do what you want without shoehorning you into a single role simply because you wanted to be able to throw people. It gives you the freedom to play the character you want without sucking at it. I call that a win.
Tyler Do'Urden 11-22-06, 03:11 AM	You built a weak character. It happens. Build a new one with the exact same story. Flavor and mechanics have no real connection to eachother unless you create them, so you can apply your desired flavor to anything. "Knight training" could mean anything. Fighter, paladin, warblade, ranger, samurai... you could get knight training as a wizard and the only thing that represents it on your sheet is a rank in Knowledge (nobility and royalty) and maybe a rank in Ride.
JoAT 11-22-06, 04:29 AM	I will definatly second Tome of Battle. It sounds like the DM wouldn't have a problem with it, if his only responce to the disciple was "I can handle it" ToB has an added advantage that you really don't have to spend alot of time working on a character's mechanics to be a good combatant - it practicaly runs itself.
Cold Napalm 11-22-06, 04:52 AM	If you use ToB, you have to use the swordsage not the warblade as warblade does not get setting sun style. In anycase, this kinda ties into the sorry state of the game thread of mechanics and concepts. Concepts are great...but if you have to restrict your class skills to near useless states to make that concept fit, then you need new mechanics or you need a new concept or accept that you will be useless and don't gripe when you have no fun with your useless character.
Tempest Stormwind 11-22-06, 10:22 AM	If you use ToB, you have to use the swordsage not the warblade as warblade does not get setting sun style.I covered that. Martial Study feats on the Warblade for a few throw maneuvers gets you closer to the Knight class' mechanical feel; Swordsage is the rough equivalent of monk. Warblade's recovery system is also far faster than the Swordsage's, meaning that he doesn't need to spend a full-round-action to recover his throws, he merely needs to attack someone or try to grapple them or flourish. (Martial Study if you have levels in a martial adept class ties the maneuver to that class's recovery system.)In anycase, this kinda ties into the sorry state of the game thread of mechanics and concepts. Concepts are great...but if you have to restrict your class skills to near useless states to make that concept fit, then you need new mechanics or you need a new concept or accept that you will be useless and don't gripe when you have no fun with your useless character.I remain convinced that essentially *any* concept can be represented in the D&D game ruleset if you put your mind to it and aren't afraid to change flavor to fit your character. I've seen people take psionics and transform it until it looked identical to the Naruto-style anime ninjitsu, only without changing a single mechanic, for instance.
albinomonkeyking 11-22-06, 12:48 PM	I hadn't even thought of ToB, doh. I'll look into what you said, I think it will work out pretty good. Now the only tough part is convincing the DM to allow me to retrain (or whatever it is called) from phb2. As I said, he seems bent on making me play the character as is. Maybe I can try and explain to him that I made a mistake and simply want to alter my character, I dunno, I hope it works. Thanks a lot all!
High Octane 11-22-06, 03:11 PM	Reaping Mauler. Complete Warrior.
Tempest Stormwind 11-22-06, 03:14 PM	I hadn't even thought of ToB, doh. I'll look into what you said, I think it will work out pretty good. Now the only tough part is convincing the DM to allow me to retrain (or whatever it is called) from phb2. As I said, he seems bent on making me play the character as is. Maybe I can try and explain to him that I made a mistake and simply want to alter my character, I dunno, I hope it works. Thanks a lot all! Really? Just tell him that it's the same character expressed differently in the rules, without any houseruling (unlike your current setup). It's just a slight difference mechanically; the character's the same one, both in background and in combat styles.
The Phantom Flan Flinger 11-22-06, 03:55 PM	Yeah, if the reason he wants the character around is for the story, then as long as you keep the concept (and the person) the same he shouldn't care how you achieve the mechanics. You sound like you bring a lot to the group in terms of flavour and it's going to be hard for you to keep doing that if you're not enjoying the rest of it. THE PHBII suggests that retraining from the ground upwards shouldn't be a given, but as JoAT said if the DM was fine with your friend's power builds he should be keen to help you make this happen in order to let you play the character you want to play. And if you do have to quest for it, well, it's all good character development. I've gimped characters in the past for the sake of the story. Never again. Your feeling of having made a fair deal is quickly brought down to earth after a few twelve-round combats in which you realise that everyone else is hitting on a ten while you need an eighteen, or that their minimum damage is higher than most of your crits. In future I will absolutely use bog-standard mechanics plus creative description if I want to give my character a distinctive fighting style.
Cold Napalm 11-22-06, 09:33 PM	I mean why does your class have to be the same? Your still a knight(title not the class), still tossing people, still has a lost beloved, lost a kingdom and whatnot. You just now have a class that makes the concept work mechanically.
Tiefling_Warlock 11-23-06, 01:43 AM	I would work with your DM to allow Warblades to use Setting Sun manuvers. Just a though. Also you should just ask your DM if you could re-build your character ground up. It isn't like it's completely different or anything. The players shouldn't have a problem because they agree, you are underpowered. For the warblade thing I think getting rid of Diamond Mind and Tiger claw for setting sun (or at least just the throwing manuvers) would work. That seems more than fair.