Jin Sparklescrap (see above), 150-year-old Robot Girl who looks all of 24, property of Zed Shockthrottle, a 462-year-old Alchemical Tinker Gnome has been greatly overlooked and underrated by the DM of our current game. He has said that he will only play by the rules for my characters but he'll go ahead and fudge for everyone else in the game.
After reading her stats; am I wrong to think that when she was helping fight a Dragon Lich, the DM saw fit to strike her down as close to death with one blow, a blow, that I might add only caused 19 hp damage?!
Conversely, a little half-human/half-water elemental (Lvl 7) was able to bring the Dragon Lich to it's knees with (3) frost spikes?!! (Of course that character is being played by the DM's 15-year-old son).
People help me right this injustice. Do I just create a (Lvl 45) demon that springs out of Jin or Zed and ends all players, do I hang tough and let him cheat me out of fun for the sake of the kid in the game (all other players are adults, in real life) or just have my characters heal and ride right out of the game in utter disgust for these ongoing travesties?
My demon idea is to have Zed merge with Jin, cast an ancient spell while drinking a special potion, thus ending their lives to bring forth Dredicus, right hand of Demogorgon, Prince of Demons.
Hope you can help, I believe we meet to play again next week and I want a better strategy than this DM's whims. I want to show him it's better to play by the rules and that the DM is supposed to be the one who keeps things fair for all PCs.
All suggestions / comments are welcome.
Uhm... I don't think you're playing D&D 5th Edition...
ok, first, you have an AD&D character, with what looks like Ninja handook and Skills & Powers options.
Now, based on that, it looks like your damage calculations are off. Your split strength is also off - one should be higher while the other is lower, always producing a 2 point difference. You have a 20 and 19, which means you either took a players option +1, typical of some race build, or someone fudged the numbers. Your Dexterity should never be split above 18, from what I recall, but you may get a veto on that because your base dex is 20. A 20/22 is the same as a 21 Dex, so your Dex stat is incorrect. A 19/17 Constitution is an 18 Constitution, not a 17, so that's also incorrect. You have a 19/18 Intelligence, again only possibly with a race build. A 14/16 wisdom is a 15 wisdom, not a 14, so that's also incorrect. A charisma of 14/17 is 3 points split, requiring more race build skills & powers options, so your charisma should read at least as 15: 14/16+1 (17).
Your saving throws are ridiculously bad for a 7th level fighter. I'm guessing that's because you are a construct, but they need to be fixed. Additionally, Dexterity and Wisdom modifiers often apply to those saves, so they should be considerably different.
Your open hand damage doesn't add up right. You have 2d4+1 as your base, +7 strength. Martial Arts specialists, often have multiple +1's to damage and hit, (dark sun) or crap damage (1d2, 1d3, or 1 hp) following ninja handbook, or flat d6s or d8s (Oriental Adventures). Specialist damage is variable, but sometimes it can be treated as a weapon and just add +1 to hit and +2 to damage, although Combat & Tactics might make a mess of it.
5/2 is an appropriate derivation from 2/1 unarmed martial arts, particularly Oriental Adventures. But 2d4 would never happen in OA. So clean that up to a 1d8 +7 (strength) +2 = 1d8+9.
as 2d4+8 isn't really a possible combination. Your THAC0 with specialist martial arts attacks should be 21-7 levels of fighter (14), minus 3 from strength (11), minus 1 from specialization, totalling 10, not 13. And definitely not 7 from missile. If you need a missile attack adjustment, it is +4 from dexterity, applies to your lasers, and strength does not apply. The Expert and chosen weapon I'd have to double check on, but i think one of them gives you a +1 to hit. So your laser vision is THAC0 9, not 6 or 7. Similar rules for Nunchaku unless they are enchanted.
1d6+11 Nunchaku? I don't know about that. 1d6+9, even 1d6+10 is possible if you double specialize to +3 to hit +3 to damage.
Your speed factors are a little confusing. Normally, the speedfactor for unarmed mansized creatures is 3. This is modified by enchantments, and specializations, although normally I think it's a -2 (I'd have to look again). In theory, following the High Level Campaigning Guide and reverse engineering those rules with your Dexterity, you should actually be at -1, not 0, because 3 minus your dexterity reaction of +4 is negative 1.
The laser eyes is clearly home brew, and it's looking like you have it set to 1d4 per fighter level. Type should probably be reset to Fire instead of bashing/slashing. Size of eyes should be set to N/A, and a called shot with a -4 to -6 would be required to hit eyes.
The AC... well, normally natural armor doesn't stack with worn armor. Chain is 5 points of AC, mithril may or may not be a +3 more depending on how you read the DMG tables for materials, and +4 would bring it down to AC 1 (or AC negative 2 if you think of mithril as another +3. I've seen it read both ways). With Dex modifier of -5, that's AC -4, or AC -7. Not sure why it says AC -6.
I have no idea what weapon finesse is used for.
So, Troll post... right?
It sounds like you are bringing the latest in a series of disagreements to us for 'adjudication'. There is no way we can intervene with your DM.
It might be a good idea for you to stay home next session and decide if you need to locate a new group. It sounds like you have more than one teenager involved.
"play by the rules" for your characters? That begs the question, what rules are you actually playing under, because that resembles no form of D&D that I've ever seen.
Was there an agreement to play by the rules?
Sure, if you're playing a boardgame, yes, there's an agreement. Are you playing a boardgame?
If you're not playing a boardgame and there was no agreement then who exactly can say they are right? Probably more so the DM, simply by legacy.
Get an agreement - don't assume 'the way I would do things is the right and good way and other ways (unless they please me) are wrong and the people bad for doing them'. You are not the holder of the just and true way to play.
That said, your DM should realise neither is he and show some humility.
If it's a troll post, then well played. Picture and everything.
ProfessorHoneyBare wrote:
ProfessorHoneyBare wrote:
Okay, I think I get what's going on here, because I've been in the same boat.
You've created a character. It has a great backstory that you wrote yourself. It has a picture that you probably didn't draw yourself, but it's a really nice picture anyway. You dearly love this character, and you would like this character to succeed. More importantly, you would like to have a great time with your friends by sharing an imaginative adventure.
However, the words of your DM are giving you the impression that he doesn't want your character to succeed and fun will not be had.
Don't panic. You do have problems, but they are fixable.
Your biggest problem is that your character may not fit the theme of the game. It's imaginative, but at the end of the day you're still trying to play a robot in a fantasy story. Your DM probably doesn't know how to handle this. Is every commoner you meet supposed to leap back in surprise at this miracle walking among them? Or at the opposite extreme, are they supposed to casually ignore your character's appearance? As you can see, it's a confusing situation. When DMs get into confusing situations, they often act unpredictably and unfairly... as you've noticed.
The lesser problem is that your character is mechanically flawed. I don't know anything about AD&D (I started with 4E), but I'll trust shintashi's word on this. No matter how creative you are, you simply don't have the numbers to support anything you might want to do.
Here's what I suggest.
First, talk to your DM. Tell him that you suspect your character may not fit in this world, but you still want to make it work. Then the two of you can reach some sort of agreement. You will have to make some change to your character, but hopefully nothing too big.
There are ways to get a robot to fit within a fantasy game. She could wear a hood while she's in public. Or, you could play up her robot-ness and take an obviously subservient role: group packhorse, another player's mechanical servant, etc. Another option is to have your character get loud and confrontational and intimidate every peasant into submission. Whatever you end up doing, be clear about what you're trying to do, and be open to suggestions.
After you talk to the DM, you can move on to the lesser problem of making your character mechanically effective. Ask an AD&D player for help on building your character. Your best bet is one of your fellow players, because they know your situation best and they'll be able to support you later. If that's not an option for some reason, you could start a thread on an AD&D forum. Either way, tell the person you ask your character's most important traits, combat or otherwise. They'll help fix any math errors, net you a few nice bonuses, and generally make your character more fun to play.
I agree with Fimbrial. This isn't exactly the appropriate forum thread to post content such as this, but that's fine. The important thing is that you and your table resolve the issues at-hand. Some strangers on the internet can't be there to talk to your DM for you, we can just offer some ideas. Right now, it seems like the best idea is to try and talk about this civilly and level-headedly with your DM and fellow players to reach some sort of agreement. Best of luck to you.
transcendantviewer wrote:
Thank you everyone!
Yes, someone else, another long-time player and frequent DM for our games, although not the same DM as mentioned, helped on the stats for these characters. I thought his use of the numbers were a bit high myself, but after reading through all of your comments, I'm glad for all the input and will fix Jin Sparklescrap into a better more realistic representation of this character.
Yes, we all agreed that we would play by the rules, but then he changed his mind and only went strict on my character, but I guess he's only human and fallable too.
No, we're not playing 5th edition, we're playing what the two DMs (Roy, the one I consider the fudger and Ed, the one who plays more by the book) call a 3.5 version of D&D. I've only been playing ever since the year 2000 when, after serving as the editor on the Dragon Magazine conversion, I really became interested in RPGs, so I'm no expert, but I've watched games, read up as much as I can, yet the really interesting characters I want to play such as Witches, Robots and Alchemical Tinkers are harder for me to come by, info-wise, which is why I came here with my plight.
We're going to play again this weekend 9/12 and I'll have the new stats that you've helped me devise put up here either 9/12 or 9/13; along with what happened when I showed Roy our discussions here.
Maybe I'm just being a drama queen LOL...we'll see in the next adventure this weekend!
P.S. Oh, apologies!! Where would the correct place to put this type of discussion be? I didn't see anything that would fit. I just went under 'Player Help'. :-) (And why does my picture keep showing up huge on the end of each comment? LOL!
Found the issue with the signature, won't be face-blasting anymore 
no problem. the one thing the DM did wrong was try to KO your character with 19 damage, when you have 63 hit points. In that way, the DM was being unfair, no matter how much they may dislike your laser beam vision or 20s for stats. That's a universal rule in all versions of D&D - if the monsters are doing regular hit point damage, and its less than 50 and less than your hit points, you don't go down. Being that bad at math disqualifies the DM in every edition.