Well, first thing you might want to do, is talk to the player that keeps copying you. Explain how you feel about it, and just talk it out.
As for your next character, why not go for something simple? Play a human witch. No special immunities or qualities, just a cool class to play.
(I don't know if the Witch class is available in 5th edition, you may need to find a supplement)
Classic situation. One player wants a houseruled character for flavor purposes, a second player then abuses that liberty to create an overpowered character.
There are two problems here: one, a player is breaking Wheaton's Law by powergaming in a group that is (probably) pretty casual and refusing to admit it. Two, the DM doesn't understand the rules well enough to know that the second player is doing it, thinking they are just a nice DM that lets their players have what they want.
An out-of-game conversation needs to happen here. If you can't have it one on one, then have it as a group (including the DM). Point out that stuff like immunity to nonmagical weapons, being large, starting with 19 STR, and getting the benefits of 2 races (even upgrading dragonbreath) is absurdly overpowered and breaks the rules. If the DM doesn't understand that, point out that players normally start with just 15 STR (before racials), immunity to nonmagical weapons is only available to a level 17(!) Cleric, and nobody gets to be Large unless they actually cast Enlarge. It's fine to want to play a werecreature, but just use one of the available races that are within the rules and refluff it a bit.
TL;DR the other player is powergaming and being a dick about it, and the DM doesn't understand he's doing it. Bring it to their attention.
svendj wrote:
If it were me, I would go one of two ways.
1) build a on the surface ordinary PC that the DM knows all about and is fascinating underneath but just don't tell the other player about it. Appearence normal = player 2 - bored.
2) Or go opposite extreme and Multiclass it and start as a changeling to keep them guessing. Disguise self at will - must be a warlock but why aren't you using eldritch blast. If using rage dont say I go into a rage, say My character looks slightly puzzled. DM knows what that means. infuriate them with different ways to refluff your build's mechanics and never, never let on what your class/race is. Even write it down on your sheet in a reflavoured way just in case they get a sneaky look. Enjoy the look of frustration that player 2 cannot copy or try to outdoo you.
Ps if you do/are allowed the Changeling, make your PC look like theirs for a change. 
Yeah, as others said, it sounds like the other player is taking your creative options and using them as an excuse to power game left and right, and the DM isn’t drawing a line.
As far as how to resolve it, without bringing the issue up with either the DM or the other player, I can't think of an easy way. Since the other gamer is already somewhat argumentative with you, I'd say talk to the DM about it. Be respectful and polite - that always helps.
As far as unique character ideas, since the DM is pretty easy-going, you can probably get really zany. Stuff like your PC is actually a biological construct, being operated by a tiny creature inside the skull. Or until five days ago, you were a cube on a wizards shelf. Or you come from the ancient past, having been frozen in time for centuries. Or you fell out of a book, and believe that the story within is history. The sky’s the limit.
rgoodbb wrote:
Fair enough. You know the guy. Was just being cheeky. (and probably not that helpful).
Love the idea of 5 days ago you were a cube on the wizard's shelf. Surely if he competes with that, the DM has to see what he is doing.
Do you think your DM is aware of things but is hoping the two of you just resolve the issue without need for intervention?
The DM already screwed up by allowing a half-dragon hill dwarf.
A platinum dragonborn doesn't fundamentally alter the race. It's still a dragonborn. A half-dragon hill dwarf however is not a race normally available to players and alters the hill dwarf race for definite mechanical benefit.
The DM should have told the player to make a dragonborn or a dwarf character. Half-dragons are NPC territory. That doesn't help your want to be unique though if he went with dragonborn.
Your idea of a werewolf character: is it your intention to remain in control of the character even when it is changed into a a werewolf or will the DM take control of the character during a full moon?
AndrewJO wrote:
AndrewJO wrote:
Agree with what everyone above has said about chatting with the DM about what's going on. As far as interesting stories go:
I played a Neutral oathbreaker paladin before who had a rage issue, who met a knight that helped him "almost" find the light again, before the knight died and he used his vices instead of his virtues to slay evil for the rest of his days.
The bird race that recently came out in Elemental Evil I thought about reflavoring them as the Raptoran race from 3e.
If neither of those suit your fancy I'm playing a homebrewed shaman class made by a user named DonQuixote. This is NOT mine and I claim no ownership over it. It is very nicely done.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420933-Shaman-(Class)
The other player is a cheese monkey that is just being immature. There is competitive and there is childish, he falls in that later.
Your Platinum Dragon Born does nothing to change game mechanics or balance, but the other guys most definitely does. I mean a half dragon? Why would the gm even allow that? There is no balancing that will fix this, because then everyone else has to get amped and it just escalates the issue to an arms race.
Platinum Dragon Born and your Werewolf characters are pretty cool.
That guys power gaming characters, should be effectively Targetted by every enemy and by Reality Demons attempting to bring the worlds back in balance. When Dragons and Dwarves are hunting him down as something which is wrong, when the gods forbid the use of Healing Magic being used on something so obviously tainted by the Far Realms. When he drinks a healing potion and it harms. He might get the message.
Thats a possible way to restore the balance, which a DM could use. Or making experience being only half as effective for the Munchkin Dragonborn Dwarf.
Alternately the DM creates a Dragonborn Dwarf Race and a Dwarf Dragonborn, using features of both but looking at balancing it.
The other player is... yeah, cheese monkey works.
That said, from where comes this notion that a character's race is what makes him unique? At the risk of speaking in platitudes, it's who you are, not what you are, that makes you distinctive. When discussing race preferences with other players, I'm rarely satisfied with the response, "I'm a human in real life, why play one in a game?" unless the character's personality is actually informed by his racial perspective. That's not often the case. There are sooo many 'humans' with pointy ears and skill with the bow, with black skin and white hair, or with scales and breath weapons.
The desire to play an exotic race is (often) at its roots an attempt to portray an outsider. If your choice of race informs your outsider perspective, great, but in my experience, players just use it as a cheap shortcut for "I'm unique" when their actual role play is anything but.
The point is, if you want to be unique, and choosing a unique race is causing problems (not your fault that you have a cheese monkey in the group), find another way to be unique.
I will echo others opinions; I think your platinum dragonborn idea is fine, but your DM was way too permissive with the half-dragon and lycanthropes.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say "Monty Hall GM"
This game has already gone and gotten well out of hand from what I can see. That much cash and that many magic items for level 5 characters is rediculous, and with the extremely powerful non-standard races your comrade is running, things are going to get ugly very quickly.
Not sure how much advice I can give in these circumstances.
Yikes... how is the DM presenting a challenge? Or is the point of their game to be easy?
AndrewJO wrote:
Real answer - Have a conversation about how its annowing.
Funny answer - Play something he has no interest in playing. "Can I play a pixie or some sort of small magical fairy?"
Krusk wrote:
Yunru wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Yunru wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Eothain wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Yunru wrote:
i used to have a 1/2 celestial 1/2 dragon werewboar named Beowulf in 3e. It was probably my most ridiculous character. I was petty and cruel back then (now I'm just cruel) and wanted to illustrate how silly it was to play monsters for characters. Problem is, the DM took it seriously (quote quote) and our party eventually ended up fighting Barney and Teletubbies.
I would have started by saying "Dragon born, no" but if dragon born became a standard race (it's actually no more legal that feats, being purely DM choice), i would say hell no to a Prince of Paladine Platinum offshoot. That's basically Hercules for dragons, and it actually makes less sense for such a character to have no additional benefits than it does for them to be created in the first place.
If you are the son of a god, you are going to be a demigod. Deal. Don't go "oh, i want the social flavor of being a demigod, but it's ok cause I microgamed away all my stat benefits". Thats manipulative. The Social Benefits of playing a demigod are just as powerful as any +2 to strength/charisma or funny colored breath weapon - probably more so, and does far more than borderline social twinkery.
When you have someone playing a storyline demigod, and then some other player says "wow, that's broken.. i want something broken too", don't pull the red alarm of powergaming. Look at what brought it in the first place. You then made a microgaming werewolf. Why? To be different? Of course the other person reacted like a white blood cell and cloned an antidote. Perhaps they will ALWAYS clone you, or perhaps they will only clone you when you make a thematically broken character.
Here's an idea. Play a human. Make a Human fighter. or a Human cleric of healing. Or a Wizard. You know how seldom i see those these days?
Every adventure ive been in has had a dragon born or lycanthrope. It's a dead trope. It's not original. Everybody wants to be the son or daughter of somebody special. Descendent of a Solar, grandson of Aasmodeus, yadda yadda. thousands of people across the world all being original by doing exactly what everybody else is doing.
Here's the icing on the cake. If you do end up making one of those rare as hens teeth generic human characters, see if captain clone copy cats your character. That would be fugging hilarious. You can even enjoy weeks of private laughter with the rest of us as someone's desire to outdo your unique characters lands them with the most generic tropes of all.
shintashi wrote:
What you (OP) want is to be INTERESTING, not UNIQUE... The most memorable and INTERESTING characters are always the ones that are "unique" because of their personality and their actions, not their game statistics.
If the table consists of a 1/2 dragon warforged wizard/bard/warlock necromatically built from the corpses of pixies, a cleric/wizard giant shapechanged by a family curse into a 1/2 vampire halfling, and some knucklehead playing < insert anything here > refluffed to be an intelligent sandwich, then your bog-standard Joe Average single-classed human fighter who hates vegetables, has a happy family that he still sends money to and likes to collect little wooden statues of fish IS unique at that table...
I got shanghaid into an oldschool game back in college when I stopped to watch them playing in the cafeteria. I was handed a pregen character, a halfling thief. It didn't even have a name.
To this day, I still get requests to rebuild that character at a level appropriate for peoples' games and join in when they hear some of the character's old warstories.
What makes "Ripper" unique?
Absolutely nothing to do with his mechanical character sheet, aside from a high DEX and a decent INT... On paper, he's just a regular halfling rogue or some multiclass thereof. Over the years, he's been a thief, a fighter/thief, even added a level of barbarian at one point in 3.5... Even without the ring of jumping and two magical daggers the original pregen character had, or the gauntlets of ogre power and magical bastard sword he later picked up, it was the character of the character that made him unique...
Physically, Ripper is the largest halfling you've ever seen, pushing the very limits of the Small size category, and is muscled like a pro wrestler - with his muttonchop sideburns like the lead singer of Motorhead and deep voice, he's often mistaken for a young dwarf at a distance.
Ripper is also highly intelligent, speaks several languages, and is fiendishly clever. He has a warped, wicked sense of humor, and a fondness for tavern brawling and singing haunting elven ballads in orcish at the top of his lungs. He's essentially the in-game incarnation of my id, the subconscious desire to act out and do what you want without any rules, and I ruthlessly play that to great comedic, dramatic and tactical effect. You never know what Ripper will do, but you can bet it will be smart, crafty, and devious. And usually entertaining. He's the poster boy for smart, well-played Chaotic Neutral - he has an instinctive understanding of when it's better to do the expected or conventional thing and when to break the rules in some spectacular fashion, and can switch from charming and manipulative chessmaster to raging wildman, careful planning to brilliant improvisation, at the drop of a hat.
The original character's personality was forged in the literal heat of that first adventure, when the party was trapped in an inn by the fanatical bad guys - who locked several of their own people in with us and then set fire to the building...
Back in the early editions thieves were useless in combat and could only get their "backstab" damage if they were literally behind someone and caught them by surprise. So I was hiding under a table waiting to stab somebody in the ankle for 1d4, while the rest of the party was getting their heads handed to them. Needing to do something to contribute, I got up on the table and declared that I was using the ring of jumping to hurl myself across the room onto some guy's back and then hold on with my legs while trying to cut his throat. The Dm ruled that I could get my backstab damage for it. And thus Ripper became a wild, bouncing ball of death, flinging himself back and forth across the room like a rabid riccocheting housecat and wreaking havoc on a bunch of people who weren't expecting a halfling rogue to climb up their face and stab them in the brain.
But we were still trapped inside the burning inn, with a bunch of bad guys still on the outside... So Ripper gave a wild roar and used the ring to pitch himself out a window into the street, where he charged at the dozen or so bad guys roaring and swearing, using the ring again to crash into one of them and knock him down.
Between the dwarf following him out the window a couple rounds later and Ripper playing bowling-for-bad-guys, we managed to drive off the enemies and save the party.
Over the years he's pulled all sorts of memorable shenanigans like getting the druid to cast barkskin on him before jumping off a high castle wall onto a guard below and throwing down his bastard sword in the middle of a fight with an ogre to start punching it in the kneecaps until it fell over so he could begin punching it in the face until it was dead...
You should have asked to be a Half-Orc Werebear/Lightning Elemental with Time Stop as a bonus action innate ability.
If you want to continue the one-upping, then play something that has a fatal non-obvious weakness (like vampires and sunlight, but less well known). Because you're doing the research and he's following, you'll know to avoid the weakness and he won't.
That said - yeah, sounds like you should (all) just make something from the standard race/class lists and play them until they develop personalities. And probably talk to your DM about how easy things are for you.