Cause in 3.5, we are playing a custom campain and are allowed to bullshit our way along, rather than our 4e game where we have only a few hours of play time.
Basically, the rogue in the party starts trying to sneak around. Boom, my friend, who is playing a battle sorcerer also decides he should be trying to sneak around. One player makes an active listen check (Again the rogue) my friend now wants to start making listen checks. Our bard is suppose to be a noble, who's father was paying for the first mission we were on. So my friend tries to copy things off her as well.
Basically any time another player has something or does something, he is there trying to do it too. Even when it makes absolutly no sense. Now I'll admit, Occassionally if the rogue makes a listen check, I'll make one. Though that is because i am trying to give a hint to my character. He doesn't have normal human ears, but cat like ears coming out the top of his head. Said ears are beneath a berret. So i pantomime listening to things as if i had ears there. but that is my character. (I've got ranks in listen even.)
He is like the guy in the kitchen who's character is in the tavern, but he keeps wanting to help the party that is in the dungeon fighting the orcs.
Simply "you walk into a tavern, sorcerer what do you do". (be patient, it could take a bit). Then ask what the rogue is doing, then the so on.
Course I've got a peak at his character sheet yesterday, and kinda smacked my head a bit. (mentally) I noticed his battle caster has 2 ranks in concentration and 5 ranks in diplomacy. (Never mind that diplomacy isn't even a class skill I don't think, for sorcerers.)
Though admitedly, he hasn't ever actually used concentration because out of the 6-7 battles we've had, he has only casted shield twice. He keeps trying to be a front line fighter, as we have 2 rogue/fighters, a swashbuckler, and a bard that either fights in melee or sings, and then my artificer, who is the only one who uses ranged.
I know partially of what his character is suppose to be, as I've heard various clips from his earlier years of 2nd edition (He's one of the oldest people in the group, like in his 40's or so.) and since he knew little about 3.5 (Dispite playing NWN and i think even NWN2) I've tried helping him create what he wanted without having to MC a bunch of times.
Sometimes I think he would have been better off if he was just a fighter instead of the Gish he says he wants to be.
But I doubt this is a RP thing he's doing.
Sounds to me like he's an eager player, and don't want to miss any of the action.
And copying the other players is better than hanging back doing nothing (quite logically from a player point of view)
Maybe he doesnt have a handle on his characters skills and abilities, and isnt sure what he's supposed to do and when, so he tries everything.
I never played 3.5 so I dunno what can be done there, but in 4e you could point him towards "aid another" actions perhaps, that might make him feel useful.
For example, in both NWN and NWN2, I've used straight-classed sorcerers to tear it up in melee with great success using nothing more than Martial Weapon Proficiency and a few buffs. But only experience would tell me that attempting the same in PnP would be suicide.
Second, since he tries to play his sorcerer as a melee, perhaps your DM would allow this player to convert his Sorcerer into a Battle Sorcerer. For a relatively small reduction in spells per day and spells known, he gains decent hitpoints, light armor, a decent weapon proficiency, and a Bab that's actually useful for something other than touch spells while still retaining the strength and versatility of the Wiz/Sor spell list. That, combined with Arcane Strike and/or Battle, would make in a serious presence in melee.
Third, I also second pointing him towards Aid Other. And if wanting to be involved truly is the issue, point him towards some good party buff and utility spells as well.
How old are the players in your group?
-DF
For me, I started 3.5, went to 4th, and now am playing 2.0. And I've started finding why he does some things. (namely instead of current HP he writes each 'wound' individially)
We asked him what he wanted to play, as I have spent hours in 3.5 creating characters, and again in 4th. He gives me "I want to be an elf that casts magic and hits things with a sword." So I've gone through and told him his various options from being able to use wizard, MC fighter, and finally PRC. Or the better option, which was battlesorcerer. He further goes on that he wants to cast raise dead and fireball.
I can't help him there myself, but the DM is thinking of allowing it since we do not have any clerics or the like in the party.
Then is onward to background. This rubs me the wrong way the most, as he of course wants to be the Aristrocrat type of elf. Through every game i've played with him except the 2.0 one he has always played an elf noble. In 4th edition he plays an eladrin swordmage. (AKA: the wizard who hits things with sword.)
In our 3.5 game, The first one he played a dwarf fighter. Who of course was still the son of the leader of the dwarves.
The next one he is now playing the Elf Noble. As a result, anytime an event comes along, say for example one of our party members has all his cloths stolen except his magical chain shirt and he needs pants. My friend would suddenly chime in that he watched his servents making cloths.
And it doesn't just happen once. It happens everysingle time. Despite that mechanically, nothing is reflected that his character has even seen a sewing needle.
His character has no ranks in sewing and an int of 10. Doesn't mean of course he couldn't try to sew a shirt, but it would mean he isn't exactly going to make the next fall fashion.
Now my character has no ranks in sewing either. Though I do have a rank or two in armor crafting, and I'm an artificer. My Int is 18. And so I would have been able to assist the guy into turning something into a piece of psedo armor at the least, but my character isn't exactly into that sort of thing, he wouldn't mind helping but the most the guy would get is a loincloth or something of the sort.
And thats what is annoying me the most. I'm a very mechanical player, I like to have the terms of mechanics there to support the actual game, as without them it quickly breaks down into a childs game of "Nah-ah! I have an infinity infinity shield that can never be defeated by anything ever!"
But even RP wise, it just doesn't cut it either. Why does this noble have so much time on his hands and nothing else to do but learn how to make cloths because of his servent? We are in a world were there are no boats and we never go outside the city.
However, time and time again he has tried to say "we take some barrels and strap them together."
I will say that his 2.0 character hasn't done any of this, but I only played one session with it and really the session was oddly lacking in much RP other than blasting my lupin who suddenly appears while the DM has the other party fight werewolves. Then after being nearly killed by them, they suddenly turn around heal me, and give me magic armor and stuff. (off the werewolves we just killed.)
He is getting better at that though, as last session he started combat by casting shield on himself first. Part of the problem is that casting spells hasn't quite become a regiment for him yet as we are level 2, and he is currently stuck with a single spell. (shield)
We asked him what he wanted to play, as I have spent hours in 3.5 creating characters, and again in 4th. He gives me "I want to be an elf that casts magic and hits things with a sword." So I've gone through and told him his various options from being able to use wizard, MC fighter, and finally PRC. Or the better option, which was battlesorcerer. He further goes on that he wants to cast raise dead and fireball.
I can't help him there myself, but the DM is thinking of allowing it since we do not have any clerics or the like in the party.
Well, the closest class to what he wants to do would actually be a cleric (with the sun or fire domain) or druid. Both can rain down fiery destruction (though not necessarily with the and both can bring the dead back too life. Though it definitely wouldn't break anything to allow him to cast that one spell.
The next one he is now playing the Elf Noble. As a result, anytime an event comes along, say for example one of our party members has all his cloths stolen except his magical chain shirt and he needs pants. My friend would suddenly chime in that he watched his servents making cloths.
And it doesn't just happen once. It happens everysingle time. Despite that mechanically, nothing is reflected that his character has even seen a sewing needle.
His character has no ranks in sewing and an int of 10. Doesn't mean of course he couldn't try to sew a shirt, but it would mean he isn't exactly going to make the next fall fashion.
Now my character has no ranks in sewing either. Though I do have a rank or two in armor crafting, and I'm an artificer. My Int is 18. And so I would have been able to assist the guy into turning something into a piece of psedo armor at the least, but my character isn't exactly into that sort of thing, he wouldn't mind helping but the most the guy would get is a loincloth or something of the sort.
And thats what is annoying me the most. I'm a very mechanical player, I like to have the terms of mechanics there to support the actual game, as without them it quickly breaks down into a childs game of "Nah-ah! I have an infinity infinity shield that can never be defeated by anything ever!"
Well, you certainly don't need rules for everything. Rules are for conflict resolution. Unless he's circumventing an encounter or challenge somehow, he's not breaking anything by saying his character can so.
And flavorwise, it makes since as well. Your standard D&D setting is a pseudo-medieval one. And medieval people were often self-sufficient by necessity. That included being able to make your own clothes.
But whether or not you agree with any of this, the rules are on his side. Craft is not a trained-only skill. Any character can attempt any craft skill with no formal training. The DC for making a "typical item" is 10. That means that is untrained character of 10 Int can make typical clothes 100% of the time with no chance for failure ever by simply taking 10. They may be rather plain or ordinary clothes, but so long has he has the materials and the time, he can produce perfectly serviceable, and I again emphasize, "typical" clothing. Loincloth, indeed.
But even RP wise, it just doesn't cut it either. Why does this noble have so much time on his hands and nothing else to do but learn how to make cloths because of his servent?
Well, part of being a noble is not having to toil everyday in the fields trying to grow just enough food to pay your taxes and not starve during the cold, harsh winter. Which means that you have free time to squander, even if its not very often. Why not spend your time becoming more well-rounded?
In addition, his character is an elf. According to Races of the Wild, IIRC, elves actually try their hands at many different vocations before adulthood. And considering that they just reach adulthood when most long-lived humans are about 30 years in the grave (IOW, 110 years), that's plenty of time to learn some miscellaneous skills.
We are in a world were there are no boats and we never go outside the city.
However, time and time again he has tried to say "we take some barrels and strap them together."
This, too, is not that far-fetched. Even if we assume that you literally mean that sailing vessels of any kind don't exist anywhere in the entire campaign setting, as long as you have people somewhere who live by significant bodies of water (rivers, lakes, seas, etc) and build wooden houses, it would probably be common knowledge to the educated that wood floats. From that, it wouldn't be too difficult to figure out that if you nail some floaty boards to some extra floaty rounds things, you can make a floaty thing you can stand on. If a bunch of kids, some rabbits, and some random guys on the internet can figure it out, a barrel barge shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for your characters, what with being heroic figures and all. It's not like you actually need ranks in Craft (Shipwright) to actually use Craft (Shipwright). Though a few ranks and a couple of aid other bonuses wouldn't hurt.
He is getting better at that though, as last session he started combat by casting shield on himself first. Part of the problem is that casting spells hasn't quite become a regiment for him yet as we are level 2, and he is currently stuck with a single spell. (shield)
Well, with only 1 decent spell available to him at the moment, you can't really blame him for his character not being able to cover the caster role yet. Even normal sorcerers have a hard enough time doing that with their delayed spell progression.
It takes a good bit of experience with the system to figure out how to wade though the hundreds of spells and figure out which spells are the good ones and why. More so with spontaneous casters since they are stuck with their choices for so long and have very few chances to fix mistakes. If possible, have someone in the group coached him on good spell selection. While shield is an decent and obvious choice for a melee oriented character, he might not have realized that Protection from Evil offered a similar AC bonus and other benefits for a much longer duration, or that mithral bucklers have no ACP or ASF and can eventually replace the shield spell completely, or that Grease and Sleep can shut-down encounters and possibly all but negate the need for AC. Such knowledge only comes from experience.
You might want to also ask the DM to throw some scroll, wands, staves and runestaves his way. That would not only make him more useful to the party, but will also give him a chance to try out different spells before committing them to his spells known list.
The player wants his character to be atleast part of the solution.
And making pants isn't really unreasonable. Heck I barely even touched a needle and thread in my life, but I bet I could take an old potato sack, slice up the bottom and down the middle and then stitch the things back together in some form of pant-like object.
It wont be pretty, or even a comfortable pair of pants, but they beat having your jiggly bits flapping in the wind.
If I can do it in real life, I imagine my heroic characters could do better, or atleast equally well.
Thus its not unreasonable to rationalize his elf noble, who has had roughly infinite time on his hands, got bored and decided to amuse himself by watching his servants do chores for a decade or so :P
I dont want to fault the guy for thinking outside the box too much, and trying to do things not supported by the rules. But I can understand your frustration with this since I'm also a very mechanical player myself. And I dont doubt he drifts into metagaming solutions often.
It's probably worse for the DM who has to houserule half his ideas because he doesnt want to say "Sure you can cast magical fire from your hands, but no, you cant do this mundane task of rubbing two sticks together"
In this world,
1) we have "stargates" that allow us to move from city to city. We've lost the use of roads and boats because of it, because it is much faster just to go through the gate.
2) We never leave the city. We don't know what a deer is, a wolf, a bear, or a vilocaraptor. Think something like a medieval equilibrium.
3) We are all teenagers, not some old wizen 1000 year old elf. Granted much to the DM's dismay he did allow my friend's elf to be 90 years old. The point of this was that we wern't suppose to know everything.
My chracter, the inventor, the artificer isn't even allowed to come up with many of the basic concepts that we take for granted in real life. Granted, I am a 19 year old human so because the elf is 90 years old that mean his 10 int > 18 int.
The problem is that it doesn't just come up once or twice. We wouldn't be annoyed about this if it was just the pants and perhaps a slip up with the boat thing. But its a constant thing. Anytime we have a challange to face, like a trap or something. His third uncle' twice removed younger sisters roomate's nephew taught him about traps. (okay not that bad)
Or locks. Other this or that. He's tried stepping into the bards world of knowing a little bit of everything.
Next up, his class.
No, he doesn't want to be a cleric. And it isn't his role to be the caster in the party, it is his role to be the Gish. The problem is that he forgets to protect himself while doing this, and gets torn up by violciraptors.
The Protection from evil only works if the enemy is evil. We've been fighting mostly animals as level 2 characters. He wouldn't be able to use a mithril buckler very well as he has no prof in it. Nor does it protect against one particular spell. Magic Missle.
Then Greese and sleep can, but being able to only cast three spells a day, all it takes is them to make thier saves, be undead, or otherwise immune to the effects of the spell.
Elves:
And thats why he always plays the high-elf nobal character. So that he can attempt to use all those years..
Which makes me wonder.. Why is it elves are still only level 1 characters even though they obviously have all this advanced knowledge?
Look, charlie brown, watership down, and the barrel barge all have one thing in common that our characters don't have. And that is knowledge. In the real world, we have boats and we use them a lot.
In watership down, the rabbits had to cross a river early in the story. Being rabbits (not rabbit people, but actual rabbits), the concept that a wood floats was completely alien to them. Let alone the fact that, whoah dude, you can ride on it. But they managed to use a piece of wood (not a boat) to escape a dog float to safety.
In this world,
1) we have "stargates" that allow us to move from city to city. We've lost the use of roads and boats because of it, because it is much faster just to go through the gate.
So no one knows that wood floats? At all? And you say you lost roads and boats. Which means you have had roads and boats. Which means that there's probably some form of recorded history, folklore, or legends that includes boats, or boat-like constructs existing in history, story, song, or legend. Or at least, it would be reasonable to assume anyway.
2) We never leave the city. We don't know what a deer is, a wolf, a bear, or a vilocaraptor. Think something like a medieval equilibrium.
3) We are all teenagers, not some old wizen 1000 year old elf. Granted much to the DM's dismay he did allow my friend's elf to be 90 years old. The point of this was that we wern't suppose to know everything.
My chracter, the inventor, the artificer isn't even allowed to come up with many of the basic concepts that we take for granted in real life. Granted, I am a 19 year old human so because the elf is 90 years old that mean his 10 int > 18 int.
This sounds very familiar. Either way, from the outside looking in, its sounds like this issue is equal parts the player not completely grasping the finer points of the DM's restrictions and the DM imposing restrictions that don't mesh completely with expected reality. I don't think anyone is wrong here, but if you're the kind of player that likes to come up with out-of-the-box solutions, it would help if the DM defined where that box is.
The problem is that it doesn't just come up once or twice. We wouldn't be annoyed about this if it was just the pants and perhaps a slip up with the boat thing. But its a constant thing. Anytime we have a challange to face, like a trap or something. His third uncle' twice removed younger sisters roomate's nephew taught him about traps. (okay not that bad)
Or locks. Other this or that. He's tried stepping into the bards world of knowing a little bit of everything.
Well, he isn't "doing it wrong" as far as mechanics are concerned. Maybe he should play a bard then?
Next up, his class.
No, he doesn't want to be a cleric. And it isn't his role to be the caster in the party, it is his role to be the Gish. The problem is that he forgets to protect himself while doing this, and gets torn up by violciraptors.
Well, clerics are gishes, so it would work. But does he know that enemies can't get full attacks unless they use full-attack actions? Assuming your fighting deinonychus's, its understandable that's he's getting torn up in melee since they get four attacks to his one. It might help if he stays mobile, even it it means eating a AoO.
The Protection from evil only works if the enemy is evil. We've been fighting mostly animals as level 2 characters. He wouldn't be able to use a mithril buckler very well as he has no prof in it. Nor does it protect against one particular spell. Magic Missle.
You don't actually need proficiency with a mithral buckler. Lack of proficiency does not prevent you from wearing armor. What it does do is add it item's ACP as a penalty to attack rolls, and str/dex skills and checks. But a mithral buckler has no ACP, nor ASF for that matter. So there's absolutely no penalty for wearing one. And if all that you're fighting is animals, the protection from Magic Missile is rather moot anyway. And even at higher levels, most foes will throw much stronger spells your way than resort to a first level, low-damage spell.
And while it is true that PfE wouldn't help you much given your current situation, at higher levels where the 2ac difference starts to mean less and less and when casters start to becomes foes, the bonus to saves and protection against charms and compulsions (regardless of alignment), and summoned creatures (of any alignment) starts to make Protection from Evil a very attractive choice that would stack with a shield.
Then Greese and sleep can, but being able to only cast three spells a day, all it takes is them to make thier saves, be undead, or otherwise immune to the effects of the spell.
While its true that Sleep and Grease allow saves, they are much better than you claim. If you have a decent to high spell DC, you can obliterate encounters. Animals, since you brought them up, tend to have rather low Will saves. With a little luck and planning, a well place Sleep spell can incapacitate a good majority of your opponents in one go. And after a single failed save, all it takes is a well placed coup-de-grace to finish off the creature. At worst, you'll only take creatures out of the fight for a short time, which still removes the damage they would have done otherwise. At best, everyone goes night-night and your party is prepared to sweep. Sleep is the 1st level easy button. And by the time it outlives its usefulness, higher level SoS/SoD alternatives will be available, like Glitterdust and Ray of Idiocy.
And Grease is great crowd control. Creatures standing in the area have to make a save every round to avoid falling prone. And creatures moving through the area have to make a balance as well, making it double trouble. The latter is especially useful since, while the save steadily gets easier for equal level opponents to make, most creatures have rather dismal Balance check ranks for most of the game due to lack of training. And since you're balancing, you're considered flat-footed, which means you may lose a big chunk of your AC as well as becoming rogue bait. The ability to grant an ally a bonus to escape checks or make stuff easier to slide around is frosting. Grease is useful throughout your whole career, while Shield only stays useful if you decide to use a two-hander or simply refuse to spend the cash. And since Sorcerers get so few chances to swap spells, you don't want to take too many throw-aways.
I'm not saying that Shield is a bad spell. But there are other options that would have a more dramatic impact on an encounter.
Elves:
And thats why he always plays the high-elf nobal character. So that he can attempt to use all those years..
Which makes me wonder.. Why is it elves are still only level 1 characters even though they obviously have all this advanced knowledge?
That's like asking why is a raven like a writing desk.
The problem though is that he isn't playing the character infront of him. I've noticed this several times, he is playing the same character in each game he plays. Which character?
Why, his Epic Fighter/Wizard High-Elf Noble that he used to play in 2.0 many many years ago. Thats the problem. Back then the character could do everything, and thats what he is trying to play.
Even when he tried to play Marge simpson, it was the same character as he had played before. It wasn't marge, but his High-Elf Noble, who was chancing down Mr. Burns as he escape into his dirigible instead of helping Homer and Bard fight skuzzelbutt. (Homer was starving so much he wanted to eat the broccoli hand of skuzzelbutt.)
I saw the exact same action in his High-Elf noble he plays in the 3.5 campain when the female bard noble didn't want to fight and instead tried to hide. (afraid of breaking a nail.)
So really the question should really be How do you teach an old dog new tricks?
Actually sheild is useful beyond his carrier. Abjurant Champion. Look into it.
Then you are no longer talking about the Shield spell, but Shield combined with specfic, optional prestige class benefits. Of course you're going to get more milage out of the spell if you specfically spend resources optimize it. Besides, Adjurant Champion helps you at mid to late game, not level two. So even if you decide to take Shield to optimize it with AC, that doesn't make it the best low-level choice. But we're getting off topic.
So really the question should really be How do you teach an old dog new tricks?
Well, that depends. I'll ask again. Does he realize that you have a problem with his play style? Simply bringing the issue up might be enough to get him to take the initiative to leave his favorite trope confort zone be a bit more creative.
After that, I suggest pointing him to some of the character development guides posted on these forums, such as the Ten-Minute Backgroud.
Two sessions ago, I had told him just because the thief is rolling to search for traps doesn't mean he has to. (Or aid other for that matter, which he does do a lot in our 4e game where it is pretty much perfectly fine with me there usually. Except when he has a 1 in the skill, and I have like 21 points and he tries to take the main thing.)
Last session the DM told him to basically shut up. Mind you this wasn't nearly as blunt as i just wrote, because it was a character to character interaction, but the DM did cause a certian vibe with it from my friend. Basically my friend was going off about how he knew (insert trival details) because of (event in his past) to the undead pirate who was going to give us the last remaining boat (as far as we know now) after of course teaching us each of our positions and how we are suppose to work a boat. (Insert 80's style movie scene here with heavy rock music.)
We don't want to hurt his feelings, but at the same time its annoying that he tries to pass everything off as an event he learned sometime during the 90 years he was alive, while the bard should be the person with the loads of random trivial knowledge and my character has more factual knowledge.
I don't spend skill points in Engineering just to have a character who has 90 years of life being able to do exactly the same thing because he is older.
It might be frustrating for the player though if the DM suddenly stops allowing it (as it seemed he used to) and makes his one universal solution to everything dissapear. But if things go well he will cope and possibly come up with a new "favorite" concept for the future.
I know the trap of settling too firmly in one familiar trope myself all too well.
Mine happends to be dwarf fighters.
See that wouldn't work, because he would still jump at the chance of rolling or taking what the other character is trying to do.
[voice=TomCruise] Just punch the guy in the face, really f%$#ing hard. [/voice]
T
So really the question should really be How do you teach an old dog new tricks?
It sounds like this guy just isn't getting it. Remember: NO GAMING IS BETTER THAN BAD GAMING!
It sounds like he needs to be asked to leave... It sounds like multiple attempts have been made to reform him and he just doesn't get it. You don't have to play with him, talk to the GM about it before kicking him out tho.
If this isn't an option, just tell him that everyone else can only do what is on their sheet, so therefore he has to follow what is on his sheet. In fact, who needs to say this is the GM, not you. It sounds like your GM is being a bit spineless here about enforcing the rules. If he wanted more skills in basketweaving to represent his well roundedness, tell him he should not have taken an Int of 10.
He casted sheild ever combat. He started realizing he could do more damage if he two handed a weapon instead of just using one hand. And he is finally going to be third level and able to get another 1st level spell.
I'm trying to figure out one that would work for him and not cause the entire party to suffer because of it. In otherwords, Sleep works 'great' as long as everyone in the group is immune to its effects. And since a little over half the party is human, it doesn't work so good.
Besides, I'm looking for a spell he can fire and forget, kinda like mage armor in how it lasts an hour per level. But since he is a battle sorc, MA is useless due to his armor. His weapon is already magic too.
though, attack spells might also be handy. Magic missle is a bit out of the question, as I'm sure it will disappoint him that it does so little damage compaired to its 2.0 counterpart.
Well last session, he is starting to get it.
He casted sheild ever combat. He started realizing he could do more damage if he two handed a weapon instead of just using one hand. And he is finally going to be third level and able to get another 1st level spell.
I'm trying to figure out one that would work for him and not cause the entire party to suffer because of it. In otherwords, Sleep works 'great' as long as everyone in the group is immune to its effects. And since a little over half the party is human, it doesn't work so good.
Besides, I'm looking for a spell he can fire and forget, kinda like mage armor in how it lasts an hour per level. But since he is a battle sorc, MA is useless due to his armor. His weapon is already magic too.
though, attack spells might also be handy. Magic missle is a bit out of the question, as I'm sure it will disappoint him that it does so little damage compaired to its 2.0 counterpart.
So far as I've ever seen it played, Sleep does not affect allies. I don't have my old books, so I can't speak to the rules as far as older editions, but even though the 4e book says it targets "each creature in burst" I would rule that to be each ENEMY creature in the burst. Note that the flavor text specifically says "you exert your will against your FOES".
Regarding your DM's world, I'm having a little bit of a problem grasping the concept, vs what you feel is wrong with the other player's experiments with floating barrels and so on. For example, there are no roads because characters teleport between cities. But you do, I assume, have the idea of walking, right? Do your characters use stargates to go from the inn to the blacksmith's shop? Or do they walk there? Even if the roads were centuries overgrown or practically nonexistant, if your characters do ANY walking at all, then it might be reasonable to assume that people could in fact walk from one city to another. In the same way, if wood floats, it's not odd that someone could create a barrel barge, even if (in some very odd way) this is entirely new technology for the civilization.
I would guess that humans discovered that wood floats somewhere around neanderthal times or even earlier. The fact that air-filled sacks such as the bladders that were used for waterskins would when empty and filled with air, create boyancy, should not have been far behind. Thus it should be relatively easy for this civilization to figure out that wood floats, enclosed airspaces float, enclosed empty wooden airspaces (barrels) float. Since the elf is 90, the DM's world would seem to have been around at least that long. It's pretty unreasonable to suggest that in all that time an empty wine barrel never fell into the river and was noted to bob and float.
Okay, not trying to diss your DM (too much) but lack of cogent and coherent worlds just sort of tick me off.
Anyway, my next question is how much at fault is the OP in this situation? Sure the player he's complaining about sounds moderately annoying, but the OP is making it into a huge "thing". Complaining about the barrels, complaining about the clothes. Yadda yadda.
Either get over your big hairy self and stop whining about the other PC and focus on your own, or get out of the game. How come your own PC isn't thinking about the fact that barrels float? (Or why a DM that suggests people don't notice this might be unreasonable?)
I gamed for about a year with a guy who was a little "slow", at least compared to the rest of us in the game. He was a sweet guy. Many times we had to school him (again) on the rules and re-explain game mechanics. Sometimes we'd laugh at his exploits, sometimes we'd give him advice. Many times he had no clue what to do without another PC (in character) giving him a hint.
Sounds like despite his older age or gaming time, your friend might be a little slow. (Or possibly just disengaged.) Either embrace him or get out of the way, but realize that you're not showing the best of yourself by constantly focusing on what he's doing wrong instead of what your character is doing at all.
Just as a response to the above post, each creature is burst is everything. Allies are allies only, creature is everything, enemy is enemies only. So if it says each creature in burst, that's exactly what it targets, each creature in the burst (everyone).
Bummer that!
No. I think not.
What I'm asking is how can I not be an ****, and at the same time teach him. Just because your friend was slow, you didn't just shut up and not try to teach him. Thats what I'm here for, to learn how to teach him.
The barrels, and cloths are small little things, that build onto the overall problem. And that problem is, that any time anyone does anything his character does it too. Or at least used to.
You see, he isn't slow. He is very thinkitive, but tends to go backwards in logic. (As in time backwards.) Like when I initially tried to develop gunpowder, I researched the hell out of it and firearms. I figured out and found how to make it, how to make a simple gun, and everything like that, I found it was even originally intended to be the elixer of life.
However this is a backwards way of thought. How? Because we have already got the finished product. It would be like Thomes edison coming up with the lightbulb on the first try, because his player knew exactly the constuction of the light bulb.
What you need to do, is watch movies like Equllibrium. Where, the "clerics" are baffled why people keep animals. Obviously to us, they are pets, but they live in a different world with a compleatly different thought process.
Its like plant of the apes actually.. the old one. Where humans at one time learned to speak, but they blew themselves up. Now they live in the wild, like animals. compleatly incapable of doing what they did before.
That is what our world is like. Yes, we can walk. But imagine in order to walk from one city to another, you had to walk through.. hell i dunno.. A graveyard. Or eel infested waters. Or through old man winters front yard.
Thats why they don't walk from one place to another. In addition, the gates create an aura that as long as you were born with in it, you are pretty much immune to, but during your trip from one city to another, the effects of the aura begin to wear off, as does your immunity to it. You start walking into the other town only to be effected now by the aura and develop a splitting head ache.
So leaving the city, you never come back or you start going mad.
Water is also not something that just everywhere in the city. Like Equalibrium, everything has been paved over with "concreate". The only water we really get is in bath houses and the like. Not free standing bodies of water.
This is why, even my PC isn't allowed (or wasn't) to think of barrels and making a "boat" that way.
On the Planet of the apes thing.. We just came across a city that was a 1920's build. There were even robots attacking us with laser guns and the like. We didn't just lose the ability to make boats. There is a hell of alot of technology we have lost.
But like I said, He finally is starting to understand. He is starting play his character, though he has a habit of making it very hard to figure out if he is RPing or OOCing. But thats okay, we all tend to have that, except for our rogue, who has suddenly developed an accent along with getting gender changed.
But now that we have been thrown out of the cities, and have been experiencing things, our limitations impossed by the DM early on, are starting to be lifted. We are being allowed now to play rangers soon, we been allowed to take some ranks in knoweledge nature and survival.
But still, another person that insists that having an elf instantly makes you smarter than everyone else because you are 90 years old. Would you care to tell me why elves still follow the same rules as everyone in character creation, and why it is humans who get the extra feats and skill points?
[voice=TomCruise] Just punch the guy in the face, really f%$#ing hard. [/voice]
T
"And who here is a key grip?" love that movie. i carry it around with me everywhere, everyday (ipod).