Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Johnny_Angel Apr 22, 2010 6:10:09	The current character that I'm playing has turned out to be far less interesting to play than I imagined he would be.  However, he's pretty heavily tied to the storyline which is going on right now.  I know the DM has worked pretty hard on the story, and I enjoy the story, so I don't want to ruin it. Should I just tough it out and suck it up until I can find a plausible storyline reason for my current character to go away?
#2 pluisjen Apr 22, 2010 7:11:56	Why is your character not interesting? Perhaps you can change the not so interesting parts. It's never fun to just sit and suck it up, you should do something about it.
#3 Shiftkitty Apr 22, 2010 8:59:33	Aye, post your PC and what you find so uninteresting about him. Perhaps there are some aspects you didn't catch.
#4 Ranko Apr 22, 2010 9:21:05	Agreed. Tell us what you have so we know where to point our advice at.
#5 LordOfWeasels Apr 22, 2010 9:42:20	The current character that I'm playing has turned out to be far less interesting to play than I imagined he would be.  However, he's pretty heavily tied to the storyline which is going on right now.  I know the DM has worked pretty hard on the story, and I enjoy the story, so I don't want to ruin it. Should I just tough it out and suck it up until I can find a plausible storyline reason for my current character to go away? Are you bored MECHANICALLY?  Then ask the GM for permission to keep the same backstory and personality and change your mechanics. Are you bored ROLEPLAYINGWISE?  Then ask your GM for permission to do a complete personality overhaul.
#6 skibo_the_first Apr 22, 2010 11:58:53	Have a frank talk with the DM, see if you can replace your character with another without ruining the story too much. There may be no real conflict here if you and the DM can come up with a solution that keeps the story intact and allows you to play a diffrent character. You can also ask the DM to rework your character to make him/her funner to play. THe fun of all players should take precident over everything else. The DM should understand.
#7 chanter_hound Apr 22, 2010 12:13:34	You could also get your character killed off. That usually allows you to play a new character.
#8 Johnny_Angel Apr 22, 2010 18:56:18	Right now I'm playing a Bard, but he's set up to be more of a Rogue than a bard.  In my head, I was thinking of him as something of a Robin Hood type personality, but using daggers instead of a bow. I guess the main problem is that I don't feel like I fit into the party composition very well.  so.. I suppose that's a mechanical issue.  My character is awesome when it comes to out of combat skills, but I often feel as though that doesn't really help the party any.  During most encounters I'm not sure if it would really matter if my character just wasn't there.  The rest of the party consists of a Psion, ranged Cleric, Fighter, Avenger, and sometimes a Warlord if that player shows up.  I'm having trouble finding my place in the party; as it stands my main purpose is that I can often sneak up on the enemy (good stealth) to give us a little bit of surprise. Bard MC Rogue/Jack of All Trades Paragon Path
#9 andus_t Apr 22, 2010 21:36:57	So it seems you're specifically bored with combat w/r/t your char. sooo.... have fun boyo!  It can be both the best way to make combats interesting and to elicit a good laugh, or to die, or both! Go Crazy! In this Wednesday's D&D Encounter session our party was murdelizing the mobs and my haughty Invoker (after smashing 3 of them with a blast and realizing they were psychic vulnerable) decided that they're minds were too weak for him to employ his magnificent powers upon, and so, with his 8 STR, he attempted to bullrush one mob into a hole, one mob into an iron maiden (failing miserably on both) and ended up taking OAs just so he could shuffle back 5 paces and charge 5 more--covering as much room space as possible for some Benny Hill--because "These feeble beasts are undeserving of the powers of my mind, so I shall skewer them with the tip of my blade!"(along with some innuendo, of course).  Fighting optimally, I would've just used my at-wills and "Bloody Visioned" them to death and been one more tactically effective but bland-as-Anne (yes Arrested Dev.) PC, but for me, when the DM blurts "what the ****?" while still seeming encouraging my day is made.  And then, when the other PCs start assisting in your shenanigans (a Paladin willing to get into flanking position not to attack but to push the enemy, because I've positioned myself behind him in a crouching position: Pally pushes, mob falls down over me, we laugh at the sucker mob) it's all been worth it.  Of course these were flying or floating creatures so the attempted "elevator" ended up just sending the mob floating over me, but that was just part of the fun! So I say go all out.  Embrace your character in a way that none would expect and run with it... or you could always write some more backstory that interests you.  There's always room for more backstory.
#10 warrl Apr 23, 2010 0:09:45	Right now I'm playing a Bard ... The rest of the party consists of a Psion, ranged Cleric, Fighter, Avenger, and sometimes a Warlord if that player shows up. Aha, I think I see the problem. Your Bard: leader, melee or short range, MC rogue Psion: controller, ranged Cleric: leader, ranged Fighter: defender, melee Avenger: striker, melee Warlord: leader, probably melee A party of five doesn't need two primary leaders, and probably can't even find a good use for them unless they are designed to complement each other. A party of six with three leaders is the same only more so. (It can still work, but it's harder.) Your party could use more striker capability. Perhaps you could switch to pure rogue? Or if dropping Bard would be a big loss story-wise, go hybrid bard|rogue and emphasize the striker side more?
#11 Johnny_Angel Apr 23, 2010 0:45:26	Right now I'm playing a Bard ... The rest of the party consists of a Psion, ranged Cleric, Fighter, Avenger, and sometimes a Warlord if that player shows up. Aha, I think I see the problem. Your Bard: leader, melee or short range, MC rogue Psion: controller, ranged Cleric: leader, ranged Fighter: defender, melee Avenger: striker, melee Warlord: leader, probably melee A party of five doesn't need two primary leaders, and probably can't even find a good use for them unless they are designed to complement each other. A party of six with three leaders is the same only more so. (It can still work, but it's harder.) Your party could use more striker capability. Perhaps you could switch to pure rogue? Or if dropping Bard would be a big loss story-wise, go hybrid bard|rogue and emphasize the striker side more? I forgot one... we also have a Monk in the party.  I'm not entirely sure what his build is, but he seems somewhat defendery sometimes.  The guy playing the Cleric was playing a Psion (we had two psions) before making his new character. Right now I'm actually pretty focused on the Rogue side.  I just don't feel like (as I side) I fit into the party.  A lot of my bard powers focus on controlling the actions of the enemy (via domination and such,) but the enemy usually dies before any of this really matters, so I usually end up using my at-wills most of the time because the added effects that a lot of my encounters and dailies give me don't really matter or do much of anything to enhance the party.  I semi-jokingly said to one of the players last week,"You think anybody would notice if I went the whole night without rolling any dice?" I think something which makes the 'problem' seem worse is watching the warlord.  I guess maybe it's a little bit of character nostalgia; I used to play warlords quite a bit.  In contrast to my character; feeling like I don't contribute to the party, there's very rarely a situation where he (and my own previous characters) doesn't have something to do.  He can heal and lead; fight in the front line if needed; use buffs from the back if he can't get to the front in time to do anything. Right now, to keep myself interested in the character, I've been creating meta-game challenges for myself by seeing how much I can multiclass with the purpose being to count as being a member of as many classes as possible by level 30.  I've also considered taking the Epic Destiny which allows you to start counting as different races.  The end goal being to count as as many different races and classes as possible.
#12 kouk Apr 23, 2010 4:26:21	If you try to do everything, you end up doing a whole lot of nothing instead. And your metagame goal appears to be to dilute your character as much as possible. You can't out-heal a ranged Cleric. You can't out-maneuverize a (Tactical) Warlord. I don't really know Psions too well but you're probably not out-controlling him. You're not out-damaging anybody, and you're certainly not tanking. Avengers are sub Controller, Fighters can function very much like sub Controllers, ranged Clerics function in a lot of ways like Controllers because Leader and Controller can be a vague barrier, and your Psion is in some capacity being a Controller. So your character's attempts to "control enemies" is that much less noticeable in such a crowd. So, as pretty much is normal, Bards are "5th Wheel" characters when you already have a Leader in the group. If monsters die too fast for you to do anything, your DM needs to hear that. The DM has to make encounters for the whole party and it should be fairly easy to make encounters that give your guy something to do -- though again, all of your talents are replicated and outdone by other PCs, aside from probably talking. If your campaign isn't set up to emphasize skills, your skill monkey is practically meaningless right? That's also something the DM should hear about so he/she can rectify that some, if that's what you wanted from your character. Avengers can sometimes be sub Defender. I don't know what kind of Monk you have, but you say he's like a Defender. Fighters are the ultimate Defenders. Warlords in melee are like sub defenders. Your group has tons of redundancies, and your character is a mass of redundancy added on top. What they probably don't have is a guy good with Thievery though, aside from you. But without traps all over, you've got no purpose. I suspect though, depending on builds, they might not be all super-ultimate at direct damage? I would suggest changing your character to a Rogue who multiclasses as a Bard, instead of the other way around. If you go Artful Dodger Rogue, or one of the other things, you can retain Control aspects -- but this time they will also hurt the enemies. A CHA Rogue would also retain good social skills. Granted, Monks and Avengers are both Strikers, but Avengers at least are usually kind of low-damage. And as a main Rogue, your daggers would actually do some damage.
#13 Psikerlord Apr 27, 2010 7:16:20	Looking at your party, you're missing a wizard. No-one does cool utilities and dailies like a wizard, especially one with a flavourful familiar. Maybe train out of rogue and go wizard instead? Summon creatures and bad ass clouds of poison. Fly. Send your dragonling out to scout ahead. Lots of fun to be had as MC wizard. And you can still keep thievery for your rogue antics. And rituals - which you can do already as a bard - get your party to make a "ritual fund" and stack up on every interesting ritual you can get - and there are lots of great rituals, with more being added all the time. If all else fails - as has already been suggested, get him killed off.
#14 excession2 Apr 27, 2010 23:29:15	Right now I'm playing a Bard, but he's set up to be more of a Rogue than a bard.  In my head, I was thinking of him as something of a Robin Hood type personality, but using daggers instead of a bow. I guess the main problem is that I don't feel like I fit into the party composition very well.  so.. I suppose that's a mechanical issue.  My character is awesome when it comes to out of combat skills, but I often feel as though that doesn't really help the party any.  During most encounters I'm not sure if it would really matter if my character just wasn't there.  The rest of the party consists of a Psion, ranged Cleric, Fighter, Avenger, and sometimes a Warlord if that player shows up.  I'm having trouble finding my place in the party; as it stands my main purpose is that I can often sneak up on the enemy (good stealth) to give us a little bit of surprise. Bard MC Rogue/Jack of All Trades Paragon Path TBH I'm having a hard time seeing how a dagger-using sneaky bard could be effective in combat. If you post your build I could nit-pick it for you. Given a party of Psion, ranged Cleric, Fighter, Avenger, Monk, and Warlord, your new game is to build a character that can be useful to the party in and out of combat. Given that party you're probably short on defenders and/or strikers. Probably strikers as the Avenger, Monk, and Warlord can at least get in the way of stuff even if they're not built as part defender. Out of combat, the Monk will beat any Bard and some Rogues on sneaky, if only because of the higher Wisdom and perception. Is the Cleric the party "face"? A Bard can be better at that but it depends. I wonder if a Sorcerer would fit in better. You'd have the Cha/Dex stats still so you could keep your personality intact. You'd even still be using daggers, and you could MC rogue or bard if that's an integral part. If nothing else keeping track of all the random effects of a Chaos Sorc will give you something to do. Even if the Cleric is the party face, you can be the lying/scaring/streetsmart guy, and do the stuff that any good Cleric would have moral issues with. Robin Hood may have been a hero, but he doesn't have to be nice all the time. If you do want to go Sorc, focus your feats and powers on damage. Let the rest of the party stand in the front lines and get in the enemies way, or apply status effects to control stuff, you just need to hand out copious amounts of fire. Feats like Dual Implement Spellcaster, Weapon Focus, Sneak of Shadows for grabbing a sneak attack from a spell. Maybe grab a familiar for a flavour feat. There will be handbooks for building sorcs over in CharOp, or ask here and I can build something to start from.
#15 lordfeint Apr 28, 2010 23:12:14	At this stage of the game I'd have a private chat with the DM and see if you could get the PC sidelined for a few sessions and let you sub in a PC that fills both your want to have a PC that is fun and the Parties need for a PC fits better into the group. This will give you the time to try out something new and see if you really want to abandon the Bard forever, while giving the DM a chance to figure out what to do with him.
#16 lionlemur May 01, 2010 17:10:25	At this stage of the game I'd have a private chat with the DM and see if you could get the PC sidelined for a few sessions and let you sub in a PC that fills both your want to have a PC that is fun and the Parties need for a PC fits better into the group. This will give you the time to try out something new and see if you really want to abandon the Bard forever, while giving the DM a chance to figure out what to do with him. Excellent advice here, re trying out a couple new classes. IMO you're best going with either full Rogue, or Wiz or Sorc, slots which your party is definitely missing.  I'd recommend talking to the DM regarding what class he feels would be most helpful for the party, also.  For instance, is the DM keeping the game trap-light because he doesn't like doing traps, or because he knows the party doesn't have a rogue to deal with them?  My guess, probably the later.
#17 Johnny_Angel May 09, 2010 9:16:38	I've been sticking with the character.  After retooling a few things, it seems to be a little better, but I have noticed a few things. With a large party, there doesn't seem to be much need for a skill monkey in 4E; although I have a lot of skills I'm awesome at, there's typically somebody in the party who also has the needed skill.  Also, there rarely seems to be a reason to need my skills to be jacked as high as they are.  Once or twice it has been nice to get the +5 bonus to a skill after using an action point (JoAT ability,) but I really don't think I would have missed having that had I just went full paragon multiclass or chosen a different option. Although we do lack a wizard, we really don't notice at all.  The monk, fighter, and cleric are all three pretty good at taking out minions.  The Warlord is also a Dragonborn, so our ability to control is pretty good.  There's also the Psion. Defender-wise, while we do only have one, this is also an area where we seem to be pretty good.  Fighters (IMO) are probably the stickiest defender to get around, so that's a good base already.  You then have the warlord who makes a fairly decent sub-defender when needed.  While the monk isn't a defender, he has enough status effects he can dish out while on the front line that he has pretty good synergy with the fighter.  Striker-wise... The fighter can perform in this role nearly as well as he can defend, and we also have the avenger and the monk, so no problems there at all. The GM does a really good job when it comes to variety.  That's not a problem at all.  As I said, I enjoy the overall game and storyline itself.  Sometimes I'm just not quite sure what to do with my character. I think my problem might be that I didn't make enough of an effort to optimize, and, instead, I made a few choices based on what I felt was right fluff-wise.  I didn't expect there to be so much of a difference (even considering some of my complaints about certain 4E feats elsewhere) between my ability and that of the rest of the party.  One area where I do shine is stealth; contrary to what had been thought based on previous responses, I beat the pants off of the monk when it comes to stealth.  I have a rat familiar, so that helps even more.  Typically, my main use is to scout and either let the party know what we're going up against before they move up with me or to help the party get a surprise round in.  The second main area where I shine is making magic items, and this is something I've started doing as a way to enjoy the character a bit more.  After we kill creatures, I'll take parts of them (i.e. bone, metal strips, whatever) and use the raw materials to create magic items.  Twice per day I can perform a ritual for free as a bard, so I churn out two magic items per day.  I'm currently in the process of making a set of War Rings for the party. Contemplating Rituals a bit more, I'm now torn on what Epic Destiny I'd like to take.  I can't remember the name of it, but there's one which allows you to (I think twice per day) perform any ritual you know as a standard action.  Being able to instantly craft an item or throw up a magic circle mid-combat seems like it would be interesting.  "Nice wand Orcus... Disenchant Magic Item for you!"  "Wait, the creature is immune to your flaming axe?  Hold on, I think I have a frost axe in my bag here somewhere."
#18 kouk May 09, 2010 18:50:12	I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Bards can cast 2 Bard rituals for free a day, not 2 of *any* ritual. No free item creation. Unless your DM agrees to it that is. If you could change a few things about your character to "optimize" it more, what would those be? Most DMs will allow you to change your character at least in small ways if you're not having fun, or allow some kind of accelerated retraining (two things a level for instance). If your skills are through the roof, ask the DM if he could find a use for those to be beneficial beyond the minimum requirements to succeed. Things like "critical successes" if you beat a DC by more than 10, to count as 2 successes in a skill challenge, or some other kind of small benefits. You don't want the DCs to all be jacked up to your levels necessarily because the other PCs wouldn't be able to contribute, and sometimes you'll just roll poorly, so just little "bonuses" for super-high scores would work well.
#19 LordOfWeasels May 09, 2010 20:06:23	The second main area where I shine is making magic items, and this is something I've started doing as a way to enjoy the character a bit more.  After we kill creatures, I'll take parts of them (i.e. bone, metal strips, whatever) and use the raw materials to create magic items.  Twice per day I can perform a ritual for free as a bard, so I churn out two magic items per day.  I'm currently in the process of making a set of War Rings for the party. .... you know you can't *make magic items* for free, right? Bards get *BARD* rituals for free.  Enchant Magic Item isn't a Bard ritual.  It's a general ritual that Bards can cast. Contemplating Rituals a bit more, I'm now torn on what Epic Destiny I'd like to take.  I can't remember the name of it, but there's one which allows you to (I think twice per day) perform any ritual you know as a standard action.  Being able to instantly craft an item or throw up a magic circle mid-combat seems like it would be interesting.  "Nice wand Orcus... Disenchant Magic Item for you!"  "Wait, the creature is immune to your flaming axe?  Hold on, I think I have a frost axe in my bag here somewhere." Even with that ED, you can't throw Magic Circle mid-combat (the preparation of the Circle is completely separate from the casting time of the ritual) and you can't throw Rituals that target specific creatures, and you can't break the normal rules on rituals (so you can't disenchant an item of higher level than yourself, or an Artifact), but it's still a neat L30 trick.
#20 Johnny_Angel May 09, 2010 21:28:25	I had actually forgotten about only being able to do Bard Rituals for free.  That's a mistake I was making.  I'll have to talk to the DM about it see what he wants to do.  I've made a few items already, but nothing too crazy yet, so I think he'll cut me some slack with what I've already created as long as I play it the right way from here. It still seems like a neat trick to be able to cast rituals as a standard action though.  Still, now that I realize it will be a bit more costly than I was thinking, the ED which lets me start counting as different races is back in the running. I'm really not sure what to do to optimize my character more.  At the moment, I'm just a bit shocked in the difference between my power level and that of most of the other characters.  I expected some amount of difference, but I really thought that with the way 4E is set up  that it wouldn't be very noticeable.  Like I said, I think where I fudged up was trying to focus a little more on out of combat utility; that really seems to have hurt my ability to contribute to a 4E party the way the system seems to assume you should be able to.  I'm not saying that as a slight against 4E; only reporting how the character has worked out.  I need to give some thought about what I want to do.
#21 kouk May 09, 2010 22:56:53	It's also possible some of your teammates are using rules incorrectly, or have chosen all "overpowered" options, or may not realize some things have been erratad.
#22 Johnny_Angel May 10, 2010 2:15:19	I know there's at least some of the errata we don't use, but I'm pretty sure that's not an issue.  A lot of the issues which have cropped up for other people in their games hasn't really been an issue when we play; we play pretty regularly.  Thinking about it some more, I think I need to rephrase what I said previously.  I don't think giving more attention to out of combat options is exactly where I went wrong; it is, but the real issue is that I gave less attention to dpr than I typically do.  The only other thing which sticks out is the avenger seems to have pretty high defenses, but, as I understand it, that's a result of some of their class features. I am going to stick with the character.  Like I said, I have retooled a few things, and it seems to have helped.  I traded out a few powers and retrained a few things when we leveled up last session.  I'm going to try playing the character a little differently than I have been.  If nothing else, playing the character is serving as a learning experience for me, and I'm learning things about the system that I hadn't really noticed before.  A lot of these lessons will go into building future characters. The other thing I realized -and I think someone else alluded to this already- is that, since I don't need to really directly help out with any particular role in our party, I have a lot of freedom to do whatever I want during encounters and during power selection.  This allows me to try using powers and abilities in different ways than I may have otherwise considered using them.
#23 kouk May 10, 2010 22:27:58	DPR isn't really something a Bard would focus on in any event. But the other players would love abilities like Guiding Strike and Blunder; their damage is then attributable to you, so it's kind of yours too.
#24 fictionfan May 18, 2010 0:35:36	I don't know what kind of bard you are playing, but I loved unluck, cunning ferocity(spelled wrong) and glimes of the future.  I also realy liked being able to do everything.  Just keep in mind when a teammate does more damage because of you or hits bercause of you that is your damage.
#25 lysiander May 28, 2010 3:11:18	The Problem I see is, you don't seem to play to the bards strengths nor do you seem to play to your parties'. With the right build, Bards can be excellent 'out of round' characters, moving all or most of your actions to immediate interupts/immediate reactions, which would allow you to always contribute. Bards are also very good at changing dice results, through unluck, Rhyme of the Blood Seeking Blade, Mask of Menace, Sharp Retord etc. (Quite a few bard powers do both actually) You did not mention your virtue, but Im guessing it's Valor, since you would have mentioned the others. Have a look at the cunning virtue and the Advanatge of Cunning, Improved Cunning Features. That combination alone makes having a Bard in the Party worthwile and noticable, especially if you have a decent defender in the party, because monsters are going to miss. (Might want to look at psychic lock as well.) Presuming your DM allows you to change the mechanics, there are several things you can do, without sacrificing too much of the original framework: 1. Ditch the Rogue, pick something worthwhile instead. Since you took a rogue PP, I'm guessing you have a high DEX, which gives you nothing as a bard. Pick MCs that actually contribute. You liked playing a Warlords, MCing Warlord is actually one of the best things a Bard can do. And the thing about warlords is that they stack big time. As long as you have a sufficient amount of Meele's around (Which seems to be your case), more Warlords mean only more Power. 2. Rethink your choice of weapons. You use Daggers for Range right now, investing a Feat into the Drow Longknife will give you a better Ranged and Meele weapon in one. Arcane Implement Proficiency will make that the last weapon you will ever need.Or just pick up a Longbow and stay out of Meele. 3. Simply rebuild the character from the ground up as a Ranger, but keep the theme of Skillmonkey/Robin Hood by MCing into Bard and Picking up Jack/Bard of all Trades. This will make all your untrained skills +2/+3, giving you ample room to be good at them. You will lose a lot of 'face' quality, but you will gain the combat quality you seem to crave. If you wish to keep the versatility, I suggest you have a look at the Android Explorer PP, Possibly with the Eternal Seeker ED, provided you are a human or half elf. (In the later case, your build would be interesting.)
#26 uberlock Sep 01, 2012 18:28:00	The current character that I'm playing has turned out to be far less interesting to play than I imagined he would be.  However, he's pretty heavily tied to the storyline which is going on right now.  I know the DM has worked pretty hard on the story, and I enjoy the story, so I don't want to ruin it. Should I just tough it out and suck it up until I can find a plausible storyline reason for my current character to go away? yes
#27 CorranHornIsAwesome Sep 02, 2012 19:04:30	The current character that I'm playing has turned out to be far less interesting to play than I imagined he would be.  However, he's pretty heavily tied to the storyline which is going on right now.  I know the DM has worked pretty hard on the story, and I enjoy the story, so I don't want to ruin it. Should I just tough it out and suck it up until I can find a plausible storyline reason for my current character to go away? yes You bumped a 2 year old thread for that?