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#1 monkeygentleman Oct 28, 2011 13:36:34

My DM only recently started playing 4E, less than a year, and is already too conservative for anything outside of the core rulebooks, much less Mordenkainen's or the new Dragon articles. I have the sense to prioritize accuracy, 20 in main stat, expertise, superior weapon/implement, he gets frustrated when I rarely miss. I have weapon focus, a high [W] weapon, bracers of the mighty striking, and he complains he has to make enemies too powerful to survive a decent battle (including regeneration, which frustrates ME because I'm forced to whittle away at their hitpoints for endless rounds). I play a Knight, just the description of Defender's Aura makes him shake his head and say my character is too overpowered, never mind when I team up with the Wizard with Hypnosis to force-trigger the aura punishment. He's already sworn to outlaw anything Essentials or later, saying they've broken the game and are too powerful, especially when played alongside non-essentials characters. Pack Outcast theme? Bans it for the level 5 feature, saying "the combat advantage is waaaaaaaaaaay too over powered. There's no reason why a rogue wouldn't just take that theme so he could ALWAYS apply sneak damage." Hybrid Executioner? Bans it because double-dipping striker features with Warlock's Curse is too powerful. New Fey Beast Tamer theme? I'm all excited about finally riding a displacer beast, he bans it because, and I quote, "I'm tired of this over powered crap! And it gains +1 defenses EVERY LEVEL?! NO!" I spend half of our emails just trying to justify the basics of optimization, or explaining why it's not game breaking to have a 60% chance of hitting an enemy. It's getting to the point the only thing I'll have left to build is a PHB1 fighter. With no polearm momentum! I understand you have to be sensitive to your group's dynamics and optimization level, but even my teammates are running into problems when I suggest maybe the shaman should invest in chainmail proficiency so he's not such a sitting duck. I'm not even trying to bring me level 2 permastealth rogue to the table. Aside from this, he's a fantastic DM. Richly detailed worlds, involved plots, memorable NPCs, engaging combat with interactive terrain and intelligent strategies. He's a joy to play with. I'm just getting frustrated because he's completely shutting down the really interesting character building options. How do I get him to keep an open mind? Or should I just leave my character building in CharOp and play vanilla, non-hybrid, only-hit-on-a-13 builds?