Help reign in a player who refuses to play his role

Well if he's saying, "it's their time," and refusing to heal them, and you did want to try an in-character solution (contrary to the advice of the several previous posters), you could have the Raven Queen or a higher-up from her come and tell the guy that it is not the rest of the party's time any time soon, and that if he allows them to die when he could have healed them then there is going to be a reckoning.

Of course, I totally agree loresjoberg, but short of that, and if he actually is trying to represent a character, the above could [probably not] work.

~

If not for the additional comments about the player's general dickishness, I would actually defend a halfling paladin that hides from the front ranks.

A dagger throwing, high charisma/high dex halfling paladin can actually make a decent striker if you can allow the divine challenge to do damage.

Sneak does 2d6, average of 7 damage. Damage from Divine Challenge from an 18 Charisma paladin is 7 damage.

However, he'll be acting as a striker and not a defender so is not as useful in that role if that's what the party needs.

TK Lafours said:

Thus, I'll have Wally the crazy religious-nut ranger who claims to be a paladin, observes paladin rights and even wears a holy symbol, but stays in the back and duel wields daggers fairly effectively. The word 'ranger' might never even come out of Wally's mouth and he'll probably get offended if you refer to him as a ranger. On the character sheet, it's going to say 'Ranger' but that's okay, Wally never has to know that.

Click to expand...

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

Tell him to play nice with others and stop disrupting the groups enjoyment/experience. If he wont play nice, tell him to get lost untill he grows up.

your not happy from what i can see with how he is playing, if the other players feel the same way, go buy him a stack of de-hooked shiny fishing lures and just dangle them in front of him to keep him busy as you enjoy your game without him.

You guys need to grow a spine and kick the guy to the side of the curb. It's cold and harsh, but why let yourselves be victims to his childish behavior?

I agree, this is not a game problem, this is a real life problem. He is lashing out at things he has problem with in real life through his in game character. He is hiding behind the "roleplay" excuse because he is a real life coward who can't admit he likes behind a grade a ass. Also, he is getting away with it, because you people keep him around; you are his biggest accomplice.

Don't invite him over to play anymore until he wants to be a team player, because 4E is a team game. If he is truly your friend, he will repent and try and integrate in. If not he will blow up and cause a scene, make death threats etc., which is all the more reason to just kick him out; he seriously sounds like an unstable dude.

People like this have done nothing to deserve to be treated with kid's gloves and hand holding with warm fuzzy hugs. They only learn if you make it clear he is not welcome to your social gaming circle if he just wants to make your games miserable.

Since the OP mentioned rotating DMs, when does your turn come up? Seriously. If none of the other players/DMs will do anything about it, do it yourself. It sounds like the only think he does is basic attack, since alot of paladin stuff is only advantageous in close combat, and even if he did throw a dagger for a big daily power it'd do decent damage if it hit, so he must not be doing even that. Well, that's when you introduce his character to a lurker monster. Hit him with a creature that is honestly better at doing what he wants to do in the game and ensure that everybody else is busy with their own challenge and doesn't have time to bail him out. Defenders are good at what they do, but so are strikers. Use one that moves him around the battlefield, pulling him out of position to get momentary aid, and does great damage. If the lurker is an elite (which would make perfect sense if for some reason it was the boss or sub-boss of the adventure, and served a god that can't stand the Raven Queen, you don't have to work hard to explain the enemy trying to murder him so badly). He should win, but need help from everybody else after the fact. He should also see that if he were truly playing a character to the role he describes his character being, he'd have been better able to handle himself in that impromptu duel.

You could also introduce an NPC who is lawful good and honestly wants to help the party. Useful NPCs get a share of the XP automatically, whether the PCs give them treasure or not. And if the NPC is really good at being a defender, like any Fighter NPC should be, then the PCs won't kick him out of the group to save the Rogueadin's feelings. They will however start to resent that even though they are still getting the same amount of treasure, they are losing XP and someone in the group doesn't seem to be contributing. Despite good intentions most RPG players are still somewhat mercenary. If a DM introduces a crutch that is too good to give up, but it saps XP they will eventually figure out a way to equalize the XP equation. In this case, it should be, hey, we're sorry but we're gonna have to enforce the charter, because you just aren't as useful as 'Sven' and you cost us money too.

Since this thread has been posted twice, I'll post this twice. This has got to be one of the funniest threads that I have ever seen.

Seriously, if this guy was a Rogue, would you all complain about him not using his Lay on Hands on his buddies? The fact that his character likes to use thrown daggers and the Paladin class powers are pigeonholed into melee is irrelevant.

Do you all know what my Paladin is like? He uses Divine Challenge, throws a javelin, and then hides behind his buddy. His entire strategy is to make it hard for enemies to get to him, and when his enemies attack his friend they get a -2 to attack and take 3+Cha Damage because they attacked the friend.

Did the designers plan for the type of Paladin that I like to play? Nope. Is there anything wrong with it? Not at all.

You seriously need to separate how you think a CLASS is supposed to be played from how the player wants to play it. Sticking in the back and using ranged attacks at the enemy is a valid strategy, Rangers do it all the time and if a Paladin wants to do it, more power to him.

Yaezakura said:

Seems to me he just likes making things difficult for everyone else.

The Raven Queen is patient above all else. If it was truly the Paladin's teammate's time to die, there wouldn't be someone with the power to heal them 5 feet away. She wouldn't have granted him the powers of a Paladin if he wasn't meant to use them, to the best of his ability. That includes his prowess on the front lines of combat.

Sounds to me like your DM is being lax by letting him get away with this. While there's no codified set of rules for a Paladin being stripped of power, he's definitely abusing his status as a Paladin, which always carries divine intervention as a side-effect. Either ask your DM to handle the problem in-game, or have all the dissatisfied players band together to remove the player from the group if he doesn't shape up.

Disrupting a game by playing stupidly isn't "good roleplaying". It's being a jerk.

Click to expand...

I have to agree. The person is either deranged and logic-impaired, or intentionally disruptive because he's trying to find a way to "win" at a cooperative game, and even then that sounds somewhat sociopathic.

The thing is that it can't possibly be "their time" to die every time a PC loses hit points in D&D. Not only does it show a fundamental lack of understanding of what hit points represent, it shows a fundamental lack of sanity. Even if hit points did always represente only physical injury it would make no sense: "Oops! You cut yourself! Looks like it's your time!" or "Oh, you broke your leg! Sorry, no cast for you, it's your time!"

Combined with what has been recounted about the other characters he's played, the guy (not the character) sounds like a nutcase.

Bill Bisco said:

Seriously, if this guy was a Rogue, would you all complain about him not using his Lay on Hands on his buddies? The fact that his character likes to use thrown daggers and the Paladin class powers are pigeonholed into melee is irrelevant.

Click to expand...

I suspect if this guy were a rogue, there'd be complaints about him never applying his sneak attack damage. Even internet folk are aware that complaining about people failing to use abilities they don't have is absurd.

Bill Bisco said:

Do you all know what my Paladin is like? He uses Divine Challenge, throws a javelin, and then hides behind his buddy. His entire strategy is to make it hard for enemies to get to him, and when his enemies attack his friend they get a -2 to attack and take 3+Cha Damage because they attacked the friend.

Click to expand...

Yup, that's a reasonable approach. But I don't think we're dealing with a player who's trying to make use of unconventional tactics. Consider this bit from the original post:

epochrpg said:

He...chose daggers as a weapon because they did the least damage...

Click to expand...

If epochrpg isn't assuming the reason here but has actually confirmed it, then we're likely dealing with something other than just a non-standard strategy.

I don't see the problem. If the other players hate what he's doing, rely on them to right things in context of the game. Their characters should ditch the paladin if they don't like his style.