My Brawler Fighter and how fellow players complain

[MrMyth]

My advice would be to respond along these lines:

"I can understand your concern that throwing a rock at an enemy might seem 'silly' compared to throwing weapons designed for that purpose at them. But keep in mind that Improvised Weapons are supported by the game as an option. Note that while it does do as much damage as a dagger, there is a downside - they lack a proficiency bonus, so it is much harder to hit the enemy in the head. You can chuck a rock at someone, but you are likely to miss - but if you hit them, it will definitely leave a mark! (No pun intended.)

I can understand your concerns, but both the rules and the DM find my actions acceptable and reasonable. Not because I found some loophole to be 'cheesy', either - this is using the rules for improvised weapons precisely as intended. If you feel they break your immersion in the game, I would recommend talking about it with the DM, or sending customer feedback to WotC."

 

[vagabundo]

Hmmm total idiot. I would hate to play in one of his games, probably...

I think you should now build your character around using improvised weaponry.

That should give you the Passive Aggressive Lv2 perk.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Hmmm total idiot. I would hate to play in one of his games, probably...

I think you should now build your character around using improvised weaponry.

That should give you the Passive Aggressive Lv2 perk.

The OP totally needs to ask his DM if he can adapt the Arena fighter build from Dark Sun for this game. Suddenly, everything is an improvised weapon! Yay! And at d8 damage to boot! Huzzah!

 

[Ryujin]

Hmmm total idiot. I would hate to play in one of his games, probably...

I think you should now build your character around using improvised weaponry.

That should give you the Passive Aggressive Lv2 perk.

He should MC as a Barbarian, take the "Improvised Missile" feat, Belt of the Brawler, and Giantkind Gloves, then forever after walk into every combat without a single weapon on him.

 

[S'mon]

The OP is right, everyone else in this topic is right...

Is this a first in the history of EN World?!

 

[vagabundo]

The OP totally needs to ask his DM if he can adapt the Arena fighter build from Dark Sun for this game. Suddenly, everything is an improvised weapon! Yay! And at d8 damage to boot! Huzzah!

He should MC as a Barbarian, take the "Improvised Missile" feat, Belt of the Brawler, and Giantkind Gloves, then forever after walk into every combat without a single weapon on him.

I like the idea of a bad-ass, ripping up bits of the scenery and bashing the bad guys with it: rocks, chairs, flag poles, bowls, rope, cacti, branches; every tavern brawl would be a massacre!

Actually reminds me of Jet Li in Romeo Must Die. I like the character concept.

 

[Ryujin]

I like the idea of a bad-ass, ripping up bits of the scenery and bashing the bad guys with it: rocks, chairs, flag poles, bowls, rope, cacti, branches; every tavern brawl would be a massacre!

Actually reminds me of Jet Li in Romeo Must Die. I like the character concept.

While that's not a bad example, I was thinking of two different ones. The first would be any action movie starring a 'professional wrestler', where he starts bashing the crap out of people with chairs, tables, opponents.... The second would be the way that Jackie Chan seems to always involve the scenery in his defences, and attacks; fridge door to the face, parry with chair, reposte with lamp...

 

[Bagpuss]

As a DM, I would have been hooting and saying "awesome". I mean, I'd ask a quick look up, and be on our merry way. I like when players try to do thing not implicitly stated by the rules or quite frankly, implicitly stated in the rules.

Good man, using rocks to mark people. You should from now on, carry a bag of pebbles.

IMHO that would be cheese. To Mark something you at least have to appear a threat in my opinion, throwing a pebble is hardly going to do that but hefting a rock is.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

As I stated in one of my exp points comments, ask the other player if he's ever heard of the term "stoning" this is a real thing and I quote: "Stoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject. This is in contrast to the case of a judicial executioner. Stoning is slower than other forms of execution, and hence is a form of execution by torture."

Then ask him, if he'd like to go out back and you can toss some stones at him and see if it's cheesy and if it hurts.

I agree with the posts previously with how stupid this player is being comparing a tossed 1d4 RAW rock to a frickin BATTLEAXE? Are you kidding me? The sling uses a stone as a few posters have mentioned and that isn't cheesy (makes me wonder if he'd allow a halfling that used a sling in his own campaign), the comparison of the tossed rock to a Battleaxe is the ONLY cheese here and you can take that to the bank.

If I were you I'd straighten this guy out real quick with some irrefutable facts as stated in the posts by your fellow EnWorlders, from my post with actual proof of stoning killing actual people to RAW for rocks to how dumb it is even to suggest a rock does comparable damage to a battleaxe. He's in the wrong, point him here to this forum and these posts and he can see how utterly misinformed he is.

I'm still SMH after reading this thread.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm trying to recall when I've seen something more wrong on the subject of DMing and 4e than the fellow DM listed. [Edit: I take it back. There's always Dark Dungeons and FATAL.] I think there's something completely and monumentally wrong on one line in two, and as such the e-mail best serves as a warning to others.

(Quotes from other player's e-mail)
""No, of course not, because those are weapons that are meant to be used as such.

I know you were just following what the compendium says - the rules have nothing to do with my point. My point is that you were throwing a rock expecting the same results as you would get with a dagger.

You were expecting a rock to be a dagger? False. You were expecting to do something with a rock. But there's about the difference in level of effectiveness between a rock and a dagger as between a dagger and a greatsword (seriously, +3 to hit is a lot - next time carry throwing daggers or javelins).

You were intentionally being silly at the expense of Mike's campaign world.

So you should have done nothing and just sat still and waited rather than tried to help your party out. Oh, wait. That would be silly. Doing what you can to get the bad guys when in combat is, what's the word? Ah, yes. Practical.

He spent a lot of time planning and trying to set a theme and you interrupted everyone's immersion in that world by doing something that the rules don't say you can't do.

Correction. He went and did something that the rules say you can do. Explicitely. And give stats for - and make a poor option.

That is the definition of cheese.

No it isn't in any gaming group I've ever been in. Cheese is choosing ridiculously overpowered options. Not underpowered improvisations.

If it had been my game I would have said that's cheese and it's not allowed and we would have moved on.

I'm very glad I'm not in your gaming group. I like improvising and I love it when I'm DMing and my players do something unexpected.

But you put Mike in a bad position because he was focused on getting his story across and making sure we were seeing all the cues and hints to keep the interaction moving.

And now I'm very glad I'm not in your gaming group. DMs who are focussed on the story they want to tell and want the PCs to not interfere with it are terrible DMs.

The reason I'm upset is because we had to bring the game to a screeching halt to look up a rule to see if you could actually deal damage with a thrown rock, when we all know you can't.

Who's this "We"? Because most of us who know the rules know that you can - it just isn't very effective (it doesn't get a proficiency bonus to hit).

Not because the rules don't say you can't

The rules say you can.

but because we all know it's cheesy.

You keep using that word. I do not think it meanswhat you think it means.

However, this is Mike's game and I will defer to whatever he decides. I just felt insulted as a DM and I had to say something.""

And as a DM, I feel insulted by the pile of twaddle there.

And from Lo-Kag.
I just don't understand why he's having such a problem with this. I was having fun playing my character. And I was laughing from the fact that I could mark from across the field.

Just a word of warning. "I'm only playing my character" is a red-flag defence. It's normally used by jackasses to defend robbing the rest of the party and other such antisocial behaviour. That wasn't what happened here but it's not a good defence.