Build-wise, what's far too common in the AL?

[Inconnunom]

I'm pretty sure we've all known a couple people who are just objectively bad players, and that has nothing to do with their playstyle...

We had a bad druid for about 10 sessions. I personally tried to help him but after session 3 I gave up, he just wasn't listening or didn't care or something. He argued that druid circle spells were abilities, didn't know what cantrips were (until session 7), didn't know he could shape shift (until session 5 but then forgot again), after he died he came back the next session and was going over his inventory and realized that he had forgotten that he had a shield the whole time....

He spent a couple hundred dollars on MtG cards but didn't personally own a book. (He played every day at the store) After that 10th session, the very inclusive DM took him aside and said "Dude it's totally cool if you want to keep playing.. but you need to either play with the basic free stuff or buy a book and learn some of the rules of the game and the classes that you would like to play". He left and just went back to playing magic.


Oh and he fudged die rolls and lied about how many spell slots he had several times... soooo yea I don't feel bad about him not being there.

 

[Pauper]

I'm pretty sure we've all known a couple people who are just objectively bad players, and that has nothing to do with their playstyle...

'Bad' as in 'bad for the table, unfun', I'll grant you.

'Bad' as in 'unskilled', no. There is no such thing as an unskilled player -- there are only players who don't play the way you'd prefer they play.

--
Pauper

 

[agreenspan]

Case:
Wizard bladesings, dash (double moves) across room to extremely suspicious lone enemy. 2 shadow demons spawn right next to him and attack him more than 3 move actions from the healer. He dropped immediately. Hugged floor entire fight.

 

[Steve_MND]

'Bad' as in 'unskilled', no. There is no such thing as an unskilled player.

I think you are factually and literally incorrect on that assertion, but regardless, we're starting to hijack the thread here, so I'll just agree to disagree on that one.

 

[Pauper]

I'll admit I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but the point is that AL is trying to get those 'low-skill' players into the game, because they are the ones who will grow the hobby. So complaining about them and driving them away from the table is killing the hobby. It amazes me that people are so short-sighted as not to see this.

Guys like the one described in Inconnunom's post just make me shrug my shoulders -- if you're not interested in learning to play the game, why play?

Back to your regularly-scheduled thread.

--
Pauper

 

[Inconnunom]

I'd say I've seen a ton of battlemaster fighters. It is just so good at laying the smack down it seems.

 

[Eltab]

Just for variety, I'm going have my Rogue/Ranger take the "extra shot" option instead of the "extra die of damage" option at Ranger3. I reason that I'll get an additional to-hit roll and therefore an extra chance to employ Sneak Attack.
Now I'm going to have to work through the Weapons Table and see what allows me to get off unlimited shots per turn.

 

[Lejaun]

I fully support humans getting the ability to take a feat. It solves one of the major problems of the game that has been around from the beginning: worlds are almost always human based and other races are much rarer and less numerous. Despite that, every party is an elf, elf, elf, dwarf (or whatever). Human feats have made it so the most common race is actually seen as a PC more frequently.

Plus, being a human gives players a whole new problem that you can use. It would be a shame if that super over-powered human were in a dark cave and his torches got wet...

 

[Lejaun]

The class I see most are rogues, with assassin at level 3. Smiting paladins are pretty frequent in my area too.

 

[jrothwell]

In the last season for the campaign we had an awful lot of druids and various magic users (32 players and that was probably 1/2 of them). Almost no humans. For some reason most of the players do not like playing humans. I got to play in the last campaign and after 34 years, finally had an adventure where playing a Drow made sense so I went crazy with a Drow Nature Cleric of Eilistraee. Truly fun to play in Rage of Demons, attempted to make friends with everything we met.

What I do find more than anything else after participating and now overseeing 4 AL campaigns is that people get character ideas in their heads and insist they play them without any thought to the setting or the other characters in the party. Not that you need a fighter, a healer, a magic user, and a rogue. But rather, will the party members get along. Based on the questions I am getting about character creation for CoS I may be playing in a party with 2 evil necromancers and a deep gnome evil rogue and they are going to be very upset when I let them know that I am not going to play a Life Cleric like they asked me to, instead I will play something that will fit with that grouping.