Help! A player wants to play "Captain America"

[Kzach]

Option 2: Let him play a melee Cleric. The flavor text for any ranged spell is he throws his shield, any melee attack he punches with his glove or shield. With this option he needs to learn shield, and needs good ST and Wisdom, just like Cap. His weapon damage could be based off any one-handed weapon, like war-hammer. His Gloves will cost as much as a War-hammer.

This is a great suggestion.

Having said that, players like this are trouble. Someone who's not willing to adapt or accommodate the group is inevitably going to cause conflict. I'd nip it in the bud and tell him it's just not a good idea since it significantly weakens the character and forces everyone else to compensate for him.

If he's not then willing to see his actions as being selfish, then I wouldn't invite him back.

 

[Glak]

This is purely a flavor problem. My halfling chef/sidekick (warlord, rogue multiclass) character wields a large dinner platter. It has the stats of a short sword and light shield.

Captain America needs to wield his fists (pick a weapon) and his shield (a shield). When he throws his shield that returns, he is just throwing a weapon (pick a thrown weapon, magical weapons return on their own, and so could nonmagical). If he picks longsword as his weapon then don't put magical longswords in the campaign; put magical punching gloves in.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

According to WotC, all thrown Magic weapons return to the player's hand. So, a light shield that can be thrown as an improvised weapon would work perfectly here.

 

[Greja]

I suppose it entirely depends how realistic your campaign is... In a low fantasy world I can see a guy having this bizarre fighting style of knocking people down and subduing them with grapples, but I can't see a fist going toe to toe with a sword... I could see a monk with a shield in a medium fantasy world... And in a high fantasy world I dont see a problem if he wants to wear the whole costume while he punches out dragons.

Cleric sounds like a fantastic idea. Inspiring, some serious damages from punching and cool abilities for the Capt America character! Proficiencies work out well too - go for it!

 

[KarinsDad]

I keep seeing posts like this, "one of my players only plays silver dragons.... I only want to play a necromancer with an army of minions, I only want to play a mind-controller... my player will only play if he can be a Tolkein-esque immortal elf..."

What's next? "I will play, but only if I can play a top-hat from Monopoly!"

Yes, the sense of player entitlement by some people is pretty amazing. It has even slipped into the 4E DMG with "ask your players what magic items they want and then give them to them". I'm all for making the game fun, but I'm also for having players earn what they acquire and sometimes, things shouldn't work out exactly how the players envision it should.

 

[theNater]

Depending on how much shield-throwing the player wants to do, multiclassing feats might be very handy. A fighter/ranger or warlord/ranger would be solidly defendery or leadery, respectively, and could start with Twin Strike as an encounter power, pick up Disruptive Strike at 4th, and Spray of Arrows at 10th. Every fight he gets to ricochet his shield off of two guys and smack somebody who's about to clobber a buddy, and when he really needs to he can send the shield around the room hitting all the bad guys.

Edit: Forgot that Warrior of the Wild didn't provide an at-will power once per encounter. Been looking at Arcane Initiate too much, I think.

 

[robertliguori]

Tell him to play Mutants and Masterminds.

I keep seeing posts like this, "one of my players only plays silver dragons.... I only want to play a necromancer with an army of minions, I only want to play a mind-controller... my player will only play if he can be a Tolkein-esque immortal elf..."

What's next? "I will play, but only if I can play a top-hat from Monopoly!"

...Hmm.

I dunno. As a Miniscule object, the top hat has a +12 bonus to attacks and defense. That can be a little unbalanced. I'd worry about a player that was seeking that kind of naked combat advantage in a game that supposed to be about superheroic adventures.


(And yes, you actually can stat up the top hat from monopoly in Mutants and Masterminds as a playable character.)

 

[Wormwood]

I'm all for making the game fun, but I'm also for having players earn what they acquire and sometimes, things shouldn't work out exactly how the players envision it should.

I'm all for making the game fun---even if that means empowering players with more control over their characters.

If a player wants to repurpose 'eldritch blast" as 'Cap's shield', then more power to him; all I care about is making sure the power is balanced (so that encounters don't become either boring or frustrating).

As long as everyone is having fun, in other words.

 

[KarinsDad]

As long as everyone is having fun, in other words.

Precisely. And, that everyone having fun includes everyone, not just the corner case weirdo.

As a fellow player in such a game, I would be saying WT???

Captain freaking America? In a sword and sorcery game? You want to have the DM come up with a bunch of revised rules for that?

Just like as a player, I have in the past said: "WT? Gunpowder? In a sword and sorcery game?"

Some things are just too jarring IMO. If it works for someone else's game, that's fine. Strange, but fine.


But, that doesn't mean that it isn't ok for other players to say "That doesn't sound like fun for the group to me. It sounds stupid. You got thousands of sword and sorcery concepts to play in a S&S game, why don't you pick one?".

The entitlement of one person to have fun over the detriment of the fun of others (which includes their world view of the campaign) is not right. IMO. YMMV.

 

[keterys]

Yeah - I converted one of my games over, and one character was playing a homebrew Dreamblade class (sorta like a psyblade). Anyhow, she's a rogue with some ranged psychic attacks now and it all works out fine.