the Hexer, AWESOME!...oh no I take that back

[pickin_grinnin]

The first time I did something like that made by brain hurt too. D&D strongly suggests to us this notion of mercenary treasure-hunter superheroes; it's very difficult to unlearn that.

Yep. Check the post immediately after yours.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I saw that thread.

I have to say that your description, at least, did not leave me with the impression that your PC pulled his weight. (And I'm the guy who usually gets criticized for my unusual PCs...)

He did. The DM agreed that he did. So did the other players.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

For the proper context:


I'm all for playing the character envisioned in the mind. I like challenging PCs. I play lots of them.

But no magic, no weapons, no armor, no fighting skills?

You're selectively quoting from a fairly long thread where I went into a lot of detail about how the character contributed.

He comes across as a freeloader- why would an adventuring party feed & protect this guy? Why wasn't he a snack for a big nasty predator? This is a PC who verges on being an NPC...of the "always needs rescuing" variety.

To repeat:

He wasn't a freeloader. He fed himself. He didn't take any shares of the treasure or weapons (since he didn't care about those things). Nobody spent time having to protect him or rescuing him. He was quite adept at taking care of himself without the need for combat.

At some point, a challenging PC stops being a challenge to yourself and starts being a burden to the other players at the table. This one may have reached it, and pickin_grinnin knows it.
"The DM understood what I was doing, though the other players didn't. They just sort of tolerated me."

Again, you're just quoting from the very first post in that discussion. The other players didn't understand what I was doing, until they realized that I was doing a whole lot, and that I was valuable to keep around. At no point was he a burden to anyone.

Please go reread the entire thread if you're going to comment on it.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I have not read that particular thread, but generally, at least when reading the forums, I do not gain the impression that "unoptimized" is seen by the majority as a valid way to play the game. Instead combat power is the only or biggest focus of any character. And sadly WotC listens to those people which resulted among other thing in PRCs being turned from classes to represent organizations and other role playing aspects, to pure power boost.

Yes, exactly.

I'm not sure what happened along the way, but in the last decade or so I have encountered more and more players who see rpgs as pen-and-paper video games, where everything is about making the most powerful character, killing the most things, and getting the most stuff. There's no problem with playing that way, but there also seems to be a certain level of hostility (and bizarre defensiveness) towards people who don't play that way. I don't recall encountering quite that much hostility in the 70s, 80s, and 90s in the rpg community.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I have to agree with you on this this character is not only a lame duck but a drain on the party an it sounds like it was DM fiat that it became important. As a player I would have been seething dragging this PC around wasting resources on him while we he contributed nothing to the party.

The game is supposed to about a team of people working together to overcome obstacles. This type of character isx just as bad as munchkin or spot light hog because they are not a team player.

This would sorely test my role playing skills. How do you justify having this dead weight with the party other then the metagame reason that he is player at the table?

As to the original topic some prestige classes are badly written. As a DM I will often change the requirements if I think it makes sense for the character to have this class added.

Have you read the original thread? If not, you need to do so if you are going to make blanket assumptions about that character.

There are many ways to contribute to a campaign that have nothing to do with magic or fighting, particularly if you are playing in a game that isn't just hack-and-slash. I only created that character after I had figured out how to do that, which is why the DM allowed it. I am a creative problem-solver. The character had none of the stereotypical "adventurer" skills, but that doesn't mean he had no skills at all. Farmers have to have a variety of different skills and knowledge sets to do their jobs. He also had a lot of personality quirks that are useful in various situations, if you know how to play them effectively.

The whole point in playing the character was to see if I could do it in a way that made him a valuable party member. If I wasn't able to achieve that, or he became a burden to the party, I would have dropped him.

 

[emanresu]

Why does every PC has to "pull weight" equally anyway?

the quick answer would be experience points and treasure. Most parties divide moneys n loot equally. Experience pts will be forcibly divided w/ most encounters. If a dirt digger aint haulin his weight...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To repeat:

He wasn't a freeloader. He fed himself. He didn't take any shares of the treasure or weapons (since he didn't care about those things). Nobody spent time having to protect him or rescuing him. He was quite adept at taking care of himself without the need for combat.



Again, you're just quoting from the very first post in that discussion. The other players didn't understand what I was doing, until they realized that I was doing a whole lot, and that I was valuable to keep around. At no point was he a burden to anyone.

Please go reread the entire thread if you're going to comment on it.

First and most importantly, if it worked at your table, that's all that matters.

Second, I have read the entire thread (twice) but quoting all of your responses there here would merely clutter up this thread- which is why I made sure I included the "Jump To" prompt when I did quote your initial post. That will let any interested parties read it all and judge for themselves.

Third, IMHO, what you said in that thread did not convince me that your PC was pulling his weight. As I said earlier, that could simply be a communication issue- the unavoidable issue of the Internet Forum- but a PC who- in your own words- had no magic, armor or spells would seem a dead weight in a D&D combat of any kind. IME, even in D&D campaigns where combat is extremely minimized, combat DOES occur, and such a a PC as you described would seem (as critics like Celebrim stated) to require significant DM intercession to survive.

Again, though, as long as everyone in the group had fun, that's cool.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

but a PC who- in your own words- had no magic, armor or spells would seem a dead weight in a D&D combat of any kind. IME, even in D&D campaigns where combat is extremely minimized, combat DOES occur, and such a a PC as you described would seem (as critics like Celebrim stated) to require significant DM intercession to survive.

Is there a problem when a fighter with very low charisma is part of a party that enters into negotiations in a royal court setting? He would be useless in that one type of encounter, but not useless as an overall party member.

I think a lot of commenters are coming at it from this direction:

- that combat is the most important part of a game
- that characters who don't take part in fighting are useless to the party (regardless of their other skills)
- that dirt farmers or peasants are unskilled people

I don't share those assumptions, and have known quite a number of other players and DMs who don't, either. There are many ways of playing and DMing, after all.

I'm not addressing this to you in particular, but what amazes me is how many people on both threads seem to be disdainful of or threatened by the idea of someone playing a very non-standard character. On the previous thread, in particular, they vacillated between ignoring my clarifications to my statements and claiming that I was deluded (or lying). The amount of hostility is amazing. It's like they couldn't even conceive of a D&D game that ran differently than they ones they play that didn't require a lot of DM intercession. I see that as a failure of imagination, or (in some cases) some sort of weird insecure defensiveness.

 

[emanresu]

hey to each his own
whatever floats your boat
what counts is did you have fun with your pc, not if others liked him
my only concern would be there is only a few seats at the table, your dirt farmer coulda been a follower of your actual PC. If he was your pc then exp pts get divided. If your DM doesnt split the exp pts moneys then OK

like I was sayin its what interests you.....that being said sounds a little weird to me probably not my cup o tea

happy digging

eman

 

[pickin_grinnin]

First and most importantly, if it worked at your table, that's all that matters.
<snip>
Again, though, as long as everyone in the group had fun, that's cool.

Yes. Thank you.