When you want to strangle a player

[Herobizkit]

If there is a psychological or stress-related reason why your player flew off the handle at an in-game disagreement with the DM, that is beyond your ability to adjudicate -- other than possibly hearing his grievances and assuring him that, while what you did was warranted in that particular case, it won't be a common occurrence. The above poster who quoted the example of a biker is pretty much what happened in character as far as I can tell... and while PC's are expected to be the heroes and be the ones to intervene in everything, social situations are a little harsher if dealing with dice alone, and hardly "heroic".

If I were the PC, I would have immediately tried a Bluff check to lie about something relevant to the NPCs to get their attention, and if that worked, I would hope that the DM would give me a retry on the Diplomacy check. The Cleric rolling better than the Bard on his check due to less harsher penalties is mechanically the same as having a Warrior and a Mage rolling an attack, the Warrior missing (perhaps due to the opponent having higher ground), and the Mage hitting (because he's on the same ground as the opponent). It's an awkward sentence, but I hope you get the idea.

Generally, if I was concerned that my character was becoming sub-optimal for the campaign, I'd optimize by multi-classing; YMMV. Since your player is playing a Bard (and probably won't want to multi-class), I'd strongly suggest the Chameleon prestige class; he could be whatever class is needed for the day.

 

[Elf Witch]

A couple of other points made from people about his situation.

I feel very sorry for him he is a great friend. He never drives to the game and both my roommate and I try and help out with the driving issues with his wife. My roommate takes her shopping on the weekends and I rescheduled my nail appointment to be right before hers so I can pick her up.

We have another friend who helps with driving her to her eye appointments if they don't fall on a day her husband is off. He works every other weekend so he does get weekdays off.

I have spent a lot of time being a listener to his problems.

All of us have bent over backwards to deal with his crankiness at the table including his wife who is really going through hell. She the one going blind she is facing losing all her hobbies she has painted minis since the early 80s she does needlework and other crafts she is facing losing everything she loves.

She was having issues with her first character so we talked and she switched to a sorcerer.

I have talked to the player of the bard. I have given him magic items. The party is third level and his wealth levels are higher than anyone else in the game. He has the only magic weapon so far in the game. He has several wands.

He does not want to summon monsters to help he sees himself as swashbuckler to help him with that I gave him gloves of dex.

One of the issues is the way he built his character he rolled some great scores but he had one 8. In my game after you roll you roll a d4 and you can add that roll to any stat either all of the roll are split. He rolled a 4. Instead of bringing that 8 up to at least a 10 he choose to use it elsewhere and then to compund matters he put that 8 in con.

I and everyone else at the table tried to talk him out of that move pointing out that an 8 in con was going to hurt his hit points and that was not a good idea if he wanted to actually get into melee.

As for his skill points he won't listen to any advice from me. I have offered several times to let him redo his skills and put more into things like diplomacy, disguise two areas he likes to use a lot. He has put a lot of skill ponts into cross class skills like forgery, ride, handle animal and he has put some skill points in almost every knowledge skill.

It is like he is deliberately shooting himself in the foot with his choices and he won't listen to me when I try and give advice on how to make the character more stronger. Instead he blames the system for not allowing him to design the character exactly like he wants. I swear if I hear one more time how the hero system would let him do this I will scream.

As I have told him several times I am a novice DM I don't feel comfortable running a system I don't own and have only ever played once and that was in 1987.

This is my first game as a DM and I want everyone to have fun so I have tried to patch his problems with magic items. This has lead to two problems one his wealth levels are to high and the rest of the players are starting to get a little resentful over this so to be fair I should bring their wealth levels up to his but then I feel as if the game is getting away from me.

I don't want to kick him out of the game he says it is his one escape and I don't want to cause his wife anymore unhappiness by making her lose the game. She loves the game. We play every other saturday and she writes four and five page character journals after each game. She has told me that when she talks to her husband he says he loves the world and his character but then he goes into how much he hates the mechanics of his character.

To be very honest I don't see a solution to this.

I can't deal with the phone calls and emails from him that I deal with after every game. It is really starting to suck the fun out the game for me not to mention playing havoc with my self confidence.

I am not going to switch to the hero system and he has got to accept that. I have suggested putting my game on hold and letting him run a hero system game so that I could learn the system and so could the other two players. He said he didn't have time.

If I kick him out I am afraid of what it will do to our friendship he is very moody right now and if he is kicked out then I punish his wife who just happens to be one my closest friends.

I just stop the game make some excuse that I can't DM right now which punishes everyone.

The other thing I could do is start rolling his diplomacy checks myself and fudge the results and fudge the results when he is in melee so that he is being missed far more than he is and limit how much damage he is taking. I just need a way to do this so the other players don't realize it. I can't give him more to do because if I do that he will always be in the spotlight and the other players won't get a chance to be.

He did ask to be allowed to play a gestalt bard/beguiler. He thinks that would fix a lot of his problems.

I am not sure what to do. Would it be fair to the other players? Should I let all the players play gestalt characters? My guts tells me that if I do that the power of the game would notch a lot higher and I am not sure that I can handle that as a DM.

 

[billd91]

Don't fudge for him. Don't mollycoddle him too much. If he won't take advice and then complains about his results, he should be told to shut up or take the advice next time. Give him a chance to redesign when he next brings it up and tell him it's the last chance he gets other than regular character advancement. Take the opportunity or clam up.

Honestly, with the opportunities you've been giving him, any complaints that D&D won't let him build the character like Hero is starting to wear thin. On the issue of his Con score, if he complains ask him what he expected? Would a character who neglected his CON and BODY scores in Hero expect to pay a price in lower END, STUN, ED, REC, being stunned more often, and being killed more often? Hell, yes. Well, that's what he's done to himself in D&D.

It's true that character classes do limit choices a little, but that's what multiclassing is there to ameliorate. If he's spending too much on forgery, he should be multiclassing between bard and rogue. Alternatively, make a house rule that allows PCs (of ALL players) to swap out 1 or 2 of their regular class skills in favor of 1 or 2 other skills to allow for some flavor tweaking of the class. I actually do this fairly regularly, particularly allowing dwarves to swap out swim and ride in favor of profession (for mining and such) and knowledge (dungeoneering).

If this really is his one escape, then tell him to shut off his preconceptions and relax. Take the game as it comes and don't expect to squeeze every last bit of "whatever he wants" out of it. If he's crabbing too much, tell him to go to a movie instead of coming to the game until he's willing to cool off. But also tell him that he door is open and the seat is saved when he's ready to come back and be part of an ensemble cast instead of starring in his own show.

And is there a reason he can't multiclass as a bard and beguiler? Why must it be gestalt?

 

[phil500]

The bard's player I think is having issues on the fact that that the bard is not as good in combat as the cleric or monk and the sorcerer is better at magic. So he feels that the cleric's player is stealing his thunder so to speak..

Good catch, i think thats the core issue. Same way a FTR would feel if the cleric was self buffing and fighting better than him.

bards are underpowered in 3.5, and clerics are ridiculously overrpowered. the commute/income issues surely dont help, but if he was the one being uber in these situations i feel those issues would fade away?

do you humor him and somehow make his role more significant in combat/interaction? tough call.

 

[WayneLigon]

He has put a lot of skill ponts into cross class skills like forgery, ride, handle animal and he has put some skill points in almost every knowledge skill.

It is like he is deliberately shooting himself in the foot with his choices and he won't listen to me when I try and give advice on how to make the character more stronger. Instead he blames the system for not allowing him to design the character exactly like he wants. I swear if I hear one more time how the hero system would let him do this I will scream.

There's a lot to go through in this thread but one thing I haven't been able to determine: Has he played a lot of D&D? It sounds like it, if he's talking about playing class combinations like the bard/beguiler but on the other hand it sounds like he's carried over the expectations from HERO into D&D and that's a recipe for the kind of frustration you're seeing.

I think he has a fundamental disconnect in his understanding of how D&D and HERO differ, and are going to continue to differ. Since you're not familiar with HERO, the summary is:

HERO has a flatter power curve than D&D does. You start off as a stronger character in many ways, but at the end of the campaign it's unlikely you'll be unrecognizably much more powerful than when you started, especially if you are a spellcaster. You will be more broadly capable, though. In HERO, XP directly translates to the ability to better your character at that time; I get 3 xp for the session, I could use those right away and buy a new skill, get a couple of language, get a new spell, or up many of my stats. Or I could bank them for bigger purchases. D&D requires you to wait a lot longer for in many cases what is a smaller increase.

He's used to choosing a crapload of skills right at first and being very good at many of them right at first. He needs to be told that in D&D, that's something you work into gradually. There are some feats, like Educated (which turn all the Knowledge skills into Class skills, I think) that might help him, but he has to accept that a D&D character is more tightly focused than a HERO character. It has a job to do and outside of that job he's just going to suck.

Also something he's going to have to get used to is how the dice work. In case he hasn't realized it, HERO using 3d6 as it's resolution mechanic means that he's used to a bell curve. It's far less likely that he'll roll poorly, like he did in the example. D&D's resolution mechanic doesn't have a bell curve; using one die means that all results are equally likely. Using a d20 means he has exactly the same chance to scew up big-time as he does to succeed big-time. Also something he needs to get used to.

If you want a quick mechanical band-aid to his skill problem, then simply declare that all skills can be used Untrained; that gives him a basic roll in all those knowledge skills without putting points into them. Another mechanical band-aid is to do what Arcana Unearthed did for their skill-monkey/everyman class, the Akashic: ALL skills are class skills for the Bard. Or just say he can use his Bardic Knowledge class ability for most of that stuff.

 

[evilbob]

Elf Witch, IMHO you are absolutely right in the case you described.

"When I DM, I am in charge. I understand that the kind of game I am running is not necessarily the kind of game you want to play in, though, and if you choose not to play in it there will be no hard feelings on my part. However, if you want to play in this game, you need to respect my authority as DM. I would do the same for you."

Elf Witch, I don't have any advice for you. This is a very tricky situation and I do not know how I would handle it. I only know a simple solution does not exist. But I will say that in the time that I've spent on the boards, you are one of the most empathetic and compassionate posters I've read. The way you handle situations, including how you've described this one so far, is both exceedingly just and more than fair. I just want you to know that I would be happy to play in one of your games.

And I am certain that if there exists anyone on these boards who will eventually figure out how best to handle this situation, it is you.

 

[roguerouge]

But I will say that in the time that I've spent on the boards, you are one of the most empathetic and compassionate posters I've read. The way you handle situations, including how you've described this one so far, is both exceedingly just and more than fair. I just want you to know that I would be happy to play in one of your games.

QFT.

Just be patient. He's going to be like this for a while. And please recognize that it's not about you or you're being a first-time DM.

Don't change mechanical things. Make the next adventure one that puts him in the spotlight. After doing that, make it another player's turn in the spotlight and keep rotating it. Eventually, one of the adventures would put him in the spotlight anyway, all you're doing is re-jiggering the order of who's in the spotlight.

 

[Elf Witch]

Don't fudge for him. Don't mollycoddle him too much. If he won't take advice and then complains about his results, he should be told to shut up or take the advice next time. Give him a chance to redesign when he next brings it up and tell him it's the last chance he gets other than regular character advancement. Take the opportunity or clam up.

Honestly, with the opportunities you've been giving him, any complaints that D&D won't let him build the character like Hero is starting to wear thin. On the issue of his Con score, if he complains ask him what he expected? Would a character who neglected his CON and BODY scores in Hero expect to pay a price in lower END, STUN, ED, REC, being stunned more often, and being killed more often? Hell, yes. Well, that's what he's done to himself in D&D.

It's true that character classes do limit choices a little, but that's what multiclassing is there to ameliorate. If he's spending too much on forgery, he should be multiclassing between bard and rogue. Alternatively, make a house rule that allows PCs (of ALL players) to swap out 1 or 2 of their regular class skills in favor of 1 or 2 other skills to allow for some flavor tweaking of the class. I actually do this fairly regularly, particularly allowing dwarves to swap out swim and ride in favor of profession (for mining and such) and knowledge (dungeoneering).

If this really is his one escape, then tell him to shut off his preconceptions and relax. Take the game as it comes and don't expect to squeeze every last bit of "whatever he wants" out of it. If he's crabbing too much, tell him to go to a movie instead of coming to the game until he's willing to cool off. But also tell him that he door is open and the seat is saved when he's ready to come back and be part of an ensemble cast instead of starring in his own show.

And is there a reason he can't multiclass as a bard and beguiler? Why must it be gestalt?

I am considering getting rid of cross class skills. I have been thinking about that for a long time. I hate playing a fighter because they get no social skills what so ever and I find them boring out of combat.

It would allow players to have more choice in customizing their characters. I have two concerns one is how to handle prestige classes and two will this hurt rogues because one of their niches is the skill monkey.

I am going to talk to his wife tonight or tomorrow and see if she thinks a break might be a good idea. Give him a chance to see how he feels not playing for awhile.

The reason he does not want to multiclass he he hates that when you multiclass you are never quite as good as single class character. In his eyes a single class bard would always be better at bard stuff than him. Basically he wants his cake and he wants to eat it too.

I have found that multiclassing a bard with another magic class does not always give you the results you want. But I have found multiclassing bards with rogue to give you a much more interesting character. The sneak attack really helps up your damage in melee and you got love the skill points rogues get.

 

[Elf Witch]

There's a lot to go through in this thread but one thing I haven't been able to determine: Has he played a lot of D&D? It sounds like it, if he's talking about playing class combinations like the bard/beguiler but on the other hand it sounds like he's carried over the expectations from HERO into D&D and that's a recipe for the kind of frustration you're seeing.

I think he has a fundamental disconnect in his understanding of how D&D and HERO differ, and are going to continue to differ. Since you're not familiar with HERO, the summary is:

HERO has a flatter power curve than D&D does. You start off as a stronger character in many ways, but at the end of the campaign it's unlikely you'll be unrecognizably much more powerful than when you started, especially if you are a spellcaster. You will be more broadly capable, though. In HERO, XP directly translates to the ability to better your character at that time; I get 3 xp for the session, I could use those right away and buy a new skill, get a couple of language, get a new spell, or up many of my stats. Or I could bank them for bigger purchases. D&D requires you to wait a lot longer for in many cases what is a smaller increase.

He's used to choosing a crapload of skills right at first and being very good at many of them right at first. He needs to be told that in D&D, that's something you work into gradually. There are some feats, like Educated (which turn all the Knowledge skills into Class skills, I think) that might help him, but he has to accept that a D&D character is more tightly focused than a HERO character. It has a job to do and outside of that job he's just going to suck.

Also something he's going to have to get used to is how the dice work. In case he hasn't realized it, HERO using 3d6 as it's resolution mechanic means that he's used to a bell curve. It's far less likely that he'll roll poorly, like he did in the example. D&D's resolution mechanic doesn't have a bell curve; using one die means that all results are equally likely. Using a d20 means he has exactly the same chance to scew up big-time as he does to succeed big-time. Also something he needs to get used to.

If you want a quick mechanical band-aid to his skill problem, then simply declare that all skills can be used Untrained; that gives him a basic roll in all those knowledge skills without putting points into them. Another mechanical band-aid is to do what Arcana Unearthed did for their skill-monkey/everyman class, the Akashic: ALL skills are class skills for the Bard. Or just say he can use his Bardic Knowledge class ability for most of that stuff.

He played a lot of 1E back in college. He has only played in two 3.0 games and this is first 3.5 game. He has been playing mainly Hero System, Shadowrun and Rune Quest.

He keeps comparing how powerful his shaman is in Shadowrun to his bard and of course the bard comes up lacking. His shaman was powerful from day 1. I play Shadowrun as well and it is a very different system it is much easier to get successes with having a palm full of dice as well as karma to spend to reroll failures.

One of the big differences I see between say Shadowrun and DnD is that you can play the character you envision right from the start with Shadowrun. DnD is different it takes a while to get to play the character as you envision it.


He has all these plans for his bard that will be really effective as he levels he is just getting impatient he wants to do them now.


I like the idea of letting him use bardic knowledge for some of the skills.

 

[billd91]

I am considering getting rid of cross class skills. I have been thinking about that for a long time. I hate playing a fighter because they get no social skills what so ever and I find them boring out of combat.

I've gotten rid of cross-class expenses for skills and just kept the caps. It makes multiclass skill buying a WHOLE lot easier. Now, all skills cost 1 point per rank whether or not you are getting it with a bard skill point or a fighter skill point. Cross class status just means your ultimate level of ability is hindered... at least until you multiclass and make it a class skill.

The gestalt idea, for the bard and beguiler, probably won't be a bank breaker. Their basic abilities (BAB, saves, hit points, skills) are roughly similar. I doubt you'd see much of a power change in that combination.
But in order to allow him to do a gestalt character, you really have to allow it for everyone. And some combinations get a bit funky like barbarian sorcerers with good BABs, awesome hit points, and good artillery spells.

As far as multiclass characters not being as "good" as the single class characters, that all depends on the choices you make and the role you want to play. You may not be as good at being a pure bard, but the idea is you're choosing abilities that compliment what you've already got that will make you better at some other aspect of what you're doing. In the case of the bard/beguiler, his spell casting, parcularly of enchantments, will dramatically increase at the cost of, what, advancing bard knowledge, a slightly better BAB, party support, and crappy bard spell casting. I can see that being a trade that's not so bad, particularly if he gets to a bard level with the main benefit he wants and then devotes full time to beguiler.

Another alternative is to advance the characters a few levels as if you had started a game at higher levels. That gives players more choices to work with right away without having to play through the gaining of those levels. But I can understand if that doesn't feel right with the action as it's currently developing.