Dealing with lame duck characters

[Morrus]

It is causing tension at the table. It is not fun for the rest of us to have to do all the heavy lifting. There have been times where we really needed the skills a wizard has and we have failed at the mission and almost faced a TPK because of it. We like our characters to and we want to them to succeed and live.

Ah, well I'm afraid I don't really understand then. If he leaves, you don't have the wizard either, surely?

It is frustrating that we have to struggle so hard to accomplish things because one member is not really contributing anything but chaos. The Elf when not fist fighting in combat is getting drunk in taverns and starting fights and getting thrown in jail or being rude to the city guard or the mayor.

Well, that's a very different issue to a player who is playing a sub-optimal character. That sounds like a player who is being disruptive. I guess I completely misinterpreted the situation.

I guess you need to find out why he's being disruptive. It's not D&D that's making him act like that. It sound like a general behavioural issue - is he like this outside the game, or does it only manifest in D&D games?

 

[GMMichael]

Sometimes it feels like he only is thinking of his fun and no one else.

This probably isn't too far from the mark. I also smell some "cry for attention" in there. Mostly, though, your player is doing what he finds to be entertaining. Unfortunately for him, this seems to be detracting from everyone else's entertainment.

If you want to stay friends and keep him around, trying giving his character a handicap bonus. He can run his character as crazy as he wants, but he gets a "dumb luck" die. So whenever he makes an attack roll, damage roll, gets attacked...he (or the DM) adds 1d6 to the effort. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. This counterbalance might be enough to get him to accept the idea. Alternatively, you could just expand his critical ranges...so he gets a Crit on 18-20 and a Criss on 1-3.

Good luck!

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Let me ask you this what possible role playing reason would a party have to keep a member who is a danger to himself to the party and sucks up the limited resource of healing? That is a question that we ask a lot and the only answer we have come up with is because it is a game and he is the player. So basically his choice to play these lame ducks in such a horrible way is impacting on our role playing because we are the ones that have to come up with a reason to keep him around. There is nothing wrong with playing a wizard who does not use offensive magic I played a sorcerer who didn't kill. I played her as a party support style mage. I buffed and made the party stronger that way. I Id magic items and cast spells like web, sleep, grease, slow.

What's the role of the character in the group? In our games, the party almost always has some kind of fraternal bond (long-time friends, blood pacts, oaths, etc) that keeps the PCs together, so perhaps I have a different assumption (the party stays together because the characters themselves appreciate each other's company/need each other's loyalty).

If the party is, say, held together by a mercenary contract, then yes, I would agree the character would have little reason to stay if he's a liability. Which is why I think it's important for the DM and the player to work together; one thing is to make a weak character, another to make a completely useless one that's neither emotionally nor materially important. By this I mean a character that, even if it has no "tactical use" (ie, can't fight at all or provide useful resources), has some kind of connection to the other PCs that would make it important for them to keep around.

If the player makes a character that's useless in that fashion, he needs to be pushed into making more critical connections, reasons to stick around. Weak characters require the DM to get involved, so that the PC can be useful in less traditional manners (he can't fight, but maybe he knows something or someone the party requires, or owns something important for the story). Whenever one of my players presents me with a character like that, I try to compensate his low contributions to the challenges with some sort of contribution to the story.

Of course, if the player is refusing to even do that, then the situation is another thing entirely and he needs to be sternly moved into collaborating with the game.

 

[TarionzCousin]

He says that because his wisdom is only a 10 that is why he doesn't learn that charging in is not a wise thing to do. /QUOTE]Well, he is flat out completely wrong there. A 10 wisdom is average, not stupid.

I would suggest trying to convince his character that charging into combat and using his fists is the wrong thing to do. Try to get him to "train" and take more optimal feats. Try to convince him that using a weapon is better than fighting bare-handed.

 

[ccs]

It drives the powergamers around the bend

This right here is an important part of (and very valid reason for) playing such a character.
It's a rebellion against all the optimization you see others partaking in.
You'll demonstrate to the power-gaming optimizers who've turned the game/hobby into nothing more than an I-win-equation that there's other ways to play. And that you don't need all there bonuses to have fun.

The trick though, wich your friend is failing at, is to still make the character an interesting, equally important, memorable, entertaining, member of the party. Despite any horrible flaws.

and even non power games like me get annoyed because it really weakens the party as a whole.

This is mostly just a side effect.

So what to DO about this?
1) The DM should simply ignore the character when designing most challenges.
2) Stop worrying about it.
3) Try & come up with reasons why your character DOES accept the lame duck.

 

[steenan]

Characters like the one described in the OP are perfectly valid concepts.
They just aren't good D&D character concepts.

Each game makes assumptions about the play style and typical activities in play. Some communicate them clearly, some don't. And a character who violates the assumptions just doesn't fit.

The strong wizard who refuses to use offensive spells would be a fun character in Fate. Probably able to gain a lot of fate points from compelling aspects that represent his beliefs and strange approaches and then spend them on shocking displays of magical (or martial) competence during a dramatic scene.

But D&D (no matter if the book admits it, or not) focuses on combat and overcoming obstacles. A character who cannot consistently do it won't work.

The problem is not the character concept. The concept is fine. It would work in a book, it would work in a different game.

The problem is mismatched expectations. And it often results from defaulting to one game system for everything. If a group plays D&D exclusively (and claims it is good for everything, "your imagination is the only limit" etc.), people with wider interests will either drift away or try characters that aren't really good for this system.

 

[Lanefan]

It is causing tension at the table. It is not fun for the rest of us to have to do all the heavy lifting.

I'd have a lot more sympathy for you if this character was being a passenger, refusing to take risks, etc.; but she's not - she's in there givin' 'er in the way that best works for her, and being entertaining at the same time. Love it!

There have been times where we really needed the skills a wizard has and we have failed at the mission and almost faced a TPK because of it. We like our characters to and we want to them to succeed and live.

Then in character, wouldn't the party eventually decide to go back to town and hire a more conventional wizard to do all the wizardly stuff, and let this guy carry on doing what he's doing? (in other words, pick up a 5th character - an adventuring NPC wizard)

I came here hoping to find some advice on how to talk to talk to him to get an understanding on why he enjoys playing characters like this. While I am no powergamer I don't understand playing a character like this I don't understand the enjoyment he gets from it so I don't know how to talk to him about it. I would like to find a compromise where he can have some of his fun but we have fun too. I am starting to dread the after session emails that start flying fast and furious.

It is frustrating that we have to struggle so hard to accomplish things because one member is not really contributing anything but chaos. The Elf when not fist fighting in combat is getting drunk in taverns and starting fights and getting thrown in jail or being rude to the city guard or the mayor. The character concept is a drunken elf who got kicked out of wizard school and is angry at the world. Again that could be a cool concept if she was good at one thing and that one thing is why we put up with her otherwise obnoxious behavior.

Both the DM and I have said to him look is there anyway you would be willing to tone it down a little or at least make your elf good in combat so all that tavern brawling comes in and makes you a decent fighter in combat. The DM offered to let him rebuild so he could take the feat unarmed combat she also offered to let him redo his hit points and just take max at every level something the rest of us agreed to even though we don't get to do that because at least it woulds give him a chance to actually survive the concept he wants to play. But he sees all that as min maxing powergaming.

It is like there is a gulf that we can't seem to bridge on what for example min maxing and powergaming is.

I think [MENTION=6803664]ccs[/MENTION] hits the nail on the head here: it's possible the player is intentionally going against min-maxing (and maybe going a bit over-the-top about it, to make a point) in hopes others will follow suit. As for the in-character rudeness part, what is this thing's Cha score and other socially-related numbers? If they're poor, then all you've got is someone playing his character in character*. If they're good, you've perhaps got more of a problem.

That said, realistically this character probably has the life expectancy of a fruit fly; and the player is (I hope!) well aware of this. If so, and he still wants to play her till she drops, then have at it!

* - there was a character like this in my current campaign: he played his Cha 6 as social ineptness thus he couldn't say two sentences to anyone without completely offending whoever he was speaking to...yet he insisted on being the party "face" at every opportunity. He was a reasonably competent Thief otherwise, but sometimes I think the party kept him around mostly to do the rest of the world a favour.

Lan-"sometimes the most valuable character in a party isn't the one who's always saving asses, it's the one that keeps players showing up week after week just to see what it'll do next"-efan

 

[Herobizkit]

It really sounds like this guy is deliberately railing against the group's muscle-head tendencies by playing the exact opposite of said muscle-heads for his own jollies. I can see the disconnect in play style and how the 'gotta win' types would be annoyed.

Question for the OP, though. If this character were an NPC, would you dump said character based solely on his ability to hit for damage/cast the big boom spells? Or is your team together for more reasons than "because we hit stuff well together"? Because the player as-is couldn't _be_ more 'Joxer the Mighty' or more of a sidekick... comic relief, if you will.

So, how many players are there in your group that they can't afford an entertaining sidekick?

Problem is, as previously stated, D&D isn't a great game for story-type characters IF the DM focuses on actual tactical and mathematical challenges for the characters...

 

[kalil]

Slightly off-topic here, but in 5e there is actually nothing wrong with a strong wizard. Bashing in skulls is a perfectly viable option compared to spamming cantrips. Ofc, you need to adjust and plan your character to support such a concept but it is quite doable.

On topic: I think it is obvious from the posts up-thread that the problem here is not a sub-optimal character, but a player acting in bad faith and/or disruptively to the game. Talk to him about it. It really is the only way.

 

[Umbran]

Of course, without him you'll be just as weak as you were with him, so I'm not sure how that helps things.

Without him, though, they are apt to be more balanced.

Consider it this way - somewhat exaggerated to make the point: Take a party of 4 PCs. Consider the normal adventuring day they get through. Now, hand them a toddler, and tell them they have to go through the same day and that toddler must go with them, and is supposed to survive. That adventuring day just got tougher, didn't it?

This illustrates the point that, if the power disparity is large enough, the situation switches from, "You aren't helping as much as we'd like," to "You are actually a detriment to our getting things done, because we have to spend extra effort to keep you alive." They may effectively be more powerful, as they aren't spending resources protecting him.

Drastic power differentials are often problematic if the players don't explicitly agree on them beforehand. While you are right to mention that, in general, folks should be able to play what they want, that right, like most others, weakens when it starts to detrimentally impact your fellow players - who also have the right to have the kind of game they want. Some cooperation is called for, and it sounds like this guy isn't cooperating enough. There is a wide gulf between "Mary Sue" and "I take no abilities to make myself even vaguely effective". He ought to explore that gulf a bit. If he is unwilling to, he probably needs to find a game that more fits his desired level of power.