Erechel
Explorer
Last Saturday I had the chance to play a new campaign as a player instead of DM after continuosly being one for the last 2 and a half years. As a DM, I grew tired of the responsibility of running balanced encounters, creating branches of actions, and carefully measure what consequences should have the player's actions. This also released me of the duty of looking for or creating info for my campaigns, tracking NPCs, and generally being creative enough to be a successful DM.
Don't misunderstand me, I like being a DM, it's just a little bit tiring, and it is boring always to play so the other people win the fights. So I was excited when I called my friend and he accepted to be the DM for the new campaign. I was thrilled to try the system as a character instead of a puppeteer.
I will bring also a little context too, so you can understand better the situation. My last campaign as a player was a complete mess. I was a baseline ranged fighter in a 3.5 game, and I hated it. I hated the feat tax to be merely competent in my field, whereas the unimaginative cleric outshined me on my own field. I hated being behind the casters in my own field most of the time. The rest of the time I was completely useless, and I couldn't contribute with anything at all (good luck fighting ghosts with a crossbow: I wasn't even allowed to hurt them with my silver arrows). Add to it that I'm myself atheist and relying on holy casters instead of everyone's wit and effort isn't pleasant at all to me.
The day we play 5e, I was of very bad mood. The supposed 1 hour trip to my friend's house became a 4 hours one, with a minor car crash included (of which I'm responsible, by the way: I was tired and freaked out when a train barrier begin to go down with my car near it, and I drove in reverse and crashed a lady's car, breaking my light and scratching its van). I'm also an underpayed public school teacher in Argentina, so I am financially ruined. Nevertheless, I could keep driving and reach my friend's house with my other friends in my car.
That mess was I when we begin to play. I rolled a slightly above average character: a folk hero fighter with 18 str, 11 dex, 16 con, and 14 in Wis-Int-Cha. I dumped Dex knowing that it isn't the optimal choice, because I like to be a witty, smartass and persuasive character instead of an elegant and dextrous moron. Also, I don't really like to optimize and overspecialize my characters, prefering balanced ones. As a variant human, I picked Shield Master (I absolutely LOVE that feat: it's amazingly evocative to be the warrior that blocks the dragon's breath with its shield), and Duelist fighting style. I know that a Greatsword master has a lot more DPR, but I couldn't care less. My party also has a Tabaxi (future shadow) monk, a Kenku Ancient's warlock and a Dexterity elf fighter. So we haven't a dedicated healer, nor a rogue, not even a true wizard.
We started to play, and all my problems fastly go away. I was having a blast as I played my awesome character. The adventure was placed in the city of Athkatla, in Faerûn. I already known a lot of this place as I've played a lot of BG2. My friend knows me well, and we accord in a background: my character leaded a revolt against an evil church in my homeland, and I was exiled. So he makes Bernard (the innkeeper of the Copper Crown) hire us to steal a sacred artifact from the Talosian temple. We devised a few plans for infiltrating, and we concur that if we need to infiltrate on a Destruction god temple, we must gain some destructive reputation, so I volunteered to wrestle in the pit, cutting my long hair and making with it a fake beard. It was awesome. My character hadn't any armor nor weapons whatsoever, but he is strong. He does 5 bludgeoning damage barehanded, and is very resilient with its 13 hp and Second WInd. I'm also a little creative, so I didn't only punched my way yto the victory, but submit my opponents with my Athletics and bashed their heads against the ground and the walls to stun them, and moved them against the walls to make additional damage.
I feeled very powerful, even when neither of my "specialized" abilities was useful. Then the warlock tried to imitate me, and failed miserabily. We, drunk, avenge him in a tag team battle with the monk and the other fighter on the pit against the Borderlands' style midgets. We praised Talos at every victory, so to gain some reputation. Although I have quite high persuasion, I couldn't enter the temple to make a recon (miserable dice rolls of 4 and 6) with the pretext of paying homage to the god. So we contacted with a bureaucrat gambler, gain some info about him and intimidate him to acquire some maps of the temple, and we tried to infiltrate by the sewers. We acquire a raft and disguised as sewer workers, and reached the tunnels close to the temple. With a bit of luck the kenku picked the lock of the sewer, although I bought a metal cutter of my Smith tools in the case of the picking fail (and a shovel, of course. A folk hero without a shovel can't claim to be a folk hero).
We also acquire some Talosian robes and a book of rituals and history of the god, which my character read in the long and short rests. We solved an easy puzzle to enter the temple from the underground, and reached a pantry whose trap door was also stuck with heavy sacks of flour, so it was needed my strength to open it. With my enhanced temprary Religion and History checks we could pass as talosites in the big gathering, and silently infiltrated in a studio, (with the door and hidden chest picked by the other fighter). The elf take a dump on the bag of coins of the cleric, and picked again to close the chest and door. We laughed a lot with the anticipation. As we infiltrated, I found another pantry and grab a wine bottle (my character flaw is that he is a little of a moron when its drunk, although he is very smart), and while the others waited and recognized the rest of the temple, crowded for the ritual sacrifice, I entered another office kicking its door, bashing its chest and stealing their stuff. Then I behave again, and we reached the next flour. The kenku mentally commanded danger to the guards in the first floor to generate a distraction, and also whispered "dick and wine, dick and wine, dick and wine" to them to see their reaction so I could try to seduce him and steal its armor, but the other guards prevented me to seduce the guy. Laughs again.
Then we deceive the kitchen's workers to join the feast so we can reach a window and climb to the next tower level. The tabaxi climbed to another window (awesome skill), the dex fighter failed its athletics check (it was raining), so I saved him dislocating my right shoulder, but the kenku and I could reach the next floor with no problem. While the elf explored the stairs to the rooftop, I entered in a High priest room without knowing that there he was. I stopped, and commanded the tabaxi to silently disable it, but he failed the Stealth check, so a fight begin. The tabaxi win initiative and successfuly attacked the priest for 13 damage, but get knocked out by a Guiding Bolt, the kenku failed his eldritch blast, so I rushed the room and shoved the priest with my bonus action, and grabbed his mouth with my action to impede his casting. The prone advantage cancelled my dislocated shoulder disadvantage, and I laughed with revenge as he was helpless against my powerful arms. I bashed my head against him fo 5 damage the next round, while the priest failed to escape, the kenku stabilized the tabaxi, and the other fighter killed the high priest with his swords. We ambushed other priest, and we saved the girl, escape the tower climbing it down with our ropes, and escape in the night with our 70 kg new mithril lightning rod (which I carried around without flinching).
I never could use entirely all my specialized powers. I didn't need it too. But I never felt useless, or outclassed, or helpless. I'm the big, "unoptimized" fighter with the "useless" stats (Str and Int) pumped, and I didn't even think about gaining advantage of dexterity (although I admit I have some big stats: 18 str and 16 con is great). Athletics is just so good that I don't need another Strength skill. And I had fun. A lot of fun. I could appreciate, beyond any theorycraft, the simple beauty of the D&D 5e fighter. And I don't plan to optimize my fighter either. Now is a powerhouse by itself with its high Strength. For when I reach fourth level I'm thinking about taking the Healer feat, or maybe Keen Mind or Linguist, as I don't really need another powerful feat (although I could change my mind and take Mounted combatant if I see my horses drop dead fast, as I plan to be a wandering knight). I'm expecting to see what goodies Action Surge has, and which maneuvers and stunts I could device.
Playing as a character was a huge revelation to me. I love this edition. I love what they did with the fighter. And I love for not requiring high optimization to be useful. I love the strenght-int based characters; I've never regret not choosing Dex over Int, nor I felt behind the Dex fighter in any way possible (in fact, I've felt just the opposite although the other player is an optimizer itself and he has built an impressive character for the early levels at least, as he has very high Dex). They feel just like they should feel.
What do you think about it? What experiences did have you as players after GMing for a while? I'm an idiot for purposefully not optimizing the character although I easily could? What are your reasons to optimize a character? I would feel very straightjacketed to a role if I should optimize, and I certaintly couldn't do as much as I did.
Don't misunderstand me, I like being a DM, it's just a little bit tiring, and it is boring always to play so the other people win the fights. So I was excited when I called my friend and he accepted to be the DM for the new campaign. I was thrilled to try the system as a character instead of a puppeteer.
I will bring also a little context too, so you can understand better the situation. My last campaign as a player was a complete mess. I was a baseline ranged fighter in a 3.5 game, and I hated it. I hated the feat tax to be merely competent in my field, whereas the unimaginative cleric outshined me on my own field. I hated being behind the casters in my own field most of the time. The rest of the time I was completely useless, and I couldn't contribute with anything at all (good luck fighting ghosts with a crossbow: I wasn't even allowed to hurt them with my silver arrows). Add to it that I'm myself atheist and relying on holy casters instead of everyone's wit and effort isn't pleasant at all to me.
The day we play 5e, I was of very bad mood. The supposed 1 hour trip to my friend's house became a 4 hours one, with a minor car crash included (of which I'm responsible, by the way: I was tired and freaked out when a train barrier begin to go down with my car near it, and I drove in reverse and crashed a lady's car, breaking my light and scratching its van). I'm also an underpayed public school teacher in Argentina, so I am financially ruined. Nevertheless, I could keep driving and reach my friend's house with my other friends in my car.
That mess was I when we begin to play. I rolled a slightly above average character: a folk hero fighter with 18 str, 11 dex, 16 con, and 14 in Wis-Int-Cha. I dumped Dex knowing that it isn't the optimal choice, because I like to be a witty, smartass and persuasive character instead of an elegant and dextrous moron. Also, I don't really like to optimize and overspecialize my characters, prefering balanced ones. As a variant human, I picked Shield Master (I absolutely LOVE that feat: it's amazingly evocative to be the warrior that blocks the dragon's breath with its shield), and Duelist fighting style. I know that a Greatsword master has a lot more DPR, but I couldn't care less. My party also has a Tabaxi (future shadow) monk, a Kenku Ancient's warlock and a Dexterity elf fighter. So we haven't a dedicated healer, nor a rogue, not even a true wizard.
We started to play, and all my problems fastly go away. I was having a blast as I played my awesome character. The adventure was placed in the city of Athkatla, in Faerûn. I already known a lot of this place as I've played a lot of BG2. My friend knows me well, and we accord in a background: my character leaded a revolt against an evil church in my homeland, and I was exiled. So he makes Bernard (the innkeeper of the Copper Crown) hire us to steal a sacred artifact from the Talosian temple. We devised a few plans for infiltrating, and we concur that if we need to infiltrate on a Destruction god temple, we must gain some destructive reputation, so I volunteered to wrestle in the pit, cutting my long hair and making with it a fake beard. It was awesome. My character hadn't any armor nor weapons whatsoever, but he is strong. He does 5 bludgeoning damage barehanded, and is very resilient with its 13 hp and Second WInd. I'm also a little creative, so I didn't only punched my way yto the victory, but submit my opponents with my Athletics and bashed their heads against the ground and the walls to stun them, and moved them against the walls to make additional damage.
I feeled very powerful, even when neither of my "specialized" abilities was useful. Then the warlock tried to imitate me, and failed miserabily. We, drunk, avenge him in a tag team battle with the monk and the other fighter on the pit against the Borderlands' style midgets. We praised Talos at every victory, so to gain some reputation. Although I have quite high persuasion, I couldn't enter the temple to make a recon (miserable dice rolls of 4 and 6) with the pretext of paying homage to the god. So we contacted with a bureaucrat gambler, gain some info about him and intimidate him to acquire some maps of the temple, and we tried to infiltrate by the sewers. We acquire a raft and disguised as sewer workers, and reached the tunnels close to the temple. With a bit of luck the kenku picked the lock of the sewer, although I bought a metal cutter of my Smith tools in the case of the picking fail (and a shovel, of course. A folk hero without a shovel can't claim to be a folk hero).
We also acquire some Talosian robes and a book of rituals and history of the god, which my character read in the long and short rests. We solved an easy puzzle to enter the temple from the underground, and reached a pantry whose trap door was also stuck with heavy sacks of flour, so it was needed my strength to open it. With my enhanced temprary Religion and History checks we could pass as talosites in the big gathering, and silently infiltrated in a studio, (with the door and hidden chest picked by the other fighter). The elf take a dump on the bag of coins of the cleric, and picked again to close the chest and door. We laughed a lot with the anticipation. As we infiltrated, I found another pantry and grab a wine bottle (my character flaw is that he is a little of a moron when its drunk, although he is very smart), and while the others waited and recognized the rest of the temple, crowded for the ritual sacrifice, I entered another office kicking its door, bashing its chest and stealing their stuff. Then I behave again, and we reached the next flour. The kenku mentally commanded danger to the guards in the first floor to generate a distraction, and also whispered "dick and wine, dick and wine, dick and wine" to them to see their reaction so I could try to seduce him and steal its armor, but the other guards prevented me to seduce the guy. Laughs again.
Then we deceive the kitchen's workers to join the feast so we can reach a window and climb to the next tower level. The tabaxi climbed to another window (awesome skill), the dex fighter failed its athletics check (it was raining), so I saved him dislocating my right shoulder, but the kenku and I could reach the next floor with no problem. While the elf explored the stairs to the rooftop, I entered in a High priest room without knowing that there he was. I stopped, and commanded the tabaxi to silently disable it, but he failed the Stealth check, so a fight begin. The tabaxi win initiative and successfuly attacked the priest for 13 damage, but get knocked out by a Guiding Bolt, the kenku failed his eldritch blast, so I rushed the room and shoved the priest with my bonus action, and grabbed his mouth with my action to impede his casting. The prone advantage cancelled my dislocated shoulder disadvantage, and I laughed with revenge as he was helpless against my powerful arms. I bashed my head against him fo 5 damage the next round, while the priest failed to escape, the kenku stabilized the tabaxi, and the other fighter killed the high priest with his swords. We ambushed other priest, and we saved the girl, escape the tower climbing it down with our ropes, and escape in the night with our 70 kg new mithril lightning rod (which I carried around without flinching).
I never could use entirely all my specialized powers. I didn't need it too. But I never felt useless, or outclassed, or helpless. I'm the big, "unoptimized" fighter with the "useless" stats (Str and Int) pumped, and I didn't even think about gaining advantage of dexterity (although I admit I have some big stats: 18 str and 16 con is great). Athletics is just so good that I don't need another Strength skill. And I had fun. A lot of fun. I could appreciate, beyond any theorycraft, the simple beauty of the D&D 5e fighter. And I don't plan to optimize my fighter either. Now is a powerhouse by itself with its high Strength. For when I reach fourth level I'm thinking about taking the Healer feat, or maybe Keen Mind or Linguist, as I don't really need another powerful feat (although I could change my mind and take Mounted combatant if I see my horses drop dead fast, as I plan to be a wandering knight). I'm expecting to see what goodies Action Surge has, and which maneuvers and stunts I could device.
Playing as a character was a huge revelation to me. I love this edition. I love what they did with the fighter. And I love for not requiring high optimization to be useful. I love the strenght-int based characters; I've never regret not choosing Dex over Int, nor I felt behind the Dex fighter in any way possible (in fact, I've felt just the opposite although the other player is an optimizer itself and he has built an impressive character for the early levels at least, as he has very high Dex). They feel just like they should feel.
What do you think about it? What experiences did have you as players after GMing for a while? I'm an idiot for purposefully not optimizing the character although I easily could? What are your reasons to optimize a character? I would feel very straightjacketed to a role if I should optimize, and I certaintly couldn't do as much as I did.
