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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 4847071" data-attributes="member: 33263">Our 4e group has a player with character ADD, we are level 8 and he is on at least his 5th character.  The background behind the character to justify the constant switching is that he is really a MMO player from our world that is transported to the game world, and when he switches characters in the MMO, his avatar in our game changes.  IIRC, "Stanley" has been a druid, a warlock, a wizard, a bard, and a cleric.  As another player in the party, I find it very disruptive to the game.  We play 4e as a very team oriented game, and having one member of the team in constant flux disrupts the entire party.1) Each time he switched, any tactics that involved his character have to be at least modified, if not abandoned and completely replaced with new tactics.2) While he is figuring out his new character, most of our party efforts and resources are directed towards saving him as he discovers the flaws in his build.  For example, he learned that his high mobility druid really shouldn't run out ahead of our low mobility party when fighting against 60 vampire spawn.3) Since his abilities change so often, the rest of the party can't count on him being able to do anything.  For example, even though he had played a cleric and a bard, my warlord still had to stay focused on healing because we never knew when he was going to switch again to a character without any healing ability. 4) Things slow down at the table a lot as he looks up his new abilities and how they work and interact with the other members of the party, and as we ask him about what he now can and cannot do.5) The constant switching has caused two different developments as far as the roleplay goes:   a) Constantly having to spend time reintroducing his character to the recurring NPCs    b) To justify his constant switching, major plot elements of the campaign and game world revolve around his character.  At the beginning of the game, it felt like the "Stanley and friends" show because of how central a role his character background was to the campaign world.Item #5 is specific to our campaign and how it is run, but I think #1-4 would apply in most situations where you have one player constantly switching characters.</blockquote>

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