Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Non-Proficient" data-source="post: 8227318" data-attributes="member: 7030127">I'm playing as part of an optimized team (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-haeMbseQ4&t=2472s" target="_blank">D&D: Optimized Battery and the Blender; episode #26</a>) in a campaign now. It didn't start out that way- my first character was an Ice Witch modeled after Tzarina Bokha from the Warhammer Total War trailer. Vos (Birthright) cleric, Winter Domain homebrew that I got the DM nod for. Then I found out we weren't actually playing Birthright, but a few parts of the lore was grafted onto a generic homebrew setting. Bleh. We had just exited a campaign set in Eberron (at least that's what we bought into) that ended up just being a 2e module with nary a mention of a steam pipe. I wanted to save the concept on the off chance we'd play WHFRP.     I set out to play a commoner (generic setting - generic concept) but since we were starting at level 3, opted to play a <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/cult-fanatic" target="_blank">cult fanatic</a> instead. Point buy matching stats, Fighter 1/Cleric 2 Knowledge Domain. two-weapon fighting with curved ceremonial daggers, it was a near-direct copy/paste of the back of the Monster Manual stat block [besides the level 2 spells (the sub-optimal cultist fanatic needs that 4th level to come online fully)] His cult was MLP -a secret Brony. The group (hopefully) was never to find out that tidbit- he wore a leather cap/cowl that hid his rainbow-dyed mop. Since the character was confined to leather armor by the design constraints and rolled a 17 on the 5d4 he had as starting gold- he had enough funds for a donkey named <a href="https://ddb.ac/characters/46282272/FRbhYe" target="_blank">Peanut</a> & cart kit and about 900 lbs. of common gear & rations -cart included. Extra sets of clothes, extra lanterns, shovels, -you can buy a lot of gear with the money you save if you don't care about optimization. Once my DM saw the cleric <a href="https://ddb.ac/characters/46239562/gR0sDz" target="_blank">Dolf's</a> extensive array of exploration trappings, a text went out to the group as a reminder that there are no roads & we'd be traveling through the woods. Fine, it's not like I didn't forsee manticores, hippogryphs, and chimeras to start circling overhead salivating over Peanut's hindquarters the moment our ship dropped anchor, but it peeved me a bit that we only got this information after the fact --our previous instructions were to gear up and come prepared.     After that news, I just looked online, saw an optimized team-build, and went with that. Patterened the Order Cleric as Victor Von Doom and flavored all of the spells to fit his Doom Domain that is just Order Domain renamed. He's a fallen prophet of doom, yay. The 'blender' player, my partner in crime, is his zealot follower/bodyguard.     Since 5th came out, our game has slowly devolved over the years. It is rewardless: milestone leveling at a snail's pace, the treasure ends up on a scrap of paper in somebodies papers that likely won't be there next session that will never get divvied out anyway, theatre of the mind combat that starts <s>sometimes</s> more often than not 300 yards away because -reasons (yet I still don't roll a Warlock because it would then be cramped dungeons all the way down from then on), we play online but never seen a map, the initiative is group initiative and the characters go in the same order (by initiative bonus) every combat. And just like op, I've asked patiently at the start of each new campaign (they peter out around 5th level out of boredom usually) for some player concessions to our playstyle that have gone nowhere because if it makes combat any longer than the 33% of the time begrudgingly allotted to us so that we show up, verboten! When I presented our build to the DM they said they understood the concept but didn't like =power builds= (yet presumably we live in a world where BBEG the likes of <a href="http://www.birthright.net/forums/showwiki.php?title=Rhuobhe_Manslayer" target="_blank">Rhuobhe Manslayer</a> exist - "Illusionist? Not today. Archer? I'm immune to bolt throwers son.", besides that, does anyone familiar with that build consider it overly op?). My mind was on fire silently screaming "Well if you would've let me take the donkey cart, we wouldn't be here!" The point I'm trying to make is- there can be a lot of little things, minor things, that pile up leading up to players behaving like this and it can be complex and nuanced to the point that OP isn't aware enough to report on. I can assure you, my DM thinks his games are g-r-e-a-t. I'm a grumpy old grognard with slightly different opinions of his lazy methods, but I grin and bear it for now because it's just a game after all and I'm just as lazy about finding a better table for my desired playstyle. So in the meantime, the DM & I engage in petty passive-aggressive tit-for-tat measures on the sidelines. It spills over in-game in subtle ways I believe.I'd be totally willing to swap out an optimized character if my DM gave us XP leveling back, or grid play, or something. It should be more of a two-way street since all of our time is equally valuable, but for the majority of the decisions about how we play, the DM has been willing to brush suggestions aside in favor of their own preferred ways. So while the perceived notion is that these two terrible optimizers are wholly at fault and should be kicked (a sentiment I agree with albeit for different reasons), I can't rely on one person's account of things to know that there aren't other things at play because of my biased experiences.If it's anything like my situation- You should kick them out AND they should have already quit. But sometimes we stay way past the point of the obvious.</blockquote>

Verification