Difficult Character and Player

[Meridius]

I wouldn't go that far. I bend the rules a bit (the rulebook is a guideline in my opinion). If something doesn't work, I prefer to find a solution which is favourable for everyone. I think I'm going with the following solution, and I'll keep you guys updated on if it is going to work: I think I'm going to change the spells to produce destructible effects. Strong single monsters should easily be capable of breaking down that spell, and outside attacks would then ALSO damage the spell. Now it just blocks them.

In my experience, there's not a lot of compatability issues, yes some things are awkward, but that's mostly a consequence to HER. She's quite vulnerable, and save for the mentioned spells, she doesn't have any spell which is an issue. She cannot freely choose, I regard all 'weaves' as self-thought-up spells. Which I have to agree with before I allow them on the game (a rule that I came up with fairly quickly after letting her aboard).

Basically, to clarify, save for those spells (especially harden air) there aren't any problems. It runs like a breeze. And has done so for 2 years. It's just that while I could certainly entertain everyone at the table, it's just my preparations that became somewhat restricted in nature because of these spells.

I didn't notice these restrictions as a player/character problem until another player pointed out that I take unusual measures to circumvent these circumstances (he asked if I could include a single-monster encounter, which I don't do usually, because of the harden-air problem). It was then that I realised that I was skipping out on things because of one player. Which is bad. She also recently sank some ships by making them run into blocks of air. That in combination with my other player's request made me reconsider her weaves and character.

I mostly wondered what other DM's would do, and I seem to be one of the more mild DM's in this case.

 

[kitsune9]

So I have a couple of questions:
- Do you have any experience with WoT characters in regular D&D settings?
- What would you do in this situation?
- Have I been too nice for the duration of this campaign in regards to her? (Note, my primary concern is that people have fun, which she has, and other players too, yet I can be quite desperate at times, and especially my maritime adventure series kind of 'sank' due to me overseeing the fact that she can sink ships with the damn weave. Though my other players didn't experience it as a failure luckily ).

I have WoT RPG and I wouldn't have allowed a mix of the two settings.

Secondly, if players use their powers and abilities to completely bypass your adventure, you have to own up to that. That's the beauty of some spells and abilities is that in clever ways they present a new solution not thought of before. Now DM's can be reactive about it and nerf the power/ability and the nerf the player or they can be proactive about it and write adventures that take this into account.

Lastly, if you have game-breaker player characters, why can't you have game-breaker NPC's? In my campaign, I told my players that WotC books are "legal" content for our campaign. Of course, I haven't read them all. If they pick an uber combination that allows them to blow through the encounter, expect NPC's to do the same. If they choose Sunder as a feat, expect NPC tanks to have Sunder too. If you got an aes-sadai running around busting up your game, you should have the PC's run into an aes-sadai opponent too every once in a while. It just makes sense that where the power lies, more people are going to flock to it if they can. Turn around is just good play.

Happy Gaming!

 

[Meridius]

I hope necro-ing an old thread isn't frowned upon here (this forum didn't appear to have rules on it, but I might've missed something), if so, my excuses. But since I've only played about twice since the last thread in this topic it's still quite relevant to me... and may be useful to others too.

I've been working on the spells mentioned in this topic. And I've decided to indeed give those spells hit points, however, I feel there's also a need for hardness, since hitting something immovable, even if hardly visible, is quite easy. I've been going with hardness 5 for the 'harden air' spell, and 8 for the 'false wall' (basically the same, but now visible).

Aes Sedai cast spells (weaves) on levels. They can choose how powerful the effect is they cast. Which is quite neat. The caster can choose to cast a certain spell on 1st level, or, for example on 4th level. The effects increase proportionally, and the spell-slot used is the same as the level the spell was cast on.

Now, I ruled since the air doesn't get harder as the spell progresses through levels, it will have a single hardness, and varying numbers of hitpoints.

For example the 'Harden air weave, hardness for all levels is 5.
0-level --> 1ft radius (blocking windows) --> 10 hp
1st-level --> 3 ft radius (blocking small doors for example) --> 13 hp
2nd-level --> 5 ft radius (holding small creature) --> 15 hp
3rd-level --> 10 ft radius (holding medium creature, or blocking a gate) --> 20 hp
4th-level --> 15 ft radius (5*25 ft bridge, holding a large creature) --> 25 hp
5th-level --> 20 ft radius (10*50 ft bridge) --> 35 hp

False wall leads to slightly higher hp numbers (exactly 5) and is castable from levels 1 through 6 in stead of 0 through 5. It is non-transparent and can take on the colour and texture of any stone wall. It's hardness would be 8 in stead. I've made up corresponding

Now I don't have much experience with making up and balancing spells this complicated. Do you think it would be fair/balanced/? I plan on re-installing the suffocation effects, since a Dragon would make very short work of this spell, but for example a goblin would have quite a lot of problems.

 

[roguerouge]

However, I didn't really notice that virtually all my adventure ideas revolve around how to make things interesting for the party, all the while letting her keep the idea she's actually useful.

So is she over-powered or under-powered, then? If her spells are situationally strong, I don't really see what the problem is here then. You've been going out of your way to make her spells useful. Weave in some of those areas that don't make her useful. Also? Start targeting her with your enemies. Two can play the lock-down game. Have a few WoT antagonists. Use Dispel Magic or invisible counterspellers.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I hope necro-ing an old thread isn't frowned upon here (this forum didn't appear to have rules on it, but I might've missed something), if so, my excuses. But since I've only played about twice since the last thread in this topic it's still quite relevant to me... and may be useful to others too.

Ah, I wouldn't call a few months a real necro. If its still an ongoing issue then it counts as current.

It sounds like this character is a bigger headache than you need. I would have a chat with the player about replacing the character. Let her join the game with an equivalent level regular character. With a lot of regular and prestige classes to choose from, there should be something that would be acceptable to play.

If one player is impacting the fun of the whole group this much there needs to be a change. Your other players might become dissatisfied with the game because of this and that isn't fair.

 

[Meridius]

Certain spells are overpowered, usually in a 'save-or-die' way. The spells specifically mentioned happen to pop up a certain volume of solidified air.

Sounds innocent, but for example, if I send in single monsters she can solidify air around it, and while I've removed the suffocation effect, the fight is basically over. Not much fun for the rest.

Secondly, she can redraw dungeon-maps. Blocking off passages. Now this isn't a problem by itself, but it's the fact that this wall is ABSOLUTELY indestructible. There aren't even rules on how to break it, the air just gets more solid than any other substance on the planet.

And remember, this is AFTER I already toned down the spells effect. Originally, there was no limit to it's shape. So trip-wires, nooses, blob's of air blocking throats, everything was possible. Basically, you could use it to instakill a Great Wyrm with a 0-level spell (assuming he'd fumble his save).

I don't like the 'fight fire with fire' approach, I've never had much love for the WoT world, I've thought up my own world, and since she is having fun with a WoT character I allowed it, but I was too inexperienced to poke through the systems differences. I'm fixing that problem now by quantifying the spells strength, I'm making the spell destructible.

That said, I've dropped the dispel magic bomb already, and she was quite surprised that I ruled that all forms of magic (including the one power) have influence on each other. Dispel magic and antimagic fields negate the one power as readily as they do with divine or arcane magic.

Sorry for the long text, roguerouge but I should've written that I want to prevent circumstances where she feels I've specifically designed each and every encounter to prevent her 'unbalanced spells' from being any use.

Now, to clarify a bit for other readers: I'm no longer in doubt about what to do with the player and her character. She has fun, the party has fun, but I feel a few of her spells are unbalanced, so planning an encounter mainly revolves around devising a way to keep those spells from changing a tough encounter into a VERY easy one. For example, single monster encounters are out of the question, and that detracts a little bit from MY fun.
I don't want to sacrifice HER fun for mine, so I have been looking for a way to keep everyone happy, including her and me.

My answer: altering the spells themselves.
My question: did I, in my previous post make up a fairly balanced spell. Specifically, what do you think about the hardness and hitpoints I've given these two spells?

I hope I've given sufficient explanation this time, sometimes it's a bit hard to explain myself in English.

 

[UltimaGabe]

I'll admit first off that I haven't read any of the replies in this thread so far- I'm merely posting in response to part of the original issue.

I've made a promise to myself to NEVER settle for a player who claims to feel "limited" by the standard character races and classes- unless said player has played many, many different character types within the current system. I've always felt that the only way you can feel limited with any given standard set of options is when you A. lack imagination, and B. lack the experience with the current system necessary to make use of your existing imagination. What I mean is this: In 3.5, I could make a character concept out of pretty much anything. I could take a vanilla PHB human barbarian and wind up with a half-titan warlock who was imprisoned in a statue for a millenia and uses the raw power of words to obliterate anything before him. I wasn't always able to come up with interesting concepts- it came to me over the years of playing 3.5. Once 4e came out, I hit a wall, feeling limited by the "lack of options"- and then, once I became familiar with it, I now feel the same way I felt with 3.5.

The reason I've sworn off of allowing new players to use non-standard options is because I made that mistake once, and, like you, it more or less ruined my game. A player I introduced to the game insisted on playing a vampire. I told him no, time and again, because in 3.5 a vampire character would be A. too powerful, and B. too restricting for the rest of the party. But he loved vampires, and the best I could do is to get him to play an Eberron Changeling (in a non-Eberron campaign) because it was the only race he found without a level adjustment that he felt was "interesting enough". So, I figured, what the heck? Fine. Be a changeling- they're not that powerful.

Once we actually began playing, his character (easily the most "interesting" character- a changeling monk, compared to an elf ranger, human wizard, and human druid) was easily the least interesting when it came to character development, description, and tactics. His entire mindset during the game was "I'm a cool character". He didn't do anything particularly interesting. He never even used his racial or class abilities unless someone else suggested it. Instead, the human druid- straight out of the PHB- ended up taking the spotlight throughout the entire campaign, because the player knew how to make good use of what they had. In the end, I wound up having to build each adventure around the changeling monk (because otherwise the player complained, feeling he had no way to involve himself), and altogether fell apart after a while.

It was at this point I definitely realized that the only difference between "standard" options and more "interesting" options is that someone else has already done the thinking for you. I've since been of the opinion that they need to stop coming out with new books of mechanics- no new classes, definitely no new monsters- they should instead just come out with a book of pictures (pictures of cool monsters, cool weapons, cool characters) and possible suggestions on how to use them. The starting ruleset has always since been enough for me.

So, sorry to derail the topic (if anyone even bothered to read my post). You, TC, made the same mistake I made, as I'm sure lots of other people had. In the end, I'd just sit down and talk to the player in question, and tell her what it's doing. She may get annoyed, she may not like it, but either she's going to make a character on her own (and end up enjoying it moreso because of it), or she's going to leave. In either case, it'll hopefully stop singlehandedly shaping your campaign.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I ran a couple of games in WOT myself, and while the system is not bad, and the weaves themselves are a very nice magic system, they are not balanced even internally, let alone externally with other sytems.

Want to make all of your weaves permanent? then just tie them off.

I agree with most posters above. TAlk tothe player, apologize and explain your point of view. Then be strong and make her bring in a character built under standard rules, like a sorceror using a lot of air and such spells.

 

[ForceUser]

The best thing to do when you have a problem like this is to have an open dialogue, in person, and discuss the difficulty that the player's character is causing for you. Ideally you'd have the conversation without other people around, so that the player doesn't feel ganged-up on. If you two are really friends, she'll appreciate your point of view even if she disagrees with it.

That said, you are the DM, and you are well within your rights to simply tell her she needs to convert the PC to a wizard or sorcerer, or roll a new character because her WoT Aes Sedai is causing more problems than it's worth mechanically. She could, after all, simply roll a sorcerer and call it an Aes Sedai, and roleplay it like an Aes Sedai. The rules mechanics should be irrelevant if what she really wants is to role-play one.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I haven't played WoT, so I'm not familiar with the way the weaves work in the rules. What limits the amount of castings? Is it a set number of castings per day, an overall power limit?

Looking at what you have written I think the hardness and HPs look decent.

The idea of tying off the weave bothers me. The hardness and HP help with that, but I don't like the idea of essentially permanent spells at that low level. I would look at having the weaves require concentration and, if the PC ties it off, it either has a duration based upon level, or it reduces power of subsequent weaves - an overall limit to how much power one can access and sustain.

Suffocation - how long does it take? I think I recall seeing two rounds listed somewhere above (although now I can't find it). Most things can go a little while without breathing - if it takes a few rounds to take full effect, it becomes less of a "save or die" issue. I would consider no effect on 1st round, followed by a strength draining effect (-2 per round?) for each of the next three rounds, followed by unconciousness in round 5.

Ships destroyed by running into blocks of air? How big were these blocks? Ships are pretty tough. I can see damaging them, or forcing them to tack around the blocks, slwoing them considerably, but destroying them? The hardness and HP will I guess help with that as well as the ship will likely just plow through a smaller block taking some damage before the block breaks.