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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 672979" data-attributes="member: 158">A-HA! A thread to take my stand as my alter-ego, The Rogue Dissenter! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />While it does bother me to see Paladins portrayed as one-track maniacs, it bothers me more to see a DM let them get away with it. Ground rules for the Paladin's code need to be insisted on at first level, so that the player knows what is and is not within their code. Have it written on a piece of paper, and had it attached toi their character sheet - this represents the fact that their paladin would likely have the letter of the code burned into his brain.If said paladin does something against the code, then their deity/ their own conscience/ what have you should take approporiate action, and strip the paladin of all abilities until atonement and contrition is undertaken. This will do two things: (1) Enforce consequences to actions. (2) Drastically cut down on the number of Paladins played at your table. Its not just any Tom, Dick, or Helen who can play a paladin without atonement at some point.Conversely, DM's who let their players take advantage of their character scores really bug me too. Just as a DM wouldn't let a player who is burly and muscular in real life get combat bonuses to the character, the DM should call a player who is obviously abusing anything from charisma, to intelligence. Giving a small bonus for exceptional roleplay is understandable, but DM's who, for instance, let their players with CHA 5 characters give Henry V's St. Crispin's Day Speech, are not playing by the spirit of the rules, nor its letter.The same goes for characters with attributes well outside of their player's capabilites. Personally, I DON'T CARE if Ed the player is a high-school drop-out; if his character has an INT 18, and 24 points in various knowledge skills, then it shouldn't matter to me that his character is vastly different. If he can't make an obvious deductive reasoning on his character's behalf, perhaps the DM should give Ed a hint or a clue, or allow him an Intelligence check to get a subtle hint to lead him the the direction such a brilliant mind would OBVIOUSLY be going.I don't penalize a physically challenged  player who plays a barbarian by saying, "Sorry Bobby, but because you are physically diabled, there is no way your barbarian could throw that caber into that throng of Saxons." Bobby is playing for fun and escape - he rolled or picked those stats, his character should use them.One point to reiterate to all who think otherwise: Our characters are not us. In fact, 99% of the time, our D&D characters are FAR better than the people playing them at the table -why not cut us losers some slack?That's my mini-rant about characterizations - it is not directed at anyone in this thread, but the sentiments I have seen voiced here are too close to these practices that undercut the spirit of fair play too many times. Too often do I hear about people undercutting a character's scores, just because the player is better at a certain thing; it's out-of-character metagaming, and should be avoided, in my humble opinion.</blockquote>

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