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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Impeesa" data-source="post: 4681430" data-attributes="member: 498">I am an unapologetic gearhead, I love 3E, so there's my bias. I've spent a lot of time hanging around the WotC Char Op boards, I've played a monstrous multiclassed powerhouse from 1 to 22. The thing I've found is, the more complex my build, the more hooks I have for building a personality and background on top. Every skill or style choice that needs to be justified is one more aspect to work in somehow. For those who work in the other direction and don't understand how this works, I find there's sort of a middle step where I look at all the mechanical aspects, the distinct classes and so on, and try to envision what sort of unified whole it implies. A character with three classes isn't three people, after all. The character I played long term, for example, was a frenzied berserker with a splash into the CG paladin variant (UA) to shore up his mental defenses, a monstrous race for the physical abilities, etc. The big picture is a lonely outcast from his tribe, whose only purpose is now to serve as an instrument of divine wrath. I'll spare the additional details, but suffice to say that now, several years later, I could fill this space with more background-oriented details than mechanical - and it wasn't even a roleplaying-heavy campaign. So how do I relate to a situation such as that described in the OP? Well, a character build arises from a ruleset just like a unified character emerges from a set of mechanical hooks. The thing that player forgot is that the ruleset for a given game is not only that described in the books, it also includes things like a book list, a set of house rules, and a set of guidelines for the type of campaign to be played (heroic? espionage-oriented?). If, at the most basic level, he is unwilling to play the same game as you, it's probably for the best that he dropped. One aspect he may have found frustrating is the promise of possibly opening up the book list down the road. There is a certain appeal to having a long-term plan - to someone who places importance on the mechanical capabilities of their character, it gives tangible rewards to look forward to. Adding in books midway through the game leads to either retcons that are disruptive to their sense of who their character is, or frustration with having 'missed out' on options that are now available.</blockquote>

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