D&D 5E Having another wizard in the group...does it suck?

[Sunseeker]

I'm not bothered by duplicates in the party, unless you know the person well enough to know the duplicate is made specifically to muck with another player. IE: I make a fire-shooting monk, got some good stat rolls, put 'em together well but then Bob's barbarian died. Well Bob sees how much fun I'm having and isn't a real big fan of me so he makes ostensibly the same character as I do because he wants to get up in my face about it.

Otherwise, a good DM just adjusts the game accordingly to handle the non-typical party. I almost ALWAYS run non-typical parties because finding someone who WANTS to be a healer always seems like a pain in the butt, so I just adjust the game accordingly. Two makes, 6 mages, doesn't matter to me, there's enough room for everyone to find their niche.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Me: Plays a Druid who is going to focus on shapeshifting to extend her survivability in combat.
Player: Plays a Barbarian who is maxed out for survivability, then mutli-classes to druid to extend his survivablity in combat and become broken.

He'll be behind on spells though relative to the original druid, and possibly behind on levels depending on your group's policy on new character levels. If this kind of copycatting is common in your group, I'd say you should start new characters at 1st or at least much lower level.

(He's also got only two rages per day IIRC, so he's actually not that broken compared to the original druid. And there's no reason you can't take your next level in Barbarian, assuming that you want to, as long as you have Str 13.)

 

[travathian]

It's great. With multiple casters, you can stack up concentration effects, and pull off one-two punches like cloudkill/forcecage. (CK/FC is theoretically possible with just one caster, but in practice the enemy is likely to move out of the cloudkill before you can forcecage it. With two of you, it doesn't get that chance.)

This. Instead of seeing the other mage as competition, see them as a kick-ass ally that together you can come up with ridiculous spell combos. All of the magic using characters in a party should be spending their downtime coming up with combos to use in different situations. Hmmm, that might make an interesting new thread.

 

[neobolts]

As a player, I play at the pleasure of the DM. They are going through all the work of getting the game up and running. If they feel comfortable adding more players, who am I to say them nay? If, after playing, the player is a problem, then I'll check with the other players and then bring it up with the DM. But I neither expect nor want to be consulted beforehand.

As a player, I would never think of intruding on another player's chargen. That's their own personal business. Even if their character sheet is an exact copy of mine. Making my character distinct through my play of my role is the whole point of the game.

Our group doesn't make characters own their own so much as they work together and make a party. There's a lot of deference and goodwill just from session zero. It is interesting to see how different groups are respectful within the group in different ways.

 

[PnPgamer]

Too long thread didnt read all of it

What if you could give your wizard character to the new player? You could concentrate on the barbarian more.

I have experience of playing a wizard while someone else plays s wizard, and i definateoy got the feeling of being a clone of the other. It didnt feel right as there was no moment that i alone was able to shine.

Also your dm is inviting too much people and is out of control!

 

[Elf Witch]

I think it is outright rude to invite a new player to a game without discussing it with the table I don't care if it is the DM doing it. There could be a lot of reasons the players may have an objection to it. Maybe they already feel that they don't get enough spotlight time or feel that combat is taking to long as it is. Or they feel crowded at table and another player will make it uncomfortable. Gaming is a group activity and it plays best imo if everyone feels they have a voice in things.

I am wary about players playing the exact same classes. I have seen it work sometimes if the players are willing to work together. But I have also seen it cause a lot of tension at the table over things like who gets the magic item found in the loot or one player just completely over shadowing another player. There can also be role play issues. I played a wizard in a game who belonged to guild that the DM designed I tithe 10% of my money every six months in dues and I took an oath that I would never reveal spells or the inner workings of the guild to an outsider. A new player joined the group as a wizard he didn't want to join a guild which was fine but then he played is PC as pissy when I wouldn't let him copy spells out of my spellbook he took revenge by bribing the rogue to slip him all scrolls we found and any magic item that would be good for a wizard. It came to a head when he stole my spellbook while I was seriously injured and hid it from me so I was unable to learn more spells and this went on for several sessions. In the end my character let his character die I could have tried to stabilize him but I didn't. The game kind of self destructed after that.

As a DM I like letting players play what they want so at the start if some want to play the same class I tell them to talk which each other so they don't step on toes. If a new player came into the game and wanted to play the same class especially if they were very much alike I would ask the older player what they thought about it and if they had an issue then I would ask the new player to either play a different class or tweak the class so it is not so identical to one already in play.

There really is not one perfect answer to this. So much depends on the players and the DM and the dynamics at the table.

 

[SoulsFury]

This reminds me of the time I was in middle school and my friend's hot mom made us include his little brother in playing. We were childish and didn't want to play well with others, so we used a basilisk to turn the little brother's character to stone and made him pretend he was trapped in stone, so we could go about burning forests and backstabbing dragons. He just stood there for hours.

 

[PnPgamer]

RPG's are a group activity as such the group should be consulted before new members are brought in. The host of the place you gather at and the DM have more say about the final decision but it is just polite to have the conversation and include all the current players.

As to a new player joining and being of the same class as another player, I personaly dislike it and if they were coming in as the class my character is I would express my reservations. But in the end people should play what they want to play and everyone try and have fun. The only thing that would make me so frustrated I would want to change characters myself would be if they came in as the same class-subclass-and fighting style/schtick.

In your situation, you should most definitely stop playing two characters, if you stay with the wizard than hopefully you are different schools and prepare different spells than the other wizard all should be OK. Out of combat play up your personality differences, no matter the class you are a different character focus on all the things not on the character sheet that make your wizard unique.

This reminds me of the time I was in middle school and my friend's hot mom made us include his little brother in playing. We were childish and didn't want to play well with others, so we used a basilisk to turn the little brother's character to stone and made him pretend he was trapped in stone, so we could go about burning forests and backstabbing dragons. He just stood there for hours.

:-(

 

[Paraxis]

:-(

Could you explain your sadness?

 

[PnPgamer]

Could you explain your sadness?

Sorry it was for soulsfury post, not yours. Also i dont know what is that thing on the right side of reply with quote