Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Heroic potential and magical talent
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="kaomera" data-source="post: 3198773" data-attributes="member: 38357"><p>Sorry, that wasn't what I was trying to say. More: multi-classing is ok, as long as you have some sort of reasoning behind it. Being able to describe that reasoning to me in a way that would make sense would be a definite bonus. One of the reasons this was such a problem was that I had allowed dips before in this game, and I had not really previously required any sort of specific "training", etc. As pawsplay has pointed out, that may have been a big part of the problem. However, I don't find that enforcing "training" rules really adds fun to my games. I really don't want to hinder players who are doing cool things with their characters, but I also don't want to become the only determiner of what is and is not "cool". I've had plenty of players do things that I shook my head at, but turned out really fun for the whole group. Unfortunately, I've also had screwups like the example above...</p><p></p><p>The Rogue taking a level of Cleric wasn't really that much of a problem, the player did what he could with it (Detect Magic is cool to have when you're a Rogue), and he actually ended up using the wand of CSW the party bought for him, about three times. The only roleplaying the Fighter had really had was giving the PoF flack about him being so religious, the player just said "Well, he changed his mind", and pointed out that he didn't have to worship a deity anyway... I disallowed that because a) he actually wanted to worship "An Abstract Concept" (rather than, ya'know, <em>picking one</em>...), and b) I had previously established that I was only using the deities from the PHB. Once I got him to pick one (I guess the character had an epiphany...), he then proceeded to bitch about the War domain not granting him any net benefits. Once we got past that things where pretty much ok: he got a 21,000gp wand, paid for out of the party treasury, which he refused to use, and he went out of his way to avoid situations where he might actually have to cast any spells, but whatever... The Druid didn't cause any immediate problems, and in fact he was the player I was most willing to believe had a plan of some kind going on. He got a wand of fireballs, which he never used, because he was pretty much always wildshaped. After about two sessions, he told me that he was upset that his Wizard spells (0 and 1st level, CL1) where not proving as useful as his Druid spells (up to 4th level, CL7). I told him he had to be joking. The next session, he brought it up again, asking (I'm paraphrasing) "Why did I even take a level of Wizard?" I told him that, frankly, I had no idea, that I had tried to make sure it was really what he wanted (frankly, I actually tried to talk him out of it), and that I really had no idea what I could do that would make having a handful of low-level spells cool for him. He chalked it up as a poor decision, and we stopped worrying about it. None of this was really that much more than the usual problems I've had at the table. Nothing stopped the game for more than a few minutes at a time, no raised voices, etc. Like I said, the real problem was the Paladin of Freedom; that player really didn't want to multiclass, and he shouldn't have. He gained nearly nothing since the character wore heavy armor, and he didn't like using his Rage. I really wanted to let him take the choice back, and maybe I should have, but I had previously stated that I was not going to allow any more retconning of characters. I tried to come up with a compromise that was a little less unfair, but he wouldn't go for it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is really the center of the problem I'm facing. In any of the above cases I could have just said "no." However I felt (and still feel) that would have been unfair. I can't know exactly what a player has in mind, unless they will tell me. And some won't. I have no problem with min-maxing. In my current group I'd actually prefer if at least one or two of the characters had a good build, at least fairly-well optimized. Unfortunately, the only players I have who are particularly interested in that sort of thing just aren't really that good at it. The problem is, really, that sometimes I'm right. The current group includes a Warblade, a Dragon Shaman, and a Dragonfire Adept, all of whom are now worrying that they may have picked the wrong class. I told them when the campaign started that I wasn't sure that every player playing a non-core base (with the exception of a Wizard) was the best idea, but I didn't think it would be fair to tell them "No, you can't play that class", because I wasn't ready to just outright ban non-core classes. Now any or all of the three may end up multiclassing, and it's liable to hurt their characters' overall effectiveness, which is liable to make the game less fun for them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kaomera, post: 3198773, member: 38357"] Sorry, that wasn't what I was trying to say. More: multi-classing is ok, as long as you have some sort of reasoning behind it. Being able to describe that reasoning to me in a way that would make sense would be a definite bonus. One of the reasons this was such a problem was that I had allowed dips before in this game, and I had not really previously required any sort of specific "training", etc. As pawsplay has pointed out, that may have been a big part of the problem. However, I don't find that enforcing "training" rules really adds fun to my games. I really don't want to hinder players who are doing cool things with their characters, but I also don't want to become the only determiner of what is and is not "cool". I've had plenty of players do things that I shook my head at, but turned out really fun for the whole group. Unfortunately, I've also had screwups like the example above... The Rogue taking a level of Cleric wasn't really that much of a problem, the player did what he could with it (Detect Magic is cool to have when you're a Rogue), and he actually ended up using the wand of CSW the party bought for him, about three times. The only roleplaying the Fighter had really had was giving the PoF flack about him being so religious, the player just said "Well, he changed his mind", and pointed out that he didn't have to worship a deity anyway... I disallowed that because a) he actually wanted to worship "An Abstract Concept" (rather than, ya'know, [i]picking one[/i]...), and b) I had previously established that I was only using the deities from the PHB. Once I got him to pick one (I guess the character had an epiphany...), he then proceeded to bitch about the War domain not granting him any net benefits. Once we got past that things where pretty much ok: he got a 21,000gp wand, paid for out of the party treasury, which he refused to use, and he went out of his way to avoid situations where he might actually have to cast any spells, but whatever... The Druid didn't cause any immediate problems, and in fact he was the player I was most willing to believe had a plan of some kind going on. He got a wand of fireballs, which he never used, because he was pretty much always wildshaped. After about two sessions, he told me that he was upset that his Wizard spells (0 and 1st level, CL1) where not proving as useful as his Druid spells (up to 4th level, CL7). I told him he had to be joking. The next session, he brought it up again, asking (I'm paraphrasing) "Why did I even take a level of Wizard?" I told him that, frankly, I had no idea, that I had tried to make sure it was really what he wanted (frankly, I actually tried to talk him out of it), and that I really had no idea what I could do that would make having a handful of low-level spells cool for him. He chalked it up as a poor decision, and we stopped worrying about it. None of this was really that much more than the usual problems I've had at the table. Nothing stopped the game for more than a few minutes at a time, no raised voices, etc. Like I said, the real problem was the Paladin of Freedom; that player really didn't want to multiclass, and he shouldn't have. He gained nearly nothing since the character wore heavy armor, and he didn't like using his Rage. I really wanted to let him take the choice back, and maybe I should have, but I had previously stated that I was not going to allow any more retconning of characters. I tried to come up with a compromise that was a little less unfair, but he wouldn't go for it. This is really the center of the problem I'm facing. In any of the above cases I could have just said "no." However I felt (and still feel) that would have been unfair. I can't know exactly what a player has in mind, unless they will tell me. And some won't. I have no problem with min-maxing. In my current group I'd actually prefer if at least one or two of the characters had a good build, at least fairly-well optimized. Unfortunately, the only players I have who are particularly interested in that sort of thing just aren't really that good at it. The problem is, really, that sometimes I'm right. The current group includes a Warblade, a Dragon Shaman, and a Dragonfire Adept, all of whom are now worrying that they may have picked the wrong class. I told them when the campaign started that I wasn't sure that every player playing a non-core base (with the exception of a Wizard) was the best idea, but I didn't think it would be fair to tell them "No, you can't play that class", because I wasn't ready to just outright ban non-core classes. Now any or all of the three may end up multiclassing, and it's liable to hurt their characters' overall effectiveness, which is liable to make the game less fun for them. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Heroic potential and magical talent
Top