How Can You Politely Say, "Your Character Sucks?"

[Hellzon]

becuse if all fighters have X Y and Z then how many fighters can you play before they all look alike? I like that I have played 4 or 5 warlords and none of them share weapons, or feats really... and they all kicked butt.

My point exactly. Your warlords had different weapons, feats, probably powers, even different personalities. Who cares if they had a similar attack bonus (which they probably did, since prime stat, weapon and possibly X Expertise are the only things that change it between equal-leveled characters of the same class)?

 

[pawsplay]

Your turning what I said into a badwrongfun statement, which it isn't at all.

I consider creating an effective character a social obligation when you're in a group who all creates effective characters.

Feel free to bring this point up again when we are discussing an Int 10 swordmage. At 14 versus 18, I don't even consider this a relevant consideration.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

My point exactly. Your warlords had different weapons, feats, probably powers, even different personalities. Who cares if they had a similar attack bonus (which they probably did, since prime stat, weapon and possibly X Expertise are the only things that change it between equal-leveled characters of the same class)?

they were all in the same ball park...(say + or - 2 at any given moment for a 5 pt spread) but they were far from the same...


let me take an example from play... level 3 PCs

Golath Fighter with weapon talent and an 18 str +1 Greatsword
Shifter Paliden (Cleric) with 16 Str, Wis, and Cha War Axe

Elvin Avenger with 20 wis and expertise +2 Full Blade
Reverant rouge with 16 dex +1 Dagger

Dwarf wizard with 16 INt +1 staff (melee training)

lets look at there attacks here
Fighter great word + 10 Vs AC
Paliden war axe +6 Vs Ac
Avenger +12 (2d20 roll) Vs AC
Rogue +9 Vs AC or NADs
Wizard +5 Vs NADs or +7 Vs AC

they run the gambit from +12 to +6 on there attacks Vs AC... heck the dwarf wizard has +1 over the paliden to hit (Not for long though, the current dungeon has an artafact waraxe we are looking for) by the way I am the wizard...

 

[Starfox]

I am in the 14 is to low camp. Not only is this Swordmage not good at hitting and inflicting damage, but he also has a poor AC, which makes him a worse defender overall. A fighter can get away with a 14 Strength; a 14 Int Swordmage is gimped. Having higher secondary stats does not make up for it; even with a 14 Charisma, the Swordmage is unlikely to have Charisma skills high enough to be useful. It might even be a trap, making him THINK he can contribute to a social skill challenge where his efforts can actually make the task much more likely to fail. A bad rule and another reason to over-specialize.

My advice to the OP is to point out the harsh realities of the game, then wait to be asked for build advice.

I don't really see this as a flaw with the player, but with the system. People have been asking where it says you should start with an 18 in a prime ability. Well, it doesn't, but it really should. Because that really is how the game is designed. There is way too much emphasis on the prime ability scores in 4E.

I no longer think of the stats as describing my PC, 1e-3e style. They're just there to modify die rolls. So a female Fighter can be STR 20 and still look like Angelina Jolie, the 20 just means she's very good at strength-related tasks like hacking people into small pieces.

Sad but true. This is starting to turn me off from 4E.

...optimization has not even the proverbial rat's behind to do with group survival, challenge or task fullfillment. Those things are entirely dependent on what the DM's decisions are when he sits down to design the encounters in question.

While this is true, a wide variation in PC abilities makes the DM's task of balancing that much harder. A trial fun for an optimized character is not fun for a suboptimal one and vice versa. This is why a game should not offer as much power variance as 4E does, and why it is a good idea to offer advice that makes all characters approximately as able to contribute.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There's nothing 'highly efficient' about putting an 18 in a class primary stat. Highly efficient would be putting a 20 in that stat and getting Weapon/Implement Expertise at 1st-level.

An 18 in a primary stat isn't 'laser-focused', it's simply what the system is balanced around and although there are rare instances where a 16 is used in a prime stat for some hybrid or half-elf or weird charop builds that only start to shine at 20th-level and suck until then, putting a 14 in a prime stat is just daft.

I'll concede that there are some groups who don't care if they suck. But as we saw in a previous similar thread, most people don't want their characters to die constantly and never succeed in their missions. That requires having a reasonable character, not a deliberately gimped bunch of non-adventurers who fail at everything.

I have seen this attitude before. We were discussing talent points in Goldshire.....................

4e is on a bell-curve. 18 seems to be about where it's balanced around a 50/50 chance to hit every time you attack. For every +1 higher or lower, the chance to hit/miss increases exponentially instead of a flat 5% per plus on a d20.

Consider in a 10 round fight that a character with a primary stat of 18 will hit roughly around 5 times out of 10 attacks. Just reducing this to a 17, will change this to about 3 times out of 10 attacks. At 14, he'll hit maybe once a combat*.

This is why 4E needed so much modification to be enjoyable. Screw being on a damn treadmill where your choices are dictated to you if you want to keep up with or exceed your meager 50% hit rate. By 10th level or so if I am still only succeeding 50% of the time how in the hell can I claim that I have gained ANY experience whatsoever since level 1.

So now you have a character that is nothing more than a bag of hit points. He contributes nothing else to the group. Combats will now take 2-4 extra rounds to complete. And as the defender of the group, he doesn't fulfil his role, so someone else has to take up his slack.

More drivel. Lrn 2 tank n00b, etc. Yawn.

And given his low prime stat, I doubt his skills are anything to talk about either, so he's also contributing failure to skill challenges.

Oh my he forgot to bring the biggest hammer to the whack a mole skill slap fight. Perhaps he was too busy actually playing his character and thinking of solutions to problems that DIDN'T involve finding a way use his two biggest numbers regardless or how little sense it would make.

Now sure, some people might think that's fun, but I doubt many people see him as anything but a liability that detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game for everyone at the table.

So I guess you would just boot him and start scanning the LFM channel?

 

[Janx]

Why?

because not everybody gets to roll an 18, and not every puts the 18 in the same stat, even on the same class.

if 4e encourages the kind of play where everybody has the same numbers to work with, that's not the way I roll. pun intended.

 

[rjdafoe]

So I guess you would just boot him and start scanning the LFM channel?

That is great. The funny thing about all the comments is that IMO these all came from the MMO crowd. It may be only me and the people I hung around, but no one talked like that before EQ.

It is the worst thing to bleed over into RPGs in general, IMO.

 

[Corinth]

You should tell the guy that he's doing it wrong and insist upon making it right. Your guy is putting his life in this other guy's hands, and that imposes the obligation to do all that he can to make his guy the best possible at his job. The team trumps the individuals that comprise it, as it does in any other team sport or similar group-focused pursuit, and if that guy won't pull his weight either bench his guy or use him as cannon fodder until that guy gets it.

 

[Gimby]

Well, I'll agree that 14 is a little low, but its hardly game breaking. Given that they seem to have a respectable melee basic attack and the swordmage mark isn't dependant on a hit to apply, they will be perfectly capable of performing the job of a defender. Now, clearly they could probably be doing it *better*, but the encounter design guidelines don't seem to be demanding a perfectly optimised party. The player's own tactical ability will play more into it than an extra +1 to hit, particularly if they are using the Swordmage's wide range of bursts and blasts or +3 prof weapons.

The real question is whether or not the player is enjoying the game. If they are finding themselves frustrated with missing a lot (and honestly, they might not have noticed it) then offer to help them out. If they are happy with how things are going, then no problem. As already seen, if the player has enough tactical awareness then they'll be able to fufill the design goal of the class fine.

If anything, I think your goal should be to pull them more into the game as it sounds like they aren't really engaged. Being open and engaging them in play may help more than worrying about their build, and may help you finding out whether or not they are enjoying the game.

 

[Vartan]

Not to be rude, but why don't you just ask the dude about his character? His build might take multiple levels to develop, he might have tricks up his sleeve, he might have really wanted to test a Dragonborn Swordmage and made choices to compensate for their lack of an INT bonus. Maybe he has a story-oriented concept for his Dragonborn Swordmage, or just thought it would be cool to play a brick-house STRong dragonman who defends his allies by breathing [element x] and using similar class powers. Instead of telling him that his character sucks (or asking him why he made a sucky character) ask him what he's thinking. You might learn something from him, and if nothing else you'll make a friend at the table. "So what's your approach to this guy? I've spiked INT on all of my Swordmage builds, but that would be hard with a Dragonborn."

The game is about more than creating the most uniformly efficient 4 - 6 man killing team. Yes, D&D is a group game, but that doesn't mean everyone who bellies up to the table is obligated to submit their character generation choices to the scrutiny of the other players. Each player has one character whom they design and control, and that's it: how would you like it if another player confronted you or complained to the DM because you chose one feat over another, or because you didn't have the "right" at-will? Even "optimal" characters are the result of choices, and different players make different choices (as they should).

This is a teachable moment: being part of an RPG group can help you develop people skills that will serve you well in all walks of life. Not to name names but some of the posters in this thread come off as being ugly and inflammatory. That isn't something one usually sees at ENWorld (I'm surprised that one of the mods hasn't lit this thread up) and it isn't an approach I would endorse for offline discussion.