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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClaytonCross" data-source="post: 7491932" data-attributes="member: 6880599">No because he is always trying to make a more powerful character. Its not really a story thinking, the GM "Makes him" add some sort of story element. Also, our Powerful story player who likes playing the knowledgeable powerful character type pretty much always plays a Wizard built optimally. That player is dedicated to character archetype the way the other is dedicated to trying to do as much DPR as he can. As such when someone else plays "wizard" and its not an optimal supper knowledgeable build played by someone who actually know D&D and playing the wizard for large impact non-DPR spell, he gets annoyed. It archetype specific power gaming in a way because he believes to be successful Wizard you need to be brilliant do things like hold person instead of firebolt spam. Generally, though the other players don't power game for damage so we don't conflict with the Power gamer and as long as we don't play a wizard we don't conflict with the "powerful story player" which is fine because most of actually prefer other casters. I for example, prefer sorcerers to wizards because I like subtle spell and quickened spell ALOT.I completely disagree. WE have fun at the table, the players treating it like a board game are happy to listen to the roleplay that drives the story, they just aren't interested in digging into that part...so they play the silent stoic characters which still have their place. As we roleplay, we still used them to intimidate, they still get mission of their own and are tied to events because the GM ties them too it. They also do get invested into it the story and character because of the tie in, they just rely on the face 99% of the time when its time to converse. We still ask them their opinions and they still make story arch choices, they just don't actively seek them. So I would see how have a full group of these would be a problem but since we only have 1-3 our of group of 3-7 players depending on who makes it, its not an issue. The 3 that roleplay the least (with 1 exception, who is actually the the powergamer) are the ones who tend to miss more sessions due to other obligations. So It could be the missing story that makes them focus on the strategic battle part of the game more. I would say that our powergamer, loves character design and finding an ounce more damage so to him D&D is has primarily two parts, designing then tweaking design for more damage and dropping bodies with them.I do agree for me the game has 3 sides of concept building, story role play, and combat.I will have agree with you and have disagree with you here. I believe, what the OP is trying to achieve could be done by simply multi-classing or even playing a specific sorcerer build. So why does the OP want it to be a single class design? Well I see two possible reason. 1. They or their GM does not like or allow mulit-class characters so they would be relegated to the existing Eldritch Knight, Pact of the Blade Hexblade Warlock, Valor Bard, etc builds but consider them "wasteful" and under powered. This is actually someone who wants story concept first because they are choosing a concept then want it to be powerful. Much like the "Powerful Wizard" concept player in my group. In this case, they do have a story point of I want to you magic to do as much damage in melee combat as possible. The not excepting paladins that already do this is a confirmation in my mind that the OP is this type of player. They are avoiding the Paladin religious connotation for an arcane one which is not significant from a design prospective. But when the "you should make an arcane Paladin subclass" came up the OP was not happy with that ether ...because the character concept and recognition of that story concept is still there. Taking "smite" in another form means the player is happy with the paladin design but wants the arcane non-religions based class and intellect and the caster stat. Again, very much like my "Powerful Wizard player" how IRL is very anti religion and science aka knowledge it power... This is being transferred to character choices in the game as they still maintain IRL beliefs while playing their characters instead of a complete separation. If the GM of the player were able to put "Mage Knight" on the top of their character sheet, remove all references to the paladin story and not tell any of the other player these player might be okay with it but …. in the back of their mind or when they describe the class to outsiders as "basically an arcane paladin" its like rubbing the hair backward on a cat... drives them crazy.2. They could be a design player, who really just wants to build and play something different.  In this case, the build truly needs to be unique and based on a unique mechanic concept to be different from the other classes and a good story premise could really help guide the design. So in this case unique DESIGN is the focus and story is just aid not the building block. That's important to remember because if the build isn't working right it maybe that throwing out the story concept and changing to a completely different one is fine. Sometimes having the wrong story concept for the design you are working on will cause you to fail. Maybe keep the story for another attempt but your building a basic design and finding a story that lets you focus it not the other way around as in #1.Nether of these is "power gaming" for DPR, they are just story or design. If a player wanted to be a spell caster that does a ton of damage in melee using arcane magic... 2 levels of fighter medium armor and a shield and action surge plus shadow Sorcerer level 3+ with quicken meta magic, shadow blade, booming blade, human variant: warcaster is going to be hard to beat. At character level 5 (2 Fighter, 3 Sorcerer) does 3d8 per hit (at advantage in dim light or darkness) +2d8 if they move, attacks twice with quicken meta magic, 3 with action surge, 4 if they move and provoke a opportunity attack spell with war caster... at level 5 that's 3d8 to 12d8 + 6d8 if the move....with AC18 (breastplate 14 + 2 dex bonus + 2 shield) and you can throw the sword 20ft cast next turn and resummons it as a bonus action. Shadow sorcerer, so you have 120ft darkvision which will prevent nullifying your advantage on attacks from dim light with shadow blade and cast darkness you can see though for advantage if you wouldn't normally have it. Strength of the grave, allows you fall to 0 hit points save and do another around of 6d8 damage.... at level 5.  It is not an "Intellect based caster" though and I do see a lot of people (like my "powerful wizard player") who are always looking for intellect caster options like arcane archers or WarMagic wizards but with actual armor and the Artificer doesn't currently fill that slot.</blockquote>

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