Powerplayers

[WalterKovacs]

For the monk, as a halfing he can go with Con/Dex for his stats, and if he gets Psionic Power (or the character builder), he can get the powers for the Con secondary build. The monk is better as a burst striker than a single target striker, so if he's not getting himself into a group of enemies and doing damage to multiple targets, he's going to be weaker than a single target striker (like say, a rogue). The group should actually do well with the monk and warden in the thick of things and the wizard/psion hopefully having some powers and/or feats that can:

(a) slide the enemies around to keep them next to his allies
(b) slow/immobilize enemies to keep them next to his allies, or out of the fight for some melee types
(c) so bursts/blasts that can leave his allies out of it, or at least make it less likely he hits them.

As for the dreamform and trap stuff:

A) Most traps, especially at paragon tier, don't just get set off and stop working. When triggered, they will continue to "go off" until disabled. Since the dream form can't actually disable the traps (except hitting it with damaging effects) triggering it won't really help to disable it. It may alert the party to there being traps, but sometimes it's better to bypass a trap, than to "turn it on" if the party is going to have to pass that way one way or the other.

B) He cannot pick up items with that form or make arcana checks. The only things you can do are what is listed in the power, which is use your powers through the square it originates and flank. (As well as see/hear).

C) As per conjuration rules, he has to end his turn within the same range as the original power (in this case 10) in order to keep the conjuration from disappearing. This also means he has to keep line of effect to the conjuration, so he may be able to stay out of the traps range or back from the front lines of the battle, but if there are say ... artillery or other ranged people in the battle, they should be able to see him.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I think the player could make some Arcana checks through the Dream Form if the use only required sight/hearing such as Identify Magical Phenomenon, Identify Conjuration or Zone, or Monster Knowledge.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think a dream form can manipulate items, so it probably can't set of traps, etc. He can probably make certain Arcana checks, but it would be up to you if he can for example detect magic or certain things like that.

Maybe a bit less combat focus is in order. Combat tweaking your character is all well and good, but if the others are putting more emphasis on say skills and such then it may be that he'll find he's not so optimum all-around. Though honestly his character looks fairly flexible.

This is all a pretty classic issue of divergent player focus and goals. Maybe get player C to point out some things the others can do. Often exchanging one feat for a similar one that is better can help a good bit, or using a slightly different weapon or picking a power or two that synergize better with the build, etc. That might put them on a more even footing, give the other players a bit of understanding of what works well in 4e, and leverage the optimizer's interest in that aspect of the game.

Starting at level 1 is really a good idea too. It is a lot harder to tweak your character up when you build it organically like that, and starting in paragon is both technically challenging and catering to that player at the expense of the others. Spin it as "it will be more fun if you earn it" or something (depends on the player how you spin that).

 

[mkill]

I will post the build of the Warden today, after I get back home.
Basically he has a lot of HP, more than the controller. Which is why C stated: "Warden has more HP/defences than my controller. Warden is overpowered."

And which is why we stated: "Don't compare controllers with defenders."
But he doesn't listen very well.

...

Player A recently wanted to play as a monk. It's very hard for him to find out what's good for a monk, since he never played as one. Right now his monk is decent, but C is complaining that the monk is weak or that monks are weak.

Unless player C is a professional game designer (or at least a skilled freelancer), simply make it your policy to ignore everything he says about "weak" or "overpowered" classes. I know it's a favorite pasttime of many gamers to discuss the power level of everything, but as DM, don't listen. Uou can safely leave that to the people who publish the books.

As a DM, you only need to concern yourself with the actual characters on the table. And you'll notice that individual characters can be weak or strong for many other reasons than the chosen class.

...the only issue might be that player A doesn't spend a lot of time optimizing his character, B doesn't like how C plays and C doesn't like the 'lesser' characters of player A.

4th edition does a reasonable job at making characters useful even without larger optimization efforts. You have to do something really counterintuitive to make a character that is horribly bad. As long as you have a 16 in your main attack stat, items with a bonus of roughly level / 5, and feats and powers in line with your stated role, you're good.

Starting a low lv campaign would be the best.

I agree. It gives you as DM the breathing space to get more familiar with the game. So far, it sounds like you're doing a good job.

One thing I would change is, I would listen to player C less. He sounds like a valuable, experienced roleplayer, but like many veterans who face a junior DM, he tries to run the show. Don't let him. Make it abundantly clear to him that you will try to run a game that is fun, and that you will try to accomodate his wishes, but if you say NO, then this is a binding DM decision and he has to accept it or leave the table. If you decide to run a low-level game, the game is low level, case closed.

In other words: Assert authority. (It's a skill that, once learned, comes in handy in real life, too.)

A question: "The wizard/psion is using dreamform, a conjuration. What can and can't he do with that form?"

You're the DM. You decide what he can do in that form. If he doesn't like your ruling, let him switch to a different power.

 

[Baron Von Mandrick]

I know this is mainly about player Scrubb, but let me speak up about player A for a minute. His randomness could well be viewed as character quirks. They may add depth to his character. If possible try and find a way to tie it in to the adventure.

When you say jumping over threes, do you mean he's jumping over things in groups of three? Maybe a performing group of acrobats has heard of him, and would have a job for him and his party to do. It could fit in with the story. Or maybe the bad guys have found out about his quirk and set up a group of three barrels with a pit trap at the other end, or anything else that you could think of.

I'm not there so I don't really know the spirit he's doing this with, but I often have strange character quirks that help define my character. I had one guy who traveled around with a goat, and wore dirty clothes but told everyone he was a Baron. That was at first level. Later at high level once he did gain land and stronghold his coat of arms included a Ram even though his goat had long since been left behind.

All of that stuff was random and seemingly meaningless at the beginning, but later came into play sometimes in small ways sometimes in bigger ways.

 

[TwoSix]

When you say jumping over threes, do you mean he's jumping over things in groups of three? Maybe a performing group of acrobats has heard of him, and would have a job for him and his party to do. It could fit in with the story. Or maybe the bad guys have found out about his quirk and set up a group of three barrels with a pit trap at the other end, or anything else that you could think of.

Pretty sure he meant trees. Or player A is just really weird, yea.

 

[Kerranin]

"Born Under a Bad Sign" and "Auspicious Birth" are both vague enough and mechanically useful enough that a lot of DM's will allow them, SoW or not. Nothing unreasonable about that.


Why would MoP be banned any more than Player Handbook: Tiefling or Psionic Power? It's not a campaign setting, the items therein aren't specific to anything.

I tried not to let personal preferences creep in but obviously some of my own prejudices did. My apologies.

 

[Baron Von Mandrick]

edit. Accidental double post

 

[Reffy]

I meant 'trees', lol. As in, those things in the forest.

Player A has a chaotic neutral way of thinking.
When C used his dreamform, player A asked: "May I punch your dreamform in the nuts?"

That's what I meant with random. We think it's fun...and random. He also does random stuff outside of character. I will spare you the details.

And thanks for the dreamform information, I know I can decide as a DM, what will happen. But I need to know the mechanics etc.

Anyway, look at this conversation:

Reffy: "You may use dragonshards. Let me know which one you want to use."
C: "Nice, I'm going to use siberys shard of the mage."
B: "You can only attach a shard on a weapon, not on an implement.(staffs etc.)"
C: "And why is that? DM, I would like to use SSotM on my weapon (staff)."
B: "It says in the Ebberon Handbook, you can't use it on implement weapons, that's why you get the +3 damage."
C: "I don't care what the handbook says, the discription of the item counts first."
B: http://community.wizards.com/go/thr...gonshard_Augments?post_id=333911986#333911986


Why? Why does it matter to him so much?

 

[Riastlin]

I meant 'trees', lol. As in, those things in the forest.

Player A has a chaotic neutral way of thinking.
When C used his dreamform, player A asked: "May I punch your dreamform in the nuts?"

That's what I meant with random. We think it's fun...and random. He also does random stuff outside of character. I will spare you the details.

And thanks for the dreamform information, I know I can decide as a DM, what will happen. But I need to know the mechanics etc.

Anyway, look at this conversation:

Reffy: "You may use dragonshards. Let me know which one you want to use."
C: "Nice, I'm going to use siberys shard of the mage."
B: "You can only attach a shard on a weapon, not on an implement.(staffs etc.)"
C: "And why is that? DM, I would like to use SSotM on my weapon (staff)."
B: "It says in the Ebberon Handbook, you can't use it on implement weapons, that's why you get the +3 damage."
C: "I don't care what the handbook says, the discription of the item counts first."
B: Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible


Why? Why does it matter to him so much?

To be fair, what he's asking for here is some form of realism, which isn't necessarily shocking or powergamery. The rules try to create as much realism as possible for a fantasy game, but they often miss some seemingly obvious instances. Here the complaint is that if he were to carry the staff as a weapon, then there'd be no problem. But if he wants to use the staff as an implement it doesn't work (or per player B, can't be attached). Of course, when its being attached to the staff, the shard wouldn't know what the intended use would be.

More to the point, its called the Siberys Shard of the Mage, yet appears to be relatively useless to mages (per your description -- I don't own the Eberron books, so going by what you say). That just doesn't really seem all that logical. It is far from uncommon for groups to tweak the rules so as to make them seem logical. Doesn't mean that you have to of course, but a lot of players just want that logic or realism there. Others don't care. But it sounds as though you are overreacting a bit here as it really isn't unreasonable for him to be making his case here (in my opinion). I certainly don't have a problem with you saying no though either.

As others have stated, although he appears to have built a fairly effective character, upon having had a chance to review it closer, it really doesn't seem like he's really breaking anything, or being overly cheesy, etc.