Shooting down LEGIT character concepts

[TheSword]

Yes, I would. Whenever required.

- If a player tried to create a character that was deliberately antagonistic to another player - i.e a necromancer/assassin in a party with a paladin.

- Where the character is designed to exploit a design feature to the point where the game is no longer challenging. I see this most often with AC. A player glowingly told me how he could get AC to 30+ by mid level. I told him to shelve it.

- Where the concept just doesn’t fit in with the theme of the campaign, which is always spelled out in advance in a pre-campaign players guide.

Our groups generally play for year+ long campaigns and it’s too disruptive to allow characters that are going to cause problems. Luckily we all trust each other, get on, are honest and find a way to play the game and not make life hard for each other.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I've refused one legit character in the last couple of years, not because of class choices, but because the flaws and quirks were all along the lines of "don't tell me the plan, I won't follow it anyway" and "I do what I want when I want". It was a character pretty much designed to mess up the party dynamic. I told the player to go away and come up with a team player, which they did.

There have been a few broken things I've read online (great weapon master and sharpshooter, I'm looking at you). I have both feats in the game I'm running now, and I don't think the -5/+10 is bad. I do think the "no disadvantage from cover" is broken, however. Completely ignoring battlements and walls and fortifications is way too powerful for one-third of a feat.

 

[Mort]

I've refused one legit character in the last couple of years, not because of class choices, but because the flaws and quirks were all along the lines of "don't tell me the plan, I won't follow it anyway" and "I do what I want when I want". It was a character pretty much designed to mess up the party dynamic. I told the player to go away and come up with a team player, which they did.

There have been a few broken things I've read online (great weapon master and sharpshooter, I'm looking at you). I have both feats in the game I'm running now, and I don't think the -5/+10 is bad. I do think the "no disadvantage from cover" is broken, however. Completely ignoring battlements and walls and fortifications is way too powerful for one-third of a feat.

Yeah, a character that's meant to be disruptive is pretty much the only no go for me.

The characters always seem to violate the "don't be a jerk rule."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For example, if there's a druid focused on nature, animals, and survival, I wouldn't allow another character to bring in a ranger focused on nature, animals, and survival. Most of my players would be annoyed, but would get over it eventually; one of my players, though, would be very upset by it, so I try to prevent that.

I leave sorting that kind of thing to the players to resolve. I’ve resolved issues like that as a player, so I know it can be done. Sometimes it becomes a (friendly/unfriendly) rivalry, sometimes it becomes synergistic.

But to me, a DM stepping into that dispute can look like favoring one player’s fun over another’s. Especially if the decisions all go one player’s way.*

In a 2Ed campaign, another player and I both decided to play warrior-priest clerics using the Player’s Option books. Our concepts were fairly different- mine was from a Nordic culture, while his was more Eastern in flavor. Think spellcasting Monk, if you will.

Both of us made a trivially similar build decision when it came to spell access though, in that we both took the option of having access to a single school of wizard spells.

His PC was a powerful spellcaster. His clerical access was pretty standard, and his wizard spells were from one of the more offensive schools, like evocation or conjuration.

OTOH, mine was more of an armored priest with some decent weapons and a host of buffing spells. I had access to more schools and spheres, but almost all of my access was limited to spells under 4th level, and but for 3 spells that did damage, all of mine were buffs, protective, etc., and one of the 3 was Blade Barrier, which I only had acces to because it was on the Abjuration list for wizards. And most of my spells were better cast on an ally than on myself.

But all he could see was that my PC had access to a broader array of spells while being able to use armor and edged weapons.

He bitched so much about me creating “Superman”* that I just said “OK!”, and tore the character sheet in half in his face.

There was never a repeat incident like that in the subsequent decade of play.





* one player in a particular group has effectively become the ONLY player who gets to play wizards. Not so much because of DMs per se, but because everyone acquiesces when he says he’s playing one...which is 90% of the time since I met him in the 1980s. Nobody wants a confrontation or snarky criticism down the road.

** I recreated that build for another campaign that had some player overlap with the group with the whining player. In that game’s first combat, he was one-shotted by a skeleton with a great axe. No kryptonite needed.

 

[Mistwell]

...or silly (halfling mounted on a riding dog two-weapon fighting with a pair of lances), and as a DM I might choose to veto.

You monster!

 

[Inchoroi]

I leave sorting that kind of thing to the players to resolve. I’ve resolved issues like that as a player, so I know it can be done. Sometimes it becomes a (friendly/unfriendly) rivalry, sometimes it becomes synergistic.

But to me, a DM stepping into that dispute can look like favoring one player’s fun over another’s. Especially if the decisions all go one player’s way.*

In a 2Ed campaign, another player and I both decided to play warrior-priest clerics using the Player’s Option books. Our concepts were fairly different- mine was from a Nordic culture, while his was more Eastern in flavor. Think spellcasting Monk, if you will.

Both of us made a trivially similar build decision when it came to spell access though, in that we both took the option of having access to a single school of wizard spells.

His PC was a powerful spellcaster. His clerical access was pretty standard, and his wizard spells were from one of the more offensive schools, like evocation or conjuration.

OTOH, mine was more of an armored priest with some decent weapons and a host of buffing spells. I had access to more schools and spheres, but almost all of my access was limited to spells under 4th level, and but for 3 spells that did damage, all of mine were buffs, protective, etc., and one of the 3 was Blade Barrier, which I only had acces to because it was on the Abjuration list for wizards. And most of my spells were better cast on an ally than on myself.

But all he could see was that my PC had access to a broader array of spells while being able to use armor and edged weapons.

He bitched so much about me creating “Superman”* that I just said “OK!”, and tore the character sheet in half in his face.

There was never a repeat incident like that in the subsequent decade of play.





* one player in a particular group has effectively become the ONLY player who gets to play wizards. Not so much because of DMs per se, but because everyone acquiesces when he says he’s playing one...which is 90% of the time since I met him in the 1980s. Nobody wants a confrontation or snarky criticism down the road.

** I recreated that build for another campaign that had some player overlap with the group with the whining player. In that game’s first combat, he was one-shotted by a skeleton with a great axe. No kryptonite needed.

I've only had to step in like that once, fortunately; the guy got so ticked off about it that he just quit before he even got to play a session. The players I have now know that's something to be avoided; in the case in question, it'd be like if you were playing a nordic warrior-priest, and he brought in another nordic warrior-priest.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...it'd be like if you were playing a nordic warrior-priest, and he brought in another nordic warrior-priest.

Even then, I think it’s best for the DM to let the players handle it. Too easy for it to seem like playing favorites, otherwise.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Even then, I think it’s best for the DM to let the players handle it. Too easy for it to seem like playing favorites, otherwise.

True and sometimes one player doesn't care so it doesn't become an issue.

One of the characters I almost shot down was a ranger. Just a pure hunter ranger, no real bells and whistles.

I nearly shot it down because the player told me he picked a ranger because he wanted to be "better at everything" that another player was doing (he'd gone rogue and MC'd ranger for longbows). I'd never before encountered a player whose sole goal was to just be a better version of another players character.

Luckily, I knew the rogue/ranger was new to the game and couldn't have cared less about overlapping spotlights, so I didn't make a big issue of it. Also luckily, the pure ranger made some other baffling choices and ended up leaving the party to serve an aboleth who offered him a chest of platinum pieces (my first time running an aboleth and I wanted to play with the 'heart desires' thing. The only thing I knew about that character was he liked money... and then the rest happened.)

 

[Laurefindel]

True and sometimes one player doesn't care so it doesn't become an issue. I’ll

One of my most memorable game involved three players; two rangers and a druid (and their pets). I played in a game with two melee fighters with similar builts, and two wizards (both players seem to actually enjoy that quite a bit. They decided that they had the same master and would constantly back one another). Given my style of play, it’s easy to put the spotlight on a character (rather than its abilities), but I can see how annoying it would be to have another player attempting to steal the spotlight by deliberately making a character better at doing “your thing”.

Actually, a player deliberately stealing (or hogging) the spotlight is annoying no matter how they do it. But among the right gaming groups, class duplicity doesn’t have to be considered an issue.

 

[thorgrit]

Immediately shoot down, even if it follows my list of rules I supplied before session 0? No. If I think it might cause a problem for the player, though, like if the player thinks the class or an option works a different way than it actually does, or picks complicated options without understanding what they do, I might caution and warn them about it before it becomes frustrating for them.

I always have at least one player I'm always hesitant to allow to play spellcasters. Even five sessions in, they ask what a spell save DC is, other players helpfully lead them through calculating what it is, and told to write it down and remember it for the future. Only to forget and repeat the process every single time they cast a spell. And also rarely look up what spells do, just pick them based on their name, and always asks *me* in the middle of combat when I might have 2-3 books open and flipping through various stat blocks, instead of opening their own PHB sitting right in front of them. It's this type of player I would encourage to play a class more on their comfort level of being able to understand on their own.