The druid is not fighting!!! LONG!

[Wippit Guud]

He has access to 24 HD in animal companions... and he has 1 HD worth (awakened amimals aren't animals). It seems to me the druid is missing out on a pretty potent offensive weapon, and most animals would gladly help a druid when asked.

Give him a couple of dire animals, and let them attack on their own because they smell blood. Dire wolverines would rock for this.

 

[Mark Chance]

Arbados the original poster is back again (and thanks for the replies they have been great

*snip!*

Good information, all around. I can see several mistakes that the party made, but, as they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

The best thing for the players to do is avoid playing the Blame Game. Instead, each player, IC or OOC (or both), needs to take a step back and review the scenario to identify mistakes and develop a plan to avoid those mistakes in the future.

Major issues that I see:

* The druid needs to be proactive. As the only healer in the group, he cannot be too cautious when the chips are coming down. If a party member calls for healing right now, that means right now, not when it seems safe or convenient.

* The party needs a real healer or, at a minimum, another semi-healer. A lone druid cannot adequately cover the healing needs of the party.

* When the only healing left is the druid (i.e., when all of the potions and scrolls are used up), it is time for the party to retreat, regroup, and recuperate. If they don't have a plan for this, they need to develop one. The druid and the wizard, with appropriate barrier spells (i.e., web, any of the various wall of... spells, etc.) can help provide cover for a safe retreat.

* If they are not already doing so, as much as possible the party needs to focus damage on the main fighter's current opponent. It is often best to double- or triple-team a single foe even if it means not targeting other opponents.

My current group of players started the campaign enormously disorganized and making many egregious tactical errors. They have slowly learned to back each other up, always have a plan of attack whenever possible, and to talk through "after action reports" in order to hone their tactical skills.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I tend to agree with Petrosian.

From a player perspective, it feels like an abuse of personal trust for you to play a kooky suboptimal PC and expect my PC to pick up the slack because you are my friend. If you really are a roleplayer, you need to be able to justify your actions to my character with in character reasoning. To think otherwise is bad roleplaying, pure and simple.

IMHO, if you play a quirky character it is your responsibility to do it well. If you are not up to the task, I will be forgiving if your character is brave.

I think playing a druid who always avoids melee combat can be a fine thing. This player does not appear to know how to do so well, and is a real candidate for being kicked out of the party for good cause.

He needs to bring an animal companion along to help out -- a dire lion at the very least at his level; not understanding the rules and weak roleplaying excuses don't cut it. He needs to buy/make scrolls & wands with his own precious lucre -- lots of them. If he really does ever run out of decent offensive options, its into the meatgrinder for him: Wildshape and suck it up like a man. If he doesn't have the foresight to have the right spells handy, he has not earned the right to be protected by his comrades while they are already badly wounded.

From the moral POV, the psywarrior's player is 110% correct that his death can be blamed on the druid. While the psywarrior may not necessarily expect to be healed, may not necessarily expect the druid to come up and help fight, the combination of casting a defensive booster on himself AND actively avoiding melee is undeniable cowardice. A well-roleplayed, brave PC or NPC would not want that kind of character along for the ride.

Next time he should just wildshape into a farm hen and hide in the corner until treasure divvy.

 

[DragonLancer]

We play tomorrow and I will let you know how the players try to resolve this. I am going to allow the other players the opportunity to offer some more suggestions to the druid and I also told them that they should look at all the druids actions within a battle for they may be remembering the ones which had a negative impact, but not taking into consideration all the other positive actions that he had performed.

I'm looking forward to reading your response tomorrow. I hope things work out well for all involved.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by arbados:

The druid has two animal companions which he does not have tag along on missions unless they accamodate the creatures natural habitat.

One is an owl (WISE!) which he lets remain within its lands to offer him information on the happenings while he is away adventuring. He also requests the owl to send messages to allies, but basically just has Wise keep him up-to-date on things which the he may not have seen in his home land during his adventures.

Second is his wolf (not dire, but awakened) which he has had as a companion for a very long time. The druid has a very close bond with this animal and even though he knows that he can befriend a stronger companion, does not wish to for the fact that he wishes to keep this special bond with THORNFUR (the wolf's name).

Thornfur journeys with the group on occasion, but only when the druid feels he will be most beneficial and within his natural surroundings.

Additionally, the druids mentor has recently had many problems with some oppositional druids and the druid within the party chose to send Thornfur (the wolf) to her to offer assistance if needed. Eventually the party druid is traveling back to his mentor to aid in the situation with the oppositional druid faction, however, he feels that the matter dealing with the drow needs more immediate attention.

So, as for animal companions, he has them, but they are more for garnering information and the druid makes sure that their lives are not unjustly jeapordized (like his I guess). Good roleplaying I feel, although the party misses out on some offensive aid by the companions.

This is beginning to make more sense now. Arbados, feel lucky- you have yourself a genuine role-player, and one I would be proud to have in my game. His attitude towards his animal companions is noteworthy and commendable (and are NOT weak roleplaying excuses), not to mention it makes sound sense from the point of view of his character. Having heard this, I can say with almost 100% certainty that his druid being skeptical of going into melee is due to role-playing, not meta-gaming on the part of the player. You and the other players should have a chat with the player and let him know how upset some of the players are over this last action. It sounds like he might be able to use the death of the psychic warrior as a turning point in his philosophy to cooperate more with the group. If you put it like this, I'm sure he will understand.

Mark Chance has some good advice here- heed it. Mistakes were made all around, not just on the part of the druid. Also, the psychic warrior made a huge mistake by not fighting defensively- assuming healing was coming immediately was a huge assumption that he shouldn't have made. Make sure all the PCs understand this, and something like this won't likely happen again. However, if the psy warrior character starts pointing fingers and screaming about "you made me die", the situation probably can't be salvaged without scrapping at least one character.

 

[rounser]

mmu1 and Rounser - perhaps you missed my request earlier.Please take your disagreement to email, and off this thread.
-Henry

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Hm... anyone of nuetral or evil alignment in the party?

I'm currently playing a Sorcerer who would probably kill a character like that. Either that or not rescue him from a threat. But that's how I've been playing the character. My party members understand there is no nonsense here....

Later.

 

[mmu1]

mmu1 and Rounser - perhaps you missed my request earlier.Please take your disagreement to email, and off this thread.
-Henry

 

[Mark Chance]

Mark Chance has some good advice here- heed it.

See, everyone? I am good for something other than sarcasm and serving as the whipping-boy-of-the-day every now and then!

 

[The Blue Elf]

I DM for a very experienced group of players who are all pretty good friends and have been playing together for years. I myself have DM'd for 25 or so years and the player love the game. All anounce their enjoyment and apreciate all the hard work that I put into making the game detailed with a growing world and intricate plots.

However, over the last couple of games I have noticed and verbally heard comments from three of the four players that they are disappointed and bothered by the druids actions in the party.


The druid basically does not like to comfront his opponents in close combat. He stays in the back utilizes his spells, sometimes quite well, and then when he is done with casting because his offensive spells are depleted will stay away from battle putting up defensive spells and somewhat keeping away from the battle at hand.

Problem: The other members are getting a bit perturbed by the druids actions because at times his nonaction has caused casualties within the group (at least that is what the other players feel).

The druid in many ways, although he will never openly admit it, is somewhat cowardly unless the mission at hand deals with something which he very strongly feels he needs to personally address. Even then he will rely heavily on the rest of the members to put themselves in harms way and always keep as far as possible from danger.

At times in battle after the druid has run out of offensive spells he will say "I can't do anything". The rest of the members will give him direction as to what to do, but I don't allow too much of that because I try to keep the combat quick paced. However, even with some snipets of information, he still will usually say he can't do anything.

He does have a nice thunder staff which does heavy melee damage and the other party members say that his attack bonus in melee is very good (which it is).

The rest of the party is starting to get annoyed saying that there should be a penalty to him (possibly treasure). I know the druid will be extremely bothered by this and I am not sure if this is a good approach.

I give bonus xp's for good game play and very often he has very good ideas, but the other members are getting a bit pissed.

As a group we talk things out all the time and heavily prep for game battles by discussing tactics and such. I was wondering what you thought should/or could be done to remedy this. Should I become involved, should I let the players work it out. I want everyone to continue to be happy with each other and the game, but I can see a little annoyance.

Well do you understand his veiw considering the reason he would not fight maybe because he is scared, because he has a low AC or have low hit points.

I remember playing a 3rd level Sorrcer I remember going up aganst a Vampire who had more HD then me I did everything in my power to fight back but it I die wasting all my spells to find out in the end our stupid leader didn't want me to rest I wasted all my spells for nothing.