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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corsair" data-source="post: 2138424" data-attributes="member: 23477">Silent, I'll be happy to respond to your post, as you make some good points, and perhaps clarification on my side is in order.I do try to be civil to people in person.  The downside to this is that when something bothers me, it tends to fester a bit until I get a chance to vent.  None of the other players in my two groups come to this forum, so I use this as a place to vent and get opinions without hurting people's feelings.Let me add details:  He is riding a pack animal, essentially bareback (no saddle).  The DM ruled that because it was not equipped properly for combat, to attach the shield in such a way that it wouldn't be lost during travel would require a full round action to ready it (so effectively a move action to remove it from the camel, and a move action to ready it).  This player has a tendency to care about survival first, and since he is without his armor in the desert, he always went for his shield first.As for the length of combats, in one of the two camel-related encounters, he wasted a round trying to get his untrained camel to move into combat.  The fast dismount the DM simply turned into a move action by saying "getting off fast is the easy part.  Landing on your feet is tricky."  As such, the "move action" which it turned into was him having to stand up after falling.  He took a token 1 or 2 non-lethal from landing face first in the sand, but I think his pride was hurt more.  The plant fight he actually did make one attack roll I believe, severing at least one of the con-draining tendrils which was stuck into the barbarian.  (Not that the barbarian fared much better, he spent most of his time hacking his way lose, then retreated when his con hit 6.)It isn't meant as arrogance, but a factual retelling.  Though I admit the hippogriff was rolling startlingly well in the first fight.  The second fight used all 3 of my 2nd level spells on SNA 2, allowing the barbarian to retreat.  I think this session did illustrate to me though why the folks on the Wizards min/max forum have such a woody for druids.Well he was without his armor, hence his fetish for the shield.  He has a tendency in nearly every game I've played with him to value self-preservation.  My main gripe is that he doesn't seem able to see other ways to survive besides worrying about his own hide first.  It isn't a major issue, but its enough that he can be unreliable in combat.  The only game where he can be counted on is one where he is playing a pixie.  He worries less about surviving because 95% of enemies can't see him! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I can live with that.  I partially evolved into that position because earlier we often had parties which lacked any sort of forethought or organization, and resulted in confusion, chaos, and a lot of deaths. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Well it has occured in other games as well.  Another player has basically come to the conclusion that the player in question has 3 major goals which go roughly in this order:1) Profit2) Survival3) KillGenerally these aren't an issue.  However he pretty much only uses the most direct route to any of them.  Picking up every piece of mundane equipment off a corpse in a game where every party member has ober 40k in gear, for an example of 1.  As for 2, it generally means spending rounds worrying about personal survival when a decisive action might carry the day.  3 becomes an issue because he can't ever stop himself.  Example from another game:The party has a frenzied berserker.  There is 1 foe left, who cannot reach any friendlies except the berserker.  The player of the berserker makes a comment along the lines of "oh good, I can just finish him off now".  The original player (pixie rogue) decides on his next turn to sneak attack that last foe, killing him.  The berserker's turn immediately follows, and he gets to whack my wizard down to -9 in one hit. (Though I will give the pixie player credit for hustling over to me with a CLW wand to stablize me)These are minor issues taken individually, but there has a been a pattern where any time combat ensues, we can never be 100% certain what this player will do, or how he'll affect any plan we come up with.No, your opinions are all welcome!  I know there is a lot of background info about this player and the games I've been in with him which I've not been able to include, which help shape my opinions.  It is also likely that I did go a bit overboard in my original post, but hey, it was a rant after all.  I mean who really is 100% sane and logical in a rant? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It's just a string of minor things which all added up and I finally wanted to let loose, and this was my only avenue to vent. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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