Build your character to suit your campaign and DM, not to some arbitrary power vacuum

[Spore]

...and class guide should be written that way!


The last several years have taught me that most RPGs have a ruleset that just loosely defines what the game world and the game rules are about. The one and true arbiter of any interaction is the DM. So far, so obvious.

But what do I mean by that?

Mistake #1: Building into niches that are not covered and do not synergize.

Your urchin rogue of low upbringing is the group's face. His skills are bar none, so the noble fighter decides not to bother with charisma or diplomacy. The game is built around dealing with a king and royalty several times where the actual face character tends to be ignored. To make matters worse, the one character that is actually supposed to do the talking in higher circles is a socially inept bruiser. And he probably smells too. Doubling up on that niche would have helped tremendously.

Example 2: Eldritch Archer Magus Bob has exclusively ranged abilities. He is of a highly reknown adventuring company and thus enemies start to tailor their tactics to ruin the heroes' day. A vivisectionist alchemist engages him in melee combat, along with poisons, backstabs and other alchemical nastiness. Like a fish out of water, the Con 10 archer falls and dies. You have melee friends, yes. But you have to cover your own weaknesses and shortcomings too.

Mistake #2: Mediocrity of all trades, jack of none.

Sometimes focussing on your strengths is advantageous. Ferrin the Rogue prefers melee combat, dabbles in social skills, thievery, and knowledge. His charisma, constitution, hit points and strength are laughable, he regularly makes an ass out of himself via social skills, and he regularly almost dies in melee combat. Why? Because he invested in intelligence for even more skill points. Now, if Ferrin were a capable melee rogue that jumps in and out of combat while keeping just his thievery skills high, he would succeed.

Mistake #3: Builds that make NO SENSE without the group.

Judy, the Assassin is a perfect sniper and can pop anyone's head from 500 ft. apart. Her other skills involve sensing warp corruption and slight psionic abilities because that was missing in the group.

She is terrible in melee combat so she cannot assassinate a target indoors or silently. She is unable to climb a wall so she cannot get to her vantage points without someone helping her. This might help in creating a reason to stay with the group but it hurts versimillitude.

Mistakt #4: My Charisma is high, therefore my straight forward and honest character must excel at lying/bluffing.

Ever since gaming systems tried to structure abilities under certain key attributes, this has happened. People pick skills that dont even fit their character. A sheltered noble suddenly has handle animal despite never owning a pet but having high charisma, the arcane scholar is an expert in haggling prices with appraise despite almost never leaving his tower.

But Spore, all those are pretty obvious mistakes and are not made by myself, a decent master of system xyz. Matter of a fact is: No system gets played 100% to its rules. High level D&D groups don't haggle for the prices of their rooms. They throw around gold like other people use copper. A DM never let's his adventurers suffer from a lack of story, thus spells that enable a continuation of the story like: Divination, Scrying etc. are just flavorful ways to continue. Many guides overvalue divination spells, since DMs provide exposition through that. and while some tables bother to calculate jumping distances in 3.5, others just wing it, or barr stuff like jumping distance exploits with a heavy no.

My point is: If a guide says, an inquisitor has to be good at intimidation, sensing your motive and generally secret agent stuff, you can still answer: "Ha, i just use this class to play a divine rogue. I don't want nor need any of this. what we need is a party face with diplomacy, sense motive and a few knowledge skills, that has divine buffs and utility." then that is a better answer than a group with three PCs that all focus on perception (because its the best skill in any damn game ever), so the DM has to split the observation in between arbitrary minutia because actually everyone is legolas and no one can be frodo.

[icefractal]

So ... don't specialize, don't be a generalist, build your character to suit your campaign and DM but don't make characters that are specifically based on the party in that campaign, and don't necessarily take skills just because you have the stats for them? Not disagreeing on that last one, but it seems orthogonal to whether you build to suit the campaign. And the rest is a bit self contradictory.

On the overall point - yes, I would call "taking the GM and group into account when evaluating your options" the highest level of mechanical understanding. But I don't think you can blame a guide for not including it, because by definition it's not universal; there's nothing a guide could say beyond "Some options may be better or worse depending on how the game is run."
Although guides should point out (and many do) which options are more variable in their utility - divinations and illusions come to mind.

[Andor13]

I always try to, but... My usual experience goes something like this:

Me: "So what should I make for your game?"
GM: "Oh, anything is fine, whatever you want."
Me: "Ok. Anything I can do that would help tie my character to the plot?"
GM: "Nope"
Me: "Any class or race restriction or limitations I should know about?"
GM: "Not really."

Then I show up with an Orc Barbarian for what turns out to be a Halfling nobility game, or an Elf Wizard in a party of Elf-hating Dwarves in a world where Arcane magic is illegal.

[Cespenar]

I always try to, but... My usual experience goes something like this:

Me: "So what should I make for your game?"
GM: "Oh, anything is fine, whatever you want."
Me: "Ok. Anything I can do that would help tie my character to the plot?"
GM: "Nope"
Me: "Any class or race restriction or limitations I should know about?"
GM: "Not really."

Then I show up with an Orc Barbarian for what turns out to be a Halfling nobility game, or an Elf Wizard in a party of Elf-hating Dwarves in a world where Arcane magic is illegal.

Unless the GM is then actively excluding you from the majority of the content, those are both pretty good roleplaying hooks.

The first longstanding game I played in this forum, probably 11 years ago or something like that, entailed playing a Diviner in a mage-hating campaign. But the DM didn't go overboard with it, and I was careful in my spellcasting, and it ended up being pretty fun.

It depends on the context, of course.

[Delta]

I always try to, but... My usual experience goes something like this:

Me: "So what should I make for your game?"
GM: "Oh, anything is fine, whatever you want."
Me: "Ok. Anything I can do that would help tie my character to the plot?"
GM: "Nope"
Me: "Any class or race restriction or limitations I should know about?"
GM: "Not really."

Then I show up with an Orc Barbarian for what turns out to be a Halfling nobility game, or an Elf Wizard in a party of Elf-hating Dwarves in a world where Arcane magic is illegal.

I've had it even worse.

Me: "Okay, I have some concepts for your game, how about A, B or C?" (insert one sentence pitch of a character concept)
GM: "Oh, B sounds absolutely amazing, I'd love that!"
Me: "Okay then..."

The character I built was a kind of "government mage" in a fantasy world for whom total adherence to the laws of the country she came from was part of the class description, more or less. This as an almost religious principle for her, and the GM knew that when telling me to build that character. I was expecting a kind of "For the queen!" scenario where we would end up doing "special ops" kind of missions for said kingdoms.

What did I end up getting into? A band of a rogue, a seducing witch and a rather feeble-minded (the player intentionally played him on a child-like level of intelligence) juggler and jester who excelled in athletics and was also a pretty decent unarmed fighter. My character was completely out of place, had no reason to do anything with them and all the plots revolved around stealing stuff for people paying us to do so, which my character for obvious reasons would have nothing to do with. Once, they actually used the B.A. Baracus Method, getting my character stinking drunk until she passed out and then pulled the heist while I was unconscious, I asked the GM to let me make a different character for that group afterwards. When I asked him what he was possibly thinking when telling me to make that character, he was honestly surprised he had thought it would've been a perfect setup for "great roleplaying"...

[NichG]

Forget all of that stuff, and just build proactive characters. If you're trying to second guess future needs of the campaign, group, etc, you're already trapping yourself into a reactive mentality.

E.g. if you're playing a lowborn urchin silver-tongued devil, you shouldn't just be trying to cover needed bases, you should have some idea of how you are going to use your abilities proactively to improve your/their situation. Maybe this is by fomenting rebellion against the royals, using your skills to obtain blackmail material, taking over the local underworld, becoming spymaster for an ambitious Duke who wants to see his line on the throne, etc.

If you're proactive, even if you've not got a single mechanical advantage, you can often do better than a well optimized, but passive, character.

[Cespenar]

If you're proactive, even if you've not got a single mechanical advantage, you can often do better than a well optimized, but passive, character.

This is extremely true, though I've seen that for some people it's mentally impossible to play in such a manner.

[Quertus]

Forget all of that stuff, and just build proactive characters. If you're trying to second guess future needs of the campaign, group, etc, you're already trapping yourself into a reactive mentality.

E.g. if you're playing a lowborn urchin silver-tongued devil, you shouldn't just be trying to cover needed bases, you should have some idea of how you are going to use your abilities proactively to improve your/their situation. Maybe this is by fomenting rebellion against the royals, using your skills to obtain blackmail material, taking over the local underworld, becoming spymaster for an ambitious Duke who wants to see his line on the throne, etc.

If you're proactive, even if you've not got a single mechanical advantage, you can often do better than a well optimized, but passive, character.

I mean, I build my characters proactively, "in a vacuum", and then bring a folder full of them (literally or figuratively) to the table, and try to pick which one will best match the group. Best of both worlds?

As for my characters themselves, eh, if I went full proactive all the time, I'd turn the game into the me show, being the biggest spotlight hogging horror story on the internet. So... I only do that in "all total wallflower, we need us a hero to follow" groups.

[Cespenar]

I mean, I build my characters proactively, "in a vacuum", and then bring a folder full of them (literally or figuratively) to the table, and try to pick which one will best match the group. Best of both worlds?

As for my characters themselves, eh, if I went full proactive all the time, I'd turn the game into the me show, being the biggest spotlight hogging horror story on the internet. So... I only do that in "all total wallflower, we need us a hero to follow" groups.

You can be proactive in a sense that encourages proactivity in other players as well. The best players and DMs I've played with always had that social "smarts" which makes a really huge difference in how fun the group dynamics become.

[Spore]

Thing is the balance is making it. And if you write your guide with a 3 line preamble and then continue to bash and glorify certain aspects and options of the game, one tends to forget that the sorcerer whose magic is most optimal on every third tuesday of the month when the full moon rises is overall mechanically inferior, except on a oneshot that just so happens to be on a full moon on the third thuesday of January.

And another thing I should have said in the beginning that - if able - one should ALWAYS build characters together with the group they want to play with. This way, you won't end up with Dratazor, the half-fiend-half-celestial-half-minotaur melee sorcerer wizard-king in the same group with Bob, the slightly undertuned fighter. It can happen but maybe Dratazor will remove one of his templates and help Bob with feat selection.

[Maelynn]

Sometimes it's necessary to fill gaps in a party:

The party in my campaign has 4 players, 3 of whom already had an outline of what character they wanted. The fourth was still searching, so once someone said they didn't have a healer yet she decided to go DS Sorcerer. She can still hold her own, but can also make sure that people stay on their feet. Nothing wrong with that.

Also, if everybody just makes their own character without consulting the rest, you may end up with 3 squishies and a Bard and nobody to take the heat of combat to protect them. Enter an enemy with spell resistance or high damage and you're screwed.

This is why I really value a character creation session (which is apparently called a 'session zero'). Each player brings an idea they have of the character they'd like to play, compares it to the ideas the others have, and then everybody tweaks a bit where the party as a group has glaring weaknesses. Some players even bring more than one idea, just to have some more choice. I think that's a great way of making a character good on itself and still be an asset to the team. After all, a team functions best when the members complement each other's skills.

[D+1]

It is and always has been an unwritten rule that players must SEEK the reasons for their character (whatever that character is, and regardless of the campaign setting into which they find themselves inserted) to continue to associate and adventure with the other PC's - NOT to look for, and refuse to let go of, all the reasons for them NOT to. That is not an undue burden or restriction. It is a basic necessity and formative principle of the game. Players who do seize with a deathgrip upon a reason for their character NOT to play must either be told immediately and in no uncertain terms to then retire their character and start another that WILL participate, to stop playing at all rather than expecting the campaign to revolve only around their characters perspectives, or else change their pointlessly bullheaded perspectives and stop being a needless impediment to the game as a whole.

Sorry, but the whole, "But my character wouldn't do that!" attitude holds absolutely zero water with me. If that's your stand as a player then - as a player - you need to accept that you can effectively remove your participation from the game with it if you put your PC in that, "My way or the highway," position.

Even if the DM is being uncommunicative and unhelpful in choosing what kind of PC to create, if you end up creating a PC that just doesn't fit the game that's being played, CREATE A NEW F'n CHARACTER rather than spend the remainder of the campaign being disappointed that the whole game hasn't bent to accommodate your original choice. Yes, it's quite possible that the DM was a bit of a putz for putting you in that position, but file that PC and run them in some other future campaign. Create a PC to replace them that YOU find easier to make fit the game.

[Delta]

Sorry, but the whole, "But my character wouldn't do that!" attitude holds absolutely zero water with me. If that's your stand as a player then - as a player - you need to accept that you can effectively remove your participation from the game with it if you put your PC in that, "My way or the highway," position.

While I agree in principle, sometimes it's not that easy. Some characters have defined characteristics. A lawful good Paladin of a god who upholds the law and fights undead with passion simply shouldn't go adventuring with a necromancer and a professionally criminal rogue. That just doesn't fit, and I couldn't in good faith blame the Paladin player for saying "My character would never associate with you guys!"

I only mention that because I was in a similar, if not exactly the same situation which I described above where the GM pretty much explicitly recommended a character concept to me that didn't fit in at all with either the rest of the party or the adventures he wanted to run.

To make it clear: I'm not saying the players or GM should have to bend over backwards to accomodate that character. But at some point, it's also valid to say "it's not working out, I'd like to play a different character" because you just can't find a way to plausibly continue playing your character in a way that's still fun for both you and the rest of the group.

[Quertus]

You can be proactive in a sense that encourages proactivity in other players as well.

This sounds like something that could help everyone, so I'll ask - can you give examples of how that plays out / explain the principles?

And another thing I should have said in the beginning that - if able - one should ALWAYS build characters together with the group they want to play with.

I certainly agree with the notion of picking characters together, so you don't end up with the party of the Paladin, the Assassin, the Undead Hunter, and the Undead Master. Been there, done that, still waiting on the t-shirt.

But that's no reason for them not to have been built 20 years ago.

Sorry, but the whole, "But my character wouldn't do that!" attitude holds absolutely zero water with me. If that's your stand as a player then - as a player - you need to accept that you can effectively remove your participation from the game with it if you put your PC in that, "My way or the highway," position.

Even if the DM is being uncommunicative and unhelpful in choosing what kind of PC to create, if you end up creating a PC that just doesn't fit the game that's being played, CREATE A NEW F'n CHARACTER

file that PC and run them in some other future campaign. Create a PC to replace them that YOU find easier to make fit the game.

As someone trained in the role-playing school of thought, I heartily agree with this sentiment.

[Cespenar]

This sounds like something that could help everyone, so I'll ask - can you give examples of how that plays out / explain the principles?

That's mainly social skills which is a bit hard to put into definitions. If there is a player who's timid, for example, defer to them in relevant moments as if they are the expert in that matter. Bounce ideas often off of other people. Stuff like that. Find out what other players care for, and engage them.

Admittedly it may be taxing to do this, though, if you're not already such a person. I'm personally not.

[PhoenixPhyre]

While I agree in principle, sometimes it's not that easy. Some characters have defined characteristics. A lawful good Paladin of a god who upholds the law and fights undead with passion simply shouldn't go adventuring with a necromancer and a professionally criminal rogue. That just doesn't fit, and I couldn't in good faith blame the Paladin player for saying "My character would never associate with you guys!"

While true, the end result is that you don't play that character. Once you realize that it's an existentially bad fit (as in you can't possibly justify a change in-character), you retire that character and switch to one that plays better. Yeah, it sucks (especially if the DM encouraged it, that's bad play on his part), but it's either leave the game entirely or switch characters. The third option (force things to blow up) just ruins everyone's fun.

[Delta]

While true, the end result is that you don't play that character. Once you realize that it's an existentially bad fit (as in you can't possibly justify a change in-character), you retire that character and switch to one that plays better. Yeah, it sucks (especially if the DM encouraged it, that's bad play on his part), but it's either leave the game entirely or switch characters. The third option (force things to blow up) just ruins everyone's fun.

Oh, I'm fully in agreement here (note also my edit). "It's what my character would do!" should never be an excuse for ruining the other players fun, all I wanted to point out that sometimes, there's just no way to make your character fit into a certain situation without completely changing what defines the character, and in that situation, switching characters is a valid way to go.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh, I'm fully in agreement here (note also my edit). "It's what my character would do!" should never be an excuse for ruining the other players fun, all I wanted to point out that sometimes, there's just no way to make your character fit into a certain situation without completely changing what defines the character, and in that situation, switching characters is a valid way to go.

Ah. So we're in violent agreement there. Good.

I dislike any attempt to shift responsibility for a character's actions away from the player. No one forces you (generic, not specific) to play that character, or play them that way. It's your choice how to portray them, so the responsibility is yours as well.

[NichG]

This sounds like something that could help everyone, so I'll ask - can you give examples of how that plays out / explain the principles?

Some archetypes I tend to like when I can pull them off which fit this bill:

- The mentor/coach. This is someone who, for whatever reason, feels like the success or failure of the other PCs in their own ambitions is their direct responsibility. Even more so, part of mentoring is helping people find and nurture their ambitions. Important to make this appropriately vulnerable in some way so the character isn't overbearing - you're not aiming at being the expert who is holding back to let the kids get some experience, you're aiming at having a need that they're going to have to help you fill and the only way to make that work is to make them all more awesome.

- The genie. You exist to provide opportunities that will make others find themselves in 'interesting times', and to see what happens when you do so. It doesn't have to be a literal genie, but you want to build or play in such a way that you've got a rolodex of surprises you can pull out to get things moving when they're going slow. This works well in systems that allow for dramatic editing style 'I know a guy' type statements to be made with no prior prep, otherwise you need to do a lot of legwork to find little bits and pieces of lore or power buried in the system/setting that you can pull out at need. The point of a character like this isn't to directly make trouble, but rather to point out the big red buttons that exist in the world that your fellow PCs are missing out on - you want to come in with the shady business opportunity, the Beginner Demon Summoning textbook, etc, but its not your job to force the issue yourself, and you're not doing this because you want the others to suffer. Rather, you want stuff to happen.

- The overeager gofer/minion. Even if they didn't say it, obviously its your job to anticipate master's needs and take care of them before master even realizes it. You're one-sidedly serving one (or more) of the other PCs - maybe its an infernal contract, a mental illness, whatever. By 'anticipating their needs', you're going to create situations that cause the character to have to actually decide what they really want. Basically the goal is to lower the barrier for achieving proactive motivation from 'I have to figure out how to do this' and down to 'I have to figure out what I actually want'. Can go well with hypercompetent characters to make them less imposing.

These archetypes all have in common that in some way, shape, or form their motivations center on the realization of the motivations of a character outside of themselves (presumably, one or more PCs). The character then acts as an amplifier, providing the will to act in situations where the other players are still questioning or doubting themselves or their course of action.

[SimonMoon6]

I always try to, but... My usual experience goes something like this:

Me: "So what should I make for your game?"
GM: "Oh, anything is fine, whatever you want."
Me: "Ok. Anything I can do that would help tie my character to the plot?"
GM: "Nope"
Me: "Any class or race restriction or limitations I should know about?"
GM: "Not really."

Then I show up with an Orc Barbarian for what turns out to be a Halfling nobility game, or an Elf Wizard in a party of Elf-hating Dwarves in a world where Arcane magic is illegal.

Reminds me of the time I decided to try something a bit unusual, playing a half-elf cleric/rogue (they don't synergize very well), who specialized in using magic items that he wouldn't normally be able to use (with UMD and the Magic Domain). Turns out that the DM was running a "low magic" game, where magic items were incredibly rare. Of course, the DM didn't mention anything about that prior to character creation...

So, yeah, it's often the fault of the DM not the player.

And, yeah, I abandoned that character (after further DM jerk moves) and made a straight-up cleric, specializing in awesome 3.0 archery.

[Spore]

While I agree in principle, sometimes it's not that easy. Some characters have defined characteristics. A lawful good Paladin of a god who upholds the law and fights undead with passion simply shouldn't go adventuring with a necromancer and a professionally criminal rogue. That just doesn't fit, and I couldn't in good faith blame the Paladin player for saying "My character would never associate with you guys!"

There are no hard and fast rules. And you can't dictate a friend what to play. E.g. we had a lawful hard-liner paladin who was working with my CG/CN rogue that was a thief (but also wronged by a pawnshop who forged the documents to rebuy his pawn). The thief's hijinks forced the Paladin to intervene several times (I mean who does make a Fire elemental trap for his shop made of wood?) but ultimatively we both had a good time.

But then again, the DM had a good hand in interweaving our backstories (the paladin's key to an ancient magical dungeon that could be used to imprison powerful evil mages was in the treasure hoard my rogue was looking for, aforementioned pawn item was the treasure map to this hoard).

There is another aspect to be thought of. Sometimes pen and paper is as much wish fulfilment and power fantasy as it is playing a role and telling a story. Some people just very heavily tend towards certain character styles. If you don't know them you might not know they already despise your campaign. A DM of mine prepared pages upon pages of fluff texts that he was extremely eager to read to us. And I don't mean a short speech, it's like 15 minutes worth of monologue here. Aforementioned paladin's player is more of a doer than a thinker and he was extremely annoyed by it. (I enjoyed the first 5-10 minutes but when he started to mention the history of the place 200 years ago, I sort of ignored the DM too). And for players that can better adapt to their roles and characters, it just has to be the right one.

A scholar of arcane knowledge is not satisfactory if the player doesn't know jack about the setting if the DM doesn't help or add fluff and backstories to everyone and everything. Similarly a straight forward barbarian does not care if he is rampaging through an important abandoned temple. There are monsters to be slain - the uglier the better - and wenches to be seduced.

[Razgriez]

I like the general advice of this thread.

One of the things that's bugged me since I started playing 5th edition is the concept that all Tool/musical instrument/gaming proficiency are largely "useless", outside of the typical Rogue ones (Thieves', Poisoners, Disguise, Forgery), and of course the ever useful Herbalism Kit for potion brewing. Now, I fully agree that somewhat vague rules, lack of ease of access, and DM's not giving time for players to make use of tool kits has hampered their use. Xanathar's Guide to Everything expanded rules on them has helped, if primarily via the "Carrot and Stick" method of offering further gameplay benefits

And then there are the ones which I look at and go "Why hasn't anyone taken any of these in the party?!", such as the following examples:

-Woodcarver's Tools lets you craft ammo such as bolts and arrows during both Short and Long Rests. Yes arrows may be relatively inexpensive, but again, if you're playing the "Self-sufficient, I spend long periods away from civilization" ranger, this should be something to consider for you, let alone when the nearest shop might be days away.
- Cook's Utensils: Maybe it's because I like grilling/smoking food, or pick up Culinarian as one of my crafting skills typically in MMOs, or watch cooking shows (particularly ones involving Alton Brown or Gordon Ramsay), or the food system in FF15 adding more to the concept to the whole "roadtrip" aspect of that game. Throw in a discussion about provisions for a typical middle ages army with a gentlemen who discusses what medieval/Renaissance period militaries, and again I'm left wondering which sounds better for roleplaying? Checking off 1 day's worth of rations every long rest, or taking time to create a meal during a short or long rest, which you or the DM can describe in detail (and maybe give a small additional benefit). Especially when you have both the Survival Skill and the Outlander Background feature encouraging use for gathering food/water for the party.

Likewise, I experienced a similar reminder of the idea of "Build for campaign, not arbitrarily for power" with the second 5th edition campaign I've just started playing in. I wanted to play either a Half-elf, Wood Elf, or Tabaxi Rogue (Scout). The DM, wanting the game to be more mythological beings and creatures based, suggested instead picking something a little more historical or famous, so we agreed to having me play a Kitsune, using Tabaxi rules, that's going eventually pick up the Arcane Trickster archetype. Despite my early concerns at switching from my original concept, the more I've thought about it has caused me to like the idea more for the roleplaying aspect. Bland numbers on a piece of paper can take a back seat.

[Bad Wolf]

...and class guide should be written that way!


The last several years have taught me that most RPGs have a ruleset that just loosely defines what the game world and the game rules are about. The one and true arbiter of any interaction is the DM. So far, so obvious.

But what do I mean by that?

Mistake #1: Building into niches that are not covered and do not synergize.

Your urchin rogue of low upbringing is the group's face. His skills are bar none, so the noble fighter decides not to bother with charisma or diplomacy. The game is built around dealing with a king and royalty several times where the actual face character tends to be ignored. To make matters worse, the one character that is actually supposed to do the talking in higher circles is a socially inept bruiser. And he probably smells too. Doubling up on that niche would have helped tremendously.

This seems like the fault of the fighter. If he's a noble, then he should expect going into the game that more people will talk to him and ignore the rogue.

Example 2: Eldritch Archer Magus Bob has exclusively ranged abilities. He is of a highly reknown adventuring company and thus enemies start to tailor their tactics to ruin the heroes' day. A vivisectionist alchemist engages him in melee combat, along with poisons, backstabs and other alchemical nastiness. Like a fish out of water, the Con 10 archer falls and dies. You have melee friends, yes. But you have to cover your own weaknesses and shortcomings too.

Well skipping over the fact that Con is hugely important for everyone and everyone should invest in it, generally a well-balanced party will have someone acting as a meatshied who draws away fire. If the enemy skips the most obvious and close-up threat, heading straight to the archer who should be much further away and guts him with a personally tailored attack, that just makes it seem a bit vindictive.

Mistake #2: Mediocrity of all trades, jack of none.

Sometimes focussing on your strengths is advantageous. Ferrin the Rogue prefers melee combat, dabbles in social skills, thievery, and knowledge. His charisma, constitution, hit points and strength are laughable, he regularly makes an ass out of himself via social skills, and he regularly almost dies in melee combat. Why? Because he invested in intelligence for even more skill points. Now, if Ferrin were a capable melee rogue that jumps in and out of combat while keeping just his thievery skills high, he would succeed.

So... optimize more? I understand you're trying to prove the jack of all trades build is a bad idea, but this seems less like one of those builds and more like a sorcerer who decided to become a Punch Mage without having the scores for it. Assuming this is Pathfinder, judging by the alchemist mention, sneak attack generally covers your strength bonus damage, so dumping strength shouldn't be a problem. And seeing as how he's kept his thievery skills high, he shouldn't have a problem with setting up flanks.

Mistake #3: Builds that make NO SENSE without the group.

Judy, the Assassin is a perfect sniper and can pop anyone's head from 500 ft. apart. Her other skills involve sensing warp corruption and slight psionic abilities because that was missing in the group.

She is terrible in melee combat so she cannot assassinate a target indoors or silently. She is unable to climb a wall so she cannot get to her vantage points without someone helping her. This might help in creating a reason to stay with the group but it hurts versimillitude.

So... optimize more? Or are you saying people should build as if it's a solo campaign? You can't expect the wizard (excluding polymorph effects) to be good at melee combat, or the barbarian at sneaking, or the charisma-dumping druid to be the face of the party.

Mistakt #4: My Charisma is high, therefore my straight forward and honest character must excel at lying/bluffing.

Ever since gaming systems tried to structure abilities under certain key attributes, this has happened. People pick skills that dont even fit their character. A sheltered noble suddenly has handle animal despite never owning a pet but having high charisma, the arcane scholar is an expert in haggling prices with appraise despite almost never leaving his tower.

This is a fault of the system, not the player.

My point is: If a guide says, an inquisitor has to be good at intimidation, sensing your motive and generally secret agent stuff, you can still answer: "Ha, i just use this class to play a divine rogue. I don't want nor need any of this. what we need is a party face with diplomacy, sense motive and a few knowledge skills, that has divine buffs and utility." then that is a better answer than a group with three PCs that all focus on perception (because its the best skill in any damn game ever), so the DM has to split the observation in between arbitrary minutia because actually everyone is legolas and no one can be frodo.

But what about roleplaying, not roll-playing?


Just out of curiosity, what do you see as your ideal party formation for whatever system you play?

[Spore]

This seems like the fault of the fighter. If he's a noble, then he should expect going into the game that more people will talk to him and ignore the rogue.

Yes.

Well skipping over the fact that Con is hugely important for everyone and everyone should invest in it, generally a well-balanced party will have someone acting as a meatshied who draws away fire. If the enemy skips the most obvious and close-up threat, heading straight to the archer who should be much further away and guts him with a personally tailored attack, that just makes it seem a bit vindictive.

Con is insanely good, and simultaneously incredibly boring. Yay, your HP bar is longer. Yay, you survive poisons. It basically just negates interaction with the world. With this example I was more going towards the 'archer is helpless in melee' thing which to a certain point is just the system telling you 'you need to be THIS tall to escape melee without being massacred.' Take 3.5 A full retreat just delays the inevitable (and if you have the same speed as the rogue that just popped up, you take yet another shank to the ribs).

So... optimize more? I understand you're trying to prove the jack of all trades build is a bad idea, but this seems less like one of those builds and more like a sorcerer who decided to become a Punch Mage without having the scores for it. Assuming this is Pathfinder, judging by the alchemist mention, sneak attack generally covers your strength bonus damage, so dumping strength shouldn't be a problem. And seeing as how he's kept his thievery skills high, he shouldn't have a problem with setting up flanks.

Pathfinder and 3.5 imho has a huge problem with crunch simultaneously being almost married to fluff. You want an armor clad fighter that uses his fists? Prepare to do the most ludicrous class combo or just be forced to default to suboptimal fighter or terrible, TERRIBLE monk/swordsage.

So... optimize more? Or are you saying people should build as if it's a solo campaign? You can't expect the wizard (excluding polymorph effects) to be good at melee combat, or the barbarian at sneaking, or the charisma-dumping druid to be the face of the party.

No. You can't expect low level adventurers to do that. But you CAN expect a high level wizard to have set up a contingency that dimension door's him away if someone near him pulls a weapon. You can expect the high level barbarian to have a somewhat decent solution for avoiding deadly combat. (personally I love stealth on melee characters because every inch you can sneak closer, you don't have to charge in battle).

And I can expect the charisma dumped druid ('s player) to just talk sense and not roll for every social interaction ever.
'It would be beneficial for your war party not to burn down the forest because that might agitate the owlbears living in it. And they know exactly where your camp is.

Mistake #4: My Charisma is high, therefore my straight forward and honest character must excel at lying/bluffing.

-> This is a fault of the system, not the player.

Yes but as you can elect to grant players things they should not normally have from the power of subtext, a player can also decide not to use his abilitiy scores to do something just because his character wouldn't. (this does imho include a character not helping in combat even if that endangers the party, if the player firmly believes the character would act that way).

This is not meant as a blanket excuse to go 'My character wouldn't do that'. But sometimes it is more interesting to do things like that.



But what about roleplaying, not roll-playing?

Sarcasm aside, a DM - our DMs usually try to make the game world react to incredibly positive or negative traits of the character. But a surprised 'you really did see that tiny speck on the mayor's fingersthat incriminates him as the short-fingered butter thief' quickyl gets old when EVERYONE can do that.

Just out of curiosity, what do you see as your ideal party formation for whatever system you play?

In Pathfinder I enjoyed: 1) Paladin Charger, 2) Strength Black Blade Magus 3) Evangelist Cleric (all the buffs) 4) Trapper Ranger as the skill monkey. We chould have used an arcanist but the group worked pretty well without a wizard. All the characters had enough to contribute, the cleric spells were not at a level that were overwhelming (Lv 7-11)

In 5e I like: 1) Battlemaster Fighter 2) Lore Bard as healer/skill monkey/buffer 3) Paladin 2/Warlock for the heavy nova 4) Ranger or Rogue.

In post apocalyptic games I like: 1) Survivalist/Rifleman 2)Scrapper/Gearhead 3) Melee Brute/short range weapons expert/explosives dude 4) Doctor/Face

In scifi, it's more like: 1) Heavy Armored Trooper 2) Scoundrel/Spy 3) Pilot/Gearhead 4) Explosives/Short range guy

In mystical games like WoD: 1) Brute 2) Face 3) Arcanist/Diviner 4) 'guile hero'

[Anonymouswizard]

Forget all of that stuff, and just build proactive characters. If you're trying to second guess future needs of the campaign, group, etc, you're already trapping yourself into a reactive mentality.

This.

I've just had a GM okay a character concept that translates to a terrible build (8 CON on a melee fighter, using a 1d6 finesse weapon, relies on keeping spells up to actually contribute in fights), but as the character is designed to be somewhat versatile out of combat and will keep moving he was fine with it.

The idea? The character made a deal for power. They got warlock powers, and in return they promote their Patron's agenda. This involves promoting the preservation of wild places, encouraging people to have joy within their place in the world, and making sure the competent people are in charge (I'm going for a rather hilariously lawful summer fey as my Patron).

The GM loves the idea, although isn't sold on the lawful fey aspect. But it's a character that adds to the world and adds to the game by always having something to move towards.

[Bad Wolf]

Con is insanely good, and simultaneously incredibly boring. Yay, your HP bar is longer. Yay, you survive poisons. It basically just negates interaction with the world.

You know what's sexier than +5 to damage? Being alive.

Kidding aside, your points were thought out well.

[zlefin]

It is and always has been an unwritten rule that players must SEEK the reasons for their character (whatever that character is, and regardless of the campaign setting into which they find themselves inserted) to continue to associate and adventure with the other PC's - NOT to look for, and refuse to let go of, all the reasons for them NOT to. That is not an undue burden or restriction. It is a basic necessity and formative principle of the game. Players who do seize with a deathgrip upon a reason for their character NOT to play must either be told immediately and in no uncertain terms to then retire their character and start another that WILL participate, to stop playing at all rather than expecting the campaign to revolve only around their characters perspectives, or else change their pointlessly bullheaded perspectives and stop being a needless impediment to the game as a whole.

Sorry, but the whole, "But my character wouldn't do that!" attitude holds absolutely zero water with me. If that's your stand as a player then - as a player - you need to accept that you can effectively remove your participation from the game with it if you put your PC in that, "My way or the highway," position.

Even if the DM is being uncommunicative and unhelpful in choosing what kind of PC to create, if you end up creating a PC that just doesn't fit the game that's being played, CREATE A NEW F'n CHARACTER rather than spend the remainder of the campaign being disappointed that the whole game hasn't bent to accommodate your original choice. Yes, it's quite possible that the DM was a bit of a putz for putting you in that position, but file that PC and run them in some other future campaign. Create a PC to replace them that YOU find easier to make fit the game.

A minor quibble: i'd say if the DM is being uncommunicative and unhelpful, leave the game entirely. it's a trash dm running a bad campaign; and any gmae collapse in that case is entirely the dm's fault for failing to do their job.
I had it happen to me: essentially the dm very badly described the premise; and wanted the party to do things FAR more evil than initially described.

[Spore]

You know what's sexier than +5 to damage? Being alive.

Kidding aside, your points were thought out well.

You haven't seen a bard die with maximum ranks in Perform (acting) have you? It's pretty sexy.

Jokes aside, character deaths are a part of many parts of popular fiction. It creates motivation for the remaining cast, it ends character arcs (or disrupts them). It allows for epic (divine) interventions and all around makes the game richer.

I had a Druid be killed in combat by a Hobgoblin officer's crit.
It helped to display the blood toll the battle for the Dwarven city took. And it allowed my DM to introduce his version of dangerous resurrections (basically the longer you are dead the madder you return).

I had a Ninja disintegrated by a powerful sorcerer.
It helped underline the danger this villain represents and that he is immune to petty tricks (invisibility).

I played a young scrapper (low HP, quite inexperienced) that jumped into the way of a blade to save the downed melee bruiser. I almost died but unable to block the hit, he took it for his friend. It helped show the bond the two shared.

Imperfections and vulnerability make characters feel alive. just ask anyone how they feel about Mary Sues and Marty Stus. Displaying a weakness is a good thing on a character sheet unless it's something of an instant defeat thing.

[Quertus]

And it allowed my DM to introduce his version of dangerous resurrections (basically the longer you are dead the madder you return).

Just 5 more minutes, and I would have qualified for Festering Anger!

[Satinavian]

You haven't seen a bard die with maximum ranks in Perform (acting) have you? It's pretty sexy.

Jokes aside, character deaths are a part of many parts of popular fiction. It creates motivation for the remaining cast, it ends character arcs (or disrupts them). It allows for epic (divine) interventions and all around makes the game richer.

Most realistic characters try to avoid death. The harder a character is to kill, the less effort he has to make to stay alive. And PCs trying to avoid danger can get a problem.