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This topic is about times you've been overshadowed by other players in your group.
Normally, when I play D&D, I'm the optimizer of the group. But one time playing Star Wars, I was totally outclassed. I know what it was like for me. I want to know what experiences other people have had, and how you felt.
The time I'm referring to was a one-shot adventure with two friends, who I'll call Al and Bob. Al was the DM, and Bob had been in the past, but was just playing this time. I was looking through the alien races book and found one that gave +2 Str and the ability to use Str instead of Cha for Intimidate. "Cool beans!" I thought, and used point buy for an 18 + 2 = 20 in Str. The adventure required us to be level 2, so I was sitting at a cool +10 Intimidate and Jump on a Jedi Guardian 2, thinking about how much fun it was going to be to show off. Bob had also found a neat race he wanted to play, got it okay'd by the DM, and set it up, so we were ready to go.
This was a few years ago, so the details are a bit fuzzy, but I'll relate the best I can. The adventure started out something like "You're briefed by a Jedi master that there's [some problem] at [a place] on Coruscant, your job is to get to the bottom of it."
So we headed out to that place, and when we got there, found a very long line with some guy arguing with a guard. We rolled Sense Motive and found something was up, so we went to talk to him. I'm getting my intimidate ready, and when the guy sees us he bolts, so we roll initiative and prepare to chase him down. Bob goes first.
"I spread my wings, fly 60' and circle around him. My character's big enough that from head to tail he can pretty much fill this whole area. Also that guy has to make a will save against my Frightful Presence."
We both do a double-take. It turns out "Force Dragon," which I had taken to mean something like "lizardfolk" is the Star Wars equivalent of D&D's dragons, and neither Al nor I had checked it before the game started. "Well dang." I thought. "I feel pretty useless."
The adventure pretty much fell apart at that point. It was actually pretty late, so we quit for the night. I checked Bob's character sheet, and all of his stats were in the 20's-30's, his HP was sky-high, etc.
"I've still got a chance in a fight, I think." I said, and demonstrated my character's ability to use Battlemind for +2-3 hit and damage, then jump high enough to connect with a single attack. Then his dragon wiped my character out.
Has anyone else had a similar experience, where you've been outclassed by a party-member?
Happened when I was playing 4e and we spent a whole session fighting boring swarms of minions. It had to be done fast and the minions where ridiculously weak, so while my Bard killed a minion each round, everyone else was mopping the floor with tons of them. I did not even use my daily power that session. That really sucked - the whole party overshadowed me.
I personally don't think it was min/maxing but more combined with cheating.
In the first DnD game ever and sadly my only campaign I played witht hem that lasted more than 2 or 3 weekends I played a Rogue. A slightly weird and easylyfrightened rogue. Due to system-nonmastery he had Weapon Focus Shortsword but fought with a Longsword and a Shortbow that was infused with a slight bit of Lathanders holy power (generating arrows of light). The thing was... I didn't really roll that well. Level 6 (to 11) with 18 in Dexterity and wisodm and charisma in the single-digits. Now he adventured with an archery-focused Fighter (later he had 1 level of sorcerer) and a Dwarven druid. It was fine, no one overshadowed the other as we most of the time fought skeletons or other nasty stuff. Now the thing was I was absent for one day and 2 other players joined.
One of them was a Charging Paladin with Spirited Charge and... well he dealt 200+ dmg per round. and his stats were somewhere around 18 18 18 18 17 16... with leadership and such stuff...
The thing is wouldn't we have had him join the mage would've made a good addition but due to him dealing 200 dmg per round the game went into rocket tag mode as the DM wouldn't listen to the archery-fighter's player how to challenge a group like us and well... thus the campaign broke apart.
Afterwards we always played one-shots with changing members and... if we managed to start a small campaign it broke apart after a maximum of 3 weekends.
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It actually doesn't sound like that "force dragon" was legit. Wings, larger than medium size, and stat boosts in a level 2 character? Sounds iffy. Do you remember the source of the race or version you were using? Google returns nothing relevant for "star wars force dragon."
It actually doesn't sound like that "force dragon" was legit. Wings, larger than medium size, and stat boosts in a level 2 character? Sounds iffy. Do you remember the source of the race or version you were using? Google returns nothing relevant for "star wars force dragon."
Doubt it was. My SAGA races spreadsheet (which I've found pretty accurate in use) only lists the following Large races (with stats for being playable):
As for the OP's question, I'm not really a strong optimizer. I mean, I know a few tricks, but I usually just come up with a concept and try to make it as good to that concept as I can. I could probably out-optimize the rest of the players in my group, but not by a wide margin. I've never really played with a high-op group.
The most powerful character I've played was probably Deimos, the sorcerer/dread witch/nightmare spinner/mage of the arcane order. Focused on fear effects (he could frighten a construct to death, literally), but MotAO let him call other spells from the spell pool as needed, so he could do quite a bit of utility casting as well.
Thing was, he died all the time. Like every second session. Part of this was because he had low HP, part because he would take ridiculous risks - he feared nothing, and had a healer in the party who could resurrect or revivify him easily.
2E game, Player's Options. I was going to create a simple human cleric. He'd have an interesting ability or two and have spheres I find fun. Then the other players were bragging about how they were going to play githzerai and have spell resistance. The DM was all for it. As discussion continued I came to realize the players were not min/maxing. They were actually munchkining with the DM approving everything.
My "normal" cleric just would not do. I then purposely went munchkin myself. By the time I was done I was a cleric who played like a paladin. I had all the 2E paladin's abilities, except Cure Disease because I could cast the spell and immune to disease. The +2 to all saving throws was achieved though a permanent Protection From Evil. I could Lay On Hands, had d10 HD, and wielded a long sword. I had all of the paladin's spell spheres plus more while still having cleric spell progression. I think I still had cleric's THAC0, but that was inconsequential.
I've been outclassed in a few games. Mechanically, I can live with not having the highest numbers in the party, so long as my numbers are still meaningful. If the fighter does 100 damage per hit and I'm doing 70, that's fine. If I'm doing 15 it isn't.
Player attitudes are what bother me. Some players will look down on the non optimal characters. If another player gives me an attitude of "why are you even here" or "you're too dumb to play a character like mine" I'm not going to have a good time. If the other players include my non optimal character, I'm happy.
That said, I'm usually relatively optimized and I try not to game with jerks regardless of my character's power level.
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I don't mind being outclasses, but I do mind being out-abilitied.
You see, being outclasses isn't usually universal. There's enough unpredictability in the game that always being able to outdo the next guy gets tough.
Being out-abilitied? Oh, that's grinding. There's nothing like being sidelined in your own expertise.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Bob was cheating by picking a race he shouldn't be able to play at that level. But the example still stands - being overshadowed is never fun.
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Originally Posted by valadil
Player attitudes are what bother me. Some players will look down on the non optimal characters. If another player gives me an attitude of "why are you even here" or "you're too dumb to play a character like mine" I'm not going to have a good time. If the other players include my non optimal character, I'm happy.
Yeah, that's the difference between a good powergamer and a bad one. A good one knows how to hold back so the other party members won't feel useless, and offers them building advice when they want it. A bad powergamer wants to outshadow everyone else and/or treats the non-powergamers as idiots.
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I've found this to be the single biggest issue in introducing someone to DnD in general. Think of the new person coming in with the boatload of rules and all the people who are there to help them, but still, they're people who know so much more than you do. You pick a character, class, through down some skill points and just kinda go from there. Now not only are they trying to figure out the game, but within a few levels everyone else not only knows what they're doing, but their characters outclass yours by virtue of their experience and having goals in mind.
It really sucks when you're out-shined by the party or just end up as the Elan of the group, but now imagine that as your first experience with DnD.
I still shudder at the issues my first ranger had in a party with very supportive friends, but nonetheless an experienced paladin, druid, and bard.
I brewed up the servitor (in sig) and took it for a test run, going more or less equal with the other casters in the campaign.
Then a mate of mine lost his first character (bard) and came back as a bear (inspired from sir bearington) antipaladin. Has been the focus of every fight yet and is yet to be killed. The min part is that he cannot talk (communicating in mime) and has Int 4 and Wis 6.
My brother also knows the feel of being outclassed. His first character was an elf bard.
I'm usually outclassed, but that's because I do builds for other party members.
I use less restraint when I'm not building a character for myself, so they always end up more broken than the ones I'm using. For obvious reasons, this doesn't bother me.
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Me: I'd get the paladin to help, but we might end up with a kid that believes in fairy tales.
DM: aye, and it's not like she's been saved by a mysterious little girl and a band of real live puppets from a bad man and worse step-sister to go live with the faries in the happy land.
Me: Yeah, a knight in shining armour might just bring her over the edge.
We both do a double-take. It turns out "Force Dragon," which I had taken to mean something like "lizardfolk" is the Star Wars equivalent of D&D's dragons, and neither Al nor I had checked it before the game started. "Well dang." I thought. "I feel pretty useless."
Yeah...speaking as the kind of Star Wars fan who can quote hyperspace travel times between sectors from memory and tell you what in-universe year various events happened, there's no such thing as a Force dragon in canon and no official stats for anything like that in any Star Wars RPG. You done got munchkin'd.
As for my own experience being overshadowed, it's only happened once and that case was deliberate. Since I've been the most rules-savvy optimizer, the most tactically-savvy player, and the most creative improviser in most of my groups, I'm usually stuck as the GM and when I play I get to be a buffer/support type. My parties generally have fairly even power levels because I help everyone with character building and they know not to try to pull anything that would let them overshadow the group. At one point, one of my players (who was basically the physical incarnation of the Stormwind Fallacy and fortunately only played with us for two semesters) claimed that I wouldn't know how to enjoy playing a less-than-optimal character and that I relied purely on the rules for power because I wasn't actually a good roleplayer or improviser.
Them's fightin' words, so I asked the other two players who would be playing with us in the next campaign to roll me up a character: one of them would randomly generate a character, rolling for race, classes, feats, etc., and the other one would come up with my character's personality, motivations, relationships with the other PCs, etc., completely independently of one another, and Mr. Fallacy could add some roleplaying and mechanical hindrances on top of that. I don't remember the exact specs since it was a while ago (though I'm sure I still have the sheet somewhere), but the character ended up being a 12-year-old CG kobold beguiler/ex-monk/favored soul/CW samurai/abjurer/[something]/[something else] at level 13, with a 6 Wis and 4 Str (3d6 in order!), ranks only in Knowledge and Perform skills, a virulent loathing for any creatures with an odd number of letters in their name (hence the Knowledge, to be able to identify creatures' names), reverse kleptomania, and an extremely strong protective streak, among other quirks.
Understandably, this was not the most powerful or effective party member...but even at mid-high levels you can do a lot with cantrips and orisons, and he was the source of many crazy and effective plans (though the lack of Wis meant they usually went through some revisions for ethical, practical, and/or safety reasons), so while he was utterly useless in most combats and social situations (even being overshadowed by the 8 Cha frenzied berserker in social scenes), he wasn't a complete drag on the party. Even Mr. Fallacy had to admit that Snaggletooth Friedrich Witherby VI was his favorite character in that campaign and I could indeed function just fine without a mechanically powerful character.
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Sig of Holding
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Quote:
Originally Posted by abadguy
Darn you PoDL for making me care about a bunch of NPC Commoners!
Well... I'm frequently outclassed by other players. I'm not a terrible optimizer; I'm just not a great optimizer, and I tend to surround myself by people who understand the finer points of build mechanics better than I do.
I try to stay within low to mid op campaigns, and always try to build towards a niche, then just rely on my deep-immersion RP to continue to have a voice and role in the group. The pitfall happens when I accidentally find myself in a PvP group or in a DPS oriented group. C'est la vie. I tend to just cut my losses and move on.
It's not always easy being outshined by the over-templated CoDzilla hell-bent on making the entire party redundant, but then, there are games for that, and there are games for people like me. I guess the trick is to be able to walk away from the bad fit with no hard feelings, or to amp up that RP and become the lovable loser that has the epic death scene after everyone has decided there is an intangible irreplaceability to your character.
I've had some pretty good death scenes. Made someone cry once. The group practically ordered to roll up another character, and after declining for the umpteenth time, I finally agreed to handle some of the recurring NPCs of the game. I had almost as much fine doing that as I did making another player cry with my epic death scene skillz.
My very first experience with 3E, I went with an archery-focused Elf Fighter... With one casting of Bull's Strength, the Cleric became a better Fighter than my character. The Druid didn't even have to cast a spell, just wade in beside his animal companion. That was fun.
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Pre-Reqs: BAB +4, Able to cast Arcane spells
It's also not much use since Bards only get level 0 spells at level 1, which add precisely +0 to your attack and damage. Unless you are playing PF perhaps ?
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I pick lower tiered classes just to handicap myself. It would be quite easy to Google an optimal build, but where's the fun in that?
As a good role-player, I've even made being outclassed fun. I played a syncophant halfling in an evil game who sucked up to the more powerful PCs. The character worked out brilliantly because the character wound up so sub-optimal compared to the casters.
That is to say, most players optimize $FUN, where $FUN= whatever they personally find fun. You can't take that personal perception out of the equation. Of course, that usually means that some player's fun is another player's annoyance.
For those who are curious, we weren't playing SaGa, but rather Revised. This is the book of alien races I mentioned. I can't find his race in there, so I guess he got it off the net or something. He claimed they were from the planet Lego (possibly spelled differently), and ships that went there stayed there, got sucked in by the planet's weird effects. That's about all I remember. At any rate, he even said later that it wasn't made for players to use, and just wanted to try it out.
For those who are curious, we weren't playing SaGa, but rather Revised. This is the book of alien races I mentioned. I can't find his race in there, so I guess he got it off the net or something. He claimed they were from the planet Lego (possibly spelled differently), and ships that went there stayed there, got sucked in by the planet's weird effects. That's about all I remember. At any rate, he even said later that it wasn't made for players to use, and just wanted to try it out.
Anyway, those are some rough stories.
Like I said, there's no Force dragon statted in any RPG to my knowledge, Saga or otherwise. The planet name and description don't ring any bells for me, and the closest-sounding planets would be Lekua V (very urban planet, inhabited by humanoids) or Lenico IV (uninhabited), neither of which has any dragons.
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You can just call me Dice; that's how I roll.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by abadguy
Darn you PoDL for making me care about a bunch of NPC Commoners!
Like I said, there's no Force dragon statted in any RPG to my knowledge, Saga or otherwise. The planet name and description don't ring any bells for me, and the closest-sounding planets would be Lekua V (very urban planet, inhabited by humanoids) or Lenico IV (uninhabited), neither of which has any dragons.
The Force Dragon is in D&D 3.5
As an epic monster. I'm pretty sure Saga edition doesn't even go past level 21.
Most likely a different kind of force dragon. Different systems, so having different things with the same name wouldn't be too uncommon.
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Based on the description, I would guess Al was playing a Duinuogwuin AKA "Star Daragons". They get statted in the RCR (or maybe OCR, not sure) supplement Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds under the world Iego, not Lego. They are stupidly strong, which is presumably why their description includes the line "Duinuogwuin may not be played as Heroes (read: PCs)".
Given the GM was just as surprised as the OP when he found out, I say it is a fairly safe assumption Bob did not get that waived. And even then, Star Dragons do not get Frightful Presence. To fair, in RCR, you can get it as a feat. To be less fair, you cannot get said feat at level 2. So Bob is outright cheating at least twice here.
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Last edited by RandomLunatic : 12-14-2012 at 04:00 PM.
Based on the description, I would guess Al was playing a Duinuogwuin AKA "Star Daragons".
Ah, no wonder I couldn't find it, I was just looking for humanoid aliens. Now the comment of "the Star Wars version of dragons" makes more sense...and so does the "thou shalt not play one as a PC" note!
More on topic, the discussion about playing a dragon reminds me of another outclassed character, though this was a player's of mine rather than my own. The first game I ran with my new group in college was...strange, to say the least (lots of templates, eight new-to-D&D players, a half-evil half-good group that we split into two parties in the same world, and some other things). One of the two players who'd played before wanted to try a dragon PC, but not just any dragon PC, oh no, he wanted to have pretty much everything dragon-related in one character. He started off as a dragon shaman 1 with several half-dragon templates, then took a level of dragonfire adept, then a level of dragon totem barbarian....
He took every dragon-related class, ACF, and PrC he could find and qualified for, and I don't think he ever took a second level in a single class. He took Leadership for a similarly dragon-themed cohort and lots of draconic kobold followers, then took Draconic Leadership for a bunch of dragon minions. His cohort had a bit of a grafting focus, so whenever that party killed a dragon (which was quite often once the party had the resources to track them down) this player would get a bunch of draconic grafts. By the end of the campaign at level 15 or so, the only reason he had any combat stats in the double digits was thanks to stat boosts from his half-dragon templates, he had a few dozen breath weapons of various sorts, and was otherwise irrelevant in combat.
Kind of like an AD&D thief, he would kill a few things in the surprise round and then run and hide, which would have been actually useful if they ever got surprise rounds past level 6 or so, but this party wasn't the most subtle and the enemy soon found out about Sir Dragon-Dragon-Dragon-Dragon-Dragon-Dragon-Dragon. He spent most of his time running the party's business, coming up with increasingly-grandiose draconic designs for their mobile fortress (out-of-character thanks to good sketchwork, in-character because I let him invest all his ranks in Craft [Dragons], Knowledge [Dragons], and Perform [Dragons]), and otherwise being as dragon-y as he possibly could. He was screwed pretty much any time he was forced to make a non-skill roll of any sort, but he was certainly the life of the party.
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Better to DM in Baator than play in Celestia
You can just call me Dice; that's how I roll.
Sig of Holding
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by abadguy
Darn you PoDL for making me care about a bunch of NPC Commoners!
Arcane Strike — CWar p96
Pre-Reqs: BAB +4, Able to cast Arcane spells
It's also not much use since Bards only get level 0 spells at level 1, which add precisely +0 to your attack and damage. Unless you are playing PF perhaps ?
Pathfinder, yes. The rest of the player were fairly new, too. Falchions are pretty neat for half-orcs.
For those who are curious, we weren't playing SaGa, but rather Revised.
Gah, don't spell it that way! you made me think (due to reversing your meaning anyway) taht you were somehow playing a a SaGa based Pnp, which, whether homebrew or not, would be AWESOME! I call beast race! Prepare to be alternately horrified and disappointed in my power!
Last edited by Susano-wo : 12-14-2012 at 08:16 PM.
I generally try very hard to not be on either side of the extremes on that bell curve. Generally, I succeed. Sometimes, however, there are exceptions.
One group was extremely low-op, mostly because they were new to the game. One guy was a Monk, seduced by the 'wickedly high unarmed damage numbers' and 'super number of attacks'. Another went Fighter4/Barbarian2 because he wanted Weapon Specialization. Then we had a Rogue, who went ranged, but mostly stuck to Core materials, and had lousy damage output after the first round. Then we had a guy who played a Healer (yes, from Miniatures Handbook) because "They are even more awesome than Clerics!".
I got stuck with the role of Arcane Caster because no one wanted to deal with all the headaches of dealing with a spellbook.
Realizing that this party was going to get steamrolled against any CR relevant encounter, I decided to make a Party Support character. While tempted to go Bard, just for the IC optimization, ultimately it wouldn't bring much arcane power to the table, and I pretty much needed to be the 'if no one else can deal with it, then it defaults to being my job' guy. Which means Wizard was going to be the ONLY class that had a chance of pulling this off, unless I wanted to get into Rainbow Warsnake level of cheese.
I banned Enchantment and Evocation and took up the mantle of Conjurer. Upon hearing that I banned Evocation, a couple of the party members asked what use I was if I couldn't toss around fireballs. I just smiled and handed my sheet over to the GM, who gave me That Look before okaying it.
The GM informed me that there were no arcane colleges nearby, so I had to purchase scrolls to get additional spells, however he allowed that if I paid for them out of my starting WBL, they could automatically start scribed into my spellbook. I didn't much mind. I went in as Conjurer5/War Weaver1.
Since no one picked up stat-boosting spells, I picked up stat boosting spells for most of my 2nd level spells, relying on my Abrupt Jaunt to get me out of trouble. I did retain one slot for Glitterdust, of course. The look on the GM's face when I dropped an Enlarge Person on the whole party for the first time was priceless.
Later on, I picked up a Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell for GMW. I also picked up a cute little feat called Arcane Devotee for the War domain. I originally touted this for Magic Vestments to be chained, but this also gave me some melee ability with Divine Power. Blade Barrier isn't a bad area effect spell either.
My typical first round was 'move action to activate Quiescent Weave then Standard Action to cast Haste'. When I got 4th level spells, this was expanded to 'and my swift action to cast Greater Mirror Image'.
My character never really was personally powerful, but was an enormous enabler, and allowed the party to at least live through things which they never really should have. And all the while, I endured comments about being the 'weak sister' of the group because I never killed anything. Buffing and battlefield control certainly. Utility for sure. But the comment 'even the Healer has more kills racked up than you do' always brought a smile to my face.
After the campaign ended, the GM invited me to the FLGS to explain how I managed to pretend to be the weak sister of a group with the build I had.
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The Other Side of Min/maxing
Made someone cry once. The group practically ordered to roll up another character, and after declining for the umpteenth time, I finally agreed to handle some of the recurring NPCs of the game. I had almost as much fine doing that as I did making another player cry with my epic death scene skillz.
you made me think (due to reversing your meaning anyway) taht you were somehow playing a a SaGa based Pnp, which, whether homebrew or not, would be AWESOME! I call beast race! Prepare to be alternately horrified and disappointed in my power! 
