The Gaming Den

Hi and a late Merry Christmas all around.

I´m playing a bard in a 3.0 campaign, and as it turns out he´s about the most useless character that I could have chosen.
Heavy on combat, nearly infinite healing potions, close to no social interaction, and no (other) arcane casters. One of those times when the the groups smash it type is having all the fun while I´m sitting around and twiddling my thumbs.

So, before I make myself some sort of dwarven tripper I´d thought to turn to you for brokety broken ideas. Well be plying for only two more levels so a cleric would come into power too late.

Have fun, don´t eat too much

Sma

Abuse diplomacy.

Was bard, got near autosuccess, GM said, Diplo does nothing if I don´t feel like it, hence looking for something not as dependent on GM interpretation. I could go on a rant on how his interpretation of interaction with NPC´s, roleplaying, free choice of players, and just about everything else is the suck. But frankly I do this everytime I leave one his sessions. So I´ll spare you the whining. Railroading does not even begin to describe it. Before anyone can say 'Leave' I did, but suckered into goingthere again sometimes, because some of my friends go there and they need the support . Plus this GM is a freind of mine too, who´s been brewing up that particular campaign for a longish time, so attending is my christmas present to him.

Right now we´re basically looking how many minions will get thrown at us, after fighting against a literal woodland of treants last time and not doing the smart thing and simply running.

So either small pally with rhinohide, or something triptastic. But if anyone finds a bard build that outdamages everyone else, extra cookies

Sma

Two thoughts:

1. Leadership.
Good: You're 6th level, you have a high Cha, you have no familiar or animal companion, so you should max out on the leadership chart and be able to get a 5th level cohort - I suggest either a cleric, or a BBN/Ftr/Rgr/PrC melee tank who can capitalize on your bardic Whip Trips when they happen to be effective.

Bad: You're DM is already being a jerk, so Leadership might just not work at all

2. Use Magic Device and Evocation Scrolls/Wands
Good: This is a hack and slash game, this plays into the game style especially if you have no arcane caster

Bad: This is horribly ineffiecient and if you have no other arcane caster, access to such items is entirely in the DM's hands.

Well... At 6th level a Druid can turn into "any medium animal" other than a "dire" animal. Paragon animals are not, in fact, dire inherently, so yiu can turn into a paragon black bear and fvck some sit up.

If you want to be a good Bard, it basically requires DM cooperation. There is no way whatsoever to make any of those abilities work in the face of "You are in a forest, monsters crest the hill and attack, roll initiative." If the DM is locking down the narative, all of the Bard's good tricks and all of their passable tricks automaticlaly fail.

The only thing that's left that's even nearl good is some charms And:

* The DM can still dick those over. Either the legal way by having all your enemies be mindless, or the shockingly common illegal way of having charmed creatures behave functionally as if you hadn't charmed them (continue to attack other players, for example).

* Wizards are in all ways better at this sort of thing anyway.

If the DM doesn't want to deal with PCs meaningfully affecting social interactions, you don't play a Bard. It's that simple.

-Username17

Uh, Frank .. you think his DM will have stated that he has had exposure to or knowledge of a Paragon Black Bear?

After all, isn't it DM fiat that allows you to have familiarity with a given creature for non-organically grown characters?

Yes and no. DM fiat gives you familiarity with broad kinds of creatures, not specific ones. If you see a bear with light brown fur, you have the ability to turn into a bear with dark brown fur.

Or, by a strict reading of the rules, to turn into the perfect bear with light brown fur. The DM won't let you get away with it - reasonable DMs won't let you get away with it. But that is what the rules say.

Try to use it as leverage to get the DM to be less of a dick to your character's actual abilities. Or just do the standard pounce-based combat druid. Using all core material and leopard form you can modestly out-power every fighter in your party at 6th level.

-Username17

If its gotten as drastic as making a whole new character, then you might want to ask your DM about switching around your feats and Spells Known but keeping the Bard.

Here's how you do it:

Take Arcane Strike, Snowflake Wardance, and Power Attack. That'll allow you to burn spells and Bard music and BAB to be good in combats(not great, just good, and only for short amounts of time).

Get the Arcane Disciple feat to toss some good spells onto your list. You'll need a Wis of 13 at 8th level Bard; its a doable sacrifice to cast those few spells, and its generally worth it. Domains like Deathbound from Libris Mortis offer a strange but useful combo of spells.

Ask your DM if you can use the Extra Spell feat to get arcane spells off of other lists. Since you are only going to 8th level, thats a spot fix for the crap Bard spell list that would be unworkable past 8th.

Failing all that, you can just refocus your character on terror. Get a good Intimidate ranks, and +DC to Enchantments feats, and get Fear(available at 7th level). Cast Fear every round and then make individual enemies Cower with an Intimidate check. It won't work on mindless creatures, but those guys fall to simpler tactics so its not even a deal.

Also, if you can, get into a PrC with a Domain and get some decent spells on your list, then you are good to go.

It none of that works, there is a large range of 6th level cheese. The question is whether you'd rather be a fighter, spellcaster, or wierdo ability user.

Sorry forgot to mention druids are not allowed too. Would have been a no-brainer otherwise

Thanks for the advice, seems I´ll settle for some hafling ride-by action

I´m thinking of either straight Ranger (3.5), or Ranger 4/Fighter1/Barb1

Sma
<EDIT>
Everything gets better when you put cleric in it. Ftr1/Cleric of Ehlonna 4/Hospitaler 1, gets me the feats I need for a charger by level 6 and is superior to Rangers

Just thought I´d give everyone a quick update on the worst campaign ever (tm)

I actually did the charge of 50 damage last time, and my dear dear freind didn´t even blink. The kicker is, he still thinks wizards are overpowered. I´m at my wits end.

I´m playing the fun crazy overpowered campaign I´m leading tomorrow though, so all hope´s not lost.

Greetings,
Sma

Wait, he's kewl 2/ 50 point charges at 6th level, but won't let you use Diplomacy to make somebody nicey-nicey?

hrrmf.

Yes.
Looks like it´s time for one of those talks again.

I recently said to a prospective DM:

Frank wrote:If there's Dragon Cock, I Walk.

Putting your foot down as a player is something that gets a bad name from time to time, but there's nothing wrong with it. If the game looks to be including something you find really upsetting - like horrible nerfing of skill classes or graphic depictions of dragon sex - you should have a heart to heart with the DM about it.

-Username17

I did, or rather we did. It got better. Now it´s getting worse again.

He has a radically different view of how a game is supposed to run. After we have one of our talks, he is trying to accomodate the things we ask for, but he is doing so in a verbatim way, which leads to even more frustration on my part (hence the recent rants).

Frankly I couldn´t care less if th meaningful parts of any given adventure in a campaign are battles, and socal skills are nerfed beyond recognition, what gets me if things like that aren´t stated beforehand so everyone is on the level. The way he does it though is having a blacklist of stuff he does not want in his game which I´m not privy to.

Mostly because he has no idea himself why. He´s a big railroader, so we´re not supposed to leave the given track, but he does so by throwing stupid encounters at us, instead of simply saying "Guys please don´t ignore this village". Which would be perfectly fine with me.

He has no idea how to run his NPC´s effectively, and so we´re routinely able to kill stuff that is several challenge ratings above us. This is also due to some "No killing blows" scheme of his" where some people have repeatedly been saved from hiting the negative 20´s for no reason at all. If this happens because the 6th level fighter goes toe to toe with 3 treants, after being nearly killed by the one before, it leads to a certain amount of suspension of disbelief with me.

He´s also big on the "Dark Mysterious Guys" - the ones whose main form of communication is meaningful stares- making it really, really difficult to interact with his NPC´s. Which leads to one faceless goon being slain after the other.

We´re going to start the second half of the campaign next time, which consists of us being the bad guys. But the way it looks now we´re supposed to be evil only in the most reaching definition of the word. For example Nerull is not an appropriate god to worship. No reasons given.

He´s also afraid of us disrupting the game with any abilites, which is why wizards are forbidden, instead of looking at our past performance and seeing that we don´t really do that kind of shit. (My charger aside, but that was a one off childish reaction to his claim that clerics coudn´t break the game, which I regret now). After all we all meet to have fun and play a game together, but in his eyes we´re coming to take part in his adventure. Which leads to stupid shit like those who happen to live next door to him and having more time due to being students, getting more XP than those of us who happen to live on the other side of town and have a kid to look after. (Not me, so I´m not trying to be greedy .
And he really doesn´t get it when I tell him how completely inane that is.

Further he seemingly no concept of time management. He´s still playing as if we´re in school when everyone had time once a week and getting nothing done in a session wasn´t so bad. But now we´re playing for five to six hours once a month. So if we take two fucking hours just to get a days travel done, without anything actally happening or being wowed by some nice descriptions, or having an interesting dialogue with some farmers or at least something, it gets on my nerves. Wheedling away the time asking how exactly we set up camp, who´ll be pulling guard duty, where the horses are and then having nothing happen at all, is a waste of my time.

But I´m not giving up hope of making him see the light.

Sma out

Sma, you should be up for sainthood. And you're my no. 1 D&D player of the year for suffering through all that . . . and coming back for more game.

The transition from school-gamer to working-stiff-gamer is really hard, and frankly it sounds like your DM is too controlling to let it happen. These are the things we have to do to make our game work w/ a bunch of people who, well, work (FWIW, I'm just saying is all):

1. Forget plots. Let people do whatever seems fun that night. When you can game one night, go to a movie the next, bar or date the next, and so on, it's . . . not terrible to railroad occasionally, or let nothing happen in a session b/c somebody wants to question a bartender or something.

If people are giving up their only, one, this is it night out for the game, though, that session has to be hella fun for everybody. If that means you're precious, intriciate, intrigue-flled dilpomatic murder mystery takes a back seat b/c your wife (or, say, a good friend from school) "just feels like killing orcs," or the UCLA-USC game is on and nobody's paying attention, you gotta switch gears. You gotta convince this guy of it, or I don't know how you're group will stay together.

2. Use core rules, with very few houserules, or write them up before hand.

Good advice for all groups, but even more important for the working gamer. It's too damn hard to keep track of the actual rules, and then the houserules, when you're working 50 hours a week and gaming sporadically. Even beyond teh unfairness of telling somebody about a super-secret houserule, it's just lame. Tell your DM that he should spend a while writing down his rules instead of planning hte next session.

3. Just the Facts, maam.

Stick to why people play - combat, and story.

Don't sweat the stupid First Edition details like food, shelter, etc., unless it's vital to the adventure. Unless the players are in the arctic circle, or the desert, or somewhere exotic, and it's important to the plot or atmosphere, it doesn't matter what they eat and what they wear.

Don't travel unless it's important. Just "go there," with some flavor text about the journey.

My group hasn't set camp in years. The players have a general "watch" set up and the DM doesn't screw with them. We only set up a "camp" if an ambush happens, and then the DM just kinda puts people here and there. You need something like this.

5.No minor NPC's.

Nobody will remember them. Seriously. Yeah, I know - "good" DMing's makes every little character memorable and all, but . . . the game will still be fun if only an important bartender has a name and background and stuff, and everybdoy else is Biff and brings an Ale. Yeah, the game loses a little, and metagaming is unavoidable, but you can actually get out of town in less than a session, and it's worth the sacrifice. The "world" will feel a little less real, but at least the players will get to experience the damn thing.

Sorry for ranting on a little, I'm get a little sad about all the people I know who used to play, and would love to, but just can't make a game work. City of Heroes only makes up for so much. . .

Thanks Hanged_Man.

You´re points are dead on and the way we play the games that everyone is actually looking forward to.

Sma