• 3 Posts
  • 6 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 4th, 2023

help-circle


  • That’s why I came to the community. I feel like I’m a reasonable and half-way experienced DM at this point. The player is aware cantrips are unlimited use. The player is a very intelligent individual. I’ve had the conversations about spell use. At its core, I genuinely think the player is attracted to the “cool factor” and “aesthetic” of playing a caster but doesn’t actually want to engage with any of the mechanics. I can remind the player about spells and that reminder will last for a combat, sometimes less. I feel like I’ve done everything I know to do aside from straight banning the player from playing full casters or queuing them to cast spells every-other turn, I’m at a loss.


  • I never once asked the community to help me find fault in their behavior. It is a devastatingly poor mechanical choice to play a full caster with no armor and completely avoid using any leveled spells while rushing into melee. It makes it exceptionally hard to balance the game at a level which is challenging to the players but without threat of TPK. I am allowed to be frustrated that the “safe” encounters I feel I have to build to avoid TPK result in me basically never landing a single hit on the players. I have tried addressing this multiple times in a polite and genuine manner. I’ve tried suggesting we play a different, more narrative driven game like PBtA systems, which all of my players shot down, especially this player in particular, because they “like the crunch” of the systems we’ve been playing. I don’t like that you’re calling me an adversarial dick because I am expressing a frustration with a player even though I have done nothing adversarial.


  • I mean it makes the game less fun for me. I enjoy running monsters and tactical combat. I like using cool and powerful monsters (as appropriate for party level). I like using some semblance of strategy and making my monsters behave in a way that is realistic for their stat block. It makes running the game less enjoyable to be faced with the choice of 1. nerf the monsters significantly to remove all real danger to the party and be easily defeated 2. choose suboptimal behaviors to minimize damage to PCs or 3. Risk a TPK on an encounter that shouldn’t normally produce a TPK