When your entire party is composed of smart guys and social guys that can't fight their way out of a paper bag

>when your entire party is composed of smart guys and social guys that can't fight their way out of a paper bag

Just play a 4e Warlord then.

Motivate them to push forward.

Not very smart if they don't hire mercs

But they don't need mercs because they are too smart for needing that.

>it's another greentext OP about meta bullshit episode

Well that's obviously false.

>party are a bunch of weedy nerds
>arch enemy is a relatively stupid guy who doesn't get caught up in intrigue and stomps those weaker than him

Well, don't do fighting stuff then? Or have the party get someone to fight for them.

Why have social skills in an rpg if you're not going to use them to build a band of strong and loyal warriors?

The main draw of social skills is that you don't need to be good at much other than leadership and getting the right people to each job. When you have a bunch of specialists working for you, it's kind of like being good at everything.

Then they're not actually smart, they just think they're smart. If that's the case then you've provided false premises for your scenario.

> when you're the only bruiser in a party of faces and skillmonkeys and nobody knows how to heal

Low level to start, and every battle would leave me half dead. So the party would run off without me to scope out jobs and leads around town while I was gimped up. Obviously dangerous jobs, like "hey let's go spy on these bandits."
Face actually tried to diplomance some guy who was trying to stab him in the face.
He wasn't nearly min/maxed enough for that shit, even if the DM had allowed it.
Then, because they had lower max HP, they'd heal up quicker than me and be off to run their next stupid fucking death wish.

I eventually had to retire the character and make a new character that actually had healing, because nobody else was sure as fuck going to.
Because the DM was new, he'd been slowly acclimating to an environment where healing just wasn't a thing, and combat was incredibly lethal.
I ended up single handedly breaking the campaign in fucking two.
So that was fun.

Well, there's not much loyalty in hired guns.

If that's a concern, then I suppose it's time to start a cult and get some weapon-brandishing fanatics instead.

>entire party is a bunch of "morally grey" in it for myself types
>you're a hero who legitimately wants to help people for free

>Well, there's not much loyalty in hired guns.

If coin is the only reason they're supporting the player, then he wasn't much of a leader to begin with.

A good leader would be able to establish a loyal core of supporters, motivated by whatever skills or qualities they think make the leader so great, or some cause the leader claims to support. Those qualities can include things many PCs have, such as skill in battle, supernatural powers, great knowledge, or even leadership ability itself. He could even make up a cult around himself and use that to legitimize his authority.

They are smart, they just think that being smart (and educated in one field) means they are always right about all fields.

Have you never been to university? It's a nauseating experience.

I needed to have some words with the players who knew damn well the first confirmed party member in the adventure was going to be an altruistic paladin and still wanted to play evil-leaning mercenaries who wouldn't piss on someone on fire without the expectation of monetary reward.

Fucking this.

I don't give a good god damned about how dark and broody and mysterious your past is, I just want to punch the undead in the name of the Sun.

I generally tend to play some kind of heroic sociopath

>Nope my parents are just fine
>Yep I have several healthy and happy siblings
>Nope I wasn't drafted to fight
>I just like to kill things, figure I might as well kill bad things

t. fbi guy

>"My name is Richard, and I'm addicted to killing. I have to cut off at least three goblin heads a week or I get twitchy."

>playing Pathfinder
>pirate campaign
>make a fighter who's a swashbuckling loveable rogue type character
>rest of the party makes evil characters without telling me
>we catch a female agent of the thieves guild spying on us
>the others decide to try torturing some information out of her

...wait what?

>try to stop it
>tell me to stop interfereing or they'll kill me (in character)

>okay

>while they're busy telling the agent what they're going to do to her if she doesn't talk I start a fire in another part of the ship and raise the alarm
>while everyone is rushing around to put out the fire I sneak into the brig and free the girl
>manage to swim to shore with girl and get her back to the thieves guild
>once the fire was out my party decided to follow and recapture the girl and kill me for setting fire to the ship
>I offer to join the thieves guild and help them fight my party
>guild accepts
>we manage to ambush my former party
>dice gods are on my side
>manage to kill all three party members and most the crew before the rest of them lose heart and flee
>the group is annoyed with me for "being disruptive" and "not considering how everyone else wanted to play the game"

>okay

>360 and walk away

He's CIA.

My current character has no combat or stealth training, but then in the training exercise managed to Solid Snake his way into the building with the target and take out three guys with nothing but misdirection and a stolen baton. This is a really bad thing because now he thinks he's hot stuff, which is going to come back to bite him now that we're out in the field for real.