Ok Veeky Forums I have a problem, its my first time dming, playing pathfinder with my friends but one of them (the previous dm) made a stupid half undead scythe wielding fighter with a magical, invulnerable talking bird friend. I made clear beforehand that people weren't supposed to use third party books without asking, the setting was one I made myself where were mostly fighting demons and undead barely exist. Im trying to run a serious campaign but this guy whips out huge 30 damage scythe hits at level one with a plus 9 to attack bonus, still hasn't shown me his sheet once, and made up a huge epic wish fulfilment backstory. I don't know what to do should I take away his fun, make him make a new character all together. Im pretty sure “Jack Patches” will need to be mechanically adjusted. These huge hits and the stupid bird are definitely some bullshit I did not allow.
Ok Veeky Forums I have a problem, its my first time dming...
So whats the problem? It sounds like you know you need to talk to him
Everyone's pretty much going to tell you the same thing: man up and talk to him. If he still refuses to show you his character sheet or play by your rules, he's not your player.
I guess the problem is how to let him down, hes so far totally ignored every rule I set out and mad
e something dumb.
Tell him to make a new character under the guidelines provided or fuck off.
Don't get passive aggressive about it, just be straight with him, and most importantly, do not back down, no matter what he says. If dudeski knows you're a first time GM, there's a good chance he's gonna try to take advantage of it.
>playing Pathfinder
That's the mistake. Bait his character into accidentally pissing off a high-level NPC, kill him off, then say that new characters can only be built with core rules. People will say that Pathfinder is most broken with the core rules only in play, but that really doesn't apply here, what you are looking for is an end to broken builds that can deal 30 damage at 1st level.
If you haven't start yet, tell him he cannot play the character. If you don't, he is going to fuck up your campaign. Don't let that happen. Learn to say no, ESPECIALLY with pathfinder.
Games started, two sessions in. So get him killed and tell him to make something less trash is honestly something I haven't thought of, thanks!
I messaged him again, been ignored for a few days. Im hoping I can resolve this before the next session.
I'd advise against killing his character off because it's pretty fuckin' childish. Talk to him in person like a goddamn adult and if he insists on playing his edgy powerbuild marty stu and refuses to play something fitting to your rules, give him the boot.
It's really simple and I have no idea why most of Veeky Forums is so insistent on being so fucking passive aggressive about these things.
Glad you found a solution that (hopefully) works for you. I'm a bit spineless in that regard, so my usual tactic to getting my players to share their mechanics is to play dumb and pretend to like their stupid build. Shit like:
>wow user, that character is so cool! how did he do that?
>man, I wish I could build characters that strong, can you show me?
>hey, can I use your character as a badass NPC in my other game? I need to know how he works though
If the build is legit but still breaking the game, I throw whatever the weakness is at him until he's dead. It's usually either grappling or disarming. If it's not legit, I double-up on compliments and playing dumb until he admits it himself.
>huh, I didn't know smiting an undead doubled ALL of your damage, that's super cool and strong user!
>your character can hover in one place in the air with all that armor? he must have a super high Fly skill, nice
And the most useful one so far:
>that's cool as hell user, I wanna use it for a future character, what book is it from?
The problem is he get off quick post session and ignores me out of game, I could just kick him out but hes a real friend and I might get flack from the rest of the party. I cant just go to his house because I moved towns. (we play on discord I forgot to mention)
My dude if he's your friend you need to be firm with him. Explain your reasoning from a GM's perspective, seeing as you've mentioned he used to GM for you.
And if you really do have to give him the boot, explain why to your other players.
Also, seeing as he's ignoring you out of game, do it before sessions start, hell do it with everyone else in the call if you have to. The fact that he's ignoring you is a bit telling that he's either aware of the fact that he's basically taking advantage of you as a new GM and doesn't want to get caught, or he's feeling guilty about it.
Just be up front about it and avoid this passive aggressive "KILL HIS CHARACTER OFF LUL!" shit that others are peddling, it's gonna be worse for your game than just asking him to change characters.
If I choose the rout of kill character id try to do in a way that respects his character, even if I personally don't. Im going to continue to try and resolve it through words. Even if I cant I think booting him gently is better then killinhg so ill provably go for that instead.
Read his character sheet. There's NO way to do any of that shit at level one with pathfinder's rules. Make him adjust his character or kill him.
Just find out what class he took, and ask how he got all those abilities from it. I guarantee he doesn't have a legal build.
"Hey man your character doesn't use the rules as they apply in this campaign."
"Yeah I know, but we're playing a game with rules rather than running around playing Calvinball for a reason."
If he doesn't agree just tell them that it's not fair on the other players to let him cheat, and it's not fair on you to expand the sourcebooks that wide. No offense, you seem kinda new to pathfinder.
If they're still not willing to change, kick them out and say they can come back if they have a character that works in the rules. If someone complains just tell them the truth; user was cheating and it wasn't fair on the rest of the group.
Ok, I got him on and were talking about his sheet but hes hung up on the backstory and character, does anyone have some good examples of level 1 backstories?
as someone who's first experiences with ttrpgs was playing pickup games of pathfinder with powergamers. please put him in his place. people like him literally ruin the game for people who want to roleplay.
A good level 1 backstory is less about what happened and more about why they want something to happen. IE: Monsters destroyed my village, so I want to destroy all monsters, rather than "I'm an experienced monster hunter"
A level one backstory just needs to explain where they came from, how they were trained or gained their skills, and why they were motivated to become an adventurer.
They shouldn't really have much experience under their belt, and if they do it should be really minor stuff like 'took out that pair of goblins who were stealing all the village's silverware'
I don't think he's even powergaming, he's probably just blatantly cheating.
Ok after 3 painful hours we got things squared away, he may have "had some numbers wrong :P"
Whole character got scrapped, no hard feelings and we made the new one together. All is right in the world.
Talk to him. If he is your friend then he will stop being a stupid asshole and actually do a character that fits your game: if not, then you know he isn't your friend and you should drop him soon.
Good on you for talking it out.
Don't be a pussy.
>we play on discord
How do you do that ?
I just can't imagine a session without being around my dudes and dudettes live talking, eating and drinking together.
How the heck did he even get to play if the DM hasn't seen the character sheet?
I've never played a game where I wasn't showing the DM my sheet throughout creation.
You get ignored a bunch and because your trying to keep flow of the session you dont question retarded bullshit, might have been a mistake but thats what I did.
same, hell most of the time DM has us make a character specifically for that campaign. I've almost never had an older character used in a new campaign without a good reason for it. I've reused concepts and personalities if I didn't get to play that character too much for whatever reason, but that's about it.