@ACuriousMind Spending an "excessive" amount on non-gear purchases, be they consumables, property, etc., is just as bad as spending nothing, though. It's more about what's purchased than anything.
@Yuuki Yes, and they say "spend some money, for Tiamat's sake!" Some players also added: "You're making it hard for DMs to balance encounters because you would die to very weak things."
@GreySage I also think it is more beneficial, but the economy system favors whoever buys the most powered up version of an item. Other people say that the loss is insignifican at my level but I still feel (irrationally) that any loss >0 is bad. While the loss in not facing stronger enemies, being unquantifiable, is hard for me to compare.
From the point of view of your groupmates, you're being pointed at the solution to your problems but you aren't accepting their answer. I feel like this issue of "you're not RPing your character" is an XY problem.
@Adam That's a thing we consider doingm, every now and then :) But I'd like to learn to master 3.5e. While also learning to roleplay a character that's not a sad guy who could be better but he doesn't want to.
It's their poorly formed reasoning to get you to buy magical items and whatnot to get your character up to par so you don't get completely destroyed in comparable-level encounters and then talk about how you're underpowered for these encounters.
@Yuuki This sounds a bit like a "my guy" problem. @Zachiel, it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you are refusing to buy things and keep up with the others, to the detriment of your enjoyment of the game. Character consistency isn't worth feeling bad about the game
@Zachiel You could work with them. Ask for their input. Make it a group thing. Make it an RP thing where they both help you in real life, and their characters can help you in game to get over the hump so to speak
@Yuuki My roommate in college had that problem too. It was incredibly frustrating, both for him, and the rest of us. We ultimately decided to push him to make any decision, and praise him just for making the choice at all. And if something negative came of it, treat it as a "now you know" opportunity
@GreySage In a shared game like that that'd be making favourites. I'm OK with this not happening (I've been a DM in that sort of game myself, in the past. Generating envies because of those sort of things is easy). In the end, I think I just need to find someone who knows the game inside out and tells me what to buy. Not very satisfying if I think that I'd like to be self-sufficient but it's a start...
@Zachiel so... let's put this in perspective to real life. you need a car to get to work, but want to wait for the perfect car to come around. so you walk everywhere, but you're always late because you don't have a car, at the detriment of your friends and coworkers.
now, if you instead had bought a cheap car to get you from place to place and sell it later, in the long run you AND your friends would be happier, even with the chance of losing money from selling the cheap car when you get the better car. essentially, by refusing to buy a cheap car, you're switching the cost from a monetary value to time, effort, and happiness
So I want to do soemthing like the perfect murder, but because i want to give this dragon true vision 50-100ft he witnesses what happens and tries to set up clues to point to who really did it
@DForck42 So you know what happened? It happened that dad forced me to go and buy a car. Like with everything in my life (and the start of my rant.) - but thanks for being supportive.
@Adam They just don't think a melee cleric can work. And they're probably right, in a game with that power, being a fighter or a barbarian with magic items is better suited to the role, while in my pencil and paper campaign the barbarian had no chances against the cleric
Eh, I've played melee clerics in 3.5e. I probably didn't get to the level you did, but around the point I stopped, I was doing a lot better in melee than the group fighter/barbarian.
@Zachiel So the first step is to actively push yourself to be the driving cause. You can't always have a figure there to give you a push. Keep your head high. don't wallow in the knowledge of your flaws, but actively fight against them. If you don't like that behavior, you can change it. Just takes small changes. Small changes over a suitable time span yield great results.
@Skyler I guess I'm a bit confused how setting up the clues for others to find them is better than just coming out and claiming to have found the clues on his own
Alternately, don't have the dragon involved with the murder mystery at all. Have him be an outside observer and the adventurers solving the mystery serves as some sort of audition.
I mean, it seems like the key problem here is that you want your PCs to solve a perfect murder and have that dovetail into a plot hook with your NPC. That doesn't mean that your NPC needs to be involved with the PCs solving said murder.
@Yuuki Melee clerics are pretty awesome. You need a few rounds to buff up, but you can give yourself tons of bonuses to hit, damage, AC, and stuff like haste and DR
@Yuuki that woould cost me 10% of my current XP, but more than that, this character has a story now, and friends, and I don't think I want to lose them again. And start from wealth by level again.
Hmm... here's a thought. How about this NPC tries to confide in the PCs? Although then it becomes less of a whodunnit than a "how do we prove that".
@Zachiel I meant that you should try to make choices with more abandon. If your character dies, then (s)he dies. You can always roll up another character. Even if your character dies, if you had fun playing it, then it's worth the death imo.
And I'd probably be a better melee cleric if I bought items that let me spend a costy charge to get one more attack, or that ring that lets me auto-pass saves by spending costy charges. Everything I'd need to be on par with others might be a costy consumable. I think my next step towards enjoying the game will be getting come more non-epic items as soon as this war ends and I can leave the front without some weak NPCs dying because of my absence :p
@Skyler Alright! Just something I'd keep in mind, but I'm a stickler for involving PCs in plots and schemings beyond their control and watch them obviously tear through them ;)
Then I should also find a solution for the "I built I character that needs others to get things done, but instead of taking it as a reason for playing together, some people think it's just my character being needy", but that's easier. I just need more Knowledge (Arcana) ranks :p
@Skyler Warcaster is an option I was trying to avoid, I'm pretty feat-starved. The other two I'm not familiar with. It's possibly something not implemented in my game.
I want to make this a magical item auction house, with an anti-magic barrier (the barriers effect on the dragons is that he cant transform back into a dragon or something like that or a legendary resistance or something). People in the town with magic items (like the party) are invited to an elite retreat or something like that.
The dragon is there to retrieve a dragon slayer for obvious and non-obvious reasons
And is going to use that as a hook, plus being absolutely physically amazing and in peak condition, as a way to entice a level 9 party into something as reckless as running a heist in an adult dragons lair while he serves "as the distraction".
@Zachiel I do have to say it sounds a bit to me as if the problem here is not solely you but also the other players' attitude, but that's of course difficult to judge from hearsay
@Skyler So...you still need to know who died and who killed them, for a start
Like...two bidders, each interested in the same item to add to their collection, one very rich, the other with a personal interest in the item, the latter kills the former since they know they can't win the auction
@ACuriousMind It can be a wealthy elite, an auction official, or somebody you might want to kill in a way that people would be willing to hire a party and use magic to investigate the cause of death
@Skyler Have a bunch of kids/relatives of the deceased there who each want to blame another kid for the murder in order to get a larger share of the heirlooms, and so hire investigators
Would also give you opportunity to have the PCs "race" against other investigators (which makes the PCs being the only ones to solve this perfect crime all the more impressive when they outshine them)
So in this procedural, the prime suspect has a personal interest in the item that the victim outbid him on. But the prime suspect turns out to be a red herring because the actual killer killed the victim either for access or as part of a distraction to get at a different item that wasn't up for auction.
@Yuuki Originally was leaning towards something like that, though I'd want to make it a potential mystery point that can be put off to a few later weekends.
@ACuriousMind I like that idea
but i like a hybrid
heirs want to blame each other, but none of them did it
There was yet another one where the victim was killed because they were a connoisseur and would be able to identify that the item being sold to them was in fact a counterfeit.
heya. Not terribly interested was more just chatting about it. Its what the local game store opens as a way to introduce players. I'm wondering if I'll enjoy it since it seems a bit well ... beginnerish
Interesting. I was thinking about a recently dead noble who had a priceless <something> collection. Upon his death, he willed that the whole collection be sold off and the proceeds would be split among his heirs (and maybe charity). However, one of the heirs had been secretly replacing each item in the collection with a counterfeit.
@Skyler If they auction magic items, the main concern is whether the item does what it claims to be doing, right? How can you tell that when presumably neither the item nor divinations work under the field
(I don't actually know D&D, so I'm just assuming how that field works here)
When the noble dies and the collection is to be auctioned off, the heir fears that his forgeries will be discovered and kills the head auctioneer (perhaps the one person who is skilled enough to discover his forgery).
@DForck42 years and years of MTG. Lots of World of Warcraft. Skyrim. Countless other video game RPGs. Fair amount of Arcane Legions tabletop miniature game.
A horn of bull's strength that was carried by some famous war hero may have more value than a horn of bull's strength with the exact same effect but made recently.
@ACuriousMind Well, while true that they are sometimes unequipped to deal with my ideas, I don't think any of them adverses me on purpose. Sure, they're having fun together and they hardly understand why I can't just be like them. (I hardly understand it as well.)
@DForck42 and once made characters for a D&D like game in outer space but then it turned out the DM was cheating on one of the players with another player and we never met again :\ that was my closest to ever playing a full pen and pencil based RPG.
@Skyler Although you could provide a tip-off to the adventurers that the items are forgeries along the lines of "wait, this item is supposed to be a necklace of +3 <something something>, but we've discovered that it's actually a necklace of +1 <something something>!"
@ACuriousMind well, there's a lot of people in there, obviously I can't play together well with everyone. And of course the staff of the game arose from self-selection (If the head figure likes how you play, you will probably be called to be in the staff). I like a lot how those people play and how they portray their characters, but they're all proactive people without my problems. And no, I wouldn't want a staff full of people with my problems, either XD
@Skyler I mean, a simpler issue would just be someone in an illusion poisoned the drink, so even if there were witnesses, the culprit couldn't be identified (except by dragon-boy)
Instead of one big AMF over the whole place, you could just have AMFs over the locations where items are being stored. And some sort of protection from scrying in place to "protect customer confidentiality".
I also remember a procedural involving an auction being done via livestreaming (i.e. the items weren't actually at the location). However, as part of the investigation, they found out that one of the items was actually being auctioned on premises in a specially-designed set.
Well, you're the DM. You could always rule that the auction house has invested a lot of money in strong wards against divination magic for purposes of client confidentiality.
@Ryan I'm around now if you've got AL questions. I've run Encounters and Expeditions (back when they were a thing) and played a few seasons. I also coordinate a site. But all in 5e--no 4e experience.
@ACuriousMind On the bright side, you have officially identified the worst parents in the Material Plane.
@GreySage Depending on how the wards work, it's possible that you can prevent any divination magic from entering the auction house.
So divination magic cast outside of the auction house can't divine information inside the auction house. And also wards would prevent divination magic from being cast inside the auction house.
@ACuriousMind "Regrettably, solving the murder of a random auctioneer does not align with Thor's long term goals. Please contact us again with a more worthy request."
