Finding Your Strength and Letting Others Shine
Grizzled veterans and those that have never rolled a polyhedral can have trouble working out how their character fits into the game itself, especially when they are playing with a new group or character class. Don’t worry, we’ll work it out together.
First off we need to open up our Player’s Handbook and find our class. Here we will find our proficient skills, saves, hit dice, spell saves and arms and armour proficiencies. This will give you a general overview of your roll in the game, for example, the Barbarian is what is sometimes referred to as a tank. Your hit dice is high and your character is a Strength and Constitution based class. Here we see you can hit things really hard and take damage.
Once you take a step back from the game and realise that there are roles and mechanics at play at the table. To steal phrases from video games there are:
Tanks - Heavily armoured, damage sponges that hit back. (Sometimes called Meat Shields)
Support - Characters that buff or heal the party.
DPS/Damage Per Second - Characters that do a lot of damage all at once but are very fragile. (Sometimes called Glass Canons)
So each class has a specialisation if you play it as intended in the Player’s Handbook and there is an expectation from your fellow players as to how you are going to act in combat and social situations. If you are a ‘Tank’ and you stand back in combat to make ranged attacks you will be causing some odd things to happen on the battlefield. A ‘Tank’ forces the fighting to happen in a specific place, holding the enemies at bay so that the DPS can take them out from a distance. The Wizard does not want to get within melee range of the enemy as they typically have low hit points and armour classes. Your DPS here will probably have to use a spell slot to either Shield or Expeditious Retreat meaning they use their resources to save themselves rather than hurt your opponents. This is frustrating for two main reasons:
This has made the combat encounter a lot harder for the party.
The Tank’s actions have stopped everyone else from doing the thing they built their characters to do.
Frustrating your fellow party members and purposely making the game harder for everyone is only fun for you, however, it is disrespectful to the work put in by the DM and the other players. I’d like to point out that this isn’t the same as having a character flaw like a fear of spiders, this is a mechanical flaw that fundamentally messes with the functioning of the game itself.
Once you know what your character is built for and you have carved out your own niche it is a better game for you and your fellow players. Every class shines at something which means by doing your job you allow others to do their job, if you allow the Bard to cover you in social interactions you will probably have fewer problems with the law, get cheaper goods and receive a better reward for the missions you do. It is difficult to not see that the whole game isn’t necessarily for you, but you aren’t the only person at the table and you have to let other people have fun too!
I hope this helps you and your table.
Be considerate and may you roll well!
