Nope, that was in 3.5 too. I think it was removed for Pathfinder though.
Yeah, Pathfinder didnāt do that.
The thing is, it all depends on the GM, if you have a crappy GM then itās a crappy game. If itās a good GM then itās a good game.
I see that, but, I was the back up on most of those except face and Lore. The wizard could beat me on Arcana lore, but I had knowledge X pretty tied up. And, the key here is you start running into action economy problems. If Iām being the ranger then I canāt be the wizard, and if Iām being either of those itās possible Iām dropping the ball on being a bard.
Valid point though, and part of the reason I was stressing being the everyman with this dude is I didnāt want to power game too much, so I spread out instead of focusing. The other players were pretty new to the game. And then add in the fact that the more I could do the more I could take credit for at around level 12 or 14 when I turned on them. Immediately followed by my redemption of course.
And maybe because Iām playing with a bunch of 11-14 year olds thatās the issue. Teamwork and using their strengths together is something Iām trying to get them to do. But half of them are stuck in āI want a familiar that can speak common and steal stuff from the Paladin while I get drunk and kill all the guardsā And this being a church group itās part of our goal to not only give them a safe environment to play in but to have them grow as people. Iām working on helping them with that. Itās only sometimes ok to be a murder hobo.
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Itās definitely possible. If youāre playing essentially the ābackup adultā whoās guiding around the rest of the party because they havenāt figured out how to be a group yet, thatās definitely different from being āthe guy who needs to be able to do everything because he wants to be always in the spotlightā that Iāve more frequently seen. It still kind of bothers me, though, because Iāve always been of the mind that I should fill whatever role Iāve selected and do that one thing well (i.e. specialize, if Iām making a healer-cleric then I want to focus all my efforts towards improving my ability to heal, and taking things like archery or non-domain knowledge skills would just hamper that ability, and in my eyes, take away from possibly whichever other party member should be doing that so they could get their time in the light)
Sorry, I wasnāt clear. What I meant was the 5e dynamics might not be coming through very well because of the age of the players. They donāt know the system and they donāt know the concept of player cooperation very well still. Synergy is a unknown concept.
The Pathfinder game with the Bard I was totally trying to be every man because everyone needed backup and because it fit in with my greed story (Not always having the center spotlight, but always sharing a piece of everyoneās light). Up to the point when we stopped playing I was still in help everyone selflessly mode.
Though if you are familiar with Pathfinder specialization creates itās own problems as you end up with near godlike powers by level 6. And thatās the failure of that system.
I get that. New players, especially younger teens, are almost universally not in the āparty dynamicsā mindset, doubly so if they havenāt been playing the game long (or at all)
I can imagine that if you and I were in the same gaming group and you were using that character, Iād probably be rather annoyed with it. I can get behind the character background and everything, and the character itself may be awesome, but the whole ābeing in everyoneās light all the timeā thing would probably drive me insane after a whileā¦but Iād try to find a way to address it in-character, because thatās how we all grow our charactersāā¦character! 
Right, which is one of the reasons I did get tired of 3.5/Pathfinder and ended up really liking 5e. The progression feels more realistic, to me. To each their own.
I must not have been doing it well because I wasnāt annoying anyone yet. But Iām a helpful kind of guy so it likely just felt normal. I hadnāt started being annoying with it, and didnāt even come up with the idea until around 6th level when the original PC with the betrayal built into his character got kicked out of hte group for being an alcoholic asshole who couldnāt play nice with kids.
LOL. so over the weekend we played again, and the girl who was almost pulled from the group was feeling her oats. She threatened to kill the two murderhobos and kept a magic sword because they were both two stupid to cooperate with anyone and didnāt deserve it.
The funny thing is they mostly conformed to her leadershipā¦ and this is how the lawful good shadow sorcerer taught the Paladin and Chaotic neutral Rogue how to play nice. And got the useless bard to do something. Right now sheās the tide thatās raising all boats as far as gameplay goes.
Sheās also playing with her dadās 30 year old dice now.
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Hah, got them to switch to Pathfinder, which I have a lot more experience and books for.
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Uodate, we are halfway through Rise of the Runelords.
Iāve seen some growth in some players while others are still annoying murderhobos. But Iām any case,out of the three times Iāve tried the adventure this is the farthest Iāve gotten. I have to study the book to stay ahead in the plot now, which is fun.
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Oooh, I played that one.