I come late and see your edit. Good outcome - the trash took itself out. A player exhibiting that kind of selfishness would only cause you more issues.
To your question: no, you weren't being unreasonable at all. As the DM, it is absolutely your right and prerogative to impose such restrictions on the character creation options available to your players if it serves the tone of the game you want to run. Races, classes, subclasses, backgrounds, spells, it's all fair game; even feats and multiclassing are optional rules.
What matters is that you make sure that these restrictions, and any other house rules you want to use, are explicitly communicated to your players in advance. This is a basic topic of discussion for any good Session Zero.
If a player comes to your S0, reads up on your house rules and character creation limits, and decides they won't have a good time abiding by them, that's okay! They should be welcome to bow out with no hard feelings. The game they want to play and the game you want to run are not the same thing, it happens all the time; right up front, before characters are rolled and anyone's put too much effort in, is the best time to find this out.
From the very beginning in your case, the problem player here did not respect the rules of your game. Capitulating to her at all was a mistake. Never compromise on reasonable boundaries. When people push your boundaries and you give in, they always keep pushing, because you've shown them that they can have their way.
When she read your restrictions and told you she wanted to play a tiefling anyway, the correct response would have been a firm no. You had outlined your house rules; if she didn't want to play by them, then she was welcome to find a different table.
Throw the entire Supreme Court in prison. Trump too while you're at it.
They won't find the idea of unchecked and unaccountable executive power so appealing when they're the ones with the state's boot on their necks.
I'd want to be getting rid of it around 85-90. You're using it in the BEST possible scenario.
Schadenfreude. That's the point.
It's not about winning, it's about making the other guy lose.
I was quick to recommend misty step, but on second thought this is the better advice.
On one hand, there's no character who can't benefit from access to misty step; on the other, there are so many awesome spells that would be better picks for a class feature with as much potential as Magical Secrets.
Oh cool, so you really can pick any spell up to 5th level!
As a Bard you're likely already giving your concentration to supportive spells, and of the spells up to 5th level with bonus action cast time which aren't on the Bard spell list, almost all of them require concentration, so I say you can't go wrong with misty step as a reliable defensive measure.
Seconding: don't do this.
Not only do critical fumble rules disproportionately affect martial classes, particularly Fighter, as others have pointed out, but full spellcasters can sidestep them entirely and still be completely effective in combat simply by not using spells that call for attack rolls.
We need to know your class and subclass to know what spells you have access to.
That's your Focus Point (FP) gauge. FP is spent to cast spells and use weapon skills, and replenished by drinking Ashen Estus, your blue flask.
Defensive stats are split into two components: defence and damage negation.
Think of defence as a flat reduction to incoming damage, and negation as a percentage reduction applied afterwards. When you're hit by an attack, the damage it inflicts is first reduced by your defence against that damage type, then modified by your negation percentage for that type, and the result is the actual damage you'll take.
As such, when you deal split damage, the actual damage inflicted is calculated seprately for each type, based on the target's defence and negation against that type. Because of this double-dipping on damage reduction, pure single-type damage usually comes ahead, unless you're dealing with an enemy that's particularly weak to a damage type you've split into.
Holy shit my man is SCHMOOVING
"I believe we have their attention, Masters. Let's complete the lesson."
I am willing to experiment with new radical ideas than being stuck with what's taught to me by society.
Just because an idea differs from prevailing wisdom doesn't make it useful or desirable. And ideas that don't comport with reality usually do more harm than good for a multitude of well-understood reasons.
After all, beliefs inform actions, and actions have consequences.
Society wants to control me.
Welcome to the club. But if your intention is to generalise common knowledge and popular worldviews as expressions of some agenda of societal control, I think you're far overreaching.
Spirituality provides freedom from life.
As far as I can see, you still have yet to provide a coherent definition of "spirituality," nor an explanation of what can be gained this way that can't be gained from a secular worldview.
She's never really had a character, face or heel, beyond "I'm Ric Flair's daughter and that makes me important." Until that changes, I fear she'll never be seen as anything more than a nepo baby.
But by God, if she finds the chance to reinvent herself the way Dom Mysterio has, she will be a revelation.
Then you're willing to delude yourself to make life easier to bear. Quite a pitiable worldview in my opinion; far better to face the world as it is and try to make it better anyway.
Do you care whether your beliefs are true in reality?
I love the strategy, but it's a fucking miracle you got away with it. Baffling that a dual Vyke's user couldn't cut you down when you were panic rolling half the length of the castle.
That's a newbie take if ever I've seen one. The entire strength of the Wizard class is in its unparalleled utility. Comes with the territory of having the largest and most powerful spell list and the ability to prepare whatever spell you'll need for the obstacles you know are ahead of you.
There are so many exceptionally useful Wizard spells, even with combat applications, that don't do damage. Absorb elements, blindness/deafness, blur, darkness, earthbind, enlarge/reduce, fog cloud, grease, fucking hold person, mirror image, misty step, protection from evil and good, see invisibility, silvery barbs, Tasha's hideous laughter, vortex warp - and those are just 1st- and 2nd-level spells. Hell, I invite you to show the player this list.
Bluntly, he feels weak because he's not using the class to its full potential. He would genuinely be better served playing a Warlock until he has a better understanding of what spells can do.
...Why does the player think this is a problem? Is he not aware that the Paladin and Cleric's spells work the same way?
Meta levels are entirely related to multiplayer matchmaking brackets.
In multiplayer, with the exception of passworded phantoms, you can only ever be matched with players who are within a certain range of you in both rune level and highest weapon upgrade level.
125 and 150 are the most popular levels for this reason; most players who know what they're doing can hit 125 by the end of a playthrough without entering NG+, and just about any build you can think of can be pretty much complete at that level, with 60 Vigor, reasonable offensive stats, and enough Endurance to use preferred weapons and armour without reaching heavy load. 150 is also achievable with a bit of grinding, and those extra 25 stat points can open up more options.
When you start getting into even higher rune levels, multiplayer becomes much less active, purely because there are fewer players running characters at extremely high levels. It's also less popular for PvP because having that many stat points enables you to use pretty much any gear on one character without concern for prioritising stats towards a specific build.
This is such a fantastic insight!
NTA at all. This player is way too sensitive if the GM of a TTRPG portraying an antagonistic character in an antagonistic way is offensive enough to be called abuse. That's absolutely ridiculous.
Frankly, the trash has taken itself out. Take a break for your own mental health, then I wish you luck curating a new group of players who won't fly off the handle at the tiniest imagined slight.
What a shameless attempt to shift the burden of proof.
The only rational way to demonstrate that an objective truth claim is true is through objective evidence. It's not our fault and not our problem that you don't have any such evidence that your religion is true.
It’s logically impossible to provide evidence for the supernatural.
DebateAnAtheist