lenpelletier says:
The first time I DM'ed 5th edition (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) I had a player build this character almost exactly, minus Booming Blade, which hadn't been invented yet. He was a real pain in the ass. Made everyone worse in combat with Darkness including his allies, had to be talked down to prevent monopolizing every NPC interaction, auto-discovered every secret, and his inability to be surprised hard countered many dramatic moments of that adventure. After a certain point there wasn't a session we didn't have to have a conversation about the social contract of the game and the ultimate goal not being 'winning' but making sure everyone at the table had fun.
But, he was 15 and on the autistic spectrum. I am sure you play your character more responsibly!
My goals are probably different than his, too. I was involved in a 20th level one-shot a few months back. I decided to create a character that mimicked The Shadow from the old pulp novels. Once I realized the build wasn't quite right, I became a little obsessed with the perfect build to emulate the character. In other words, I didn't build him specifically to make a power-maxed character; I built him to mimic a character from fiction.
And I've finally gotten a chance to play him from the beginning in real life. Unfortunately, he was cursed by a hag and wasn't able to cast any spells requiring a somatic component for the last three levels (finally got lifted Saturday), so that was becoming rather frustrating for me as a player.
I'm also getting a little frustrated because, like you, my RL DM seems to be getting frustrated that my character is almost impossibly stealthy (I actually rolled a 40 stealth on Saturday!) and has a very high passive perception. Having spent my own fair share of time on the other side of the DM screen, I can understand the frustration a DM feels when a character can so easily foil your plans, but as a player, I really have to call him on it when I'm surprised by an assassin and I wasn't even asked for stealth or perception rolls. I know it spoiled his plans, but it's not like he's telling the paladin, who's built for combat, that his sword no longer does damage because it messes with his story. My character's abilities will expand as we level up, but right now, he's built for two things: to hide (stealth) and to seek (perception).
Luckily, the current DM is pretty good about listening to players and I'm a middle-aged man and not a kid, so there's only the occasional temper tantrum ;-). When I was surprised by the assassin, and I asked about whether I could get stealth and perception rolls before being surprised, he agreed. Our previous DM (who is also a middle-aged man, so age does not equate to lack of pettiness) would never have listened.
As for his Darkness becoming a hindrance to others, Saturday was the first time I was able to use it in combat, and I was pretty mindful about how it would affect other characters. My character (at this point in his development) is very self-centered, but he's also intelligent enough to know he will not survive long without the help of the others. Plus, having the mobile feat, I can easily run in, attack in darkness, then run out again so the other characters can see.
