Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Krompt 04-16-07, 12:22 AM	First off, I'm not the DM, I am one of the players. My..question I suppose to the DM board is a problem with a DM's idea of the CRs of creatures. He feels that CR 1 Creatures are 'not a challenge' to a First Level party. He has done things like ignore the CR in the past but never to this extreme (except maybe one time). The campaign world is set entirely in a dark world (Mindflayers blacked out the sun or so some such). The party is as follows. 1st Level Half Giant Psychic Warrior(using a bit of rules from savage species and MM3.5 to lower its Level Adjustment to 0. mainly get rid of its naturally psionic and psychic power.) 1st Level High Elf Ninja (Completely normal) --This is where the party gets slightly weirder-- 1st Vampire Spawn Halfing (Using the monster class levels from Lib Mortis) 1st Thri-Kreen..Thri-Kreen (broken down into monster class levels pretty fairly if I say so myself) So we've got a (Fighter) type, but he doesnt have the power points to cast psionic powers, a (Rogue) type, then a Vampire Spawn and Thri-Kreen. I am the second newest to the D&D group, having played for only one year now, the ninja being the newest (at around 3 months), the Vampire Spawn is the oldest member and the Psychic Warrior the second oldest. The DM is tied with the psychic warrior's player in D&D experience (all of them at 5+ Years) Mission 1- The campaign started somewhat...normally, but when it turns out that the party has no spell casters, us joining the mage's guild as the DM had hoped we would do was out so he had to improvice as we went. And being nearly all melee, to the fighter's guild we went. Things went smooth, we joined, had drinking contest (the elf didnt drink), and the vampire spawn being undead only went into a coma from failing his fort save so much, as a house rule we have it that drinking repeatedly is a DC10+1 per drink, and each failed check is a -1 con, -1 wisdom. And after passing out and sleeping off the ill effects we took our first mission. The mission simply had us going to an (insane) old woman's house and clearing out her basement, and once we went in and looked around we found (a) spellbook, and a little homancullis attacked us (which didnt put up much of a fight and we killed it), and thinking that was the thing in her basement began to head back up and was attacked by a Black..Squid thing from the celing (a Dark Stalker I believe, I wouldnt swear by this as I dont have my Monster Manual with me). And up to this point I had only been using a single reach weapon (a rope dart, something I had done that stats for myself at only 1d4+str), but seeing this flying squid I basically paniced and 'full attacked' with all four arms. 2 of them Hit and all but squished it as one was a crit (for x2 damage). Now this might have been where my DM decided that CR 1s werent a challange for us in small numbers. Mission 2- We got a reward (of 20 COOKIES, baked by the insane old lady that gave us vigor for one hour I think, but they didnt stack so the psychic warrior who ate all 20 of them without noticing the effect was still only 1 temp hp higher), and headed back to the fighter's guild to get another quest. We grab a quest, head to where we were suppose to go, then after meeting the poster of the quest headed toward a 'Speakeasy' I believe is what its called, basically a gambling house. After having to take 20s on searchs seeing as the door to get inside was 'an illusionary wall covering the front door', we break in and are immedately attacked by 2 normal Gnome guards, which we take out in a single round I believe, we walk in and are attacked almost immedately after by two more hiding behind a table. After a few rounds we take care of them and decide its safe and begin to search the gnomes. The ninja didnt search and was standing near the door when he gets shot in the chest by a crossbow bolt from the other side of the room (crited and brought down to half his health). We go and begin to attack the two new gnomes but find out that even after the ninja ruled a Natural 20(22 total attack roll), he misses the gnome he was attacking. This raised a bit of a red flag, but we shrugged it off and soon found that it was a AC of 23 to hit them, which meant the ninja couldnt even hit them, I could only attack with one of my rope darts and have to roll a 19-20 to hit them, the Fighter had to roll 18-20 to hit and the vampire had to get a nat 20 to hit unless he tried to grapple and blood drain. Fighting these 2 gnomes took us a little over 6 rounds (and cost the ninja to drop to -9 after a second crit dropped him from 4). After we got the ninja to become stable we decided against better judgement to continue on which led us to a set of stairs, covered by an iron gate. On the other side of this iron gate were 4 more gnomes, the Vampire was able to slip through the gate (as the bars were nearly his height in width (the bars being almost 3 feet wide, and the vampire spawn being 3' 1") but was then shot 4 times by crossbows and dropped to -11, 11 more then needed for him to explode. At this point we called a foul and asked him what the hell was going on, as we had determined that through only the vampire spawn, my turn, and the gnomes turn that 2 of them were the same 23 ac gnomes and the other 2 were normal gnomes. It was then brought to us that the gnomes with 23 AC were a CR1 Each. The entire campaign was brought to a screeching halt when he (the DM) began to argue that the entire reason this[referring to the death of 2 PCs] had happened was that we didnt roleplay properly. His argument was that the ninja had died because we werent protecting him and were to busy looting the bodies(after a spot check upon killing the first two guards only revealed the two gnomes in one corner but NOT apparently the other 2 gnomes in the other corner, both of which we had direct line of sight two from anywhere we stood by the door), and that the reason the vampire spawn died was because we had failed to search the room correctly and didnt find the lever opening the gates...HIDDEN INSIDE OF A GAMETABLE'S INTERFACE, and said that we werent playing correctly because we were going straight into hack and slash mode. We just kind of stared at him dumbfounded wondering how he could claim that it was our fault that after proclaiming "We're going to search the room, the tables, and various areas" which was INSTANTLY responded with "There is nothing else in the room except for the stairs leading up to the next room" and we made the comment of "Wow the tables disappear?" to which he didnt respond. So now we were going back at him asking him what exactly he meant by the lever inside the gametable's interface which he then explains as "Inside the holes at the end of the game table is a lever which opens the door, and you would have seen if you'd searched the room properly", now this gametable he described when we first walked in as it raised up near the end, to a grand height of nearly 10 feet to where the lever was. Now this started a major argument on the difference between properly playing the game and how we were playing to which began claiming that because we just decided to go ahead up the stairs that we werent properly playing our characters, and assuming that the way to open the gates was behind the gates was metagaming knowledge, and also that we never planned or made strategies, that even though we were attacking the place no one was coming down the stairs and it was obviously a trap to go up them. We said 'fine sure, ok we screwed up there, we didnt search properly, whatever' and moved onto the next thing...the sudden shift to an extremely higher challange then we were suppose to be facing...4 gnomes (2 of which when on their own are considered a challange for a first level party) armed with MAGICAL crossbows, 1 being Bane-Undead, 1 being Bane-Monsterious Humanoid, 1 being Bane-Halfing, and the last one being Bane-Giant. This is what caused us to start yelling as to how in the nine hells it was possible for (as the DM claimed 'completely on accident') 4 goblins who were already an extremely bad challange(CR and situation of missing a PC and a gate between us and them rendering the Psychic Warrior to using a sling) were armed with Magical Crossbows, ALL of which were Bane weapons, and ALL of them were bane-(US). To which the DM claimed 'it was too easy for you guys against CR1 creatures so I wanted to give you a challange, besides its your fault that you went up to the gates and tried to attack instead of running away[on the first round of combat after two of us had already taken full round actions before the gnomes attacked]' And truth be told this isnt the first time he had thrown something that would almost be considered 'impossible chances of happening' at us. There were times when we would be on our way back to town to rest and were attacked a group of creatures our CR each ( in this example, 7 CR 5s against a CR 5 party), with our mages completely out of spells and the creatures immune to all physical attacks against us in one way shape or form including DR 15/Adamantine and Lawful AND Evil (wtf?). However we (being the 4 PCs) together request from the DM Board some way of explaining why the Challenge Rating system is the way it is without us being accused of being 'bad roleplayers'.
Fuzzypaws 04-16-07, 12:41 AM	Well one red flag that jumped out at me is that even if the gnome had AC 23, the ninja should have hit him anyway. Natural 20 is automatic hit no matter what. The gnome could have AC 100 and you'd hit him. Also, for him to automatically declare you didn't find anything when you tried to search, and then accuse you of not searching properly, is stupid. Also, CR only accounts for standard treasure and abilities. If a creature is being given uber equipment or buff spells that significantly enhance the threat it represents, its CR goes up. Your DM frankly sucks. Start a new campaign with a different DM.
The Jake 04-16-07, 02:08 AM	Well one red flag that jumped out at me is that even if the gnome had AC 23, the ninja should have hit him anyway. Natural 20 is automatic hit no matter what. The gnome could have AC 100 and you'd hit him. Also, for him to automatically declare you didn't find anything when you tried to search, and then accuse you of not searching properly, is stupid. Also, CR only accounts for standard treasure and abilities. If a creature is being given uber equipment or buff spells that significantly enhance the threat it represents, its CR goes up. Your DM frankly sucks. Start a new campaign with a different DM. Yep. Spot on. If your DM will not refuse to reason or even hear you out, then I would refuse to play with him. You are well within your perogative to do this. Don't settle on a ****** DM just because you don't know anyone else who is willing to do it. Roleplaying isn't a game with suffering for - especially if you know you aren't going to have fun with a ****** DM.
Magrus 04-16-07, 03:39 AM	I agree with the others. The Psy-warrior has the most experience? Proposition him amongst the rest of the party. Someone should be able to do better than this guy. If you can outline a perfectly reasonable accounting, you more than likely posses the mental capacity to absorb the rules and do better than him. In that instance, if you can't get ahold of them outside of the gaming group, feel free to do so at the table in front of your present DM. Ignore whatever he says. Kindly offer for him to play at your next game. Don't go all hostile on him, just show him how it's done all mature like. Unless he throws a monster fit. Then wave and grin as he leaves. Btw, kudos on posting something that didn't make me cringe. It's happening all too often, and you made my morning. Yay you. Sorry about your idiot DM. :weep:
kelvinaw273 04-16-07, 03:48 AM	Your party is a bit wierd, but a 23 AC opponent at level 1? Thats CR +1 at least. Sounds to me as if you are all just finding your feet at this. Take it slow, take your time, and don't just charge. 1st level characters are fragile, treat them with respect.
Magrus 04-16-07, 03:57 AM	Some more thoughts here....An NPC with a bane crossbow and 23 AC is at least a 4th level NPC, which explains the CR 1 the DM thought of. However, umm, that would be all of their wealth tied to the crossbow. If they had other wealth, that's a +1 at least to the CR. So, 4 CR 1/2 standard gnomes and 2 CR 2 gnomes before the vampire was slaughtered, am I right? That's a CR 5 encounter against a EL 1 party. With a bane weapon for each character in play? The DM was trying to kill you, or he shouldn't be running a game because he just can't. Explain that critical strikes happen, and you will tear through his NPC's from time to time. It's part of the game, you kill stuff, beat challenges and go "Yay!". Also explain to him that providing encounters that are 400% higher than your group level in CR, with specialized equipment designed to KILL EVERYONE isn't being a good DM. I am running a game where my player is tearing through encounters way beyond his level. It happens, and I need to adjust, and I tossed some whoppers his way to see if he could handle it. He did. He enjoyed it, but then, I knew he would. Some people truly enjoy risking end game results the whole time, most don't. Discuss that with him too.
Ack 04-16-07, 04:00 AM	Your party is a bit wierd, but a 23 AC opponent at level 1? Thats CR +1 at least. Sounds to me as if you are all just finding your feet at this. Take it slow, take your time, and don't just charge. 1st level characters are fragile, treat them with respect. It's more than that. From the account, the GM is nerfing them, severely, and specifically buffing the opposition to counter them, with more than the opposition should have (for a 'fair' fight). A nat 20, even if not confirmed, hits. Period. A CR 1 encounter is defined as appropriate for a group of 4 level 1 characters. That is, one CR 1 monster. Penalizing the PCs for not doing something they 'should' have done (that isn't specifically involving alignments or pre-existing alliances) is utter and total crap. The GM has already shown he is bad at predicting what they 'should' do; observe the comment that he expected them to join the mage's guild. Before your next gaming session, arrange to speak to all the other players and suggest that the most experienced take over as GM. Make up characters. Turn up to the game and start play with your original GM and your original characters; as soon as he starts his crap again, look at the others and say, "Okay, it's time." Then pull out your other characters and start the game the other player has put together. When the GM asks, "What the hell is this," tell him politely that you are not having fun in his game, you'd rather the game was run by someone else, and would he like to make a character?
Daydreamer 04-16-07, 04:08 AM	he may be confusing 'appropriate' challenge with 'risky' challenge. A single cr 1 mosnter is not likely to take down even a single member of your group-but it nonetheless represents a fair challenge for the group. Often times dms will throw 2 or 3 cr 1 monsters at a group for a big adventure. Try to clarify that 4 cr x (x being your ecl) encounters per day make it work. If he runs more monsters, there should be fewer encounters.
Leilond 04-16-07, 04:16 AM	I always create encounter using 3-4 creatures instead of 1 If I want to create a ECL 2, I use four CR 1/2 creatures or three 1/3 creatures + one CR 1 creature (the boss) These are always bettere encounters because the characters must use tactic (expecially if one of the enemy stay behind the battle using range weapons or spells) to prevent surrounding, protect low hit point characters and so on Encounters with a single creature usually end out with the creature "surrounded" and dice rolling (luck becomes more influent)... without so much strategy
Kouk 04-16-07, 06:58 AM	A CR 1 being a challenge to a group of 4 level 1 characters means it should take about 20% of your resources to beat it (I would say it shouldn't take many resources at all, at first level anyway). 4 Cr 1 creatures is a Cr 4, by the formulas, which I guess constitutes one of the "very difficult" challenges that are supposed to make up about 15% of encounters per level. On top of that, they were behind a gate which you couldn't open without specifically finding a lever (very iffy to depend on the party to find a particular thing) which should make the EL maybe +1 for being unreachable by normal attacks. Even if the gnomes were outfit as PCs of the same level (a CR 1 gnome would be about a level 2 NPC class character, or just a first level PC class, at most) they couldn't have more than 900gp each to spend on items. 900gp is the recommended wealth per level guideline for PCs of level 2. A +1 Bane crossbow costs at least 8000gp just for the magic of being enchanted with a +2 equivalent (+1 for bane, and to be enchanted with bane requires the item be at least a +1 enhancement bonus). Masterwork would then be 300gp on top of that plus whatever the bow was. So just the weapons cost at the minimum 8300gp. A level 2 character would normally have 900gp to spend. In the example NPC tables, most level 1 PC class NPCs are armed with a standard issue armor, ranged weapon, and a masterwork melee weapon, just for perspective. I can't say what kind of armor or whatever they were wearing, but 23 armor class is hard even with full plate. Assuming the gnomes were wearing a chain shirt, they could have at the most 18 armor. If they were wearing plate mail somehow, they could only have 19 armor. They couldn't use shields if they were using crossbows on you. So to get any higher than 19, NOW they need to have things like enchanted armor, rings of protection and amulets of natural armor. Totally ridiculous for CR 1s, let alone CR 5 monsters. This DM was out to get you or he has no idea what he is doing. Probably both. If you somehow beat the odds against what I estimate would be at least a CR 7 encounter, and you then looted whatever items they had you guys would be unstoppable for pretty much the next 7 levels which I imagine he wouldn't have liked either. The gnomes, had you beaten them, would have most likely been naked. Edit:If he equipped them with normal crossbows, and just gave them +1 Bane ammunition that would have saved a lot of money, although the CR would be the same because the effects would be the same.
daggeroflath 04-16-07, 08:20 AM	Bring out Captain Haveachat.
Krompt 04-16-07, 01:11 PM	Both the Psy-Warrior's Player and the Vampire Spawn's Player are running their own campaigns, the Psy-Warrior's is just getting starting and is going great and the Vampire Spawn's has been running his for a while now taking us almost to level 16 (to which I have died 7 times, 6 of which were to failed 'death' saves, but those were only to bad luck of natural ones). In no ways am I being targeted by the Vampire's Player as a DM, as the entire party was targeted one by one in the fight by the enemy and I had just failed the save but was the last to be targeted. The DM of this campaign he is a good player, but he likes to run campaigns though they never last save for one campaign. Anyway, If I remember correctly the Gnomes were wearing (Banded Mail?), something that gave them a +6 to AC, and they had a +3 to Dex bringing their ac up to 19, and had a +4 Racial Dodge Bonus against ALL creatures, not just giants bringing their total AC up to 23. --Magrus-- Yes that was what we faced when we first entered, 4 CR 1/2 Gnomes (Standard, right from the player handbook Gnomes), and 2 CR 1 (Deep Gnomes I think they were called), and the bane weapons were only on the gnomes behind the gate. --kelvinaw273-- Its not that we're getting our feet wet at this but the last time this party tried strats with this DM, we were a very standard group (Monk, Sorc, Fighter, Druid I think) and we killed a Beholder on a surprise round, he then threw an entire wave of 'Beholder Minions' at us and were all but overrun so we generally shy away from strats unless its completely covering all the bases/planes/hells/dimensions. Also, Magrus, what did you mean by the comment of making your morning?--Edit, nevermind, I found out the reason
Xykon 04-17-07, 02:00 AM	Anyway, If I remember correctly the Gnomes were wearing (Banded Mail?), something that gave them a +6 to AC, and they had a +3 to Dex bringing their ac up to 19, and had a +4 Racial Dodge Bonus against ALL creatures, not just giants bringing their total AC up to 23.Actually these are "Svirfneblin"s, a.k.a. "Deep Gnomes" a sub-race of gnomes and they do have an AC of 23 [23 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +4 dodge, +6 banded mail, +1 buckler), touch 16, flat-footed 18]. And yes their dodge is for all creatures instead of the normal "vs Giant Dodge +4". Nevertheless, if the DM starts treating *every* gnome as the same stats as Svirfneblin's, in the numbers you mentioned, then your level 1 party is definitely dead. No amount of roleplay can correct that. He ignored standard rules as well (i.e. Nat 20 guaranteed hit) which doesn't help the situation but blaming his faults on to the players is just unacceptable. Just don't play that guy's game. Play the other guy's campaigns and leave this one out. With 3 campaigns running simultaneously i doubt if you would miss one.
Magrus 04-17-07, 02:55 PM	Yeah, Deep Gnomes have a +3 LA, and they're nasty to be using against 1st level players. +5 overall AC bonus, +1 to hit, SR 11+ Class levels, +2 to all saves, Spell like abilities, and many other bonuses. Tossing bane weapons on top of those is just ludicrous. Especially after surviving that initial butchering squad. Having them fire at you from behind a gate that requires search checks to open is an execution.
Ack 04-17-07, 03:02 PM	Yeah, Deep Gnomes have a +3 LA, and they're nasty to be using against 1st level players. +5 overall AC bonus, +1 to hit, SR 11+ Class levels, +2 to all saves, Spell like abilities, and many other bonuses. Tossing bane weapons on top of those is just ludicrous. Especially after surviving that initial butchering squad. Having them fire at you from behind a gate that requires search checks to open is an execution. Search checks that the GM handwaves and then later says "You didn't do properly." What were you supposed to do? Override him and say, "No, we want to use the Search skill"? Sucky, sucky, sucky GM.
Krompt 04-17-07, 03:18 PM	Well after talking to him and finding out why he threw this at us he started explaining to me that we completely ignored 4 plothooks that he kept throwing at us...which went in this order. 1) The Old Woman was no human (We determined that after her 300 year old 'cook book'), but she was clearly insane (referring to me-a Thri Kreen- as her first born son, Ashley) 2) The Said Humonculis that attacked us was her's, and she referred to it as 'my cat!' and tried feeding it's dead body tuna. 3) She threw the humonculis into a pot and (a direct quote, word for word) 'The Old lady began humming to herself as she stirred the pot to a boil, completely ignoring any thing else any of you say as she fixes dinner'. 4) A random paperboy shouting the news about various events going on in the city, mostly an old lady handing a dark stalker out of her window like a flag. Now. going over this list we come to, What we the player's saw and the Dm's Reasoning 1) A Clearly insane old lady, and probably blind in one or both eyes(His[the DM's] Reasoning--She was not human and faking her insanity, you should have known that) , 2) Truely didnt notice that her little toad like 'cat' had its head knocked cleanly off, a spear hole in its chest and it was gutted and all the contents of its inside were dumped out (Dm's Reasoning--she just played along with her pretend insanity to make others believe that the frog was just a frog that liked tuna) 3 (and where it gets really good))She was cooking her 'cat' for dinner and planned to eat it, after all we did find 300 year old cook books in her basement about toad stew (DM's Reasoning-- She was reconstructing the Humonculi, the boiling water was a part of the ritural to recreate it and her humming was her casting a spell) 4) They have an extremely good news paper system if events that happened less then 5 minutes ago were already recorded. Then again it all could be magic (which explains just about everything in D&D). (Dm's Reasoning-- That was the old lady trying to get your attention for you all to come back now that her cat was fixed) The DM he is a good player, though sometimes it is hard to play with him (I'm a Ninja at nearly 1/3th my life remaining and I walk into a vampire's domain, I get attacked and the rest of the party comes to help, he however stays outside even though the doors to the vampire's domain are closing since the sun is rising. His excuse for staying out 'I was out of spells, I'm not gonna fight a vampire without any spells'. When I was wearing a robe of eyes so instant domination and nearly killed my party.) as he tries to both A) handle things like a min/maxer, and B) handle things like a Roleplayer. Hell in the same campaign(Ninja) I have almost maxed out my ranks in poisonmaking, but I dont make poisons because We have a saint in the party, an honest to the gods saint...he has brought bosses back from -9 HP to try and redeem them (after vaporizing me with a death effect), he has met all the requirements from the Book of exhalted Deeds for the saint template, and honestly would make the paladin's (that people on the D&D boards believe paladins should be) blush from shame of not being this good. And Honestly its starting to rub off on the rest of the party..I've actually started moving from CG to NG and will probably before the campaign is over, hit LG.
Sathery 04-17-07, 04:43 PM	Yeah, he's a bad Dungeon Master. It's not your fault that you were killing the enemies easily and swiftly. You don't NEED to protect the vampire. You can't possibly check every small spot in a room. If the DC check to find the hidden lever was hard (which I assume it would be) then that's fine. But to say that you should have ran away was stupid. Anyway. I'd rant more, but he's just a bad dungeon master. A bad bad dungeon master.
danielinthewolvesden 04-17-07, 09:22 PM	B the Vampire Spawn's has been running his for a while now taking us almost to level 16 (to which I have died 7 times, 6 of which were to failed 'death' saves, but those were only to bad luck of natural ones). There is a feat in PHII, where you get your CON + as the ability bonus to your Will saves inseatd of Wis, but the real bonus is that with this feat, a Natural one is not an auto-fail on a Fort save. Nice. Been playing a PC with that for three games now, saved my lie once already. Of course, you have to have a GREAT Fort save to make it work. "Sneeze-gnomes" aka "Svirfneblin"s, a.k.a. "Deep Gnomes" are an LA+3,and thus much more than a match for your party. As has been pointed out several times, normally a "Nat 20" auto-hits, but some DM's do houserule in that a Nat 20 just gets another D20 to add to your "to hit" roll, thus a Nat 20 followed by a roll of 10 is a to hit of 30. I do not like this houserule but it is fairly common. Those weird races make your party underpowered not overpowered, usually.
Kouk 04-17-07, 11:21 PM	Well after talking to him and finding out why he threw this at us he started explaining to me that we completely ignored 4 plothooks that he kept throwing at us...which went in this order. 1) The Old Woman was no human (We determined that after her 300 year old 'cook book'), but she was clearly insane (referring to me-a Thri Kreen- as her first born son, Ashley) 2) The Said Humonculis that attacked us was her's, and she referred to it as 'my cat!' and tried feeding it's dead body tuna. 3) She threw the humonculis into a pot and (a direct quote, word for word) 'The Old lady began humming to herself as she stirred the pot to a boil, completely ignoring any thing else any of you say as she fixes dinner'. 4) A random paperboy shouting the news about various events going on in the city, mostly an old lady handing a dark stalker out of her window like a flag. Now. going over this list we come to, What we the player's saw and the Dm's Reasoning 1) A Clearly insane old lady, and probably blind in one or both eyes(His[the DM's] Reasoning--She was not human and faking her insanity, you should have known that) , 2) Truely didnt notice that her little toad like 'cat' had its head knocked cleanly off, a spear hole in its chest and it was gutted and all the contents of its inside were dumped out (Dm's Reasoning--she just played along with her pretend insanity to make others believe that the frog was just a frog that liked tuna) 3 (and where it gets really good))She was cooking her 'cat' for dinner and planned to eat it, after all we did find 300 year old cook books in her basement about toad stew (DM's Reasoning-- She was reconstructing the Humonculi, the boiling water was a part of the ritural to recreate it and her humming was her casting a spell) 4) They have an extremely good news paper system if events that happened less then 5 minutes ago were already recorded. Then again it all could be magic (which explains just about everything in D&D). (Dm's Reasoning-- That was the old lady trying to get your attention for you all to come back now that her cat was fixed) Hmm, my conclusion would be she is a humorously insane and benign NPC. How the hell does hiring the fighters guild to kill a monster in her basement, which is her pet (unless she lost control of it or something), and then cooking it while humming (none of you have spellcraft apparently, but without a certain feat it is obvious when someone is casting a spell) and rewarding you with non-poisonous stat boosting cookies read as "clearly she is acting because it is a glabrezu that wants to hide out". Killing a homunculus also injures the master of 2d10, did she look hurt at all? Plus it requires an alchemist lab, but I guess there is some wiggle room there. This guy has no concept of what is in his own head and what is actually presented to the players, and should not be a DM. So, the newspaper reports that some lady holds a (very cooperative) darkmantle outside of a window for no reason at all, and that is somehow newsworthy but not quite enough for the local constabulary to investigate themselves? How would a level 1 character know what a darkmantle is? Did he even have you make some kind of knowledge of Int check? Plus, if you have no casters at all you probably don't even have Knowledge: Arcana right? Why would she then even want to kill you, obviously her "ploy" worked perfectly and you would probably be useful again in the future.
Krompt 04-17-07, 11:23 PM	There is a feat in PHII, where you get your CON + as the ability bonus to your Will saves inseatd of Wis, but the real bonus is that with this feat, a Natural one is not an auto-fail on a Fort save. Nice. Been playing a PC with that for three games now, saved my lie once already. Of course, you have to have a GREAT Fort save to make it work. The problem isnt that I have will saves...I've got a +19 to will saves, my FORT however is what I fail on, even on natural ones...thats a +9. Now if there is a feat that allows me to use something OTHER then con for Fort. But what did you mean by our weird races making us underpowered? --Kouk, your misunderstanding me, the entire reason we went to this basement was to kill the dark mantle, however we mistook her little familiar/cat thingy as what we were sent to kill and ended up getting attacked on a surprise round because the dark mantle thingy was on the celing. She was holding the DEAD dark mantle out of the window.
Kouk 04-18-07, 11:30 AM	--Kouk, your misunderstanding me, the entire reason we went to this basement was to kill the dark mantle, however we mistook her little familiar/cat thingy as what we were sent to kill and ended up getting attacked on a surprise round because the dark mantle thingy was on the celing. She was holding the DEAD dark mantle out of the window. Ok. I still don't see how any of that makes sense though :ahem:
Krompt 04-18-07, 04:07 PM	The Dark Mantel falling from the celing in the basement in a woman's house? Is that what doesnt make sense?
Downtym 04-18-07, 05:30 PM	The party is as follows. 1st Level Half Giant Psychic Warrior(using a bit of rules from savage species and MM3.5 to lower its Level Adjustment to 0. mainly get rid of its naturally psionic and psychic power.) 1st Level High Elf Ninja (Completely normal) --This is where the party gets slightly weirder-- 1st Vampire Spawn Halfing (Using the monster class levels from Lib Mortis) 1st Thri-Kreen..Thri-Kreen (broken down into monster class levels pretty fairly if I say so myself) Wait. What?
nlentz88 04-18-07, 06:40 PM	Here's a suggestion for you and your crappy DM: core only.
KurenaiYami 04-18-07, 06:47 PM	Wait. What? Not sure what it is you're questioning. The party has a (lesser form of) a half-giant Psychic Warrior, an Elf Ninja, a Halfling who's taken one level in the Vampire Spawn monster class, and a character who's on step one of his Thri-Kreen progression.
CryoSilver 04-18-07, 06:49 PM	Poison your DM's drink and tell him to roleplay his way to the antidote, because your CR is way higher than his level.
danielinthewolvesden 04-18-07, 07:37 PM	The problem isnt that I have will saves...I've got a +19 to will saves, my FORT however is what I fail on, even on natural ones...thats a +9. Now if there is a feat that allows me to use something OTHER then con for Fort. But what did you mean by our weird races making us underpowered? . With that feat a Natural 1 is not an auto-fail for Fort saves. Weird races have LA, LA makes you lose HD/levels which is almost never a good trade.
Krompt 04-18-07, 07:48 PM	Here's a suggestion for you and your crappy DM: core only. Seeing As we've played 'Core Only' and had this exact same problem before. How is that helping in anyway way shape or form nlentz? And are you claiming that we (the players) arent capable of handling something other then core?
Etarnon 04-23-07, 01:03 AM	--This is where the party gets slightly weirder-- I found the above statement to be more than mildly amusing. Your DM is a railroader. He's designing his all too cool plots in his head, but making it a mystery with no clues to follow. He's hoping you stumble onto his ultra cool master scenario that he is in love with. He misunderstands, it is not about "trick the players", it is about "challenging the players's characters." I think you need a different DM. He's making it next to impossible, a contest between you and him, over who is smarter. Good luck.