"Stop killing everything" [Archive] - Wizards Community

"Stop killing everything" [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Hawaiianson
12-08-06, 06:49 PM Well they didn't put it in so few words...

I'm a 2/rogue 5/wizard on his was to Arcane trickster. Another member of our party is a 7th level sorceress, and those two spellcasters were wiping the creatures off the floor and three of our players were not getting many attacks in for the last few sessions.

My DM typically creates encounters in wide open spaces and we rest often and it was not difficult to abuse this. Three of the other players were sending e-mails back and forth basically asking me to stop using so much evocation... I declared the DM could fix it by changing the encounters. I was not going to cast non-evocation spells when I felt they were not appropriate for the situation.

The DM's fiance became pretty livid that I would not change my play style and that I was asking the DM to 'correct' our problem.

In the end I decided to leave the group after playing with the same bunch for almost a year. It was fun while it lasted but I found their requests completely inappropriate, and they did not.
Always-Late
12-08-06, 06:56 PM Rest of Playgroup: "We're not having fun."
Me: "I am. Ask your DM."
Rest of Playgroup: "Can't you stop doing X? That would solve the problem much more easily without totally changing the campaign."
Me: "No."

Now, of course, you're entirely justified in leaving if you like blowing stuff up, but I highly disagree with the statement that their requests were completely inappropriate.
Aegeu
12-08-06, 07:06 PM The trouble is, as an AT, you are probably focused on Evocation or Conjuration in order to get more out of your SAs. Blasting is all you are good at. So, if the DM would stop giving encounters focused on your strengths, it would be fine. Asking a wizard to not blast stuff is like asking a rogue not to pick locks, or asking a bowman not to use arrows.
High Octane
12-08-06, 07:11 PM Well you cant be faulted for using legitimate strategy. Its partially his fault for not A. Sending more than one encounter a day (so the big boom spells dont last) and B. Not creating situations where the big boom spells werent spectacular to use (WHY are they all running at you within 5 feet of each other? Or in a straight line? Havent they ever heard of an ambush?)
malignor
12-08-06, 07:19 PM Well they didn't put it in so few words...

I'm a 2/rogue 5/wizard on his was to Arcane trickster. Another member of our party is a 7th level sorceress, and those two spellcasters were wiping the creatures off the floor and three of our players were not getting many attacks in for the last few sessions.

My DM typically creates encounters in wide open spaces and we rest often and it was not difficult to abuse this. Three of the other players were sending e-mails back and forth basically asking me to stop using so much evocation... I declared the DM could fix it by changing the encounters. I was not going to cast non-evocation spells when I felt they were not appropriate for the situation.

The DM's fiance became pretty livid that I would not change my play style and that I was asking the DM to 'correct' our problem.

In the end I decided to leave the group after playing with the same bunch for almost a year. It was fun while it lasted but I found their requests completely inappropriate, and they did not.Kids are getting married earlier and earlier these days...

Imagine that. A 12 year old with a fiance.

You're better off without those brats.
TheChilliGod
12-08-06, 07:27 PM *Looks up definition of livid* Ah.

Well, what's done is done, and I congratulate you for showing the proper initiative and leaving before things got too sour.
But really, you didn't have to make the DM's fiance blue. That was over the top. What did you use, by the way? Blue paint, or did you strangle her for a while?

:P

What was their argument? Did they actually give any reasons why you should stop killing everything, or did they just tell you to stop? Looking at it from their point of view is very important, because I would also feel somewhat put off if I wasn't being able to kill anything.

(Had that happen once, actually. In conditions very similar to your previous' DM's battlefields and resting times, the party warmage killed everything before my rogue/fighter even managed to get a single attack in. I didn't complain, but it was rather depressing to know that the party can manage just perfectly without my PC.)
Hawaiianson
12-08-06, 07:29 PM Rest of Playgroup: "We're not having fun."
Me: "I am. Ask your DM."
Rest of Playgroup: "Can't you stop doing X? That would solve the problem much more easily without totally changing the campaign."
Me: "No."

That was pretty much the way it played out. I've been playing RTS games since forever, i use the best action and strategy that I can see, it's in my nature and almost impossible to deny. Seemed like the best thing to do was leave the game considering my playstyle was not compatible with the wishes of the group.

Not creating situations where the big boom spells werent spectacular to use (WHY are they all running at you within 5 feet of each other? Or in a straight line? Havent they ever heard of an ambush?)

The encounters were very vanilla. He'd set out the enemies in wide open areas 100+ feet away and generally they'd be bunched together. We have had no other reasons for encounters except to 'kill stuff".

He does a good job of getting into the enemies heads and figuring how they would react, but I don't think he has much time to plan most encounters, so 50% of our encounters end up being random ones as we travel down roads or the wilderness. We were ambushed once with mercenaries hired to kill us, and that was probably the most interesting encounter we've had all level. I was getting very bored with the encounters, but I figured that was not something you would say to the group or DM. In this case... take it or leave it.
Hawaiianson
12-08-06, 07:38 PM Kids are getting married earlier and earlier these days...

Imagine that. A 12 year old with a fiance.

You're better off without those brats.

Haha, actually the DM is pretty cool, but his fiance has him by the balls. He literally had nothing to say about any of this.

There was actually a lot of politics involved and things did start to get sour. The sorceress just joined the game at level 7 and she is a very close friend of the DM's fiance. I was told by 2 different parties that I made her feel quote 'the position of blaster was taken'. I consider myself a nice guy, but I am not and have never changed my lifestyle because of someone else's insecurity. When the sorceress said she had no problems and started throwing insults at me, it was time to leave. If she had no problems why is everyone telling me she does and why are people asking me to change what spells I cast? Eyup, definetely time to go before they start throwing the baby food.

I honestly did feel like telling them to start acting like grown ups, and obviously that kind of thing doesn't go down well in a situation like this with a group of 20 somethings.
High Octane
12-08-06, 07:50 PM Let me say, girlfriends/fiances often lead to bad things in D&D.

Its not the girlfriends fault usually, its the whipped-ass boyfriend with the DM mantle.
Puritan13
12-08-06, 08:20 PM Let me say, girlfriends/fiances often lead to bad things in D&D.

Its not the girlfriends fault usually, its the whipped-ass boyfriend with the DM mantle.Q to the FT

It's very difficult for a DM in that situation to not play favorites.
Altar_Boy
12-08-06, 08:44 PM Too bad you left the group. There was a perfectly legit way to end this conflict.

Step One: Let everyone else charge the enemies.

Step Two: Stand behind them and kill anything that tries to hurt just you.

Step Three: Watch as everyone else's sheets gets handed in to the DM. :cool:
GaffeR
12-08-06, 09:27 PM Too bad you left the group. There was a perfectly legit way to end this conflict.

Step One: Let everyone else charge the enemies.

Step Two: Stand behind them and kill anything that tries to hurt just you.

Step Three: Watch as everyone else's sheets gets handed in to the DM. :cool:
It's a good tactic. My Kineticist Energy Balled a big mob of enemies while flying. Too bad the poor Rogue was in the fray. I honestly thought he'd make his Ref save.

Of course, being LE in a Vile campaign I didn't really care, as he was just a 1 night cameo.

Mmmm... Kentucky fried rogue.

Anyways, I think this situation could have been worked out more amicably. Evo is fun and all, but you COULD have thrown in the odd Evard's black tentacles or Slow, then let the group hack em up.
SokenzanMarauder
12-08-06, 10:31 PM Anyways, I think this situation could have been worked out more amicably. Evo is fun and all, but you COULD have thrown in the odd Evard's black tentacles or Slow, then let the group hack em up.

While slow is all well and good, Evard's doesn't like differentiating between friend and foe. Poor commoners, got ripped to pieces...

-Gene
Serrin
12-09-06, 12:18 AM Find a group of adults to play with. They had every chance to fix their problem at character creation by making better/more effective/differently niched characters. The DM retained every chance to fix their problem by being the ****ing DM, for Rock's sake. He could've done any number of things to make the big blasty spells not the end all and be all of your campaign. Ambushes, AMFs, hostages, stealth requirements, anything to make the fights more of a fight and less of target practice. In a fight, the survivor is whoever survives, regardless of reason. In target practice, the guy with the biggest gun always wins, and your gun seems orders of magnitudes bigger than everyone else's. Thus, resentment.
YamiSouru
12-09-06, 02:29 AM SO your group got angry at you for doing your job because some new player wanted to do the same thing? May i ask what the (former) party composition was? because if the party was lacking a key member, lets say a warrior. Then the new player should have filled that role instead of trying to step on your toes. Now then. lets assume that all party spots were filled and the charactor of the new person was the good ol fashioned "fith charactor" then of course the job of blaster was taken, and if your party had been playing with you for a year they would have known that and the player should have made something like a bard which would have probaly helped the party more then a sorc speccing in evocation especially seeing as you were already doing the same thing, sort of.

Also the Dm could have easily put a encounter in which magic abilities were practically useless, like a single BBEG to fight the party while a hiden wizard who knew what was comming prepared a ton of dispell spells to make enemy caster a neglible threat.

In short the players had the chance to avoid this, the DM had a chance to avoid this.
DM Zoc
12-09-06, 04:14 AM As a neutral player in that situation, I would have been infuriated if the blaster didn't blast things because "he didn't want to." There's no worse way to break character than to change your play style based on what other players want. Unless the character suddenly caught religion and became a pacifist or something, it wouldn't make any sense to stop blasting things. If anything, I think the best resolution (short of making the DM alter the world to conform to the characters, which is also metagaming) would be for that character to take his justifiably inflated ego and strike out on his own, leaving you to create a new PC.
draco1119
12-09-06, 04:23 AM The sorceress just joined the game at level 7 and she is a very close friend of the DM's fiance. I was told by 2 different parties that I made her feel quote 'the position of blaster was taken'.
Maybe, hmmm, I dunno... 'Cuz it was taken? Shoulda just gone completely berserk in your last session and started tossing indiscriminate fireballs and lightning bolts...
Hawaiianson
12-09-06, 08:30 PM When our sorceress joined our party makeup was:

Me; 2/rogue 4 wizard
6 Cleric
6 Barbarian/Fighter
6 Bard/druid

Since I was only a level 4 wizard I was using mostly defensive spells, wall of smoke, web, illusions. I didn't prepare many defensive spells because life was too dangerous with the 4-man party.

When the sorceress joined I made 5th level wizard (fireball!) and I found my defensive spells were actually working against our encounters. While I kept at least 1 defensive spell per a spell level, I started preparing more offensive spells, I did change my tactics from defensive to offensive, because defense was working against us.

The Barbarian was the MVP before all of this, killing most everything. Of course he was the one who started the arguments that I "should act more like a rogue" which led to the argument of what that was supposed to mean.
YamiSouru
12-09-06, 10:02 PM When our sorceress joined our party makeup was:

Me; 2/rogue 4 wizard
6 Cleric
6 Barbarian/Fighter
6 Bard/druid

Since I was only a level 4 wizard I was using mostly defensive spells, wall of smoke, web, illusions. I didn't prepare many defensive spells because life was too dangerous with the 4-man party.

When the sorceress joined I made 5th level wizard (fireball!) and I found my defensive spells were actually working against our encounters. While I kept at least 1 defensive spell per a spell level, I started preparing more offensive spells, I did change my tactics from defensive to offensive, because defense was working against us.

The Barbarian was the MVP before all of this, killing most everything. Of course he was the one who started the arguments that I "should act more like a rogue" which led to the argument of what that was supposed to mean.

So they are complaining....for you being smart!? you have WIZARD levels for a reason. your a smart oppertunist and when you realised that your defenses wernt workin as expected you looked at the sorceres and pretty much went "ok she has many more spells then i do so she should be able to help with our defense and what ever is left of her spells per day can be shunted into offensive spells while i soften them up ahead of her"...honestly thats not even a elobarate plan its just "ok you buff our buddies while i shoot the enemies and when your done take over".
Regular_K
12-09-06, 10:07 PM Evocation is fine. I think you should have stayed in the group and said to those players "I'm having fun. You think I kill things too easly. Think back to first level, when you were all slaying things, and I stood back and barely did damage. You were having fun and I was struggling. We all have these times. BLAH!"

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Hawaiianson 12-08-06, 06:49 PM	Well they didn't put it in so few words... I'm a 2/rogue 5/wizard on his was to Arcane trickster. Another member of our party is a 7th level sorceress, and those two spellcasters were wiping the creatures off the floor and three of our players were not getting many attacks in for the last few sessions. My DM typically creates encounters in wide open spaces and we rest often and it was not difficult to abuse this. Three of the other players were sending e-mails back and forth basically asking me to stop using so much evocation... I declared the DM could fix it by changing the encounters. I was not going to cast non-evocation spells when I felt they were not appropriate for the situation. The DM's fiance became pretty livid that I would not change my play style and that I was asking the DM to 'correct' our problem. In the end I decided to leave the group after playing with the same bunch for almost a year. It was fun while it lasted but I found their requests completely inappropriate, and they did not.
Always-Late 12-08-06, 06:56 PM	Rest of Playgroup: "We're not having fun." Me: "I am. Ask your DM." Rest of Playgroup: "Can't you stop doing X? That would solve the problem much more easily without totally changing the campaign." Me: "No." Now, of course, you're entirely justified in leaving if you like blowing stuff up, but I highly disagree with the statement that their requests were completely inappropriate.
Aegeu 12-08-06, 07:06 PM	The trouble is, as an AT, you are probably focused on Evocation or Conjuration in order to get more out of your SAs. Blasting is all you are good at. So, if the DM would stop giving encounters focused on your strengths, it would be fine. Asking a wizard to not blast stuff is like asking a rogue not to pick locks, or asking a bowman not to use arrows.
High Octane 12-08-06, 07:11 PM	Well you cant be faulted for using legitimate strategy. Its partially his fault for not A. Sending more than one encounter a day (so the big boom spells dont last) and B. Not creating situations where the big boom spells werent spectacular to use (WHY are they all running at you within 5 feet of each other? Or in a straight line? Havent they ever heard of an ambush?)
malignor 12-08-06, 07:19 PM	Well they didn't put it in so few words... I'm a 2/rogue 5/wizard on his was to Arcane trickster. Another member of our party is a 7th level sorceress, and those two spellcasters were wiping the creatures off the floor and three of our players were not getting many attacks in for the last few sessions. My DM typically creates encounters in wide open spaces and we rest often and it was not difficult to abuse this. Three of the other players were sending e-mails back and forth basically asking me to stop using so much evocation... I declared the DM could fix it by changing the encounters. I was not going to cast non-evocation spells when I felt they were not appropriate for the situation. The DM's fiance became pretty livid that I would not change my play style and that I was asking the DM to 'correct' our problem. In the end I decided to leave the group after playing with the same bunch for almost a year. It was fun while it lasted but I found their requests completely inappropriate, and they did not.Kids are getting married earlier and earlier these days... Imagine that. A 12 year old with a fiance. You're better off without those brats.
TheChilliGod 12-08-06, 07:27 PM	Looks up definition of livid Ah. Well, what's done is done, and I congratulate you for showing the proper initiative and leaving before things got too sour. But really, you didn't have to make the DM's fiance blue. That was over the top. What did you use, by the way? Blue paint, or did you strangle her for a while? :P What was their argument? Did they actually give any reasons why you should stop killing everything, or did they just tell you to stop? Looking at it from their point of view is very important, because I would also feel somewhat put off if I wasn't being able to kill anything. (Had that happen once, actually. In conditions very similar to your previous' DM's battlefields and resting times, the party warmage killed everything before my rogue/fighter even managed to get a single attack in. I didn't complain, but it was rather depressing to know that the party can manage just perfectly without my PC.)
Hawaiianson 12-08-06, 07:29 PM	Rest of Playgroup: "We're not having fun." Me: "I am. Ask your DM." Rest of Playgroup: "Can't you stop doing X? That would solve the problem much more easily without totally changing the campaign." Me: "No." That was pretty much the way it played out. I've been playing RTS games since forever, i use the best action and strategy that I can see, it's in my nature and almost impossible to deny. Seemed like the best thing to do was leave the game considering my playstyle was not compatible with the wishes of the group. Not creating situations where the big boom spells werent spectacular to use (WHY are they all running at you within 5 feet of each other? Or in a straight line? Havent they ever heard of an ambush?) The encounters were very vanilla. He'd set out the enemies in wide open areas 100+ feet away and generally they'd be bunched together. We have had no other reasons for encounters except to 'kill stuff". He does a good job of getting into the enemies heads and figuring how they would react, but I don't think he has much time to plan most encounters, so 50% of our encounters end up being random ones as we travel down roads or the wilderness. We were ambushed once with mercenaries hired to kill us, and that was probably the most interesting encounter we've had all level. I was getting very bored with the encounters, but I figured that was not something you would say to the group or DM. In this case... take it or leave it.
Hawaiianson 12-08-06, 07:38 PM	Kids are getting married earlier and earlier these days... Imagine that. A 12 year old with a fiance. You're better off without those brats. Haha, actually the DM is pretty cool, but his fiance has him by the balls. He literally had nothing to say about any of this. There was actually a lot of politics involved and things did start to get sour. The sorceress just joined the game at level 7 and she is a very close friend of the DM's fiance. I was told by 2 different parties that I made her feel quote 'the position of blaster was taken'. I consider myself a nice guy, but I am not and have never changed my lifestyle because of someone else's insecurity. When the sorceress said she had no problems and started throwing insults at me, it was time to leave. If she had no problems why is everyone telling me she does and why are people asking me to change what spells I cast? Eyup, definetely time to go before they start throwing the baby food. I honestly did feel like telling them to start acting like grown ups, and obviously that kind of thing doesn't go down well in a situation like this with a group of 20 somethings.
High Octane 12-08-06, 07:50 PM	Let me say, girlfriends/fiances often lead to bad things in D&D. Its not the girlfriends fault usually, its the whipped-ass boyfriend with the DM mantle.
Puritan13 12-08-06, 08:20 PM	Let me say, girlfriends/fiances often lead to bad things in D&D. Its not the girlfriends fault usually, its the whipped-ass boyfriend with the DM mantle.Q to the FT It's very difficult for a DM in that situation to not play favorites.
Altar_Boy 12-08-06, 08:44 PM	Too bad you left the group. There was a perfectly legit way to end this conflict. Step One: Let everyone else charge the enemies. Step Two: Stand behind them and kill anything that tries to hurt just you. Step Three: Watch as everyone else's sheets gets handed in to the DM. :cool:
GaffeR 12-08-06, 09:27 PM	Too bad you left the group. There was a perfectly legit way to end this conflict. Step One: Let everyone else charge the enemies. Step Two: Stand behind them and kill anything that tries to hurt just you. Step Three: Watch as everyone else's sheets gets handed in to the DM. :cool: It's a good tactic. My Kineticist Energy Balled a big mob of enemies while flying. Too bad the poor Rogue was in the fray. I honestly thought he'd make his Ref save. Of course, being LE in a Vile campaign I didn't really care, as he was just a 1 night cameo. Mmmm... Kentucky fried rogue. Anyways, I think this situation could have been worked out more amicably. Evo is fun and all, but you COULD have thrown in the odd Evard's black tentacles or Slow, then let the group hack em up.
SokenzanMarauder 12-08-06, 10:31 PM	Anyways, I think this situation could have been worked out more amicably. Evo is fun and all, but you COULD have thrown in the odd Evard's black tentacles or Slow, then let the group hack em up. While slow is all well and good, Evard's doesn't like differentiating between friend and foe. Poor commoners, got ripped to pieces... -Gene
Serrin 12-09-06, 12:18 AM	Find a group of adults to play with. They had every chance to fix their problem at character creation by making better/more effective/differently niched characters. The DM retained every chance to fix their problem by being the ****ing DM, for Rock's sake. He could've done any number of things to make the big blasty spells not the end all and be all of your campaign. Ambushes, AMFs, hostages, stealth requirements, anything to make the fights more of a fight and less of target practice. In a fight, the survivor is whoever survives, regardless of reason. In target practice, the guy with the biggest gun always wins, and your gun seems orders of magnitudes bigger than everyone else's. Thus, resentment.
YamiSouru 12-09-06, 02:29 AM	SO your group got angry at you for doing your job because some new player wanted to do the same thing? May i ask what the (former) party composition was? because if the party was lacking a key member, lets say a warrior. Then the new player should have filled that role instead of trying to step on your toes. Now then. lets assume that all party spots were filled and the charactor of the new person was the good ol fashioned "fith charactor" then of course the job of blaster was taken, and if your party had been playing with you for a year they would have known that and the player should have made something like a bard which would have probaly helped the party more then a sorc speccing in evocation especially seeing as you were already doing the same thing, sort of. Also the Dm could have easily put a encounter in which magic abilities were practically useless, like a single BBEG to fight the party while a hiden wizard who knew what was comming prepared a ton of dispell spells to make enemy caster a neglible threat. In short the players had the chance to avoid this, the DM had a chance to avoid this.
DM Zoc 12-09-06, 04:14 AM	As a neutral player in that situation, I would have been infuriated if the blaster didn't blast things because "he didn't want to." There's no worse way to break character than to change your play style based on what other players want. Unless the character suddenly caught religion and became a pacifist or something, it wouldn't make any sense to stop blasting things. If anything, I think the best resolution (short of making the DM alter the world to conform to the characters, which is also metagaming) would be for that character to take his justifiably inflated ego and strike out on his own, leaving you to create a new PC.
draco1119 12-09-06, 04:23 AM	The sorceress just joined the game at level 7 and she is a very close friend of the DM's fiance. I was told by 2 different parties that I made her feel quote 'the position of blaster was taken'. Maybe, hmmm, I dunno... 'Cuz it was taken? Shoulda just gone completely berserk in your last session and started tossing indiscriminate fireballs and lightning bolts...
Hawaiianson 12-09-06, 08:30 PM	When our sorceress joined our party makeup was: Me; 2/rogue 4 wizard 6 Cleric 6 Barbarian/Fighter 6 Bard/druid Since I was only a level 4 wizard I was using mostly defensive spells, wall of smoke, web, illusions. I didn't prepare many defensive spells because life was too dangerous with the 4-man party. When the sorceress joined I made 5th level wizard (fireball!) and I found my defensive spells were actually working against our encounters. While I kept at least 1 defensive spell per a spell level, I started preparing more offensive spells, I did change my tactics from defensive to offensive, because defense was working against us. The Barbarian was the MVP before all of this, killing most everything. Of course he was the one who started the arguments that I "should act more like a rogue" which led to the argument of what that was supposed to mean.
YamiSouru 12-09-06, 10:02 PM	When our sorceress joined our party makeup was: Me; 2/rogue 4 wizard 6 Cleric 6 Barbarian/Fighter 6 Bard/druid Since I was only a level 4 wizard I was using mostly defensive spells, wall of smoke, web, illusions. I didn't prepare many defensive spells because life was too dangerous with the 4-man party. When the sorceress joined I made 5th level wizard (fireball!) and I found my defensive spells were actually working against our encounters. While I kept at least 1 defensive spell per a spell level, I started preparing more offensive spells, I did change my tactics from defensive to offensive, because defense was working against us. The Barbarian was the MVP before all of this, killing most everything. Of course he was the one who started the arguments that I "should act more like a rogue" which led to the argument of what that was supposed to mean. So they are complaining....for you being smart!? you have WIZARD levels for a reason. your a smart oppertunist and when you realised that your defenses wernt workin as expected you looked at the sorceres and pretty much went "ok she has many more spells then i do so she should be able to help with our defense and what ever is left of her spells per day can be shunted into offensive spells while i soften them up ahead of her"...honestly thats not even a elobarate plan its just "ok you buff our buddies while i shoot the enemies and when your done take over".
Regular_K 12-09-06, 10:07 PM	Evocation is fine. I think you should have stayed in the group and said to those players "I'm having fun. You think I kill things too easly. Think back to first level, when you were all slaying things, and I stood back and barely did damage. You were having fun and I was struggling. We all have these times. BLAH!"