Post/Author/DateTime	Post
PinkVishnu 11-07-04, 03:25 PM	Hey, everybody. This is my first time posting in a long time, so bear with me. Now to business. My DM is crazy! I have two seperate campaigns w/ him, and in both, he enjoys giving us ridiculous challenges. We level up almost every session (I levelled twice last time!), thanks to the extremely powerful monsters. A few sessions ago, we had three 5th level characters, and he had us fight two Ogre Mages (CR 8) and a 10th level fighter/wizard. Every character was reduced to negative hit points at some point. One was reduced below zero three times! Our other campaign has three 21st level characters. We fought a 35th level wizard/lizardfolk/lich. Ack! See previous entry for the results. His excuse each time is, "You lived, didn't you?" Not really. I've lost several characters to his maniacal monsters, and we've never fought a monster w/ our CR. Opinions?
ck2001wendt 11-07-04, 03:58 PM	I empathize...my DM has said he won't be giving us any encounters of our CR or less...so every one is going to be a potential TPK.
Khyron the Backstabber 11-07-04, 06:40 PM	Opinions? Your DM has a backwards view of the word challenge. I think he is missing the point of DMing. I feel sorry for you and the other players. Does he just throw monsters at you? Does he provide good plot hooks and RP opportunities? Or is he just into the whole "here is a monster, fight it" scene?
Son of Khoron 11-08-04, 02:48 PM	Now to business. My DM is crazy! I have two seperate campaigns w/ him, and in both, he enjoys giving us ridiculous challenges. We level up almost every session (I levelled twice last time!), thanks to the extremely powerful monsters. A few sessions ago, we had three 5th level characters, and he had us fight two Ogre Mages (CR 8) and a 10th level fighter/wizard. Every character was reduced to negative hit points at some point. One was reduced below zero three times! First off, you level after each session. That is cool, I have never gotten advancement that fast. The gish (ftr/wiz) is too high in CR to throw at you, the ogre magi may be OK depending on your stats and what items/abilities you have. Our other campaign has three 21st level characters. We fought a 35th level wizard/lizardfolk/lich. Ack! See previous entry for the results. His excuse each time is, "You lived, didn't you?" Not really. I've lost several characters to his maniacal monsters, and we've never fought a monster w/ our CR. Opinions? Your DM loves to get you to experience near-death. Does your DM allow you to gain some means to raise/resurrect, or does he leave you to tend for yourselves in trying to get back to life? IMO, your DM has a liking for over-challenge and possibly over-kill. Inform the DM, with the support of the other players if they think like you, that you have a grievance with him and explain.
PinkVishnu 11-08-04, 07:22 PM	Thanks for your comments, everyone. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. My DM is also a friend of mine, and he's a great DM in all other respects. He makes great plots, and he has really great NPC's. He just expects a ridiculous amount from his characters. Remember my 5th level character (now 6th)? She doesn't even have a magic weapon. No one in the party (except the soulknife, of course) does. And we're fighting creatures resistant to non-magical weapons (as most 6th level characters do). What have you guys (and girls, of course) done when you've a had a great DM that just loved throwing powerful monsters at you?
feartheinvinceblehamster 11-08-04, 08:33 PM	wow, the highest i have ever gone over the PCs level is 3, it was a first and second level party and a minotaur, but hey, 2 of us died so it was a bad idea, we can probably handle one now at Avg. party level 3
Son of Khoron 11-08-04, 10:42 PM	What have you guys (and girls, of course) done when you've a had a great DM that just loved throwing powerful monsters at you? We run. I was part of a group of five players that were 10-11th levels and the DM just enjoyed throwing us the loop. Our frequent enemy was the Cult of the Dragon, non-peons were never killed and always escaped before death. His advnetures were never written, it was all in his head, and every monster unless it was supposed to be a monster was chosen from the MM at the time of an encounter. With that, he would always choose some monster that could be immune or take little damage from half of the party. Example: I had a mage with a powerful staff, his best friend was the cleric, other members were of a halfling rogue, gnome fighter, and a half-elf archer. He sicced a monstrous fire troll upon us and had a anti-magic field around it. It grabbed my mage with both hands and thrashed me. Cleric couldnt save me before i went to negative HP. The rest of the party was attacked by incorporeal spirits that required magic weapons to hit them, most of the party did not have a magic weapon. When we can, we ran.
Lincoln Hills 11-09-04, 03:58 PM	I, too, have felt this pain. You see, far too many DMs believe that their, uh, real-life Wisdom modifier is POSITIVE, when it is - in fact - NOT a positive modifier. If you get my drift. The fact that your DM is a friend has nothing to do with the subject. If his ego is so delicate that he will be outraged if you suggest that his campaign is not the most perfect of campaigns, then you really ought to have given him the name of a good therapist years ago - for friendship's sake. :rolleyes: You don't have to present it in the walk-up-and-say-this-sucks manner. Talk to him and some of the other players when you're out of game, and bring up the fact that every single battle is a to-the-death situation. Say you're feeling bad because your character, in spite of being "powerful", never encounters any adversary that is less powerful than he. Ponder it without accusing the DM of anything - it's possible that he doesn't realize that he has this bad habit. If things go on as normal, you can then get a few fellow players together and do more of an 'intervention'. :smirk: .oO( "Peter - you've been wearing that giant foam cowboy hat for months now. Please, for your family, take it off!" )
The Soul Collector 11-09-04, 03:59 PM	As a DM for several years now, I can see the temptation to just throw insane combat situations at the party all of the time. However, sometimes its really nice being in a fight that you know you should be able to beat with only limited amount of risk of a player kill. When I go to throw out a batch of mobs that I know are going to be tough for my PCs, sometimes I expect them to take the better part of valor and just run. A daring escape can be just as exciting if not more so then just straight up combat (take the LOTR example with that Balor wanna-be chasing everyone through the dwarf mines). It also gets a bit trying when you always have to burn through all of your potions, scrolls, spells, etc. at every combat cuz everyone was near death. As far as you guys leveling so fast, I think that can also cheapen the whole DND experience. This isn't a video game that ones has to "pass" or "beat". If DND is about anything, it's about the journey, not the destination. Anyways, don't know if that helped at all, good luck. :twocents:
necromancer787 11-09-04, 04:09 PM	His excuse each time is, "You lived, didn't you?" Not really. I've lost several characters to his maniacal monsters, and we've never fought a monster w/ our CR. Opinions? Well sorry to say it but he may actually know (even better than you) what your characters are capable of. Besides one of the main concepts behind this game is that death isn't permanent. With the amount of undead, and clerics capable of at least a ressurection spell death is only a mior setback. True you do lose CON but thats where magic items come in!
strontium 11-09-04, 05:24 PM	We have a Dm that it like that. He loves running low level games with high magic, broad drama, and powerful monsters. He too was very suseptible to critiscism, and a close friend. Eventually, i just took him aside, and explained as nicely as possible alll the things we liked about the game, and the things we didnt. I explained that while we enjoyed a nail biting combat from time to time, it was annoying that however powerfull we got we always faced tuffer opponents. I explained how this was basically making us feel like we were achieving nothing.The occasional cakewalk is nice. He was also keen on giving us npc's, then merrily slaughtering them all, so our group leaves a swathe of death behind us wherever we go, and i explained how once in a while it is a good story element, but when it happens all the time it gets very depressing and demoralizing. He was also keen on giving us horribly complex puzzles to solve, usually at the end of the gaming session, late at night, and invariable had to have npc's explain them to us as we couldnt work them out. I point this out to him, and explain that we were not the worlds best thinkers, wildy convoluted plots are cool, but may not be appropriate for this group. He was a little disapointed, but i kept reassuring him with all the many positive aspects of his games that we all enjoy, and explained as best i could how we thought they could be even better imprioved. We also talked about which parts of the games he enjoyed most when running them, and together we worked out ways to lessen the parts we dont enjoy, and increase the parts we all enjoy. Games have never been better, and i believe he now appreciates the feedback we gave him. In the end, it's a game, and about enjoyment. You're still playing his games, there is lots you enjoy, let your dm know this, let him know what you dont enjoy, and see how he feels about it. As long as you are positive about it, he should be fine.
danielinthewolvesden 11-09-04, 06:17 PM	Actually, that's reasonable. Very tough encounters & lots of combat rewarded with scads of xps is fair. Tough, yes, and not everyones cup 'o tea, sure. But fair. Read these boards for a while and you'll see DM's that throw the same encounters at their players- and only give them xps to level once a year or something. :rolleyes: However, the Loot situation seem to be a problem. Tough encounters require good loot and suitiable magic equiptment. Up to now, it hasn't been so bad, but now that you are running into DR critters a lot, expect TPK's every game unless there is decent loot. Hey, look- just direct him here, and let him tell his side- and we'll give him some good advice. He sounds like a decent guy and DM, so with a bit of nudging from more experienced DM's, he shoudl be great.
green_yawgmoth 11-09-04, 11:12 PM	At least your DM doesn't base his campaigns around a team that is missing certain classes. Like, all of the classes that we don't have. We have no rogue, so what do we get? Traps around every corner, floor section, and door. I've been able to ID one creature with know: nature. The rest we'd need either religon or arcana, which none of us have (Bbn, Bbn, Rgr, Drd). And he never gives us more than 450xp a session. This would be after getting past about a dozen traps and fighting 2 combats that are easily PL+1 EL. I think I'm going to play in the other DM's game next week. They levelled 3 times last game, and I get a free magic item just for joining the game. Overpowered PCs > grossly underpowered. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
fish_heads 11-10-04, 02:54 PM	Yeah, I once played in a campaign with 8th level characters. the DM liked throwing hordes of low-level monsters at us, but would actually get ****** when we cut through them. Example - I had damage reduction 10/magic, and we were fighting a huge number of medium skeletons. He got mad they couldn't damage me, so he said they all had +1 weapons. He also gave them more hit points and higher ac. Then, he didn't give us extra XP for the heightened EL, and wouldn't let us scavenge the dozens of "+1 weapons" the skeletons supposedly had. Of course, he wasn't a very effective DM on the whole, but that's just one example.
Megrim_Lord 11-10-04, 03:01 PM	Well, if none of the reasonable solutions work out, try this: The next time you or one of your fellow PCs die, assuming you are playing a reasonably high level character, refuse to be resurrected and roll up a new character. Pop over to the optimization boards and learn yourself how to make a nice Hulking Hurler, no magic required, just big rocks, and you may yet make your DM cry from the amount of damage you do.
twoDtwenty 11-10-04, 03:31 PM	I'd bet dollars to donuts that he's going through a common phase for DMs. Odds are good that he wants to throw rediculous challenges at the party and at the same time is assisting the party through poor tactics and voluntarily not using the most devestating of combinations he could. You also don't make any mention of the overall attribute bonus level of the party, the total number of party members, or the level of magical treasue in the campaign. It may well be that he does know you will be able to survive these encounters if he's leaving them at the norm and you're playing a high powered monty haul campaign. At any rate the real question is... Is everybody having fun? If you can answer yes then he's doing his job, if you say no you might want to direct him to the What's a DM to Do? board.
Invarus 11-11-04, 01:54 AM	I wonder how many players have DMs exactly like that. Once upon a time, my friends and I went through a number of adventures (most ended pretty early into them, not necessarily because they were crap, but because the DM just kept abandoning them for new ideas) that had something very similar to this kind of problem. Our DM would consistently lob ridiculous encounters at us, then when it became apparent we were in over our heads, have some form of Deus Ex Machina come in and do the encounter for us. He branched off from the group when he got a job and we started university, but he pulled two of us back into another group for a new adventure. The last session of that adventure had us (a group of 5 level 2s) pitted against 4 goblins with bows, 3 orcs with bows, an orcish spellcaster of some variety, and two ogres. The goblins were up on a rise to our flank, the orcs were about 70 feet away from us, and the two ogres were pretty much right in our faces inside of a round. Fortunately this didn't end in our deaths, because that was the end of the session and no further sessions have occured.
MoogleEmpMog 11-11-04, 12:55 PM	Considering that, in the situation described here, the party won - not everyone lived, but the survivors won - I would say that sounds like a very fun, very exciting and ideal game. I would love to play in such a game: great stories, absolutely lethal combats, extremely fast levelling, low magic items... I mean, that sounds like the ideal D&D campaign.
Thoronmir 11-11-04, 01:44 PM	The key is moderation in all things. I, too, relish the thrill of knowing my PC may not survive. That makes those timely Critical Hits even more exhilarating. But I like a break now and then. It’s nice to level up and gain new abilities, but it’s also nice to put those abilities to full effect against some easier prey once in a while. I’ve seen the DMs being described in some responses. They toss something grossly overpowering at the party then either gimp how they play the challenge (“Hey, I just realized that this Dragon hasn’t used its breath weapon or wing buffet in this fight!”) or they provide the means for defeating the challenge for the players (“Never fear, a horde of NPC Paladins ride to the rescue”). A good DM ought to balance the hard fights with some not-so-hard fights. But if he weakens a tough challenge so the PCs survive, then he’s cheapened the experience. He should also avoid making a habit out of intentionally selecting foes that require items or abilities that the party lacks.