I feel my DM is out to negate me....... [Archive] - Wizards Community

I feel my DM is out to negate me....... [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
05-31-04, 08:37 AM Ok here is the long and short, and this is just speculation at this point but here goes. My character was basically designed to be hard to hit, and in return hit alot, but not all that hard. It is only recently with Epic cash flow (level 26) that I have been able to buy the tomes and items to boost up my con and hence HP and such, but still my character relies on not being hit, and on hitting enemies for alot of small hits. my Normal AC is 44 Ring of protection +5 amulet of Natural Armor +5 A feat which grants a +2 dodge bonus to AC, Armor of the celestial Batallion (AC 5 +7 magical Max 10 from dex) with a Dex of 35 i get the full 10, this gives a total of 44, plus I carry 2 defending weapon (+5) and routinuely use expertise, so a 59 AC is easy for me to hit.

But lately it seems all the monsters we encounter have had their to hit bonus increased massively making my character much less useful. I should also note that splat books ahve been allowed and my character has a feat called retaliation which when I am missed by 5 or more on the attack roll i get an attack of opportunity. Add to that my DM created a custom prestige class which allows a character to make 2 attacks of opportunity whenever an opponent provokes one. these feats were selected a LONG time ago in the campaign and frankly my character is built around them. but it seems like I am being targeted with all these beefed up monsters that have their to hit bonus doubled or more. one monster we just encountered had its to hit increased from +26 to at least 52 as an attack roll made against my character was a 72. the lowest attack roll it has made is 57.

Before anyone says it though i feel the need t point out that the defending weapons arent that much of an advantage since i generally need their bonus on the attack to pass damage reduction.
Thorak
05-31-04, 09:34 AM Concealment is your friend. Anything that provides a miss chance based on a straight percent, rather than AC. Sure, it probably won't always work, but it's yet another route to not being hit, and once you've gotten your AC high enough to minimize it, these kinds of bonuses add in really quick.

Also, if the enemy's having their to-hit boosted magically (true strike, being really low level, should be a constant nagging annoyance in Epic, especially for first attacks) consider pushing the mage to nail the enemy with more Dispel-type spells. If they need +26 to hit you, when the mage removes that +26 they're gonna have an awful hard go of it.

As for DR, not much to easily do. If you've centered yourself around being defensive, you've minimized your offense. The easy route is Power Attack, but considering you're TWFing, that's not optimal.
dm_G
05-31-04, 11:20 AM Talk with your DM.(it's bad DMing)
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
05-31-04, 11:30 AM See my real question is he singling me out, i know he has to advance the monsters for our higher elvel, but how much advancement should a monster have on its to hit bonus?
dm_G
05-31-04, 11:41 AM It depends on what type the monster is. Is it a outsider it gets a bab equal to its Hd, but if the monster is an animal it has a bab progesion at 3/4 per HD. It also exists monsters with a high CR (Such as the Brain Collector-Neh-Thalggu in the Epic Level Handbook) and low BAB and HD that the DM can use.
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
05-31-04, 11:47 AM Well this particular monster is a bone ooze

has a + to hit of at least 52 :( seems kinda crazy to me almost cant miss, and does con dex and str damage, plus he seems to ahve boosted the poison damage
FreeTheSlaves
05-31-04, 12:14 PM AC doesn't scale with BAB.

Epic enemies have huge # of HD and outsiders have full BAB advancement.

AC in high level play minimizes the sheer number of iterative attacks that hit rather than stop them completely.

DMs are encouraged by the monster advancement rules to mix and match and generally surprise their players.

Concealment and % miss chances become increasingly valuable the higher the level of the campaign advances.

======================================== ======

In short, you need to diversify your character concept. The high AC trick has built in limitations as you have found out.
Gandilas
05-31-04, 11:11 PM Hello.

You're level 26 and your AC is 44? Let me just pull up the SRD's epic monster and see what we have around CR 26.

INFERNAL Large Outsider (Evil) (Chaotic or Lawful)
Full Attack: 2 claws +58 (4d6+16) melee, 1 bite +52 (4d8+8 +spell suck) melee, 2 wings +50 (2d6+8) melee, 1 tail slam +50 (4d8+8) melee
Challenge Rating: 26.

PHANE Large Outsider (Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Incorporeal)
Full Attack: Incorporeal touch +43 (1d6 plus stasis touch) melee
Challenge Rating: 25.

BRACHYURUS Large Magical Beast
Full Attack: 2 claws +48 (2d6+10/19-20) melee, 1 bite +46 (3d6+5/19–20) melee
Challenge Rating: 23.

Stone Colossus Colossal Construct
Full Attack: 2 slams +70 (8d6+30) melee
Challenge Rating: 24.

Etc, etc, etc....

Sounds like you need to boost your AC more for your concept to work.

edit: You said you need your Defending Weapons to overcome DR? The weapons overcome dr/epic regardless if the bonus is being used to attack or defend. There shouldn't be any dr/+4s anymore if you're playing 3.5
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
06-01-04, 07:09 AM Good point Gandalis, any advice on other ways to boost my AC?
Dragonteuthis
06-01-04, 07:23 AM As a poster pointed out previously, AC at high levels becomes near-worthless for stopping primary attacks. Against monsters, it's also next to worthless against their secondary attacks, since they only suffer a -5 penalty to all of them, no matter how many. What AC IS useful against is stopping the tertiary and quarternary attacks of fighters and barbarians.

Displacement would be the way to go, but many Epic monsters have blindsight, true seeing, or other things that negate that. However, it's still useful, especially against NPCs.

Currently I'm playing in a 23rd-level campaign (all the way from level 1 Woo!), and I've noticed the uselesssness of AC. The highest AC in the group is a hound archon/fighter with an AC of 46. He still gets hit a lot. In fact, last session he died. Fortunately true resurrection is readily available...

A note on the defending weapons: get the party spellcaster to give each weapon a greater magic weapon. Then you can use the defending ability to max and still have +5 weapons. Also, do you have an animated shield? If not, get one. 49,000 gp for +7 to AC (+5 animated heavy steel shield) is cheap and well worth it.
dantedarkstar
06-01-04, 08:12 AM Epic monsters just have huge to hit. It's probably not a special "anti-you" doing. Just the way it is.

How can you boost your AC:

1.As pointed out, animated mithril buckler is nice (no check penalty, no ASF, no hand needed to wield, basically +6 free AC boost).

2.If you could pick up several Duellist levels, you could throw armor away and go with Bracers of Armor +8. At epic it often turns out better to rely on bonuses from ability scores than armor, especially if you stack Monk or Monk's Belt (depending on interpretation on how it works) on top of Duellist.

3.Spells: Bigby's Hand for cover, Haste (boots, absolute basic equipment). Shapechange can give immense bonuses (but is caster only). I'm sure there are other noncore spells to pump AC even higher.

4.Epic Spells: Epic spell that grant +20 natural armor bonus to anyone within 20ft for 3 days is DC about 50 or 60 (can't remember, but it was something late twenties wizard could get w/o too much problems). Single target one would be much easier (and less expensive). <- probably this one would change you from "easy to hit" to "almost impossible to scratch", that's epic reality

Sadly, the highest AC could be achieved by spellcasters. Cover from Bigby's Hand, massive AC from Epic Mage Armor, plus massive AC from epic spell to boost natural AC can give really stupid AC values. Level 21 wizard could easily go as high as about 60-70 without serious investments (shapechange into solar, have +5 ring, use epic mage armor alone yields AC 60) ! If he focused on that to the extreme, he could probably go about 10-15 points higher (depending on resources spent).

Besides, concealment is very good way to go.
Epic dodge is great (you dodge first hit in a round, as far as I remember) but has very rogue-oriented prerequisites (I remember it requires defensive roll).
Vaettyr
06-01-04, 05:11 PM Not to steal a thread too much, but what do you do when your DM is trying to negate you. Or at least you get a good inclination that that's what he's doing.

My case is a bit lower level, and follows from the DM not being to knowledgeable on spell casting. Every time I cast a spell and it actually works, the next words out of his mouth are "what spell undoes that?" Then, before I can say 'and for my next trick', the enemy has already cast said spell, and all the time I took choosing it, preparing it, and creatively using it are undone, like magic. It wouldn't bother me so much if the enemy spellcasters had their spells chosen ahead of time, and I understand that can be a lot of work, but always have exactly the right spell to negate my character can be really frustrating. Why even bother, eh?
devinmdp
06-01-04, 05:30 PM What exactly is wrong with a DM sometimes trying to negate you....or to put it more generally, adequately challenging you?

Remember, D&D is NOT a competition between the players and the DM. It is supposed to be challenging for the players. If you have basically constructed your character into one that gets all these gazillions of attacks against creatures, such that normal out of the box monsters are not challenging you sufficiently, then it is a DM's DUTY to up the creatures to challenge you!

It really depends what is being "negated". If you have a PC with fire resistance as an ability, then the DM should throw an occasional fire creature at you so that you can enjoy the resistance. If you have a vulnerability to cold, for example, then the DM should throw an OCCASIONAL cold creature at you, but not every encounter.

But if your character has a more general overall trait that is basically causing standard encounters to be won over too easily, then yes the DM should up the power level of the monsters.

Devin
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
06-01-04, 08:09 PM Well just to add in more, he ar least doubled the attack bonus on a creature that does massive damage on a hit, , this monster does 1d6 str con and dex on every hit. and then he made the monster immune to well slashing weapons at the least. so far in the encounter I have been relegated to being hit and doing nothing else.

Meh i guess im just a whiner, still not fun when all you can do is sit in the back and wait for the spellcasters to do it all.
devinmdp
06-01-04, 08:14 PM Again, if he is making you 100% ineffective on MOST encounters then yes he has a problem and should be dealt with.

But if you are talking a couple of encounters....then so what? Immune to slashing weapons? Why can't you crank out a mace or spear?

Devin
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
06-01-04, 08:18 PM Well yeah but who walks around with a spare +5 mace or something?

your right though i am overreacting .... but if it continues i will have to talk to him. just took me by surprise that all the beefs he gave it made me totally useless.
eRaz0r
06-01-04, 08:29 PM Jack, I'd definitely wait to see if this trend continues, before reacting to it.

Sounds like the DM might have been similarly annoyed that your character had been unhittable for so long, and maybe dominating things, and he thought he'd throw in something you were useless against just to make you rethink your invincibility.
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
06-01-04, 08:38 PM Well i am definitely rethinking it

Might have to go back to using a cloak of greater displacement but i oh so like my mantle of great stealth.

Any ideas on somethign to give me more displacement?
Vanigo
06-01-04, 09:01 PM Originally posted by Vaettyr
Not to steal a thread too much, but what do you do when your DM is trying to negate you. Or at least you get a good inclination that that's what he's doing.

My case is a bit lower level, and follows from the DM not being to knowledgeable on spell casting. Every time I cast a spell and it actually works, the next words out of his mouth are "what spell undoes that?" Then, before I can say 'and for my next trick', the enemy has already cast said spell, and all the time I took choosing it, preparing it, and creatively using it are undone, like magic. It wouldn't bother me so much if the enemy spellcasters had their spells chosen ahead of time, and I understand that can be a lot of work, but always have exactly the right spell to negate my character can be really frustrating. Why even bother, eh? Easy: lie. Tell him nothing gets rid of the spells you cast. Or maybe "A fireball at point-blank range will remove charm spells." In the latter case, tell the DM that it doesn't work after the enemy caster wastes his turn.
Or just tell him to look it up himself. If he wants to screw you over, he can do his own freaking homework, and since finding these things typically takes a while if you don't know where to look, he may not want to bother.
You could also demand that he work up spell lists ahead of time, but that's awfully hard to check, since he'd be more than justified to not let you look at enemy spellcaster's spell lists.
Or, if you're feeling poetic, refuse to write up your own spells ahead of time. Just cast whatever you need whenever you need it. Since you know your way around the spell lists and he doesn't, this will tilt the odds massively in your favor.
eRaz0r
06-01-04, 09:24 PM Originally posted by Vanigo
Easy: lie. Tell him nothing gets rid of the spells you cast. Or maybe "A fireball at point-blank range will remove charm spells." In the latter case, tell the DM that it doesn't work after the enemy caster wastes his turn.
Or just tell him to look it up himself. If he wants to screw you over, he can do his own freaking homework, and since finding these things typically takes a while if you don't know where to look, he may not want to bother.
You could also demand that he work up spell lists ahead of time, but that's awfully hard to check, since he'd be more than justified to not let you look at enemy spellcaster's spell lists.
Or, if you're feeling poetic, refuse to write up your own spells ahead of time. Just cast whatever you need whenever you need it. Since you know your way around the spell lists and he doesn't, this will tilt the odds massively in your favor.

hehe. Yes, I cannot believe the DM in Vaettyr's game behaves in such an antagonistic fashion. The DM should at least have the good grace to ensure that he knows the rules well enough to screw the players over in secret !
trapspringer
06-02-04, 02:41 PM When you get above level 15, YOU WILL BE HIT, and regularly at that. There is little you can do. I bet you get hit less often than everyone else.

Ooh, and if your DM is trying to negate you, you will have to come up with something new every game. I know I have to. This means you have to be smart, not just a competent character maker. YOU are your most powerful weapon, not your character or any of his abilities.
Nimrud
06-02-04, 11:14 PM Oriental Adventures has a feat called Superior Expertise. It basically allows you to take a penalty to hit up to your highest BAB and add the number to your AC. At Epic levels you can boost your AC by 20+ just using this feat. Of course, your to hit will suffer. But if AC doesn't keep up with attack bonus at epic levels, your opponents should have bad AC as well, making this a viable trade-off.
mazaudi
06-03-04, 02:39 AM I have a similar problem with my DM who has currently been put into exile by the group... If there were encounters or traps he thought were cool it didn't matter what you did... You were going to get hit. The DM even ruled that the thiefs' evasion just ceased to function during some reflex saves vs damageing spells... :confused:

TRAPS!!! No avoiding the "cool" ones... Disarming, avoiding, teleporting past or out right setting them off safely was impossible!!

BUt there was one good thing that came out of it though. I had not been a player for such a long time that it really reminded me what it was like to be on the other side of the screen. Personally I think I became an even better DM for it. :angel:
TheDarkLord
06-03-04, 03:14 AM Originally posted by devinmdp

Remember, D&D is NOT a competition between the players and the DM. It is supposed to be challenging for the players

But it is so much fun as Players and the DM when this happens. Thats if you have a good-hearted DM who also likes to play.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 05-31-04, 08:37 AM	Ok here is the long and short, and this is just speculation at this point but here goes. My character was basically designed to be hard to hit, and in return hit alot, but not all that hard. It is only recently with Epic cash flow (level 26) that I have been able to buy the tomes and items to boost up my con and hence HP and such, but still my character relies on not being hit, and on hitting enemies for alot of small hits. my Normal AC is 44 Ring of protection +5 amulet of Natural Armor +5 A feat which grants a +2 dodge bonus to AC, Armor of the celestial Batallion (AC 5 +7 magical Max 10 from dex) with a Dex of 35 i get the full 10, this gives a total of 44, plus I carry 2 defending weapon (+5) and routinuely use expertise, so a 59 AC is easy for me to hit. But lately it seems all the monsters we encounter have had their to hit bonus increased massively making my character much less useful. I should also note that splat books ahve been allowed and my character has a feat called retaliation which when I am missed by 5 or more on the attack roll i get an attack of opportunity. Add to that my DM created a custom prestige class which allows a character to make 2 attacks of opportunity whenever an opponent provokes one. these feats were selected a LONG time ago in the campaign and frankly my character is built around them. but it seems like I am being targeted with all these beefed up monsters that have their to hit bonus doubled or more. one monster we just encountered had its to hit increased from +26 to at least 52 as an attack roll made against my character was a 72. the lowest attack roll it has made is 57. Before anyone says it though i feel the need t point out that the defending weapons arent that much of an advantage since i generally need their bonus on the attack to pass damage reduction.
Thorak 05-31-04, 09:34 AM	Concealment is your friend. Anything that provides a miss chance based on a straight percent, rather than AC. Sure, it probably won't always work, but it's yet another route to not being hit, and once you've gotten your AC high enough to minimize it, these kinds of bonuses add in really quick. Also, if the enemy's having their to-hit boosted magically (true strike, being really low level, should be a constant nagging annoyance in Epic, especially for first attacks) consider pushing the mage to nail the enemy with more Dispel-type spells. If they need +26 to hit you, when the mage removes that +26 they're gonna have an awful hard go of it. As for DR, not much to easily do. If you've centered yourself around being defensive, you've minimized your offense. The easy route is Power Attack, but considering you're TWFing, that's not optimal.
dm_G 05-31-04, 11:20 AM	Talk with your DM.(it's bad DMing)
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 05-31-04, 11:30 AM	See my real question is he singling me out, i know he has to advance the monsters for our higher elvel, but how much advancement should a monster have on its to hit bonus?
dm_G 05-31-04, 11:41 AM	It depends on what type the monster is. Is it a outsider it gets a bab equal to its Hd, but if the monster is an animal it has a bab progesion at 3/4 per HD. It also exists monsters with a high CR (Such as the Brain Collector-Neh-Thalggu in the Epic Level Handbook) and low BAB and HD that the DM can use.
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 05-31-04, 11:47 AM	Well this particular monster is a bone ooze has a + to hit of at least 52 :( seems kinda crazy to me almost cant miss, and does con dex and str damage, plus he seems to ahve boosted the poison damage
FreeTheSlaves 05-31-04, 12:14 PM	AC doesn't scale with BAB. Epic enemies have huge # of HD and outsiders have full BAB advancement. AC in high level play minimizes the sheer number of iterative attacks that hit rather than stop them completely. DMs are encouraged by the monster advancement rules to mix and match and generally surprise their players. Concealment and % miss chances become increasingly valuable the higher the level of the campaign advances. ======================================== ====== In short, you need to diversify your character concept. The high AC trick has built in limitations as you have found out.
Gandilas 05-31-04, 11:11 PM	Hello. You're level 26 and your AC is 44? Let me just pull up the SRD's epic monster and see what we have around CR 26. INFERNAL Large Outsider (Evil) (Chaotic or Lawful) Full Attack: 2 claws +58 (4d6+16) melee, 1 bite +52 (4d8+8 +spell suck) melee, 2 wings +50 (2d6+8) melee, 1 tail slam +50 (4d8+8) melee Challenge Rating: 26. PHANE Large Outsider (Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Incorporeal) Full Attack: Incorporeal touch +43 (1d6 plus stasis touch) melee Challenge Rating: 25. BRACHYURUS Large Magical Beast Full Attack: 2 claws +48 (2d6+10/19-20) melee, 1 bite +46 (3d6+5/19–20) melee Challenge Rating: 23. Stone Colossus Colossal Construct Full Attack: 2 slams +70 (8d6+30) melee Challenge Rating: 24. Etc, etc, etc.... Sounds like you need to boost your AC more for your concept to work. edit: You said you need your Defending Weapons to overcome DR? The weapons overcome dr/epic regardless if the bonus is being used to attack or defend. There shouldn't be any dr/+4s anymore if you're playing 3.5
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 06-01-04, 07:09 AM	Good point Gandalis, any advice on other ways to boost my AC?
Dragonteuthis 06-01-04, 07:23 AM	As a poster pointed out previously, AC at high levels becomes near-worthless for stopping primary attacks. Against monsters, it's also next to worthless against their secondary attacks, since they only suffer a -5 penalty to all of them, no matter how many. What AC IS useful against is stopping the tertiary and quarternary attacks of fighters and barbarians. Displacement would be the way to go, but many Epic monsters have blindsight, true seeing, or other things that negate that. However, it's still useful, especially against NPCs. Currently I'm playing in a 23rd-level campaign (all the way from level 1 Woo!), and I've noticed the uselesssness of AC. The highest AC in the group is a hound archon/fighter with an AC of 46. He still gets hit a lot. In fact, last session he died. Fortunately true resurrection is readily available... A note on the defending weapons: get the party spellcaster to give each weapon a greater magic weapon. Then you can use the defending ability to max and still have +5 weapons. Also, do you have an animated shield? If not, get one. 49,000 gp for +7 to AC (+5 animated heavy steel shield) is cheap and well worth it.
dantedarkstar 06-01-04, 08:12 AM	Epic monsters just have huge to hit. It's probably not a special "anti-you" doing. Just the way it is. How can you boost your AC: 1.As pointed out, animated mithril buckler is nice (no check penalty, no ASF, no hand needed to wield, basically +6 free AC boost). 2.If you could pick up several Duellist levels, you could throw armor away and go with Bracers of Armor +8. At epic it often turns out better to rely on bonuses from ability scores than armor, especially if you stack Monk or Monk's Belt (depending on interpretation on how it works) on top of Duellist. 3.Spells: Bigby's Hand for cover, Haste (boots, absolute basic equipment). Shapechange can give immense bonuses (but is caster only). I'm sure there are other noncore spells to pump AC even higher. 4.Epic Spells: Epic spell that grant +20 natural armor bonus to anyone within 20ft for 3 days is DC about 50 or 60 (can't remember, but it was something late twenties wizard could get w/o too much problems). Single target one would be much easier (and less expensive). <- probably this one would change you from "easy to hit" to "almost impossible to scratch", that's epic reality Sadly, the highest AC could be achieved by spellcasters. Cover from Bigby's Hand, massive AC from Epic Mage Armor, plus massive AC from epic spell to boost natural AC can give really stupid AC values. Level 21 wizard could easily go as high as about 60-70 without serious investments (shapechange into solar, have +5 ring, use epic mage armor alone yields AC 60) ! If he focused on that to the extreme, he could probably go about 10-15 points higher (depending on resources spent). Besides, concealment is very good way to go. Epic dodge is great (you dodge first hit in a round, as far as I remember) but has very rogue-oriented prerequisites (I remember it requires defensive roll).
Vaettyr 06-01-04, 05:11 PM	Not to steal a thread too much, but what do you do when your DM is trying to negate you. Or at least you get a good inclination that that's what he's doing. My case is a bit lower level, and follows from the DM not being to knowledgeable on spell casting. Every time I cast a spell and it actually works, the next words out of his mouth are "what spell undoes that?" Then, before I can say 'and for my next trick', the enemy has already cast said spell, and all the time I took choosing it, preparing it, and creatively using it are undone, like magic. It wouldn't bother me so much if the enemy spellcasters had their spells chosen ahead of time, and I understand that can be a lot of work, but always have exactly the right spell to negate my character can be really frustrating. Why even bother, eh?
devinmdp 06-01-04, 05:30 PM	What exactly is wrong with a DM sometimes trying to negate you....or to put it more generally, adequately challenging you? Remember, D&D is NOT a competition between the players and the DM. It is supposed to be challenging for the players. If you have basically constructed your character into one that gets all these gazillions of attacks against creatures, such that normal out of the box monsters are not challenging you sufficiently, then it is a DM's DUTY to up the creatures to challenge you! It really depends what is being "negated". If you have a PC with fire resistance as an ability, then the DM should throw an occasional fire creature at you so that you can enjoy the resistance. If you have a vulnerability to cold, for example, then the DM should throw an OCCASIONAL cold creature at you, but not every encounter. But if your character has a more general overall trait that is basically causing standard encounters to be won over too easily, then yes the DM should up the power level of the monsters. Devin
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 06-01-04, 08:09 PM	Well just to add in more, he ar least doubled the attack bonus on a creature that does massive damage on a hit, , this monster does 1d6 str con and dex on every hit. and then he made the monster immune to well slashing weapons at the least. so far in the encounter I have been relegated to being hit and doing nothing else. Meh i guess im just a whiner, still not fun when all you can do is sit in the back and wait for the spellcasters to do it all.
devinmdp 06-01-04, 08:14 PM	Again, if he is making you 100% ineffective on MOST encounters then yes he has a problem and should be dealt with. But if you are talking a couple of encounters....then so what? Immune to slashing weapons? Why can't you crank out a mace or spear? Devin
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 06-01-04, 08:18 PM	Well yeah but who walks around with a spare +5 mace or something? your right though i am overreacting .... but if it continues i will have to talk to him. just took me by surprise that all the beefs he gave it made me totally useless.
eRaz0r 06-01-04, 08:29 PM	Jack, I'd definitely wait to see if this trend continues, before reacting to it. Sounds like the DM might have been similarly annoyed that your character had been unhittable for so long, and maybe dominating things, and he thought he'd throw in something you were useless against just to make you rethink your invincibility.
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 06-01-04, 08:38 PM	Well i am definitely rethinking it Might have to go back to using a cloak of greater displacement but i oh so like my mantle of great stealth. Any ideas on somethign to give me more displacement?
Vanigo 06-01-04, 09:01 PM	Originally posted by Vaettyr Not to steal a thread too much, but what do you do when your DM is trying to negate you. Or at least you get a good inclination that that's what he's doing. My case is a bit lower level, and follows from the DM not being to knowledgeable on spell casting. Every time I cast a spell and it actually works, the next words out of his mouth are "what spell undoes that?" Then, before I can say 'and for my next trick', the enemy has already cast said spell, and all the time I took choosing it, preparing it, and creatively using it are undone, like magic. It wouldn't bother me so much if the enemy spellcasters had their spells chosen ahead of time, and I understand that can be a lot of work, but always have exactly the right spell to negate my character can be really frustrating. Why even bother, eh? Easy: lie. Tell him nothing gets rid of the spells you cast. Or maybe "A fireball at point-blank range will remove charm spells." In the latter case, tell the DM that it doesn't work after the enemy caster wastes his turn. Or just tell him to look it up himself. If he wants to screw you over, he can do his own freaking homework, and since finding these things typically takes a while if you don't know where to look, he may not want to bother. You could also demand that he work up spell lists ahead of time, but that's awfully hard to check, since he'd be more than justified to not let you look at enemy spellcaster's spell lists. Or, if you're feeling poetic, refuse to write up your own spells ahead of time. Just cast whatever you need whenever you need it. Since you know your way around the spell lists and he doesn't, this will tilt the odds massively in your favor.
eRaz0r 06-01-04, 09:24 PM	Originally posted by Vanigo Easy: lie. Tell him nothing gets rid of the spells you cast. Or maybe "A fireball at point-blank range will remove charm spells." In the latter case, tell the DM that it doesn't work after the enemy caster wastes his turn. Or just tell him to look it up himself. If he wants to screw you over, he can do his own freaking homework, and since finding these things typically takes a while if you don't know where to look, he may not want to bother. You could also demand that he work up spell lists ahead of time, but that's awfully hard to check, since he'd be more than justified to not let you look at enemy spellcaster's spell lists. Or, if you're feeling poetic, refuse to write up your own spells ahead of time. Just cast whatever you need whenever you need it. Since you know your way around the spell lists and he doesn't, this will tilt the odds massively in your favor. hehe. Yes, I cannot believe the DM in Vaettyr's game behaves in such an antagonistic fashion. The DM should at least have the good grace to ensure that he knows the rules well enough to screw the players over in secret !
trapspringer 06-02-04, 02:41 PM	When you get above level 15, YOU WILL BE HIT, and regularly at that. There is little you can do. I bet you get hit less often than everyone else. Ooh, and if your DM is trying to negate you, you will have to come up with something new every game. I know I have to. This means you have to be smart, not just a competent character maker. YOU are your most powerful weapon, not your character or any of his abilities.
Nimrud 06-02-04, 11:14 PM	Oriental Adventures has a feat called Superior Expertise. It basically allows you to take a penalty to hit up to your highest BAB and add the number to your AC. At Epic levels you can boost your AC by 20+ just using this feat. Of course, your to hit will suffer. But if AC doesn't keep up with attack bonus at epic levels, your opponents should have bad AC as well, making this a viable trade-off.
mazaudi 06-03-04, 02:39 AM	I have a similar problem with my DM who has currently been put into exile by the group... If there were encounters or traps he thought were cool it didn't matter what you did... You were going to get hit. The DM even ruled that the thiefs' evasion just ceased to function during some reflex saves vs damageing spells... :confused: TRAPS!!! No avoiding the "cool" ones... Disarming, avoiding, teleporting past or out right setting them off safely was impossible!! BUt there was one good thing that came out of it though. I had not been a player for such a long time that it really reminded me what it was like to be on the other side of the screen. Personally I think I became an even better DM for it. :angel:
TheDarkLord 06-03-04, 03:14 AM	Originally posted by devinmdp Remember, D&D is NOT a competition between the players and the DM. It is supposed to be challenging for the players But it is so much fun as Players and the DM when this happens. Thats if you have a good-hearted DM who also likes to play.