Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tylkon 06-21-07, 08:34 PM	Okay, so I know a bunch of you have had that situation where you are playing and you encounter something out of your league and you know for a fact its not a result of bad decisions (Hey, I saw a dragon go in there!), but a result of the DM not knowing how to balance encounters. In the past, my DM has definately thrown some stuff at us that has seemed "over the top" as standard encounters, and then berates us for running away. Typically, he will use magic users who somehow deal damage to us when we deal damage to them, over powered spells, etc. Keep in mind that this is by third level. However, today kind of took the cake. We were running a rescue mission for the bodies of last games PC's (who died as a combined result of a players stupid decision AND unbalanced enemies, but mostly that persons fault). And by we, I mean myself, a person who has never played, and someone who has played only a little. Myself- Level 3 druid (A character constructed for rescue of corpses in a war zone.) Newb- Level 1 Pirate Semi-Newb- Level 1 Paladin The first monster we encounter is a spell casting, undead treant with a thirty foot reach... I looked in my MM when I got home, and saw so many conflicts of info, I'm not sure what happened. Initially, in the encounter, I thought it was a wizard using an illusion to look like a tree (enchantment spell used to convince paladin I was evil, which was destroyed by a simple "I'm not armed and I turn my back to you, so attack me at your own peril.") Of course, it was just a monstrous spell casting undead tree person with damage reduction. Him: The tree opens its eyes and reaches out with its branches... Me: *out of game* A Treant!?! Him: Yes.An undead Treant. Me: That's really unbalanced (first time I have ever truly questioned the DM on his encounters openly.) Him: Well, you ARE third level. It took the Paladin down to -3 life in one hit. It did the same to the pirate. It took all of my spells (including Splinterbolt, and Bite of the Wererat used with a crossbow) plus melee damage from the other players just to barely kill it. Of course, seeing as it took 100%of my resources to kill it, we continue on to where our dead comrades are. Him: You notice your animal companion has disappeared and the monsters around you are reanimating... Yeah. These monsters were the ones who killed our last party. Our last party was two level fours and a level six. Now we are a level three and two level ones. Suffice to say, I was prepared for this. Per prior agreement, I used special warp scrolls to send our bodies back for reanimation, and then to send the two newbies to MY world. I DM'ed for the rest of the game and things became a LOT more fun after that. Sorry for the rant, but I guess my question is... WHAT THE HECK is a CR level of a spell casting Undead Treant with a thirty foot reach? We basically beat it because of lucky rolls on my part...
Salla 06-21-07, 08:55 PM	WHAT THE HECK is a CR level of a spell casting Undead Treant with a thirty foot reach? We basically beat it because of lucky rolls on my part... Impossible to determine, without knowing what kind of undead template and what level of spellcaster it was ... especially since, to the extent of my knowledge, there are no undead templates that can apply to plant creatures. Your DM has no idea what he's doing. Don't bother trying to make sense of it ... he's clueless.
Tylkon 06-21-07, 09:28 PM	I guess what makes me sad is he is the only person other than myself who will DM. Meaning games for me are limited, very limited. On the plus side, I am getting quite good at dealing with spellcasters. And I guess I am one of the only people on this board who has defeated an undead Treant with spellcasting and a thirty foot reach... And, another note, my favorite quote from my DM after this particular encounter.... Him: Well, its a good thing that one was just a baby! Me::confused:
Salla 06-21-07, 09:34 PM	I guess what makes me sad is he is the only person other than myself who will DM. Meaning games for me are limited, very limited. On the plus side, I am getting quite good at dealing with spellcasters. And I guess I am one of the only people on this board who has defeated an undead Treant with spellcasting and a thirty foot reach... And, another note, my favorite quote from my DM after this particular encounter.... Him: Well, its a good thing that one was just a baby! Me::confused: Calling this guy a DM is an insult to DMming. :uh-huh:
Fatalis_902 06-21-07, 09:44 PM	Normally, 'd wonder why no-one ha suggested a hammer-gun, and then suggest it myself. In this case, I'll be fair. Slap him with the cover of the DMG and tell him he can't DM again until he's read it cover to cover, especially the part on encounters and challenge ratings. He also might want to look at the Monster Manual and read the sections on Plants and Undead Templates, amongst others. Then give him a second chance. If he still sucks, it's hammer-gun time.
DrMorganes 06-22-07, 09:51 AM	/comfort Tylkon Buck up, Tylkon. Not everyone is cut out to be a DM. Take over the Big Chair and show your newbies what a real D&D game is supposed to be about.
KoraktheBarbarin 06-22-07, 10:03 AM	I guess what makes me sad is he is the only person other than myself who will DM. Meaning games for me are limited, very limited. On the plus side, I am getting quite good at dealing with spellcasters. And I guess I am one of the only people on this board who has defeated an undead Treant with spellcasting and a thirty foot reach... And, another note, my favorite quote from my DM after this particular encounter.... Him: Well, its a good thing that one was just a baby! Me::confused: I would say you need to sit down and go over some basics, like the fact that it's not the DM's job to wipe the characters out, he can do that at any time. His job is to challenge the group while making sure everyone enjoys themselves. Obviously throwing overpowered monsters at you repeatedly is not fun for anyone. If you don't work with him on it he'll never have the chance to get better at it. Now that's just my 2 copper pieces on that.:teach: :teach: :teach: As for the rest of you downing the new DM you know nothing about try and remember some of the first games you ran.
Radiant117 06-22-07, 11:09 AM	Slap him with the cover of the DMG and tell him he can't DM again until he's read it cover to cover, especially the part on encounters and challenge ratings. What Fatalis said. And if he becomes okay with CRs but stingy with items, use Magic Item Compendium in a similar way. Seriously, be a DM for a while and wait till your newb players gain some experience. You'll see they're ready for DMing when they stop acting real stupid (like selling royal jewels in a nearby shop) and learn a little rules. Then tell them they are great players, so why don't they give DMing a try. Also, some folks have this weirdest opinion that expressing the wish to try DMing explicitly means they are unhappy with the current campaign. From what I understand, you have a sort of in-game way dealing with the problem: the warp scrolls. ABUSE THEM. If the newbs can use them to choose the world they can adventure in (yours or this douchebag's), they will stay in your world and not go back to lich treants and tarrasque swarms. Maybe that'll teach the d0rk something.
Comus 06-22-07, 11:47 AM	You know, I once used an undead treant in my game. It was a plot device monster, mind you, and thus didn't follow the normal template-adding rules (and was just an appropriately-sized zombie anyway). Really, though, sounds like he doesn't know how to challenge the party appropriately. Maybe he doesn't understand the CR system. Regardless, he needs to have a lot of rules explained to him.
Templar3378 06-22-07, 11:54 AM	WHAT THE HECK is a CR level of a spell casting Undead Treant with a thirty foot reach? We basically beat it because of lucky rolls on my part... I don't know what it is, but I want one. :plotting:
_Jayne_Cobb_ 06-22-07, 01:03 PM	Calling this guy a DM is an insult to DMming. :uh-huh: I had assumed that in this case "DM" stood for "Dumb Mother******."
setekh 06-22-07, 06:25 PM	I seem to remember something about undead Treants from somewhere... Necromonicon maybe?
Fatalis_902 06-22-07, 08:33 PM	This (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/6AaJhMSc1hfIf1zpbML.html) might be what you're thinking of.
Matthew77 06-22-07, 11:58 PM	Hmmm. Was it a fun encounter? Was it memorable? It seems to me like you made it through the battle without losing any characters, and its a fight that is going to stick in your memory when you are reminiscing about gaming years from now. Sounds like a successful gaming session to me. So what if the DM used a monster you can't find in a published manual? He had fun creating it and you had fun fighting it. Job well done. Now, if you have to constantly fight impossible obstacles and get "rescued" by some random DM fiat, then there is a problem. But just based on your description, this sounds like a difficult encounter that was defeated using only PC resources. Most of the problem was likely caused by the major level imbalance. When one character has triple the levels of the other two, its not suprising that he's the only one left standing after a battle.
RevIron 06-23-07, 05:27 PM	There's an undead treant in the Ravenloft books too, it seems they're designed to challenge a ninth level party before you factor in spellcasting (which I think bumps the CR to 12, depending on which spells it cast)
RobbyPants 06-26-07, 03:18 PM	Really, though, sounds like he doesn't know how to challenge the party appropriately. Maybe he doesn't understand the CR system. Regardless, he needs to have a lot of rules explained to him. Maybe he thinks the way the CR system works is to add up the levels of all the PCs, and that's the CR you should pick for a monster... Let's see. We have a level 3, and two level 1s. Thus, a CR 5 monster should be a good starting point. It should only use a quarter of their resources. Hmm... If math serves me correctly, that's 5% of their resources per level of the encounter. So a "tough" encounter will use 95% of their resources. I'll just grab this CR 19 monster here, and we'll be just fine. No-body should die!
Warduke 06-26-07, 03:24 PM	Steer him towards these boards and we will let him know what's up. He is completely clueless for sure. Good DMs don't grow on trees, even undead baby ones with a 30' reach. The Libris Mortis does have a pre-built ghost treant. CR10 and no spellcasting abilities. My guess is your "DM" is just making stuff up willy nilly. Take the screen away until he reads the DMG 2-3 times.
Bruunwald 06-26-07, 03:49 PM	Yeah, it's hard to gauge this unless you know what sort of undead it was and whether or not it had levels, or was spellstitched, or whatever. But a basic treant is a CR 8. Assuming he left it sentient and didn't completely zombify it, adding the undead type generically doesn't do too much damage to that, since a treant already is immune to crits and mind effects. However, now it also immune to non-lethal damage and death from massive damage, and it gains larger Hit Dice and darkvision. Depending on when it achieved its undead state, it may have a worse BAB. But that doesn't sound likely, given this DM's history. In any case, the undead part doesn't add much more than a CR +1. You didn't say whether or not it seemed to be a caster, or whether it had gained spells as special attacks. If the former, then probably you're looking at +1 CR for every two Hit Dice, or about a +4 to CR total; altogether about a CR 13 creature, give or take. If the latter, then (assuming three spells at least one of which is at will and unlimited), only about a +2, for a total CR 11 creature, give or take. However, that doesn't sound right. He must have been doing something else that sane people like us don't understand, since you were eventually able to overcome the encounter. It took 100% of your resources, so it seems like probably he played it at around a CR 8 encounter. I love stories about legitimately bad DMs. We get too many people on here grousing and crying for no reason at all. It's fun when the DM actually is bad and the player can point to why.
Matthew77 06-26-07, 04:38 PM	Are you all reading the same story I did? It took out a level 1 paladin in one hit, and the level 3 druid had to use all his spells to kill it. Sounds like it had the stats of an Ogre or so. Thats a challenge rating 3. Where are you coming up with this CR 8-19 stuff? Since when is making up your own monsters a bad thing? I'm fine with a DM completely ignoring the Monster Manual, as long as the encounters are difficult without being impossible. And since the party won the encounter without losing a single member, that seems to be the case here.
Forfeit 06-26-07, 04:41 PM	Dont people use kobolds, orcs, goblins anymore? The "ocasional" harder hobgoblin (which is the guy I use when I want to make the noobs scared)? There is another post where some level 5 guys are suposed to kill a red dragon...
Comus 06-26-07, 04:59 PM	Dont people use kobolds, orcs, goblins anymore? The "ocasional" harder hobgoblin (which is the guy I use when I want to make the noobs scared)? There is another post where some level 5 guys are suposed to kill a red dragon... I do. Though Kobolds are mostly just a player race for my group - we really don't fight them much. Hm. Actually, in my game, I've not used gobilins yet, Orcs were peaceful and nice, and Hobgoblins were just mercs who weren't hired to fight the PCs... and apologized that they were unable to spare men to work for the PCs. I've got a feeling, though, that the DM created a monster that was way, way too strong for the PCs, and then pulled his punches when he realized it'd end in TPK - only realized in the middle of combat. I did that when I was a new DM. And I had to learn better ways. Ironically, I learned to be lazy and just use monsters from the book. Once I started doing that, players weren't prey to my bad monster designs.
Forfeit 06-26-07, 05:20 PM	Yeah, that kind of thing can happen. Allthrough in the old days when I played D&D second edition, there werent half-orcs, and orcs and goblins were the main bulk of the "enemy" army. Kobolds were cannon fodder. About designing monsters, yes, that usually is a bad idea and they become way too powerfull. Btw I just checked the MM, and a regular Treant (not a undead one, couldnt find it) is a regular CR 8. CR 8, for a level 3 character and two level 1 characters.
DarkNick 06-26-07, 05:37 PM	I agree with Mathew77. It sounded fun to me. This sort of thing was common when I started playing 1st edition adnd and we did not understand a lot of the rules. I think it is part of the learning process. Often imagination does not transpose well into rules untill you start thinking in terms of the rules...It does not sounds like he is intentionally screwing you over - more that he is exploring the freedom the game allows to use his imagination. It looked cool in his head so he just had to use it. My advise is to not take it too seriously and just enjoy yourself. Forget about balance, it is just an illusion anyway. I'm going to use an undead spell casting treant in my game - all mouldy with rotten bits falling of it and bugs squirming out of holes and old dead bodies stuck in it's branches, and someones carved "Elminster 4 Azoun" inside a heart on the trunk. It is a good sign that it was more fun when you DMed. Maybe you should focus on becomming a great DM. This might be you true calling. Personally I find dming much more rewarding than being a player - you get to be centre of attention, you get far more 'game time' than anyone else. You get a certain amount of authority. People love it when you do a good job and you don't have to make your own drinks. Sure it can be hard work, but while your players are twidling their thumbs between sessions you get to eat, sleep and live dnd while you scheme up new ideas.....
Some_call_me_Tim 06-26-07, 05:42 PM	Was it a fun encounter?I don't think the OP would be here if he was having fun. Was it memorable?Getting a line-drive to the crotch in little league was memorable, but not necessarily something I want to repeat. Throwing something like that at a couple of inexperienced players is inexcusable. Especially, considering these were replacement characters. I think I'm beginning to detect a trend here....
Cardinal Teplin 06-27-07, 01:14 PM	Nonetheless, this encounter didn't actually kill you. It's entirely possible that the DM is trying to kill your character, because everyone else has died and you havn't. Here you are leading the charge to recover the bodies of characters killed, criticising his DM style and even taking over the game when you don't like what it going on. He may regard you and needing to be taken down a peg or two and throwing monsters at you to achieve that. I don't see the problem with the monster itself, but then I ran an undead fiendish treant at the GenCon roleplaying tournament a few years back, and I figure if WotC write mods with undead treants in them, it's hard to object your DM doing the same. Yes, there is probably something wrong with the balance level of an undead treant for a party of your level, depending on how it was statted, but your party facing an undead treant is not nearly as bad as your character killing it, what, almost single handed? If the treant needs close examination, so does your druid. If you are going to get frustrated with the guy's DMing style, DM yourself. If you want him to DM, you need to cooperate with him. Don't wrench the game out of his hands when he does something you don't like, but make it clear why you don't like it. To me it sounds like he wasn't trying to screw all the players over, just you. And from the sound of it, he should have used a tougher monster if he wanted to suceed. That's kinda mixed messages don't you think? If you really want to make it clear he's spoiling the game with unfair challenges, you guys probably need to lose. If you don't want to risk that, you don't really want him to DM at all...
Lord_of_Omnipotence 06-27-07, 07:30 PM	Oh, i figured out what the monster is. It's an Advanced Night Twist. CR of 20 Your DM is a jerk