My group, and I, are all playing our first DnD characters. We started in February (the week after the Forgotten Realms books were released, so we could have the Swordmage) and are currently impoverished level 3s. Part of this is down to the large number of weeks we have missed games (we arrange weekly, but every second week gets called off due to too many people being absent), but I think the rest comes down to our collective inexperience.
The original party was made of a Genasi Swordmage, a Human Bow Ranger (uses swords in a pinch) and a Human Battle Cleric; at the start of August, we were joined by an Eladrin Artillery Wizard. We are a fairly diverse group in our styles too. Using the Dungeon Master's Guide, we have an Actor, an Explorer, a Slayer and a Power Gamer, though only the Power Game has a min-maxed character (even the Slayer builds with `what feels right' rather than `what is optimal'). The DM also has a Drow Rogue that he has played on occation (not regularly).
For the past couple of months, we (the players) have been discussing that we felt a few things seemed `wrong', but we could not pin down what was wrong, or why. Hoping to get a better perspective of the mechanics, I read the Dungeon Master Guide, which has helped somewhat. One of the things we felt was odd was how poor we seemed to be. The DM kept telling us to spend more, but we could only afford essentials. We had been level 3 for several months, and (at that time) had around 500 gold and four magic items. After reading the DMG, I took the DM aside and pointed out that we were way behind the curve. He had honestly not realised, and regretted having his Rogue steal 500 gold from us earlier in the year. The next session he almost immediately had us gain a magic item and 200 gold. Still, with the DMG being so easy to follow on rewards, it still struck me as odd that this could happen.
We also seem to gain experience really slowly. By the DMG, it looks as though we should gain a level every four sessions (roughly), but we reached level three back in April. Even with all the missed weeks, it must have been at least 10 sessions back. The DM chooses to not disclose experience and manages it himself, so I have little idea what we have got over time. In the last two sessions, however, he told us how much we gained in them. In one it was 1000 experience; the other it was 300, which he later changed his mind on and bumped to 500 (owing to the difficulty being way above his expectations). Using this, and the DMG, as a basis, I estimate we are still only half way to level four. Half way in something like six months, even missing half the sessions, seems a little slow.
I suspect the reason is that the DM is trying to take on too much too quickly. Despite having never played DnD before, he is not taking the easy way out and do everything `by the book' or using pre-build adventures. Instead, he is trying to balance sessions for four wildly different playing styles, and changing the balance of encounters from how the DMG recommends. Apparently he read a recommendation against using the DMGs suggestion of 4-5 encounters per day, of varying difficulty. Instead, he puts down one Hard encounter per session, targeting two sessions per day. He seems to use customised monsters for these encounters too, which makes it even harder for him. As such, he rebalances encounters as he goes along, based on how badly we get smacked around in the first few rounds (he admitted to using the length of time it takes to kill the Swordmage as his benchmark). The difficulty of the encounters tends to result in them lasting 2-3 hours too, so there is little time for anything else in the session. As such RP-oriented sessions tend to be encounter (and reward) free. Here is a brief outline of our current quest:
Session 1: arrive at a new city, captured in an inescapable Impossible encounter (which took most of the session), have main objective of quest presented.
Session 2: RP session where we discuss the quest and gather information. Unknown experience from a skill challenge (probably 300). Success from the challenge allowed us the ability to buy magic items for the first time (not knowing our financial situation, the DM was surprised when we did not take the opportunity).
Session 3: Some RP before ambushed for a 2 hour Hard encounter; unknown experience, no treasure.
Session 4: Some RP before railroaded into a 2 hour Hard encounter; unknown experience, no treasure.
Session 5: 3 hour Very Hard encounter. 1000 experience and some minor treasure (200 gold, I think, and a magic weapon for selling).
Session 6: RP session. 200 gold and a magic weapon for the Cleric. 500 experience from a skill challenge. The reward from the challenge was a plot hook for the next session.
We are two days into a declared five day quest (we have five days to complete it or we die), have had the party all KOed once and at risk of it three more times. We have had two social-based skill challenges that we barely pulled through (we all have low charisma and no training in social skills, so these are painful), and only succeeded because the DM bent the rules so we would `win' (we went over the minimum fails and did not reach the successes, but he declared a win anyway).
In the non-combat sessions, we seem to move through dialogue and skill sections at a fairly reasonable rate, so it looks as though the combat encounters are where we really lose the time. They are always well above our level (the last one included a lvl9 Controller), and often include crazy tricks (one a few weeks back included Drow Poison attacks --- not fun and I banned the DM from repeating it). Every encounter completely drains our resources and it seems to take forever to progress through them. I suspect part of our troubles is that the Ranger has the worst luck imaginable ;) He very rarely rolls a 10+ on anything he does, so he usually misses with both Twin Strike attacks and has never had an encounter or daily come out. I am tempted to buy him loaded dice so he can contribute in battle. Any suggestions on where to get a vial of the Luck Virus would be greatly appreciated!!
Part of our fun is that we all knew each other long before we started, so we already got on well together. We use DnD as a chance to get together and have a few laughs, so everything is very light hearted (eg the Cleric can strike a match on his boot and light a cigar as a Free Action, the Ranger was kicked in the groin by a dragon, etc). I suspect this is also a part of the problem, however, as it does sometimes get in the way. Generally, those invested in the current action roll while the others make jokes about what they are doing (``how do you expect to get a girl with those Stealth rolls?'' sort of thing). Sometimes, however, those acting may have to repeat themselves several times before the rest of the group (including the DM) reacts to them being ready to move onto the next step (eg ``the door is open, we can enter the room now. Guys, room, enter, now...''). While not a massive factor, as the DM usually balances this fine, I think it does contribute.
Since this is the first experience of playing DnD for all of us, we are all pretty clueless on our expectations. I know we have all felt a little antsy over the wait for level four (we started discussing retraining our encounter powers a month ago!), not to mention our lack of resources (which the DM is now working to fix). Are we just complaining because we are not getting everything served on a silver platter (please, if we are, do not hold the punches!), or are there some problems we can fix? If anyone wants me to detail any of our sessions further, I write an IC journal that I could easily translate back into actual gameplay. In general, we enjoy the game and we all look forward to it each week, but there are things that frustrate us all. The Ranger is frustrated at his impotence, I get frustrated by the sessions with no RP (I am the Actor in the group, so sessions with pure combat and no plot leave me in a lurch, but I know perfectly well that the others do not enjoy the RP sessions), we are all frustrated at the slow progress, and the DM has made comment on how long it takes him to prepare a session. I want to do what I can to help make things `work', but lack the experience to see exactly what needs fixing and how to do it. I have my suspicions, as listed above, but I need an experienced mind to clarify.
Okay a few things I picked up on and hope I can help with.
1. Talk your dm about mroe than money. Explain to him the encounters are way too hard and have been for a while. Once in a while super hard fights can be fun, but they get old ever week. Let him know you guys aren't optimized and therefore aren't meant to take level # enemies. It sounds like hes either new, or getting used to 4e still. Thats fine, with positive comments and a little help from players, your game can smooth over to what you guys are liking. The whole timed thing really seems nasty, since a level 9 facing you guys (who obviously aren't ready to fight one) and having a time limit means you can't always run away. IF you are using too many healing surges in a time limit, the dm needs to tone it down. Its not fun if you have no chance of winning.
2. Combat- Woe be the party in combat in 4e. As much as I love it, combat can take a long time, especially if your ranger is always missing. That means your striker isnt doing his damage and so a monsters hp can be 10x worse than it should be. I'd suggest getting bonuses to the rangers attack for one, either in Battle through combat advantage or a small helping of optimization. Talk to him, let him know what you noticed and see if the dm and him cant figure something out.
3. My group and it seems like yours, gets bogged down with out of character joking and attention wandering. I suffer horribly from this but I try to keep it down. The best thing to do is to set up some sort of system where people see how much time they waste. A stopwatch as soon as someone notices time being wasted works wonders. It may even stop time wasting after its purpose is learned.
4. A new group is squeaky and needs to get adjusted. Don't get worried if everything isn't smooth at the get go, it happens. The leveling problem may be no exp at all. The Dm may want to level you based on story (I do this), and so hes only awarding exp when it suits him.
I think the best thing is to let your dm know where you are having fun with his game and where the game seems to lose its appeal. Don't insult the guy, just let them know you find combat is too hard and detracts from the story. -Zeo
Well, 2 hard encounters a day EVERY session may be a bit too much. And I find it weird that the DM doesn't like to disclose experience points. When you say you gained 1000xp in the session, is that group wise or individual xp?
I hear you I just recently started my first DnD character along with 4 others. Our DM has set us up on some very nasty encounters and after about 11 sessions or so, at least 1 character has faced extinction in nearly every encounter. Very recently it was my ranger character, who never gets hit! ....
Speaking of which our dudes are about to hit level 4 so let me pose a question. Can you stack feat bonuses? Like 2 different feats that add to a particular skill? i.e. feat 1 adds +2 to thievery and feat 2 adds +3 to thievery do they stack or does the 3 merely overwrite the 2?
The DM is as new as we are, but his encounter-building seems to be based on advice he has recieved from experienced DMs. I discuss my thoughts with him after each session on what I felt did/did not work, to try and get us all on the right track as quickly as possible.
I find that comment about combat being long 4E interesting. What exactly about 4E makes combats such a big deal (time-wise)?
The Ranger's build is not that bad --- his basic to-hit bonus is the same as the Cleric's (who hits around 75% of the time) and one less than the Swordmage's (who hits around 60% of the time). It is pure luck. Last session he counted his rolls. In 20 rolls of a d20, he rolled high only once. For him, that is normal. I play against this guy in Warhammer too, and he has the same impossibly bad luck with dice there too. I often see him roll all 1s from a handfull of dice. I swear he must be cursed or something.
I like that stopwatch idea. I may have to try it out and see what happens.
I do not know why the DM does not like us keeping track of XP. It does not seem a big deal either way, so it does not worry me overly. He maintains a `pool' of XP, and when that pool is enough for all four people to level-up, we do. 1000 experience is party experience, not individual.
A bonus can stack, but not if it is of the same type. For example, +2 bonus to x and +2 bonus to x stack, because they are untyped (untyped always stacks). +2 feat bonus to x and +2 power bonys to x stack, because they are different types. +2 feat bonus and +2 feat bonus do not stack, because they are the same type. Read the feats/powers closely to see what type of bonus they are, as that will let you work out if they stack or not.
I hear you I just recently started my first DnD character along with 4 others. Our DM has set us up on some very nasty encounters and after about 11 sessions or so, at least 1 character has faced extinction in nearly every encounter. Very recently it was my ranger character, who never gets hit! ....
Speaking of which our dudes are about to hit level 4 so let me pose a question. Can you stack feat bonuses? Like 2 different feats that add to a particular skill? i.e. feat 1 adds +2 to thievery and feat 2 adds +3 to thievery do they stack or does the 3 merely overwrite the 2?
Anytime something receives a bonus, check the text. For instance, one feat may grant a +1 feat bonus, and another may grant just a "+1 bonus." The latter is called an untyped bonus and will basically stack with anything. However, two "feat bonuses" will NOT stack. (edit: ninja'ed on this point)
To the OP: Address your DM. Tell him specifically how you feel and what you think, and hopefully he'll be reasonable. When I DM, I try to work very closely with my players to make the campaign exactly what they're looking for when it comes to playstyle. Additionally, encounters can often get drawn out simply because of the time it takes to choose your character's powers, check the text for applicable information, and then do all the dice-rolling. An average combat in my campaign takes half an hour (4 PCs).
Also, this is my first post. Wee!
There is no way a ranger's to hit bonus should be the same as a clerics. I mean, rangers already have an added +2 or +3 proficiency bonus depending on what type of weapon they want to use.
And 1000xp for 2 hard encounters per session is very very little. Especially for a party of four. IIRC, a hard encounter at lvl 3 is about 900-950xp. Hence 2 hard encounters should at least be 1800xp. Could be your DM is miscalculating the xp or he is using too many customised monsters and not increasing the xp for them when he buffs them. Which might happen. If so, it's best he sticks to using the monsters in the MM until he's more familiar with it.
We do not tend to spend much time in power selection. The Ranger rarely does anything other than Twin Strike (we have to goad him into using other attacks to break the monotony), while the Cleric and the Swordmage have both made poor selections and need to retrain (so there are Encounter powers are never used, and their Daily powers are highly situational). The Wizard has a lot of options, but he thinks his turns out well ahead and is very efficient.
It is a Battle Cleric: he uses melee powers, so gets +2 proficiency (Greatclub), the same as the Ranger (Greatbow). They both have the same bonus in their primary stat too, hence the identical base to-hit. The Cleric tends to buff his a lot over the course of the battle, with things like Action Surge and Divine Fortune, making his to-hit quite high in many turns. The Swordmage has higher base to-hit, because he has +3 proficiency (Longsword).
It is one hard encounter per session, two per game day. I only know that one of them was 1000XP; the DM has never told us the XP from any other combat encounter we did. Each encounter takes a couple of hours to complete; we rarely have time for much else. I think part of the reason combats take so long is that our tactics are pathetic (we are all newbies after all), and another part is that the party is sub-optimal and generally does not work well together (eg the Cleric's Righteous Brand does nothing to benefit the Ranger, who needs it the most, while the Swordmage is generally too far away to make use of it, and mostly uses Impliment attacks anyway). As such, the encounter is already hard, but we struggle more with it.
Yea thanks for the answer to that riddle fellas. Being a newbie myself I understand how you feel , because when we started our dm was the only one who had played before and he hasn't stopped to explain everything along the way. So, it is a little disorienting when you are in combat when you don't know what all the powers do so stopping to check things out all the time does get time consuming, especially if you think it does 1 thing and the DM tells you otherwise. (Also I play a ranger and yea I rarely use anything but twin strike).
Do you use a battle mat, dungeon tiles, or anything that helps with the combat scenario placement? This tends to speed things up a little, but in the beginning when our DM whipped one out we were doing it all wrong. But After 2 sessions we got it down to where it is a non-issue. So If not maybe you should think about getting one. Paizo Publishing sells some I think
What we've got here is a classic case of First Time DM Syndrome. Thankfully, everyone gets it, and most come off the better for it if properly treated. 
There definitely needs to be 'a talk' between the DM and the party, here, but as far as I can tell you've got a DM who is not afraid to adjust or to debate about his campaign, so you're pretty well off.
My handful of points:
1) "They are always well above our level (the last one included a lvl9 Controller), and often include crazy tricks (one a few weeks back included Drow Poison attacks --- not fun and I banned the DM from repeating it)"
A level 9 monster vs. a level 3 party is . . . bad. High-level controllers are both good and bad, as they start off squishier. If it had been a soldier there'd probably be pieces of the party scattered across the countryside. SO, inform your DM that the highest difficulty (it should be mentioned in the DMG) is party level +4. In this case, 7. Any higher than that and the Adventurer's Guild Life Insurance Company is going be getting some letters. Do be careful to remind him, however, that not all monster types are the same. Level + 4 Soldiers can be downright nasty, for instance. I learned that the hard way myself.
I've nothing against Hard encounters, but generally one per day is going to be enough. If he feels like he must go on keeping the encounter count low and really challenging the party, you should try asking him to make one of the two encounters a standard.
2) Treasure.
It's possible that the DM wants to keep the focus off of magic items, to keep the party from becoming walking item stores. If he does want to do that, I hear that the DMG 2 has rules for helping characters make up for a general lack of magic items. HOWEVER, it's probable that he's simply not gotten the hang of putting together parcels of goodies. Again, something I dealt with during my own bout of FTDS.
One way to help alleviate this is the wish-list system. If you haven't already, have each member of the party give the DM a wishlist of items (complete with what source they found them in) they want in the relatively immediate future. Usually items are kept to within 4 levels of the party, so choose accordingly. Now the DM either has a good idea of things he can give to the party, or a rough idea of the amount of money the party will need to get what they want. Don't make him feel like he HAS to give you EVERYTHING on the list; the message should be more of a 'If you don't mind, could I maybe have a [shiny thing]' than a 'Give me a [shiny thing] or else!'.
3) Party skill.
It always takes a party time to gel, and since First Time Player Syndrome also seems to be present, you shouldn't worry too much about how well the party works. You shouldn't ignore problems completely, but you ARE only level 3; your characters are young and still have plenty of growth before you'll get a really solid idea of where they're going. That'll get easier the more times you play.
The ranger troubles me, however. Not using dailies I can understand. Many of them can be somewhat situational, and sometimes being conservative with them can lead to chances being missed. But no encounters!? That is definitely not okay. If the player is really as irritated with his inability to help as he seems, I'd have him either make a new character or ask the DM for permission to tweak the ranger until it works better. You're low enough level that reworking an existing character won't be devestating to plot or balance, so give that a shot.
There are more little things, so here's a quick bit on some of them: EVERY gaming group ever gets off track sometimes with chit-chat. Just try to have some time before and after the session for just hanging out and goofing off. It'll never, ever completely stop in-game chit-chat, but it might alleviate it a bit. The DM hiding the XP . . . well, it's not the first time I've seen that. There's nothing inherently wrong about it, it's a way to trim the metagame a little, but if it bothers the group maybe you could ask the DM to tell them where you stand at the end of each session, instead of the usual getting XP at the end of an encounter?
QUESTION: With only two encounters per game day, is the party basically limited to one milestone/action point per day?
get your dm a subscription of d&d insider or something and point him to the encounter builder and ttell him to lay off the damned customized monsters. he doesn't need them yet since he obviously has no clue how to use the ones that come with the book and also doesn't know how to build a balanced monster. and i think he doesn't want you guys trackign exp because frankly he doesn't know how much to dish out. which is anoter reason for him to use the monsters in the monster manual since all he would need to do is add up the exp value for each monster and divide by number of party members and hand it out.
one hard encounter per session is enough but you guys should also have a few easier ones so you aren't frustrated. when i run my games i scale the encounters. first encounter is easy to standard. 2nd is standard. 3rd is standard bordering hard or just hard and 4th is hard.
my rule of thumb for my encounters is that for a standard one ina 4 person party the encounter should exact a toll of 8 healing surges from the party altogether. double that for hard
your ranger isn't hitting because your cleric isn't helping him out. the cleric shouldn't be always buffing himself. the cleric is first and foremost a support guy. damaging dealing is his secondary function.
I have spoken with the DM about trying to vary the difficulty of encounters somewhat. His main concern is that he does not want to turn the game into a slow attrition grind-fest, hence the lower-number of higher-difficulty encounters. I have also spent time with some of the other players (half of the group works in the same company) and we have discussed what we can do to move things along better, including tactics and tweaking our builds. Like all of us, the Ranger is waiting (and waiting) for level four. We all have things we need to retrain, because they just do not work for us (and, so, never get used), and he apparently needs the +1 to two Attributes and the Feat. He commented that if his character still does not work after all that, he will speak to the DM about a more drastic change (reroll, or a completely different character).
We have never had a Milestone. Until our last session, we had also been playing Action Points wrong too. For some reason, we thought they recharged after a Short Rest. We will be playing that rule properly from now on, but I am not sure how that will play out for us. We tended to forget to use them half the time even when we were playing them wrong anyway, so we may not notice much difference ;)
The Cleric has nothing that benefits the Ranger. Righteous Brand only helps the Swordmage, Priest's Shield generally only helps him or, if the circle of monsters around the Swordmage is almost gone, both him and the Swordmage. Divine Fortune only helps him, Turn Undead has no direct party benefit, while Beacon of Hope and Healing Word are a little different again. The Cleric was built for a melee party, and the Swordmage was built for a melee party lacking a Controller (as it was until a little after reaching level 3), then the Ranger ended up playing at long range (he was originally going to use bow until he got close enough for his swords, but he found he did worse in melee than he did at range).
You guys and your DM seem to have a different mindset of what the focus of the game should be. Neither party is right. I'd almost go as far as calling all of your guys wrong. The DM is trying to play a high roleplay-low combat game. You guys seem to want more combat. What you could do is all sit down together before a session starts and discuss your expectations of the game. Tell the DM what each of you finds to be the most fun part about the game.
For example, I enjoy the game most when the party works together to unfold magnificent stories. Other members of my group like to make people laugh because their character gets into absolutely ridiculous problem. There is a bit of a disconnect here. I plan on sitting everyone down (cause our DM has confrontation issues ) to discuss how to make the game better for everyone involved.
your dM says he doesn't want a grindfest but with him running just one long drawn out hard encounter per session, a grind-fest that has descended into ennui is exactly wht he has.
I forgot to mention before. Our campaign only has 1 encounter per session, but the DM hands out double XP for for success and gives out a fair amount of experience for skill challenges. He also gives us a standard encounter's worth of experience for showing up any given session.
You might want to suggest something like this.
"We have never had a Milestone. Until our last session, we had also been playing Action Points wrong too. For some reason, we thought they recharged after a Short Rest. We will be playing that rule properly from now on, but I am not sure how that will play out for us. We tended to forget to use them half the time even when we were playing them wrong anyway, so we may not notice much difference ;)"
I think that if you're never getting to take an extended rest, and never reaching milestones, then recharging action points after short rests could actually be a good house rule for you guys. Heh, of course, as you said it doesn't matter if you don't use them. But keeping the 'wrong' rule for as long as you have these milestone-less games might be a good way to give the party the resources it should have. If your DM is still going to be laying it on thick, I'd definitely ask for the Short Rest recharge rule to stick around.
Some more Milestone/Action Point notes that could help:
1) Widen the definition of 'milestone'. The standard idea is every two encounters, but it is up to the DM to award or not to award them as he sees fit. Two very easy encounters might not earn the party a milestone if the DM doesn't think they've earned it; on the other hand, a single really brutal encounter might earn the party the treasured milestone instead.
2) Remove the 'once per encounter' Action Point restriction. A house rule one of my DMs uses, it lets the player who stocks up really go on a tear sometimes. He only allowed one per round, but it led to some interesting moments.
Er... combats involve the most part of most of our sessions (sometimes the session is one long encounter with nothing else at all); we would be hard-pressed to include more of them. Indeed, half the party is made up of role-play-centric players who would like *less* combat. I suspect you may have misunderstood something in there.
We will be trying things out as-per the rules for Action Points/Milestones for a little while, to see how it works for us. If we find after a few weeks that it is not working, we may try a houserule.
Well, first I'd suggest that ALL of you - not just the DM - need to read the DMG chapters 1-5 and 7. This is in the way of a crash course on what to expect; if you had an experienced DM and at least a couple experienced players it wouldn't be necessary, but it sounds like at most you have one experienced player.
The DM also needs to reread the rest of that book too.
If the DM is doing ANY substitution - whether from DMG2, or from houserules, or from any other source - he should identify that to you. Houserules should be WRITTEN and distributed as soon as reasonably possible after they are made; other sources should be identified and available.
Insert here another chorus of "your combats are too tough and you aren't getting enough experience for them". Everyone else has already sung it; you should know the words yourself by now.
Now your party, being so overmatched, will take longer per combat than normal, but I hear a lot of other people talking about how long 4E combat takes. And I don't see it. A battle routinely running three hours with four or five level-5 characters? That's longer than I'm used to with eight to eleven characters at level 14. But there are some factors that could contribute to slowness, and you have several of them, including inexperience and boredom with slogging battles (which means you aren't paying attention, so don't have a clue what you're going to do next, so it slogs even more), and... well... let's look at your party...
- Swordmage: defender/controller (usually)
- Bow Ranger: striker/controller, and with comparatively few synergies with other PCs
- Battle Cleric: leader/controller (probably, could be leader/defender, or leader could be secondary)
- Artillery Wizard: controller/striker (usually)
That's quite a lot of control, and fundamentally the job of a controller is to (selectively) slow things down. Unsurprisingly, this contributes to slow combats. And I bet your swordmage takes a real pounding every combat. I'd suggest that if one of your players is thinking about doing a new character, a primary striker with good melee attacks - such as a Two-Weapon Ranger, any Barbarian, or a Druid that emphasizes beastform powers, among other possibilities - would be a good move. And the players need to have some discussions of combat tactics and how they can help each other.
If the DM is not making even a slight effort to learn and follow the DMG -- perhaps he should just not be the one in charge of DMing.
There's more to DMing than what's in the book, but honestly not that tremendously much so. The book will allow even a newbie to run a decent game, if its advice is followed.
This is the best DMG1 that D&D has ever had because it actually explains how to DM and not just presenting lists and charts; but making everything up yourself and trying to fit that to the PHB will be quite experimental for obvious reasons (being that he's not following the instructions at all). Mr. Wyatt went to the trouble of writing up such a relatively complete guide, it seems unfortunate that the DM doesn't wish to take advantage of it.
I believe it's time to put that campaign on hold for a few weeks or months. You seem to have read some of the DMG and noticed massive discrepencies. You should volunteer to run at least a session or two of a different campaign, following the book.
DMing is not all that hard to prepare for, when doing the minimums. There are plenty of existing monsters with which to build encounters following the rules. Think of a general storyline, a place, and write up a few encounters and the session is mostly done. The DMG walks you through it pretty decently.
If others of your group are sharing the concerns you have, then they should be OK with letting you take a turn at it.
Have the players coordinate when creating their PCs, and try to have everyone read the rules again and play different classes this time. You should read the PHB closely to avoid mistakes like with the action point, and read the DMG cover to cover. Also, the first chapter of the Monster Manual.
This will give the DM a chance to play -- and if you are personally interested in D&D then experiencing "both sides" will be extremely enlightening even if only for a few sessions.
I will suggest the DMG to the other players. It certainly makes sense having more `eyes' open to look for, and address, issues before they become a problem.
Yes, the Swordmage has been completely surrounded and pummeled to 0hp in every battle. I spoke with the DM about that earlier and he had intentionally focused the attacks on him (because he knew only the Swordmage could take the hits from those monsters), but did not realise he was nearly killing him in every random battle we fight. He will change his tactics around this. I had not thought of our party that way, but you are perfectly right. We are very control heavy! It would not be possible in our current quest (due to plot reasons), but once we are finally out of it one of the other players and I are considering the possibility of `retiring' our characters and rolling different ones. I had been thinking of a Rogue or an Avenger, which fits the melee Striker roll perfectly.
The DM is looking to address things, and it at the very least considering advice I send his way. We have also discussed the possibility of myself DMing at times in the future. While I have no prior DnD experience, I have done the equivalent of DMing in another system before, so I have some relevant experience I can fall back onto. For the moment, however, we are looking to get what we already have right. In the long run, I think this would be better for everyone.
Talk to your DM
address your complaints politely but strongly. Do not hem and haw when it comes to telling him what you like and what has not been fun. He sounds like a typical new DM, he has an idea of what the game should be like and is just running that game. Politely point out the areas where the story is not fitting to your pcs. You should point out the differing styles and let him reread that section of the DMG. It is often hard to balance out such differing styles as you listed. Every couple sessions though should include encounters for everyone.
Be easy with him though. You guys are there to play and have fun. You do not want to come across as hostile because that will put him on the defensive. Either talk to him by yourself if you think he might feel ganged up on. Or do it with the whole group so each person can express what they like and do not.
Good luck
Experience as both a player and DM would be beneficial for DMs as well. It helps one to see things from a player's perspective, to gauge what's fun in general and what kind of fights are more enjoyable.
We had our next session and there were some interesting changes. While still clearly hard, the DM had completely changed the style of his encounters from usual. Different types of opponents to normal, and completely different strategies. I do not believe we have ever been this outnumbered before either, so I suspect they must have been our level or lower. He has also introduced terrain effects for the first time, which adds another interesting dimention. Notably, by now the Swordmage would be taking death saves, but has so far only used a single healing surge (thanks to an awesome round with his Bloodcut Armour) --- so far, as we ran well over-time and still have a long way to go in the encounter (only 4 rounds in; most of the session was RP-based).
The Ranger's player was absent, so the DM asked me to take over (since I have memorised everyone's character sheets). I played him with the opposite strategy to normal. The party Oo'ed and Aa'ed as they saw all these encounter powers coming out for the first time. Even with a more agressive strategy, however, he seemed a touch under-powered compared to the rest of the party, but I am fairly confident that is largely due to him being the only player without a single magic item --- a magic bow should make the difference. I really felt the lack of party synergies at times too. The Cleric and Swordmage were able to Flank (and Righteous Brand) Brutes to pummel them, but the Ranger only had the odd buff when the Cleric was out of combat.
The party changed its over-all strategies somewhat too. I think we had the right idea, but sometimes the rolls were just hillariously bad at the wrong times (eg we set up a +6 to hit, on top of their regular bonus, only for the player to roll a 1, action point, roll another 1). Ignoring 20s on bad strategies, and 1s on good ones, I felt like we had the right approach. I would suggest it was the only battle where we acted like a party, rather than a group of individuals. Trouble was, I was so busy with strategy that I forgot to roleplay *punishes self furiously*.
Thanks for the advice. It looks as though we are heading in the right direction now.
No need to punish yourself. Working on one thing at a time is not a horrible thing.
I'm a DM myself that preferes as well only about two fights per game day. And as far i can tell)or my players tell me) I'm doing a good job.
So here a few tips for your DM's style of play from my side.
- Make most fights slightly above the the party's level, with no monster more then 2 levels above.
- Throw in an occasional way below party level fight, for example a singel elite monster of the partys level, or a group of minions. Granted, the fight isn't too challenging, but that's not the point. The point is to give the players some room to "just fight", and give them a break from the harder fights.
- Give out XP for Major and Minor Quests. A complete Roleplay Session with a succesful ending grants the reward for a succesful major quest. It doesn't hurt to give the reward for a minor quest for small accomplishments.
- If you use customized monsters (And i do use them a lot) make sure to understand the math behind them and give xp according to their level. Always do a reality check against powers and numbers of the monster manuals.
- Give skill challenges a try, they may not work straight out off the book, and it's a big topic on how to do them "right". But they do grant Encounters (and XP) without combat. If they do not work for your group, you've tried (maybe try again with another approach sometimes else).
- You could scrap xp altogether if you know the following: "The rules for xp in D&D4 as intend (by Developers Notes and DMG) assume that you level up every two sessions." With 2 games a month that's still over 2 years before you would hit level 30.