Had to go back to playing 3.5 after having DMing 4th for a while....
We fight a mounted fighter npc with horseback riding feats who charges 9th level PC fighter (at full health). NPC criticals PC with lance charge knocks him down to about 25 hp left. DM rolls some more dice announces that the lance has impaled his heart. I (the cleric) run over to cast cure critical. The DM says no, healing magic will not work you need to make a heal check to pull out the lance. I have one rank in heal (that I put there 10 levels ago as a background thing, after all I am DIVINE HEALER). Don’t make the check, the DM says I pulled out lance but did more damage. I then have to cast an empowered Cure Critical, but the spell does not actually heal him just keep him from dying so I have to burn more heal spells to get him back to max. Healing spells are in really short supply (because I am the only healer for a party of 6). Also magic items are extremely rare in this game and even potions cannot be bought. Furthermore DM policy is clerics cannot spontaneously heal they can only spontaneously cast from one of their domains (in my case war). This episode is just a good representation of roughly a 12 hr session where to add to the FUN ,the party was not able to rest to regain spells or HP.
Why I have lost all patience with 3.5 was due to numerous save vs. die, save vs. suck and obscure skill and attribute checks. Such as, your friend has been poisoned and is suffocating sorry restoration spell, heal skill, or divine healing will not help, what you did not memorize neutralize poison? But you can make a knowledge poison or a knowledge herbalism check (except nobody has those skills). Oh you are wearing heavy armor in a hot environment roll con vs. fatigue, then roll again ten minutes later against exhaustion. My ac is 30 but the dragon just does touch attacks (fabulous), oh the dragon hit your touch ac, then he hurls you into magma (no roll for that). Roll swim while as you take 5d6 continuous damage (after the dragon has already used a maximized breath weapon), you fail the swim check (in magma) cause you are wearing platemail and a shield well then you have sunk further that will be 7d6 next round. Oh good the party saved you, by the way all your normal equipment is destroyed and the pitifully few (and virtual irreplaceable) Magic items you have need to make saves in the 30's or be destroyed.
My character survived but my interest in this particular campaign and in 3.5 is in critical condition and not expected to live.
End Rant
This is just a bad DM, no matter what system you use, no matter what edition you play. He's just throwing around an enhanced, maximized, quickened F-You every chance he gets, and yeah, the game's gonna suck.
I gotta say this has pretty much nothing to do with Third Edition (and I very rarely rush to that edition's defense).
This is just a bad DM, no matter what system you use, no matter what edition you play. He's just throwing around an enhanced, maximized, quickened F-You every chance he gets, and yeah, the game's gonna suck.
Correct. Your DM sounds like he has a case of the "Fiats." There are no rules in the DMG, PHB, or anywhere else that state that a lance "critical" pierces such and such, etc. It just does damage.
Three PC's, a monk, a rogue, and a swashbuckler. My monk is running alongside the other two, who are riding horses. These horses are Paladin mounts who belonged to level 20 paladins and were given to us for a dire messenger mission.
The rogue thought it would be funny to lasso my monk. He rolled a nat 1. The result? It spooked his horse, who threw him and trampled him. However, he got caught in the stirrups and was getting dragged around. The horse wouldn't let us come near because it was terrified, which spooked the swashbucklers horse, who then trampled her. I got trampled for trying to grab the reins.
Needless to say, these horses almost killed us as a result of this. The rogue was in a coma for two days, during which we got attacked by a monster that split himself in two and poisoned me. I was a level 6 monk.
Even though we argued that Paladin mounts were intelligent enough to know better, he disagreed.
The point of the above story was that he argued the rules dictated what happened. I know for a fact they don't. Your DM is homebrewing rules from his behind and they stink.
.don't give up on 3ed, instead demand the title of DM yourself.
His take on his house rules is that he wants to add more “realism” to the game, “to make it more exciting, to force people to think outside the box”. In this particular game the excitement took the form of the fighter getting a pierced heart on 1 hit, the ranger almost being offed by asphyxiating poison (due to 1 failed fort save with a high DC), The 7th level sorcerer (with 30 total hp) getting the maximized breath weapon in the face (by a dragon that was not detected by high spot checks from several party members because according to the DM "no one in the party said they were look above their heads."), myself getting the maximized breath weapon, getting pelted by ranged touch magma attacks being hurled by the dragon, and then being tossed into the magma, and the warlock getting hit by the dragon for about 20 damage (she still had at least 15 hp left mind you) at which time the DM after rolling dice to decide the hit location was to the head, announced that there was a 50 percent chance that she would suffer brain damage or instant death because she was not wearing a helmet. Now the DM let the party come up with ways out of all of these problems and no one died. But that’s 5 near deaths out 6 players, all which felt very cheap.
This was a side quest by the way, the dragon was not a major antagonist in the main story of the campaign. The DM will not tell us how much xp we earned, only the sorcerer gained a level. During the game we found mundane items and some healing potions which were all expended in the battle. We found no other treasure.
I do talk to him nicely about the problematic aspects of this and make sure to offer lots of praise for the plot of the game, but these conversations just break down into an ongoing difference of opinion on simulation vs. gamism/3E vs 4E.
I was an art major in college, and one of the things that was drummed into my head was "before you can break the rules, you have to understand what the rules are". Your GM obviously has little grasp of the game or the reasons behind the rules as they are written, or he wouldn't make the modifications you're describing.
"before you can break the rules, you have to understand what the rules are"
Amen.
However, it's not so much that this guy didn't know the rules, it's more that he was making them up to mess with his party as he went along. Sounds like a classic, darn-near textbook "It's me, the DM, with all my godlike powers, versus the puny players, I'll show THEM how great I am" syndrome.
Get a new DM, and settle in with the edition of your mutual choice.
I don't like 3.5 because it punishes you brutally if you do not have the right spell or item exactly when you need it (restoration, neutralize poison, remove curse, break enchantment, dispel magic, heal etc.). The DM’s house rules accentuate this quite a bit, and the extreme lack of potions scrolls and wands make it just about intolerable.
His take on his house rules is that he wants to add more “realism” to the game, “to make it more exciting, to force people to think outside the box”. In this particular game the excitement took the form of the fighter getting a pierced heart on 1 hit, the ranger almost being offed by asphyxiating poison (due to 1 failed fort save with a high DC), The 7th level sorcerer (with 30 total hp) getting the maximized breath weapon in the face (by a dragon that was not detected by high spot checks from several party members because according to the DM "no one in the party said they were look above their heads."), myself getting the maximized breath weapon, getting pelted by ranged touch magma attacks being hurled by the dragon, and then being tossed into the magma, and the warlock getting hit by the dragon for about 20 damage (she still had at least 15 hp left mind you) at which time the DM after rolling dice to decide the hit location was to the head, announced that there was a 50 percent chance that she would suffer brain damage or instant death because she was not wearing a helmet. Now the DM let the party come up with ways out of all of these problems and no one died. But that’s 5 near deaths out 6 players, all which felt very cheap.
This was a side quest by the way, the dragon was not a major antagonist in the main story of the campaign. The DM will not tell us how much xp we earned, only the sorcerer gained a level. During the game we found mundane items and some healing potions which were all expended in the battle. We found no other treasure.
I do talk to him nicely about the problematic aspects of this and make sure to offer lots of praise for the plot of the game, but these conversations just break down into an ongoing difference of opinion on simulation vs. gamism/3E vs 4E.
Right there! The bolded part is proof the problem was not 3E but your DM being a Jerk. This issue existed long before 3E with DMs who like to spring traps on the party because the Thief didn't specify where he was looking for traps.
The problem, like other said, lies in the fact that the DM isnt following the rules and make his own on the fly.
Begin rant --- End Rant
Two pieces of advice. Find a new DM and, actually learn the rules of a game you plan on playing next time.
3e is particularly brutal without much wealth, even moreso with a canny DM (big creatures chucking PCs is definitely not a standard tactic, although it's a very good one). The limited spellcasting wouldn't be that big of a deal if you could purchase scrolls of [remove whatever] for when they're needed (not to mention good old wands of CLW to cover the healing pain).
Suggestion: Find a new DM.
Still wish I was playing 4 though.
1 - They have planned a specific solution and are waiting for you to see/mind read that solution.
2 - They have planned no solution, just figure that you should be able to do it on your own "'cus you've got 8th level spells."
Generally people who you find saying "I'm trying to make you think outside the box" are lateral thinkers surrounded by linear thinkers who are frustrated by what they see as a flaw in their friends that they then try to fix or train out by force. Thing is that lateral thinkers frequently have bull**** cause/effect/implication visualization, so not only are they putting their linear friends into a situation their friends don't know how to solve, giving insufficient resources to solve, they don't "get" why no one else is having fun.
Linear thinkers tend to inflict logic puzzles on their lateral friends, basically with the same results and the same "why aren't you reading my mind?" bad communication.
I'm willing to bet your Bad DM isn't a sadistic jerk (well, jerk, but not sadistic.) He honestly thinks that the scenario is "cool" or "fun" or "memorable." Of course DMing is all about communication, something most of the world is very bad at, and the usual result is withholding. He wants things to be "tense" and "dynamic" and "going beyond the rules" without considering that many of the people at the table may have the most fun staying inside the rules, like composing to a strict rhythm or syllable count.
My 3.5 group had to sit out DM down and tell him flat out that
1- we don't like thinking of campaign progress as a job obligation
2- we don't like bull**** mind-reading challenges
3- we don't like save-or-die/suck/lose mechanics
4- we have no clue where you want us to go in your world because your NPCs are universally unhelpful
5- we don't want to sandbox, we want a well-guided and well-told story to follow and participate in where we know who we're supposed to be
6- we're tired of being expected to optimize and know what we're supposed to buy when, and the over-tuned encounters make us feel weak and bad at what we think we're good at
Those were the issues we were facing and many of them were things where he would sit and wonder "why aren't you all having as much fun as I planned? Isn't my planet smashing monster awesome? Aren't my optimized NPCs cool?" He took it well, all things considered, and the campaign ended last weekend with a pretty cool fight that was actually more or less reverse-built from 4e mechanics.
When I first started gaming, I had the "GM God Complex," but after I tanked a few games I learned my lesson. It took my players calling me out on my bulls*** that made me mend my ways.
He's just throwing around an enhanced, maximized, quickened F-You every chance he gets, and yeah, the game's gonna suck.
You owe me reimbursement for monitor cleaning
:heeheeD&D 3.X with it's rule 0 stuff made it particularily easy for a bad DM to be a bad DM.
Agreed. I've played with a bad DM on 3.5 and it was 2nd on my list of worst campaigns ever part of it was the DM was an asshat the other was the rules. If your DM is a decent DM with an understanding of what is fun 3.X then is still a good fun game.
I will never go back to DMing it but will play it still.
He does however need a DM intervention. I will be talking to him soon about this. But not today cause I need him to play in my 4E game tonight and I don't want any drama.
Next...
His take on his house rules is that he wants to add more “realism” to the game, “to make it more exciting, to force people to think outside the box”.
Then what you need to do is to sit the DM down and calmly inform him that REALISM SUCKS! NOBODY PLAYS D&D TO WALLOW IN STUPID, FREAKING REALISM! TAKE YOUR REALISM AND BURY IT WITH A STAKE IN ITS HEART AND GARLIC IN ITS MOUTH AND HOLY WATER ON THE DIRT AND A 20TH LEVEL CLERICAL GUARD ON THE GRAVE 24/7/365 FOR ETERNITY TO ENSURE IT NEVER DARKENS YOUR GAME AGAIN!
Ahem. Sorry 'bout that.
Seriously, tell the DM that if he wants gritty realism he should
A) use ANYTHING except D&D for it, and
B) use different players for it because CLEARLY though the DM may be enchanted with the concept YOU made your save and would prefer a "normal" game.
In this particular game the excitement took the form of the fighter getting a pierced heart on 1 hit
Hit location and specific effects attendant upon them are house rules. That's the DM.
the ranger almost being offed by asphyxiating poison (due to 1 failed fort save with a high DC)
"Asphyxiating" poison sounds like a DM invention, and it's the DM's choice as to how lethal to make it both in terms of the save DC and the effects with/without saving.
The 7th level sorcerer (with 30 total hp) getting the maximized breath weapon in the face (by a dragon that was not detected by high spot checks from several party members because according to the DM "no one in the party said they were look above their heads.")
"You didn't say Simon Says" is also the DM. You should have informed the DM immediately at the time that while you appreciate the efforts to challenge the players and PC's this kind of stretch being used to justify invalidating the PC's capabilities by sheer fiat is, frankly, lame.
myself getting the maximized breath weapon, getting pelted by ranged touch magma attacks being hurled by the dragon, and then being tossed into the magma
Really, friend or no, your DM being such a fan of "reality" he needs a REALITY CHECK. There is challenge and there is arbitrary manipulation and fiat. The latter should be used only as a last resort - and then with great care, caution and reluctance.
and the warlock getting hit by the dragon for about 20 damage (she still had at least 15 hp left mind you) at which time the DM after rolling dice to decide the hit location was to the head, announced that there was a 50 percent chance that she would suffer brain damage or instant death because she was not wearing a helmet.
Again, hit location and its effect upon his players enjoyment of the game is squarely upon your DM's shoulders. At the VERY least you should be provided with standardized effects of hits upon specific locations and what's good for the goose is good for the gander - NPC's and monsters MUST be seen to suffer similarly and at least as freqently if not MORE often than the PC's. If you agreed to play under the rule of, "The DM gets to make up your level of misery on the fly," then I'd say you have probably paid your penance for your foolish assent. You need to talk with your DM and inform him that whatever has passed is past - END the nonsense and move on.
Now the DM let the party come up with ways out of all of these problems and no one died. But that’s 5 near deaths out 6 players, all which felt very cheap.
Tell HIM that. He needs to hear it and understand it FAR more than we.
This was a side quest by the way, the dragon was not a major antagonist in the main story of the campaign. The DM will not tell us how much xp we earned, only the sorcerer gained a level.
And was this also something you agreed to at the outset? If you did then it's (at least partly) your fault. If not then you need to tell the DM that this method of xp awards is NOT working for you and request it be fixed.
During the game we found mundane items and some healing potions which were all expended in the battle. We found no other treasure.
Ditto for the treasure. There's nothing wrong with trying something different - but you're a fool if the experiment isn't working for you and yet you just let it go on and on and on making you more annoyed with every game.
I do talk to him nicely about the problematic aspects of this and make sure to offer lots of praise for the plot of the game, but these conversations just break down into an ongoing difference of opinion on simulation vs. gamism/3E vs 4E.
But this is not just a difference of opinion on THEORY. This is, "DANGIT JOHN. I'M NOT FREAKING ENJOYING THIS. FIX IT!
D&D 3.X with it's rule 0 stuff made it particularily easy for a bad DM to be a bad DM.
Definitely not so. Bad DM's - and we see the example for proof in this thread - do not CARE about rules. As was said upthread - before breaking rules you still need to know what the rules ARE. You need to know why you want to break them. D&D SHOULD be full of DM's who aren't afraid to break the rules - but not to just arbitrarily ignore them. If the players dislike your breaks then you should STOP. If you don't stop the players have the RIGHT to stop you and the obligation to do so rather than silently indulge you. The game is not about the DM fulfilling his vision of the game - it is a GROUP form of entertainment. Just because the DM is at the head of it doesn't mean that trying to maximize the others fun isn't a COLOSSAL consideration.
Bad DM's existed before 3E's "Rule 0". They exist in 4E. They ALWAYS will exist because written game rules don't change REAL people. And if anything the long-term effect of 3rd Edition is not that it helped create more DM's who make up rules but the opposite. It made more DM's who had a unfortunate preoccupation with "official" rules rather than make them up themselves or ignore them. That is in defiance of what Rule 0 supposedly tells them.
their game really mean that they want to control the characters more. Usually when the realism card is played it is quickly followed by a raft of off beat and unusual house rules which as often as not create more problems than they address.
I've found that nearly every dm who says they are looking for more realism in
their game really mean that they want to control the characters more. Usually when the realism card is played it is quickly followed by a raft of off beat and unusual house rules which as often as not create more problems than they address.
Truth. Compare:
"I want more realism in the game" to
"I want more of my idea of realism in the game"
The second one is typically what a DM looking for more realism means.
I don't see 4E solving these problems. If anything, by becoming more rules light, there's more *need* for GM fiat. More than ever, you have to have a GM you can trust, because the rules are no longer on your side.
This GM is probably broken. Either quit, or destroy his game from within. You know how. Others can help you if you don't.
I sent my friend a long email laying out the problem and some workable solutions.
I will let everyone know how it goes.
Games are rarely the problem.
I switched from 3.5 to 4th specifically for what I liked about 4th. but I know a bad DM could make 4th suck just as easily as any other RPG.
I just want to say the DM is a good friend of mine and not a jerk in real life.
He does however need a DM intervention. I will be talking to him soon about this. But not today cause I need him to play in my 4E game tonight and I don't want any drama.
Yeah, I used to be a player in this game.
I was the kick-ass Druid who would summon packs of wolves so everyone could get flanking attacks.
Then the DM decided it was too much for me to be able to summon multiple creatures. Even though I had all of the creatures written up and kept good record of them. So Summon Nature's Ally I and II quickly lost their usefulness.
It was equally hard for my character to get spells.
Eventually I just lost the will to go to these games. I was driving 1hr 45min to get to these games but the PC nerfing just got to me.
I have a few House Rules in my campaigns
Natural 1 is called a critical miss, wen you roll a 1 you miss so bad, that it leaves an opening in your defenses, enemies get this as well. So lets say a villan is attacking you, and the first attack hits, but the next is a critical iss, anyone who threatens that target (anyone near him) can make an attack of oppurtunity (following the rules for AoO) after the attacks are resolved, the charcter can continue if they have more attacks.
As an add on to that rule, if your enemy were to roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, and you per chance roll a critical, you deal the normal critical damage, but also damage the weapon the weilder is weilding.
(kind of like, the character hit you so hard, it broke through your weapon, shattering it as he deals u damage) the people battling roll opposing str checks and if the attack win, you deal damage to the weapon as a sunder attempt.
A side note to that, is that it can only be bludgoning and slashing weapons.
Another House rule we have is that if you roll a critical on a spell damage, its maximized instead of rolling all the damange twice. These are obviously only for spells that deal damage, and require an attack roll.
Also with Druids, you cannot change into a creature that u have no way of contacting. And with Master Of Many Forms, you have to see a creature and study it for at least 1 minute, to be able to change into it.
First off there is a very good balance reason why Clerics can spontanteously heal, and that is because if they couldn't then there would be very little point for all their other spells, sicne they wopuld be forced to memorize most if not all of their slots for heals 24/7. This pretty much cripples the celric unless they play a pure heal bot and mem nothing but heals.
Further the Heal spell would work perfectly against this particular wound. HP is just a representation for the vaious wounds recieved during combat, thos being bleeding, broken bones, gashing wounds, internal damage to organds, torn limbs and muscles, bruising internal bleeding etc. this heart wound is no different and Cure Wounds repairs the damage mending broken bones, repairing cut tissue etc etc.
If the Dm wanted to houserule damage to speicifc locations then he should have done it properly, having specific rules in advance for this, or use something such as the GameMastery Critical Hit Deck, (I use this it is pretty cool) I would think that instead of tripple damage from a critical from the lance, instead doing double damage and 1d3 Con damage would have been applicable.
Cure Wounds would fix the HP loss and repair the wound, but it would take time to heal the con damage (or a different spell)
Your problem here is the DM is pulling rules out of his ass and houserules that aren't balanced (such as removing spontaneous casting from clerics) I am afraid it would be just as bad no matter what version of the game he was playing.
On the other hand, I am conflicted because I believe in DMs making calls and its not that the initial calls themselves were necessarily bad.
It is that the DM is one-sided in his application of flexibility. He allows for actions and occurances that lie outside of the rules to dictate what happens to the players and then he inists that the players response/solutions to the situations he has created be restricted to the letter of the rules.
In short: He says "Yes" to his own ideas and "No" to the players ideas and that is the sign of a poor DM in any system.
Carl
Though I usually say, "Eh, sure."
Fail.
Natural 1 is called a critical miss, wen you roll a 1 you miss so bad, that it leaves an opening in your defenses, enemies get this as well. So lets say a villan is attacking you, and the first attack hits, but the next is a critical iss, anyone who threatens that target (anyone near him) can make an attack of oppurtunity (following the rules for AoO) after the attacks are resolved, the charcter can continue if they have more attacks.
So the better you are at fighting, the more you suck. Or does this only count for the first strike?
As an add on to that rule, if your enemy were to roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, and you per chance roll a critical, you deal the normal critical damage, but also damage the weapon the weilder is weilding.
(kind of like, the character hit you so hard, it broke through your weapon, shattering it as he deals u damage) the people battling roll opposing str checks and if the attack win, you deal damage to the weapon as a sunder attempt.
I almost like this one. For absolutely no logical reason.
Another House rule we have is that if you roll a critical on a spell damage, its maximized instead of rolling all the damange twice. These are obviously only for spells that deal damage, and require an attack roll.
A good one... except what do you do about maximized spells?
Also with Druids, you cannot change into a creature that u have no way of contacting. And with Master Of Many Forms, you have to see a creature and study it for at least 1 minute, to be able to change into it.
I think this is reasonable as long as the players are notified of these rules beforehand.
Your DM is homebrewing rules from his behind and they stink.
Tylkon, that line was witty and funny
I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read it. I'm going to have to use that in the future.A DM that looks at the players strength and makes encounters to get around those. Good armor, all touch attacks.
To much healing in a game, limit the amount of healing.
Why is he doing this? Because 3.5 has, for many players, become about the best builds possible, and using the rules to min/max. Are the players doing this in this particular campaign?
Chances are some are. It gets frustrating for a DM to always hear a player say, but that doesn't work, cause I have feat/spell/magic item...that allows me to...
Why take neutralize poison when X, X, X and Y do that and bag of chips too?
Sounds like issues on both sides.