Slow and difficult game progression

[Bonaynay]

After a 3 year break from D&D, I started up again a few weeks ago. I joined an established session through meetup.com and everything looked really promising. However, the game sessions seem to progress so slowly!

The DM for this group had some fairly specific rules for me to follow when I joined the game.

Classes from the PHB are banned
Start at level 6
Individual XP at the end of the session
Limited treasure for new characters (me)
Must choose from DM's homebrewed races


Our sessions are 7 hours long but two sessions ago didn't even result in a single combat or a real RP encounter. Last session had one combat. What filled those 7 hours? Unobtainable treasure chests and doors for the most part.

Our party consists of a Shadow Caster?, a hexblade, a necromancer (homebrewed class), and Favored Soul (me). Pretty much every 30 feet there is a locked door and none of us are well equipped to deal with it. My character has very basic gear (5 trail rations, medium armor and shield, long sword, a +2 Wisdom necklace, and 15 silver).

Every time I have tried to use Diplomacy to help the party, the DM sometimes says I fail before I even get to roll. I have a +14 to it.

Maybe I am rusty but I just do NOT know what the DM wants us to do. In addition to this, I feel like my character is being left behind XP wise. I am still level 6 whereas the other players are now level 8 and have some decent magic items.

I am also afflicted with some kind of weird curse from this magical book that I can't afford to have removed from me that is turning me into a tree frog.

I almost feel like I should re-roll a new character.

Edit: Class and Stats
I am a level 6 Favored Soul of Chezveron (Homebrewed pantheon)
Race: Ossmonon (homebrewed race) +5 charisma, +4 skill points per level
Stats were generated by rolling 3d6 and rerolling any 1s.
Str 14
Dex 8
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 20
Cha 18

Feats

Touch of Healing
Augment Healing
Mage Slayer
Combat Casting

Note: Was specifically banned from obtaining Turn Undead so no Divine Metamagic shenanigans.

Spells: Healing spells at all spell levels, some CC spells, some utility spells.

[holywhippet]

I'm thinking you need a new DM, not a new character. The idea of an RPG is to have fun, it sounds like your DM doesn't want this to happen.

The treasure chests and doors make me think he is running a prebuilt dungeon which has those things but he hasn't taken into account the party not having the skills to obtain them.

[Bonaynay]

I'm thinking you need a new DM, not a new character. The idea of an RPG is to have fun, it sounds like your DM doesn't want this to happen.


I was afraid of that.

[Arundel]

You want this thread. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211784)

Your DM sounds to me as if they have a passing understanding of the rules and how to break the game. Unfortunately it also sounds like they don't understand the means of fixing it. It also sounds like you are getting vigorously hosed by the fact you're new.

Head back to meetup and try again.

[Engine]

Try ask to your DM a simple question:

"Why?"

Then you could take an educated choice. Maybe your DM has a plan. Maybe not. Anyway if you don't have a real problem in finding another group, go find it: most of the times it's the best solution.