Starting to lose the will to play... [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Metahuman1

2011-09-04, 03:33 PM

I was playing a dragonlance game as a Kender (Wait! Stop! Keep reading, I promise, it's not what your bracing for! Character actually took great pains to not act like a typical Kender and was in it to avenge a Genocide the BBEG's had committed almost a hundred years prior that almost completely wiped out the Kender Race.) Sorcerer with a super high Cha and a thing for enchantment.

Around tenth level were in a tavern celebrating our triumph over one of several recurring villains in the game, and buying Drinks all around.Well, Dm made us all roll fort saves to see if we got intoxicated, and Will saves to see when we said wen. I kept blowing both of them, ended up failing like eight or nine saves in a row before I finally made a save to stop drinking.

By this point my Sorcerer was so intoxicated I had to roll for random actions. the first one I rolled was hitting on a Bar Stool. As in, trying to flirt, with the bar stool.

Anyway, the DM rolled some Dice in Secret, and decided were everyone woke up since the whole party had gotten stone cold drunk. My Sorcerer, Woke up in a room, in bed, with a human Female that had a couple of levels in the Dragonlance PRC that's that settings version of a Paladin (Campaign setting guide says they don't have actual Paladins.), that as part of her WLB had had Enlarge Person and Permanency cast on her before. He let me look at the stats on her. Cha 18, Str 26 with out Items!

Talonblaze

2011-09-04, 03:49 PM

Haha I remember this time me and some other players went down into the sewers. Went pretty casually as we were there to simply stop the rising of the flow and access the bandits camp. Well... we had an additional surprise waiting for us at the controls.

A giant sewer crocodile. (Which was lying in wait near one of the pools. DM couldn't resist the urban legend it seems.)

The unfortunate Beguiler was the first to be snatched into its jaws as he went to go activate the lever. Meanwhile he's screaming to get free and the others are pelting it with arrows since they wanted to keep their distance for whatever reason. (lol big jaws possibly).

During this however, one of them gets the bright idea that instead of killing it to tame it. So he's trying to convince the us to stop shooting while the beguiler is getting nibbled on telling them to keep killing it. Everyone in a state of confusion. lol

Miraculously though against all odds he manages to succeed in calming it through various methods. The beguiler was pretty beat up though and grumbled about wanting some leather boots.

The player never let that crocodile leave his side after that. lol (even after numerous looks from other people and scattered citizens.)

0nimaru

2011-09-04, 03:49 PM

I was in a game with a couple of friends, classes irrelevant, but one of our friends was a sorcerer. He tends to be.. accident prone when it comes to magic and has been responsible for several TPKs in the past (fireball on the icebridge, tornadoes in the weapon armory, etc.) but we gave in and let him be a caster again...

Along the way through this dungeon at level 5-6 we had gotten some scrolls from the BBEG's private study which we could only figure were "Very powerful necromantic magic." We stash em, and keep moving along.

Next session, we're fighting the BBEG and struggling along taking some heavy hits. The sorcerer suddenly gets a hopeful gleam in his eye and says "I'll pull out a scroll and use it!" A natural 1 on a "UMD: Use blindly" check and a DM with a flair for ad-lib terror later... there is a giant hurricane of Trap The Soul floating in the air covering 2/3rds of the battle. We successfully weakened the boss and pushed him into it, but lost two party members' souls in the process. The sorcerer survived :smallyuk:

Coidzor

2011-09-04, 03:51 PM

the straw that's broken the camels back was my last session. 1 party member died after making a successful reflex save on a broken bridge. then have another two characters one shot'ed and eaten whole by the wildlife (party: 4x lvl6 vs 2 Bulette).

Sounds like your DM and you don't really have compatible play goals. :/ Either you gotta work out some kinda compromise or kick him to the curb as a DM.

Cerlis

2011-09-04, 03:51 PM

well yea, if your DM is one to horribly murder your party relentlessly then i wouldnt make ones i'm attached to.

For me the "eaten alive " thing is at the top of my list for "and now i must scream" situations (even if its only temporary) so i'd be upset too.

-----------------
p.s.

first time we ever played (as in first encounter ever) we didnt understand crit rules so we come out of the dungeon, see 3 kobalds. first round one throws a javalin at the fighter. and then Crits him for 36 damage (no idea how we got that.)

good first impression.

Elixia

2011-09-04, 03:52 PM

metahuman, that is an awesome tavern story! i would love to do that! most of my campaigns we tend to be on the run (whatever the groups alignment) so i dont many tavern stories myself :) but i would to try some of those!!

Metahuman1

2011-09-04, 04:28 PM

Yes, that is still one of my favorites. :smallbiggrin:

As for the issue you posted initially, I'd suggest talking to the dm and telling him "Look, we get proverbially beat down enough in real life. We play to be Badasses who take names and kick butt. This does not work when the DM is going out of his way to kill us. Work with us here." If he won't, try playing some more optimized builds, and if he still keeps looking for any random way to kill your characters, change DM's.

And also, I don't get how he MADE a reflex save and still died. It's like the DM just flat ignored the rules too kill that character.

Elixia

2011-09-04, 04:35 PM

Metahuman1

2011-09-04, 04:39 PM

Ok, change of plans. I know the "Writer" type. They have a bad tendency to think Core and what ever there favorite campaign setting is are Balanced and it's Splat Books like ToB that mess things up.

(I know, not all Writer Dm's are like this, but the first several DM's I had were like this.)

Anyway,

If first round of attempted negation fails to get him to adjust and STAY adjusted, not just throwing one or two bones so he can go back to business as usual, I'd cut to the Boot him phase.

TurtleKing

2011-09-04, 04:49 PM

If I was in that situation just go straight for the boot phase. Had 1 DM like that but the type to "Hey lets play in my homebrew world where I only focused on 1 side of the world even though you want to see the other." The guy was in love with it so anything you did was either a good to go by playing to him or literally <insert expletive here> up. So glad to not be around there anymore he also gave me the creeps. Seriously a 25 yr old male should not be into Hello Kitty.

Elixia

2011-09-04, 04:59 PM

adult male and hello kitty ... not a good mix. thats the stuff of nightmares! i thought girls who like that were bad enough!

Fiery Diamond

2011-09-04, 05:01 PM

to be honest i get the feeling the dm ignores rules and just doesnt read them because they didnt fit in his story. he's a writer.

for example the bulettes on his orginal description were a herd of 12 grazing, til we the player reminded him, they were solitary and carnivores. a little monster manual reading and ad-lib later and it was 2

Okay, that's just messed up. Why is he the one DMing? Did none of the rest of you want the job or did he just want it so very much? He should totally understand more of the rules and what's in the books that he's using, and he shouldn't be just killing PCs left and right without any reasonable reason.

Second: I hate people who give a bad name to other writers. I'm a writer, I'm a DM, and I don't even railroad (well, except rarely; I let the players decide the direction the story takes - I provide the world around them and offer plot hooks and where they take it from there is up to them. I'm heavy on improvisation, so it works out.), let alone randomly off the PCs to "fit my story."

Ok, change of plans. I know the "Writer" type. They have a bad tendency to think Core and what ever there favorite campaign setting is are Balanced and it's Splat Books like ToB that mess things up.

(I know, not all Writer Dm's are like this, but the first several DM's I had were like this.)

Anyway,

If first round of attempted negation fails to get him to adjust and STAY adjusted, not just throwing one or two bones so he can go back to business as usual, I'd cut to the Boot him phase.

Darn straight we're not. Granted, I'm most familiar with core and had issues with ToB when I first had to DM for it (I'm used to primarily blaster and healer casters, and ToB enables melee to be on even footing with an unoptimized blaster sorcerer plus being able to recharge), but now I've got a list of "banned or limited" things in core and it's "non-core is run it by me first; I'll probably say yes." Core is definitely not balanced, and there's plenty of good splatbook material.

That said: I agree with your advice.

Das Platyvark

2011-09-04, 05:04 PM

My friends told me that on their first time playing 3.5, they did so bad, that their party of 6 was slaughtered by 3 dire rats. :smallwink:
I think I may have been in that group, though it wasn't our first time:smallbiggrin:

jiriku

2011-09-04, 05:11 PM

Ugh! Writer DM... the rules exist only when they're convenient to the story. The players exist only to be an audience. Hate it.

A better breed of gamer is the roleplay-to-the-hilt gamer. My group, we're all pirates of various sorts in one campaign, including my character who's the most mercenary little thieve's git of the lot. The roleplayer, though, is a down-and-out former town sheriff whose fell into piracy after his town was wiped out. We're assigned the task to collect 100 pounds of silver dust from an apothecary for a hospital, and I fudge the numbers on the requisition a bit and make it appear to say 400. By tasking the honest-faced sheriff to (unknowingly) present the forged document, I manage to run the con and get the 400 pounds of silver dust onto our ship. We're all set to turn in the quest, pocketing 300 pounds of silver for ourselves, when I'm out sick for the next week of gaming. I come back to find that Mr. Honesty has turned in all 400 pounds of the silver to the hospital. When I got back and my character discovered this, the interaction went about like this:

Me: What... what happened to the silver?
Him: We've returned it all to the hospital.
Me: But, but... all that money. We could have been rich!
Him: It was stolen. Returnin' it was the right thing tae do.
Me (exasperated): Of course it was stolen! We stole it! WE'RE PIRATES!
Him (full of righteous indignation): THAT DOES NAE MEAN WE HAVE TO ACT LIKE IT, SIR!

Good times.

Fiery Diamond

2011-09-04, 05:16 PM

jiriku

2011-09-04, 05:23 PM

The original 100 was to be given to the hospital that had commissioned us. We were on a glorified shopping errand.

Elixia

2011-09-04, 05:28 PM

Metahuman1

2011-09-04, 05:31 PM

Here's pulling for you. In truth, it would be better if he would get better at DMing since that way all it took was a conversation and a bit of adult rational.

But again, If he isn't gonna listen or he give it lip service but then doesn't consistently follow through, someone else needs to DM.

Kenneth

2011-09-04, 05:32 PM

A player of mine's first action EVER in D&D was to kill another party member. Heavy pick to the party mage at first level becuase he heard something move in the dark and swung at it, means dead clothie.

I did an almost Total party wipe, becuase i snuck attacked the big lvl 20 wizard/fighter/eldritch knight. (not actual rogue +d6s sneak atack but the actual def of it) We survived, well me and the other fighter/mage.(technically the fighter lived too, but he was not good at added up his save bonuses.....) everybody was like 'why did you do that. We all could have died then the campaign would be over, and you would lose your mage!"

I just replied. "so, just a pieve of paper.. ive been playng D&D for decades, if i cried over the.. oh.. hundreds of characters ive had that has died I would probly have very severe mental issues and not play this game at all for fear of having a charatcer die, besides we won, we are spending the money to get the cleric rezzed and now we have a high levle character to loot!"

My best advice is this. D&D is just a game, and your character are just writing and scribblings on paper. DOn't get too attached to them that one dieing upsets you, as trust me, you are going to have a lot of charcater die as time goes on.

Elixia

2011-09-04, 05:33 PM

Me: What... what happened to the silver?
Him: We've returned it all to the hospital.
Me: But, but... all that money. We could have been rich!
Him: It was stolen. Returnin' it was the right thing tae do.
Me (exasperated): Of course it was stolen! We stole it! WE'RE PIRATES!
Him (full of righteous indignation): THAT DOES NAE MEAN WE HAVE TO ACT LIKE IT, SIR!

Good times.

PRICELESS!!

ooooh i'm a roleplayer! i LOVE it. in fact of joining the amateur dramatics in my town (sad i know) some of the best session's i've had have not been in a dungeon but in at the camp or in a city flexing that rp muscle!

Metahuman1

2011-09-04, 06:20 PM

I like my roleplay, don't get me wrong. I like my mechanics too though, for some reason a lot of my early DM's though the latter had to be sacrificed for the former.

Me, I always though, "I'm playing the game to be a hero. A hero has to be good if not great at what he's doing to pull it off, and if he doesn't pull it off, he's not a hero he's a wanna be loser."

Coidzor

2011-09-04, 07:03 PM

to be honest i get the feeling the dm ignores rules and just doesnt read them because they didnt fit in his story. he's a writer.

Then you need to remind him that you're people then, as it sounds like he's lost sight of this.

JonRG

2011-09-04, 10:04 PM

Man, I'm a writer looking to DM a campaign in the Not Too Distant Future. :smalleek: Guess I better work on my improv, or plan for pretty much everything.

Well, this happened during spring semester, and I was very depressed, to the point where I didn't care too much what happened to my characters. This was also the time the DM (same for both games) introduced the Harrow Deck of Many Things . So what's a poor apathetic girl to do?

Draw four for both of them, of course.

Luckily, both games adopted the That Didn't HappenTM, which is self-explanatory. Good thing too, because my barbarian was nearly geas'ed into questing for the BBEG's resurrection, and my psion almost had his mental stats reduced to 3. Turns out I cared more than I thought. The cards were really awesome after that though. Totally worth it, but probably wouldn't be that stupid again. :smallbiggrin:

TheJake

2011-09-04, 10:18 PM

To the OP -

Your DM is the problem. Replace DM and press any key to continue.

- J.

Greenish

2011-09-04, 10:28 PM

They have a bad tendency to think Core and what ever there favorite campaign setting is are Balanced and it's Splat Books like ToB that mess things up.Bonus points if the setting in question is FR.

(he swore black white and blue that 2 bulettes were a hard rated challenge rating for us as a 4x lvl 6 party).Well, two CR 7 critters make for EL 9 encounter, for APL 6 that's a boss fight at the very least. And that assumes CR is somewhat accurate presentation of monster difficulty, which is isn't.

Psyren

2011-09-04, 10:31 PM

Your DM seems to like killing off your party, while you seem to like making deep characters that you expect to be around for awhile. Something's got to give.

TheJake

2011-09-04, 10:47 PM

Have a photocopy of your original character sheet.
Scratch out the name of the character on the sheet and replace it with another name.
Continue to play.

I did this with one GM to drive home the point his method of GMing sucked.

- J.

SaintRidley

2011-09-05, 01:00 AM

A chandelier nearly killed me the very first time I played.

The DM thought it would be fun for the party to have a wyrmling white dragon for a pet. I thought it would be fun to be said dragon. So we're raiding this abandoned temple or somesuch and I, thinking with my dragon brain, decide that I like the look of the chandelier above our heads and wish to take it to begin my personal hoard.

Being a wyrmling white dragon gives me a fly speed with absolutely terrible maneuverability. So I make to fly up to it and roll a 1 on my flight check. So I get tangled in it pretty badly, contorted in ways I'm not really sure could happen, and slowly begin asphyxiating as a result.

Our party monk tries to get me down, but he only tangles himself up in the chandelier as well. Fortunately, our combined weight was too much for the chandelier, so everything came crashing down, releasing us from the predicament.

Yes, that was my very first action in D&D ever - trying to take a chandelier and finding myself its victim.

NNescio

2011-09-05, 01:06 AM

Gandolfi Feesh

2011-09-05, 01:18 AM

Dying is just an alternative circumstance within the game, it's bound to happen at some point. If there was no chance of death, campaign's would lose their edge.

One of my friends has such an impressive track record of carking it, he carries a folder with him to our sessions. Known amongst us as 'The Graveyard', it contains all his previous characters.

Many trees died in the progression of his DnD career.

Zerter

2011-09-05, 01:48 AM

Elixia

2011-09-05, 01:59 AM

i understand that dying is part of the game and without it there no sense of danger BUT as a past dm and my one of my fellow players and current DM of a different group would say 'dying should be a punishment for stupid player decisions, like setting off a trap without looking or disarming or picking a fight with a monster who's obliviously much too tough' our 'deaths' have not been because WE made stupid mistakes but because the DM DIDNT MANAGED HIS ENCOUNTERS! when a player rolls a 17+ adds his BAB and finds out it a missed attack THATS red light! unless its a boss or i 'have to lose battle' (which suck) and its just a random encounter that is completely unbalanced. in our mindset if we cant take on the wildlife, what hope in hell do we have against the boss of this campaign?

on top of this the DM has said on several occasions said were not the main characters, one of his NPC's is and were just in the way (or more than likely his pawns) something me and the other players told was him the wrong way of going about it. since this is makes us feel as useful as a chocolate hammer.

anyway, thinking on it. i think if i ever get back to a gaming session i'm taking a new tact. Play off the characters strengths and NOT taking the dm's lead. for example. that 110ft rope bridge was a trap encounter over a bottomless . everyone in our group either has -2, 0 or 2 on acrobatics, i'll tell them not to cross and find another route. that would be more tactical.

NNescio

2011-09-05, 02:05 AM

Elixia

2011-09-05, 02:06 AM

Sounds like the OP is the problem player, not the DM.

Of course you can die on a succesful reflex save since reflex saves tend to be halve damage. 50% of a lot can still be a lot.

Two Bulettes are only CR+3, it's not like that's an encounter meant to kill you unless you get four of those in a row.

The OP could not let the Bulette be the way the DM wanted them to be, living in a pack and grazing. That's just openly hostile towards the DM and my guess is they were never meant to neccesarily be a hostile encounter until the DM was put under pressure to play the creatures as written.

My advice: look at yourself, talk to the DM about how you feel about his playstyle (because that's always helpful) and give him the room to actually DM instead of having to deal with your negative mindset.

a bulette is CR7 add another and it becomes a CR9 (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/gamemastering.html) the groups APL is 6 is a CR9 is a epic encounter ... on the wildlife.

but hey, maybe your right and i'm just not cut out for this game any longer i should put to rest this 5yr hobby and find another :/ always wanted to get my own blue deck for magic the gathering!

Arbane

2011-09-05, 02:48 AM

on top of this the DM has said on several occasions said were not the main characters, one of his NPC's is and were just in the way (or more than likely his pawns) something me and the other players told was him the wrong way of going about it. since this is makes us feel as useful as a chocolate hammer.

Well, I have to admire his honesty in saying that. That said, I'd tell him to have fun with his NPC's adventures, WITHOUT ME. :smallfurious:

Icestorm245

2011-09-05, 03:57 AM

Jeez, the worst DM experience I ever had in D&D was when we were gathering information about odd things happening around the area and everyone said "The island off the coast has been strange as of late." I tried to tell my DM newfoundland is always like it, it's not strange at all. Kidding! About the newfoundland part anyway. It was pretty justifiable as well.

Actually... when my other DM announced he had a house rule that PrCs don't give you extra attacks per round when your BaB would qualify you for it was pretty bad too. I was a single class cleric then, so it didn't matter to me, but the Paladin who had all his levels changed to Blackguard was pretty confused when his number of attacks per round actually went down. Everyone but the DM was new to D&D at the time, so no one argued until I looked it up and told him that it was pretty unfair he told us to suck it up. Eventually we convinced him of otherwise but... still. He's a great DM though, really good at making stories and not restricting us to one particular track.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that. It was lame on your DM's part to kill off the guy who made his successful reflex, and he should re-evalute his DMing techniques.

Metahuman1

2011-09-05, 07:28 AM

Oh, he's DM pcing?

Ok, what ever you do, do not let him bring a girl he's got the hots for or is dating to a game session. That will be a break point.

Also, my previous advice of talk to him and if he doesn't shape up ship him out is once more recommended.

Thespianus

2011-09-05, 07:43 AM

oh and the rope bridge, it was 110 long, snapped in the middle, the dwarf clung on and hit the wall. splat!
110 ft long bridge, snaps in half, Dwarf holds on to rope = 50 ft of falling damage, ie 5D6 lethal damage unless he makes a successful DC15 Jump or Tumble check, in that case it's 3D6 lethal and 1D6 nonlethal damage.

Shouldn't have made the Dwarf go splat. :smallsmile:

Elixia

2011-09-05, 07:56 AM

yeah, he is DMPCing, that part i can deal with. the NPC 'who's the hero' isn't in the player group but sending us on errands more or less. though the current campaign is completely rotating around the DMPC backstory.

I've dealt the the 'hot girl' situation before. and me as a girl gamer, it got ugly, fast.

the things is, the DM is a cool guy, the campaigns are cool, awesome plots, its just he never does his homework. i know a DM should be able to ad-lib a situation for when something a player/s does surprises you, but i get the feeling this whole campaign has been ad-libbed. hmmm. he's a great mate but doesn't like to be corrected.

anyway, i'm going to drop it. i'm just being whiny ;)

Metahuman1

2011-09-05, 08:42 AM

Right, let me see, funny stories then.

Oriental Adventures game. BBEG comes out, our second time meeting him. My Samurai, who was not the party face, greeted him along with the party face, and said "So, we meet again for the very first time." Because it was the second time they'd met the BBEG. the whole group though I'd done the Space balls quote! (So Lone Star, We Meet Again, for the first time, for the last time!)

Later in that game, the party was having a rematch with one of the BBEG's Leutinets, who had managed to fight the party to a stand still and retreat before. The Dm was using a system where he was making you roll normal attack and damage, then if you hit and did damage, you rolled a D100 to determine what part of the body you hit, with different rules for the amount of damage vs. the location. I'd hit for 6+str mod damage in the first fight too the guys wrist with my off hand short sword (Wakazashi.).

So, before we start fighting, I'm asking him questions that relate to the individual sub-plots (Everyone in the group had one or two of these's as per DM's rules at character creation.) Bad guy get's impatient and so right before we start my Samurai throws in a forceful "One, Final, Question then, before we begin."

The bad guy, annoyed says "What?!"

My Samurai: "How's the wrist?"

I though it was a great way to go into a fight that we knew we had to fight too the death anyway. After all, we knew it was gonna be a death match, so we had nothing to lose by making him angry right at the start.

I know, it's not quite the tavern story, but it was amusing.

DiBastet

2011-09-05, 08:47 AM

Let me yell you one story, op. I don't know if you still want stories or what, but let me tell you.

I somehow feel your pain, but not, one of my players feel your pain. I can even ask him to post here about his problem.

You see, I'm the DM. We play 3.P, going the P route, but we use a lot of reworked rules, my reworked classes and such things. My setting in online for more than 7 years now, and my campaigns are long (one year and a half being the sweet spot), full of rp and drama, spiked with pulp action.

Because I like whole sessions with no combat encounters, most action is pulp. So this action is HARD action: I prefer to make a single challenging, pulp, dramatic encounter than two random encounters. Because of that, the sense of challenge and victory is very big, fitting with great heroes, but people know every time they draw their character weapons, they may not survive (specially because the world isn't designed around them. It's a sandboxy world).

The players mostly know that their "personal adventures", and by that I mean the one who don't advance campaign plot, but character plot, are mostly leveled, but the world isn't. So it's dangerous. And if the player don't take care of his char... well... let's talk about this friend, Cilon.

Cilon has a problem as player: He must play weird charaters. Not classes or feats, or weird races: His characters must be weird in the world. However, he really cares about his characters, or so it seems, because he writes the full "100 questions about your char" for the first session (I only ask it for the third session onward. It's the rule of "three sessions to decide about the char, change anything or leave it, no hard feeling"). He is very invested.

So, when he entered the group for the first time, the last campaign was already on. He made a fire genasi sorcerer elementalist that was very very freaky for the setting. He died on that session, after not taking care with yuan-tis full attacks.

Next he makes a Captain (custom class, using Cavalier from PF and more abilities so it doesn't suck, similar from marshal + cleric's channel energy but giving temporary hit-point). A nice character, hard-nosed seargent, from the roman-like xenophobic land of humans. The character was normal, but being from there was the "wow, how strange!" part. Before his third session , the party decided to go to another plane (level 6), and were slaugthered.

So, next campaign comes, and he's going to play from level one. He decides to make a character that won't be the fighter type. He makes a high elf bard. No combat ability at all, and serious personality problems. He abandons it on the first session.

Next, he is going to make an Agraken (a custom race, similar to Red XIII's race from Final Fantasy 7), but instead of the usual brave, strong, druidic and children of nature agraken that the race is, he is making a freak of nature, that grew on jail as experiment for crazy scientists and that was psychic because of that. Freaky nice concept. He tries to chew fights too hard, forgets to use his defensive abilities and well, is chewed alive, on the 5th.

Next character! A tiefling artificer. He is professor in one university. Besides being an urbane, accepted, and educated tiefling (freak enought), he doesn't have one arm, but has a mechanical arm in the place. The character is not freak enough, he abandons it before the third session. In these three sessions he died almost seven times. Seven.

Next character: A high elf scout. Quick, slim, agile! With a VERY intense backstory, betrayal, working with elven assassins, being an evil guy and having a change of heart when the world almost ended. Also with SERIOUS psychological problems. Stoned by a medusa on the 6th session.

Next character: A hobgoblin artificer, that is a freak for her race, since she is against the effort of war, ran from her home, isn't a wizard and all. Besides that, she acts as a freak, thinks it's a genius, and is an attention whore. It is someone you would call "unpleasant and too much strange", as all his chars. And guess what? First session she almost dies because of a fort save. Later he almost died from disease, from an orc chieftain, etc etc. Cilon likes that char a lot, but he's got another on the back of his mind. Just in case.

And this could lead you to believe my campaigns are slaughterhouses, or that the player is jaded and don't want to create deep characters? But he is not any of these. He is deeply invested in his char life, and is really expending resources on making his character able to survive. Now he understands that if he doesnt take care of himself, with his d6, the world isn't going to not attack him.

So, we like to rp, we like drama, he is on his 5th character in the campaign (the campaign is on level 7 now), and for the first time he actually leveled up his char (instead of dying, the party leveling, and his next char being leveled too). So keep going. Death my happens, but if you like to rp, keep going.

And learn with your mistakes. And if you don't make mistakes, so learn the DM mistakes and AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Or come and play my game. Of course, if you live in my country. In my state. In my city. But you get the idea. You may leave the game, but never the hobby ho!

Elixia

2011-09-05, 09:29 AM

metahuman: 'hows the wrist?' niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, reminds me of my rogue from the last set of campaigns. she was cocky too.

Dibasket: wow, those are weird characters. i mean play detailed one myself but never that 'out there'. i would love to join but i'm in the UK. Though i know what you mean about looking after your characters. in future I think try and steer the party clear of stealth and acrobatic checks since these are our worst qualities and ones that are causing us most harm :)

Quietus

2011-09-05, 09:43 AM

Man, I'm a writer looking to DM a campaign in the Not Too Distant Future. :smalleek: Guess I better work on my improv, or plan for pretty much everything.

This is *never* the best way to go, in my experience. Don't waste time planning for everything, because you'll end up with at least ~75% of your planning time going to waste. Instead, think of cool encounters. For example, I have a group I play with in real life, playing characters exploring uncharted ruins and slowly learning about the horrors that happened there - and will happen again. Part of this involved them exploring what is now a wetlands/swamp, which used to be a bustling city. My notes consisted more or less of :

- Illusions over the entire place, make it look like it's still there. 100% perfect illusions of the last day this city experienced.
- Illusions caused by Aboleth, which will want the players to do some work for it if it can contact them. Aboleth has an artifact the players want, and will swap it for this work.
- Aboleth has an enslaved ethergaunt that it's forcing to do repair work to make the city actually look the way the illusions do
- HD/size advanced Assassin vine under a half-repaired bridge
- Shambling mound with two levels of Totemist to make it more of a threat
- Skum that were originally the inhabitants of the town the aboleth saved
- Chuul

Those were the situations I had planned. I could plunk any of them at any point; I dropped hints regarding bridges at both ends of the ruined city, I described how the illusion seemed to be in place where the city once stood, so the ground began at their knees or hips while they stood in the muck. I dropped the skum in mingling with the illusionary crowd (hide checks, which the players easily beat), so the players could see them. They never encountered the aboleth's enslaved ethergaunt, but they did find the aboleth itself, after following the skum into a watery cave. I used the shambling mound as a "random" encounter, which went fairly well since the guy playing an archer has a shocking bow. I never used the chuul, at least not against the party.

Beyond these things, I plan for what information I want to drop, and what my goals are. For this, I had..

- What exactly happened here? (Illusion shows this, aboleth can tell them)
- Where do they need to go from here? (They now know what wiped this place out/can try scrying, aboleth can tell them through ethergaunt's knowledge where the rest of them are)
- Enhance rivalry with other party (Find other dead monsters, find evidence of how the other party operates, possibly give an option to save rival party/have them save PCs)

And then I just plan for those situations above. Clearly I need to know exactly what happened, as that's being put on display as a city-wide piece of installation art. I need to know what the aboleth knows (almost everything, via questioning his ethergaunt slave). I need to have the stats ready for the opposing party, and for the planned encounters. Beyond those things? I ad-lib.

I wanted to make the players have to chase the skum, so I had them retreat into a watery hole in the ground that led to underground caves. They had no way of knowing what was down there, so they had to work to get water breathing and the ability to talk to things before they chased after. That also let me present the illusionary battle before they questioned the aboleth, which was much better. I didn't plan for them to specifically examine one of the homes that was rebuilt, and decided on the fly that not only was the building recreated, but every item present in the illusion. The players seemed first creeped out by the fact that everything was unnaturally perfect, and then moreso when they started finding art that wasn't as good beneath the illusion, and coins that were clear forgeries. All off the top of my head, because it was interesting at the time.

... And all of this is going wildly off-topic. So, with no further asides, I return you to your regularly scheduled thread. :smalltongue:

Greenish

2011-09-05, 09:53 AM

110 ft long bridge, snaps in half, Dwarf holds on to rope = 50 ft of falling damage, ie 5D6 lethal damage unless he makes a successful DC15 Jump or Tumble check, in that case it's 3D6 lethal and 1D6 nonlethal damage.Hey folks, it's time for another edition of "Greenish talks out of his arse while failing basic physics and geometry":

Assuming the rope bridge is perfectly level and in 45° angle from the offending canyon wall, and the bridge snaps in straight middle, and the dwarf holds on the the very end, he'll actually describe about 85' long arc to the wall, with acceleration I imagine is not noticeably less than that from a free fall.

Whether falling rules apply to collisions in what is essentially a horizontal trajectory in the point of impact is a different matter, of course.

Quietus

2011-09-05, 10:10 AM

Whether falling rules apply to collisions in what is essentially a horizontal trajectory in the point of impact is a different matter, of course.

Worth noting; There's a couple of flying monsters that can snatch a creature, then throw them. I want to say the roc can do this, but that's talking out of MY ass. In those cases, they're called out as doing damage based on the greater of the distance traveled, horizontal or vertical.

DiBastet

2011-09-05, 10:10 AM

i would love to join but i'm in the UK.

Whenever you're in Brazil come and join us, it's a great group: We play on the beach, drinking from coconuts, the men wear bermuda shorts and sunglasses and the girls must play in thong bikinis (I banned the normal bikinis, since they were broken). :smallcool:

Quietus

2011-09-05, 10:15 AM

Whenever you're in Brazil come and join us, it's a great group: We play on the beach, drinking from coconuts, the men wear bermuda shorts and sunglasses and the girls must play in thong bikinis (I banned the normal bikinis, since they were broken). :smallcool:

Excuse me while I go make a Coolest Game Ever trophy for you. :smallcool:

Elixia

2011-09-05, 10:32 AM

Worth noting; There's a couple of flying monsters that can snatch a creature, then throw them. I want to say the roc can do this, but that's talking out of MY ass. In those cases, they're called out as doing damage based on the greater of the distance traveled, horizontal or vertical.

Ok this is interesting, just splitballing. so you have the fall at 50ft horizonal and 50ft vertical, if they only take the greater fall damage of the 2 (H or V) that would be 50ft right? so that means ............. oh I've gone crossed eyed.

but dnd on the beach? exotic! the best i did was in a tent in wales :/ nice weather thou.

Thespianus

2011-09-05, 10:55 AM

Hey folks, it's time for another edition of "Greenish talks out of his arse while failing basic physics and geometry":

Assuming the rope bridge is perfectly level and in 45° angle from the offending canyon wall, and the bridge snaps in straight middle, and the dwarf holds on the the very end, he'll actually describe about 85' long arc to the wall, with acceleration I imagine is not noticeably less than that from a free fall.

Whether falling rules apply to collisions in what is essentially a horizontal trajectory in the point of impact is a different matter, of course.

Using this math, a character would die from riding a gently inclined water slide. :-)

It's the energy that matters. Falling from 50 feet causes 5d6 of damage. The character fell 50(55)feet , the only difference the rope gives is that it adjusts the direction of the fall. ( also, it makes the fall a lot cooler )

Quietus

2011-09-05, 11:14 AM

Ok this is interesting, just splitballing. so you have the fall at 50ft horizonal and 50ft vertical, if they only take the greater fall damage of the 2 (H or V) that would be 50ft right? so that means ............. oh I've gone crossed eyed.

but dnd on the beach? exotic! the best i did was in a tent in wales :/ nice weather thou.

That's entirely correct. Physics and its stupid hypotenuse can go suck an egg, I guess?

Doughnut Master

2011-09-05, 11:15 AM

i've DM'ed before myself in a homebrew. before the campaign even started i had a map, marked with city, landmarks, terrian and a list of monster, races and aniamals that lived there. all core NPC had stat block, personalities and motives. some animals even had migration patterns!! then dropped my players bang in the middle to go nuts! much fun! at one point they got lost and one of the migration paths actually saved them as a hunting party was there to rescue them (after a 2 weeks and numerous failed survival checks, thank god that made good endurance ones ...).

Any advice on how to start going about doing this? I'm trying to work out a sandbox game for my group, but I've never done anything like that before, and it's hitting me as a very daunting task.

Elixia

2011-09-05, 11:22 AM

That's entirely correct. Physics and its stupid hypotenuse can go suck an egg, I guess?

pfffffffffffffft i did GCSE maths 10 years ago, i only remembered that stuff to past the test. my maths suck, i blame my lazy brain. and so why do i play characters where i have to roll and add up lots of d6's ... the mental excerise i suppose

Thespianus

2011-09-05, 11:24 AM

That's entirely correct. Physics and its stupid hypotenuse can go suck an egg, I guess?

I have no idea what the rules say about rope-dangling falling damage, but it seems to me that the rules are actually in line with the real world physics in this case. ;-)

You should only take damage as if you fell 50 feet, ie 5D6, or a measly 17 hp damage. Less splat and more urgh, I'd say. ;-)

DiBastet

2011-09-05, 01:05 PM

Less splat more urgh, that's for real.

If he wasn't a 1st level char, of course.

Elixia

2011-09-05, 01:12 PM

he was lvl 6

DiBastet

2011-09-05, 01:36 PM

DM suckage.

I shall return to the coconuts and bikini-clad female players. Wish you luck. Hope it's a nice campaign. :smallsigh:

Elixia

2011-09-05, 02:22 PM

no! no! WAIT FOR ME!!!!!

Grendus

2011-09-05, 04:46 PM

It should have been about the damage for a 50 foot fall, give or take. 50 feet of potential energy was turned into kinetic energy, redirected by the rope bridge but still there. I'd knock 5-10 feet off because the bridge is going to get a lot more air resistance swinging than a dwarf would falling, then make the dwarf roll a... eh, we'll go with a fort save to hold onto the rope after he slams into the wall. After that it's a DC 5 climb check to climb the now rope-ladder.

But I think I got a similar problem wrong on a physics test doing that, so that's just napkin math. Sounds about right, and would probably work just fine in a game though.

Dimers

2011-09-05, 06:44 PM

anyway, the point is i've tried to help him with my experiences on how to plan in advance or to 'cheat' behind the screen. like if you accidently made it too hard unintentionally, lower the AC and maybe drop a few HP's or if its going to easy, feed it more HP's and fudge your damage output without it being noticeable.

Sounds like a good group in which to use an assistant DM, a Major of Martial Mechanics if you will.

Funny stuff: I recently played in a group that was used to using mindlinks and sendings to keep in touch, because we split up so often and so far. The cleric usually had two or three castings of sending prepared each day. He realized partway through composing one message that he didn't have to trim down to 25 words because he was using INK and PAPER and a MESSENGER (!!), and the player actually exclaimed in joy. :smallsmile:

Explodingcube

2011-09-05, 06:57 PM

Here's one I thought was funny as a DM. The party is in the desert, wandering on, as suddenly I declare initiative rolls. The low optimization druid got the highest and the others were surprised by a brass dragon young adult. The battle starts with the druid twiddling his thumbs on his turn, and the dragon acts. It breathes fire on the party, with of course the rogue being the only one to fail his reflex(sorcerer was laughing at this point, he had a +1 to the rogues +4). Rogue gets burned to 3 hp. Battle ensues until the druid's turn at which point the player says the words:Stop, I want to.......................talk to the dragon. The party argues for 30 real minutes before I declare my ridiculous rule, and state that the dragon is about to go again. Who knew that a faster monster turn could quiet players and make a party at each others throats want to work so cooperatively?

Elixia

2011-09-06, 02:00 AM

that druid sounds like me! that MY kinda tactics! I'm very much a creative problem solved.

the last encounter of my last session were surrounded by 5 bandits and ejit (spelling? mountain troll creature that forms attachments to to animals or humanoids), because we were in a rough way I used invisibility sphere instantly on everyone, then when i could scare to send half the bandits away while the bard put the rest to sleep. we ran found they're camp and leaft them a note 'we owe you 10,000 gold pieces .... and we took your tents!'

Coidzor

2011-09-06, 04:21 AM

AKA the Nethack approach.

Oh? I didn't think there was any way to do that in Nethack, you had to go through char gen each time.

Man, I'm a writer looking to DM a campaign in the Not Too Distant Future. :smalleek: Guess I better work on my improv, or plan for pretty much everything.

Or realize that D&D is not your fanfic or novel or epic poem and just run the darn thing.

on top of this the DM has said on several occasions said were not the main characters, one of his NPC's is and were just in the way (or more than likely his pawns) something me and the other players told was him the wrong way of going about it. since this is makes us feel as useful as a chocolate hammer.

So, this cool bro of yours doesn't care about the fact that you guys have mentioned you have a beef with this in the past, doesn't do his DMing homework, and actively sets out to make you not enjoy the game anymore and you're just dropping it?

When he sets up plots like this?

Elixia

2011-09-06, 04:38 AM

Any advice on how to start going about doing this? I'm trying to work out a sandbox game for my group, but I've never done anything like that before, and it's hitting me as a very daunting task.

ok,

start small, its easy to overload yourself.
I themed my campaign on a mountains and ice and suck to those elements, and had a sorceress trying to over take the area and oppressing the native races/tribes. I drew map for my sandbox and put monsters there according to there discriptions, stuck in a few mountain ranges (trolls/ice and storm gaints), a glazier, icy tundra (scvangers type monsters), forests (bandits and more).

i had several planned 'key events' which i could use when i wished, like a travelling caravan being attacked, a city siege, a tournament. i also had all my VIP npc's made before hand. Then scattered plot hook 'breadcrumbs' everywhere to guide the players.

this with your handy tables for regular DC checks, normally on your screen. your good to go! then expect the player to go the wrong way OR figure out too quickly your secret villain ....

Elixia

2011-09-06, 05:30 AM

So, this cool bro of yours doesn't care about the fact that you guys have mentioned you have a beef with this in the past, doesn't do his DMing homework, and actively sets out to make you not enjoy the game anymore and you're just dropping it?

When he sets up plots like this?

*low whistle* 5 years of THIS. yes. and believe me, he's made improvements.

its a long story, but the world we play in its homebrewed. By the DM, me and other 2 players. since we've all had turns dming it and added a little bit more to it. so each of us have a equal stake in it more or less.

most of the time he good, dont get me wrong but when he makes a grand mistake he refuse to see it. there have been bouts where we have tried to tell him what is and isn't fun in dnd. and sometimes it seems to have worked. but you know what you say about old dogs and new tricks, someone suggested an assistant DM, we did this once i think we may need to do this again.

Kogak

2011-09-06, 06:36 AM

Not sure if you're still doing stories amidst the physics but...

My first AD&D character (note the A) was a good 'ole dwarf fighter (started chaotic good). Our DM was a great DM and had two critical miss tables to spice things up a bit. One was for the rest of the part, the other was for me because I had partially memorized the first through use. Poor, poor dwarf.

Anyhow, I was minding my own business in the middle of the group where a good fighter should be when we were ambushed by... giant frogs. Yep, frogs. I break out my sword and shield (pretty stereotyped dwarf, eh?) and go to battle with a -10 AC. I was pretty confident no random encounter would even break a sweat. I had a sword of swiftness, allowing me to attack first each round. I rolled... 1. After some cursing, I rolled my percentile to see how bad the damage would be. 100%. Bugger! Roll three more times. The next number was a 92% or some such. Stab self, critical hit. Followed by a "break weapon", and a "stun target".

My dwarf stabbed himself with his own sword, proceeded to almost break it off (magical, so the DM took pity and rolled a save to avoid shattering it) in himself, and fell over stunned from the shock. Is this bad enough? Nope. A giant frog, seeing a helpless victim eats my dwarf whole.

Pretty embarrassing, huh? It doesn't end there. My dwarf is still alive and kicking, and fights his way out of this frog, angry as can be. Raging (berserker kit) and looking at the second frog, my dwarf charges! The frog rolls a 20 and eats him whole immediately. Sadly, this time my dwarf was reduced to -8 from stomach acid and did not emerge on his own. He had a terrible phobia of frogs forever more.

This was later used against him in the form of Bullywugs (that the right name?). Blasted DM.

Elixia

2011-09-06, 07:14 AM

thats pretty dire! ... and funny! you seems to be a good humour about it too! stories like those are always cool.

Doughnut Master

2011-09-06, 08:30 AM

ok,

start small, its easy to overload yourself.
I themed my campaign on a mountains and ice and suck to those elements, and had a sorceress trying to over take the area and oppressing the native races/tribes. I drew map for my sandbox and put monsters there according to there discriptions, stuck in a few mountain ranges (trolls/ice and storm gaints), a glazier, icy tundra (scvangers type monsters), forests (bandits and more).

i had several planned 'key events' which i could use when i wished, like a travelling caravan being attacked, a city siege, a tournament. i also had all my VIP npc's made before hand. Then scattered plot hook 'breadcrumbs' everywhere to guide the players.

this with your handy tables for regular DC checks, normally on your screen. your good to go! then expect the player to go the wrong way OR figure out too quickly your secret villain ....

Awesome. Did you use any other resources, or just your books and your noodle?

Elixia

2011-09-06, 09:12 AM

Awesome. Did you use any other resources, or just your books and your noodle?

just my books and my noodle! i had a scrapbook i carried that had with notes.

oh, and a map! a blank one for the players to keep and full detailed one for myself.

JonRG

2011-09-06, 12:02 PM

Or realize that D&D is not your fanfic or novel or epic poem and just run the darn thing.

Indeed, that was my plan. Thing is, the module I've gotten my hands on (Kingmaker) is a bit sandboxier than your average adventure path. Plus, one of the guys who might play in it can get disruptive. So I'm just a concerned at the number of wrenches I have to dodge. In theory, I know the little tricks to keeping things sandboxy without planning for every possible contingency. It's just harder to put in practice.

Thanks to Quietus and Elixia for the good ideas, though. :smallsmile:

Oh, and to keep the thread on topic.

For Curse of the Crimson Throne, the party was as follows.

- dwarf fighter
- elf rogue
- human barbarian (me)
- gnome bard x 2
- human bard
- human summoner

It seemed like a fairly reasonable balance of support, spellcasting, and damage dealing. That is, until the fighter and rogue stopped showing up. All the bards only had 1 round of bardic music, and none of them felt like using it. The summoner was similarly lacking in combat spells. So for the first three levels, I basically waded into combat alone with an audience and gratuitous AP use. The gnome bards re-rolled, but only after the DM basically said, "If this keeps up, [the barbarian]'s going to die and you're all going to TPK."

Yeah, that game did bad things to my blood pressure. :smallfurious:

Arbane

2011-09-06, 12:09 PM

For Curse of the Crimson Throne, the party was as follows.

- dwarf fighter
- elf rogue
- human barbarian (me)
- gnome bard x 2
- human bard
- human summoner

It seemed like a fairly reasonable balance of support, spellcasting, and damage dealing.

THREE BARDS is "balanced"? :smalleek:

JonRG

2011-09-06, 12:19 PM

THREE BARDS is "balanced"? :smalleek:

Well, when there were four things that weren't bards... not really no. I was being optimistic at first. :smallredface:

ThreeDSix

2011-09-06, 12:53 PM

In my second campaign, our party was travelling through a desert, trying to reach a temple of some lost deity, when we found evidence of a dragon's cave nearby. After a short discussion on how we can't pass up the glory - not to mention the hoard - we (rather stupidly, in retrospect) blundered up to the cave entrance in broad daylight, where the dragon promptly pounced on us from a ledge, using his fire breath as he did.
Needless to say, we were at a disagvantage and getting our collective posteriors handed to us on molten silver platters, when we noticed our rogue wasn't doing his sneaky, stabby bit...

After a difficult battle which we barely survived (I didn't) the party proceded into the cave to collect their well earned loot - to find the rogue stuffing it into a bag of holding.
The rogue tried to explain - what the rest of the party saw as a betrayal - as a contingency - if we lost, we could have retreated and still recieved some of the spoils. Half the party agreed with him, the other half wanted him dead (headed by an easily riled lizardfolk fighter, who had arguments with the rogue in the past).
The resulting melee ended with two more characters dead (the rogue's side lost) and at the end of the session we unanimously decided to give the rogue the award for best played character that session. :smallbiggrin:

Good times.

opticalshadow

2011-09-06, 12:59 PM

sounds like op has a bad dm for his playstyle. either talk with yours or get a new one. he might not be doing anything wrong, but he might be dming in a fashion that dosnt fit you.

i persoanlly get very invested into my characters, and i dont mind them dying, so long as its not stupid an unavoidable.

Elixia

2011-09-06, 01:30 PM

ooooh yes, without your melee and meat shield and the healers to back up it makes for a tough fight! i would of felt a little like 'like the squishies have it!'

Draconi Redfir

2011-09-06, 01:39 PM

In my first real campaign i played as Euav'Ogsit Redfir, a 50 year old bugbear cleric, with unusually unlucky rolls when it came to making heal checks.

One day while adventuring, one of Euav's companions fell into a pit and got himself impaled through the torso on one of the spikes, rushing to the partymember’s rescue, he climbed down the side of the pit and to the impaled man's side to heal him.

The dice roll was so low, that he actually wound up pushing his companion deeper down onto the spike and killing him, (Or removing something beating from his torso, looking at it, and then asking if it was important, that little detail tends to change every now and then.) This is a fact i will always remember, as the player who’s character i killed continuously reminds me and every new player we come across of the event whenever talking about failed rolls or the like.

Needless to say he never used heal checks again, despite me pouring more and more points into it as he progressed through the levels.

Greenish

2011-09-06, 01:43 PM

All the bards only had 1 round of bardic musicOh PF bard nerfs, how we love thee. :smallannoyed:

THREE BARDS is "balanced"? :smalleek:Well, if they focused on different things, sure. One of them probably wouldn't do much music (beyond lowest levels where the others might not have uses left).

Elixia

2011-09-06, 01:48 PM

Or removing something beating from his torso, looking at it, and then asking if it was important, that little detail tends to change every now and then.
ROFL! Thats fried gold right there!

sounds like op has a bad dm for his playstyle. either talk with yours or get a new one. he might not be doing anything wrong, but he might be dming in a fashion that dosnt fit you.

i persoanlly get very invested into my characters, and i dont mind them dying, so long as its not stupid an unavoidable.

nail on head.

i HATE to do this but i checked out that random encounter we ran from after the bulettes ate half the party... cr10 (grey render and 5 mercenaries), one level above epic for the group at a APL 6 *sigh*

i dont like second guessing DM's, i like to trust them completely like i do with my second group (yeah i play two groups)

i give up.

DiBastet

2011-09-06, 01:53 PM

You see, in the case of a good DM, I would point that maybe it's a sandboxy world, where the creatures living in it aren't leveled to the players...

It would be the case in my campaign. People found a bullete once, they were level 6, and they made what they could to evade it.

But in your case... it is hard to say anything to cheer you up.

Elixia

2011-09-06, 02:14 PM

I've bulettes to left of me,
and grey renders on and right!
and i'm....
stuck in the middle with you~ ;)

Eric Tolle

2011-09-06, 04:10 PM

THREE BARDS is "balanced"? :smalleek:

Three Bards isnt bad at all; depending on the optimization, you can get an excellent archer, or buffer, or spellcaster. The problem was the other choices. Mucking around with two Tier 4 and one Tier 5 class is just asking to be kicked around by the GM. I could almost see having a rogue or barbarian if there wasn't a summoner, but a fighter? Was there some sort of religious or masochistic reason to screw everyone over with a fighter, rather than bringing in a Druid or warpriest?
If it was a properly built party, with a wizard, druid or cleric in it, I think things would have gone much more easily.

LansXero

2011-09-06, 05:24 PM

Indeed, that was my plan. Thing is, the module I've gotten my hands on (Kingmaker) is a bit sandboxier than your average adventure path.

The thing is... players dont know what you have planned for where. If you have an orc encounter set up, use it whenever it seems fitting, regardless of what the players do or dont. Bring out the encounters not to "railroad" them but to keep something or other happening and prevent boredom. Even if they run away, they are reacting to it and thus interacting.

Kingmaker has a nice table of random kingdom events to help with that, its good inspiration but things happening once a month may make things grad a bit. You could pre-roll those and use the build up to whatever event they'll get this month to flesh out events around them that need to be dealt with. Im actually using Kingmaker's system for my home campaign atm... players loved the city-building aspects and are becoming very protective of their little city.

The fact that its set on a 3.5ified Warhammer Fantasy world may have something to do with it though... everything out there is trying to and capable of wiping them out from existence, but at least with my players the harder the world pushes, the harder they push back. If I was in love with the setting or a premade story, or even followed logical consequences, they shouldve been extinct a long time ago, but by letting them seek out an existance, as precarious as it may be (their city has 2 house blocks and a magical academy. farms? who needs those? we needz magick loot!) and giving them control over their own fate, they become much more involved.

Trying to stay in topic, my players may be a very odd breed. They cant manage to stay long without NPCs. When we started they didnt have one so they grabbed a random goblin and used him as a guide / trapfinder. When the little bugger eventually died, it got replaced by a kobold and the first adventure's damsel in distress. Whom they made a full sheet for, and has been leeching off xp at a rather quick pace >_<. Then since no one wanted to be a healer, they went out of their way to hire three of them at outrageous prices. Then they made the rescued wizard and the healers rulers of their city and left to gather more money to build more houses and more magic shops... They seem to get bored when they are the strongest people around and actually like to see strong NPCs show off and put them in positions of power over themselves... they are just weird.

Coidzor

2011-09-06, 06:31 PM

THREE BARDS is "balanced"? :smalleek:

Yes. :smallconfused: You can build a balanced party out of nothing but bards in 3.5 and have it work out quite well.

Considering they can build towards any role and contribute well in most-to-all situations, and the party roster had 7 members, two of which are beatsticks, one of which is caster+beatstick, and then there's the rogue which is either melee or ranged attack support, they really needed pinch hitters and support anyway.

Well, I imagine the Bards are the most balanced party members, even if it is pathfinder and bards are mostly nerfed.

JonRG

2011-09-06, 06:35 PM

The thing is... players dont know what you have planned for where. If you have an orc encounter set up, use it whenever it seems fitting, regardless of what the players do or dont. Bring out the encounters not to "railroad" them but to keep something or other happening and prevent boredom. Even if they run away, they are reacting to it and thus interacting.

Indeed. Thanks for the advice.

I have gleaned a ton of improvisational tricks, in particular from these boards. In theory, I know it's a matter of taking "the orc bandits from the town the PCs skipped" and making them "the orc bandits that are right in front of you ZOMG." Or swapping "evil cultist wizards" for "angry Silver Flame pyromancers" or "mages looking for a fight," depending on what's called for. It's a stage fright thing for the most part, which makes me not want to read the module and "ruin" it for other better DMs, thus increasing my feelings of unpreparedness.

Coidzor

2011-09-06, 09:19 PM

It's a stage fright thing for the most part, which makes me not want to read the module and "ruin" it for other better DMs, thus increasing my feelings of unpreparedness.

You have stage fright for reading? :smallconfused:

Arbane

2011-09-07, 12:21 AM

I could almost see having a rogue or barbarian if there wasn't a summoner, but a fighter? Was there some sort of religious or masochistic reason to screw everyone over with a fighter, rather than bringing in a Druid or warpriest?

Not everyone knows the tier system, and not everyone treats it as gospel.

Alaris

2011-09-07, 12:54 AM

personally, i'm wondering if put too much investment into the characters i make and should instead make more just generic ones that i don't get too accustom too.

just feeling pretty low, perhaps you guys may have some funny stories to pick me up!

Well, I definitely don't recommend making more generic characters. The moment you stop caring about your characters, you stop caring about the game. And that, I believe, is when you stop having fun with it. I have a friend of mine who is in that kind of funk, not caring so much about his characters, moving onto the next one, and it's obvious he's not having much fun with the game.

So seriously, I recommend talking to your DM. He doesn't appear to have much knowledge on the balance of the game, and is killing you guys way more easily than he should have. Though I believe part of it depends on the make up of your party.

At least in my opinion, you need to care about your characters, and their stories, to care about the game, and to have fun.

I wish you the best of luck, and hope you continue to have fun gaming.

JonRG

2011-09-07, 12:58 AM

You have stage fright for reading? :smallconfused:

No, I love to read, but if I go through the whole module and can't run it, then no one else in the group can run it. Since, yanno, I've read the whole damn thing.

This might apply less to Kingmaker than other modules, come to think of it...

-Why was your party so under-optimized? ZOMG-

I picked barbarian because my other game involved playing the most manipulative bastard of a telepath, and I wanted something simple. What's more straightforward than a Shoanti barbarian? (If it helps, I did get a dip in Lion Totem and went directly to Frenzied Berserker because I wasn't sure if I could count on anyone else. I kinda broke the game towards the end. :smallamused:)

The rogue's player didn't really give a crap, and the fighter was a visiting party member from out-of-state. The bards weren't "fine" in any sense, half due to PF nerfs and half due to bad tactics. They (and the summoner) did pretty much nothing for three levels. One of the gnome bards tried to Sleep me once while a crocodile was eating the fighter. Not the teamiest of team players, that guy. :smallsigh:

Knaight

2011-09-07, 01:14 AM

Not everyone knows the tier system, and not everyone treats it as gospel.

It also doesn't say "never play a fighter". A fighter and a bunch of bards are within 2 tiers of each other, which isn't really all that likely to cause problems according to the system itself.

Coidzor

2011-09-07, 01:22 AM

No, I love to read, but if I go through the whole module and can't run it, then no one else in the group can run it. Since, yanno, I've read the whole damn thing.

This might apply less to Kingmaker than other modules, come to think of it...

Decidedly so, since you're pretty much all but obligated to put your own spin on things anyway.

Not everyone knows the tier system, and not everyone treats it as gospel.

Fighters being the red-headed step children of the game is... pretty much independent of the Tier System. Tier system just says to be aware of the limitations of the fighter when DMing, really.

Now most NPC classes and Truenamer, those it does say not to let people play. Which stands to reason, as even most Truenamer experts and players discourage others from doing so.

Take ya like 5 minutes to learn it though. Well, maybe 10 if you wanna read the entirety of it. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0)

The Tier System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite (Spell to Power Variant)

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potentially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and easily world shattering, but not in quite so many ways. Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges), Eurdite (No Spell to Power)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Zhentarium Variant)

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight, CW Samurai (with Imperious Command available)

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai (without Imperious Command available), Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner

Ossian

2011-09-07, 01:47 AM

he comes up with the most compelling stories so he allowed him to DM. his stories are brilliant, i do like them. but his execution ..... er, is too ad-libbed or mal-managed, or miscalucated (he swore black white and blue that 2 bulettes were a hard rated challenge rating for us as a 4x lvl 6 party).

i've DM'ed before myself in a homebrew. before the campaign even started i had a map, marked with city, landmarks, terrian and a list of monster, races and aniamals that lived there. all core NPC had stat block, personalities and motives. some animals even had migration patterns!! then dropped my players bang in the middle to go nuts! much fun! at one point they got lost and one of the migration paths actually saved them as a hunting party was there to rescue them (after a 2 weeks and numerous failed survival checks, thank god that made good endurance ones ...).

anyway, the point is i've tried to help him with my experiences on how to plan in advance or to 'cheat' behind the screen. like if you accidently made it too hard unintentionally, lower the AC and maybe drop a few HP's or if its going to easy, feed it more HP's and fudge your damage output without it being noticeable.

but he takes the noble highground, the 'but you survived didn't you?' yes. but it wasn't fun. and it was expensive to res half the party, and now half the party is a lower lvl.

we've nominated a player to discuss this with him, lucky its its best friend. fingers crossed

Are you guy all "Spartaaans!", that, you never retreat, you never surrender? :smallbiggrin:

Just kidding here, but I wonder if you could not have fled from the bulettes (which sounds so much like meatball, but maybe not in English?).
I think you should keep the DM. Better to teach the rules to a good writer than to teach storytelling to a number cruncher (or easier, I guess). Plus, he keeps you on your toes, after all, D&D reaches a plateau pretty darn soon (level 12, you are a wizard, fun ends or the "old school" fun ends). Look, it s "player money" you spend to res the party, and having to regain those levels means you

a) Stay in that beautiful golden age of lvl 6 to 9 a bit longer
b) Gain "true grit" (as a player and as a character) by the time you actually reach a respectable level (you earned it dudes, like every hit point O-Chul the paladin has)
c) Have to figure out a way to stay out of destitution! Really, how many interesting characters in adventuring party (i.e. Batman does not count) can you list from cool stories (comics, books etc...) that are rich? Ok, there are many, but the majority has to figure out a way to make ends meet!

Have lotsa fun,

Ossian

Elixia

2011-09-07, 02:06 AM

Are you guy all "Spartaaans!", that, you never retreat, you never surrender? :smallbiggrin:

Just kidding here, but I wonder if you could not have fled from the bulettes (which sounds so much like meatball, but maybe not in English?).

Nope.

I did mention this him at the time, since my character was literally penned up in the corner of a collapsing house with a bulette in front of me that just ate the bard (bulette came from underground) and the other was blocking the doorway where the dwarf cleric and half-elf paladin were trying to deal with it. swinging and missing, every round. the grid was something small as 25ft by 40ft meaning 2 attacks of opportunity even trying to move around them.

I suppose i should explain the party since people are mentioning tiers (tiers?)

Its PF rules so,
- lvl6 Draconic sorceress, me
- lvl4 Bard/lvl2 rogue, DMPC
- lvl5 cleric/lvl1 fighter
- lvl6 Paladin

if i remember that right. there was a player i knew who was a rules lawyer and i think inviting him to the game might help us out.

also, I'm always up for running! in all honesty if i can 'get rid of' an encounter with little to no fighting possible that usually my tact! but the cleric and paladin players started complaining so I've been letting them have their hack and slash fun.

another idea was changing systems, put the DM on 4e since that pretty much does ALL the balancing for you! thou its a little too, er, OTT for me. not keen on the powercard system.

c) Have to figure out a way to stay out of destitution! Really, how many interesting characters in adventuring party (i.e. Batman does not count) can you list from cool stories (comics, books etc...) that are rich? Ok, there are many, but the majority has to figure out a way to make ends meet!

I actually took up jewellery making, dancing and singing for trades with this character. i would use them ... if i could get into the towns. as part of the plot anyone found with magic is dragging off and butchered (think the plot of stardust) AND the group is blamed for a murder in the DMPC backstory. but still i could make a profit at some point veeeeery easily.

Crocodactyl

2011-09-07, 02:28 AM

I play 3.5 with my friends, but due to busy schedules, only 2 of them can be around regularly, so the three of us started a little AD&D campaign. I DM and my players are a CN Half Elf Thief and a LG human Cleric. They are levels six and seven respectively.

Anyways, the Cleric sucks at staying in character and the dice take no mercy on him. At one point, they desperately needed to get a rowboat to travel some distance on a river, and the quest giver had given them a sum of money to procure said boat. They get to the docks and ask some people if any of them have a boat for sale. After finding a guy who does, the thief decides to keep the money and steal the boat, so he jumps in, cleric close behind, and rows out into the water away from the dock. The man they were trying to rob clung onto the side of the boat, so the thief, being the nonviolent sort, apologizes to the guy then gently pushes him off into the slow moving water so he can swim to shore. The cleric then picks up his oar and bashes the guy over the head with it, rolling well and knocking him out. The thief was too slow to save him from drowning. I think he really means well, but that was only the first of three murders he has committed over the past few months of play.

Coidzor

2011-09-07, 02:31 AM

c) Have to figure out a way to stay out of destitution! Really, how many interesting characters in adventuring party (i.e. Batman does not count) can you list from cool stories (comics, books etc...) that are rich? Ok, there are many, but the majority has to figure out a way to make ends meet!

Which would work if this weren't Pathfinder which is still heavily predicated on the whole WBL schema.

I actually up jewellery making, dancing and singing for trades with this character. i would use them ... if i could get into the towns. as part of the plot anyone found with magic is dragging off and butchered (think the plot of stardust) AND the group is blamed for a murder in the DMPC backstory. but still i could make a profit at some point veeeeery easily.

I think your DM at this point is just trying to rack up as many reasons to get smacked as he can before someone actually does so. :smallconfused:

Elixia

2011-09-07, 03:53 AM

The cleric then picks up his oar and bashes the guy over the head with it, rolling well and knocking him out. The thief was too slow to save him from drowning. I think he really means well, but that was only the first of three murders he has committed over the past few months of play.

OK, alright. send him our way. we have an institute for 'clerics' since every one were seen has been bat s**t crazy! XD

our first cleric, had barbarian style rage issues and attacked party members if they didn't get their own way!

second cleric threw himself out of a window so he wouldn't be caught by 'the fuzz' ... they weren't after him UNTIL he tried to leg it, a secret guilt perhaps? (that was me DMing ;P)

third cleric had a ghost friend in tow, so would randomly talk to herself (i played that one).

Our current one has thing about attacking peoples nuggets (dwarf) ...

Which would work if this weren't Pathfinder which is still heavily predicated on the whole WBL schema.

WBL schema? what does that mean?
Sorry, i have played for 5 years but its all been homebrewed and more of a RPer so i dont know a lot of terminology .... I'm a 5yrs old noob

I think your DM at this point is just trying to rack up as many reasons to get smacked as he can before someone actually does so. :smallconfused:

yeah, one of my many complaints. I told him we'll need supplies, he says there are towns which i remind him are ALL HOSTILE. i keep telling him he needs to cut us some slack here. But maybe i was being too subtle.

DemonRoach

2011-09-07, 04:06 AM

WBL schema? what does that mean?

Wealth By Level guidelines (aka how much you ought to have for your level).

Its in the DMG, page 135 off the top of my head.

For a 6th level character you ought to have 13 000 gp in money and/or items.

EDIT: Urg, just realised your talking Pathfinder, for which I have no idea. My bad :smallfrown:

Elixia

2011-09-07, 04:13 AM

Wealth By Level guidelines (aka how much you ought to have for your level).

Its in the DMG, page 135 off the top of my head.

For a 6th level character you ought to have 13 000 gp in money and/or items.

EDIT: Urg, just realised your talking Pathfinder, for which I have no idea. My bad :smallfrown:

AH! OK, here.
Main PRD page: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/
Regarding gold per level, encounter CR's, and whatnot: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/gamemastering.html

Greenish

2011-09-07, 04:22 AM

anyone found with magic is dragging off and butchered (think the plot of stardust)I don't remember anything like that in Stardust. :smallconfused:

Elixia

2011-09-07, 04:44 AM

I don't remember anything like that in Stardust. :smallconfused:
the witches eats the star for magic. well, similar thing applies here. nobles or more powerful wizards are eating, yes eating, other ones to gain their power since magic is dying out.

Greenish

2011-09-07, 04:51 AM

the witches eats the star for magic.Well, yeah, but that wasn't a general thing, just specific to the star (not all magic users) and the trio of witches.

Anyhow, sounds sort of cool, but can't you hide the fact you cast spells? Bluff is a class skill, after all (or was in 3.5).

Elixia

2011-09-07, 05:02 AM

Oh yeah, bluff check work a charm on most people but apparently there are a group a bounty hunters called 'souleaters' that detect magical auras (using magic, pots and kettles!) in other provinces this would be a hiccup but rather avoidable if i rp and dont bring attention to myself. but again as luck would have it in the province were in for this campaign all town guards are souleaters working for the corrupt sorceress noble lady ... it feels a bit like nazi germany at the mo.

Now i can deal with this easy for the sake of the plot, i know once were done here, cleared our names, i can leave the area and go about towns wary but normally in other provinces. i was aware of this condition before i rolled the character (well except the whole one province being overrun with souleaters, that was a nasty surprise but for the moment can be tolerated.)

just expanding on this, this i find cool. i dont mind playing a magic user and the fear that i might get caught, butchered and sold as a meat pattie to noble lord for his magic fix. its dark, grim and stomach turning, and awesome. the wanted thing is the plot hook despite being a major hindrance to getting info and supplies, I can deal as long as its for the one campaign. But its the constant undercuting and relentless one shot'ing that getting to me. I like a challenge like most do, but i feel like i'm getting the stuffing knocked out of me!

Coidzor

2011-09-07, 10:16 AM

yeah, one of my many complaints. I told him we'll need supplies, he says there are towns which i remind him are ALL HOSTILE. i keep telling him he needs to cut us some slack here. But maybe i was being too subtle.

If you've literally said that to him, either he's somehow still unaware of what he's doing or an ass.

our first cleric, had barbarian style rage issues and attacked party members if they didn't get their own way!

So the player got off on being juvenile and silly. Check.

second cleric threw himself out of a window so he wouldn't be caught by 'the fuzz' ... they weren't after him UNTIL he tried to leg it, a secret guilt perhaps? (that was me DMing ;P)

what.

third cleric had a ghost friend in tow, so would randomly talk to herself (i played that one).

So the ghost was a troll.

Our current one has thing about attacking peoples nuggets (dwarf)

What is the median age of your group again?

Elixia

2011-09-07, 10:35 AM

What is the median age of your group again?

physical or mental age? because the answers shameful. thou to be honest i'm over simplifying those to retarded results.

heres a little info:
1st was a players GF, after 2 sessions we asked her to leave. they both left.
2nd the group was investigating happenings in a city and were talking with a innkeeper, cleric went upside to investigate the room in question. inkeeper wasn't talking so the fighter threathened her. she called the guards. the cleric heard it, paniced and leapt. even i, who was dming gave a funny look and asked why? he said didnt what to get his name tarnished ...
3rd plot hook. the ghost acted as a guide for a section of a session for a tomb where a artifact was hidden. had to make concentration checks to keep seeing her, failed too many and poof halfway through so we fell victim to a few traps. cool idea though.
last one, er, god i dont know why he does that. put it one way his words are more hurtful.

Unseenmal

2011-09-07, 01:08 PM

To add to your discussion, I had a situation where a player and slightly the DM for some reason had it in for my character. This was years ago back when 3.0 first hit the scene

The party was all lvl 12, I don't recall names except for mine:
LN Monk
CG Cleric
CN Wizard
LG Fighter
CN Gaius the Rogue (Me)

My rogue decided to retire so I could play a psion as the new psionics book was just released. This was back when different Psionics were based on different stats. I chose the most rogue-like version (nomad I think it was...CON based IIRC) and through houserule and a feat I was basically a Psion but could trapfind so we still had our rogue/skill monkey.

Her backstory was that she was the childhood friend/fiance' of my retired rogue. Our CN Wizard, he played very NE, if you read the alignment rules and sat in to observe. All of his antics are omitted due to length except the main one. He had an "evil" book (think necronomicon) that the psion was looking to destroy. When Psion found out about this, she tried to take the book while everyone was asleep. The wizard player metagamed like a madman and took everything I said out of character to the DM describing my actions and suddenly "knew" to ask his familiar about who went through his stuff. And suddenly his familair suddenly and magically did not happen to be asleep even though he earlier explicitly said his familiar slept when he slept. AND Even though I stealthed/pickpocketed un-opposed by everyone else. No witnesses and I didn't even take the book...I only checked to see if it was the one Psion was looking for

So next combat, Wizard attacks my character while ignoring the monsters we were fighting and left the rest to fight them. He surprised me with a few quickened/maximized spells and since psionics were new, I failed to survive due to lack of preparedness in fighting a prepared PC. He took spells specifically to take me out that day plus a DM allowed internet spell he found which was massively broken. It did d8/lvl no max, with no save if it was against a single target.

Then he destroyed the body so rez couldn't be done. All of this happened within full view of the LG Fighter AND CG Cleric. Not to mention the LN Monk who should have seen that as at least against the law if not evil. But I digress....I was pissed that the DM allowed this stuff to go on but he redeemed himself with a later ruling (see below). We had a houserule that any character that changed to an evil alignment became an NPC. But for some reason the DM never had Wizard become evil. Wizards famous line was "But I saved the world so I can't be evil. It all balances out". They simply ignored all of this and went about their day as if they had been on a picnic and not watched the senseless slaughter of a party member at the hands of another party member.

Anyway...I never made a new character, instead I bring back my rogue but don't tell the party this. Only through notes to the DM (I was surprised he allowed me and didn't tip off the party which was the redeeming part I spoke of). Since, yes, they were adventuring friends and he liked them...but he loved his fiance'. And none of them could even come close to finding him if he was hidden, he proceeded to become the BBEG for that group. The DM let me roleplay and setup things to get even with them.

After a week of in-game setup, over the course of a 2-night spree, my plan was enacted...I stole and sold the fighters magical sword and armor. I destroyed the clerics holy symbol. Coup de grace'd the sleeping monk and insta-killed him with my max crit + SA damage. Then as my final act of revenge, I stole the wizards spellbook and threw it into their campfire before UMD a scroll of teleport out of there. The DM had the spellbook go BOOM in a most nuclear-like way. TPK except for my now evil and NPC rogue character.

It was fun.

Elixia

2011-09-07, 02:22 PM

oooooh that sounds like a wonderfully executed revenge! bravo my friend!

Unseenmal

2011-09-07, 02:42 PM

Thanks :) It's nice to see my efforts can be appreciated. The best part was that they all thought that I was just waiting for the campaign to end and just assisting the DM with his game until then.

My situation was more player driven than DM driven like the original issue of this thread. My advice is to sort it out with the DM. The DM can have the best stories ever but if the DM doesn't know how to implement them then the game ceases to be fun. And games are supposed to be fun.

Elixia

2011-09-07, 03:12 PM

yeah well, the issue has been flagged with him and he's prepared to look into thankfully. I'm hoping he'll let one of us assist DM

LansXero

2011-09-07, 03:55 PM

No, I love to read, but if I go through the whole module and can't run it, then no one else in the group can run it. Since, yanno, I've read the whole damn thing.

There are so many modules out there that it shouldnt really be that big of a deal, and Paizo keeps churning out more of them every month xD. That, and just because you cant/wont run it NOW doesnt mean that maybe with a couple more adventures worth of experience or more free time for preparation you wont do it someday.

Stix

2011-09-07, 11:11 PM

a few entertaining stories. I've told most of them on here before but i still love them.

barbarian divebomb
We had just chased the BBEG to the top of a cliff only to find that it had been an illusion. In true evil overlord fashion the illusion was programmed to point out our blunder before disappearing.

The DM's plan was for us to watch while the real BBEG rode away at the bottom of the cliff some 200 feet below. The barbarian had other plans. He grabbed as many of our packs as he could to weigh himself down without being overencumbered with a raging strength of 28 this was a considerable amount of weight. he then let out a battle cry and swan dived off the cliff. He made an absurd jump check to actually land on the BBEG and hit with one last attack on the way through him.

Due to the falling damage + raging barbarian waraxe the BBEG died 4 levels early and the session had to be ended early because the plot for the rest of the campaign had to be changed

Crocadile Proof Rogue
A player in a campaign i ran played a rogue that had really hot and cold luck with attacks. well over 2/3 of his attacks missed, by a lot, but when he hit it was usually a sneak attack or a crit.

We were playing with an instakill crit homebrew rule (yes i saw those eyes roll) if you rolled a crit and confirmed with a natural 20 then confirmed that with a hit whatever it was died. only 2 of these occured over the course of a 21 level game. both from the rogue both on giant crocadiles (also the only two in the game) one of these was the action before the rogue was going to be swallowed whole.

Rogue with held action until the croc attacks him.
DM: it's mouth opens wide as it bursts from the water directly below you as it swall-
Rogue: i fire my hand crossbow at it.
DM: O_o ok
Rogue: *rolls crit threat *rolls begins to giggle *rolls laughs hysterically "Just earned me a pair of boots"

The only other semi entertaining one was when a dm tried to make it harder to loot a quest item (warhammer) by freezing it in an icewall thinking it would take us precious minutes in game to break it free. sorceror had it out in 18 seconds by a combination of heat metal and maximized burning hands.

Unseenmal

2011-09-08, 07:36 AM

I have another, not really funny but still memorable and cool

The campaign was a military setting and one of the players had been playing a paladin. He was our platoon leader and we went on various missions for the realm, etc. He had grown tired of it and wanted to make a new character. Unbeknownst to us, he worked out a death scene with the DM before the game that unfolded while we were fighting the BBEG's lieutenant. He bought as many Greek Fires as he could strap to his body, covered himself in a cloak. He had us distract the Lt. until he could get in range for a grapple. Once he had the Lt. grappled he ordered my cleric to Flame Strike right on top of him. One crispy Paladin with a side of blackened Lt.

DiBastet

2011-09-08, 09:20 AM

.... I'm a 5yrs old noob

I LOLed here. Keep going folks, this thread is amusing!

Elixia

2011-09-08, 11:12 AM

I have another, not really funny but still memorable and cool

tis a nice way to go!

as for amusing, what stories do i have to offer, hmmm. AH! how about one of my DM sessions!

the group travel through a forest seeking a Wizard, rumoured to go into hiding due to gambling debt (bard's bardic knowledge) They have with them a staff they stole from a student necromancer who was practising on rats and want it destroyed. anyway, they get there to see a undercared for tower about 90ft high, swaying in the wind. as they go in they find merc's who are looking for the wizard about his debt. much combat later, still no wizard. they climb the tower. the wood is old and creaking and the tower swaying. at the top they find him, he panics at first but they calm him and ask his advise.

eventually halfway through discussion, the tower starts the give way. they all run for the stairs as a 5ft hole appears showing the floor below, the druid says ...

Dr: i wanna jump it
Me: across? sure ju-
Dr: no, DOWN into the next room, we'll skip a floor that way.
Me: er sure, give it a shot.

20ft drop, druid rolls poorly. he falls to the floor below and THROUGH the floor of that room to the ground floor. Reflex save saved his life. But this had widened the gap for the rest of the party to cross. The paladin goes 'sod this' picks up the bard and wizard NPC goes back up and waits for the room to tilt, goes to the window and attempts to run down the side of the building as it collapses. lucky bugger got a natural 20

we named the player Indiana Jones

Doug Lampert

2011-09-08, 12:34 PM

Using this math, a character would die from riding a gently inclined water slide. :-)

It's the energy that matters. Falling from 50 feet causes 5d6 of damage. The character fell 50(55)feet , the only difference the rope gives is that it adjusts the direction of the fall. ( also, it makes the fall a lot cooler )

True for a hypothetical rope, but the bridge has two other effects which go in opposite directions.

1) It adds substantially to air drag, which would tend to reduce damage.

2) It has non-negligable mass and is flexible, the parts closest to the wall get to the wall fastest and as the do so tug on the rest of the chain, the net effect of this is that the bridge can crack like a whip and send the end FAR faster than it would go without all that other wieght falling (basically, the part near the cliff wall falls quite gently and transfers energy to the parts farther out, the dwarf is at the end of that chain of energy transfers and gets to collect almost the whole set).

For a lightweigth flimsy bridge effect 1 will dominate and the dwarf is better off then he would be on a rope.

For a particularly heavy bridge he and the end of the bridge structure go SPLAT, HARD, and this shatters what's left of the structure and the pieces fall into the chasm.

If I'm the DM I can justify anything from about 2d6 damage to more than the normal maximum of 20d6 damage.

(Why yes, I did finish all the coursework and the qualifying exam for a physics Ph.D. prior to switching to math.)

DougL

Thespianus

2011-09-08, 12:44 PM

True for a hypothetical rope, but the bridge has two other effects which go in opposite directions.

1) It adds substantially to air drag, which would tend to reduce damage.

2) It has non-negligable mass and is flexible, the parts closest to the wall get to the wall fastest and as the do so tug on the rest of the chain, the net effect of this is that the bridge can crack like a whip and send the end FAR faster than it would go without all that other wieght falling (basically, the part near the cliff wall falls quite gently and transfers energy to the parts farther out, the dwarf is at the end of that chain of energy transfers and gets to collect almost the whole set).

For a lightweigth flimsy bridge effect 1 will dominate and the dwarf is better off then he would be on a rope.

For a particularly heavy bridge he and the end of the bridge structure go SPLAT, HARD, and this shatters what's left of the structure and the pieces fall into the chasm.
There's also the third effect, the Dwarf being the one that is "furthest" along on the falling curve towards the end position. This because the dwarf - most likely - have a higher density and smaller air drag than the rest of the bridge. Basically, the bridge would describe an arc with the end point pointing down towards the dwarf as he falls "ahead" of the bridge.

If I'm the DM I can justify anything from about 2d6 damage to more than the normal maximum of 20d6 damage.
Maybe you could. If you did rule that the "standard" 5D6 was way too little damage, and that 20D6 ought to be the correct amount, inspite of the successful Reflex save, you're not a very nice DM. ;)