DM Brutality

[Gotterdammerung]

What is the most awesome example of DM brutality you have seen xD?

For me it would have to be when the DM used wish to cast resurrection on the dragon hide armor of our parties cheasy druid. It destroyed his AC and suddenly he is standing next to an angry red.

[Demonic_Spoon]

Next to? Shouldn't that be inside a angry red dragon?

[Gotterdammerung]

Yeh, i know right?

He was being nice about it and it was still awesomely brutal =)

[Mezmote]

Our party of four level 3 characters encountered a frost giant (CR 9). We got completely destroyed, as each hit it made took away half of any of our players HP (often more than that). When two of us where very low on HP, it hit our rogue and downed him, cleaving and completely killing my character. 5 rounds later (where the giant didn't hit anything) a band of barbarian NPC's came to our rescue and took off it's few remaining HP's.

We felt like that was a major letdown, as we had almost destroyed it with all our might, all our ressources, and then the DM waits for FIVE rounds to bring in reinforcement to kill off the giant. So he killstealed our enemy, and let the fight (which he later said wasn't meant for us to win) draw out and take so long that many of our party members where dead or dying.

I rerolled and got back in an hour later while the rest played on.

[Keegan__D]

On any occasion where a player says something isn't very difficult (even on narrow victories we thought would be impossible), he either throws a random number more of the monsters, or makes the next encounter twice (or more) as hard. It's particularly annoying for the other players because I'm usually the one who says it, since my character is wayyy over-powered, and they're mostly new players. Our caster has learned to maintain an incredible distance.

Another DM decided to respond to a player's improper choice in roleplaying - not minding his manners with foreign investigators - and had ninja assassins come in during his date with a princess, drop his con to 2, and drag him away to a stronghold no one had a chance of entering, much less even being able to track him. All the while, everyone was under the impression that he could be saved. He was even teased multiple chances to escape, only to be reminded of his constitution score.

[Rising Phoenix]

What is the most awesome example of DM brutality you have seen xD?

For me it would have to be when the DM used wish to cast resurrection on the dragon hide armor of our parties cheasy druid. It destroyed his AC and suddenly he is standing next to an angry red.

This is... evil...:smallamused:

How did your DM pull it off? True Resurrection has a cast time of 10 minutes...

(Why yes, I do want to use this...)

[Demonic_Spoon]

If you read his post you'd see the dm used wish which only take 1 standard action to cast.

[Atcote]

Crossbow bolt in the neck.

In a character's prologue.

I don't care if it's the prologue, you rolled a one on your reflex save - that's damn near jumping in front of it to be hit in the most precise spot to cause maximum pain.

Ended up rendering the character mute without magical help. It was... Interesting.

[Rising Phoenix]

If you read his post you'd see the dm used wish which only take 1 standard action to cast.

*Headesk* I though he said true resurrection...Oh well... Now I can use RAW...:smallamused:

[TheJake]

The worst I've heard of was dropping cows on the PCs.

Worst I've seen was a DM who dropped a wizard (who was prone to flying everywhere using a fly spell) into an Anti Magic Zone and was promptly captured by resident Sahuagin, "had their merry way with him" and the resulting trauma resulted in permanent WIS damage.

- J.

[Calanon]

BBEG: *Detect Evil*

We all attack wondering "what the hell?"

Next turn he heals and now knows that our rogue and Wizard (me) are evil... He casted suggestion on the rogue and me and found out the one thing I wanted to do against the party and the one thing the rouge wanted...

Next turn I Split Maximized Enervated them (They were screwed no matter what) and the rogue Sneak attacked them to finish them off. She than proceeded to bag there crap and I teleported us back to my lab with there bodies where we made love on the corpses. :biggrin:

the BBEG did and I quote "He walks up to his throne, sits down and has one of his Zombies pour him a glass of wine while he watches us kill each other" the rest of the fight...

Moral of this Story: Detect [Alignment] spells can result in TPK

[suhkkaet]

Hm, one of the worst I've heard of, was a DM who was utterly tired of people breaking out in OOC talk, so they made a hard rule: "Say OOC before you speak OOC, or your character says it".
They ended up next to some trolls somehow, and one player said "Oh f*ck me.", which the trolls then did.
His character was split in half...

One bad thing I've tried was my low-lvl druid (~5th level iirc), going into a room with some of the rest of our party.
We found a button.
We clicked the button.
The wall opposite of the door turns around, with three mindflayers. Most of the party died.

Edit:
Oh, also, we had the one player whose characters always died. So one session, he comes with a four-armed gladiator.
Our DM allows him to start out in a gladitorial match while the other characters watched the match (Our latest Big Dumb Fighter (same player) had died, so we were "scouting" for a new one).
The player start out by creaming a guy, then meets a small halfling-type guy with a lot of blades. He gets one of his arms cut off, and a little kid jumps into the arena to grab the arm and starts running around with it.
BDF-guy kills the halfling, and then starts running after the kid. Until he passed out from loss of blood.

The party got hold of his arm, and got a cleric to put it back in place. Then Four-arms owed the rest of our party, so we used him as a meat shield. (:

Fun things included pushing him down from a castle wall, while he was wearing full armor. And the enemy was advancing.
He died in a dungeon, because he was walking behind another players character. They come down a hall. At the end of the hall, there's a door. The first character decides to knock the door in, then jump to the side (just by the opening). Four-arms failed his reflex and was subsequently burned to ashes.

[Boci]

Crossbow bolt in the neck.

In a character's prologue.

I don't care if it's the prologue, you rolled a one on your reflex save - that's damn near jumping in front of it to be hit in the most precise spot to cause maximum pain.

Ended up rendering the character mute without magical help. It was... Interesting.

1. You don't use reflex saves for crossbows

2. Even if you did...houseruled critical fumbles for saves? Eek, but if it works for your group...

[Keegan__D]

1. You don't use reflex saves for crossbows

2. Even if you did...houseruled critical fumbles for saves? Eek, but if it works for your group...

Saves and attack rolls are what criticals are applied to by the book.

[Boci]

Saves and attack rolls are what criticals are applied to by the book.

Yes, but its just a failure or miss, no different from a 2 unless your modifier is insanly high. Having something extra bad happen on a 1 is a houserule.

[some guy]

I have never really encountered DM brutality. One DM was generous with incredibly ddangerous fights (2 ragedrakes and a bearded devil against 5 level 7's was pretty lethal).



2. Even if you did...houseruled critical fumbles for saves? Eek, but if it works for your group...

Actually, natural 1's on saving throws are the only things which can cause fumbles by RAW (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#itemsSurvivingafteraSavingTh row). Well, it's only with magical attacks and it only results in your items being damaged (i.e. not dieing instantly, slitting your throat, getting maximum damage or whatever).
Still, it's there in the rules.

Side rant:

I would've used it too in my games, if items getting damaged weren't such a hassle and if there weren't so many steps involved;

-determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected
-roll randomly among them
-The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack deal.
-Look up how saving throws for items work.
-Look up item's hardness and hp
-Look up how enchanted items affect their hardness and hp
-Player must then note somewhere it has a damaged item

That's like 7 steps (less if you know these specific rules) in combat. You've paused combat for a long, long time that way. I like items not being totally safe in games, but I really hate breaking the flow of combat.

[Worlok]

10th-level-average party with two wizards (one a divination specialist) getting completely curbstomped in a dark, not-so-abandoned lead mine because their opponents, a small troup of hobgoblin monk/ninjas, bypassed his masterful intel phalanx by using sign language and class-bestowed tricks instead of message or camouflage spells, the area's natural anti-scrying setup, messenger bats, called shots against lanterns and darkvision against them.

A heroic Hail-Mary-Rush mercilessly screwed by Combat Reflexes, Hold the Line, Karmic Strike and Sidestep Charge. Also, flurriable improvised attack with a plait of hair - and the poison-needle ring acting as hair tie. All the same opponent, the encounter did eventually end that round.

The ground the then-9th level druid wildshaped on turning out to be a cleverly-disguised tiger trap he had not previously triggered by virtue of being smaller and lighter than a goddamn grizzly while in human shape. The half-dead tiger inside ruining his escape stratagem when starvation was a stronger impulse than wild empathy.

Rogue, scout and swashbuckler getting so completely trolled with "what-do-you-mean-it's-not-a"-traps that the players came down with temporary trench madness and had their characters gleefully and blindly charge around a corner in hopes of fighting a living, (audibly) breathing opponent at last - only to find that holes in a cliff face do interesting things to how the wind sounds in the caverns right behind it, especially at really high altitudes.

A distasteful statue of a skeleton with a quarterstaff getting the party ambushed and the last remaining caster killed when the next one... wasn't.

All within roughly five hours of play. Same group, same DM. They still roll with him, but they have long since abandoned the notion of safety in-character. :smalleek:

[Talentless]

10th-level-average party with two wizards (one a divination specialist) getting completely curbstomped in a dark, not-so-abandoned lead mine because their opponents, a small troup of hobgoblin monk/ninjas, bypassed his masterful intel phalanx by using sign language and class-bestowed tricks instead of message or camouflage spells, the area's natural anti-scrying setup, messenger bats, called shots against lanterns and darkvision against them.

A heroic Hail-Mary-Rush mercilessly screwed by Combat Reflexes, Hold the Line, Karmic Strike and Sidestep Charge. Also, flurriable improvised attack with a plait of hair - and the poison-needle ring acting as hair tie. All the same opponent, the encounter did eventually end that round.

The ground the then-9th level druid wildshaped on turning out to be a cleverly-disguised tiger trap he had not previously triggered by virtue of being smaller and lighter than a goddamn grizzly while in human shape. The half-dead tiger inside ruining his escape stratagem when starvation was a stronger impulse than wild empathy.

Rogue, scout and swashbuckler getting so completely trolled with "what-do-you-mean-it's-not-a"-traps that the players came down with temporary trench madness and had their characters gleefully and blindly charge around a corner in hopes of fighting a living, (audibly) breathing opponent at last - only to find that holes in a cliff face do interesting things to how the wind sounds in the caverns right behind it, especially at really high altitudes.

A distasteful statue of a skeleton with a quarterstaff getting the party ambushed and the last remaining caster killed when the next one... wasn't.

All within roughly five hours of play. Same group, same DM. They still roll with him, but they have long since abandoned the notion of safety in-character. :smalleek:

Nice. Although... I'm not sure, that seems a bit of a toss up between DM Brutality and Player stupidity.

How much experience did the player's have at the time? Because if they were experienced, they could have handled those scenarios a bit better, mostly by being properly paranoid and investing in some darkvision.

[Worlok]

Mixed levels of proficiency and experience all around. The group was fairly new in that it had resulted from two other groups having been merged just like two months before, after the one's DM had decided to leave behind everything in his old life and go find himself in the expanses of the Himalaya and the other's had made sure that he'd play in the next campaign, not DM it. So, various people trying to test the waters with a new director at the helm. Most of them were really just long-term casuals, reasonably good at building characters efficiently and coming up with fun stuff to do, but nowhere near the expertise or paranoia of some people.

Didn't help that most of them had decided to try something new in a new group, landing the ones who would normally go caster on the gritty-action-train and the others dabbling in things that require a lot of planning. Nor did it "help" that the new DM had really done his homework, even though the game itself was just more awesome for it:

Up to the point the diviner bit it to a ninja sudden-striking him from up above, the whole party had assumed they were going after sorcerers, or maybe druids, and had prepared their resources accordingly, because of the man's way with description and the fact that the hobgoblin monastery had had the time to become shrouded in myth over six centuries of being effectively just a grim, bloody legend to the people of the land. Tactical melee attackers and non-magical stealth hit them entirely off-guard and the breakneck pace at which the whole affair went south left them very little room to regroup or recover. Within seconds, their main means of darkvision, which they had in the form of animal companions, familiars, some scrolls and the odd prepared spell as well as the rogue and other wizard (a transmuter, if memory serves) being dwarven, had been shut down in some manner or forcibly separated from the party proper. They were also without a decent mundane tank-type other than the latter group's former DM's barbarian and the swashbuckler, both of whom subscribed to the philosophy of staying mobile in combat and thus ended up making everything just that much more chaotic when they lashed out against and got tricked and "kited" by the significantly more mobile ninjamonks.

So yeah, sort of a toss-up. But it was less stupidity and more confusion and lapses in planning. :smallbiggrin:

[Gotterdammerung]

My own personal brutal moment as a DM.

The player was playing a 11th lvl con heavy sorcerer for some reason. 22 con

He had sustained heavy damage. (around 80% of his HP)

He decided to polymorph into a pixie so he could fly away.

...

(i rolled his intel check behind my screen, he failed).

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

IIRC Polymorph doesn't change your HP (despite con change) except for healing you as if you'd rested for a night, but that might be an errata your group doesn't use.

[The Glyphstone]

It's actually in the core PHB spell description, no errata necessary.

[Silva Stormrage]

My own personal brutal moment as a DM.

The player was playing a 11th lvl con heavy sorcerer for some reason. 22 con

He had sustained heavy damage. (around 80% of his HP)

He decided to polymorph into a pixie so he could fly away.

...

(i rolled his intel check behind my screen, he failed).

Polymorph doesn't affect the targets HP even if it changes his con...

Edit: Wow swordsaged really badly...

[The Glyphstone]

My turn:

The party is exploring a demiplane that's a blatant and unashamed Mario homage. They've fought Goombas, Koopa Troopas, and a couple of Hammer Bros., and discovered numerous warp pipes leading down into small caves where they can rest/regain spells and find treasure.

Now, the last warp pipe they explored had a few bad guys on the other side, so when they find another one, an argument ensues over who goes first. The rogue wants the fighter to go first, the fighter doesn't want to go first. The rogue tries to bull rush the fighter into the pipe (fails miserably), the fighter retaliates by grappling the rogue and throwing him at the pipe. I roll dice, look at the dice, and then look at the party...


"The Pirahna Plant scores a critical hit."

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

My own personal DM brutality was during a one-shot where the party was in a dungeon and doing well considering that they aren't that experienced. As they are going through they open a door and find a room full of ogres. The Chameleon in the party wins initiative and uses sleet storm. All four of the ogre warriors and the ogre mage fail their balance checks and are now on the ground. The Paladin stays back and fires his compound longbow at the ogres scoring really good hits. The spiked chain fighter takes pot shots at the ogres at a range while tripping them if they manage to stand back up. Every single one of the ogres fails to stand the next turn. The chameleon, who had Iaijutsu and sneak attack moves into the doorway, makes his balance check, and one hit 'kills' one of the warriors.

This trend continues until the ogre mage makes his balance check to stand up. He uses darkness, blinding the party and then flys up. Not being able to see they leave the room and the chameleon torches it with a fireball. All the ogre warriors die and the ogre mage is next to dead. The paladin, being smart, uses detect evil to see if there are any left. I say, "You detect a presence of evil," and then, being really dumb, they leave.

I am dumb struck at this point. The ogre mage uses invisibility and follows the party. They decide to rest to heal up before continuing. They rest in one of the rooms they cleared out earlier and sleep. The ogre mage has been watching them the whole time. After they nod off, (and leave NO counter measures, like an alarm spell or someone on watch duty) the mage uses gaseous form to slip into the room undetected. He flies up to the first person and kills them with a Coup De' Grace. The kills the next person, then the next and finally the paladin's horse for good measure.

[Gotterdammerung]

It's actually in the core PHB spell description, no errata necessary.

Polymorph spell description doesn't say anything about ignoring the change to con. I know they changed the way polymorph works but this was before that.

Maybe you are referring to the description of alter self. "You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same".

First off, this description is meant to inform players that you do not simply replace your hp with a dragons hp. "You retain your own hit points" does not mean that your max hit points are incapable of rising and falling.
It just means that you use your hitpoints instead of the hit points listed in the monster entry of the creature you are emulating with the spell.

Now alter self makes no change whatsoever to your stats, so your hit points will not change when casting this spell.
Polymorph however does change your Con. Which means your HP rises or lowers based on your new Con as per the rest of the rules of the game.


It is very possible that someone high up on the D&D food chain made a faulty interpretation of the rules, or that popular misconception led to your interpretation becoming D&D truth. But either way, at the time of this story my interpretation was the accepted rule of polymorph and was backed by the conventions moderator.

[The Glyphstone]

The conventions moderator (and you) made the mistake then, yeah:




This spell functions like alter self, except that you change the willing subject into another form of living creature.


"Like alter self", means it follows the qualifiers as given in alter self, including your HP total not changing. That's how the entire Polymorph chain works, and how it's always worked.

And even if it didn't, why would a lowered Con reduce him to 0HP or less? Pixies do not have a negative Con score, so it wouldn't be possible for anything fatal to happen from the change - if your position is that your max and minimum HP can be altered by an altered Con score, that'd just reduce his HP ceiling rather than knocking him out upon changing. You seem to have been under the impression that players accumulate damage rather than lose HP; if he was at 20/100 HP before changing, and his max HP dropped to, say, 40, he would be at 20/40 HP, he wouldn't be at -40/40 HP.

It makes for a good story, but it's still undeniably a rules flub.

[Coidzor]

I once kept getting killed off once per combat in the session so I just started playing gameboy at the table pointedly.

[Jack_Simth]

This is... evil...:smallamused:

How did your DM pull it off? True Resurrection has a cast time of 10 minutes...

(Why yes, I do want to use this...)
There's a number of ways.

The one the OP specified was using Wish to do it (which, ironically, is outside the safe list, as you're trying to duplicate the 7th level Cleric spell of Resurrection - you want Miracle for it, although you'll need to pay the components).

If you put a True Resurrection into a Greater Ring of Spell Storing, it's just a standard action to activate the ring.

If you surprise the player very carefully, you'll note that touch spells permit a person to hold the charge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#duration). So you cast the spell in advance, hold the charge up until the target is in range, and then tap the armor as an attack action later on.

[Coidzor]

Can true rez mix with arcane archer?

[Jack_Simth]

Can true rez mix with arcane archer?
Not easily; it's a Divine spell. There's ways to make it happen, though.

[DonutBoy12321]

Can true rez mix with arcane archer?

That, my friend, would be hilarious.

"You hit the dead body of your companion with the enchanted arrow, and he sits up, screaming in agony at the arrow which is stuck in his ribcage."

[0nimaru]

The conventions moderator (and you) made the mistake then, yeah:

"Like alter self", means it follows the qualifiers as given in alter self, including your HP total not changing. That's how the entire Polymorph chain works, and how it's always worked.

And even if it didn't, why would a lowered Con reduce him to 0HP or less? Pixies do not have a negative Con score, so it wouldn't be possible for anything fatal to happen from the change - if your position is that your max and minimum HP can be altered by an altered Con score, that'd just reduce his HP ceiling rather than knocking him out upon changing. You seem to have been under the impression that players accumulate damage rather than lose HP; if he was at 20/100 HP before changing, and his max HP dropped to, say, 40, he would be at 20/40 HP, he wouldn't be at -40/40 HP.

It makes for a good story, but it's still undeniably a rules flub.

Is this not exactly the opposite of how the Con increase from a Barbarian Rage works? The example of the Barbarian's Rage from Pg 146 of the PHB mentions that if you are at low hp when your rage ends, your newly reduced Con modifier reduces your current HP and can knock you out or kill you.

This character wasn't ending a rage, but the modification to Con should function in the same manner and is never said to work any differently that I can see in the SRD. The closest mention is under the Constitution entry.

"If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or
her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or
decrease accordingly."

and this doesn't differentiate between maximum HP or current HP.

[Madwand99]

Polymorph did indeed change your hit points when 3.5 first came out. It was errata'ed some time later. It's been that way for a long time though, so it's easy to forget. I remember being very annoyed at the change at the time. This errata still interacts in undefined ways with con-boosting items and spells.

[The Glyphstone]

Is this not exactly the opposite of how the Con increase from a Barbarian Rage works? The example of the Barbarian's Rage from Pg 146 of the PHB mentions that if you are at low hp when your rage ends, your newly reduced Con modifier reduces your current HP and can knock you out or kill you.

This character wasn't ending a rage, but the modification to Con should function in the same manner and is never said to work any differently that I can see in the SRD. The closest mention is under the Constitution entry.

"If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or
her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or
decrease accordingly."

and this doesn't differentiate between maximum HP or current HP.

The difference there is that the Rage specifically mentions increasing/decreasing hit points, under the Specific Trumps General rule. Same thing for the Alter Self/Polymorph bit...its Specific rule (your Hp stays the same) overrides the General rule (if you Con changes, your HP changes).



Polymorph did indeed change your hit points when 3.5 first came out. It was errata'ed some time later. It's been that way for a long time though, so it's easy to forget. I remember being very annoyed at the change at the time. This errata still interacts in undefined ways with con-boosting items and spells.

Though I may, apparently, be mistaken - I've never known it to be any other way, but if this was indeed very early in 3.0/3.5's run (2003-2004ish), that may have been how it actually worked.

[kardar233]

That, my friend, would be hilarious.

"You hit the dead body of your companion with the enchanted arrow, and he sits up, screaming in agony at the arrow which is stuck in his ribcage."

I made a post about this, using Duskblade/Bloodstorm though.... found it.


Do you heal a lot? Do have trouble with having to run to your friends to save them from certain burny and painful death? Try Healing Shivstm today! Just take a few levels in Duskblade and Bloodstorm Blade and stab your friends with knives to heal them! Your idiotic friend is a -8hp and dropping on top of a ledge you can't get to in two rounds? Cast Cure, throw a Healing Shivtm at him and *bam*! He's back in the fight! Comes with free* Iron Heart maneuvers: Guaranteed to make you suck less in combat! Even if you're a cleric!

*Only for certain values and/or definitions of free. Healing shivs are not for everyone. Possible side effects include dry mouth, nausea, vomiting, water retention, painful rectal itch, hallucination, dementia, psychosis, coma, death, and halitosis. Healing Shivs are not for everyone. Consult your family cleric before use.

[Rising Phoenix]

There's a number of ways.

The one the OP specified was using Wish to do it (which, ironically, is outside the safe list, as you're trying to duplicate the 7th level Cleric spell of Resurrection - you want Miracle for it, although you'll need to pay the components).

If you put a True Resurrection into a Greater Ring of Spell Storing, it's just a standard action to activate the ring.

If you surprise the player very carefully, you'll note that touch spells permit a person to hold the charge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#duration). So you cast the spell in advance, hold the charge up until the target is in range, and then tap the armor as an attack action later on.

Thank you kindly :)

[0nimaru]

The clause relating to Hit Points not changing always read to me as "You do not look into the MM and match your max HP to the monster's." rather than "You may not apply enhanced Con modifiers to your new hp." but I concede that this probably falls under RAI.


To keep from derailing the thread further, a tale of DM brutality (through inexperience):

My first tabletop was 3.5 with a group of similarly inexperienced friends. The DM who had brought us all together was in a "everything is too predictable" mindset which translated to a bad case of "read the DM's mind". As the only trapfinder I lost my left hand, left arm, right eye, three toes off my right foot, both thumbs (after regrowing the left arm) and nearly every pair of magical gloves I ever tried to wear. Most of these were similar situations such as, "You enter a room. It is empty except for a lever against the far wall. *Pull Lever* A hidden blade comes out of the lever and cuts your hand in half." Where the exit was behind a permanent silent image in the ceiling.

He's gotten better since, but I have yet to play a character with trapfinding around him again.

[Gotterdammerung]

There's a number of ways.

The one the OP specified was using Wish to do it (which, ironically, is outside the safe list, as you're trying to duplicate the 7th level Cleric spell of Resurrection - you want Miracle for it, although you'll need to pay the components).

Read wish again. Specifically states it can be used as resurrection. Goes on to say that in the case of a unrecoverable body it requires 1 wish to create the body and a second wish to resurrect it. In this case, enough of the body was present to just raise the dragon with 1 casting of wish.



And to the polymorph discussion, i think both sides have enough support to show that the story was not outside the rules but the rules have changed since then. In my own campaigns i ignore things that are fine and fix things that are broken (like grapple), but this story was not from a home campaign. It was from a RPGA sanctioned convention i was judging for. As a judge i was tested on the rules and had 2 layers of rule officers to go through during actual play if there was a contention. The interpretation of the spell might of changed since then, but at the time the Pixie gnome fell down dead.

On a personal level, I see D&D today as similar to Star Wars roleplay in that you can choose which era you want to play in. I personally, like to play in the 3.0-3.5 hybrid conversion era, back when there weren't a million errata's usually fixing things that were obvious and not broken at all while simultaneously ignoring things that were completely wonky. But hey, to each his own.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

Not easily; it's a Divine spell. There's ways to make it happen, though.

I thought that arcane archer only worked with area spells.

[Keegan__D]

A party of 3 (beguiler, rogue, favored soul), all level one is sent to a forest to get back a gem for the town.
The rogue gets shot with an arrow for sleeping in a tree. Later they fight 14 barbarians and a CR4 Barbarian with a few feats from BoVD leader with a +1 Double Axe. The only ally the DM sends is a lvl 4 bard. The beguiler dies; The rogue survives by hiding; The Favored Soul dies and manifests as a ghost.
After miraculous win, the gem is damaged by the rogue before being returned to town, and the prices in town skyrocket. Apparently that gem was a metaphor for their economy. >_<
The beguiler comes back as a Swashbuckler just in time to find out that the little girls of the village have been kidnapped. They are found as Zombies with an extra 1d6 cold damage. there are 11 of them. the players are all lvl 2 and the only slashing weapons are the swashbuckler's two daggers.
After this grueling trial, they enter a cave to face 20 zombies affected by the inspire courage of a bonedancer, and an extra 1d6 cold damage. The bonedancers ECL is 5. The swashbuckler died in this encounter and rolled a paladin. Somehow this fight was won.
After that there is a demon boss in the room. The paladin OHKOs it with a crit and a few exalted feats (30dmg or so), and the DM decides that the force of that strike destroys the treasure; a +3 double axe (they are his favorite boss weapon).
The Paladin then had to walk away from a fight where the DM just threw two fighting NPC groups together and expected everyone to just attack. The rogue and favored soul carried on.
And the best part is when they got to the ghost town they discovered that the ghosts were killed by giant spiders or a fire. nobody knows.

[Strormer]

The first game I ever played:
I was a level 1 Elf Druid. The party entered a city. I told them I wanted to go offer prayers at the local chapel. They said I found a chapel, but I rolled too low on my Knowledge to recognize the symbol. I wandered in at this point not knowing the details of 3.5e gods. It was a church of Vecna. I walked out as a level 23 mind controlled blackguard death knight. I didn't play again for a year.

The first game I ever DMed: (after playing with the above for way too long)
My party were navigating a decimated magical research laboratory. There was one room where there were rips in reality creating portals to any number of other planes. It was 15 DC20 Reflex saves to walk across the room and not have part of you plane shifted. I apologized for the room of save-or-dies when I learned how the game was supposed to play.

Another all-time favorite: (after the above was long in my past)
I was a 20 Cleric of WeeJas Necro/1 Bard. It was the epilogue of the campaign. A small child comes up to me and wants to ask me a question. I think, hey, sure. The child grabs my collarbone and whispers "your magic is mine." My soul was sucked inside a magic ring that granted him access to my highest stat (wis, duh). What the DM didn't think about, two campaigns later in the same setting when the ring was destroyed by the party and he said that all the people it had absorbed were released whole and alive, was how my LN Necromancer would appear to the later generations. ^_^ Appearing near my own granddaughter and talking about being trapped for eighty years has a funny effect.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

The first game I ever played:
I was a level 1 Elf Druid. The party entered a city. I told them I wanted to go offer prayers at the local chapel. They said I found a chapel, but I rolled too low on my Knowledge to recognize the symbol. I wandered in at this point not knowing the details of 3.5e gods. It was a church of Vecna. I walked out as a level 23 mind controlled blackguard death knight. I didn't play again for a year.

The first game I ever DMed: (after playing with the above for way too long)
My party were navigating a decimated magical research laboratory. There was one room where there were rips in reality creating portals to any number of other planes. It was 15 DC20 Reflex saves to walk across the room and not have part of you plane shifted. I apologized for the room of save-or-dies when I learned how the game was supposed to play.

Another all-time favorite: (after the above was long in my past)
I was a 20 Cleric of WeeJas Necro/1 Bard. It was the epilogue of the campaign. A small child comes up to me and wants to ask me a question. I think, hey, sure. The child grabs my collarbone and whispers "your magic is mine." My soul was sucked inside a magic ring that granted him access to my highest stat (wis, duh). What the DM didn't think about, two campaigns later in the same setting when the ring was destroyed by the party and he said that all the people it had absorbed were released whole and alive, was how my LN Necromancer would appear to the later generations. ^_^ Appearing near my own granddaughter and talking about being trapped for eighty years has a funny effect.

That last one's payoff seems worth it.

[BlueInc]

Party of level 7ish players sneaking through a mansion of vampires.
-Me, an unlucky, gambling (not a good combination) rogue
-Elf Paladin (raised by minotaurs, who are good in this campaign world)
-Dwarf Cleric
-Elf Ranger
-Orc Rogue/Assassin
-A variety of minions and allies, most of whom stayed outside with the gear

I should probably note now that this was an extremely low wealth party; we basically had our level 1 starting packages and that was it.

It took several sessions to try all the various methods of approaching, get inside, and avoid the guards. The Cleric's Hide from Undead spell helps a lot, but the vampires have many bugbear guards and a Hell Hound (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hellHound.htm).

We've gotten most of what we need from the castle when me and the Elf Ranger are found. With an amazing Bluff roll, I manage to convince them that we're working for one of the Vampires and totally supposed to be there. They keep pressing questions until it's obvious that it's not going to end well.

I switch tactics and claim that I'm incredibly powerful vampire hunter known as the "White Shadow" (a favorite alias of the character). It buys enough time for the rest of the party to get there.

The Paladin charges and attacks the Hell Hound screaming a battle cry; rolls an incredible amount of damage between all his feats and spells (in the ballpark of 70 damage, with no magical items whatsoever).

The Hell Hound attacks. It crits and bites him in half.

We grab part of his body and book it.

[Socratov]

I had a brutal DM once.

Once upon a time we had this munchkin who invited me to come to my very first DnD game. I comply and play a bard (i woud be useless anyways, however with bard i could at least have fun by using a cercain scene from a cerain Gamers movie). We are at lvl 5. My firnd the munchkin uses various tricks to play a half-ogre, half dragon barbarian. The DM, disappionted as he is in teh munchkin, tries to kill the munchkin on various accounts. Althpough a simple color spray would have been perfectly fine, my DM decides to go aqautic and tries to shoot the munchkin with some water blast with stunning effets. So isntead the creatures shoot me and my bard dies drowning 3 rounds later. The munchkin, however, survives. The rest of the party falls of their chairs, almost dieing laughing, and MY DM says to me that he didn't mean to kill my character, but kill the munchkin. I look at my charactersheet with sad puppy eyes. The sunny side of this is, the DM let me play a CG leadership dread pirate, who steals, lies and hacks people to bits and still manages to stay CG. he also allows me to get the Admiral's bicorn giving me +5 untyped to cha skills, leadership, but on top of that, +2 morale on saves, skills, and to hit, for every ally within 100'. it only costed 3500 gp :) needless to say, i had my revenge.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The first game I ever played:
I was a level 1 Elf Druid. The party entered a city. I told them I wanted to go offer prayers at the local chapel. They said I found a chapel, but I rolled too low on my Knowledge to recognize the symbol. I wandered in at this point not knowing the details of 3.5e gods. It was a church of Vecna. I walked out as a level 23 mind controlled blackguard death knight. I didn't play again for a year.

Thats not just brutality, thats down right sadism. Especially for a first time player. I mean seriously you shouldn't even do that to an expeirienced player. Penalizing a player for a low roll in a skill they shouldn't neccisarily be trained in that kills the character in a brutal way. Thats......just plain wrong.

[MikolasTheAngry]

A story I've been told, so the details are fuzzy. I can recall the basics though.

Ravenloft game. Party is going through a forest. DM remarks the animals are all acting weird. REAL weird. Grouping up and watching them. In trees when they shouldn't be, and such. They press on, of course.

I'm not sure what happens in the middle leading up to it, but it ended with the wizard being devoured by a swarm of skeletal squirrels. Picked clean. Straight down to the bones. I think some pack animals died. I know at least one character had permanent mental trauma and was deathly afraid of squirrels, forests, or undead (or some combination of the three).

[Kansaschaser]

Ravenloft game.

Well, there's yer' problem right there.

Ravenloft games are only played when the DM wants to torture the characters in a tiny world where escape is impossible.

[MikolasTheAngry]

Well, there's yer' problem right there.

Ravenloft games are only played when the DM wants to torture the characters in a tiny world where escape is impossible.

Well this is the thread for DM brutality. Though if you agree to play the setting, you kinda asked for whatever abuse you encounter.

[Kansaschaser]

Well this is the thread for DM brutality. Though if you agree to play the setting, you kinda asked for whatever abuse you encounter.

Oh how I loathed Ravenloft.

I played in a Ravenloft campaign in Advanced D&D and again when 3.0 came out. I don't really have to explain the DM brutality thing to anyone in this thread if they have played Ravenloft too. I'll just leave it at that.

[Coidzor]

Well, there's yer' problem right there.

Ravenloft games are only played when the DM wants to torture the characters in a tiny world where escape is impossible.

Indeed, people don't even know how to learn to horror, much less do it right.


Thats not just brutality, thats down right sadism. Especially for a first time player. I mean seriously you shouldn't even do that to an expeirienced player. Penalizing a player for a low roll in a skill they shouldn't neccisarily be trained in that kills the character in a brutal way. Thats......just plain wrong.

I believe the general idea of the thread is to share stories of where the DM did something the DM ought not to have done, yes.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I believe the general idea of the thread is to share stories of where the DM did something the DM ought not to have done, yes.

I realize this. But at the same time, that specific case compelled me to comment.

[ko_sct]

My dm once applied the mob template (DMGII) to shadows.

I was the party cleric and hadn't prepared a spell to protect agaisnt strenght dmg.

It was..... brutal..........

[Safety Sword]

Oh how I loathed Ravenloft.

I played in a Ravenloft campaign in Advanced D&D and again when 3.0 came out. I don't really have to explain the DM brutality thing to anyone in this thread if they have played Ravenloft too. I'll just leave it at that.

To be fair to Ravenloft:

Done right it's one of the richest flavoured settings you can have. Especially awesome if you're playing a short campaign or one-shot even. I had one awesome long term campaign there too (see below).

Some of the best fun ever is being a Paladin in Ravenloft, knowing that the end is nigh but refusing to bend. What made it especially awesome is when I decided that the only way to extricate my friends from our predicament was to accept an offer of help from "my god" (Dark Powers, here I come).

DM twisted my paladin (OK, so I went along with it) into the most evil sadistic son of a lich you could think of. And when I go back and look at where my character started to where my character ended up and all of the decisions (which were easily justifiable, of course) I really appreciate how well crafted that campaign was.

TL,DR; Ravenloft can be awesome too.

[Cofniben]

I've played in a game where the best way I can explain it is the DM was just trying to be a jerk to the party.

Beginning of the first session (it was an evil campaign) all players walked into a bar because they were asked about a job. Make a will save (forced us to walk over to a table) make another will save (forced to drink a glass of wine and suddenly we are bonded to something, never explained) So we are forced to enter a church, steal a scroll then leave.

During this time when the party tries to use bluff and diplomacy our way through, our characters take psychic damage because we are not killing people. So after all we get the scroll after killing an angel (don't know how but it was an annoying fight) we run into the sewers in order to escape. After a fight with no healing against goblins with character levels (he said we could not have any healers in the party because we needed a "church" a.k.a. bull) In order to help us, he placed potions of cure light wounds on a table behind two barricades with two goblins behind each with a large amount of spears and a very deep pit separating us and the goblins. All but one party member had a chance to hit their AC due to the penalties, so everyone was making called shots because they could only hit on a 20. A call shot killed the last one, and the DM decided it forced the body back and destroyed all the potions.

So after resting behind the barricades, an inferno spider thing (CR8) climbs up and chases the party back to the temple where there were paladins and clerics waiting for them. In the end, the clerics and paladins were killed off by the spider and we were able to escape by trapping the spider.
So entering the church again, we are meet with a group of clerics who are summoning another angel similar to earlier, and having the healing power to out heal our damage. So after some high rolls for a break check to break through glass (some kind of magic ward) the party was able to escape.

So we return to our inn, give the scroll, but the party is not released from dealing with the being from drinking the potion at the beginning of the game (now is being referred to as "The ****") so we are still at his mercy. So later that evening, there are knocks at two of the three rooms the party was staying in, demanding they open up due to they are under arrest. The last party member (the rogue) opened his door and asked what was going on. He was dismissed as no one and that he shouldn't interfere. Perfectly content with this, the rogue just went back into his room and set up a trap. The other party members leap through portals that form after breaking free from grapples or after the guards break down the door. The rogue, being left alone just wanted to stay with all the loot he obtained. The DM opened a portal in the last room, the rogue didn't want to go, so damage, will save, damage, will save, damage, then DM stated that the rogue went through the portal.
At this point I got pissed and being the rogue, I just started walking back to the city because he was a free man and had no reason to run. The DM blocked the way with a dire bear, and my character was killed fighting it, so I rolled up a Druid while the rest of the party fought off the bear.

In the end, the game was not an evil campaign, it was where the DM wanted to play an evil DM, and be a jerk to his players. P.S. We were all level 1 up until the fight against the Dire Bear (CR 7ish). And I was checking the monsters he was throwing at us, they were about 5 CR higher then the party level most of the time.

[Mafic]

Just recently the dm in the camp I play in party wiped us. He had an event planned for about 30 years after the start date. We played our 1st gen characters(and still do) and they were supposed to take care of this thread as they were the major antagonists. The second gen characters ignored it as well until they crashed an arena, turned a capital city undead, and set up fort that ended with us all being tainted beyond repair.

In my camp I have a set of unwinnable fights set up for my players. They just had the first one. Basically they will get 4 freebies to fight this dragon in which the damage it takes cannot be regenerated. This happens in some "dream sequence" kind of way(divine intervention by Vecna). Then they will fight the dragon in real time and attempt to defeat it. That time if they die they die permanently but getting to watch them think their characters die was hilarious to me.

[Venger]

I rolled a beguiler because I wanted to do fun roleplay things and troll everybody with my disguise/bluff/etc.

first game: DM says "herp derp, left 4 dead, guys"

all undead. all the time. mindless zombies. cue 4 hours of damage rolling (roll damage to see how many zombies you kill, no atk/dmg roll)

we go to fortify ourselves behind a building and he randomly gave everybody guns and stuff (roleplay and story? what's that?) that don't precisely materialize out of the air so much as we just have them. everyone but me that is, I was graced with a weaboo katana, so I had to wait until the zombies were crawling up the wall (I guess they are all spider-man) to be effective.

the ranger, the DM's frat bro, has a brilliant energy everythingbane +5 force bow (we are level four) that makes touch attacks against everything that ignore armor and nat armor and let him shoot through multiple guys even if the arrow doesn't drop the first one

the fighter, since he owns 3 weapons, apparently gets to make 3 attacks as a full attack action. at level 4.

we finally finish mindless dice rolling and then the zombies suddenly morph into a corpse gatherer (again, we are level 4)

the halfling rogue climbs up it for some reason and steals a shiny that is in its forehead and that kills it. he falls a million feet and dies. the DM says "oh no, you're alive, it's ok"

we GTFO and go back to a magic iceberg (no explanation in-game either) that teleports us to random places when you cast magic on it (no it doesn't matter what kind) I indulge myself with an ontological quandary by casting detect magic on the nonfuntional iceberg. I detect no magic, but as I keep my concentration up, more magic comes and eventually it turns into lasers (I am unfortunately serious) and we go find ourselves in new york city

unfortunately, I am serious.

through the DM's failure to describe anything right, I eventually determine we are in the 30s. no one will take our gp, because I guess gold wasn't valuable back then. we go to get some normal clothes because my character is a beguiler and damnit I am finally getting the chance to be fabulous.

we go into a hotel and the concierge makes a joke about me keeping the halfling, who we say is a child for simplicity's sake, as an illicit sexual companion

our characters are both dudes, but my beguiler is, as I wrote in the backstory that unfortunately never saw the light of day in this campaign, an absolute queen, so I just make a come-hither face at the DM and that shuts him up, because calling someone gay is only funny if they react negatively or something.

I realise at this point that the party never stays anywhere more than one game, they're just derpaported at the end of each session so there's no opportunity for my beguiler to build social networks

there's also no one following us.

I ask the concierge if there is work in this town, if he gets my meaning, and the DM has him ask what his hourly rate is, because since my character is gay, that obviously means he is a prostitute.

I use charm person to teach him some manners and tell him I'm looking for mercenary work since I might as well make a little money.

I duck into the coatroom and disguise myself as al capone (32 disguise check, beguiler, you are the best) to talk to the contact on the off chance that there is continuity in this cluster**** of a game

he tells me to kill a union member who lives at such and such location and I get to show off my chicago accent. I agree because there's nothing else to do in this awful game. the fighter is upstairs rolling "knowledge: architecture and engineering" (yes fighters get that as a class skill, didn't you know?) and sticking forks in the electrical sockets.

I go to the contact and become irish since the target is living in an irish ghetto. I masquerade as one of his coworkers to warn him there's a hit out for him and that I'm here to help him fight off those lousy mafia goons.

he foolishly lets me in (sense motive rolls? what are those?) and starts packing. I cast sleep and coup de grace him with my rapier, which I didn't bother hiding just to see if the DM would notice.

I make an open lock check to lock the door from the inside and it's okayed. I climb out the window with spider climb and down to street level wearing the target's face (metaphorically)

the party in my absence has decided to rob a bank, which sounds like it might be more fun than ganking commoners, so I tell them that I acquired in a totally legitimate manner, the accoutrements of a bank security guard (where the mark worked)

no one questions it, not even the paladin. it sucks being the only one that roleplays.

I use my cover ID to unlock the doors, spam sleep while the paladin (vanilla) kills everybody. I blink and look around the table. no one comments. I ask him if he played paladin because of wow and he of course says yes.

we empty the vault into my bag of holding (which can apparently hold the new york mint) and there's a secret tunnel in the vault leading underground.

we go down instead of, y'know, running away from the bank we just robbed and the people we just killed (democracy sucks) and we see a design on the floor with a cup in the center.

paladin casts create water (but it's create beer because everyone else at the table is a drunken frat boy) in the cup and something happens.

lich comes out and I leap on the opportunity to roleplay before a million hours of boring combat ensues.

beguiler:"why, hello there. you appear to be temporally displaced as well. we were just on our way out, would you care to accompany us?" (some obscene number on diplomacy)
lich: no, Imma kil u guyz, lol
beguiler:"why? we've just met. surely we can make some sort of arrangement." (I'm not getting anywhere with little piddly numbers like 35 at lvl 4 with diplomacy, no sir)
lich:uh, cuz imma lich and im evil.

I repress a sneer OOC and cast my advanced learning, entice gift, just to see if the DM has any idea what he's doing.

the lich fails his save and gives me his mundane light crossbow. against a mind affecting spell.

I run back and the party opens fire. cue a million hours of boring combat. none of my spells do damage, and even with the DM apparently forgetting that undead are immune to mind affecting affects, there's nothing I can do but cast silence centered near the lich so he can't cast any spells with verbal components.

ranger does a bazillion damage a round but combat still drags on for 2 hours. every round, we roll a ref save and those of us who fail get damaged as if by fireball (at lvl 4) I am a beguiler and since this is my first game, mistakenly thought I cared about dex, so I'm able to make them easily enough, even when they start at DC20 and get higher every round. I ask if the lich is getting burned since he has no visible means of protecting himself (not wearing any items)

dm says "it's a fire lich"

well gee willickers, I didn't know there was any such monster. :smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfu rious:

the ranger kills it with his pretty rainbow bow and he and the pally brofist and celebrate. I ask where its phylactery is. the DM gives me a blank stare and says he's wearing it. I say that when no one else is looking, I pocket it with an amazing sleight of hand check (beguilers have all the skill points) I do so because no one ever pays attention to anything that's not watching the ranger roll dice.

I quietly pack up and never come back.

moral of the story?

don't play D&D with people you don't know, they might all turn out to be *******s.

this was not the best first game.

[JoeYounger]

I was playing a VoP monk in a low OP campaign, and our DM killed me 4 times in less than an hour IRL. All 4 times I was hit with a resurrection, so I was down 4 levels. :(! After the session I asked if I'd done something to piss him off or something, because he was killing me with **** like a lion that was immune to everything except magical ranged attacks. His response was that he was in a bad mood, and I'm the only person in the party that he can kill without having to listen to them bitch about it for weeks. =/ Talk about a backhanded compliment.

Another time, we were starting an epic level campaign. The DM started us at double WBL saying it was going to be extremely fast paced, very lethal, and no pulling of punches. He started us off by us waking up naked missing our gear. We never recovered it. He just wanted to **** with us. =/

[Safety Sword]

All sorts of ridiculous bad DMing BS

I feel for you Venger. Seriously though, as soon as I saw the brilliant energy bow come out on a Level 4 ranger I would have called it a night.

It just goes to show you that there are some REALLY bad games out there. Make me feel a whole lot better about mine and the ones I play in.

[Venger]

I feel for you Venger. Seriously though, as soon as I saw the brilliant energy bow come out on a Level 4 ranger I would have called it a night.

It just goes to show you that there are some REALLY bad games out there. Make me feel a whole lot better about mine and the ones I play in.

Thanks. I would've, but I'd just gotten there and didn't want to be rude.

there are. it really makes me appreciate my good games more. after that, there are no bad games. it also taught me how not to DM, which is important

[Jack_Simth]

Thank you kindly :)
Err... did I just accidentally contribute to the murder of a PC?

Oh well. Let me know how it goes.

[Safety Sword]

Err... did I just accidentally contribute to the murder of a PC?

Oh well. Let me know how it goes.

"Accidentally"... sure. :smalltongue:

[Campbellk8105]

A funny but mean thing was our DM made A-Paladin. He was introduced to the party to help us on our quest until things went horribly horribly wrong. When the NPC introduced us to A-Paladin, well, he was an anti-paladin. Now I'm not sure what all levels and stuff he had but to one of our main fighters, he had a particular hate for. When we found out he was evil he'd follow the party around, sneaking into camp at night and try and kill someone, he was successful most times, and then ran off. When we got to the BBEG fight and the anti-paladin was there, he threw a spell at the fighter. The fighter of course rolls a one and fails the saving throw. His arm proceeded to rip off from his body, and turn into a Wight and start killing him. It was even funnier when he did it again to the fighters other arm, and had two Wights beating him. Good times...

[TravelLog]

I haven't had the chance/misfortune to play Ravenloft yet. How bad is it really? Details people.

[Venger]

I haven't had the chance/misfortune to play Ravenloft yet. How bad is it really? Details people.

it shares much in common with call of cthulu in that it is a horror setting with a lot of monster/elder horror elements in it

it's got a ton of great campaign-specific stuff to it like the eberron books or some of the old 3.0 stuff like some of the faerun books, it's great for storytelling

the problem is the crunch for some of the stuff. games set in ravenloft tend to be, shall we say, short. when everything is evil/demonic/possessed/cursed, it's only a matter of time before someone does something wrong

as someone said earlier, it's great for oneshots, but it is somewhat problematic to run a long campaign here. while an odd horrorish game can be fun every once in a while, stuff loses its shock value if you're desensitised to it too much.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Most of the stuff that pertains to the DM I'm going to be talking about is accidental, he is new, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

We were starting a new system, for most of the group present, he and I knew it quite well, I know he's pretty new at the whole DMing thing, and has a habit of just taking whatever monster tickles his fancy, almost irregardless of power. So what do I do? Make the combat monster. At first it goes pretty well, the other characters made investigatory-type characters and so had no chance to deal with more or less everything we were getting thrown at us, we ended up striking a nice, but somewhat annoying balance: they found the monsters of the week, I buried em.

Que later on, and we're fighting a pretty powerful mage, and I do what I always do, rip him a new one, taking enough damage to kill some of the other characters twice over without blinking in the process. Took him done, but kept him alive as he had information we needed. As the session ends, and we're heading back to a safer spot to interrogate him "he looks at you and says, kill them all. Roll against mind control." So I did, and despite a pretty good roll, the fact that I should've gotten bonuses out the bazooka for such a personality contradicting command, I failed. I was furious, I mean that was a TPK waiting to happen, none of them would be able to defeat my character at peak capacity and seeing as he still had his wits about him, he could wait until he'd have the jump on them.

I spend the next couple of hours riding home on the train, trying to figure out what to do next, and finally come to the conclusion that given my character's recent behavior (he didn't want to kill his enemies for the most part, but because his powers were messing with his head, he'd become increasingly reckless, resulting in some unwanted deaths.) I decided that the compulsion to kill his friends and allies was enough to drive him to suicide, he knew he was a monster, but tried to do good in spite of that, but he had finally reached the end of the rope.

The group exchange emails about off-camera actions and such, so I sent an email informing everyone of his demise.

Next session the DM goes "oh, by the way, some stuff is happening so you can't split just yet" what resulted was a TPK and all I could do at that point was sigh and shake my head.

[vitkiraven]

it shares much in common with call of cthulu in that it is a horror setting with a lot of monster/elder horror elements in it

it's got a ton of great campaign-specific stuff to it like the eberron books or some of the old 3.0 stuff like some of the faerun books, it's great for storytelling

the problem is the crunch for some of the stuff. games set in ravenloft tend to be, shall we say, short. when everything is evil/demonic/possessed/cursed, it's only a matter of time before someone does something wrong

as someone said earlier, it's great for oneshots, but it is somewhat problematic to run a long campaign here. while an odd horrorish game can be fun every once in a while, stuff loses its shock value if you're desensitised to it too much.

I was going to say earlier, that people were wrong when they said that DMs that hate their players play Ravenloft. Dms that hate their players play Call of Cthulhu d20, in a dark ages setting (no guns or explosives) but this post beat me to it.
:amused:

BTW venger, on the subject of DM and gaming, Ihave a question for you re: half-orc o' magic mchaterness. How would you like it asked?

[Arbane]

I was playing a VoP monk in a low OP campaign, and our DM killed me 4 times in less than an hour IRL. All 4 times I was hit with a resurrection, so I was down 4 levels. :(! After the session I asked if I'd done something to piss him off or something, because he was killing me with **** like a lion that was immune to everything except magical ranged attacks. His response was that he was in a bad mood, and I'm the only person in the party that he can kill without having to listen to them bitch about it for weeks. =/ Talk about a backhanded compliment.

Another time, we were starting an epic level campaign. The DM started us at double WBL saying it was going to be extremely fast paced, very lethal, and no pulling of punches. He started us off by us waking up naked missing our gear. We never recovered it. He just wanted to **** with us. =/

Was it the same guy both times? :smalleek:

[Campbellk8105]

Another time, we were starting an epic level campaign. The DM started us at double WBL saying it was going to be extremely fast paced, very lethal, and no pulling of punches. He started us off by us waking up naked missing our gear. We never recovered it. He just wanted to **** with us. =/

Ah something like that happened to us, except it was right after we had scored a lot of loot. The BBEG knocked us senseless, the proceeded to teleport us to a planet he made himself. We woke up naked, on a (obviously home-brewed) zombie planet, naked. Not only were the zombies fairly strong, but he made his own breed that if you cast a spell on then that allowed SR, not only would it not hurt them, but it would buff them making them rage, haste, and various other things.

The scariest but funniest part was when we got to a library and were looking around the outside, and before going in one of our spellcasters decided to use spiderclimb to go up the wall and check through the windows. Half way up, we hear a shriek, he comes bolting down the wall to tell us that some of the uber zombies are in fact smart and much worse than we thought. One zombie was sitting in a chair with glasses reading a book. Looked up and saw the sorcerer peeking through the window. The zombie shook his head, closed the book, stood up and put his glasses away in his pocket. The zombie then cast magic missile on the sorcerer.

A very funny campaign that was.

[vitkiraven]

The scariest but funniest part was when we got to a library and were looking around the outside, and before going in one of our spellcasters decided to use spiderclimb to go up the wall and check through the windows. Half way up, we hear a shriek, he comes bolting down the wall to tell us that some of the uber zombies are in fact smart and much worse than we thought. One zombie was sitting in a chair with glasses reading a book. Looked up and saw the sorcerer peeking through the window. The zombie shook his head, closed the book, stood up and put his glasses away in his pocket. The zombie then cast magic missile on the sorcerer.
This just rocks! Outstanding!

[Campbellk8105]

This just rocks! Outstanding!

Haha yea, that was definitely the funniest and more cruel things that happened to us. His reasoning behind why they were uber zombies is because the planet was just another ordinary planet that the BBEG cast a spell that turned everyone on the planet into zombies. Commoners were normal zombies and NPC with levels were uber zombies.

Man that was annoying when we found out all we had to do was destroy a tablet with the enchantment on it.

Boy was the cleric and paladin distraught when we found out that if we broke the tablet, all the zombies went back to normal.

Oh the number of innocents we slaughtered.

[JoeYounger]

Was it the same guy both times? :smalleek:

It certainly was. =/ lol


Ah something like that happened to us, except it was right after we had scored a lot of loot. The BBEG knocked us senseless, the proceeded to teleport us to a planet he made himself. We woke up naked, on a (obviously home-brewed) zombie planet, naked. Not only were the zombies fairly strong, but he made his own breed that if you cast a spell on then that allowed SR, not only would it not hurt them, but it would buff them making them rage, haste, and various other things.

The scariest but funniest part was when we got to a library and were looking around the outside, and before going in one of our spellcasters decided to use spiderclimb to go up the wall and check through the windows. Half way up, we hear a shriek, he comes bolting down the wall to tell us that some of the uber zombies are in fact smart and much worse than we thought. One zombie was sitting in a chair with glasses reading a book. Looked up and saw the sorcerer peeking through the window. The zombie shook his head, closed the book, stood up and put his glasses away in his pocket. The zombie then cast magic missile on the sorcerer.

A very funny campaign that was.

Haha, thats awesome. Real awesome. I had another DM who was unemployed and spent about 40 hours a week developing his world, planning our session, and rolling up baddies for us to fight. His **** was -crazy-. the party was a pretty low op party to begin with, and we were fighting a high op DM. lol. We were level 7 at the time, and EVERY NPC we fought had heavy fort armor, brilliant energy weapons, and a plethora of buffs on them that gave them upwards of +30 hide/move silently, and then little things like not needing to breath air. It was bad enough that we quit the campaign because people were getting disheartened to the point they'd just not show up. First session it was 8 of us, then 7, then 5, then me =/. When we called it off, I was telling him hes a huge *** hole and that I thought he was just adding whatever he wanted to these characters, and he told me he wasnt. He had it all on paper, and he was using auto resetting spell traps to cast AOE epic buffs to buff the party and he had some loop set up to pool XP with symbol of pain, some item in BoVD that turns pain in the pleasure and some BoED spell that distills pleasure to be used as xp in crafting so he could mass produce magic items for the army =/

What an *******.

[Hawkings]

In my first game DMing I had a player who was unbelievably greedy, he kept stealing all the items I put out as rewards for other players and pawning them off. Seriously I couldn’t give any other player anything because one way or another he’d find a way to get the items first and pocket them. Didn’t take long for the other players to be furious their characters had nothing while he had their combined total worth from the character wealth by level in gold.

So I put items of the 7 deadly sins “Icons of damnation” from the unholy warrior handbook into a dungeon.

Not surprisingly the sneaky player snuck into a room before the other players and looted the items, I was surprised however when he survived several sessions with the cloak of lust on that made all NPCs go berserk and try to kill him if he in anyway rebuffs, ridicules or ignores them.
Fortunately later on another character died and he had the bright idea that the sloth helm of teleportation would be a great way to travel back to town and resurrect the character. But before putting on the helm, he for some reason I can’t imagine put the greed cloak of invisibility on first, then the helm.
I should note the real nasty part among the many curses of these items is using two at once has a DC40 fort save or die.

It took all I could not to laugh as I turned and said to the other players “after saying he’ll teleport to town for help he puts on a cloak and disappears from sight, you here a thud on the ground.”

I was half tempted to leave his invisible ass laying there for eternity, but I allowed other players to roll to trip over his corpse.

He hated me, oh so much. I told him if he didn’t steal the entire collection he’d been fine, he says I shouldn’t have put them in the game. With 6 players and 7 deadly sins only one should have died, it’d have been an interesting story arc, but I knew he’d hog them all, so it was delicious.

[Snowbluff]

My GM dropped a T-Rex on my party once. I was a Dread Necro and I had a Crusader and a Rogue as backup.

When I started winning by using Lesser Shivering Touch (my best spell available) with a Spectral hand, the GM had a bunch of NPCs come down and steal my kill!

EDIT: This is after the GM ruled that i was not allowed to make it Panicked with my fear-causing spells and class abilities. (Cuz a T-Rex running from me would be too sill, apparently?)

Afterward I got sucked into a subplot involving me receiving a Geas to help a future avatar of Kord, a mission that forever railroaded any plot involving me. It also prevented me from becoming neutral again and taking Boccob as a deity, which I could of used to get the Magic Domain and Wish later on.

[Campbellk8105]

Haha, thats awesome. Real awesome.

Our campaigns are usually fairly long, and we play to high levels. Unless the campaign gets derailed we won't usually finish a campaign before Epic.

The BBEG (Caleb) had 80, 80 levels of various classes. So him creating all that was aboslutely no problem. He had a Divine Tuning type ability on the party so that if anyone said his name, he'd teleport to us, and would kill a party member. One of the biggest pains out of everything, which was still funny to all of us is when someone would slip up.

Especially in conversations like this:
Bard: "Ok, everyone got it? Everytime we say his name, he comes in and kills us. So don't say his name."
Fighter: "Yea, we should just come up with a nickname for him so we don't even think abut saying his real name anymore."
Sorcerer: "How about **** head? That seems logical enough."
Fighter: "Yea, thats a good one for him, since he is in fact, a **** head."
Bard: "Ok so its agreed, Caleb's new... Ahhh ****!"

Needless to say, the Bard got slaughtered.

[Hawkings]

Campbellk that campaign sounds awesome, especially with accidentally killing all the innocents by removing the zombification; eat that paladin code!



The BBEG (Caleb) had 80, 80 levels of various classes. So him creating all that was aboslutely no problem. He had a Divine Tuning type ability on the party so that if anyone said his name, he'd teleport to us, and would kill a party member. One of the biggest pains out of everything, which was still funny to all of us is when someone would slip up.


So he became "He who must not be named" that's awesome!
Sounds like a wonderful though annoyingly difficult BBEG, didn't even know it was possible.

I think this Caleb guy should join Lord Voldemort and Candle Jack to form a trinity of unspe-

[Campbellk8105]

Campbellk that campaign sounds awesome, especially with accidentally killing all the innocents by removing the zombification; eat that paladin code!


Haha yea, the paladin and cleric freaked out afterward.



So he became "He who must not be named" that's awesome!
Sounds like a wonderful though annoyingly difficult BBEG, didn't even know it was possible.

I think this Caleb guy should join Lord Voldemort and Candle Jack to form a trinity of unspe-

Yea, remembering to not say his name was amusing. Definitely my favorite campaign I've played in.

Another thing that was a hilarious mishap.
We had a barbarian, bard, 2 fighters, 2 sorcerers, cleric, paladin, rogue. I was the barbarian and did the most destruction and could kill everything the fastest. We were only level 3 at the time. We were on a mountain tracking down a group of kobolds that had killed and robbed some merchants. The kobolds had seen us climbing the mountain so they pushed a few boulders down at us, no one got injured. When we got to the entrance, we decided I'd be the first one to go in. So, I jump out infront of the opening and a volley of arrows and bolts are launched at me. Although I was a barbarian, being only level 3 I decided not to charge any further, and I went back to the side out of the opening.

T.J.(My barbarian): "Holy crap that was close!"
Abbey(Cleric): "Why didn't you charge them? they're only kobolds!"
T.J.: "Yea but did you see how many bolts came at me?!"
Abbey: "And?! They fired, they have to reload now!"
T.J.: "Oh yea... My bad... Hahaha"
Abbey: "Move out of the way, I'll handle this."

Abbey jumps out infront of the opening, and thats all she wrote.

A Ballista is fired, thinking I the big ol' barbarian was gonna jump out again, of course the ballista is dead on. The cleric goes flying off the mountain.

The entire party, aside from the Paladin, burst out in laughter to the clerics demise. The humor was shortly lived after the Paladin said, "Great, there goes our healer..."

[Venger]

Campbellk that campaign sounds awesome, especially with accidentally killing all the innocents by removing the zombification; eat that paladin code!




So he became "He who must not be named" that's awesome!
Sounds like a wonderful though annoyingly difficult BBEG, didn't even know it was possible.

I think this Caleb guy should join Lord Voldemort and Candle Jack to form a trinity of unspe-

I'd always wanted to use candlejack as a BBEG, but-

[Mockingbird]

Wizard-
I cast Fireball on the shambling mound.
DM(npcing the rogue) But the rogue is in the radius..
Wizard- Oh, in that case, I'll just use it on that construct.
DM- Oh, he has evasion, it's fine.
Wizard- Alright, I use it on the shambling mound.
DM- Hey, you, roll your save.
Me- *rolls a natural 20* Yeah, I passed, and I have mettle and evasion so nothing happens.
DM- *rolls a one for the rogue's save*
Uh, the rogue's dead.
Me- UBER LOLS

[killem2]

Not sure if this counts with the levels you guys all talk about, but it was funny never the less.

In 2.0 with the Deck of encounters, we came upon this well. Now we didn't know at the time that everything it duplicated something you threw into it, was not actually duplicating it. Rather it was teleporting said item from somewhere else. Say you had a some gold, and maybe it would take it from the treasury of the castle.

Well, we threw my younger brother in the well, and since that wasn't on the card, the dm said it creates a chaotic evil version of the person and they began fighting down there lol.

We pulled him out, knocked the evil clone back down, and then caved the well in.

[Hawkings]

Not sure if this counts with the levels you guys all talk about, but it was funny never the less.

In 2.0 with the Deck of encounters, we came upon this well. Now we didn't know at the time that everything it duplicated something you threw into it, was not actually duplicating it. Rather it was teleporting said item from somewhere else. Say you had a some gold, and maybe it would take it from the treasury of the castle.

Well, we threw my younger brother in the well, and since that wasn't on the card, the dm said it creates a chaotic evil version of the person and they began fighting down there lol.

We pulled him out, knocked the evil clone back down, and then caved the well in.


If the evil clone came out of the well and you threw him back in, will you get a copy him too?

Find a way to force them into submission and you've got an endless army of evil little brothers!

[Drakevarg]

Pretty much any PC death that occurred in one of my campaigns probably counts.

For example, one TPK happened while the party was exploring a giant cavern where giant bugs had been crawlingout and eating things. There was a massive floating ring in the middle of this cavern with a structure of some sort in the middle of it. Below was a huge, featureless lens-type thing. Naturally, the PCs decide to slide down the rope and take a look around on the lens. I spend several minutes describing how there is absolutely nothing to be done on this lens, and having a preposterously large bug-thing walk across on the opposite side of the lens just to emphasize how they wouldn't want to be there even if there was something to be done.

When they still continue to look around, I have a Chuul crawl out of the water. Mind you the party is level 3-4 here and this is a 10-foot tall Lovecraftian-looking beastie. Worst thing they've fought so far were kobolds and dog-sized cockroaches. Of course, they charge the damn thing instead of scurrying up the rope that there's obviously no way in hell this thing could climb. All but one of the party dies within about three rounds, the sole survivor getting herself killed by falling off a cliff about a minute later.

This incident has become a bit of a meme in our group as to why you don't stand around poking the background scenery.

[Othesemo]

In one campaign I played in, the BBEG was obsessed with pranks. The DM, I think, was trying to make a sort of 'sociopathic child in a grown man's body' character, and he succeeded. The guy was ****ing scary. Anyways, we had just narrowly escaped death at his hands, and we were resting outside. We were all frightened that he'd come after us, so all but one of the characters slept, and that one character (the fighter) stayed up all night. Anyways, enter the BBEG.

He cast sleep on the fighter, and being fatigued and having a +1 to Will, the fighter immediately fell asleep. We all heard this, but since we were sleeping there wasn't much we could do. We all nervously continued for the rest of the night. When we woke, we discovered a very uncomfortable situation. Apparently, the BBEG had access to some spell or other which allowed him to prevent sleeping creatures from waking up unless attacked outright for the duration of the spell. He cast this spell upon a sleeping dire bear as well as the fighter. He then carefully applied sovereign glue to both the bear's and the fighter's nose. He walked to the middle of the camp, cast 'dawn,' and then teleported away, cackling madly.

The hilarity of the ensuing situation was somewhat eclipsed as the DM described in detail the fighter being mauled. The bear won initiative, and the flat-footed unarmored fighter was torn to shreds, his mangled corpse still dangling at the bear's nose. I think that it qualifies as a case of DM brutality.

[DJPantheris]

Well, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna add some stories to this belt soon as I am now GM of a pathfinder group, and this is my first time GM'ing any game.

[Gwazi Magnum]

http://cdn.head-fi.org/7/73/7329b4cf_threadNecromancy.jpg

Anywho, since it is up again now...

Story 1: Ruling following a rail-roaded main story was stupid and losing all your stuff for it

Essentially, we're on a very stereotypical main story quest to save a prince and princess who were kidnapped. Our current lead was a corrupt guard captain who with his elite men hangs out in a lair in the sewers.

What do we do? Sneak in and try to catch him.

It starts with the DM springing trap after trap at us with extremely high (made them himself, wasn't using trap DC rules) so we constantly failed and got hurt. Then added an insult to it when the last player who was being cowardly about it just hugs a wall across and then turns out A-ok.

Unable to heal much from these DC's on steroids traps, we keep going very weakened. We find the guard group and successful bluff our way inside disguising ourselves as some of them.

We find the guard captain on his own, and while under a charm person he feels relaxed enough to just piss in a corner in our presence. So we attack him to knock him out. The DM rules that my magic missle is suddenly 'a very noisy' spell which was never the case before hand and uses this as an excuse for all the guards to hear and charge in.

It them becomes apparent he did not CR balance these guards. Each one is specced to be stronger than a player character, and we're already very weakened from the traps. So we lose easily, get taken prisoner and then interrogated.

First they say all our stuff (when the stuff left on the wagon, guarded by other players who weren't present for this) are suddenly gone (no chance for the rest of the part to RP protecting their goods) and the DM out of characters states we lost all your stuff for being stupid and won't be getting any of it back, ever.

I get an eye ripped out during the interrogation and suffer half attack rolls and -2 Charisma for being less attractive now (Note: I'm a sorcerer, he just crippled my spells here). And now all are attack rolls are cut in half. As in after I roll my total accuracy it's divided by 2. Say I got a total of 20? Now it's 10. Note: This was before any of us knew that spells were auto-hits so this made my person pretty useless.

Then we get stuck fighting in arena as prisoners and after fleeing that... well that's where story 2 happens.

Story 2: Clothing of death

My story is when 5/7 of our players were absent so it was an adventure of me and the other character fleeing from an arena/Jail.

We successfully escape, but the arena was in another dimension so the DM rules by jumping dimensions are material objects are lost (which was just our clothes) so we were naked.

Wandering through the forest we teleported into we find some clothes. DM gives no hint at all they've anything wrong with them even after things like detect magic was used. (Note: He claims now that he gave us ample warning but he's lying to cover himself, there was no warning).

Now with these clothes on everyday he has them randomly set on fire (and the clothes don't burn away from this mind you) inflicting fire damage on us that we can't heal. He says we are unable to take it off and gives no reason at all as to why we can't and each day the damage from the clothing increases leaving us nearly dead and then thankfully the session ends and next session when the rest of the players are back he cuts that bull **** and finds us a way out of the forest and the clothes can now be taken off.

[Azoth]

I have one from a friend who really got under my skin.

Typical four man party (fighter, cleric, rogue *me*, and sorcer *DM's wife*). Not by choice, but by demand of the DM. One player per role, and first come first serve. Not too terrible so far, nothing I can't deal with. Even when we were human by his decree. Limited to core, I can handle it. Now telling me that I can't have TWF or Weapon Finess because it wouldn't fit our backgrounds based on your world and that I have to justify all of my skill choice for you approval because thievery doesn't happen in our starter village is BS in my book. This goes double when the Fighter can take power attack and cleave.

We get to the first dungeon, and low and behold...skeletons by the metric ton. Nothing but undead and oozes. Our Blasty Sorceress is somehow useless, and our good Cleric won't TU for a damn. So, I am useless in most combats.

We search the dungeon and every item I find requires some activation that I am unaware of, and can't figure out on my own. Everyone else's items work beautifully and require no activation beyond standard.

After some rather bad fights involving darkmantles for a change, we come across a giant cavern inside the dungeon. I as party corpse get nominated, because if I die no one will notice since I can't do anything anyway, to scout ahead. Cue some homebrew suped up Assassin Vine that gets 12 attacks a round at +12 for 2d6+8 a piece with auto constrinct for 4d6 if one vine grabs you and an Injury Poison DC 20 Fort save for 2d6 Dex/ 10 min paralysis. This thing shreds my level 4 rogue to hell and no one else will get near it to save me. The sorceress, however, has no problem throwing a 9d6 fireball at me from her neclace of fireballs to try and kill the plant. Damn near killing me, and *surprisingly* one shotting this thing.

After a BS fight where we end up freeing a new god from his cocoon of ascention we get teleported to some area where men are castrated slaves and women rule with an unquestionable iron fist. Oh yeah, this portal destroyed all MY gear in the process of transport because I was the only one to loot corpses of enemies. Got to keep my clothes...and nothing else.

So me and the fighter want to break out and run once we realize the place we are in. We get shot down by mounted archers for being fleeing slaves, carrying weapons, and not being castrated and marked as slaves. When we come too the sorceress claims we are her slaves and were being brought there for proper training and to be neutered. We go along thinking it is an attempt to buy time to free us, and start groveling forgiveness. Well, mid grovel, we get one shot neutered with flaming daggers and are auto unconscious. We wake up again and try to break free of our cell only to realize we are naked, shackled, and spike collared with the spikes facing inward.

This then turns into something so horrible even I won't give details. Suffice to say we both soon decide death is a better option than the sick things the "trainer" is forcing us to do, and I decidec never to sit at HIS gaming table again.

[killem2]

I think it was with I sent a shadow at a party of level one characters.

:smallsigh: I was new.

[Gwazi Magnum]

-snip-

That is rough...

Honestly it sounds like the DM mostly had it out for you specifically and was playing favouritism with his GF who (from what you described) seems like she was knowingly taking advantage of her special treatment.

[Gwazi Magnum]

I think it was with I sent a shadow at a party of level one characters.

:smallsigh: I was new.

Eh, it wasn't on purpose unlike most of the stories being told here.

[Jon_Dahl]

This one actually one good to remember:

A PC was hanging around with a group of NPCs. The PC went outdoors with one of the NPC and when they were beyond hearing distance, he stabbed the NPC to death. He then returned and said "It's fine, he had some things to do. He said he'll come to tomorrow".

The DM said: "You're covered in blood. Roll initiative."

[137beth]

This one actually one good to remember:

A PC was hanging around with a group of NPCs. The PC went outdoors with one of the NPC and when they were beyond hearing distance, he stabbed the NPC to death. He then returned and said "It's fine, he had some things to do. He said he'll come to tomorrow".

The DM said: "You're covered in blood. Roll initiative."

Eh, that's less DM brutality than PC stupidity.

[FleshrakerAbuse]

137ben, depends on how he killed the person.:smallsmile:

One of my worst stories was the first time I played D&D. Looking back, it seems more of a misreading than his fault.
The DM wasn't very keen on complex plots, so it was just a normal dungeon crawl with some kobolds in a fortress that we were going to ambush. DM and some of my other friends guide me through character creation for a druid... picking up feats like Weapon Focus (scimitar), giving me a 15 wis, 18 dex,17 str, and 14 con... which were the exact opposite of the suggested druid scores (not really his fault, hadn't played vary many druids). So, first encounter, we were debating how to assult the kobolds. Because of my low hp compared to everyone else (I joined at lvl 1 while average level was 1-4 at the time) I decided to put my high dex and str to slinging stones from the back. We all jump out of the bushes.
In a few rounds later, the battle was not going too well. The ranger went down, and the cleric moved up to try and heal him. On the other side of the map, the wizard and fighter were smacking kobolds back and forth. Suddenly, the ranger stands to try and attack the kobolds by tipping over one of the braziers at them, and succeeds to kill one. 1 round later, the kobold attempts to do the same back to him. It misses, but instead lands in the large bush I was standing in.
Now, the bush was about 30 ft by 10 ft large area. I had been standing closer to the middle, and the brazier hits the square 10 ft away from me.
DM: "Oh... gods... Make a Reflex save."
Me: "Is that the one using dexterity? Wait... how is the fire going to hit me?
DM: "You're standing in the bush. The whole thing catchs on fire."
Me: "What? That makes no sense! It's 10 ft away; how am I affected by it yet?"
DM: "That's how it works. Roll DC 25. Wait, you'll fail anyways unless you roll 20."
Because I didn't understand the logic very well, I kept on arguing until everyone told me just to do it. So, I fail it anyways.
DM: "You take 16 points of damage."
That started my gaming career, knocked out because of misinterpretation. I think I should have probably looked up the section and showed it to him.
Different DM, same group:
A few weeks later, the same group (except for switching around), we are shipwreck from trying to defend a merchant ship from pirates, with only 3 crewmen surviving. We spend some time collecting wood to build a ship, making a coastline defensive camp and mounting one of the ship's ballista. 2nd night, I was standing guard in the middle of the camp with a crewman.
DM asks for spot check and facing direction.
Me: "Wait, wouldn't I be looking at more than one area?"
DM: "Just choose it."
Because the DM had used a black and white map program to make the map of the camp, apparently the DM had meant some wall-like squares to be brush and trees. Because I thought it was a fence, I instead looked at the beach and the shore for aquatic invaders.
DM: "Okay... suddenly, 6 natives jump from the bush and hurl spears!"
He proceeds to hit me with 4 of them, taking me down to -7 hp. This was at about level 4.
Me: "Wait... how did they do so much damage?"
DM: "The natives have 20 str and 20 dex!"
Me: "What? Lemme guess: they also have natural armor and ACs of 22 or higher, and 30 or higher hp each."
DM: "Nope, just normal for those."
By that time, I learned to just roll with it. No pun intended.

[Jarawara]

Eh, that's less DM brutality than PC stupidity.

No, that's DM stupidity.

The PC could easily have stabbed the NPC in a way to avoid serious bloodshed, and just as easily wiped the blood off the blade and cleaned up what little got on his hand. A stab to the kidneys should do the trick I believe, causing mostly internal bleeding but near instantaneous paralysis via pain. Slashing his throat while standing behind him is much messier, but the blood should not hit the PC, just the ground.

--OR--

The PC fails to get the guy by surprise and has to do it messily, spraying blood all over, soaking himself down. In which case... THE DM SHOULD HAVE TOLD HIM AS MUCH! Therefore, the player did not act stupidly, but only acted according to the limited level of knowledge he was afforded.


Whether or not DM stupidity qualifies as DM brutality is a matter I shall leave for the court of public opinion. :smallamused:

[Water_Bear]

The PC could easily have stabbed the NPC in a way to avoid serious bloodshed, and just as easily wiped the blood off the blade and cleaned up what little got on his hand. A stab to the kidneys should do the trick I believe, causing mostly internal bleeding but near instantaneous paralysis via pain. Slashing his throat while standing behind him is much messier, but the blood should not hit the PC, just the ground.

Not to get too graphic, but blood is a pretty high-pressure system and any time you're causing enough blood loss to kill someone that blood will. get. absolutely. everywhere. Even purely internal bleeding means it's likely going to start coming out one of the body's many convenient holes.

Of course, given how movies books and TV portray stabbings, I'd cut the PC some slack as a DM. Throw an "are you sure?" in there and remind them they're covered in blood before heading downstairs.

[Miranius]

Suddenly i am very glad for the DM`s i have had in my games :)

Only one short exploit of a friend of mine, thoguh it`s not DM brutality but rather hillarious:

DM: Ok, so please word your wish-spell now.
Player (who had lost tons of loot during the campaign): i wish i had all my **** back.
DM: are... you sure?
Player: Hell yeah!
DM (calculates average volume of excrement over human lifetime): well you have it back, in a xy foot high stinking pile that eploded out of you.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Thread necromancy is frowned upon here.