SandroTheMaster
2011-12-04, 07:12 PM
Now, bear with me. There's a very good reason I still play with this GM, he can setup some fantastic roleplaying pieces, giving us the opportunity to participate on our own arcs and play it out more-or-less organically.
But he really, really, really sucks at setting up encounters, setting up roleplaying opportunities for side quests not related to our main arcs, and mainly he sucks very, very much at setting up adventures in general.
Ok, this will be an unapologetic wall of text. A HUGE wall of text. And most of it will just be random venting because it just isn't productive at my gaming table. Feel free to skip to my too long, didn't read anecdote at the end.
I'm not a newcomer nor am I bitching because he finally killed a character of mine in his table (he was trying for quite a bit by now). My first table was with my father's group. A bunch of veterans that gave no qualms. My character there died more times than all the characters from my new group and our previous group combined. I'm quite alright with my character dying. And just comparing with the adventures I had with that character (who ended up with negative con bonus because of a house-rule that dictated resurrection cost both a level and a con point) it is quite a harsh contrast. We had marvelously set traps. Lots of fun with encounters. And while very much light on role-play we had much fun dealing with everything old school.
Then I GMed for some time. I took exhaustive hours planning encounters and adventures. Making sure everyone would feel useful. Making sure that my players had, at least most of the time, multiple possible approaches to a situation or encounter. That group dissolved mostly because most of the players simply grew out of enjoying RPGs and our sessions were becoming further and further apart. Still had two avid players, but a 3-man band (including me, the GM) I do not run.
Eventually I got in as a player at this new gaming table which was DMed by someone else I knew in high school that also played RPG, but I only played with him twice. The first group quickly dissolved. Then we formed another group and played under him (me and my usual players). That one dissolved after the first session. Mostly, everyone else thought he was too brutal. Now that I'm under him again and went through two campaigns... I'm starting to think, or rather realize, that he completely sucks at setting up encounters and adventures in general and just faces it like it is an arms race with the players... where they're mostly railroaded into dealing with them his way even if he gives us plenty of freedom when roleplaying our character arcs.
Maybe I need to explain myself and give some examples. How about I start with this: So far, in those two campaigns, first one in D&D 3.5 and second transitioned to Pathfinder, there was a total of 2 times we didn't start combat either with a huge monster beginning at a surprise round even though we had plenty of time to at least prepare ourselves or surrounded without noticing anything even though most of the time we saw our enemies coming from miles and he simply dictates we waited to become surrounded (and the devious part is that he doesn't even makes it sound like that).
The two exceptions were when we were taking part in an arena against other adventurers (if they'd get the jump on us or surrounded us it'd just be silly) and another time we opened a gate we knew there were drows on the other side and they knew we were there. So at least we started the combat at even odds.
One time we managed to seal off a couple of gauths in their dungeon so we could fight the first one of the trio alone. They took a whole of one turn to take the huge detour back to the surface and then get at us (who were quite far from the other entrances). Oh, and one of them could petrify at will. Just because.
But worse yet, most of the combats, it follows the following pattern: our enemies pretty much beat the crap out of us the first couple of rounds, usually downing our frontline fighter in that time, usually with a second character following suit, and then he seems to notice he'll just obliterate the party and start fumbling almost everything they do for the rest of the combat so he doesn't end with a total party kill (though a kill here and there is acceptable to him, our fighter from the first campaign died twice in a row in consecutive sessions even though he didn't fumble once and was actually being quite good at his job and had a high enough AC most of the group only hit him with a 20... thanks to some overpowered stuff the GM gave him in death that he didn't quite expected would add up to so much). Sure, we've all been there, GMs, you overestimate the power of the group and you have to at least tone it down a bit so that you don't have a sudden and anticlimactic TPK. But other GMs, or at least good GMs, then realize they are making gross overestimations and adjust it a bit so that their players don't TPK every other encounter. Not this one.
The problem is that he uses those victories against truly impossible odds as proof we can handle it. He even allow our characters an insane poll of attribute points and hit points just so we have the faintest chance against his monstrosities of encounters, but even if your barbarian has 20 Str, 18 Con and almost 100 HP when in rage, it won't make him survive against a freaking abyssal dire tiger with a progression of over 20 hit die, over 300 HP, pounce and 5 attacks of +24 doing over 20 damage each... at level 5. (Actually happened)
But what really made me open my eyes is was this last campaign. We just finished it because he finally managed a TPK (and heck, he still had the gall to be surprised by it). In this one I fought most of the time as a dwarven thief. She had some quite high AC but nonetheless was hit ALL THE TIME (I soon wished I'd maximized my CON instead of my DEX... or maybe just ignored my mental attributes and made a physical juggernaut that... would still not amount to much I reckon). But that's not the problem.
The problem is that in 6 levels, she only faced 2 traps. It was obvious he never built any dungeon expecting any thief, at all. Eventually, after the battle with the gauths, we got back to their dungeon (that was obviously made up from the top of his head as we explored...) found everything there was to be found, eventually found its treasure (that was measly, since an ogre-mage had just pillaged it... we chose not to fight the ogre-mage because we were completely drained and this GM has some weird fetish with ogre-mages and makes them more overpowered than dragons). Eventually, after noticing I built a thief expecting that at some point EVER I would face a trap, mostly because every single step we did in a dungeon into a new corridor I'd make a search for one, he decided he'd finally put one for us. Oh, but it wasn't a pre-determined trap. No. He just let us **** around into the pain-in-the-ass to navigate vertical labyrinth drawn from the top of his head (our mage didn't have levitate... grumble, grumble), just making more and more corridors (and giving a decent backstory to the gauths while at it, remember, there's a reason I'm still playing with him), until finally our barbarian said "I go in" into a new uncovered corridor before I could say I'd check... guess where the trap was finally at? With the entire party's con reduced 4-6 points, we endured but this time I was adamantly searching every five feet into it. He obviously still wanted another trap to go with the previous, but eventually allowed conceded I found it and eventually disarmed it (a very good roll on my part). Of course the second trap was a cloud-kill that would probably kill everyone with their lowered CON but the mage who was a bit ahead of the group thanks to some solo character arcs.
Other **** he pulled into this second campaign was a clay golem I truly hoped was just an animated statue that got the jump on us. Of course it was progressed. Of course we were level 4. Heck, after the first turn after our healer tried to heal me (who was of course dying after the first round of pounding and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it) the DM finally read, apparently for the first time, what cursed wounds does. So after the group goes on a full retreat, dragging my dwarf along and the raging barbarian along and hoping for a 20 so they would actually be able to heal the barbarian and then start to calm him down, because otherwise he'd die as soon as he exited it. Me, I had to rely on stabilizing on my own. I managed it. Thanks to a timely 20 (pathfinder). Then, some 25 charges of my wand of cure light wounds, they managed to get me back on my feet. At least it wasn't a battle in an expansive space filled with absolutely nothing so that anything could surround us at any time... but since it was a single overpowered monster way, waaaaaaay over our league it didn't need to.
On another occasion he pitched 6 (progressed) ankhegs against our group of 5. While we slept. Two got me and I managed to get away thanks to 2 incredibly lucky escape artist checks, but after everyone just got extremely lucky as well, still one took our healer away and killed her for good. (Our barbarian almost died twice, our wizard almost died twice as well, I got to 1 hit point from dying, only the paladin was mostly ok). The problem? This was a random encounter. We only managed to survive at all thanks to outwordly lucky rolls from our part. My dwarf ended up going into the nest alone because our healer was the only character she actually cared in the party and I was revolving my arc around her. When she resurfaced with almost enough of her to put into a matchbox, the group had already left because they were't too keen about her too. I decided to retire her (it didn't make sense to keep on with the group without the healer) and made a hobgoblin bard to take her place. It makes sense in context.
The luck is also a problem. The players under him just seem to have this supernatural luck for stabilizations. It astounds me. Even before Pathfinder rules. Actually, under pathfinder rules it was even worse, since we were usually on a status we'd only stabilize with a 20. And still we manage to stabilize every single time. I've lost count how many times character stabilized one turn away from dying and the rest of the group was completely incapable of assisting. In every other group we just outright assumed unattended dying characters were going to die. We rolled the dice, of course, but just for the hell of it since we never, ever got a stabilization. But since in this group dying characters are always magically stabilizing it creates the illusion his challenges aren't that bad. Since, of course, the twenty or so times someone stabilized just a couple of turns or less from death doesn't count at all. They survived, didn't they?
Another common theme is that the Healer is not allowed to do anything but heal. Whenever he does anything else, the group dies. Sometimes he can get clever and sneak in a sanctuary before combat, but that's about it. Whenever he ends up fumbling a heal (either rolling really pathetically or failing a concentration check) someone falls... invariably. Not that people don't fall otherwise. Heck, I think we never had a combat where no-one got into the dying status. Then again, he completely eschews the concept of tiered encounters. All encounters we always have is an all-or-nothing bout for our lives where we end up invariably drained and completely incapable of fighting again before rest. At least he is predictable and never gets something at us when we're resting from another encounter (but not when we're just resting).
Then, eventually, this supernatural luck ended, as it was inevitable, and another inevitable event occurred. We were searching for a bandit camp in the desert when, after camping for a night at the point of their attacks my character notices movement on the dunes above. He becomes invisible and climbs it, making the barbarian alert and telling him to wake up the party. My character stumble into a scouting party of 5 man on horses I only managed to notice in a moonlit night when they were already going away, but I digress. I thought the GM was finally placing a nice set piece for us. Maybe we'd be able to sap the bandits a few at a time, sapping their numbers, until we went in for the final confrontation (after all, we couldn't possibly survive another full-on bandit onslaught without a level 20 Samurai/Iaijutsu master babysitting us this time... even though we throughly protested against the nanny he is the only reason we survived... but for our DM this only means that encounter wasn't strong enough, as you'll see).
Anyway, since I can't possibly catch them I call for the party and try a potshot with a crossbow at them, then making a check to see if I can taunt at least a few of them to stay and fight. I rolled well, but of course, that wasn't what the GM was planning for that encounter so none of them bothered (even if they did... I have the impression he'd just fill back the numbers later... it felt very much like it happened in other occasions we actually managed to cheat the DM into forcing part of a force to confront us).
We take chase and have the wizard cast expeditious retreat on a horse so we can take on them (well, me and the barbarian, he only had one expeditious retreat). Of course, the DM noticing we might actually manage to fight only a portion of a larger force before the larger force, he had to intervene. So when we finally reach them... they of course reach their camp. At the precise same time. We, of course, retreated and regrouped. Once with the group I wanted to hide and just try and take the chance another time, try not to have their full force on us. But that was not up to debate since the bandits had magically already organized and were already coming.
Well, at least we were prepared and could use the time until they reach us to prepare further, while taking potshots at them. You obviously didn't learn by now. When I just suggested to have the wizard cast Mage Armor on himself the GM already states "You're surrounded from all sides, they're all a single charge away from you and their archers are positioned" (our Wizard could cast a fireball at 640 feet away, you'd think he'd be able to cast a couple of them before they reached the group... open spaces never give us the advantage it should and always give the enemy the advantages they should... without the disadvantages... ugh... I'm less and less inclined to defend him as I go here.)
Of course, we argue quite a bit that we should have had time for something, anything. Eventually, he concedes. "Alright, you have a free flat-footed turn, enjoy". It didn't make any sense, but it was all we'd ever get. So... the enemy could be in awe against our... bless... and a single longbow shot from our barbarian (that ended not being a good idea since it cost him his first turn of hitting with something that actually hurts)... at least I successfully used my shield wand and our wizard managed to wipe one of the ranks of enemy bowmen.
Later we discovered he shouldn't have bothered with the enemy bowmen... at least the ones in ranks. They were the least of our concerns.
The problem is that, from the beginning of the fight it was painfully obvious the GM wasn't in control of the situation at all. It got to a point that the number of fumbles on his part to allow our victory was just ridiculous... so he decided not to do it. Even if it meant allowing some criticals to get through.
But the ridiculousness comes from how one-sided the battle was. We fought other one-sided battles, but feel up this other delightful theme: He likes to pit us against an opposing group of supposedly equal strength... backed up by something extra. First, the opposing group is always at least a level above ours. Second, they always have better stats (or at least he just sinks almost everything into physical stats, since NPCs don't need the mental stats that are useless for their classes in combat). Third, they always also have some allies on top of that. Once we fought a drow party that mirrored us like this, we had a warrior with absurd AC, they had an drow Spellblade that could easily surpass his AC (as in, he never missed once). I was a halfling transmuter, there was a drow evocator. We had a pyromaniac sorceress, they had a warlock. We had a cleric of Pelor completely geared for healing, they had a cleric of Lolth completely geared for combat. We had a tiefling rogue they had a drow assassin. Every single one of them was our level... in character classes, without counting the drow adjustment.
And on top of that they had a medusa on their side...
This time it was even more fun. They had a level 7 sorcerer for our level 6 evocator, a level 7 barbarian with absurd racial strength to our level 6 one, they had a level 7 cavalier for my level 5 bard, and a level 7 cleric for our level 4 one. Plus 4 assisting knights that were the personal bodyguard of the barbarian that were each at least as strong as our level 4 magus (and certainly did more damage). Plus 2 expert snipers that did 20 damage a shot and had +15 to hit (note, our barbarian had +14 to hit when in rage). Plus 28 minor bandits that were level 1 warriors... though the melee ones did 15 damage I have no idea how.
Of course, this time our luck had ran out. Every single healing from our cleric had dealt minimal or close to minimal healing (including a lot of channels for 2 or 3 points of healing). The minions characters were hitting my character even though he was at a healthy 28 AC thanks to preparation (I'd had a shield of faith potion as I was chasing and the shield wand). They felled our magus on the second turn. The web our wizard used to at least hold off the enemy wizard and cleric for a few turns was immediately dissipated (because the enemy sorcerer was the first sorcerer I've ever seem with Dispel magic as his second level 3 spell). Our barbarian eventually got a lucky crit and felled the enemy barbarian leader, when our wizard, magus and cleric had fallen. I was the only chance of the group, still with some hp left and a good AC that was finally getting something done, I could escape and maybe rescue the others with preparation (since the GM finally started fumbling a few rolls and realizing that maybe hugely overwhelming the players isn't such a good idea), but then the enemy sorcerer got the luckiest roll of rolls I've ever saw, starting with a 20 (he only hit me with 19-20, anything under it was a miss, anything close to it would hit one of his allies), and followed with a 19, confirming the crit, AND hit the right copy (I had Mirror Image up). I got 8d6 damage the DM almost maximized (I still had 30 HP left). Then our barbarian fell.
It never felt the GM was in control of his encounter, more than anywhere else, mostly because we finally ran out of our supernatural luck, and the character I'd just made and was already planning with him how his character arc could go died in his first combat. In TPK. We were never even close to win nor we had any chance to avoid, escape or tackle it any differently.
Now we've made new characters, but I feel we might start rough (our first encounter after the last campaign, which ended because most of the players disbanded... what a shock... culminated into every character captured because he didn't properly dialed things down for first level characters... or at least I don't think goblins with more than 30 hp is proper for a first level chracter), and that our DM haven't learned anything.
I don't know how to approach this. Every time I try to bring up he just dismisses it as whining while the other players try not to get involved.
What should I do?
tl;dr: My DM is terrific at roleplaying and mood setting, but absolutely awful at everything else mostly because he thinks encounters are an arms race he ought to be winning, never even occurs to him he might be overdoing and thinks winging dungeons is a good way of planning them. What can I do to make him realize he should change without antagonizing him? Please, don't just say change groups, it is already something I'm considering but finding other groups in my country is hard.
But he really, really, really sucks at setting up encounters, setting up roleplaying opportunities for side quests not related to our main arcs, and mainly he sucks very, very much at setting up adventures in general.
Ok, this will be an unapologetic wall of text. A HUGE wall of text. And most of it will just be random venting because it just isn't productive at my gaming table. Feel free to skip to my too long, didn't read anecdote at the end.
I'm not a newcomer nor am I bitching because he finally killed a character of mine in his table (he was trying for quite a bit by now). My first table was with my father's group. A bunch of veterans that gave no qualms. My character there died more times than all the characters from my new group and our previous group combined. I'm quite alright with my character dying. And just comparing with the adventures I had with that character (who ended up with negative con bonus because of a house-rule that dictated resurrection cost both a level and a con point) it is quite a harsh contrast. We had marvelously set traps. Lots of fun with encounters. And while very much light on role-play we had much fun dealing with everything old school.
Then I GMed for some time. I took exhaustive hours planning encounters and adventures. Making sure everyone would feel useful. Making sure that my players had, at least most of the time, multiple possible approaches to a situation or encounter. That group dissolved mostly because most of the players simply grew out of enjoying RPGs and our sessions were becoming further and further apart. Still had two avid players, but a 3-man band (including me, the GM) I do not run.
Eventually I got in as a player at this new gaming table which was DMed by someone else I knew in high school that also played RPG, but I only played with him twice. The first group quickly dissolved. Then we formed another group and played under him (me and my usual players). That one dissolved after the first session. Mostly, everyone else thought he was too brutal. Now that I'm under him again and went through two campaigns... I'm starting to think, or rather realize, that he completely sucks at setting up encounters and adventures in general and just faces it like it is an arms race with the players... where they're mostly railroaded into dealing with them his way even if he gives us plenty of freedom when roleplaying our character arcs.
Maybe I need to explain myself and give some examples. How about I start with this: So far, in those two campaigns, first one in D&D 3.5 and second transitioned to Pathfinder, there was a total of 2 times we didn't start combat either with a huge monster beginning at a surprise round even though we had plenty of time to at least prepare ourselves or surrounded without noticing anything even though most of the time we saw our enemies coming from miles and he simply dictates we waited to become surrounded (and the devious part is that he doesn't even makes it sound like that).
The two exceptions were when we were taking part in an arena against other adventurers (if they'd get the jump on us or surrounded us it'd just be silly) and another time we opened a gate we knew there were drows on the other side and they knew we were there. So at least we started the combat at even odds.
One time we managed to seal off a couple of gauths in their dungeon so we could fight the first one of the trio alone. They took a whole of one turn to take the huge detour back to the surface and then get at us (who were quite far from the other entrances). Oh, and one of them could petrify at will. Just because.
But worse yet, most of the combats, it follows the following pattern: our enemies pretty much beat the crap out of us the first couple of rounds, usually downing our frontline fighter in that time, usually with a second character following suit, and then he seems to notice he'll just obliterate the party and start fumbling almost everything they do for the rest of the combat so he doesn't end with a total party kill (though a kill here and there is acceptable to him, our fighter from the first campaign died twice in a row in consecutive sessions even though he didn't fumble once and was actually being quite good at his job and had a high enough AC most of the group only hit him with a 20... thanks to some overpowered stuff the GM gave him in death that he didn't quite expected would add up to so much). Sure, we've all been there, GMs, you overestimate the power of the group and you have to at least tone it down a bit so that you don't have a sudden and anticlimactic TPK. But other GMs, or at least good GMs, then realize they are making gross overestimations and adjust it a bit so that their players don't TPK every other encounter. Not this one.
The problem is that he uses those victories against truly impossible odds as proof we can handle it. He even allow our characters an insane poll of attribute points and hit points just so we have the faintest chance against his monstrosities of encounters, but even if your barbarian has 20 Str, 18 Con and almost 100 HP when in rage, it won't make him survive against a freaking abyssal dire tiger with a progression of over 20 hit die, over 300 HP, pounce and 5 attacks of +24 doing over 20 damage each... at level 5. (Actually happened)
But what really made me open my eyes is was this last campaign. We just finished it because he finally managed a TPK (and heck, he still had the gall to be surprised by it). In this one I fought most of the time as a dwarven thief. She had some quite high AC but nonetheless was hit ALL THE TIME (I soon wished I'd maximized my CON instead of my DEX... or maybe just ignored my mental attributes and made a physical juggernaut that... would still not amount to much I reckon). But that's not the problem.
The problem is that in 6 levels, she only faced 2 traps. It was obvious he never built any dungeon expecting any thief, at all. Eventually, after the battle with the gauths, we got back to their dungeon (that was obviously made up from the top of his head as we explored...) found everything there was to be found, eventually found its treasure (that was measly, since an ogre-mage had just pillaged it... we chose not to fight the ogre-mage because we were completely drained and this GM has some weird fetish with ogre-mages and makes them more overpowered than dragons). Eventually, after noticing I built a thief expecting that at some point EVER I would face a trap, mostly because every single step we did in a dungeon into a new corridor I'd make a search for one, he decided he'd finally put one for us. Oh, but it wasn't a pre-determined trap. No. He just let us **** around into the pain-in-the-ass to navigate vertical labyrinth drawn from the top of his head (our mage didn't have levitate... grumble, grumble), just making more and more corridors (and giving a decent backstory to the gauths while at it, remember, there's a reason I'm still playing with him), until finally our barbarian said "I go in" into a new uncovered corridor before I could say I'd check... guess where the trap was finally at? With the entire party's con reduced 4-6 points, we endured but this time I was adamantly searching every five feet into it. He obviously still wanted another trap to go with the previous, but eventually allowed conceded I found it and eventually disarmed it (a very good roll on my part). Of course the second trap was a cloud-kill that would probably kill everyone with their lowered CON but the mage who was a bit ahead of the group thanks to some solo character arcs.
Other **** he pulled into this second campaign was a clay golem I truly hoped was just an animated statue that got the jump on us. Of course it was progressed. Of course we were level 4. Heck, after the first turn after our healer tried to heal me (who was of course dying after the first round of pounding and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it) the DM finally read, apparently for the first time, what cursed wounds does. So after the group goes on a full retreat, dragging my dwarf along and the raging barbarian along and hoping for a 20 so they would actually be able to heal the barbarian and then start to calm him down, because otherwise he'd die as soon as he exited it. Me, I had to rely on stabilizing on my own. I managed it. Thanks to a timely 20 (pathfinder). Then, some 25 charges of my wand of cure light wounds, they managed to get me back on my feet. At least it wasn't a battle in an expansive space filled with absolutely nothing so that anything could surround us at any time... but since it was a single overpowered monster way, waaaaaaay over our league it didn't need to.
On another occasion he pitched 6 (progressed) ankhegs against our group of 5. While we slept. Two got me and I managed to get away thanks to 2 incredibly lucky escape artist checks, but after everyone just got extremely lucky as well, still one took our healer away and killed her for good. (Our barbarian almost died twice, our wizard almost died twice as well, I got to 1 hit point from dying, only the paladin was mostly ok). The problem? This was a random encounter. We only managed to survive at all thanks to outwordly lucky rolls from our part. My dwarf ended up going into the nest alone because our healer was the only character she actually cared in the party and I was revolving my arc around her. When she resurfaced with almost enough of her to put into a matchbox, the group had already left because they were't too keen about her too. I decided to retire her (it didn't make sense to keep on with the group without the healer) and made a hobgoblin bard to take her place. It makes sense in context.
The luck is also a problem. The players under him just seem to have this supernatural luck for stabilizations. It astounds me. Even before Pathfinder rules. Actually, under pathfinder rules it was even worse, since we were usually on a status we'd only stabilize with a 20. And still we manage to stabilize every single time. I've lost count how many times character stabilized one turn away from dying and the rest of the group was completely incapable of assisting. In every other group we just outright assumed unattended dying characters were going to die. We rolled the dice, of course, but just for the hell of it since we never, ever got a stabilization. But since in this group dying characters are always magically stabilizing it creates the illusion his challenges aren't that bad. Since, of course, the twenty or so times someone stabilized just a couple of turns or less from death doesn't count at all. They survived, didn't they?
Another common theme is that the Healer is not allowed to do anything but heal. Whenever he does anything else, the group dies. Sometimes he can get clever and sneak in a sanctuary before combat, but that's about it. Whenever he ends up fumbling a heal (either rolling really pathetically or failing a concentration check) someone falls... invariably. Not that people don't fall otherwise. Heck, I think we never had a combat where no-one got into the dying status. Then again, he completely eschews the concept of tiered encounters. All encounters we always have is an all-or-nothing bout for our lives where we end up invariably drained and completely incapable of fighting again before rest. At least he is predictable and never gets something at us when we're resting from another encounter (but not when we're just resting).
Then, eventually, this supernatural luck ended, as it was inevitable, and another inevitable event occurred. We were searching for a bandit camp in the desert when, after camping for a night at the point of their attacks my character notices movement on the dunes above. He becomes invisible and climbs it, making the barbarian alert and telling him to wake up the party. My character stumble into a scouting party of 5 man on horses I only managed to notice in a moonlit night when they were already going away, but I digress. I thought the GM was finally placing a nice set piece for us. Maybe we'd be able to sap the bandits a few at a time, sapping their numbers, until we went in for the final confrontation (after all, we couldn't possibly survive another full-on bandit onslaught without a level 20 Samurai/Iaijutsu master babysitting us this time... even though we throughly protested against the nanny he is the only reason we survived... but for our DM this only means that encounter wasn't strong enough, as you'll see).
Anyway, since I can't possibly catch them I call for the party and try a potshot with a crossbow at them, then making a check to see if I can taunt at least a few of them to stay and fight. I rolled well, but of course, that wasn't what the GM was planning for that encounter so none of them bothered (even if they did... I have the impression he'd just fill back the numbers later... it felt very much like it happened in other occasions we actually managed to cheat the DM into forcing part of a force to confront us).
We take chase and have the wizard cast expeditious retreat on a horse so we can take on them (well, me and the barbarian, he only had one expeditious retreat). Of course, the DM noticing we might actually manage to fight only a portion of a larger force before the larger force, he had to intervene. So when we finally reach them... they of course reach their camp. At the precise same time. We, of course, retreated and regrouped. Once with the group I wanted to hide and just try and take the chance another time, try not to have their full force on us. But that was not up to debate since the bandits had magically already organized and were already coming.
Well, at least we were prepared and could use the time until they reach us to prepare further, while taking potshots at them. You obviously didn't learn by now. When I just suggested to have the wizard cast Mage Armor on himself the GM already states "You're surrounded from all sides, they're all a single charge away from you and their archers are positioned" (our Wizard could cast a fireball at 640 feet away, you'd think he'd be able to cast a couple of them before they reached the group... open spaces never give us the advantage it should and always give the enemy the advantages they should... without the disadvantages... ugh... I'm less and less inclined to defend him as I go here.)
Of course, we argue quite a bit that we should have had time for something, anything. Eventually, he concedes. "Alright, you have a free flat-footed turn, enjoy". It didn't make any sense, but it was all we'd ever get. So... the enemy could be in awe against our... bless... and a single longbow shot from our barbarian (that ended not being a good idea since it cost him his first turn of hitting with something that actually hurts)... at least I successfully used my shield wand and our wizard managed to wipe one of the ranks of enemy bowmen.
Later we discovered he shouldn't have bothered with the enemy bowmen... at least the ones in ranks. They were the least of our concerns.
The problem is that, from the beginning of the fight it was painfully obvious the GM wasn't in control of the situation at all. It got to a point that the number of fumbles on his part to allow our victory was just ridiculous... so he decided not to do it. Even if it meant allowing some criticals to get through.
But the ridiculousness comes from how one-sided the battle was. We fought other one-sided battles, but feel up this other delightful theme: He likes to pit us against an opposing group of supposedly equal strength... backed up by something extra. First, the opposing group is always at least a level above ours. Second, they always have better stats (or at least he just sinks almost everything into physical stats, since NPCs don't need the mental stats that are useless for their classes in combat). Third, they always also have some allies on top of that. Once we fought a drow party that mirrored us like this, we had a warrior with absurd AC, they had an drow Spellblade that could easily surpass his AC (as in, he never missed once). I was a halfling transmuter, there was a drow evocator. We had a pyromaniac sorceress, they had a warlock. We had a cleric of Pelor completely geared for healing, they had a cleric of Lolth completely geared for combat. We had a tiefling rogue they had a drow assassin. Every single one of them was our level... in character classes, without counting the drow adjustment.
And on top of that they had a medusa on their side...
This time it was even more fun. They had a level 7 sorcerer for our level 6 evocator, a level 7 barbarian with absurd racial strength to our level 6 one, they had a level 7 cavalier for my level 5 bard, and a level 7 cleric for our level 4 one. Plus 4 assisting knights that were the personal bodyguard of the barbarian that were each at least as strong as our level 4 magus (and certainly did more damage). Plus 2 expert snipers that did 20 damage a shot and had +15 to hit (note, our barbarian had +14 to hit when in rage). Plus 28 minor bandits that were level 1 warriors... though the melee ones did 15 damage I have no idea how.
Of course, this time our luck had ran out. Every single healing from our cleric had dealt minimal or close to minimal healing (including a lot of channels for 2 or 3 points of healing). The minions characters were hitting my character even though he was at a healthy 28 AC thanks to preparation (I'd had a shield of faith potion as I was chasing and the shield wand). They felled our magus on the second turn. The web our wizard used to at least hold off the enemy wizard and cleric for a few turns was immediately dissipated (because the enemy sorcerer was the first sorcerer I've ever seem with Dispel magic as his second level 3 spell). Our barbarian eventually got a lucky crit and felled the enemy barbarian leader, when our wizard, magus and cleric had fallen. I was the only chance of the group, still with some hp left and a good AC that was finally getting something done, I could escape and maybe rescue the others with preparation (since the GM finally started fumbling a few rolls and realizing that maybe hugely overwhelming the players isn't such a good idea), but then the enemy sorcerer got the luckiest roll of rolls I've ever saw, starting with a 20 (he only hit me with 19-20, anything under it was a miss, anything close to it would hit one of his allies), and followed with a 19, confirming the crit, AND hit the right copy (I had Mirror Image up). I got 8d6 damage the DM almost maximized (I still had 30 HP left). Then our barbarian fell.
It never felt the GM was in control of his encounter, more than anywhere else, mostly because we finally ran out of our supernatural luck, and the character I'd just made and was already planning with him how his character arc could go died in his first combat. In TPK. We were never even close to win nor we had any chance to avoid, escape or tackle it any differently.
Now we've made new characters, but I feel we might start rough (our first encounter after the last campaign, which ended because most of the players disbanded... what a shock... culminated into every character captured because he didn't properly dialed things down for first level characters... or at least I don't think goblins with more than 30 hp is proper for a first level chracter), and that our DM haven't learned anything.
I don't know how to approach this. Every time I try to bring up he just dismisses it as whining while the other players try not to get involved.
What should I do?
tl;dr: My DM is terrific at roleplaying and mood setting, but absolutely awful at everything else mostly because he thinks encounters are an arms race he ought to be winning, never even occurs to him he might be overdoing and thinks winging dungeons is a good way of planning them. What can I do to make him realize he should change without antagonizing him? Please, don't just say change groups, it is already something I'm considering but finding other groups in my country is hard.