switch DM?

[pseudodragon]

i am in a gaming group in which the DM is annoying me, and i am thinking about switching. he either uses old rules( a penality for hit, even with a readyed action, because i was facing away from the wall, using the o;d rule of facing) or discounts some other rules. he says "if a giant stepped on your head, it would only deal 1d6 nonlethal damage" and the rule he is changing here has nothing to do with damage. my character rolled a natural 20, and the DM said i missed, because i was in magical darkness. i have an option too change too a different DM, one that would not discount the rules like that. anyone have any advice?

[legomaster00156]

Do it. Leave the group politely, and switch over.

[Icestorm245]

To be fair, unless your character can somehow see in magical darkness, like with an ultravision, your roll of natural 20 is still subject to miss chance. It sounds like to me you just don't simply like how this DM plays. By all means, it is your choice to leave if you don't like it, but the next DM might have even worse rules. And not even OLD rules, but HOUSE rules. I would suggest just learn to deal with it, and don't ever argue with your DM. Suggest things, maybe, but never argue.

[pseudodragon]

To be fair, unless your character can somehow see in magical darkness, like with an ultravision, your roll of natural 20 is still subject to miss chance. It sounds like to me you just don't simply like how this DM plays. By all means, it is your choice to leave if you don't like it, but the next DM might have even worse rules. And not even OLD rules, but HOUSE rules. I would suggest just learn to deal with it, and don't ever argue with your DM. Suggest things, maybe, but never argue.

the DM didn't roll miss chance. he just said i missed

[ericgrau]

All DMs have their quirks and the best thing is usually to roll with it rather than disrupting the game to quibble about it (unless it's serious). Ask yourself if another DM with his own minor quirks would be much better. If so, then switch. If not, then stay.

[Madara]

Have you ever DMed?(Politely said, not to be mean)

Its a lot o' work. Maybe the GM instinct kicked in, and he needs the monster to last a round or two more, for the fun of everyone playing. The problem with the system is there are two many rules, so GMs have to make things work. I have to just say "screw it" and make stuff up for the grapple rules to what seems reasonable.

That's the point, to him he was probably just estimating what would work. Give him a chance. Maybe offer to switch things up and have other people GM, he probably would like a break(I know I do).

[Icestorm245]

the DM didn't roll miss chance. he just said i missed

Bah, my apologies! That's what I get for skimming.

[GreatWyrmGold]

As the DM in question, I feel that I should have my say.

1. It was a spherical room, full of webs and magical darkness, about 40 feet across. pseudodragon's character had just fallen to the bottom due to some poorly-cut webs (long story), and the monster was near the top.
2. The character did not know where the monster was by any means other than the sounds of a couple of his friends fighting it after climbing up on a thick strand of webbing.
3. It was the penultimate creature in the dungeon, the favored pet of the boss-wizard...guy.
4. The gaming session was running out of time, so rather than roll the miss chances for total darkness plus ignorance plus the rest of that, I let the next player have a turn. I also pulled punches on the players here, too--cutting down on climb/balance checks, not using all of the beasty's special attacks (poison, for instance), etc.
5. As I explained to the players, the monster had levels of rogue, leading to ranks in Listen and move Silently.
6. I was rushed, and so might not have made the best decisions. I'm sorry, but I had my reasons, and pseudodragon was kinda rude, too.

A note to pseudodragon: You can leave the group if you really want to. If not, come talk to me in person, politely, and we'll see if we can reach some kind of amicable agreement like we did over the magical-axe issue. Either way, complaining on the internet won't help.

[pseudodragon]

As the DM in question, I feel that I should have my say.

1. It was a spherical room, full of webs and magical darkness, about 40 feet across. pseudodragon's character had just fallen to the bottom due to some poorly-cut webs (long story), and the monster was near the top.
2. The character did not know where the monster was by any means other than the sounds of a couple of his friends fighting it after climbing up on a thick strand of webbing.
3. It was the penultimate creature in the dungeon, the favored pet of the boss-wizard...guy.
4. The gaming session was running out of time, so rather than roll the miss chances for total darkness plus ignorance plus the rest of that, I let the next player have a turn. I also pulled punches on the players here, too--cutting down on climb/balance checks, not using all of the beasty's special attacks (poison, for instance), etc.
5. As I explained to the players, the monster had levels of rogue, leading to ranks in Listen and move Silently.
6. I was rushed, and so might not have made the best decisions. I'm sorry, but I had my reasons, and pseudodragon was kinda rude, too.

A note to pseudodragon: You can leave the group if you really want to. If not, come talk to me in person, politely, and we'll see if we can reach some kind of amicable agreement like we did over the magical-axe issue. Either way, complaining on the internet won't help.

1. no bearing
2. you said "it was making plenty of noise"
3. irrevelant
4. you could wait until next session
5.not making it totally silent
6. you could reconsider...

[pseudodragon]

As the DM in question, I feel that I should have my say.

1. It was a spherical room, full of webs and magical darkness, about 40 feet across. pseudodragon's character had just fallen to the bottom due to some poorly-cut webs (long story), and the monster was near the top.
2. The character did not know where the monster was by any means other than the sounds of a couple of his friends fighting it after climbing up on a thick strand of webbing.
3. It was the penultimate creature in the dungeon, the favored pet of the boss-wizard...guy.
4. The gaming session was running out of time, so rather than roll the miss chances for total darkness plus ignorance plus the rest of that, I let the next player have a turn. I also pulled punches on the players here, too--cutting down on climb/balance checks, not using all of the beasty's special attacks (poison, for instance), etc.
5. As I explained to the players, the monster had levels of rogue, leading to ranks in Listen and move Silently.
6. I was rushed, and so might not have made the best decisions. I'm sorry, but I had my reasons, and pseudodragon was kinda rude, too.

A note to pseudodragon: You can leave the group if you really want to. If not, come talk to me in person, politely, and we'll see if we can reach some kind of amicable agreement like we did over the magical-axe issue. Either way, complaining on the internet won't help.

1. no bearing
2. you said "it was making plenty of noise"
3. irrevelant
4. you could wait until next session
5.not making it totally silent
6. you could reconsider...

[Drelua]

As the DM in question, I feel that I should have my say.

1. It was a spherical room, full of webs and magical darkness, about 40 feet across. pseudodragon's character had just fallen to the bottom due to some poorly-cut webs (long story), and the monster was near the top.


Wait a minute. How tall was this room? The bolded parts make me think that maybe you were too far away to reach the creature. How tall was this room? The DnD Combat grid doesn't do too well when you add a third dimension into it, so even if you knew what square it was in, and you were adjacent to it, there's a chance it was too high for you to hit it. There's also a good chance that I'm way off-base, but GreatWyrmGold seems reasonable. Regardless, if you're not enjoying the game, you should leave so you don't pull down the fun for everyone else. If you're not having fun, who was right is completely meaningless.

Oh, and next time you complain about your DM, you may want to do so on a forum where he won't see it.:smallbiggrin:

Edit: Oh, it was a ranged attack. That changes things if there was enough webbing in the way to stop an arrow. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable call to me.

[Hiro Protagonest]

As the DM in question, I feel that I should have my say.

1. It was a spherical room, full of webs and magical darkness, about 40 feet across. pseudodragon's character had just fallen to the bottom due to some poorly-cut webs (long story), and the monster was near the top.
Not much.

2. The character did not know where the monster was by any means other than the sounds of a couple of his friends fighting it after climbing up on a thick strand of webbing.
It sounds like he knew which square it was in. That means 50% miss chance.

3. It was the penultimate creature in the dungeon, the favored pet of the boss-wizard...guy.
Unfair coddling.

4. The gaming session was running out of time, so rather than roll the miss chances for total darkness plus ignorance plus the rest of that, I let the next player have a turn. I also pulled punches on the players here, too--cutting down on climb/balance checks, not using all of the beasty's special attacks (poison, for instance), etc.
like pseudodragon said, you could've just ended the session. Like I said, it's simply 50% for aiming at a square, there's no "factors".

5. As I explained to the players, the monster had levels of rogue, leading to ranks in Listen and move Silently.
...So it wasn't subject to miss chance because it was able to locate where they were by sound, the same way pseudodragon did? Again, coddling.

Either way, complaining on the internet won't help.

Unbiased third parties exist on the Internet.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1. no bearing
2. you said "it was making plenty of noise"
3. irrevelant
4. you could wait until next session
5.not making it totally silent
6. you could reconsider...

1. Why not? 40 feet up, through webs and magical darkness, is different than 5 feet in front of you. And it's not like a crossbow, heavy or no, is going to shoot a bolt big enough to nullify that disadvantage.
2. Your friends were making more...and I don't remember saying that, but put that aside.
3. Look four (or five) posts above your most recent one.
4. You were one of the players who wanted to try and finish it off that session, weren't you? Even if not, have you ever tried to restart a combat across sessions?
5. No, but making it hard to hit when you don't know where it is. Oh, I might have forgotten to mention that. No one saw the critter before it turned off the light, pseudodragon's character hadn't been close to it at all since before the whole webbing-being-cut incident, and was a bit dazed from the 20-foot fall and didn't have much in the way of clues as to where the beast might have flown/climbed/crawled to.
6. I could, but it would be kinda difficult by now. We could talk about it, but it'd be nigh impossible to undo the effects of just that. Although I might be willing to restart the combat...especially seeing as I doubt I'll remember much of anything about where we were by next week.
Oh, and while I'm at it...the other DM, and most, will default to common sense in most situations. The best you'll get is a different flavor and/or amount of common sense.


Wait a minute. How tall was this room? The bolded parts make me think that maybe you were too far away to reach the creature. How tall was this room? The DnD Combat grid doesn't do too well when you add a third dimension into it, so even if you knew what square it was in, and you were adjacent to it, there's a chance it was too high for you to hit it. There's also a good chance that I'm way off-base, but GreatWyrmGold seems reasonable. Regardless, if you're not enjoying the game, you should leave so you don't pull down the fun for everyone else. If you're not having fun, who was right is completely meaningless.
40 feet. He was using a heavy crossbow, though, so reach isn't factoring into it, just...y'know...not knowing where it is.


Oh, and next time you complain about your DM, you may want to do so on a forum where he won't see it.:smallbiggrin:
And not tell your DM about it...


Not much.It sounds like he knew which square it was in. That means 50% miss chance.Unfair coddling.like pseudodragon said, you could've just ended the session. Like I said, it's simply 50% for aiming at a square, there's no "factors"....So it wasn't subject to miss chance because it was able to locate where they were by sound, the same way pseudodragon did? Again, coddling.
He didn't know where it was, just "It's somewhere up there, fighting my friends." And I asked the group, they wanted to fight one last encounter before we left; bad choice in hindsight, but it's always 20-20, so...

[Drelua]

Well, that was weird. I edited in a response to something you mentioned right after you edited in a response to what I said. Yeah, I'm on your side. It sounds like there was a lot of reasons that you couldn't have hit it, OP. I know it's exciting to roll a 20, and it really sucks to be told that it didn't get you anything, but I think it was just a situation where you couldn't possibly have hit. Just be glad he didn't roll to see if you accidentally hit one of your friends. :smallwink:

[Madara]

I think this is one of those times, its just a game. Its just a single monster. Its just one combat. Its important to try not to take it too seriously, which is the downside to having a combat-oriented game, its more about RAW.

Don't let it be a competition between players and the DM. As for the situation, cut each other some slack. Player, your DM found that you can't hit the monster, even with a 20, in Magical darkness. DM, he had a happy moment and rolled a 20, missing with that is no fun.
Don't restart the combat, just move on. Give him the opportunity to do something awesome later.

[Anxe]

And the argument moves from the group to the internet! I'd suggest leaving if you guys are still arguing over what you should be arguing about.

[ericgrau]

Player: It doesn't sound like a big enough deal to get hung up about.
DM: Here you go (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility). It's almost the same for darkness. Next time this happens it's a DC 20 listen check to find the square where noisy combat is happening, then after that he has a 50% miss chance. If he fails the listen he has to guess a square and auto-misses on a wrong guess.

But ya rather than moving on the player should just talk it out and live with any DMing that doesn't seriously ruin the game. DMs without eidetic memories need to fudge.

[pseudodragon]

AND he said i hit a friend with the bolt
... without rolling

[Novawurmson]

At this point, I would recommend the two of you either work this out in person. As intelligent and skilled as the people on these boards are when it comes to min-maxing, roleplaying, homebrewing, and rules-knowledge, they can't help with personal issues and personality conflicts besides "Be polite, be patient; if all else fails, leave as friends."

[Myou]

AND he said i hit a friend with the bolt
... without rolling

GWG is being very patient and polite. You are not extending him the same courtesy. He may have made bad choices during the game (or may not, I wasn't there), but trying to paint him as a villain is not helpful. You need to calmly explain the problem to him, not try to persuade us that he's bad and we should condemn him.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

let me see,
1. not being able to see target
2. know your team mates fighting something
3. firing an arrow into that combat area

you know you could have killed a team mate

[Venusaur]

let me see,
1. not being able to see target
2. know your team mates fighting something
3. firing an arrow into that combat area

you know you could have killed a team mate

But the point is, he didn't even roll. If he rolled and said he hit a teammate, there would be no problem.

[Zerter]

I don't really understand why we are discussing the rules here, that's something you do when you're optimizing a character, not something you do because a DM made a judgement call to in his view help the session along as he is entitled to do. The judgement call might be good or bad, but that's something that they're gonna have to discuss amongst themselves.

And at least the OP did not leave the group saying it is for another reason only to later more than once post multi-page rants on this site about how bad a DM the DM in question is. There's some real communication going on here and best of luck to both!

[Yahzi]

2. The character did not know where the monster was
That indeed is an auto-miss.


3. It was the penultimate creature in the dungeon,
That has nothing to do with anything, and the fact that you brought it up only weakens your case.

A monster does not survive simply because it is an important monster. But, by the same token, a PC does not hit simply because it is a PC. Thus is the iron law of the dice!

If your players would object to blind monsters hitting them from 40 feet away, then it's perfectly fine to make them miss in the same situation.


A note to pseudodragon: You can leave the group if you really want to. If not, come talk to me in person, politely, and we'll see if we can reach some kind of amicable agreement like we did over the magical-axe issue. Either way, complaining on the internet won't help.
Well, it will help you. Dms can fire players too, you know. Hint hint.

[Starlight1978]

There are two issues here:

1. The situation was probably not entirely clear to the player (so it seems).
As a DM i would have told the player what could happen and what his chances are and why.
"You are currently not entirely aware of where your opponent is located, i can let you throw a listen check DC 20 to locate him, but even then you have a 50% mischance, because of the darkness. If you don't locate him, you can still hit him, but also one of your friends or just completely miss. Your choice."

Or if the reasoning of the DM was that a bolt would NEVER penetrate through all the webs, then he should at least give the player a hint towards that. A player cannot always know what a DM thinks is realistic.

If this was done, but the player disagrees, that's his problem.

2. The situation was handled without throwing dice.
In this case, it sounds like a bad thing, unless the DM decided the bolt would never go through the webcobbs, but from reading the thread, that does not seem the case.
This would, as a player, annoy me as as well.

To the DM: Try to avoid these kind of situations.
To the player: This is a minor incident, your DM sounds like an able and fair DM, i think you could have managed to sit down with him and talk it over.
To both: Don't let this minor incident get in the way of D&D fun, talk this thing over together so you know where both of you stand.

[Unseenmal]

To the DM: Try to avoid these kind of situations.
To the player: This is a minor incident, your DM sounds like an able and fair DM, i think you could have managed to sit down with him and talk it over.
To both: Don't let this minor incident get in the way of D&D fun, talk this thing over together so you know where both of you stand.

This SO much. I can't even find a game and I've been searching for around a year now. So to Pseudo and GWG, don't let something this trivial ruin the game/friendship. Pseudo....I would kill to just simply play. Enjoy the fact that you can. The DM made a ruling you didn't agree with...it happens. Was he right? He thinks so and as DM, that's what matters when it comes to rules of the game. Maybe in a few weeks, he rule in your favor on something that so totally rocks, it will overshadow this to the point of obscurity.

Sitting all alone in the corner with a pile of books - Unseenmal

[GreatWyrmGold]

That has nothing to do with anything, and the fact that you brought it up only weakens your case.

A monster does not survive simply because it is an important monster. But, by the same token, a PC does not hit simply because it is a PC. Thus is the iron law of the dice!
Someone mentioned something for something similar...never mind.


Well, it will help you. Dms can fire players too, you know. Hint hint.
The way I saw it, we reached an amicable agreement...then this. So, yeah...I'd prefer not to, but could.


There are two issues here:

1. The situation was probably not entirely clear to the player (so it seems).
As a DM i would have told the player what could happen and what his chances are and why.
"You are currently not entirely aware of where your opponent is located, i can let you throw a listen check DC 20 to locate him, but even then you have a 50% mischance, because of the darkness. If you don't locate him, you can still hit him, but also one of your friends or just completely miss. Your choice."

Or if the reasoning of the DM was that a bolt would NEVER penetrate through all the webs, then he should at least give the player a hint towards that. A player cannot always know what a DM thinks is realistic.

If this was done, but the player disagrees, that's his problem.

2. The situation was handled without throwing dice.
In this case, it sounds like a bad thing, unless the DM decided the bolt would never go through the webcobbs, but from reading the thread, that does not seem the case.
This would, as a player, annoy me as as well.

To the DM: Try to avoid these kind of situations.
To the player: This is a minor incident, your DM sounds like an able and fair DM, i think you could have managed to sit down with him and talk it over.
To both: Don't let this minor incident get in the way of D&D fun, talk this thing over together so you know where both of you stand.
Yeah, probably should have...but, sadly, both of those were caused at least in part by my trying to get the encounter finished quickly. Moral of the story: Don't rush.


This SO much. I can't even find a game and I've been searching for around a year now. So to Pseudo and GWG, don't let something this trivial ruin the game/friendship. Pseudo....I would kill to just simply play. Enjoy the fact that you can. The DM made a ruling you didn't agree with...it happens. Was he right? He thinks so and as DM, that's what matters when it comes to rules of the game. Maybe in a few weeks, he rule in your favor on something that so totally rocks, it will overshadow this to the point of obscurity.

Sitting all alone in the corner with a pile of books - Unseenmal
Thanks for the input, and more to the point, I hope you find a group soon. That probably doesn't help, but I wanted to express a positive sentiment towards you...or something. These ideas aren't translating into words well. Given Murphy's Law, I'll probably think of the right word tonight, and feel stupid for not thinking of it earlier, but...where was I? Oh, yeah, good luck.

[nedz]

To the DM: Pro-Tip
To do this better:
Roll a dice, look at it, ignore the result, pull a face and say something like "sorry you missed". Never let your players know that you do this, ..., oops:smallbiggrin:

[pseudodragon]

This SO much. I can't even find a game and I've been searching for around a year now. So to Pseudo and GWG, don't let something this trivial ruin the game/friendship. Pseudo....I would kill to just simply play. Enjoy the fact that you can. The DM made a ruling you didn't agree with...it happens. Was he right? He thinks so and as DM, that's what matters when it comes to rules of the game. Maybe in a few weeks, he rule in your favor on something that so totally rocks, it will overshadow this to the point of obscurity.

Sitting all alone in the corner with a pile of books - Unseenmal

try your local gaming store. they probably either play there or know where you can play, or know people who want too play.

[Unseenmal]

try your local gaming store. they probably either play there or know where you can play, or know people who want too play.

I went there this week actually, the only DM running a game there said he couldn't take another player right now because his campaign is balanced for 4 players. I joined the stores mailing list for new games so I'll be notified when one starts up.

So for now, I'm going to focus on Warhammer 40k. I'll get my fix with that. :smallbiggrin:

[chaotician375]

I don't really understand why we are discussing the rules here, that's something you do when you're optimizing a character, not something you do because a DM made a judgement call to in his view help the session along as he is entitled to do. The judgement call might be good or bad, but that's something that they're gonna have to discuss amongst themselves.

The thing is, when a DM makes a judgement call on the fly to speed things up, and it rains on a players parade, the player doesn't like it. I mean if theres always a 5% chance you'll miss the target if you roll a natural one, every time you make an attack roll your checking against that 5% miss chance, that slowes the game down. I know from experience as both a DM and player that when a players about to do something cool, thats totaly within the rules, then (in this case) roll the miss chance, its not gonna slow things down an more than allowing the player to roll to confirm the crit.