Help me counteract my DM's BS

[arishardin]

So my DM is the kind of DM that loves to give his minions the advantage by walking you into battles at point blank range. I've actually seen the opposite of this sort of thing in which our DM would allow us to see a battle coming from hundreds of feet away. But, my current DM is a little less experienced and seems to not know how to start these things properly.

Usually we will be walking through a forest of some type and then suddenly we are face to face with 3 creatures and 2 barbarians(one of which we can't see yet). There's never a, "you hear some movement up ahead at about 200 feet away," or, "you can see a group of scouting goblins in the distance," or, "you walk to the edge of a clearing and see what seems to be a couple of arguing barbarians who are too preoccupied to notice your presence;" it's always, "roll initiative..." and then down come the enemy tokens who never speak a common language and are too evil, daft, or primitive to be reasoned with...

Please help me stop this; it is soooooooooo boring.

[Kane0]

First thing first, have a chat out of game.

"Hey dude, I've noticed that a lot of your random encounters are a little sudden and close ranged. Do you reckon you could give us some breathing space for them? Even a chance to resolve it without going straight to combat would be cool. Thanks for hearing me out!"

Something like that.

Best case scenario this sparks a conversation with you and the other players on what you want changed and everybody gets some input.

Worst case scenario he wont have a bar of it amd you have two options: deal with it or leave.

The vast majority of people will be in the middle, and as long as you are talking you can work something out. Find a compromise that suits everyone.

[Odessa333]

Second the 'talk to DM' as that is the easiest solution. If you really want to avoid that for some reason... I suppose your best bet would be to have some kind of scouts of your own, instead of looking for their scouts? A wizard could summon things, or a ranger/druid could train animals for the task. Raise some undead if you have a caster not opposed to such things. Depending on party level/wealth, you could hire some level 0 commoner's to be your 'advance guard.'

Alternatively, spy with a lot of divination usage.


Problem with these ideas is that if the DM wants you to be ambushed, you're going to be ambushed. The best solution, again, is talking with the DM.

[facelessminion]

Thirding the fact that the only real way to nip your problems in the bud is to give your RL Diplomacy skill a workout. Otherwise, any plans you attempt to make are likely to be auto-thwarted.

[HunterOfJello]

What level and classes is your party?

[Tohsaka Rin]

What level and classes is your party?

Doesn't matter.

Talking this one out is the only solution. If you start 'defeating' these ambushes pre-emptively, that might just frustrate your newbie DM, leading him into the mentality that he has to 'beat' you to make the game work.

And that's not what DnD is.

Always, always resort to talking out your problems, out of game.

If he has trouble with this sort of thing, offer to work out a cheat-sheet table for him, like...

Encounter table:
1 - "You hear some rustling in the bushes, (2d20 DC20 spot) feet away."
2 - "Across the meadow, you see several people sitting around a makeshift camp (4d20) feet away."
3 - "Up in the treetops, you hear various birds and wildlife moving quickly." (8d10 feet away , DC 18 spot, DC 12 listen)

And so on. Just pregen'd stuff he can resort to, until he gets the hang of what an encounter might be, aside from (Leaps from the bushes) "BOO! Haha, made ya jump. Ok, roll initiative."

[The Insanity]

Invest in Spot/Listen and remind the DM that those skills exist.

[AvatarVecna]

Invest in Spot/Listen and remind the DM that those skills exist.

DM retroactively makes the monsters optimized for Hide/Move Silently/general stealth...at least, they do that if they don't just roll the dice and pretend they beat your Spot/Listen. This has to be talked out: not is the issue a real-life difference of opinion having an effect on the game, but using in-game optimization to try to avoid getting ambushed is going to result in a Player vs. DM arms war, and those only end with the DM giving the ultimatum of play things their way or go home.

By talking with the DM, the OP can at the very least find out if this is an honest mistake on the DM's part, if he's intentionally giving the enemy a distinct advantage to "even the odds", or if he's just a control freak. But without that discussion, you can never know for sure; it's better to take the chance that it's an honest mistake, rather than go through the trouble of forcing a new DM to respond to character optimization (if he's good at optimizing on the fly, it might work, but this newbie is more likely to just throw monsters at you that are far tougher than you have any right to be fighting.

[Auron3991]

Directly confronting your DM is important, but this is assuming the DM is arbitrarily doing this. He may just be waiting for you to say that you use your spot and listen checks. He should be giving some indicator though, but that's more of an inexperience thing. Or he could simply be trying to get it through your head to use those skills (perhaps a bit ham-handedly), and will start backing off once you use those skills. Try them, and if this is still happening, then talk with your DM about it.

[atemu1234]

I second (third? fourth?) talking to your DM.