Class bias

[MeklorIlavator]

Has anyone else encountered this from their DM? I mean the type where the DM says "If you play X, Y will happen".

For instance, my DM is biased against Ranger, due to a mistake in the first campaign he played in. Now he says that if I play a ranger, he will automatically be knocked out by a poisoned arrow. No Save.

Anyone on the boards experience this?

[Enzario]

OOOOOH yeah I do. I've since quit playing with this DM, but when I played with him he banned monks because of Spring Attack. Also, just to point out how bad he was, if you character died, your next character was three levels lower. I died at fourth level.

[Jade_Tarem]

Well, one time in my military campaign, I made the assertion at the outset that anyone who played a bard would be stationed next to the standard bearers in battle, which is where the enemy's siege engines would concentrate their fire, but I was mainly joking. Some guy played a bard anyway and he's still alive.

[MeklorIlavator]

Well, one time in my military campaign, I made the assertion at the outset that anyone who played a bard would be stationed next to the standard bearers in battle, which is where the enemy's siege engines would concentrate their fire, but I was mainly joking. Some guy played a bard anyway and he's still alive.

Jokes aren't bad, the thing is, I'm not sure if he's joking or not. Well, there's always one way to find out...

[Dhavaer]

I'm biased against Spellthieves, although no-one has actually tried to play one in a game I ran. Probably for the best.

[Machete]

I'm biased against lawful only classes.

[belboz]

OOOOOH yeah I do. I've since quit playing with this DM, but when I played with him he banned monks because of Spring Attack. Also, just to point out how bad he was, if you character died, your next character was three levels lower. I died at fourth level.

Personally, I think this is entirely different from the OP. I think a DM has a right to ban any classes, races, etc. he or she wants. "Sorry, there are no X's in this world", or "Sorry, X's are very rare in this world--too rare for it to be a PC class" are both perfectly acceptable things for a DM to say.

"Sure, you can be an X, but I'm going to make sure you have no fun if you are one," on the other hand, is not. It's no longer about straightforward DM control of the campaign world; it's about a DM taking revenge for a player choice they don't like. If you don't want something in your campaign world, you should rule it out straightforwardly, not allow it and then be petty about the thing.

[Rainspattered]

There is also a difference between a threat and an outright warning; if one plays in a world where divine magic is outlawed by a state that denies the existance of the gods, playing a cleric is probably something that should be considered, and a player warned of, before they choose to do so. Similarly, playing a barbarian in a court intrigue game is something a DM would do well to warn a player of the foolishness of.

[ocato]

My old DM was sorta like this with flail weapons. I know it isn't the same thing, but if you rolled a 1 with a flail or dire flail, you automatically broke both your legs. If you roll a 1 with a sword, you don't automatically cut your own arm off, it was a little unfair.

[Kel_Arath]

If your DM seriously doesn't let you play a ranger, then just play a Druid /Fighter that specs. in bows or TWF and laugh at your DM.

[TheOOB]

I am biased agienst paladins, mainly because as a DM I don't want to have to analyze every action to determine if it was evil and takes away their class abilities.

You want to be a divine warrior, fine. You want a code of conduct, fine, just don't take a class that requires you, the DM, and the other players to jump through hoops so you keep your extreamly sub-par abilities,

[Maxwell]

My DM says he'll kill any bards or gnomes. I don't like bards or gnomes either though, I might help in any such killings.:smallbiggrin:

[MeklorIlavator]

If your DM seriously doesn't let you play a ranger, then just play a Druid /Fighter that specs. in bows or TWF and laugh at your DM.

I know, infact, I could play the concept with many different things. I'm only annoyed because he's doing this because of a hoke we have in our group. In his first game, we fought some drow and one hit the Ranger with a poisoned arrow, and the ranger fell unconscious. He was supposed to be our tank, and his first action was to move to the side. Now, whenever someone mentions range, someone else makes a joke about being knocked out by drow poison. So obviously, in this guys head, any ranger must be similarly knocked out:smallmad:. This isn't the fist time he's done stuff like this (my thread asking for a wizard help shows another time, stupid epic magic).

[Diggorian]

Because of the setting of my game, I've told my players that arcane class members may be burned at the stake or crucified. They'd need to do a lot of overt damage to warrant this though.

Meklor, your DM is silly.

[blackout]

My DM is biased against, get this, paladins. That's why our troll paladin died.

[MeklorIlavator]

I don't really mean legitimate in game bias. I mean, if the last great evil overlord was a Wizard, I expect that wizards would have a harder time. I'm annoyed with the pointless stuff that seems to be directed at making a joke out of a class. Well, this guy would be my backup(I expect to die, considering the party and the DM's past comments), so I hope I don't have to resort to him...


My DM is biased against, get this, paladins. That's why our troll paladin died.
Thats nor necessarily a bad bias. I'm banning paladins in my next campaign(unless they go with Fax's version), becasue I know that my DM likes to Play the Shadowbane-Inquisitor-Miko-On-Steroids type(even in court intruige games), and I know he doesn't like Fax's version.

[Dr._Weird]

In my campaigns, I just remove the code of conduct for paladins.

Of course, if your patron god thinks you're not being Lawful Good, you lose them.

[Diggorian]

I ditched paladins in the same setting, which is Classical rather than Medieval. They were too Crusades. Got a link to Fax's variant?

[MeklorIlavator]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33551
Its there in all its glory. Might not be what your looking for, but it's a cool rebuild, nonetheless.

[ocato]

Why so much bard hate?

[AtomicKitKat]

Halflings. Just no. Found them annoying and gross(Hairy FEET? WTF!) since 2nd Edition. Of course, I may have other psychological issues relating to this, but I'm not going to mention them. :P

[Diggorian]

Thanks for the link. It's a crunch alteration mostly ... my pally problems are fluff related. There's no saving them for me, Crusaders will fill the role fine anyway.

Never cared much for playing bards unless I'm new to a group (oddly a frequently vacant position in most parties I've been in).

Gnomes I dislike strongly. They resemble Dwarves and Halflings too much. They're alowed but marginalized in my games, as they are in most fantasy fiction. Ever heard of a series based on gnomes that isnt D&D related?

[Demented]

I've never heard of anything based on gnomes...

Except for lawn ornaments and a few instances of Warcraft.
And the occasional gnu joke.

[MeklorIlavator]

I've never heard of anything based on gnomes...

Except for lawn ornaments and a few instances of Warcraft.
And the occasional gnu joke.
I hear alot of people against gnomes. From what I hear, they're right up there with kender and the 101 flavors of elves.

[Khoran]

I've never seen it, personally, but I remember one of my friends talking about a friend who did the opposite of what you were talking about. Rather then saying "If you roll this, I'll penalize you." Instead, he had a bit of an obession with one class (can't remember which one) and gave you a bunch of random bonuses for being one, but got mad if more then one person had one in the part and killed the second one.

Glad I never actually met that DM.

[Demented]

I hear alot of people against gnomes. From what I hear, they're right up there with kender and the 101 flavors of elves.

I've never much had a problem with Warcraft gnomes.

Mainly because I always get this idea of a race of cunning, sauve little bastards armed with heavy power tools. And I do mean heavy, jackhammer heavy.

Weak little illusion nappies, on the other hand, are not on the invitation list.

[Innis Cabal]

ive banned bards, but in 2nd ed....in 3.5 ive never banned a class or ever asserted the "IF x, Then y" argument, ive been in one game like that but i quit after one session becuase the DM had three characters and they made the rest of the party look bad becuase they were "the main characters" and we were support caste

[Stephen_E]

One of my GMs hate's Gnomes and Illusionist's (Illusion specalist in 3.x). Basically he's warned us thye'll die. He also hate NPCs with the party (if they hang around for more than a few sessions they're dead). He's not keen on halflings (he considers them too good <shrug> not sure why) and animals. He has let me have animal companion/cohorts a few times without going to much out of his way to kill them (well he did sic a 10 headed Hydra onto my Hv Warhorse Animal Cohort, but we, my Horse and I, killed it before it could kill Horse, damned close though). I think the main reason he lets me have animal without auto-killing them is that I put a lot of work into interacting with them and making them a part of the party. He's sensitive from a few to many "stuffed" familiars, ala V's familiar. (actually thinking about it, the fact that while I'm normally easy going about what happens to my PC's, I, the player, get pretty nasty if you deliberately try and kill/maim any pets I have, might also influence things).

Stephen

[Jade_Tarem]

Why so much bard hate?

:nale: "My father taught me that bards were underpowered."

That's the usual reason. You'll find more love than hate for bards, though. Usually.

[Turcano]

My old DM was sorta like this with flail weapons. I know it isn't the same thing, but if you rolled a 1 with a flail or dire flail, you automatically broke both your legs. If you roll a 1 with a sword, you don't automatically cut your own arm off, it was a little unfair.

Yeah, but that could actually happen. At least with the dire flail. Seriously, those things are retarded.

[Demented]

Both legs, though?
Shattering a kneecap, or getting an iron spike in your back, sure. But breaking? Both legs? Sounds a wee bit harsh.

It could work with a vorpal two-bladed sword.... Though that's closer to severing your legs than breaking them.

[Morty]

Seriously, fighting with dire flail should require a test not to break your legs with every attack.

[Stephen_E]

I remember under 3.0 working out that with Monkey Grip I could weild 2 Spiked Chains at the same time, 1 per hand.

To hell with the poor idiot trying to do that. I wouldn't want to be within 30' of him, regardless of whose side he was on.

Stephen

[random11]

Has anyone else encountered this from their DM? I mean the type where the DM says "If you play X, Y will happen".

For instance, my DM is biased against Ranger, due to a mistake in the first campaign he played in. Now he says that if I play a ranger, he will automatically be knocked out by a poisoned arrow. No Save.

Anyone on the boards experience this?


That's a stupid way to say it, but basicly a DM has the right to allow or ban any number of races and classes as long as it is still fun.

What annoys me sometimes as DM, is players that come with a book that contains new rules, and demand to be able to play that class or have that skill.
The game is for every single one around the table, but the manager of the world and its rules is still the DM.

[Soniku]

A DM that will soon be running a 2nd ed campaign has banned bards, although after looking at their 2nd ed stats I can see why. (A class that gets almost as many spells as a wizard for the same exp on top of bard -and- thief abilities? With d6 HD and very low level costs so their saves will generally be higher than the rest of the group? Ouch)


Other than that I haven't met any apart from one DM who seemed biased against the players rather than any of the classes :smallsmile:

[Leush]

I have an insane bias against cod. I shall not play one, and if I dm I reduce the hit dice to d4. It's not enough for druids, but it reduces clerics to devine casters from divine doomsday devices. Since I start at low levels, I haven't had any problems with wizards, so I have nothing against them.

On the other hand, bards are my friends.

[Diggorian]

For my ancient setting, I've made COD's into a Priest class using the cloisterd variant cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric). Like the paladin, IMHO core clerics are too Crusades-based for my setting.

They're my favorite caster class though to play.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I used to, back when I was 13 or 14, get really annoyed if anyone wanted to play Bards, Elves or Druids in my games. In fact, in the first campaign world I ever made, I made it explicit the Elves had been virtually wiped off the face of the earth by an alliance of Orcs and Dwarves.... no, it didn't have to make sense, but you can bet 13-year old me found it awesome.

[random11]

I used to, back when I was 13 or 14, get really annoyed if anyone wanted to play Bards, Elves or Druids in my games. In fact, in the first campaign world I ever made, I made it explicit the Elves had been virtually wiped off the face of the earth by an alliance of Orcs and Dwarves.... no, it didn't have to make sense, but you can bet 13-year old me found it awesome.


Why do you think it doesn't make sense?
It's your world, and even in earth human history we've seen stranger alliances.

[Laurellien]

In the campaign I'm creating, Halflings don't exist and gnomes are a subrace of dwarves and completely without their namby-pamby illusion abilities.

[Amphimir Míriel]

That's a stupid way to say it, but basicly a DM has the right to allow or ban any number of races and classes as long as it is still fun.

What annoys me sometimes as DM, is players that come with a book that contains new rules, and demand to be able to play that class or have that skill.
The game is for every single one around the table, but the manager of the world and its rules is still the DM.

Oh sure... when a new player comes to our group, I basically tell him to create a core-only character... and even then the character is subject to the approval of the entire group (not only the DM)

Only when a player is trusted not to try to overrun the group with cheese is he or she allowed to propose something outside core (be it homebrew or splatbook)

I also disallow several spells that break balance (but thats another topic)

[JaronK]

It's not a threat, but when I play rogues or spellthieves I always get nerfed. Usually, it goes like this:

Me: "Okay, I take a 5' step so I'm now flanking. Hey cool, I hit three times! That means I do an extra 12d6 damage, and kill that guy!"

DM: "...All the rest of them suddenly turn into undead. Also, we're now playing a pure undead campaign. Except for Bob. Bob is a golem."

Seriously. The first time I get a lucky shot and land multiple hits that can sneak attack, everything becomes undead. I hate that.

With spellthieves, the same thing happens.

JaronK

[Starbuck_II]

It's not a threat, but when I play rogues or spellthieves I always get nerfed. Usually, it goes like this:

Me: "Okay, I take a 5' step so I'm now flanking. Hey cool, I hit three times! That means I do an extra 12d6 damage, and kill that guy!"

DM: "...All the rest of them suddenly turn into undead. Also, we're now playing a pure undead campaign. Except for Bob. Bob is a golem."

Seriously. The first time I get a lucky shot and land multiple hits that can sneak attack, everything becomes undead. I hate that.

With spellthieves, the same thing happens.

JaronK
Multiclass into a Cleric so you an cast that spell allowing you to sneak attack undead in Complete Adventurer.
Also 1 level wizard for golems.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I give a lot of boosts to heroic characters (especially paladins and clerics) and thieves (especially rogues and scouts). Basically, I "scipt" a lot of benefits that heroic actions can lead to, and give thieves lots of chances to practice their favorite skills. Unlike many here, I quite like the paladin class and aid them by making total adherence to their code beneficial in the long run, though there will be hardships and temptations in the interim.

For example, a level 20 paladin in a campaign of mine, if he never faltered in his faith, will likely be decked out in primarily artifacts and holy relics. If he faltered a few times and maybe needed to be redeemed via atonement, he'll probably have a major artifact sword and a suit of very nice armor. If he fell to true temptation and lost his faith in order to pursue other ends? He'll have basic WBL and that's about it. I offer similiar (though somewhat less powerful) benefits to clerics, since they thematically deserve it though their class features don't need them as badly.

Meanwhile, a level 20 rogue, played intelligently, may have several times the ordinary WBL and some choice items ranging from artifacts to just ordinary great magic gear, depending on what I laid in front of him as an objective steal.

Every other class? I try to reward good roleplaying, but it's plainly obvious that I have my favorites. Though naturally I'm going to be kinder to, say, a barbarian over a wizard. The wizard is already almighty, I'm sure that player can cope with me awarding the best loot to the barbarian.

[Diggorian]

... Seriously. The first time I get a lucky shot and land multiple hits that can sneak attack, everything becomes undead. I hate that.

With spellthieves, the same thing happens.

I've seen something similar with Rangers. I'll pick my least favorite monster to fight, say Aberrations, and choose them for my favored enemy. Now I'll never have to fight one :smallbiggrin: Turn the pettiness of the DM agaisnt them.

[Argent]

Wow. With some of the stories posted here and in other threads about bad DMs, it amazes me that anyone plays the game with those people.


That's a stupid way to say it, but basicly a DM has the right to allow or ban any number of races and classes as long as it is still fun.

What annoys me sometimes as DM, is players that come with a book that contains new rules, and demand to be able to play that class or have that skill.
The game is for every single one around the table, but the manager of the world and its rules is still the DM.

The DM is the ultimate judge, yes. But arbitrariness ("Nobody can play a ranger because a ranger WAS MEAN TO ME ONCE.") is one of the worst sins a DM can commit. As a player, I can deal with any DM decision as long as there's a good reason for it. If it's a logical reason -- say, no spellcasters in a magicless setting, or no elves in a world where no elves have ever existed -- that makes sense within the setting. But if it's a nonsensical decision made just because the DM says so... then that's a different story. DMs have a responsibility to their players to provide a setting that's at least somewhat self-consistent.

[ghost_warlock]

I'm biased against fighters. If a player plays a fighter in one of my campaigns, I generally tell them "if you take more than two levels, you're going to feel like a dope by 6th level." :smalltongue:


The DM is the ultimate judge, yes. But arbitrariness ("Nobody can play a ranger because a ranger WAS MEAN TO ME ONCE.") is one of the worst sins a DM can commit.
This is the kind of thing that seems to regularly happen to players who want psioinc characters - the DM nixes psionics because they had a bad experience with a player who was a jerk. Suddenly, everything psionic is EVIL! Nevermind that the DM has similar problems when that player chose any other race/class combination... Some players/DMs are just jerks.

[thorgrim29]

Well, one of my players showed up with an incarnate once.... I said it was ok, but I demanded that he lent me the book for a few days. Since it's not a totally different system, it was ok, but I dont allow psionics because it is and I dont like them, but basically thats all. My dm is on the verge of banning the tome of battle, since it's too overpower, yea right, its not my fault my glaive-weilding warblade does more damage then the badly built druid played by a novice, the idiotic barbarian dwarf who didn't take power attack, and the halfling fighter with a goliat greathammer and a full plate who always power attacks so much he never hits, even though I'm one or 2 levels below them.

[JaronK]

Multiclass into a Cleric so you an cast that spell allowing you to sneak attack undead in Complete Adventurer.
Also 1 level wizard for golems.

That means I can still only do it a couple of times per day with one level of cleric... not good.

It's why I gave up on rogues. Now I just play Beguilers. They're note useless as often.

JaronK

[Koga]

No, but if a player is too powerful The Koga as GM tries to accomodate for it. Ussualy with a cursed item on thier part or a magic item on the other team-mates part.

[Thexare Blademoon]

Not classes, but races for me.

If I ever set up Talanris under D&D rules, Dark Elves will not be allowed as PCs for quite a few sessions, even though they exist in the world. This is because of the fact that, other than appearance, they're completely different from Drow (in both stats and fluff), and I don't want people to screw up that way (they're closer to a mix of dwarves and Morrowind's Dunmer)

[PsyBlade]

The Koga has a good idea. Better to RP well, than to build well. IRL, people aren't optimized often, so char's shouldn't. Yes, when they reach level 20, they should be mowing down most baddies. But when their lower than 10, they don't know better. Though good teamwork is the best and truest optimization.

[Stephen_E]

Well, one of my players showed up with an incarnate once.... I said it was ok, but I demanded that he lent me the book for a few days. Since it's not a totally different system, it was ok, but I dont allow psionics because it is and I dont like them, but basically thats all. My dm is on the verge of banning the tome of battle, since it's too overpower, yea right, its not my fault my glaive-weilding warblade does more damage then the badly built druid played by a novice, the idiotic barbarian dwarf who didn't take power attack, and the halfling fighter with a goliat greathammer and a full plate who always power attacks so much he never hits, even though I'm one or 2 levels below them.

Lesson. Making everyone in the party feel useful is the responsibility of the players as well as the GM. If the other players are playing weak characters then you should be helping them beef up their PCs or sub-optimising yours in some way. If you refuse to do either then yes, your GM may have to nobble your PC, and may also get an inaccurate view of the true strength of a class.

A GM who thinks a class is overpowered because he's had previous players who either bent/broke the rules to super power their characters (most common in Psionics) or players that optimised their characters regardless of the general power level of the other PCs, isn't been a bad GM, they're just been human. You can gently show them the flaws in their reasoning, and if that fails you just live with the fact that GM's aren't perfect and have their weaknesses. It's only bad GMing if you beat on the PC without telling the player why.

GM tells player he hates Rangers, and player then presents his Ranger. Player gets what he deserves, GM ok.

Player presents Ranger PC. GM thinks "I hate Rangers. I'm going to screw him". Player wonders why bad things keep happening to his PC. GM - "I guess you've just been unlucky". That's bad GMing!

Stephen

[Amphimir Míriel]

Lesson. Making everyone in the party feel useful is the responsibility of the players as well as the GM. If the other players are playing weak characters then you should be helping them beef up their PCs or sub-optimising yours in some way. If you refuse to do either then yes, your GM may have to nobble your PC, and may also get an inaccurate view of the true strength of a class.

Amen Brother!!

We are here to play a game! All of us! As a group!

If someone is not having fun, it is the group's responsibility to find out why and fix it!

Sometimes the fix is easy: "Hey, I've noticed you are not dealing as much damage as you could: maybe you should consider Power Attack instead of Alertness for your 3rd level feat"

Sometimes the fix is not so easy, and the GM must assert his authority: "Listen, I asked you to come earlier today because ever since your wizard got that metamagic rod, things have gotten a bit out of hand. Your character has been ending fights before the rest of the group can even get involved. We need to fix this now, before the rest of the group arrives. What are your suggestions?"

[Piedmon_Sama]

Why do you think it doesn't make sense?
It's your world, and even in earth human history we've seen stranger alliances.

Oh, it made sense enough. The Orcs were slightly more civilized, and the Dwarves slightly more evil, to make it work. I was competent at plotting a story, even at 13. Unfortunately, it backfired--I made the Elves so ostracized and downtrodden that everyone wanted to play one, just to be an "underdog." Showed me something. XD

[Matthew]

This is the kind of thing that seems to regularly happen to players who want psioinc characters - the DM nixes psionics because they had a bad experience with a player who was a jerk. Suddenly, everything psionic is EVIL! Nevermind that the DM has similar problems when that player chose any other race/class combination... Some players/DMs are just jerks.
That's a common story from (A)D&D 2.x, but I often wonder about the motivations of players who want to be Psionic. Always reminds me of Hawk the Slayer's Mind Sword.
Personally, I never had any bad experiences with psionics myself, but I was never was inclined to include them in my fantasy games any more than magic in my science fiction games.
I don't really get DMs who don't just ban stuff they aren't comfortable with. Why leave it as an option, whilst promising to kill any Player Character that excercises it? Lame.

[BardicDuelist]

I will admit, I have somewhat arbitrairly done stuff to psionic characters before, like tell a player "If you play a psionic character, you will be hunted by wizard guilds and not get psionic items."
That was when I was younger.

Now I just ban the classes and explain that I spend too much time working on adventures and looking for things which I think will fit my campaign and don't have time to learn new rules sets, so alternative rules sets (psionic, incarnum, ToB and ToM) are banned.

I won't DM for something I don't understand, because I feel it is unfair for the characters whose stregnths and weeknesses I anticipate and plan for (with cool items or challenging encounters).