Kesnit
2015-10-05, 08:57 PM
This is in part a rant, and in part a hope that someone can give me some advice that will help the situation.
Since there are so many people and some of the initials are the same, I am going to refer to people as the primary class they are playing.
DM – Obviously the DM. He has been running D&D games for over 20 years. This is good in that he is not a novice DM. This is bad in that he mixes up rules from different editions.
Bard – Bard 2/Cleric 3/SORC 2. At least I think that’s his class breakdown. I know he’s got 3 classes and is not building towards any PrC. The player is Monk’s father.
Crusader (Me) – Crusader 5/Barbarian 2. I built to do lockdown – reach weapon, tripping, stances that hold enemies, Combat Reflexes and Stand Still, etc.
Fighter – I’m not sure on his exact class, since he was only at game briefly yesterday and has been out for several weeks prior. He’s level 4.
Monk - Actually a Monk 6/Swordsage 1. I’ve only seen him play once, and only saw him use 1 maneuver. (One where you summon a fire elemental to flank with you.) He seems to know what he is doing.
Incarnate (Necro) – Currently an Incarnate 7/Homebrew PrC 1. (More on that below). She is going Necrocarnate, and was prepped to take her first level before the DM forced her to take the PrC or kill the character. In the interest of full disclosure, the player is my wife.
Paladin – The DM has a houserule that Paladins can be any alignment except Neutral but must match the alignment of their god. Said Paladin is LN (I think) and is dedicated to a god of Order. He’s been playing fairly consistently with this DM for a really long time. He’s pretty familiar with RAW as well, and will confront the DM when DM drops some new rule (or old rule that was lost somewhere and just came back) that contradicts RAW.
Warmage – Warmage 8/Expert 1. Only ever casts Magic Missile. Even has a wand of Magic Missile (bought at CL 8) so she does not have to burn her spell slots. (I’m not sure she tracks either spell slots or wand uses.) She is the DM’s wife.
As I said, the DM has been running D&D for 20 years. He is rather set in his ways on a lot of things and does not really want to learn unless forced to.
(1) PCs only gain XP if the player is at game, and if the PC actually participates in the encounter. This can lead to several problems. First, it can lead to party level disparities like the one above. Yes, he does give XP based on level, so the LVL 4 PC did get more XP than the rest of us (as should happen). However, it can lead to players sitting around doing nothing for long periods because their PC is not involved in whatever is happening. (In the first game I went to, 4 of the PCs got thrown into a lake. This led to some really childish hijynx, including Warmage having a bad encounter with a porpoise. I cannot say what happened after that because of forum rules. Since Necro and I were inside the carriage, we weren’t thrown in. That led to everyone else getting XP, and us twiddling our thumbs for almost an hour for nothing.
(2) Encounters are rolled on extensive, pre-made tables. No consideration is given to party make-up or environment. If we roll it, we face it. On those same lines, the DM is horrible at calculating CR, and encounters can really easy or impossible.
(3) PvP is allowed. Personally, I hate PvP in D&D. Sometimes things happen (like when my PC failed a Will save against confusion and rolled “attack nearest creature” as my action, when “nearest creature” was Fighter. (Fighter managed to grapple me and tie me up. I remained tied up for the next four hours in-game until the confusion wore off.) But PCs are encouraged to attack other PCs with no IC or OOC consequences. (The DM tried to tell me and Monk that we are “kill on sight” to each other because I’m CE and he’s LG. We both told him we aren’t stupid and refused.) However, Warmage has an intelligent bow that puts fairy fire on Necro at least once per game session in combat (to make her a target) because Necro is NE.
(4) Wealth by level does not exist and wealth is insane. The DM gives out massive gold if the party finds it. However, new PCs do not get nearly as much, even if the player was involved in finding the treasure with a previous PC. For example, Warmage has +10 equivalent armor. Paladin has a +7 equivalent bow. (Monk is VoP, but is planning to change characters to avoid the issue of Exalted with Evil PCs.) Bard put his gold into a portable pop-up tavern and a wagon pulled by animated stone horses with 2 extradiminsional spaces inside (for sleep and cooking) and 3 extradiminstional “foxholes” on the top that PCs can stand in. In contrast, I have a 22,000 in gear. My wife was playing when the party found the massive treasure, but was playing a VoP Favored Soul at the time (which died) and got the same 22,000 when she brought in Necro.
(6) Critical fumbles are in effect. Worse, Bard and Monk gave the DM a deck cards for critical hits and critical fumbles. The crit hits are seldom worthwhile, and the critical fumbles are devastating. Yesterday, Paladin rolled a crit fumble with his sword and bent it. Luckily, his primary weapon is his bow, so he’s not out too much. I know that if I break my weapon, I may as well walk out of the game because there is nothing I can effectively do without it. I have a 16 DEX so can shoot a bow, but don’t have a ranged weapon because any money I put in that means money I can’t put into doing what I am built to do.
From looking at the party make-up, you’d think my Crusader would be doing great. Monk and I are the only melee, and I’m built to run in and lockdown enemies. Yeah, not so much... Since the DM can’t calculate CR and much of the party has massive wealth, combat encounters seldom last longer than 2 rounds. If I take a round to get to the enemies (even charging), that means I’m only able to actually do my cheese one round per combat.
The one combat that I really thought I could shine in, the DM screwed me over. All the monsters were Huge (so not trippable), but that wasn’t the issue. Since the DM didn’t have Huge bases, he was using creatures with Large bases to represent them. Then he positioned the monsters too close to each other (base-to-base for Large monsters). I thought that’s really where the monsters were and positioned myself to lockdown two of them, while Monk took on the third. When one tried to move away from me, I started to take my AoO to stop the monster (Stand Still). That’s when the DM said the monster was actually 5 feet farther away, so out of my threat range. Had I known that, I could have taken a 5’ step on my turn to be able to actually lockdown both monsters. Since suddenly the monster was not where the DM put it, the monster could casually walk around me and still get to the wagon with the rest of the party. (60’ move speed). “OK,” I thought, “next round I can charge the one that got past me and keep him from attacking the wagon.” Then Bard webbed the wagon, the monster, and the party members on the wagon. (To the DM’s credit, that wasn’t his fault.) Since the monster was already at the wagon, Web did nothing to stop it from attacking. The web, however, did stop me from being able to charge. I could lockdown the other monster, but giving allies bonuses to hit Monster #1 didn’t do a lot of good when they were fighting Monster #2 at the wagon.
Yesterday I had another opportunity to shine, but could not take it. We were attacked by a group of 6 creatures that were tightly packed enough for me to lockdown 4. Why couldn’t I? Remember the confusion I mentioned? I was still under the effect and could not act at all. Even if I had rolled “Act normally” on the percentile chart, I could not attack since I was tied to Necro’s necrocarnum zombie and the party took my weapon to keep me from attacking them. (At least I did get XP from the encounter...)
As a Crusader, I have a decent CHA (17 and probably going to 18 at LVL 8.) I also have max ranks in Diplomacy and Intimidate. This sets me up to be a decent party face (or back up Bard in social situations). Except there is never any RP. Every encounter in the wild is combat or problem solving. RP can happen in cities, but that is almost always 1-on-1 (so makes all the other players sit around) and we seldom get to a city.
So now that I’ve set the scene, let’s get into my actual rant
Last night, I left for a few minutes to get dinner. While I was gone, the party got into a combat encounter. (Only Warmage, Paladin, and Necro were there.) I come back to combat and jump in. The battle is against a Huge spider (and the DM has torn a paper towel to mark the monster’s actual base size.) When I jumped in, the spider was against the wagon. The next round, however, it spun out some silk and began to fly away. (60 mph winds). I managed to catch it the first round, damaged it, and got hit in return. Then I failed my FORT save (needed a 6, rolled a 2) against the poison and took 5 temporary STR damage. Since I have a move speed of 20 and the spider is flying away at 60’/round, I knew I couldn’t keep up and so started walking back to the wagon. Necro had a bind that let her fly and one that let her spit acid, so went after the spider, using the wind to help her keep up. She got blown into the spider’s reach and failed her FORT save. She took 10 STR damage – and only had 8 STR. After doing some fast research, the DM determined that going to negative STR killed her. (I’ve since found where the rules say abilities cannot fall below zero, but did not have that at the time.) I admit, it’s possible she still would have died before anyone could save her, but we didn’t get to try.
The DM allows players to make a “god call” to avoid dying, and Necro failed hers. However, the DM had her meet with one of his homebrew (CE) gods. The god would allow her to return to life if she agreed to worship him. (Had she accepted that offer, the rest of this would not have happened. However, she asked for clarification and was told she had to take a level in a divine class.) She could not take Paladin since that would require her to become CE (and Incarnates must have a Neutral aspect to their alignment). Cleric would not do her any good with her build. Favored Soul would turn her into an NPC (for in-game reasons that are valid). She was about to refuse when the DM/god offered her a homebrew PrC called Evil Clown. Basically, the PrC is like the clown in the Saw movies – you do torture and play deadly pranks. She decided to take the class, even though it would mean putting off Necrocarnate for 1 more level.
The remaining party members went through 1 more encounter without her, then she reappeared. That’s when we called game for the night. And the drama began.
Warmage was upset because she does not like clowns OOC. She’s rather upset that the DM offered the class in the first place. When we got home, my wife e-mailed her to say that if Warmage was really that upset, she would let the Necro die and bring in a new PC. Warmage wrote back with a long list of issues, dealing with both my and my wife’s PCs. (1) We’re both Evil, and she doesn’t like how the party is slipping to all Neutral and Evil. (The Warmage is True Neutral.) She actually wrote “don’t be surprised if someone or my bow kills you.” (2) She thinks my PC is totally ineffective and does nothing to help the party. This from the person who casts Magic Missile every round... (3) She gets frustrated with me complaining when my PC is useless. (Granted, I do. I like to play a very tactical game, and get frustrated when the other players do their own thing and don’t work together.) (4) She was annoyed that my wife and I asked her to please stop making rape and penis jokes. (They have been going on for 2 sessions, and have gotten very old.)
By the time my wife was done reading me the e-mail, I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle Warmage.
I know someone (probably multiple someones) is going to say “no game is better than bad game.” To be honest, this is very true. I, personally, have no problem with walking away. (I've walked away from this game before, about a year and a half ago.) Part of me does not want to because it feels like doing that would let DM and Warmage win, but I know that feeling is petty. My wife, on the other hand, does not really want to leave. Warmage has been her friend for over a decade. (Warmage also officiated our wedding...) This is one of only two games that my wife plays in, and the other (which I run) is having issues as well due to a certain player. (That bad player is not one of the players listed above.) Other than gaming, she has no real-life social outlet, and does not want to lose what little she has. Also, due to our schedules, the two games are the only times my wife and I really get to do things together. And while I’ve considered more than once dropping out of the game, there are fun things that happen and it gives me a chance to actually play. On the other hand, it’s very clear that I want a different style of game than the DM or other players.
So, yeah... Help..? :smalleek:
Since there are so many people and some of the initials are the same, I am going to refer to people as the primary class they are playing.
DM – Obviously the DM. He has been running D&D games for over 20 years. This is good in that he is not a novice DM. This is bad in that he mixes up rules from different editions.
Bard – Bard 2/Cleric 3/SORC 2. At least I think that’s his class breakdown. I know he’s got 3 classes and is not building towards any PrC. The player is Monk’s father.
Crusader (Me) – Crusader 5/Barbarian 2. I built to do lockdown – reach weapon, tripping, stances that hold enemies, Combat Reflexes and Stand Still, etc.
Fighter – I’m not sure on his exact class, since he was only at game briefly yesterday and has been out for several weeks prior. He’s level 4.
Monk - Actually a Monk 6/Swordsage 1. I’ve only seen him play once, and only saw him use 1 maneuver. (One where you summon a fire elemental to flank with you.) He seems to know what he is doing.
Incarnate (Necro) – Currently an Incarnate 7/Homebrew PrC 1. (More on that below). She is going Necrocarnate, and was prepped to take her first level before the DM forced her to take the PrC or kill the character. In the interest of full disclosure, the player is my wife.
Paladin – The DM has a houserule that Paladins can be any alignment except Neutral but must match the alignment of their god. Said Paladin is LN (I think) and is dedicated to a god of Order. He’s been playing fairly consistently with this DM for a really long time. He’s pretty familiar with RAW as well, and will confront the DM when DM drops some new rule (or old rule that was lost somewhere and just came back) that contradicts RAW.
Warmage – Warmage 8/Expert 1. Only ever casts Magic Missile. Even has a wand of Magic Missile (bought at CL 8) so she does not have to burn her spell slots. (I’m not sure she tracks either spell slots or wand uses.) She is the DM’s wife.
As I said, the DM has been running D&D for 20 years. He is rather set in his ways on a lot of things and does not really want to learn unless forced to.
(1) PCs only gain XP if the player is at game, and if the PC actually participates in the encounter. This can lead to several problems. First, it can lead to party level disparities like the one above. Yes, he does give XP based on level, so the LVL 4 PC did get more XP than the rest of us (as should happen). However, it can lead to players sitting around doing nothing for long periods because their PC is not involved in whatever is happening. (In the first game I went to, 4 of the PCs got thrown into a lake. This led to some really childish hijynx, including Warmage having a bad encounter with a porpoise. I cannot say what happened after that because of forum rules. Since Necro and I were inside the carriage, we weren’t thrown in. That led to everyone else getting XP, and us twiddling our thumbs for almost an hour for nothing.
(2) Encounters are rolled on extensive, pre-made tables. No consideration is given to party make-up or environment. If we roll it, we face it. On those same lines, the DM is horrible at calculating CR, and encounters can really easy or impossible.
(3) PvP is allowed. Personally, I hate PvP in D&D. Sometimes things happen (like when my PC failed a Will save against confusion and rolled “attack nearest creature” as my action, when “nearest creature” was Fighter. (Fighter managed to grapple me and tie me up. I remained tied up for the next four hours in-game until the confusion wore off.) But PCs are encouraged to attack other PCs with no IC or OOC consequences. (The DM tried to tell me and Monk that we are “kill on sight” to each other because I’m CE and he’s LG. We both told him we aren’t stupid and refused.) However, Warmage has an intelligent bow that puts fairy fire on Necro at least once per game session in combat (to make her a target) because Necro is NE.
(4) Wealth by level does not exist and wealth is insane. The DM gives out massive gold if the party finds it. However, new PCs do not get nearly as much, even if the player was involved in finding the treasure with a previous PC. For example, Warmage has +10 equivalent armor. Paladin has a +7 equivalent bow. (Monk is VoP, but is planning to change characters to avoid the issue of Exalted with Evil PCs.) Bard put his gold into a portable pop-up tavern and a wagon pulled by animated stone horses with 2 extradiminsional spaces inside (for sleep and cooking) and 3 extradiminstional “foxholes” on the top that PCs can stand in. In contrast, I have a 22,000 in gear. My wife was playing when the party found the massive treasure, but was playing a VoP Favored Soul at the time (which died) and got the same 22,000 when she brought in Necro.
(6) Critical fumbles are in effect. Worse, Bard and Monk gave the DM a deck cards for critical hits and critical fumbles. The crit hits are seldom worthwhile, and the critical fumbles are devastating. Yesterday, Paladin rolled a crit fumble with his sword and bent it. Luckily, his primary weapon is his bow, so he’s not out too much. I know that if I break my weapon, I may as well walk out of the game because there is nothing I can effectively do without it. I have a 16 DEX so can shoot a bow, but don’t have a ranged weapon because any money I put in that means money I can’t put into doing what I am built to do.
From looking at the party make-up, you’d think my Crusader would be doing great. Monk and I are the only melee, and I’m built to run in and lockdown enemies. Yeah, not so much... Since the DM can’t calculate CR and much of the party has massive wealth, combat encounters seldom last longer than 2 rounds. If I take a round to get to the enemies (even charging), that means I’m only able to actually do my cheese one round per combat.
The one combat that I really thought I could shine in, the DM screwed me over. All the monsters were Huge (so not trippable), but that wasn’t the issue. Since the DM didn’t have Huge bases, he was using creatures with Large bases to represent them. Then he positioned the monsters too close to each other (base-to-base for Large monsters). I thought that’s really where the monsters were and positioned myself to lockdown two of them, while Monk took on the third. When one tried to move away from me, I started to take my AoO to stop the monster (Stand Still). That’s when the DM said the monster was actually 5 feet farther away, so out of my threat range. Had I known that, I could have taken a 5’ step on my turn to be able to actually lockdown both monsters. Since suddenly the monster was not where the DM put it, the monster could casually walk around me and still get to the wagon with the rest of the party. (60’ move speed). “OK,” I thought, “next round I can charge the one that got past me and keep him from attacking the wagon.” Then Bard webbed the wagon, the monster, and the party members on the wagon. (To the DM’s credit, that wasn’t his fault.) Since the monster was already at the wagon, Web did nothing to stop it from attacking. The web, however, did stop me from being able to charge. I could lockdown the other monster, but giving allies bonuses to hit Monster #1 didn’t do a lot of good when they were fighting Monster #2 at the wagon.
Yesterday I had another opportunity to shine, but could not take it. We were attacked by a group of 6 creatures that were tightly packed enough for me to lockdown 4. Why couldn’t I? Remember the confusion I mentioned? I was still under the effect and could not act at all. Even if I had rolled “Act normally” on the percentile chart, I could not attack since I was tied to Necro’s necrocarnum zombie and the party took my weapon to keep me from attacking them. (At least I did get XP from the encounter...)
As a Crusader, I have a decent CHA (17 and probably going to 18 at LVL 8.) I also have max ranks in Diplomacy and Intimidate. This sets me up to be a decent party face (or back up Bard in social situations). Except there is never any RP. Every encounter in the wild is combat or problem solving. RP can happen in cities, but that is almost always 1-on-1 (so makes all the other players sit around) and we seldom get to a city.
So now that I’ve set the scene, let’s get into my actual rant
Last night, I left for a few minutes to get dinner. While I was gone, the party got into a combat encounter. (Only Warmage, Paladin, and Necro were there.) I come back to combat and jump in. The battle is against a Huge spider (and the DM has torn a paper towel to mark the monster’s actual base size.) When I jumped in, the spider was against the wagon. The next round, however, it spun out some silk and began to fly away. (60 mph winds). I managed to catch it the first round, damaged it, and got hit in return. Then I failed my FORT save (needed a 6, rolled a 2) against the poison and took 5 temporary STR damage. Since I have a move speed of 20 and the spider is flying away at 60’/round, I knew I couldn’t keep up and so started walking back to the wagon. Necro had a bind that let her fly and one that let her spit acid, so went after the spider, using the wind to help her keep up. She got blown into the spider’s reach and failed her FORT save. She took 10 STR damage – and only had 8 STR. After doing some fast research, the DM determined that going to negative STR killed her. (I’ve since found where the rules say abilities cannot fall below zero, but did not have that at the time.) I admit, it’s possible she still would have died before anyone could save her, but we didn’t get to try.
The DM allows players to make a “god call” to avoid dying, and Necro failed hers. However, the DM had her meet with one of his homebrew (CE) gods. The god would allow her to return to life if she agreed to worship him. (Had she accepted that offer, the rest of this would not have happened. However, she asked for clarification and was told she had to take a level in a divine class.) She could not take Paladin since that would require her to become CE (and Incarnates must have a Neutral aspect to their alignment). Cleric would not do her any good with her build. Favored Soul would turn her into an NPC (for in-game reasons that are valid). She was about to refuse when the DM/god offered her a homebrew PrC called Evil Clown. Basically, the PrC is like the clown in the Saw movies – you do torture and play deadly pranks. She decided to take the class, even though it would mean putting off Necrocarnate for 1 more level.
The remaining party members went through 1 more encounter without her, then she reappeared. That’s when we called game for the night. And the drama began.
Warmage was upset because she does not like clowns OOC. She’s rather upset that the DM offered the class in the first place. When we got home, my wife e-mailed her to say that if Warmage was really that upset, she would let the Necro die and bring in a new PC. Warmage wrote back with a long list of issues, dealing with both my and my wife’s PCs. (1) We’re both Evil, and she doesn’t like how the party is slipping to all Neutral and Evil. (The Warmage is True Neutral.) She actually wrote “don’t be surprised if someone or my bow kills you.” (2) She thinks my PC is totally ineffective and does nothing to help the party. This from the person who casts Magic Missile every round... (3) She gets frustrated with me complaining when my PC is useless. (Granted, I do. I like to play a very tactical game, and get frustrated when the other players do their own thing and don’t work together.) (4) She was annoyed that my wife and I asked her to please stop making rape and penis jokes. (They have been going on for 2 sessions, and have gotten very old.)
By the time my wife was done reading me the e-mail, I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle Warmage.
I know someone (probably multiple someones) is going to say “no game is better than bad game.” To be honest, this is very true. I, personally, have no problem with walking away. (I've walked away from this game before, about a year and a half ago.) Part of me does not want to because it feels like doing that would let DM and Warmage win, but I know that feeling is petty. My wife, on the other hand, does not really want to leave. Warmage has been her friend for over a decade. (Warmage also officiated our wedding...) This is one of only two games that my wife plays in, and the other (which I run) is having issues as well due to a certain player. (That bad player is not one of the players listed above.) Other than gaming, she has no real-life social outlet, and does not want to lose what little she has. Also, due to our schedules, the two games are the only times my wife and I really get to do things together. And while I’ve considered more than once dropping out of the game, there are fun things that happen and it gives me a chance to actually play. On the other hand, it’s very clear that I want a different style of game than the DM or other players.
So, yeah... Help..? :smalleek: