Abilities inappropriate for use on players?

[Thealtruistorc]

Recently, I've been running a nominally difficult dungeon crawl adventure with a party of vetted and optimized players. The last few sessions have been enjoyable, and by this point the party has learned to work as a cohesive team in order to take down severely deadly encounters. However, something happened in the last game that made me question my style of encounter design.

Confusion effects have come up several times in the adventure as an offensive strategy for the players. Our dread has been using id insinuation as his primary weapon for the past few encounters, and it played a crucial role in a major victory against a pack of demons. The party ended up defeating and humiliating an enemy bard in an earlier session after saving against all of her mind-based attacks, so this time I decided to amp up the difficulty a smidgen.

The villain for this leg of the dungeon was a leader of a group of Tucker's Kobolds, an alchemist who poured all of his resources into deadly efficiency with his bombs. Through some trickery I was able to get his save DCs up to 28 (this is a 12th-level party), and he had the capacity to consistently nail the players in the reflex or (in the case of our warder) will saves.

The issue began when our warder got nailed with a confusion bomb and failed his save, to which his response was "welp, I'm useless now. I'll be off somewhere else so let me know when the encounter is over."

I honestly didn't know how to respond to that. On the one hand, taking him out of action was a sound and sensible action on the part of the kobolds, and having the party prepare for a situation like this made sense (two casters had already downed potions of fickle winds to guard against ranged snipes). On the other hand, the warder was clearly frustrated, and the reactions I got from some other party members made the confusion feel like a **** move on my part. Is this just me being paranoid, or should I as a DM avoid using certain tactics that my players get away with? What divides a solid challenge from frustration?

[Chronikoce]

Sounds like you played a well prepared and intelligent enemy.

Your party should learn from this encounter and seek out some form of magic (ex: scroll/wand) that can be used to remove debilitating magic effects.

If they are expecting your enemies to just throw damage at them and nothing else then I believe there may be a serious disconnect between your expectations and theirs for the tone of the game.

If that's the case then the best bet is to simply have an out of game conversation and let them know that since they are higher levels they should fully expect to face more than just damage and should begin to plan strategies to mitigate debuffs used against them.

[Troacctid]

See, this is why I always carry a wand of resurgence.

Save-or-lose effects are, of course, inherently unfun on both sides of the DM screen, because there is no meaningful counterplay—you either make the save or you are out of the fight, and there's nothing you can do about it. Contrast with stuff like Wall of Ice, where you can take a player out of the fight, but she still has the ability to break through the wall; Bestow Curse, where you can lay down a nasty penalty that stings like a bitch, but the player still gets to play through; or even plain ol' grappling, which can really crimp a spellcaster's style, but can be countered in many ways if you've prepared for it.

[Eldariel]

See, this is why I always carry a wand of resurgence.

Save-or-lose effects are, of course, inherently unfun on both sides of the DM screen, because there is no meaningful counterplay—you either make the save or you are out of the fight, and there's nothing you can do about it. Contrast with stuff like Wall of Ice, where you can take a player out of the fight, but she still has the ability to break through the wall; Bestow Curse, where you can lay down a nasty penalty that stings like a bitch, but the player still gets to play through; or even plain ol' grappling, which can really crimp a spellcaster's style, but can be countered in many ways if you've prepared for it.

Well, there is counterplay, it just has to be prepared. The easiest are rerolls: Alter Fortune can be cast on allies to avoid that nonsense, there are various reroll items/abilities/effects and some ways to break line of effect (immediate action teleportation, contingent effects or ways to take actions as an immediate action), and of course allies can dispel the spell or protect the character from it for some duration. Overall, it feels like the kind of thing that won't really be annoying in a well-prepared party with some slots and a significant number of consumables devoted to the various problems, but touch'n'go people may have a problem.

[paranoidbox]

The issue began when our warder got nailed with a confusion bomb and failed his save, to which his response was "welp, I'm useless now. I'll be off somewhere else so let me know when the encounter is over."

Is this PF? (I'm assuming it is, because there was an alchemist BEG.) Can you not act any more when you're confused? In 3.5 I think you can roll whether you take your actions normally or if you do something random. Anyway, be as it may, it sucks if you, as a player, get knocked out of the game, but you just have to bear it and follow along until your debilitating effect (whatever it may be) is countered.

I also do not understand how a party of 12th level characters has no way of overcoming this kind of thing. Do they prepare at all for daze, stun, paralysis, poison, etc...? If no, then the fault is entirely theirs and they should probably learn from this mistake (as has been pointed out).

Also, in my games, no matter who the DM is, there is a policy that goes: "If it's fair for the players to use, it's fair for the DM to use it against them as well." By which I mean to say, no, I don't think you did anything wrong here ;-p

[ekarney]

I recently neg level'd one of my players and it was pretty poorly received - not in a way that caused any conflict, just that it seemed to irritate said player and all it served t do was slow him down

[Pugwampy]

Let me guess you are not the " uber DM / rules lawyer " of that club yes ?

Looks more to me these vet players were roleplaying their suffering a wee bit more to squeeze pity XP from you .

You say he got wacked with confusion ?
Did crybaby make his roll to see what exact effect it had on him if not he schnooked you into forgetting to do that with his little drama.

You look your players in the eye , remind them who is in charge and downplay the situation . Eg

"What ? Did someone die or something ? Get to the stinking temple and get cured , you are wasting everyones time with your confusing rubbish . You should have died , I would coughed up more xp if you made this entertaining for me . "

[Der_DWSage]

...Yeah, I'm going to side against the Warder in that situation. So far as save-or-suck goes, Confusion is probably the least debilitating, in that you can attack whoever is aggressive towards you, and that you have a 25% chance to act normally. (And if people are smart enough to stay out of melee range of you, it's a 50% chance to be smacking the guy in the face anyhow.)

I will agree that there's many save-or-sucks that are just unfun on both sides of the table-throwing people down pits when they can't make climb checks, actual death when you don't have access to in-combat revival, permanent penalties like negative levels, blindness, and curses when you don't have the means to remove them-but it sounds like your Warder was being kinda whiny. Even if we're hearing the worst possible retelling of the tale, if he walked away from the table while he still had a 25% chance to act normally...

On the other hand, it's probably a good idea to look into strategies that don't completely lock people out of their actions as well-a challenge to overcome is 1000% more fun than 'Nope, you don't get your actions for a while.' Movement-blocking via difficult terrain/spike stones, strategy blocking like Fickle Winds, Antimagic Field, or Etherealness, or even simple logic-lawyering a Suggestion spell are good things to try out before Save-or-suck. ("The evil high priest mind-controlled me and told me to 'smite the heretics.' I follow Iomedae, he follows Lamashtu. What happened to him next was inevitable.")

[Willie the Duck]

Save-or-sucks are one of the most effective, and yet often frustrating, spells in the game. Their dominance in 3.5/PF are a legitimate criticism of the game. However, since you and the players have chosen to play the game (and by your description, you are playing it OP), the players should be expecting it. They should take it as a learning experience and prepare better for the next adventure. Assuming that the players won the day eventually, they are still in a better position than if the player had gotten enervated out of the game because they weren't prepared for energy drain, or just plain killed by a save-or-die.

There are things that are 'unfair' to do to your players, but mostly they involve changing the type of game you are playing out from under them. Most wizards aren't going to have backup spellbooks (or at least keep them up to date) unless you are consistently throwing enemies at them who specifically target spellbooks. Same case with martials not making sure their precious magic weapon is a magically hardened adamantine weapon until you put in sunder monsters. No one puts points into the swim skill (unless they go on ocean adventures) until you have sudden dungeon-flooding effects go off. Even those are 'okay-ish' in certain contexts. Mostly you just have to remember that it is truly impossible to be prepared for everything in this game, so you as the DM who can shape the adventure have infinite ability to exploit whatever weaknesses they leave open, whereas they can only prepare for the things that you let them see coming.

[Barstro]

It's annoying to do and annoying to receive.

If the players are going have such a reaction, they should discuss it with the DM ahead of time and completely forbid its use. The players are the ones who brought Confusion to the table in the first place, they have zero right to complain about enemies being as smart as them.

Not every fight is against kittens sleeping on 30,000 gp worth of magic items.

[AslanCross]

It's annoying, but just up and leaving the table is a bit much. I think it's fine.

It's not like it's Shadow Dragon breath.

[Psyren]

See, this is why I always carry a wand of resurgence.

Save-or-lose effects are, of course, inherently unfun on both sides of the DM screen, because there is no meaningful counterplay—you either make the save or you are out of the fight, and there's nothing you can do about it. Contrast with stuff like Wall of Ice, where you can take a player out of the fight, but she still has the ability to break through the wall; Bestow Curse, where you can lay down a nasty penalty that stings like a bitch, but the player still gets to play through; or even plain ol' grappling, which can really crimp a spellcaster's style, but can be countered in many ways if you've prepared for it.

Confusion has plenty of counterplay. If you move your confused character close to the enemy, or your allies contrive to have the enemy be the closest thing to them, that increases their odds of attacking said enemy from 25% to 50%. If the enemy attacks them, those odds go up to 100%. The manner of attack is not prescribed, so you can get as fancy as you're able, including things like grapple or pounce.

There's also dispel and suppression effects like Unbreakable Heart, both of which are on a wide variety of spell lists.

[J-H]

If the PCs use it, it's fair game.

[Gallowglass]

Recently, I've been running a nominally difficult dungeon crawl adventure with a party of vetted and optimized players...

Confusion effects have come up several times in the adventure as an offensive strategy for the players.... so this time I decided to amp up the difficulty a smidgen.

...group of Tucker's Kobolds, an alchemist who poured all of his resources into deadly efficiency with his bombs. Through some trickery I was able to get his save DCs up to 28 (this is a 12th-level party), and he had the capacity to consistently nail the players in the reflex or (in the case of our warder) will saves.



I feel like there is probably more to this story so I'll try reading between the lines. If I'm way off, let me know.

You have a group of players who are playing the strategy, overcome game. Meaning they are in the game to come up with inventive efficient ways to overcome mounds of threats.
To challenge them you have been escalating threat levels of your enemies and building specifically to their weaknesses and utilizing the strategies they build against them.

So far so good.

As someone else pointed out confusion is hardly a save or die spell, there are innumerable ways to work around that limitation even if you don't have a way to remove the effect. Also, it requires at least a roll from the PC every round to see if they do something, nothing or something detrimental.

I feel like MAYBE that player is just a ****. But then you point out that the OTHER players also reacted negatively.

Between the lines that leads me to the idea that maybe this was "the last straw" meaning that this was the last in a series of events that led to that players frustration.

Tucker's kobolds can, very easily, be annoying as the traps become more illogical and unbelievable as you progress. Especially if they are built specifically to hit the PCs weaknesses. They can start to feel like personal attacks vs any other dungeon crawl.

So was this the capstone of a long evening of this player finding out all his previously strong strategies were now useless, that all his warder abilities were countered or not useful for getting through the challenges? Was this yet another failed save in a string of failed saves where the DC was outside the range of difficulties he's seen in prior games? A 12th level warder has around a +12 to will save from his base save and expected magic, so he needed a 16 or higher to make it or thereabouts? Or was it worse than that?

My guess is that this was the final in a string of feeling useless, specifically targeted, and nullified until he broke. That's a pretty common outcome when you build encounters to "beat" the players rather than to "challenge" the players.

Regardless, the player was being a **** when he stormed off in a rage, but I'm guessing its a shared blame.

[Thealtruistorc]

I feel like there is probably more to this story so I'll try reading between the lines. If I'm way off, let me know.

You have a group of players who are playing the strategy, overcome game. Meaning they are in the game to come up with inventive efficient ways to overcome mounds of threats.
To challenge them you have been escalating threat levels of your enemies and building specifically to their weaknesses and utilizing the strategies they build against them.

So far so good.

As someone else pointed out confusion is hardly a save or die spell, there are innumerable ways to work around that limitation even if you don't have a way to remove the effect. Also, it requires at least a roll from the PC every round to see if they do something, nothing or something detrimental.

I feel like MAYBE that player is just a ****. But then you point out that the OTHER players also reacted negatively.

Between the lines that leads me to the idea that maybe this was "the last straw" meaning that this was the last in a series of events that led to that players frustration.

Tucker's kobolds can, very easily, be annoying as the traps become more illogical and unbelievable as you progress. Especially if they are built specifically to hit the PCs weaknesses. They can start to feel like personal attacks vs any other dungeon crawl.

So was this the capstone of a long evening of this player finding out all his previously strong strategies were now useless, that all his warder abilities were countered or not useful for getting through the challenges? Was this yet another failed save in a string of failed saves where the DC was outside the range of difficulties he's seen in prior games? A 12th level warder has around a +12 to will save from his base save and expected magic, so he needed a 16 or higher to make it or thereabouts? Or was it worse than that?

My guess is that this was the final in a string of feeling useless, specifically targeted, and nullified until he broke. That's a pretty common outcome when you build encounters to "beat" the players rather than to "challenge" the players.

Regardless, the player was being a **** when he stormed off in a rage, but I'm guessing its a shared blame.

For reference, the encounter went something like this:

The party ended up walking into the labyrinth prepared for most anything (the bard they had taken hostage had warned them that something nasty was down this way), and as soon as they were down found some of the traps laid out for them. Through use of mage hand they were able to set them off from out of range, to which the alchemist responded by strafing them with a bomb from a crawlspace above the tunnel.

So our wizard got an idea to flood the tunnels with coal dust using major creation, and using a pair of fickle winds potions was able to buff the other caster (a witch) and use his to start blasting coal dust through the tunnels. The resulting explosion killed several of the kobolds and forced the remaining few (one of which had been listening in on the plan) to take cover behind an improvised wall of force (strafe bomb+caging bomb admixture). One kobold snuck around the wall via the ghostwalk PoW maneuver and tried to attack the party with one of the alchemist's bombs, only to be stopped by our warder's warning roar. The kobolds started amassing their forces on the other side of the wall, with two hulking aberrations and a few snipers at the ready. Our wizard terrified the gravy out of the beefy monsters using some illusions, and the warder nailed the kobold who had tried to bomb us (taking a bomb to the face in the process). The kobold leader proceeded to let the wall of force drop and exposed the party to the aberrations' stench aura (they suceeded) before shooting two bombs (one of which was the confusion one) at him using manyshot+a conductive longbow. The rest of the night went to arguing over whether or not he could do that and the players trying to find loopholes around him hitting.

[Gallowglass]

For reference, the encounter went something like this:

The party ended up walking into the labyrinth prepared for most anything (the bard they had taken hostage had warned them that something nasty was down this way), and as soon as they were down found some of the traps laid out for them. Through use of mage hand they were able to set them off from out of range, to which the alchemist responded by strafing them with a bomb from a crawlspace above the tunnel.

So our wizard got an idea to flood the tunnels with coal dust using major creation, and using a pair of fickle winds potions was able to buff the other caster (a witch) and use his to start blasting coal dust through the tunnels. The resulting explosion killed several of the kobolds and forced the remaining few (one of which had been listening in on the plan) to take cover behind an improvised wall of force (strafe bomb+caging bomb admixture). One kobold snuck around the wall via the ghostwalk PoW maneuver and tried to attack the party with one of the alchemist's bombs, only to be stopped by our warder's warning roar. The kobolds started amassing their forces on the other side of the wall, with two hulking aberrations and a few snipers at the ready. Our wizard terrified the gravy out of the beefy monsters using some illusions, and the warder nailed the kobold who had tried to bomb us (taking a bomb to the face in the process). The kobold leader proceeded to let the wall of force drop and exposed the party to the aberrations' stench aura (they suceeded) before shooting two bombs (one of which was the confusion one) at him using manyshot+a conductive longbow. The rest of the night went to arguing over whether or not he could do that and the players trying to find loopholes around him hitting.


well, I'm not sure of an ability to let the alchemist shoot bombs with a longbow or give one to a kobold to go drop somewhere else, but I haven't looked at alchemist stuff for a while and I'm fine with DMs making custom abilities for NPCs as long as they are consistent.

Based on that elaboration, it sounds like the player was just a jerk and that the other players tried to accommodate his jerkness by trying to find a way to help him get his way and get back to the game. I suppose I would've just asked him to hand me his sheet when he walked off and ruled that his confusion defaults to "attack the nearest" every round because he didn't care to stick around to make his own rolls, then had him start tearing into the other characters until they stopped him. Sometimes the only way to get it back on track is to announce the next initiative number and get on with it.

[Barstro]

It's annoying, but just up and leaving the table is a bit much.
To be honest, I'd probably leave the table (if something actually took me out of the fight, as opposed to this player misunderstanding Confusion).

It's a good time to stretch my legs, grab some food for everyone, or one of many other things I can spend 15 minutes on.

But, I'd be doing it in a polite way, not being a pouting baby.

[Psyren]

Hitting the players with confusion is fine, but Tucker's Kobolds were specifically designed to be as annoying and passive-aggressive opponents as it's possible to be. Also, a DC 28 save is a bit much for a 12th-level party; that's a high DC even for a 16th-level party. End result is that the EL for this fight is probably overpowering. I don't think your player(s) necessarily handled it the most mature way possible, but I don't think their concerns about your fairness are entirely unfounded either.

[Nibbens]

Normally no, I'd say the warder is overreacting... However, in your post you mention you've been running a difficult dungeon for them. It's entirely possible that the Warder is getting sick of stagnant difficulty of the encounters. Maybe try encounter variance a bit instead of all hardcore all the dungeon?... if that's what you're doing. If not well then, carry on! :smallcool:

[Snowbluff]

Confusion is fine usually. Compulsions are right out. :smalltongue:

[Barstro]

but I don't think their concerns about your fairness are entirely unfounded either.

Unless I read the OP incorrectly, these fights have been getting progressively harder because the players have been doing a very good job. At some point, there HAS to be a fight that is a bit too hard or else the DM doesn't know when the appropriate level has been hit.

I'd agree with your statement a lot more if the DM had unexpectedly and drastically upped the difficulty, but this was certainly not done with malice. Besides, one person failing out of the entire party is rather reasonable.

[Psyren]

Unless I read the OP incorrectly, these fights have been getting progressively harder because the players have been doing a very good job. At some point, there HAS to be a fight that is a bit too hard or else the DM doesn't know when the appropriate level has been hit.

I'd agree with your statement a lot more if the DM had unexpectedly and drastically upped the difficulty, but this was certainly not done with malice. Besides, one person failing out of the entire party is rather reasonable.

And I agree - except that you can quickly and mathematically tell if a given DC is too high also. I don't know how optimized his PCs are, so maybe they have a +17 will save at 12th level for a 50/50 shot, but I kind of doubt it.

[Flickerdart]

Your players take hours out of their lives to show up and play. For this reason, I would not use any ability that denies them this. With the length of 3.5's combat rounds, losing even a single turn of agency means a lot. That's not to say you can't cripple them, or restrict their actions with spells like slow, but stun, daze, paralysis, etc are all unsportsmanlike. Making the DC low does not compensate for this - either the PC passes the save and the power does nothing, or the PC is affected anyway.

If you do not wish to compromise the lethality of your game due to these considerations, provide your PCs with ways to stay in the action even without control over their bodies. For instance, a paralyzed creature can still manifest psionic powers, and a stunned druid can still play as his animal companion. Hirelings or cohorts can be used as well, especially if they have the power to cure an afflicted PC.

[Bucky]

well, I'm not sure of an ability to let the alchemist shoot bombs with a longbow or give one to a kobold to go drop somewhere else, but I haven't looked at alchemist stuff for a while and I'm fine with DMs making custom abilities for NPCs as long as they are consistent.

Having someone other than the alchemist use the alchemist's bombs is explicitly not allowed, but happens in official modules anyway. Having an alchemist use more than one bomb in a round requires a special ability to do so, such as the Delayed Bomb discovery. The Conductive property does allow an alchemist to make bomb arrows, but only one per round.

I've only had two cases where I've seriously complained to the GM about unfair encounter design. One of them was when the 7th level party faced off against a 17th level cleric who started throwing 8ths and 9ths at us, and my character got hit with an instant death effect. The other? An alchemist cheating the action economy with multiple bombs in a round.

[Necromancy]

Confusion is a class feature for some. It brings a bit of comic relief to be sure

I had a character ride some boots of dancing right into the party wizards acid pit. Never left the table though.

[Darth Ultron]

On the other hand, the warder was clearly frustrated, and the reactions I got from some other party members made the confusion feel like a **** move on my part. Is this just me being paranoid, or should I as a DM avoid using certain tactics that my players get away with? What divides a solid challenge from frustration?

In a good game with good players this is not an issue. Nothing is ''inappropriate''. But, of course, not all games are like that.

And the players that complain will be all over the place. ''this'' is OK, if they feel it's OK at the time, but it's not if they feel it's not, sometimes. They will run around in endless circles. Though it really comes down to a simple line: they don't want anything negative to happen to their character.

And, that is really a game stopper. The player is saying that they don't really want to play the game by RAW. They want to play some form of other game.

Now there is no right or wrong here, some players like ''dark and gritty'' and some players like ''light and super''. So the trick is to make sure the DM and players are on the same page.