Short Adventures League Rant

[Aaedimus]

So, I took over as DM for a table in an Adventures League that plays fairly loose with some of the rules, particularly those involving magic items. In general it hasn't been a problem, and the games turn out well, but the day before I took over the previous DM decided on the fly to give his boss a +2 greatsword on a chain that does 2d8 damage to all creatures in a 10ft radius to the boss to counter a 6th level player's decision to pull 3 mastiffs out of their robe of useful items and summon a tiny servant. They all died in 1 hit, and the sword went to our Paladin who in all fairness, I would feel bad for just saying "yeah, he just barely gave that weapon to you, but you can't have that". Even after I let her know the smites still only applied to one of the targets, she keeps running into large groups and critting with Great Weapon Master, and the damage ends up being ludicrous. She's at 20 Str, so with a kill and the cleave from GWM that's a 8th level character dealing 6d8+21 avg a turn in a 10 ft radius before adding crits. Compare that to cone of cold... 8d8+0 in a cone with a save for 1/2, 3 times a rest max at level 9.

I can deal but, it is sometimes unnerving and unfair to others when she can do that, and our eldritch knight of equal level is averaging... 17 to 23 damage a turn?

Not that big of a deal, I've been moving towards more story heavy games and they seem to really enjoy that, but still. People need to think about the weapons they give out. I might talk to her after next week about giving the weapon a few restrictions...

Anyways, anyone else have similar stories?

[Unoriginal]

...OP, "Adventure League" and "plays fast and loose with magic items" is an oxymoronic statement.

It's literally not only against the AL rules, but also its core priinciples and goals, to give a boss more magic items and that kind of things, especially an homebrew magic item.

So I don't see what your rant has to do with AL.

[ProsecutorGodot]

That's insane. I'm almost entirely sure that's not allowed.

I ran a one shot once and decided that whoever killed the final boss in the one shot would get a randomly rolled piece of loot for the Curse of Strahd campaign we were going to play. I made a table of loot where on a 1 out of 100 the player would receive a deck of many things.

You can see where this is going already.

He happens to be a very lucky person in general, so not only did he get the deck but also within the first 5 draws : 2 fates, 1 vizier and 2 wishes.
Then within a few more draws he's gotten 4 additional magic items and only 2 of the effects have been "negative" ( oh boi you've got a demon after you, how will the cleric deal with a demon now that he has a candle of invocation and the symbol of ravenkind)

I had to get the deck away from him because he was just too lucky, so everyone at the table got 2 magic items in trade for having Mordenkainen "dispose of this terrible chaotic artifact to maintain the balance"

I definitely could have handled the situation better than I did, but the players are enjoying being completely overpowered and it gives me an opportunity to start working on a homebrew campaign for what happens after Strahd, since they've already leaped over intended power level of any pre written module.

[Aaedimus]

Oh it's 100% against the rules, the local "Adventure's League" is less of an official AL and more like a community D&D get together day in the game store that they call "Adventure's League"

Hahaha I've seen a similar situation with the Deck of Many Things. The DM was nice when he picked the void and changed the spell effect, than the player just went around town creating chaos by telling everyone to "pick a card".

[Unoriginal]

Oh it's 100% against AL rules, the local "Adventure's League" is less of an official AL and more like a community D&D get together day in the game store that they call "Adventure's League"

Then maybe not call it "Adventure League Rant", if it's not the official one.

Just to make thing clearer.

[Aaedimus]

Lol I guess it would have been more accurate to just call it "local community game store D&D day rant", however I don't like writing posts that people just ignore.

[opaopajr]

Yeah... GM Seat-Sharing with a Monty Haul GM is just going to end in tears.

They wanna shower players in loot after playing 'Power Rangers' and not worry about the consequences after. Basically they want to be the 'fun parent' and leave you the chores. You end up being the responsible heavy who has to put the brakes on the 'fun' before everything flies apart. :smallconfused:

Better to run separate tables next time. Not everyone knows how to GM, let alone be responsible sharing that position. Then such 'fun parents' can crash and burn later as the 'kids hopped up on sugar' start getting whiney.

'Fun parenting' ends when you gotta accept the consequences of your actions. Walk away from being the 'serious parent' in the relationship... quickly! You'll regret the lost time and frustration otherwise.