Am I Wrong To Feel Slighted?

[Allistar]

I don't know how to really preface this, so I'll just go into what has happened in the past few weeks. Sorry for the long one in advance. I really like this group, and the DM is a good person but this has really just been getting to me. I feel slighted and like there's nothing I can do about this. Guess I should explain

-So, 5 level 7 characters with 1 mythic tier. It's a fun campaign and group, but we've had issues in the past with encounter balance and the fact that we go off of milestone advancement instead of XP, and only when he finds it challenging enough will he award a level up. He's also been going on about how we could probably take on a CR 15 creature with no problem
-We get an assignment to go and figure out what happened to a town (they hadn't heard from them in 3 months)
- Takes a month to get there (this will be important later)
- Get there and see that there's absolutely nobody around
- Go into town, and smell overwhelming rot
- Pretty sure it's zombies, but there are no auras or anything around
- Search the houses, find nothing until the 10th house in
- 5 bodies, no auras, no nothing
- We're pretty sure these are zombies, but we make a knowledge check anyways
- 35+
- "You don't know anything about this"
- Ok then....... guess we should autopsy them or figure out if this was recent or something
- Touch them and guess what
- #totally-zombies
- Ok, fine guess we'll try and bop em
- Have DR 10/- and energy resist so my natural attack pseudo pounce with fleet charge barely effects them
- Zombie's turn
- They surround our holy vindicator
- At least he has 29 AC
- "oh they don't have to roll to hit because there are 3 of them surrounding you, homebrew ability"
- Ummmm........
- DM says make a fort save
- Ok.jpg
- Rolls a 5, but gets a modified 18
- Fails, and his max HP is reduced by 1d10 immediately
- Wow, seems pretty strong, but at least there's only 5 of them
- Round ends, and from outside we hear the shambling of dozens of them
- Has been adding 5 groups of 5 every round we were in town, but we didn't see them at all somehow
- Get surrounded, get auto hit, get max HP reduced
- Wizard Fireballs killing about 30
- Think we can escape, so we start running towards the way we came in
- Nope, they just keep coming
- Ok, guess we'll try to book it and hunker down in the town hall.
- Aoo means they have to actually roll to hit us and we find out that their bonus to hit is +3
- Everything is fine inside, no zombies and we can bar the door to make sure they can't come in
- Decide to try and pick off what we can from the roof before resting
- Ask if we get a save for the disease since it's been a day
- Nope, and in fact we lose another d10 in max HP
- Well damn
- Cleric tries to cast remove disease
- Gets a 25
- Does nothing
- Ok *scrubbed*
- Rolls knowledge again, and the cleric nat 20s
- Total is less than the initial knowledge roll, but fukin crit skill checks am i right
- "They are undead created you think were created by deep magic"
- "What is deep magic"
- "You're not sure, but it's a dark and twisted magic that has been nearly forgotten"
- .................................................. ................
- Well they're undead, so at least we can cast greater hide from undead and sneak out.
- Also cast carion compass and try to find the necromancer or something, i dunno we have no leads
- Get led to a blood swamp where everything is difficult terrain
- Get led to a cave/dungeon
- Every single room we enter has at least 10 of those zombie guys, 1-3 Blood Golems and sometimes vampire spawn too, and all of them have that bloodrot stuff on their attacks

Can't go back to town because we lose max HP every day with no save. Can't cure the disease because homebrew. Can't push forward because they get auto hits and reduce our max even further (everyone in the party has lost about 1/2 of their max at this point and we're only 5 rooms in). And on top of it all, this necromancer guy is probably multiple levels and mythic tiers higher than us, so even if we get to the boss fight we're 100% dead on round 1 to a fireball or just about anything (and that's not even considering domination and the like).

Is there anything we can do or are we just dead.

[Psyren]

You're playing Mythic so a tough fight is to be expected - but the gotcha "zombies", autohit houserule and the disease houserule are pretty big red flags that you're on rails.

[JNAProductions]

Few thoughts.

First off, in general, I think you're right to be peeved. That's some malarky.

Auto-hits for surrounding? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Pathfinder have, you know, Flanking rules? Use those.

A disease that cannot be cured by Remove Disease is fine... Provided you have warning about it, and can prepare accordingly. I do think it's okay to have something that magic has trouble addressing with your basic spells, but sprung on you with no warning is some hot bull.

Knowledge checks and Detect Magic giving nothing is ALSO a very bad sign.

Overall, assuming you're being as unbiased as possible, this sounds like hot garbage. Talk to the other players, see what they think, and then talk to your DM.

[DrMartin]

this is very similar to something that happened recently in one of the games I am in. I found it infuriating.

The bingo card for this kind of GMing has, among other things, something serendipitous to happen the first time someone should die from the disease and they are miraculously saved.

works as a literary device, does not work in a game where you are supposed to be the hero and drive the story forward.

[Psyren]

A plot device disease doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially in a mythic campaign. But a GM has to earn the trust to subvert expectations like that, and I'm guessing this one hasn't.

[Evoker]

Well, the enemies seem to be very poorly designed. I'm sure the swarm autohit was intended to compensate for the poor to-hit of the zombies, bit the GM should have just raised the zombies to-hit rather than guarantee a hit. The custom disease was likely intended to put a clock on the adventure, hence why it cannot be saved against or cured.
The difficulty of the knowledge checks is probably because the GM themselves did not have a solid idea of the zombies origin, but felt obligated to give something for a natural 20. I do agree that not letting a 35 tell that they are animate is a little dumb.
However, you seem to be in not an impossible situation. The wizards fireball was clearly highly effective. So long as you have the max hp to sustain resting, opening each fight with a fireball should take out most if not all of the zombies, giving you a fighting chance at engaging the other enemies at range.

EDIT: corrected potentially confusing typo.

[DrMartin]

A plot device disease doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially in a mythic campaign. But a GM has to earn the trust to subvert expectations like that, and I'm guessing this one hasn't.

definitely, but is not the only item on the plate here. Ignoring knowledge checks (a 35 should get you *something*), the auto hit, the no-saying the party investigations attempt all push toward a GM who had a nice scene in mind they wanted to happen in the game, not letting the players mess with their vision.

Maybe I am being too harsh to judge too quick, but as I said something very similar happened to me very recently and is a bit of a sore spot. Time for gaming in adult life is so precious that "wasting it" with bad gaming really upsets me.

Edit for something useful: have you tried less canonical venues of dealing with the "blood rot", other than cure disease? Like dispel magic, lesser restoration, drinking or applying holy water? maybe celestial healing (that is what celestial monkeys are for!). Or any healing-related spell you picked with mythic spellcasting...

Basically, since the ability is out of the books, maybe the solution has to be found there too.

[Allistar]

Well, the enemies seem to be very poorly designed. I'm sure the swarm autohit was intended to compensate for the poor to-hit of the zombies, bit the GM should have just raised the zombies to-hit rather than guarantee a hit. The custom disease was likely intended to put a clock on the adventure, hence why it cannot be saved against or cured.
The difficulty of the knowledge checks is probably because the GM themselves did not have a solid idea of the zombies origin, but felt obligated to give something for a natural 20. I do agree that not letting a 35 tell that they are animate is a little dumb.
However, you seem to be in not too bad of a situation. The wizards fireball was clearly highly effective. So long as you have the max hp to sustain resting, opening each fight with a fireball should take out most if not all of the zombies, giving you a fighting chance at engaging the other enemies at range.

EDIT: corrected potentially confusing typo.

True, the situation for the zombies specifically isn't too bad. But that has kinda just gotten worse as we get further into the dungeon. As long as the wizard can go before them and blast them down we're mostly fine. The problem is when we roll poorly, the zombies all get auto hits, the blood golems are immune to magic and the vampire spawn just gaseous form.

As for picking them off at range, it would be better if we weren't in such cramped locations although I do appreciate the suggestion.

[Allistar]

Edit for something useful: have you tried less canonical venues of dealing with the "blood rot", other than cure disease? Like dispel magic, lesser restoration, drinking or applying holy water? maybe celestial healing (that is what celestial monkeys are for!). Or any healing-related spell you picked with mythic spellcasting...

Basically, since the ability is out of the books, maybe the solution has to be found there too.

Thanks for the suggestions. We haven't really tried anything besides removing disease, but the way that he told us that it didn't work makes me think it's just magic resistant in general. I'll bring these up and see, but I don't think it's going to amount to much.

As a mythic plot device, sure I can appreciate a clock that puts tension on and raises the stakes, but when you add to that auto hit swarms that reduce max HP every time, it becomes less of a clock and more like a punishment. It's not that we're being complacent and not pushing the adventure forward, on the contrary we are attempting to be as fast as possible with this. Either way we do it we're penalized. Go too slow and wait/pick off slowly over the course of x days, and we take disease ticks, go too fast and get in too many fights and every hit they land is bringing us even lower on our max HP. The encounters aren't that bad on their own, it's the fact that we can only restore up to half of our normal capabilities, and there is no change in the balance of the encounter based on that.

If I'm being honest, I think we've already lost too much and are guaranteed to die. We've lost too much max HP on these preliminary rooms, and now the boss which we expect to be something crazy powerful will have tons of extra capabilities and homebrew stuff. If he doesn't just strait out kill us with a fireball on our new 1/4 max HP, we still have to watch out for domination and all the other stuff high level wizards can do (if he's even a wizard and not just a homebrew creature with x ability)

[MesiDoomstalker]

Gaseous Form does not protect one from Fireball; it's only defensive capability is its DR 10/Magic and immunity to poison, crits and sneak attacks. Beyond that; if the wizard is acting before the Spawn, they cannot turn into gaseous form reactively; they cannot take Immediate Actions while flat-footed and anyone who has yet to act in combat are flat-footed. Not even touching that Vampire's can't do so reactively anyways. Unless they start in Gaseous Form? Even then, the above still applies.

Overall; you need to address the GM about your complaints. All your complaints are valid and staying quiet about it solves nothing. The GM will continue on this track until someone tells them they are not having fun with this plotline. Just be sure to frame it as frustration with lack of agency and options, and not as an attack against them.

[Allistar]

Gaseous Form does not protect one from Fireball; it's only defensive capability is its DR 10/Magic and immunity to poison, crits and sneak attacks. Beyond that; if the wizard is acting before the Spawn, they cannot turn into gaseous form reactively; they cannot take Immediate Actions while flat-footed and anyone who has yet to act in combat are flat-footed. Not even touching that Vampire's can't do so reactively anyways. Unless they start in Gaseous Form? Even then, the above still applies.

Overall; you need to address the GM about your complaints. All your complaints are valid and staying quiet about it solves nothing. The GM will continue on this track until someone tells them they are not having fun with this plotline. Just be sure to frame it as frustration with lack of agency and options, and not as an attack against them.

To be completely transparent with your first point, we don't know if they are vampire spawn or a creature with a vampire template ETC. He said they are vampires of a sort, and their ability reads "If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, a vampire assumes gaseous form as the spell and attempts to escape". Think that's part of the template, but I don't know what he's applied it to.

And for the second point, we as a group will be bringing this up before the next session. I try to go off of solutions by the book or other things we as players can do, but this time I think this is entirely DM

[Psyren]

definitely, but is not the only item on the plate here. Ignoring knowledge checks (a 35 should get you *something*), the auto hit, the no-saying the party investigations attempt all push toward a GM who had a nice scene in mind they wanted to happen in the game, not letting the players mess with their vision.

Agreed, and I highlighted those concerns in my first reply for this reason.



Basically, since the ability is out of the books, maybe the solution has to be found there too.

I think the solution is out of the game entirely - giving the GM constructive criticism about their houserules.

[Vizzerdrix]

... When you say max HP, do you mean something like going from 100/100 to say, 90/90 as opposed to 90/100? The use of max is what is confusing me here and seems like the bigger issue to me.

Is this the first time auto hits has come up? It sounds like some good stuff! I'd start spamming the summons, and animating everything you can.

I didn't think skills where susceptible to the auto hit/fail on a 20/1 rule accept for UMD. Is Pathfinder different in that regard? Seems silly to me.

[Psyren]

I didn't think skills where susceptible to the auto hit/fail on a 20/1 rule accept for UMD. Is Pathfinder different in that regard? Seems silly to me.

It's not different - skills don't autosucceed or autofail in PF, just like they don't in 3.5.

[Vizzerdrix]

It's not different - skills don't autosucceed or autofail in PF, just like they don't in 3.5.

Ah, so it is a shenanigans level scenario. The easy solution then is get the rest of the table to agree that by wearing a shoe on your head, your character is immune to damage. Not that it would matter. I suspect that this train is going right to silly town anyways.

O.P, you have two options. Either strap in and try to get it over with as fast as you can (do expect more shenanigans later on), or talk to the GM and ask that the deal is. I would recommend option 2, but ymmv.

[KillianHawkeye]

I agree that there are shenanigans afoot, but at least try comboing Remove Curse + Remove Disease. It's the classic solution to mummy rot, and this plague you've got seems sort of in the same ballpark.

[Batcathat]

- "They are undead created you think were created by deep magic"
- "What is deep magic"
- "You're not sure, but it's a dark and twisted magic that has been nearly forgotten"

Is it just me or does this make zero sense? How could someone possibly know that they were created by "deep magic" without knowing almost anything about it? I know, not the biggest issue here but it bothered me for some reason.

I agree with most of what's already been said about the situation in general. I'm guessing either the GM underestimated how tough it would be (and how annoyed the players might become) or it's a set up for something else. It does feel like it could be a prelude to some Mary Sue DMPC showing up and solving everything by being special and amazing but hopefully your GM is better than that.

[Ganorenas]

To your title: No, and you seem to be handling it well by looking for advice and not causing an irl conflict at the table.
TLDR: Talk with your other players and with your DM, mythic isn’t easy to keep fun for the DM (ime).

Obligatory story about my encounters like this:
Usually I DM, so I know all the things (or think I do) and when I have done things like this, it was with warning to the players ahead of time. Telling them that you are going to be doing something frustrating and mysterious is fine (even with a 35 knowledge check telling little, especially in mythic games, though not noting that the bodies were animate seems unnecessary) as long as they know ahead of time.

On Mythic:
Mostly higher ranks (4+)
Mythic is tough on the DM. It takes away a lot of the usual options the party has for failure (taking 20s on skill checks, especially knowledge checks).
The arcane casters can swift action cast any spell from their list (which I think was nerfed since I last ran Mythic) and auto dodge attacks (Mirror Dodge). Most of my encounter ending momentS were from the wizard and the witch, which was a great feeling for them but a let down for me and the noncasters (initially everyone was excited, but having most encounters end without having anything happen got boring for me and the other players).

It can make the DM feel like nothing is challenging. Unless they have the time to build and prepare stat blocks for niche mythic creatures with auto hit attacks or unique mechanics to make things feel tense. Which the players usually take offense to; why build up my ac if these things auto hit?
Why try to cast these cool niche spells if the target is immune and my knowledge check didn’t tell me that?

Your DM may just be trying to make things tense and interesting. Which would be fine if:
-it didn’t also make you feel like you’re being cheated.
-it had been discussed at some point.
-they were able to reward your attempts to over come the challenges with cryptic but useful information.

Bring up your concerns with them, I wish you the best of luck! =)

[icefractal]

It can make the DM feel like nothing is challenging. Unless they have the time to build and prepare stat blocks for niche mythic creatures with auto hit attacks or unique mechanics to make things feel tense. Which the players usually take offense to; why build up my ac if these things auto hit?
Why try to cast these cool niche spells if the target is immune and my knowledge check didn’t tell me that?This is always an issue with high-power games (mythic, gestalt, high-op, or simply being at a high enough level). If you use standard opposition in standard quantities, it gets steamrolled. If you use custom opposition, not only is it a lot of work, but to a significant extent it can make the "high power" part of the game premise meaningless. Like, if the PCs are 30th level gestalt MR 10, but so is everything they encounter, then it's the same as being standard 3rd level but with a lot more paperwork.

The best I've managed to find is a combination of:
A) Normal foes that aren't much threat but also aren't the objective, they're just a hazard in the way. Like, you need to talk to a certain demon who is currently deployed on the front lines of the Blood War.
B) Normal foes that are a threat due to being significantly higher level and/or showing up in excessive large quantities. However, some classes aren't well suited to fighting a large number of opponents, no matter how relatively powerful they are, so keep that in mind.
C) Unfavorable situations that require greater than normal effort. Dealing with a Tarrasque that just appeared in the center of a city you like is a lot tougher than dealing with one on a big open field, for example.
D) Custom foes, but keep it rare (less work and more plausible) and make it evident that these are people/creatures which are widely considered inexplicable and dangerous.


Edit: And I didn't even mention the OP -
A lot about that scenario sounds like BS, and I'd be annoyed too. I don't think it's necessarily into total crap territory, but it really depends on how the GM resolves things. Do you know if this is a very "story oriented" GM? Because this kind of sounds like the lead up to a deus ex machina situation.

[el minster]

Or maybe the DM will supply them with some wierd magic itgem that will help them kill all the zombies.

[JNAProductions]

Or maybe the DM will supply them with some wierd magic itgem that will help them kill all the zombies.

Which is still pretty BS. When I make a PC, I want them to succeed based on their actions, not on PLOT POWER.

[el minster]

Which is still pretty BS. When I make a PC, I want them to succeed based on their actions, not on PLOT POWER.

Yes, it's bad but not as bad

[JNAProductions]

Yes, it's bad but not as bad

To you, maybe. To me, especially being used to 5E more than 3.P, an OP magic item specifically designed to save the party's butt from an OP threat is just as bad as an OP NPC doing it.

[el minster]

To you, maybe. To me, especially being used to 5E more than 3.P, an OP magic item specifically designed to save the party's butt from an OP threat is just as bad as an OP NPC doing it.

Ok, it depends on the item but if they would find a bunch of weapons that kill undead really well or something similar it wouldn't be too bad.

[MesiDoomstalker]

To be completely transparent with your first point, we don't know if they are vampire spawn or a creature with a vampire template ETC. He said they are vampires of a sort, and their ability reads "If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, a vampire assumes gaseous form as the spell and attempts to escape". Think that's part of the template, but I don't know what he's applied it to.

And for the second point, we as a group will be bringing this up before the next session. I try to go off of solutions by the book or other things we as players can do, but this time I think this is entirely DM

It doesn't matter if they are Spawn or full-fledged Vampires; Gaseous Form does not protect against Fireball. Now, if you are saying the Vampire has already been defeated and then goes Gaseous to return to their coffin, that's a different story. As that explicitly happens.

[AntiAuthority]

*scrubbed* Yes, you have every right to be annoyed by this. It sounds like your GM is taking it way too far and might have a "DM vs Party" mindset. Unless you all complained about the game being too easy or some such, I think the GM believes you enjoy this level of challenge is the only way I can imagine this seeming like a good idea.

I'd suggest you talk to the other players, see how they feel about this and if enough are against it as well, you should approach the GM and explain that you're not having fun. Mythic doesn't mean "Invincibility" or anything (being able to take on a CR 15 for example), and your GM genuinely should understand that before throwing auto-hitting zombies that reduce your max HP.

[Krowmeat]

If I had to bet it seems like your DM's trying to set up for a battle against some larger cosmic force that they want to be mysterious and threatening. The "Deep magic" thing is a dead giveaway, and all the rest of the overpowered qualities, just as a gut feeling, seem to be the sort of choices I'd make if I wanted to play it up but was overzealous and forgetting to take into account player agency. as Doc Martin said it's likely your DM has a backup plan for if or when your characters are defeated, but if you feel like this is something you should talk to your DM about it's probably a good place to start with that in mind.

(Honestly, the idea of being in the middle of a town full of disease-causing zombies sets enough of a tone for me, with or without being able to save against their attacks or their disease)

[Quertus]

Edit for something useful: have you tried less canonical venues of dealing with the "blood rot", other than cure disease? Like dispel magic, lesser restoration, drinking or applying holy water? maybe celestial healing (that is what celestial monkeys are for!). Or any healing-related spell you picked with mythic spellcasting...


Is it just me or does this make zero sense? How could someone possibly know that they were created by "deep magic" without knowing almost anything about it?

Well, your GM sounds pretty clueless at best. And lacks the capacity for reasoning necessary to realize how "zero sense" their explanations make.

Try every reasonable cure. If those fail, and Cthulhu-style "research" fails / is impossible (the zombies seem to make "find the researcher's journal in town" impossible or impractical), then charge ahead full steam until the inevitable TPK / Mary Sue salvation.

Then ask the GM what they were thinking. Once you get a thorough explanation, write up what the adventure would have liked like run well vs the internet horror story your GM actually ran. Assuming your GM is incapable of comprehending the difference with their seemingly stunted cognitive abilities, flip the table, and don't look back.

Or something slightly less ostentatious. Your call.

In any even, let us know how it went.

[Demidos]

It's hard to tell from context without being there ourselves, but I would probably err on the side of the DM just trying to make a cool and mysterious plot, with real consequences, and was probably feeling like the regular monsters weren't giving the party enough of a challenge.

Before feeling slighted, I would go talk to them and tell them your concerns, and that you feel like even receiving a mcguffin that would give you a mystic ability to overcome the enemies and boss would be a bit of a letdown since it's the plot device doing the work, not your characters (if that's how you feel). Perhaps they can tweak the artifact to simply cure you all of the curse before the final, climactic fight.

Being a DM is a tough job -- some players will enjoy getting overpowered artifacts, some will enjoy the minutiae of high level combat, and others will enjoy the story no matter what -- but the primary function of their job is to ensure everyone is having fun. The easiest way to let them know that a certain style of encounter design isn't really your thing is...well, by telling them. If you tell them and they insult you, refuse to change anything, or are otherwise antagonistic, then you are of course entitled to feel slighted. Before you do though, check that it's not a misunderstanding! I've definitely seen some grudges arise from gaming groups like that in the past, and it's not fun for anyone involved, even if it was just an accident that started it. Good luck!

[Kelb_Panthera]

Couple of -big- red flags in that story to my mind.

The biggest ones by far are that you were given -no- chance to determine the zombies were zombies before you got too close and that the village filled up with the blighters when there wasn't a -one- in the streets or any other buildings.

Unless they're faster than normal a zombie can only cover 150 ft in 5 rounds and there were so many within 150 feet of that one building that they could completely surround it yet you had -no- chance to see them? That's some hardcore BS unless they bury themselves in the day or something.

The auto-hit thing is also pretty egregious. Even creatures that are literally running you over don't get auto-damage without at least a save. A bunch of corpses smacking you with their rotting fists? Nah, fam. That's a confrontation on the spot for me. If whatever magic makes their disease work doesn't care about armor or breaking your skin, that's a touch attack not an auto-hit. If they -do- have to actually hurt you to deliver it then the entire point of armor is to keep bludgeons and blades from actually bleeding you and that's flat-foot AC at worst if they have some supernatural ability to cooperate with one another to a degree not just beyond mindless creatures but even beyond most sapient ones. More likely it should just be special ability that lets them count as flanking as long as there are at least 3 threatening you.

My point is that there are better ways to handle that sort of situation without ignoring extant rules and breaking verisimilitude like that.

If he -really- wanted the auto-hit, there are rules on the PFsrd for hordes and he apparently had plenty of them for that outside.


Now being unable to detect a magic aura isn't a problem. Undead and constructs don't radiate magical auras normally anyway unless they're currently being sustained by a spell that can be dispelled.

But then we come to the disease/ curse/ whatever. The nat 20/1 rule applies to saves. Setting the DC to such a ridiculous figure that you can only save on 20 isn't exactly elegant but it's better than just no-selling the save altogether. Even adding a clause that you can't shake it off no matter how many saves you make wouldn't be unprecedented but just "nope, your HP cap is reduced by another 1d10" each day isn't cool, man. I don't really care what he was shooting for that's not acceptable.


Should you be peeved? I am and I only read about it.

Are you just dead? Probably. He overshot on making the threat something you can't just roll over and now he's either gonna have to deus-ex you out of it or you probably TPKed from when the last of you became infected.

[Kesnit]

-We get an assignment to go and figure out what happened to a town (they hadn't heard from them in 3 months)

(SNIP)

Is there anything we can do or are we just dead.

Yes, you can complete the quest you were given. You know what happened to the town. So go back to the quest giver and use the resources of the town to determine what caused this disease. Meanwhile, the quest giver can recruit and send many wizards armed with wands of Fireball to clear out the zombies. Once the undead are gone, further research can be done as to what they are, how they were created, and why. Armed with that knowledge, if the DM really is trying to set up an epic questline against some "Dark Magic" using BBEG, you have the knowledge and resources to fight back.

[DrMartin]

they can´t go back to town. Every day they lose 1d10 from their max hp, and takes a month to go back.

the party is level 5

[dancrilis]

they can´t go back to town. Every day they lose 1d10 from their max hp, and takes a month to go back.
They can if the DM has set a no win scenarion deliberately - the only solution might be to get far away from this 'deep magic' so that the effect goes away, and if it doesn't they might just be dead (which might have them raised as undead - which might also be the point).
If they actually kill all the enemies and the main bad guy there is no guarantee that the disease would go away anyway.


the party is level 5
7 I believe.


I really like this group, and the DM is a good person but this has really just been getting to me.
I would suggest talking to the DM and just telling them as players (assuming the others feel as you do) that you are out of ideas and will have your characters go back to town in the hopes that the disease is area specific - unless they want to highlight something you missed.

If the other players agree then you either get a) dead characters, b) find the disease is boosted by the area and so can be removed once away from it, c) something else.

Otherwise if the party disagrees then the lot of you can likely go out in a blaze of glory and rollup some new characters.

[Quertus]

He's also been going on about how we could probably take on a CR 15 creature with no problem

Originally, I was coming back to say that I had forgotten an option, but then this leapt out at me. This makes it sound like your GM saying, "I'm not skilled enough to run a game for characters this powerful, so rocks fall, everyone dies", only in slow motion.

So, here's my revised plan:

Do due diligence in trying to cure (and research) the plague.

Pass along information. Use Sending to explain things to your superiors, leave notes and hints outside town (as far out as you can get) - some obvious, some hidden. Whatever.

Make a last surge against the BBEG.

If that fails, but you can prevent a TPK, go with plan b: run away. But wait - aren't you dead anyway? No. Simply turn yourselves to stone. Wait for some other adventurers to be sent by your guild / find your clues, and solve the puzzle.

If all this fails, and you TPK without Mary Sue, ask your GM what was going on. Also, for the details of exactly how "deep magic" works.

If, in your assessment, my new guess was correct (they seem reluctant to start the next game at higher level, with the PCs already knowing this "deep magic", or they just admit to it), take over as GM.

Open the next session with that all having been a dream. Further, it is, say, 5 months *before* when you remember being given that mission - if the shared dream was true, there's still time to prevent it from happening.

Run a game that works off "real" game physics. Show how the party can still be challenged. Show how an actual investigation scenario can work.

Have changed just enough of the details from what the GM told you was going on that even they can get engaged in the mystery (which might well be "all of the details", depending).

Heck, lay some groundwork for there being some BBEG behind this (failed) attack. If the party enjoys it, keep running more, and leave subtle hints (It's OK if the party misses some of them) that the same BBEG is behind many of these "mythic" threats. The twist: the party is the BBEG. They are sending dreams back in time to manipulate people into feeding your growing fame. They (you) are self-made (wo)men.

[Aotrs Commander]

Originally, I was coming back to say that I had forgotten an option, but then this leapt out at me. This makes it sound like your GM saying, "I'm not skilled enough to run a game for characters this powerful, so rocks fall, everyone dies", only in slow motion.

According to the OP, they're level 7 with 1 mythic tier. That's not really very high (unless you (i.e. the group) only ever played E6 or something) and one feels if the DM pulls the trigger on mythic, you are kind of expecting a high powered game, so I think that seems unlikely.

Even tier 1 mythic isn't THAT powerful. I would be dubious about them actually being able to kill an average CR 15 encounter easily (plausibly, with five characters). Mythic 1 means they automatically stabilise at 0 or less, get an extra feat (possibly a good feat) and five times per day they can add +D6 to a D20 roll or use a (tier 1) mythic ability (which are good, but not, like, super-broken), plus what amounts to an extra good class feature. So maybe what, the equivalent of an extra couples of levels, tops, I reckon? It's good, but not THAT good at mythic 1. They'd have to be excellent optimisers and/or group strategists to safely handle a CR15, I think, then one feels and if the group is collectively that good, all say, E6 would do is slightly migitate the problem (I mean, they're not far out of that band, really) - and hamper the DM by having to explain whay the NPCs get to be higher than 6th (to stand a chance!) or why they only ever fight monsters...!