Is this DM fiat, or just a very melee-unfriendly boss encounter?

[ShippoWildheart]

Hi guys. New user here. I'm adequate in DnD knowledge, but not at the levels most of you guys are.

I wanted to ask a question because I just finished up an AIM DnD session and the whole thing just bothered me. I hope some of the experts here can shed some light on this. I apologize if it's a bit messy, because I'm copy-pasting a rant I made on a different forum (changing a little of course). They are not so DnD-savvy, so I figure I should post it here where you guys DO know the right answers to just about anything. Also, I apologize my first post is so long. I'm normally not this chatty.

*For the rolls than I mention, I can't remember them clearly but they are around those values. Also, I know what I did was unoptimized and so is the make-up of the party, but the DM doesn't want to learn new times (ie Core-only stuff), and just the fact I''m afraid of pulling any gamebreakers on my druid so I purposely limit him (black bear instead of Fleshraker, no Complete Divine Quill Blast, no Wild armor, no scrolls. The only thing that I did so far that seemingly gives him a headache was pulling spells from the Spell Compendium, CD, PHBII, and even a couple spells straight from the WoTC site). It also doesn't help that my DM placed an arbitrary rule that I need to spend 1-2 weeks observing an animal in order to learn a new Wildshape form. I tried to force a new Wildshape form by saying in the 2ish weeks of downtime that I was observing a Megaraptor inside a natural habitat (think Jurassic Park. Incidentally the place was watched over by an epic leveled orc druid) that was inside the orc capital. He flat out said I didn't learn the form. He also kept denying me from buying a new wand of Cure Light Wounds/Vigor or a Healing belt. *


Anyway, the scenario.

This was a 9th level party, where we were investigating a mysterious fog created by apparently a vampire so we stormed the fort he was in.

Group party:
DM: Cleric, Monk (I'll call him MonkA)
Me: Druid + Black Bear companion
Friend: Cleric/Fortune's Friend/Fighter
DM's friends: Monk (I'll call this monk MonkB), Bard

*My bad on the slash. I didn't know people here saw it as a mutliclass; I thought the fact I said friends instead of friend was enough. The DM's friends were a Monk, and a Bard. *

So we passed through a dark room, found out there was an illusionary wall. Bard used Inspirational Boost and Inspire Courage before we encountered the boss. We met up with the vampire, in which it proceeded to level drain my friend twice (4 negative levels), gazed into the eyes of MonkB and dominated him and started to tie up and bound the bard. The cleric wasn't doing much, and the DM's monk futilely tried to attack it with it's Kamas to no avail. MonkB has some fascination, because he was mind-controlled, to keep grappling and pinning the bard, maybe to fulfill his perverted needs (Bard is female, as is the cleric). It took my friend's character, the cleric, and MonkA to stop him. In the meantime, I was trying to use what was left of my spells to try to end it.

1. Kelpstrand. 3 strands of kelp to entangle and grapple the vampire. Only one made it after a total touch attack of 14/17/15. The vampire turned to Gaseous form and escaped out of the strand of Kelp that was entangling him

2. Summoned a Thoqqua (I call it a lava worm) for a flanking bonus

3. Blinding Spittle. I blew 3 re-rolls using some houseruled items (DM calls it a toffee. Allows either a reroll, or a maximized Aid spell effect) to get a 29 touch attack to blind it (rolled an 18). I attempted to attack it with my bear while it was blinded (should have grappled/tripped him instead). Next turn,he started casting a spell and had both my bear and the lava worm attack in opportunity so to try to interrupt the spell. I got a total of 23 for Bearsy, and the 23 somehow missed. Whoop dee freaking doo the Vampire casts Create Water and washed his eyes so he can see again.

4. Unveiled for the first time my most powerful buff spell on my spell list, a shared Bite of the Weretiger (+12 STR, +4 DEX, +6 CON, +5 natural AC, Grants Blind-fight/Power Attack/Multiattack) but things went to hell when the vampire hit my AC of 24 (touch of 14) and drained 2 levels from me and healed for 29 HP thanks to that and Vampiric Touch.

By this point I was screwed, because while everybody else tried to stop MonkB from gagging the Bard, my friend's character was unfortunately attacked by MonkB, and was killed thanks to having -20 HP from 4 negative levels (he would have survived the wrath of MonkB otherwise). By fighting defensively the vampire had an AC of around 33. By this point I was seriously in my head calling foul. Unfortunately, I couldn't just stop the game right there to point out technicalities on the vampire. I can do that when I go to his house or talk to him on AIM about it. I had to roll along with it.

Managed 2 full attacks from my druid in raptor form and Bearsy did a full attack too, but with rolls of 21/24/25/31/27 and 21/Fumble/31 it didn't even touch the dang vampire. The bard finally got free and snapped MonkB out of his state, but not after he killed my friend's character. It was only when I was ranting how we were all going to die that the DMs cleric, in tears that a party member died, suddenly went up to the vampire, grabbed him, and used some holy spell on it, in which the vampire supposedly had his skin "bubbling like water" from the spell and disappeared in front of the whole party cursing the party with some last words. This is just ridiculous because I know a vampire isn't supposed to die like that, and HOW did the cleric managed that without invoking an Attack of Opportunity? Even more, WHY did the cleric finally did a useful thing now, instead of earlier?

My druid was angry at MonkB for killing my friend's character, and had my bear (who didn't get hit) felt his anger and wanted to bull-rush MonkB since my druid was too level drained to do anything serious. Unfortunately, MonkA stepped in and somehow stopped my bear (with a buffed STR of 33/+11 mind you), saying in-fighting won't bring his character back to life. The only thing I could do was place his corpse on top of my bear so we can carry him out of the fort when our objective is done and the orc empire we are currently helping (think Persians empire from 300, except the Spartans are the Persians in terms of sheer numbers ) will be more than willingly enough to resurrect him for free.

As we assessed damages, we left the room and went to the roof of the fort to supposedly find a fog machine, and that's where we ended for today.

I asked the DM the stats of the vampire, and what he gave me was ludicrous.

Stats of the Vampire?

Class: Wizard 7
HP: 40
AC: 29 (WHAT THE HECK?!)
STR: 12
DEX: 20
CON: -
INT: 22
WIS: 16
CHA: 14
Template: Whatever goodies vampires get.
Known spells casted: Vampiric Touch, Scorching Ray, Fireball

What is this? How in the 9 levels of Hell does a vampiric Wizard have an AC of 29??? He nevered answered whether that's buffed or unbuffed. Even compared to a character in full-plate armor with a tower shield, that doesn't even come close to 29 AC! How does a feeble wizard class who wasn't wearing anything get 29 AC!? Even more, when I found out the spell used to "kill" the vampire was a level 4 cure spell, that's even more insane. The only Cure spell of that level is Cure Critical Wounds, and that only does 4d8+9 points of healing damage. Assuming the vampire should have a rather decent Will save, that wouldn't have killed it. No, not when it drained so much HP and gained so much Temporary HP during that (it drained a total of 8 negative levels). This seems like such a DM fiat that it's plain stupid. I told him that I planned to use Bite of the Weretiger the week before we got to the vampire, which would imply he seriously fudged some numbers to get an AC of 29. Even morese, everything we fought before then didn't have an AC of higher than 22. It's as if he used knowledge of my spell to meta-game his vampire so it can't be touched.

I'm sure he ran the numbers and saw my raptor druid with his buffed +16/+14 attack bonus and my bear with a buffed +18/+16 attack bonus BEFORE flanking as a serious threat his boss encounter. Even if he didn't he probably figured out my total attack bonus would be somewhere in the mid to high 10s region, probably a number that he didn't want.

I don't know. I can simply be upset at the fact he made my druid useless for that whole encounter, or I'm mad that he didn't make his DMPC cleric do anything sooner, or even the main fact he made a boss that simply made the entire party useless. It didn't help I ran out of spells either. My only damage spell left was Energy Vortex, and I can't cast that in a room full of party members.

Was there some serious DM fiat going on, or am I just being unhappy that the fight didn't go as planned/smoothly?

[Twilight Jack]

Vampires get a flat +6 to natural armor as part of their template. Couple that with the +5 from a Dex of 20, and you're already rocking a 21. So the question becomes: how does a 7th level Wizard gain an additional +8 to AC?

The answer is: pretty easily. Greater mage armor and any one of a number of spells to provide a +2 to either natural armor, deflection, or some other type of bonus gets you there handily.

Reading your post, I won't say for certain that there weren't some shenanigans going on, but the AC is certainly plausible for a vampire wizard expecting a fight. Vampires are more powerful than liches pound for pound. Only the vampire's various weaknesses and the various ways that PCs have of exploiting those weaknesses, coupled with the lich's ability to hide its phylactery, put the lich over the top as an adversary.

[Crow]

Mage Armor + Shield

[PhoenixRivers]

Nat Armor doesn't apply to touch attack. However, if you're aware of some of the many known ways to optimize druids, I'm surprised you don't know the same for vampires. For starters, Scintillating scales provides natural armor to touch AC (becomes a deflection bonus)

Let's assume a 25 Dex (with a level boost, a racial bonus (more if an elf/halfling), and a Cat's Grace spell, it can easily be this.

+7 Dex.
+5 Nat Armor
=22 AC
Amulet that boosts nat armor by 1? 23 AC

6 more is attainable, but I'm AFB. Haste, for example, would be another +1.

It's doable. No, much of it seems to spring from play error.

Wild shape does require familiarity, without defining it. It's reasonable for a DM to supply clarification to such rules. It's also reasonable for him to restrict access to new forms, just as he can restrict access to new spells, and new magic items.

All of the above are reasonable for a DM.

[ShippoWildheart]

^--- To above: Because I spent time researching my class to see how to make it better. Also, I don't really research the undead, because I'm not a big fan of fighting/encountering them. After hearing many horrible stories involving level draining/status effects/save-or-suck, which undead seemed to be fond of, I simply never found a reason to check out what kinds of tricks or cheese they can do.



Hmmm, okay. That definitely answers the insanely high AC. What about the fact that the vampire disappeared after what is supposedly a Cure Critical Wounds was used on him despite probably having HP in the triple digits after all that delicious energy draining and Vampiric touching?

[Zincorium]

So, the DM...

...specifically rendered a character useless. Okay, it happens, but this isn't a good practice.

...had his DMPC kill the vampire. Red flag.

...in a way that shouldn't have worked, and apparently wouldn't have worked had a PC done it. Hoo boy.


If the guy doesn't acknowledge that there is something wrong when you bring this stuff up, it's never going to get better, and there's a high likelihood of it getting much worse.

Frankly, you're kind of lucky not to get dropped from the group. You're optimized way outside of the parameters everyone else is playing in. I know you're saying you're toning it down, but it's still clearly too much for the guy. As a DM, I'd probably ask nicely for you to tone it down twice, and then just kick you.

But that doesn't excuse the rest of the stuff that happens.

[Mystic Muse]

That's probably DM Fiat but I'll let somebody more experienced answer that question.

also, DMPCs are a very bad sign.

[tyckspoon]

Seems to me like your DM under-estimated what his boss would do to your party and needed some semi-plausible reason to not kill you all, and clamped on to the idea that his Cleric (incidentally, you've got the DM running almost half the party. That's.. usually not a good thing, even if he is doing it fairly.) might actually be able to help (he should have been of much more help, especially if you had time to prep spells assuming you were going to deal with a Vampire.. at just 40 HP the average damage of a single CL 9 Searing Light would dust it, and the whole party should have been covered with Prot. From Evil to help deal with the domination.) I would expect to see that Vampire again.

[Twilight Jack]

Hmmm, okay. That definitely answers the insanely high AC. What about the fact that the vampire disappeared after what is supposedly a Cure Critical Wounds was used on him despite probably having HP in the triple digits after all that delicious energy draining and Vampiric touching?

Are you certain that the spell was cure critical wounds? You had said it was some sort of holy spell in your initial post, but I don't see where it was confirmed that it was cure critical. Once again, I'm not saying that shenanigans weren't in play, just that it's very hard to pin it down when we don't have all the information.

On the other hand, it's just bad form to have the DM's character one shot the villain that's been booping up the rest of the party wholesale. If the DM was trying to avoid a TPK, a solid debuff would have worked every bit as well, and let the rest of the party feel like they'd accomplished something.

[ShippoWildheart]

Are you certain that the spell was cure critical wounds? You had said it was some sort of holy spell in your initial post, but I don't see where it was confirmed that it was cure critical. Once again, I'm not saying that shenanigans weren't in play, just that it's very hard to pin it down when we don't have all the information.

He said it was a level 4 "Cure" spell, and that's all I was able to interpret from that.

Frankly, you're kind of lucky not to get dropped from the group. You're optimized way outside of the parameters everyone else is playing in. I know you're saying you're toning it down, but it's still clearly too much for the guy. As a DM, I'd probably ask nicely for you to tone it down twice, and then just kick you.

Funny you should mention that. It's just the fact that when I'm limited to Core I simply got not much options. I had a rogue in the group before, but he got killed rather fast. Fighters/Monks are meh. I hate Paladins after trying to play one as my first character. Bards/Rangers were interesting, but not interesting enough. Wizards/Sorcerers were obviously something I didn't want to dice into unless I open up a can of worms from the DM. Barbarian also didn't intrigued me enough. It was below a rogue, but at least more than the Bard.





I tried to ask playing a Warblade as a step down from a druid, and since it's not core that was pretty much a "no" from him. I even offered to show him the class if I play a live session with my friend as DM.

[Mystic Muse]

Not core doesn't mean not balanced. in fact Core is probably one of the least Balanced books.

Warlblades are really just a better version of the fighter and they're two tiers below the druid.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Wizards/Sorcerers were obviously something I didn't want to dice into unless I open up a can of worms from the DM.

What's going on here?

[ShippoWildheart]

Not core doesn't mean not balanced. in fact Core is probably one of the least Balanced books.

Warlblades are really just a better version of the fighter and they're two tiers below the druid.

I wanted to play a Warblade because I pretty much fell in love with the flavor text talking about the class, the class features, and all the moves (manuevers) they can do. It pretty much seemed like a melee class made fun.

I did try out a Crusader for a few hours in a pick-up campaign that my friend DMed instead of my current DM (he was a player). I loved the fact Crusaders are a tank that can actually tank, and not just so *splat* after taking one too many hits.

Anyway, before I get too off-topic I'd like to thank everyone who posted for all these answers to my questions. You guys are of great help. I'm definitely going to ask some questions about the vampire's "death" as well as the unexplained "kill" by the cleric. Further input on this weird encounter is definitely appreciated.

[Twilight Jack]

Anyway, before I get too off-topic I'd like to thank everyone who posted for all these answers to my questions. You guys are of great help. I'm definitely going to ask some questions about the vampire's "death" as well as the unexplained "kill" by the cleric.

Don't get too into it. It sounds to me like the DM may have meant well, and merely overbalanced the encounter. He was looking to avoid a TPK and quickly jumped in to end the fight by fiat. He just did it in a clumsy way.

If he makes a habit of slapping the group around only for his DMPC to save the day, then call him on it; if this is a one-off occurence, I'd give him a pass.

[ShippoWildheart]

Don't get too into it. It sounds to me like the DM may have meant well, and merely overbalanced the encounter. He was looking to avoid a TPK and quickly jumped in to end the fight by fiat. He just did it in a clumsy way.

If he makes a habit of slapping the group around only for his DMPC to save the day, then call him on it; if this is a one-off occurence, I'd give him a pass.

Well if it helps I can mention 2 previous "boss" encounters. The party (level 6, I wasn't introduced yet; merely spectated) fought a red dragon, probably wrymling or Very Young, I forgot) and killed it, with my friend's character, a Savant, barely alive (was poisoned) and everybody else around 25%-35% health.

Then when I had my druid in the party and my friend was a multi-classed PC (later as a level 8 party), we fought a green Juvenile (I'm very sure of it) dragon, where we were all relatively fine throughout the fight thanks to my druid prepping loads of buff spells before we started (Mass Resist Energy, Acid for the whole party/shared Bear's Endurance/Bite of the Wererat/Barksin on the 2 meatshields). The breath acids did barely any damage, and the only real damage was being made to the melee by the dragon's full attack. In fact, the the closest the dragon got to killing a party member was incidentally me when I got grappled in it's jaws and dragged me into the water (we were fighting it in it's natural home, a swamp/bog). If it wasn't for a Giant Crocodile that I summoned who knows if I would have made that out alive? Anywho, the green dragon ended up using Fog Cloud and got away, so we failed a mission despite technically winning that fight (the dragon probably had a good 20 HP left while everyone save me were pretty much at ~75%-90% health).

[PhoenixRivers]

^--- To above: Because I spent time researching my class to see how to make it better. Also, I don't really research the undead, because I'm not a big fan of fighting/encountering them. After hearing many horrible stories involving level draining/status effects/save-or-suck, which undead seemed to be fond of, I simply never found a reason to check out what kinds of tricks or cheese they can do.



Hmmm, okay. That definitely answers the insanely high AC. What about the fact that the vampire disappeared after what is supposedly a Cure Critical Wounds was used on him despite probably having HP in the triple digits after all that delicious energy draining and Vampiric touching?

Temp HP don't stack.

Vampiric Touch or energy Drain. And no stacking multiple energy drain effects.

Likely, the Vampire gained the most (19) from the Vamp Touch. That's it's Temp HP. Add in base (7d12, or 44hp), and this vampire likely had about 63 HP. Less if any attacks successfully landed after the Vampiric touch.

A 9th level cleric with a 4th level cure spell can do 4d8+9 without buffing it. Average 27, max 41 (2/3 of the vamp's total HP available).

With DMM Empower? 6d8+9. Average 36, max 57.
With DMM Maximize? 41.
With both DMM Maximize and Empower? 41+ 2d8. Average 50, maximum 57.

There are other tricks, as well. With healing domain, add +1 to all of the above. With Karma bead, add 4.

There are other ways to make healing more effective, as well (but I'm AFB).

Bottom line: It's suspect. DMPC's are rarely good news, and while I could pull that off RAW, it would require design for that (granted, if I DMPC'd a cleric, it would be set up for healing focus, and would attempt to stay in the background).

Likely, he made the encounter too hard without realizing it, and stepped in to bail things out. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to inexperience, rather than DMPC gloryhogging, unless this is typical.

EDIT: As for the No AoO? Concentration allows you to cast defensively and avoid an AoO, and attacking with a spell counts you as armed. No AoO for that.

[nyjastul69]

There are certainly some red flags here. DMPC is one of them. DMPC saving the day is another, in addition to being a deus ex machina. These things generally are not good for the game.

It's not entirely clear to me about the megaraptor issue. It's entirely within the DM's right to limit you to forms you're familiar with. It's vague and it's meant to be. Did you study the megaraptor during the actual down time(during the session the DT happened) or did you claim 'that's what I did last session'?

When you say you were in raptor form did you mean a deinonychus? I'm not familiar 3e raptor. If he let you change into a deinonychus it's reasonable to let you change into a m-raptor but shouldn't be assumed.

If the vampire had 40 odd hp's plus some from level drain it's not impossible a 4th level divine spell could slay it. It does seem odd though.

Why did bearsy attack a PC?

Limiting the spells a PC has access to is well within the DM's purview. You mentioned Vigor spells and a Belt of Healing those are not necessarily core rules. Whether they are or are not he is still within his rights to limit those.

It kinda sounds like you both wanted to have a win button. That's never good. The fact that you feel you were useless in the battle is the biggest problem. It seems to me that you guys/gals need a serious discussion about everyones expectations.

There are definitely things to be concerned about here but nothing that can't be fixed with a frank and honest discussion.

BTW welcome to the boards. I shoulda said that first, sorry. There is no winning condition in D&D. It's only about having fun.

[Gamerlord]

1. Am I misreading your post or are there 5-8 people in your party?
2. DMPC=bad.
3. It is a wizard, wizards tend to have this kind of defensive magic.
4.It is a vampire, etc,etc.

[Darcand]

Has it been considered yet that it was part of the plot for the vamp to flee when he reached half hp (or some other predetermined amount) and the entire fight was just to set the party up with a reoccuring villian?

[Mystic Muse]

If that were the case The DM would have let the Vamp get away rather than saying the Cleric killed him. It's not hard to fudge die rolls.

[Runestar]

Heh, if the wizard had thrown in greater mirror image and displacement...

Temp HP don't stack.

They do if they are from different sources. So the temp hp from vampiric touch will stack with false life, but not with a 2nd vampiric touch.

[mikej]

Sounds awfully like a DMPC to me. I have seen my fair share of them enough to spot one out.

From what I gathered from the "raptor" part, I can see that maybe your DM is a little threatened by your Druid. Both Kelpstrand & Blinding Spittle are really powerfull spell options for a Druid. Ask your DM how he feels about your Druid in game.

I'm not going to say tone it down since I don't like doing that myself. Just another opinion on why your current DM is doing this.

[nyjastul69]

Heh, if the wizard had thrown in greater mirror image and displacement...



They do if they are from different sources. So the temp hp from vampiric touch will stack with false life, but not with a 2nd vampiric touch.

That is certainly the way I've always ruled it. After re-reading the rules, and this board for quite awhile; isn't there an argument that could claim they are same named bonuses? I think it's a weak argument but I'm not sure it can't be made.

[Eldariel]

You could definitely reach similar levels of AC yourself should you feel so inclined, and with some work, so could most of the party (well, maybe not the Monks...). But yeah, Vampires are pretty tough. That said, you walked in unprepared and paid the price. Did you know you were going to be fighting a vampire?

You needed Protection from Evil/Magic Circle against Evil - that blocks mental control. You should've prepared at least one-two Death Wards and used 'em with Readied Actions; that blocks negative levels. Really, a party with that much divine casting power should be a Vampire's worst nightmare. The only thing that could make it worse would be by having a Wizard in your ranks.


At any rate, washing Blinding Spittle away shouldn't really work since he's already been blinded by it. He'd need some much more powerful magical tools for that. The Cleric blasting it into oblivion; well, as has been said, it seems awfully appropriate in a sense, but is most likely just a clumsy attempt to save your keisters. Though that should only return it into Gaseous Forms and force it to return to its coffin, as your Cleric's Knowledge: Religion should tell you.

[GoC]

Was there some serious DM fiat going on, or am I just being unhappy that the fight didn't go as planned/smoothly?

The second.

[Saph]

Likely, he made the encounter too hard without realizing it, and stepped in to bail things out. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to inexperience, rather than DMPC gloryhogging, unless this is typical.

This.

Also, two other points that have been touched on by the other posters in this thread:

Point 1: Your character is WAY overoptimised by the standards of the rest of the party. You're playing a druid with Blinding Spittle and shared Bite of the Weretiger, the other PCs are playing a Cleric/Fortune's Friend/Fighter and a Monk/Bard. I'll repeat that once again. You're playing an optimised Druid. The rest of the party is playing multiclass fighters and monks. (And don't give me the "I'm holding back" stuff - just because you could optimise something more doesn't mean it's not optimised.) Power-wise, that's one of the most unbalanced parties I've ever seen. This is a recipe for trouble.

Point 2: Reading between the lines, it sounds as if you're not being the easiest player for the DM to manage. Complaining about having to spend time to learn a Wild Shape form (which is a perfectly valid interpretation of the rules, BTW), "ranting" about the difficulty of the encounter (your words, not mine), complaining about opponents having a high AC (I've played PCs with a far higher AC than that, and in any case what do you expect with a character as powerful as yours?), and playing a character which is at least two tiers of power above the rest of the party, and more likely three.

Now, nothing you've said gives any suggestion that you're trying to cause trouble, and the fact that you're posting this here as a question suggests that you did this all in good faith. But looking at the story you've told, without any further information, my reaction would be that this is just as much your fault as the DM's. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens with massively unbalanced parties - you get weird encounters and DM interventions all over the place.

I'd suggest talking to your DM and discussing the issue. Ten gets you one he'll bring up the first problem - he's having trouble challenging your Druid while still providing level-appropriate encounters for the rest of the party. There are various solutions to this, but most of them involve some sort of agreement with the DM, which is in your hands rather than ours.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Monk/Bard?

It's not Multiple Attribute Dependency, it's Every Attribute Dependency.

At least it gets UMD as a class skill.

[Bayar]

Monk/Bard?

It's not Multiple Attribute Dependency, it's Every Attribute Dependency.

At least it gets UMD as a class skill.

Yeah, but you have to spend skill points in perform as well...

[AslanCross]

I have to agree that the worst part here is actually the DMPC being the DM's failsafe when he realized the party couldn't do a darn thing to the monster.

[IonDragon]

I refrained from posting earlier, because this is a difficult situation. However, I agree with Saph at least 90%. And, as she said the best solutions begin with talking to your Gm about the problem and coming to some sort of understanding.

My personal recommendation, from having dealt with a similar situation, is to find another group. It was the least painful solution. Hopefully, speaking with your GM will prove more fruitful that the conversation I had with mine.

(I seriously can not believe there is a Monk/Bard. Period. Anywhere. EVER.)