I'll start by giving some background information about the events that have lead our play group in a bit of trouble.
Today we finished a campaign which was centered around a war of the 4 elements. Elementals were competing over the domination of a Material World through direct intervention as well as Material Plane recruits. The campaign went through distinct phases, starting out as all the original players trying to maximize their DPS and nothing else (I cringed when I heard about it but applied nevertheless).
First I tried out an Archivist/Wizard Mystic Theurge with an academic tint. However, he didn't fit in with the rest of the party and was forced to flee due to a misunderstanding with a barbarian. Also, he was too much of a good guy - the rest of the group was basically evil or at least douchey.
Since it seemed that they had no need for support and utility, I went all out with my damage soak -build: a Feral Mineral Warrior Half-Minotaur Goliath Fighter with an Ape Totem Barbarian Tip. Since the character was as dumb as they get (Int 3), he was constantly being harassed by the rest of the group. I allowed this due to role-playing reasons: he had no real motivations beside a brutish loyalty and hunger for (humanoid) flesh. Basically this meant that I was doing most of their dirty work and getting nothing out of it since they'd split the loot by themselves.
The barbarian that had originally tried to kill my first character died twice in a row and the player wanted to roll a new character. I finally grew tired of a character that could not participate in anything but combat and didn't even have that good prospects for improving his condition so I did too (and since tha DM thought that the others should pay for their abuse, he took a lot of value with him). The other player made an elf wizard (something of a change from a Spellwarped Orc Barbarian); I made a Human Dread Necromancer/Binder Anima Mage with a few big undead bodyguards. Our third party member was from the original cast: A human Warlock abusing Eldritch Glaive and aiming for Hellfire Warlock with Naberius. One player had quit for two reasons: his characters had failed to stand up in comparison to ours and this campaign's challenges and he got a job.
Ending this long story short, the few remaining sessions in which we were all casters were extremely imbalanced. When fire was blocked out from the Material Plane as the plot of our last session, we simply teleported around and searched for a portal to the Outlands. Since my character was more than happy to begin anew in Curst and the rest couldn't find their way back, that was enough for the DM and we ended the campaign (though he would have wanted us to at least try restoring the Material World).
His next campaign is now being brainstormed. Thus far the world seems promising since it's well though-out though a bit vanilla. He's also restricted our choices to Core Classes, some Basic Classes from the Complete-series and Marshall. He's also taken out the Tier 1 Classes: Wizard, Druid & Cleric. The campaign will start from level 1, which is refreshing, and we will have a "realistic" leveling curve: one needs to [spend 2 weeks in training and spend 500gc] times one's new ECL. Also, he mentioned that our stat lines will probably be hindered to something along the lines of 14, 13, 12, 12, 10, 8.
Here's the problem. It is true that our last game went a bit out of hand in the end. At level 11, we could end fights within 2 rounds and many a puzzle was solved with some utility magic. Also, many builds were well though-out and this lead to a gap between those who could and those who couldn't pull this out. Now our DM wants to clip our wings to prevent anything of the like from happening but I fear he's going too far.
The particular fears I have concern the combination of a low staring level and tying advancing to money and the extremely weak stat line. For the first time ever I, for one, am reluctant to play. I was really thrilled about the campaign until I heard these things. Now I fear I will not enjoy it simply due to being unable to do anything.
Do you think that my fears are over-exaggerated, or should I try to talk the DM out of implementing all those restrictions? It seems to me as though he just has a strong vision which he hasn't considered fully from the perspective of a player. 1000gc per player to advance to level 2 is harsh unless he hands us a nice stash of gold right away - which he will most definitely not do. I like the system outside of this first bottle-neck. Having 14 and 13 as your two best stats is making me cry. No class can pull it's weight with those is what i'm thinking.
Sorry for the long read. Just in case:
tl;dr: A harsh DM that's overdoing things in response to a high power campaign. Can I get any good arguments to have him not implement his harshest ideas?
Today we finished a campaign which was centered around a war of the 4 elements. Elementals were competing over the domination of a Material World through direct intervention as well as Material Plane recruits. The campaign went through distinct phases, starting out as all the original players trying to maximize their DPS and nothing else (I cringed when I heard about it but applied nevertheless).
First I tried out an Archivist/Wizard Mystic Theurge with an academic tint. However, he didn't fit in with the rest of the party and was forced to flee due to a misunderstanding with a barbarian. Also, he was too much of a good guy - the rest of the group was basically evil or at least douchey.
Since it seemed that they had no need for support and utility, I went all out with my damage soak -build: a Feral Mineral Warrior Half-Minotaur Goliath Fighter with an Ape Totem Barbarian Tip. Since the character was as dumb as they get (Int 3), he was constantly being harassed by the rest of the group. I allowed this due to role-playing reasons: he had no real motivations beside a brutish loyalty and hunger for (humanoid) flesh. Basically this meant that I was doing most of their dirty work and getting nothing out of it since they'd split the loot by themselves.
The barbarian that had originally tried to kill my first character died twice in a row and the player wanted to roll a new character. I finally grew tired of a character that could not participate in anything but combat and didn't even have that good prospects for improving his condition so I did too (and since tha DM thought that the others should pay for their abuse, he took a lot of value with him). The other player made an elf wizard (something of a change from a Spellwarped Orc Barbarian); I made a Human Dread Necromancer/Binder Anima Mage with a few big undead bodyguards. Our third party member was from the original cast: A human Warlock abusing Eldritch Glaive and aiming for Hellfire Warlock with Naberius. One player had quit for two reasons: his characters had failed to stand up in comparison to ours and this campaign's challenges and he got a job.
Ending this long story short, the few remaining sessions in which we were all casters were extremely imbalanced. When fire was blocked out from the Material Plane as the plot of our last session, we simply teleported around and searched for a portal to the Outlands. Since my character was more than happy to begin anew in Curst and the rest couldn't find their way back, that was enough for the DM and we ended the campaign (though he would have wanted us to at least try restoring the Material World).
His next campaign is now being brainstormed. Thus far the world seems promising since it's well though-out though a bit vanilla. He's also restricted our choices to Core Classes, some Basic Classes from the Complete-series and Marshall. He's also taken out the Tier 1 Classes: Wizard, Druid & Cleric. The campaign will start from level 1, which is refreshing, and we will have a "realistic" leveling curve: one needs to [spend 2 weeks in training and spend 500gc] times one's new ECL. Also, he mentioned that our stat lines will probably be hindered to something along the lines of 14, 13, 12, 12, 10, 8.
Here's the problem. It is true that our last game went a bit out of hand in the end. At level 11, we could end fights within 2 rounds and many a puzzle was solved with some utility magic. Also, many builds were well though-out and this lead to a gap between those who could and those who couldn't pull this out. Now our DM wants to clip our wings to prevent anything of the like from happening but I fear he's going too far.
The particular fears I have concern the combination of a low staring level and tying advancing to money and the extremely weak stat line. For the first time ever I, for one, am reluctant to play. I was really thrilled about the campaign until I heard these things. Now I fear I will not enjoy it simply due to being unable to do anything.
Do you think that my fears are over-exaggerated, or should I try to talk the DM out of implementing all those restrictions? It seems to me as though he just has a strong vision which he hasn't considered fully from the perspective of a player. 1000gc per player to advance to level 2 is harsh unless he hands us a nice stash of gold right away - which he will most definitely not do. I like the system outside of this first bottle-neck. Having 14 and 13 as your two best stats is making me cry. No class can pull it's weight with those is what i'm thinking.
Sorry for the long read. Just in case:
tl;dr: A harsh DM that's overdoing things in response to a high power campaign. Can I get any good arguments to have him not implement his harshest ideas?
