Was I a jerk?

[Plane Sailing]

1. Halfling is small, creature is Huge so they can actually occupy the same square without bumping into one another (PHB p148). IMO this would have made it much harder for the creature to find the halfling by bumping into him.

2. Skill checks have no automatic failure on a 1. If the casters concentration level is high enough even a 1+mods will succeed.

 

[BlackSilver]

My 2 Copper pieces

Sounds to me like you were both being kind of jerk-ish.

The GM should have heard you out, then explained what he saw a realistic application to the situation.

It also sounds as thou you brought a lot of aggressiveness to your approach, your GM might have seen this as a threat to his authority and decided because he was the GM he would not relent to you no matter what you said or did. Stay calm, ask don’t tell your GM, reduce your aggressiveness in your tone and remove the ‘I told you so,’ from your voice and tone later on, it really helps with future situations.

When the GM says it’s a final ruling then let it go, the GM has the final say.

Remember humans are pack animals, if you assert your position against the Alpha the Alpha can and will press his authority to defend his position. If you stay calm and don’t press the situation and make him look stupid in front of his peers then you have a better chance of having a good avenue of communications.

 

[Patlin]

Later in the game, a Monster riding a nightmare was casting spells. I simply said "hey, concentration check!" and he said "nope, she doesnt need to make one." Then I brought out the old "even if its a spell like ability, it needs to make a check..." to which he said "Nope, not her. Trust me, I know the rules. Remember you're not playing with new people."... even if she has 20 ranks in ride, doesnt she have to make a check and fail only on a 1 on the die?

Skills don't auto-fail on a 1. If the skill is high enough that a 1 can succeed, no roll need be made.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'd let it go and then question the rulings after the game. If the DM couldn't show me he was acting reasonably, I'd find a new game. Simple as that.

 

[dcollins]

First, what Plane Sailing said.

I understand what you mean, but I dont think its rules lawyering to make a stand in the game on a rule that would otherwise mean....

Frankly, players don't have a right, in a polite game, to "make a stand" on a rules adjudication question. They can bring up a rule, or suggest a different or overlooked interpretation. However, once the DM has considered it, the game must move on, even if the DM disagrees or is even demonstrably incorrect. Anything else counts as disruptive behavior by the player.

As someone fairly experienced with the rules, I'm accustomed to pointing out a rule and having a less-experienced DM disagree with me, to which I swallow hard and say "Okay, I accept your ruling, thank you." Don't give rules lawyers any more of a bad name than they already have.

 

[Tuzenbach]

We faced a Huge undead 4 legged beast. we are "Invisible to undead".. but it knows something is in the area. (its intelligent). it walks toward us, and our halfling uses his turn to kind of step between the party and the beasty hoping to give us time to get through a gate which the creature guards.

The creature moves into his square because it cannot see him, and our DM says it automatically is going to "hit" the halfling. I say "It can't move into his square even if it cant see him, without doing an overrun (which would move him and not cause damage). Even if you said "its not doing an overrun, its stomping the square" the halfling is going to be afforded the chance to dodge by his AC and his miss chance. He basicly told me quiet, I know the rules. then stepped on our halfling. "But the halfling is 3 sizes smaller than the huge creature, it can even share its space and not get..."

You're both wrong. 1) The DM *should* know the rules governing any possible situation he creates. Unless he's making everything up on the spot, he has to know this rule prior to the gaming session. However, 2) it's not your job to educate him during a gaming session. In any event 3) the halfling *should* have been afforded a nice, sporting chance as to whether or not it got hit.

Later in the game, a Monster riding a nightmare was casting spells. I simply said "hey, concentration check!" and he said "nope, she doesnt need to make one." Then I brought out the old "even if its a spell like ability, it needs to make a check..." to which he said "Nope, not her. Trust me, I know the rules. Remember you're not playing with new people."... even if she has 20 ranks in ride, doesnt she have to make a check and fail only on a 1 on the die?
I let it go at that because of his tone...

You're wrong. Did you take into account the "Amulet of Perfect Thought" being used by the monster? And if you try to tell me such an item doesn't exist, you're playing the wrong game!

Lastly, he tried the huge beast thing again.
My monk had just jumpkicked his flying huge nightmare (cashemer or whatever) and landed below the nightmare and to the front. He said the nightmare was just going to land on me, a 2-16 ton creature falling 30 feet, no need to roll a hit, its in my space right? (see the above ruling on a huge creature and a halfling...) no save, no roll, just loads of damage. this time, I wouldnt sit still for it, I told him no way was that how the rule worked, and pulled out savage species which has a feat called "Crush" which WOULD suit the situation he wanted. On this, he relented, but at the end of the came, told me he didnt want me behaving like that....

You're wrong. Did you take into account that this scenario *may* have been the direct or indirect result of the previous two scenarios (i.e., the scenarios where you were being the ruleslawyer)? You see, if the player tries to dictate the flow of the game session, *usually* the DM shall attempt retribution upon said player's character.

 

[Sue Bloodbucket]

Here's my twocent tough you might not like them...

First I think that your questions are a little like:
I'm right am I not? But that may also be a misinterpretation of mine.
But if I'm not mistaken then the whole thing is a bit of a reasurance for your next argument with your DM.

Some of the upper posts state that te GM should know all the rules or have them at hand any given time. I don't share that opinion. I think the GM is responsible for giving the table a good time. I might help to know the rule but to look them up slows the game down to boringness! So he rather should be able to have replacement rules in his head. (And so may make "bad calls" if you ask the books)

All i all you should talk to your GM prior to post that kind of tread. And you both should talk still.
On our table we see it fit to discuss the rules before AND after the game but not in between (i confess it's not always that easy) i strongly recomend you to do the same. Then, if your GM insists on his own supremicy, you can always choose to find you another GM who suits you better.

Please don't take this personal. It is just my opinion not the truth of the universe.


Sue

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The reason why we play with a common set of rules, is so that there are fewer situations in which the DM can say "X happens" where X is something that harms your character and against you have no defense. This kind of thing was rampant in the earlier editions of the game, where much was left up to the rulings of the "referee", who often had to make on-the-spot adjudications. That was fine, so long as the DM was interested in making things fair and give you a sporting chance. But if the DM liked to crush PCs for the hell of it, you were screwed like Archimedes.

In d20, there is probably a rule that covers almost every possible situation. Part of the reason for this is because the number of legal situations is reduced by abstraction. What rule covers moving through someone else's space? There are three core rules: overrun, tumble, and the rule that says that creatures more two or more size categories apart can share a space. There are probably others, but they're less likely to come up...the Crush feat from SS you mention, for example. When the DM tries to move someone through another person's space, he needs to follow one of these rules. He is not allowed to arbitrarily declare that his monster can just stomp on a PC.

The reason why he's not allowed to do that is because it starts fights. It's arbitrary. He could have decided that something else happened, but he chose the event that harms the PC. Which indicates he wants the PC to be harmed, which indicates that he's not playing fair. If he gives the PC a sporting chance to get out of the way of danger, that's one thing. If he just stomps all over the poor halfling, that's another.

You should be able to expect that if there's a rule written, that the DM will play by it unless he's told you beforehand that he's not using that rule. House rules are fine, so long as everyone knows about them beforehand, and the DM applies them consistently. But arbitrary rulings are trouble because there's no way to establish that the DM doesn't just "have it in" for the PCs.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Your DM sounds like a jerk but I could be wrong, I wasn't there.
As for the spell caster on the nightmare he could have at least said that she had max ranks in concentrate as opposed to just saying she doesn't have to make checks.
And getting free attacks on people for being invisible is BS. Even a noob to the game could see that. Samething with falling objects, you should get a save or it should make an attack or something.

 

[MadMaxim]

You have my sympathy, RolandOfGilead. Dungeon Masters who don't know the basics and are unwilling to see that they could possibly be wrong are the worst to have in control of a game. I play under a DM who's literally willing to throw away all the rulebooks if it doesn't suit him. House rules are fine, but his methods are rather extreme... He's very creative, I'll give him that, but that still doesn't grant him the right to throw out any rule that doesn't fit in his head instead of working with the system. That way nobody has a chance of mastering the rules and help make the sessions go faster and be more enjoyable to everyone.

I completely agree with Liquidsabre that you have right to state alternatives to unfair rulings, but it's still the DM that rules what goes what doesn't, so you ought to take it up with him afterwards.