InvincibleWall
First Post
---Backstory---
Basicly I started playing D&D with some friends about a month ago, we have had about 7 sessions (30+ hours )
The storyline is going along well, we have 3 players and 2 NPCs in the party
PCs:
HawkEye: Wild Elf, Ranger 4
Scorpion: High Elf, Wizard 3
Vincent:: Human, Ninja 2, Swordsage 2 (me)
NPCs:
Braxis: Human(mostly), Dark Crystal Lord (homebrew)
Vara: Human(as far as we know), Devoted Soul
Now our DM has had some issues over these sessions that we keep trying to work out but he keeps basicly saying "I altered the rules a bit because I didn't like (fill in the blank)."
and really this would be perfectly okay if it didn't effect gameplay for the players in such negative ways
---Problem---
The first issue was that he was unacceptably stingy on wealth, we started the game with nothing because we were immediately captured and sentinced to death (and escaped) now we a fair ways in but at level 3-4 we have a total wealth (including gear) of around 200gp per player because he "doesn't like treasure tables, they are to random" and "I don't follow the exected wealth because it tries to make things to precise"
this last seasion we killed something and he rolled a 1 on the treasure table and we got nothing so he said "see treasure tables are to random"
how are we supposed to get equipment at this rate?
Second is that he makes puzzles that adapt as we try to solve them, an example of this was:
I was sleeping in at the Inn (in the basement, by myself because the rest of my party was mad at me) and at 1am 2 people came down the (please note this) stairs, they were trying to move silently and one failed (rolled natural 1 + 3) so I got a listen (rolled natural 20 + 10, DC 11) check and I heard them and woke up. Now they picked the lock (with mage hand, which doesn't make sense to me since they didn't even have to roll anything) and entered the room (I was not allowed to move till they had entered) now since I was awake I recognized them as HawkeEye and Scorpion. They demanded something of mine, blah blah... I said no... they wanted to start a fight.... DM opened up a grid (we can now see what the inn looks like, basicly a 10 foot wide hall leading to a small room) and we rolled initiative. Scorpion and I tied (Scor rolled 8 + 3, I rolled 7 + 4) he said we needed to roll d20s with no modifiers to see who would actually go first (I thought it would be a Dex check but didn't say anything)
Scorpion won so I went last... they attacked me and did no damage but blinded me, I turned invisible with ghost step(Ex ninja ability) and ran for the door I got into the hall and ended my round they attacked and failed horribly. I tried to use a Martial Manuaver from my swordsage levels but the DM said that I had been asleep so I couldn't use them (please someone tell me if this is true). so I said that I am running upstairs. The DM looks at me funny and said "um, it's a ladder". We were all like WHAT??? but whatever, I said that I would climb the ladder. DM says you are at the top. I say I'm going upstairs. He says "you push on the trap door but it seems stuck, it sounds like the Innkeeper is standing on it" (at 1AM mind you). I say "I am gunna push him off (I know I have 17 str so it shouldn't be a problem)". He replies (with a single roll ever being made) "the ladder crumbles beneith you, it was just to much weight for it". I am in total shock right now... these events are just totally unbelievable. I succeed on the check to keep from falling prone. I am still invisible but my opponents have "pinpointed me" because of the ladder problem, they are both ranged attackers so they both fire down the hall and hit me. They are still in the room so if I move 5ft. up they cannot hit me anymore without coming out of the room so I say thats where I am moving. The DM replies " actually it is only a 5ft. hallway its not really 10ft.
Now seriously I thank you if you have read this far but as you can see this was not exactly the fairest fight in the first place, and to make matters worse the DM was in my opinion crushing everything I could possibly do to survive. In the end I ran out of Ghost Step uses and had to surrender and give up my items to my friends (this was fine, I took them back later) but the scenario adapted to counter my every move.
Is this fair play by the DM?
now after those events we split ways for a little while and Scorpion and HawkEye went out into an open field (a shortcut to the forest) while the NPCs and I went to a different town to find someone who could cast Remove Blindness/Deafness. We set out and the DM rolled d20 to see if we encountered anything. I ran into nothing but the others ran into 4 bandits. And ontop of that the journey was apparenlty a long one and the bandits attacked them in their sleep. Scorpion was knocked out instantly and HawkEye was woke into a grapple with a bandit trying to gag him (cover his mouth with cloth) he broke free ran a few feet and fired a shot, missed. one of the bandits pulls out a blowgun and starts shooting poison (Giant scorpion poison, 1d6/1d6 str damage) darts with rapid shot feat both somehow hit (HawkEye has 22 AC) and he takes str damage from failing both fort saves. HawkEye attacks and misses. Another round of darts get pounded into him both hit and he fails one save. He has around 4 strength right now. Now the other bandits who had been laughing and watching up till now started to take actions. One ran at HawkEye and started another grapple (easily winning this time) and HawkEye's vision starts to fade (for unknown reasons, he is at full HP still) and both him and Scorpion wake up tied up in a bandit camp.
Now I thought this was supposed to be an encounter right? Not a "you will now die". The whole issue was solved and it had NOTHING to do with anything it was just a "you have been captured" moment with no real purpose at all, they gained nor lost anything from this encounter, it was just a really big pain.
I know that technically a DM can send whatever creatures he wants at you but was this really a valid way to DM, personally this is how you lose players.
He claimed when we first started that his puzzles "didn't have loopholes" well I now believe him, it is because he seems to just make them up as we go and just counters all solutions until we find a non-loophole solution.
This got quite long winded but I was wondering what we could say to the DM to make him reconsider his DMing style or a way to "from the rulebooks" make him less I don't know... mean?
Basicly I started playing D&D with some friends about a month ago, we have had about 7 sessions (30+ hours )
The storyline is going along well, we have 3 players and 2 NPCs in the party
PCs:
HawkEye: Wild Elf, Ranger 4
Scorpion: High Elf, Wizard 3
Vincent:: Human, Ninja 2, Swordsage 2 (me)
NPCs:
Braxis: Human(mostly), Dark Crystal Lord (homebrew)
Vara: Human(as far as we know), Devoted Soul
Now our DM has had some issues over these sessions that we keep trying to work out but he keeps basicly saying "I altered the rules a bit because I didn't like (fill in the blank)."
and really this would be perfectly okay if it didn't effect gameplay for the players in such negative ways
---Problem---
The first issue was that he was unacceptably stingy on wealth, we started the game with nothing because we were immediately captured and sentinced to death (and escaped) now we a fair ways in but at level 3-4 we have a total wealth (including gear) of around 200gp per player because he "doesn't like treasure tables, they are to random" and "I don't follow the exected wealth because it tries to make things to precise"
this last seasion we killed something and he rolled a 1 on the treasure table and we got nothing so he said "see treasure tables are to random"
how are we supposed to get equipment at this rate?
Second is that he makes puzzles that adapt as we try to solve them, an example of this was:
I was sleeping in at the Inn (in the basement, by myself because the rest of my party was mad at me) and at 1am 2 people came down the (please note this) stairs, they were trying to move silently and one failed (rolled natural 1 + 3) so I got a listen (rolled natural 20 + 10, DC 11) check and I heard them and woke up. Now they picked the lock (with mage hand, which doesn't make sense to me since they didn't even have to roll anything) and entered the room (I was not allowed to move till they had entered) now since I was awake I recognized them as HawkeEye and Scorpion. They demanded something of mine, blah blah... I said no... they wanted to start a fight.... DM opened up a grid (we can now see what the inn looks like, basicly a 10 foot wide hall leading to a small room) and we rolled initiative. Scorpion and I tied (Scor rolled 8 + 3, I rolled 7 + 4) he said we needed to roll d20s with no modifiers to see who would actually go first (I thought it would be a Dex check but didn't say anything)
Scorpion won so I went last... they attacked me and did no damage but blinded me, I turned invisible with ghost step(Ex ninja ability) and ran for the door I got into the hall and ended my round they attacked and failed horribly. I tried to use a Martial Manuaver from my swordsage levels but the DM said that I had been asleep so I couldn't use them (please someone tell me if this is true). so I said that I am running upstairs. The DM looks at me funny and said "um, it's a ladder". We were all like WHAT??? but whatever, I said that I would climb the ladder. DM says you are at the top. I say I'm going upstairs. He says "you push on the trap door but it seems stuck, it sounds like the Innkeeper is standing on it" (at 1AM mind you). I say "I am gunna push him off (I know I have 17 str so it shouldn't be a problem)". He replies (with a single roll ever being made) "the ladder crumbles beneith you, it was just to much weight for it". I am in total shock right now... these events are just totally unbelievable. I succeed on the check to keep from falling prone. I am still invisible but my opponents have "pinpointed me" because of the ladder problem, they are both ranged attackers so they both fire down the hall and hit me. They are still in the room so if I move 5ft. up they cannot hit me anymore without coming out of the room so I say thats where I am moving. The DM replies " actually it is only a 5ft. hallway its not really 10ft.
Now seriously I thank you if you have read this far but as you can see this was not exactly the fairest fight in the first place, and to make matters worse the DM was in my opinion crushing everything I could possibly do to survive. In the end I ran out of Ghost Step uses and had to surrender and give up my items to my friends (this was fine, I took them back later) but the scenario adapted to counter my every move.
Is this fair play by the DM?
now after those events we split ways for a little while and Scorpion and HawkEye went out into an open field (a shortcut to the forest) while the NPCs and I went to a different town to find someone who could cast Remove Blindness/Deafness. We set out and the DM rolled d20 to see if we encountered anything. I ran into nothing but the others ran into 4 bandits. And ontop of that the journey was apparenlty a long one and the bandits attacked them in their sleep. Scorpion was knocked out instantly and HawkEye was woke into a grapple with a bandit trying to gag him (cover his mouth with cloth) he broke free ran a few feet and fired a shot, missed. one of the bandits pulls out a blowgun and starts shooting poison (Giant scorpion poison, 1d6/1d6 str damage) darts with rapid shot feat both somehow hit (HawkEye has 22 AC) and he takes str damage from failing both fort saves. HawkEye attacks and misses. Another round of darts get pounded into him both hit and he fails one save. He has around 4 strength right now. Now the other bandits who had been laughing and watching up till now started to take actions. One ran at HawkEye and started another grapple (easily winning this time) and HawkEye's vision starts to fade (for unknown reasons, he is at full HP still) and both him and Scorpion wake up tied up in a bandit camp.
Now I thought this was supposed to be an encounter right? Not a "you will now die". The whole issue was solved and it had NOTHING to do with anything it was just a "you have been captured" moment with no real purpose at all, they gained nor lost anything from this encounter, it was just a really big pain.
I know that technically a DM can send whatever creatures he wants at you but was this really a valid way to DM, personally this is how you lose players.
He claimed when we first started that his puzzles "didn't have loopholes" well I now believe him, it is because he seems to just make them up as we go and just counters all solutions until we find a non-loophole solution.
This got quite long winded but I was wondering what we could say to the DM to make him reconsider his DMing style or a way to "from the rulebooks" make him less I don't know... mean?
