am i the jerk or is my friend?

[Wolf72]

sooo are you guys playing together or against each other. Dude my friends, even if they were DM'ing would have said ... awesome, let me see how. If it turned out to be to unbalancing or unnerving the DM would have said simply 'No, it's to much'. End of Story.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Also, it's not RAW, but as a GM, I've always ruled that altering self into a Dwarf Ancestor turns you into a being capable of possessing a statue, and of course, you don't get the power to actually possess the statue with alter self.

Actually, I just hate that writeup anyway; shouldn't a stone statue have at least some construct-like traits?

Actually, it's a TERRIBLE monster to begin with, and a shining example of why I ignore the later Monster Manuals. For FIVE hit dice, it gets Large size, str 22, con 28, DR 10/adamantine (????!!!!!!wtf???!!!!), +18 natural armor (look ma, pulling random numbers out of my ass is fun!), and more! I'd like to know how that thing can even be beaten without attack magic at CR 6. Rogue can't hit it, Fighter can't hit it if he wants to actually damage it (PA), cleric doesn't have the buff spells to take it on yet... Gods help the mage-less party.

 

[prospero63]

Reminds me of a game we were in and a player did something that was way above the party ECL. The DM asked "how are you doing that". Player says "it's a spell like ability". DM says "OK, how do you have that". Player says "it's a spell like ability". This went on and on with the player repeating that "it's a spell like ability" before the DM finally cornered him that he was playing an illegal race (the rules stipulated core books, basic races, etc.). It became the stuff of legend and is still made fun of years later (insert whatever context and "but it's a spell like ability").

My point?

You are the DM. If you don't know how he's doing something, he's not doing it. Period.

 

[FEADIN]

Fun.
Twenty years ago...I played in a club where the players nearly never gave the character sheet to the DM because he never had to know their weak points and so on.....very strange when you play another way.
In fact there was often crazy things totaly Monty Haul, Munckin, what you want, they tried to kill each other instead of playing the adventure, especially if you were coming from another club.
Totaly childish..... I have a bigger gun than you attitude.

 

[Herzog]

You are the DM.
Players who are afraid to show you their character sheet don't understand the position of the DM.
You are part storyteller, part arbiter.
You have an entire imaginary world to pick from.

If you would want to kill the PC's, you can. It does not matter what the PC's can or can't do, if you want them dead, they are.
If only by you declaring them dead.

That said, that isn't much fun. Fun (IMO) starts when the game revolves around challanges being presented to the PC's which are within their level of competence, and overcoming them.

If there is a PC who can handle everything, that's no fun. Not to the other players, not to the DM, and probably, after the initial euforia wears off, not for the player of the PC.

To be able to match the challanges to the PC's, the DM needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the PC's. Not to 'exploit' them, but because without that info, a DM may have an unintended TPK on his hands (ex: because he introduced a death-trap to be disabled by a rogue-type PC, while the rogue-like PC is actually a ranger. oops.)

You and your friend both need to understand the game isn't DM vs PC's.
It's PC's (and possibly an NPC or two) against the rest of the world, and the DM as arbiter.

Try to have fun.