Cheating and D&D

[Poster Bard]

OK,
A while ago I played two games at a Con where two different players were clearly cheating.

In one, the character never bothered to memorize spells, he simply cast spells from his spell list until he ran out (so he cast like a sorc. when he wasn't one and had the class spell list to choose from).

In another, the game was going _really_ long (and slow) and one player called a number of die rolls differently than he actually rolled them. I didn't mind as it *was* running long and slow, but.....

What do people do in situations like this?

It's important to be sure that it isn't a matter of someone just not understanding the rules, of course, but if I catch someone cheating I usually take them aside and make sure we both know that I have caught them at it, I tell them not to do it anymore, then if I catch them again I don't invite them to my games in the future. It doesn't bother me so much but it does tend to throw off the game and sometimes it bothers other players, so I'd just as soon not have those kind of people around. Besides, if they cheat at a game who knows what they'll do outside of the game where things become more problematic? Does anyone need someone dishonest in their home around their family and personal belongings?

 

[Dingleberry]

Whenever I contemplate cheating, I think about Jur and the Tusken Raider. In a long-running (3+ years) Star Wars d6 game I ran, a series of ridiculous dice rolls on both sides of the screen led to a PC (named Jur) being killed by a lucky shot from a plain old Tusken Raider.

Were we all stunned? Yes.

Were we all ticked off? Yes.

Did it completely tank several long-running plotlines? Yes.

Did it lead to the best roleplaying I've ever seen out of EVERY SINGLE PERSON at the table in the next session? Absolutely.

I would never hope for it, and certainly never plan it - but I wouldn't change a thing. NOT fudging the roll to save a beloved character gave me the best roleplaying experience I've ever had.

 

[brehobit]

It depends on what you mean. If the player simply fumbled the math in his head, improperly adding modifiers and stuff like that, no big deal. I've fumbled the math as a DM plenty of times, both good and bad for the PCs. There's a difference between making a mistake and actually cheating.

No, it was clearly on purpose. And it did get the game done, which was welcome. But it was really obvious he was calling things differently than they fell.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

Well, the player that I was talking about who cheats on die rolls got his commeuppance last night. They party averages 8th-9th level and were fighting 4 cockatrices (CR 3). I figured it was an easy encounter, since the save DC is so low for their Petrification effect. Heck, they were having trouble hitting anybody and 2 of them were already dead.

One of them charges the player's Barbarian and nails him. The player says, "I have a bad feeling about this." Another player says, "You'd have to roll a '1' to fail this save."

You guessed right. Everybody gathered around to watch the die fall. He covered it before it even stopped moving, so nobody could see it and he peered between his thumbs at the number. We all saw his face fall and he drew back his hands. The big white '1' was staring right back at us and his Barbarian was now "stoned."

DM

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Getting un-stoned is surprisingly easy. 450gp or so, get a cleric to cast Break Enchantment and you're probably good to go, since the caster level is really so low on those things.

We had a basilisk stone our rogue two sessions ago. He sighed, left the table, and went one room over to play board games while we completed the quest. My wizard made a few (easy) Arcana checks to account for my OOC knowledge, we slapped our sneaktheif on a sledge and drug his tail into town ... within an hour he was back to his old self and the player was seriously confused when we called him back to the room to complete the session.

--fje

 

[maggot]

I would kick blantant cheaters (people who lie about die rolls) out of my game. I don't even have this as a house rule because I assume I am role-playing with adults.

On the other hand, we do have some subtle cheaters: An spellcaster that wears armor and never checks for spell failure unless asked, an archer without precise shot that never takes the -4 for shooting into melee unless it is pointed out, etc. These people drive me up the wall because they invalidate other players' choices.

For example, the spellcaster is a witch in an AU/AE game. There is another witch in the same game that goes out of his way to avoid wearing armor so he wouldn't face spell failure, but the first witch avoids spell failure by basically "forgetting." Same with the archer, he gets a free feat and makes the feat choice of the other archer look silly. In fact, in both case, I think the cheat is helped by the fact that there is a similar character who ignores the rule.

The GM in both cases tries hard to keep players on the straight and narrow, but it is very hard (I'm GM in one case, player in another).

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Getting un-stoned is surprisingly easy. 450gp or so, get a cleric to cast Break Enchantment and you're probably good to go, since the caster level is really so low on those things.

Not quite so easy as that.

The flavor text in break enchantment notwithstanding, the spell actually does not undo a flesh to stone effect. (Check the SRD, which of course has no flavor text.) The spell explicitly says that for effects impervious to dispel magic -- of which flesh to stone is one -- break enchantment is only effective to end spells of fifth-level or lower. Flesh to stone is a sixth-level spell.

Bad editing of the flavor text.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

The GM in both cases tries hard to keep players on the straight and narrow, but it is very hard (I'm GM in one case, player in another).

Why don't the other players speak up? In my game, the players want a fair experience, and if someone is overlooking rules, even if doing so is in the favor of the players, someone will speak up.

I've heard of groups that had hard feelings against such ethical behavior, but I've never really believed the stories.

 

[TheGM]

There seems to be one in every long-running campaign. Some people just can't seem to treat it as a game. I've got one player that, when playing in our online group, will consistently tell me "Crit", then, apparently feeling bad, will tell me "Fumble" the next roll. In person his cheating is less obvious, but there. I let this go once in a session, figuring it's possible, but every time the second fumble kills him, one way or another.

I make it clear to my tables that they'd better take care of thost problems, because if I figure out someone is cheating I will increase the power of attackers to compensate. Seems to work out well, our players are pretty much there for the enjoyment of the game, and don't have a lot of goodwill toward cheaters.

 

[delericho]

Not quite so easy as that.

The flavor text in break enchantment notwithstanding, the spell actually does not undo a flesh to stone effect. (Check the SRD, which of course has no flavor text.) The spell explicitly says that for effects impervious to dispel magic -- of which flesh to stone is one -- break enchantment is only effective to end spells of fifth-level or lower. Flesh to stone is a sixth-level spell.

Bad editing of the flavor text.

While you're right about the editing, the Cockatrice's bite (and the Medusa's gaze) is not a flesh to stone spell. Whether break enchantment would work or not is therefore a judgement call. I recently faced much the same problem in my campaign, with the medusa' gaze, and ruled that it would work, and that the caster level was equal to the medusa's hit dice. (Of course, that may have been wrong - it's just what I did.)