Critique my DM (long)

[reapersaurus]

OK, I wanna see what the board's impressions are on this one.
Thanks in advance for any replies/thoughts...

I'm in a party with my wife and my friend and his wife.
Mostly roleplaying campaign in a custom world with like 3 detailed cities.
1st level PC's required. (wizard, ranger, and fighter)
First 3E DM'ing job for the long-time DM.

First session:
intro of storyline - our mentors were researching a mystery attack on the town for 6 months before reteurning... not as themselves.
They were different, somehow - they end up disappearing.
We go after them with an NPC cleric and druid.
We are on the road, get ambushed by 9 orcs with javelins throwing from the treeline.
The druid goes down, wizard hurt.
The orcs don't have any more ranged weapons (??!) and come forward and finish off the druid.
The fighter rolls a 20,20,19 and auto-kills an orc.
2 orcs run, the DM nerfing the encounter by the second because it woulda been a TPK if they had 2 javelins.

2nd session:
The druid NPC turns out to be the relative of a 18th level druid that pops out of the woods and takes the body (so we don't have to travel back to the last town)
We continue to the next town - it turns out to be taken over by orcs, goblins, and gnolls.
We have to high-tail it out of town on horseback, the mini-army at our heels for awhile.
We make it to the next town a day's ride away, and let them now of the infested town.

3rd session:
We roleplay (the town is bracing for evacuation/last stand), and we have an encounter at the end.
The 1st level ranger checks on the town church to find all the priests dead.
She looks around, and the altar comes to life (Meld to Stone) and the hidden evil priest (turns out a Sor4/Cleric5) casts Bull's Strength before the ranger starts to run.
Priest casts Melf's acid arrow twice as the ranger runs down the wooded path to town to alert others, yelling for Darian.

Darian (another NPC druid) pops out of woods (it's been 2 rounds since being called) in bear form (minimum 5th level, perhaps 8th).
The NPC cleric is on a full charge on horseback from the middle of town (how he knows anything happened at his diety's temple is beyond me) and 2 NPC Warrior1's join the ranger back to the temple.
(Eventually, the 2 PC's wizard and fighter will get the word, but too late to enter combat)
The 1st level NPC cleric hits with a Ride-By Attack on the evil Sor4/Clr5 with his DAGGER and rides by into the TEMPLE.
The ranger hits with an arrow for 7, as the NPC druid goes into melee with his staff, missing.
One NPC Warrior1 runs away while the other charges up and dies from the AoO the evil priest gets with his hand (inflict wounds) attack.
I mention there's no AoO from a charge, and the DM ret-cons it one round later.
Apparently the evil priest missed his inflict wounds attack that turn (on the NPC druid that meleed with a staff and missed), cause he dusted the Warrior1 next turn with an inflict wounds spell (in melee with no AoO's).

The ranger (my wife) enters the fray with greatsword (stowing the bow, drawing the greatsword, charging and attacking in one turn) and hits for 8.
The Sor4/Clr5 misses a melee touch attack inflict wounds on the ranger before the ranger hits again for 8, and the evil priest is down after taking maybe 28 damage (coup de grace next round).

Then the alarm of the town bell sounds, warning us of the approaching army.
End of session 3, no closer to even our first mission - finding out what happened to our mentors.

Now, for you experts on the boards -
how many mistakes can you spot in story, planning, or combat execution?
(hint - the evil priest didn't buff himself while in the Meld to Stone shape, OR in the break before they came back with instant-reinforcements)

P.S.
The DM granted the ranger 800 XP for the one encounter.
A Sor4/Clr5 is CR 9 (played badly, it should be less of course).
A party of Ranger1, NPC Cleric1, NPC DruidX (guess an 8) and a NPC Warrior1 that died in one turn would not be 800 XP to the Ranger 1 PC any way you slice it.
Does the Warrior1 get 1/4th of the XP for being killed?

 

[mindqwerk]

Hmmm...

Without being there it's hard to say... however I picked one out...

"...The ranger (my wife) enters the fray with greatsword (stowing the bow, drawing the greatsword, charging and attacking in one turn) and hits for 8..."

Can you do all that in one round? Even with quickdraw I thought you couldn't charge unless you used full round action? (Sorry if wrong - haven't got to play in a looong time).

There are many areas in there that are questionable (as far as rules go). It seems (from your side of the story) you are playing with an ill-experienced DM... but what do I know.

 

[S'mon]

Hmmm...

Without being there it's hard to say... however I picked one out...

"...The ranger (my wife) enters the fray with greatsword (stowing the bow, drawing the greatsword, charging and attacking in one turn) and hits for 8..."

Can you do all that in one round? Even with quickdraw I thought you couldn't charge unless you used full round action? (Sorry if wrong - haven't got to play in a looong time).

There are many areas in there that are questionable (as far as rules go). It seems (from your side of the story) you are playing with an ill-experienced DM... but what do I know.

Charge is a standard action, if you have BAB +1 or more you can draw a weapon while moving (inc charging), and Rangers can draw 2 weapons while moving. But she couldn't stow the bow as well as drawing the sword; she'd have had to drop the bow (free action), leaving it behind.

The obvious impression is that the DM hasn't read the EL/CR rules, the 9th level NPC should have had no trouble trashing a 1st level party. Also too-much deus ex machina stuff from high level NPCs for my liking.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Stowing the bow as a move equivalent and partial charge?

 

[LostSoul]

It sounds like your DM doesn't yet have a firm grasp of challenge levels, and is throwing in NPCs to help balance things out.

 

[Shimrod]

Only thing he (or all of you) could have done wrong was that you didn´t have fun. If you did, stop nitpicking about the rules, there not that important.

It is very easy being a player and just sitting back waiting for your DM to present you with the fun for tonight. If you think you can do a better job, why don´t you just do it yourself? And if you can´t or don´t want to, stop whyning. DM-ing is hard work and you should be gratefull someone wants to do it for ya.

 

[kkoie]

I thought your DM did a fine job. If he made any mistakes, they were not earth shattering. Having people pick out his mistakes implies you are annoyed with his performance, are you? Or is this humor?

If you are annoyed, I fail to see why, no one got screwed over.

If this is humor, you forgot the punchline.

If this is neither, what exactly is it?

K Koie

 

[Zenon]

Hmmm, a couple of questions first:

1) You said this is the 1st 3E DM'ing for a long time DM. Has he had any other 3E experience (like being a player)? If not, it's transition problems.

2) You said you, your wife, your friend and his wife are in it, but only three PC's. Who is running?(obiviously, it's not you or your wife because you mentioned...)

3) Have you played in games this DM has run before? Is this typical of his DM'ing style?

You might want to have a small chat on the side with this DM and find out what his goals are (try to be non-confrontational while doing this). It may be that he/she is still struggling with the 3E method of doing things, and ending up being heavy-handed to correct his mistakes.

 

[Tom Cashel]

First 3E DM'ing job for the long-time DM.

1. I didn't find it especially easy to DM 3E the first time, and I've been playing D&D in various incarnations for about 20 yrs. Granted, I just modified a scenario downloaded from WotC...but if he's learning the rules, either cut him some slack or do it yourself.

2. Challenge ratings are a load of bull-pucky. They are helpful to see whether PCs have any chance of winning a given confrontation, but I hate the idea of PCs never meeting anything they can't stomp. If you want every encounter balanced with your current level, go play Dungeon Siege.

3. You seem to be disappointed that the DM wouldn't follow through with his TPKs once you were up against a superior foe.

4. As DM, nothing annoys me more than setting up a huge mystery, and having players who ignore all the clues. I mean, the mentors disappeared, right? Okay, you go seeking answers. But it seems like you just walk past the many druids who have converged on the area and the towns overrun by goblinoids, chalking it all up to "nerfing" and "ret-con" (whatever the hell those things mean) and claiming you're "no closer to even our first mission." I'll wager your DM is pretty frustrated too.

5. Rather than blowing off steam on the boards and giving us all the impression that you're a troublesome nitpicky player, you should just talk to your DM about this stuff. Offer to go through some of those rules and clear them up; if it were me in that situation, I'd sure appreciate it. And trust the DM to create a scenario; if you get to the very end and none of the stuff you've described turns out to be related, then start complaining.

 

[Mort]

I don't think there is nearly as much of a problem as you seem to think

Your DM seems to have a great story lined up. As mentioned above, he’s just making “newbie” mistakes when it comes to difficulty of encounters and then not wanting to kill of the party because he made the encounters way too difficult. It looks like if he got a better grasp of Encounter Levels and Challenge Ratings everything would smooth out.

Frankly, I can see this kind of thing happening a lot. If you’re a new DM (read haven’t DMed D&D in any of it’s incarnations) Challenge Ratings are an absolute nightmare. WoTC really should have put a more “strict” x.p. variant and let Challenge Ratings be something you grow into – I’m sorry but the whole challenge rating system is basically “here we’re going to give you a framework and you can wing it from there.”

So to sum up, I think the DM is doing fine but needs to adjust to this admittedly complex xp system that is certainly not for beginners.