D&D 5E DM purposely gimping my Warlock

[occam]

If the DM in this situation had adequately explained why he was being adversarial, or why he was removing that player's ability, it might be a different story. But the fact that he did it directly in response to the spell, and only relented after another player stood up as well, proves my point.

With respect to the DM's wish to ban use of the character's warlock class ability on the fly, on this we agree. It sounded sloppy and potentially vindictive.

 

[Kaychsea]

As I said before, somehow, later Ravenloft books took notes in masochism when developing weaknesses for each class. They ranged from the nonsensical (a bard's healing [and only healing] spells have a chance of failure? Why?) to the overbearing (a wizard suffered a powers check for learning any evocation spell: even light or floating disc) to the downright crippling (barbarians suffering a power check every time they rage. Or fighter's suffering a powers check every time they leveled up!). Furthermore, spell-based changes got overdone as well (powers checks for enchantments, even if you used them non-violently). Pretty soon, the game went from "lets tamper down the obviously powerful things in gothic horror" to "everyone has to have a crippling disability and make multiple powers checks per level!"

True, but I always saw that as a response to players moaning about their characters having restrictions so everybody got something to worry about. A case of being careful what you wish for.

In all honesty I would have made life far more interesting for the Warlock than worrying about getting his spell slots back. Given that their power stems from the kind of beings that LOVE Ravenloft someone would be getting far more hands on from the boss.

Still, unless your rest extremely early, you'll never get your second short rest before you can take your long rest. As I said before, you need to take your short rest in the first 5 hours, or you'll never get your 2nd before you can take a long rest again. That takes into account travel time, etc. So that makes most short rest abilities 2/day.

Don't know about you but that seems a fair reflection of my working day. If I go 5 hours without lunch I get downright cranky!

 

[Elf Witch]

there is no excuse to weaken a class AFTER the game starts... it is bad DMing, and if the DM can't handle being questioned... walk away

The way roll20 and rpol work allows for plenty of opportunities to discuss houserules in advance, in other situations this that could be a good reason, but in this case it isn't. And even then the moment to talk about it is at the beginning of the session, not in the middle of it.

There are plenty of reasons to weaken a class after character creation. If the character is not working out, if it is to powerful for the rest of the PCs if it was allowed in with the stipulation that it might be revisited later.

So it is not necessarily bad DMing.

The DM should talk to the player share their concerns and see if the two can work on away to fix it so that both are satisfied. If they can't then the DM should allow a new character brought in with the same XP, wealth and magic items.

In a perfect world the DM does make sure he has everything discussed ahead of time. But DMs are human too and maybe he didn't think about how he was handling rests until they came up. It was the first session they are not so far invested in the game that it it will have that big of an impact.

 

[Remathilis]

True, but I always saw that as a response to players moaning about their characters having restrictions so everybody got something to worry about. A case of being careful what you wish for.

In all honesty I would have made life far more interesting for the Warlock than worrying about getting his spell slots back. Given that their power stems from the kind of beings that LOVE Ravenloft someone would be getting far more hands on from the boss.

I think its been an over-reaction to the idea laid down in the lore that the heroes should be feeble. The over-gimping done by the 3.5 RPHB (which even the writers admit is a bridge too far) has widely turned one of my favorite settings into something unplayable. When I run, I stick the Redbox era rules with some additional info from Domains of Dread.

And yeah, if the only thing you are thinking about with a warlock in Ravenloft is gimping his spells, hand in your RLDM card.

Don't know about you but that seems a fair reflection of my working day. If I go 5 hours without lunch I get downright cranky!

Are you then forced to wait eight hours for dinner or eat it right before bed?

 

[chriton227]

Are you then forced to wait eight hours for dinner or eat it right before bed?

I can't speak for [MENTION=70176]Kaychsea[/MENTION], but for me it's pretty typical that breakfast is around 8:30am, lunch is at 11:30am, and then I don't get home from work and shuttling kids to activities until between 7:00pm and 8:00pm, so I'm not normally eating dinner until 7:30pm or later. Lately we've been moving so I've been stopping at the old house on the way home to do some packing and cleaning, that pushes dinner back to 9:00pm or later.

 

[Kaychsea]

And yeah, if the only thing you are thinking about with a warlock in Ravenloft is gimping his spells, hand in your RLDM card.

Which speaks to me that it's not a direct effect.

Are you then forced to wait eight hours for dinner or eat it right before bed?

Not far off, usually seven but longer if I'm on the late split.

 

[MoonSong]

There are plenty of reasons to weaken a class after character creation. If the character is not working out, if it is to powerful for the rest of the PCs if it was allowed in with the stipulation that it might be revisited later.

So it is not necessarily bad DMing.

The DM should talk to the player share their concerns and see if the two can work on away to fix it so that both are satisfied. If they can't then the DM should allow a new character brought in with the same XP, wealth and magic items.

In a perfect world the DM does make sure he has everything discussed ahead of time. But DMs are human too and maybe he didn't think about how he was handling rests until they came up. It was the first session they are not so far invested in the game that it it will have that big of an impact.

Generally I'm the first to give people the benefit of the doubt, and with zero context is best to assume no malice nor incompetence, just regular human nature. But roll20 isn't a zero context environment, it is way different from a home game. It is basically a marketplace, an open one, with lots of spaces to discuss a game before even starting one. Maybe is the 3e/4e eras thing, but in such an environment the default assumption is every game is subject to RAW unless noted, a lot of players request their access to a game with that in mind. As such any houserule short of emergency ban has to be made explicit in the game description and adjacent forum. Of course this is no rule, but it is good etiquette.

The DM either hadn't thought of the houserule before that point or he had. If he hadn't and just thought it in the spot, he should have been more open to feedback and discussion, I myself commonly contain from changing things on the fly, if I have an idea I want to consider the ramifications before telling it to the players, and I ask for their opinion.

Sometimes I make changes before starting a campaign, but they aren't just occurrences, and I communicate the changes to prospective players before they join.

Now if the DM in question hadn't considered if he wanted to dial short rests before, he should have waited to see if the default was serviceable or not, and asked at the end of the session how would the players feel with the houserule. (Because we so far lack guidelines for dialing short rests, and dialing them is a change to RAW which is one of the few things a bunch of strangers banding together to play can implicitly agree on.)

Wanting to take away a class ability the first time it is used isn't a good precedent either, it is a sign of a controlling and reactive DM.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Generally I'm the first to give people the benefit of the doubt,...

Wanting to take away a class ability the first time it is used isn't a good precedent either, it is a sign of a controlling and reactive DM.

If giving the benefit of the doubt, you wouldn't have come to this conclusion. If you were giving the benefit of the doubt, you would have come to something like, "Well, the books haven't been out for very long and it's a new game, so most likely the DM doesn't know how every class works in actual game play and wasn't aware just how this particular ability impacts the game."

Yes, ideally the DM would have everything memorized and know exactly how everything plays out in actual play, but I think that's unreasonable at this early of a stage.

I see a whole lot of "if I don't get to play like I want, it must be a bad/incompetant DM" stuff in this thread. Usually by folks who have been silent whenever I or someone else has mentioned, "Why don't you just DM your game the way you want?"


I think the best way to handle it is to have a reasonable conversation with the DM like adults. Some folks seem to agree here, others obviously don't.

 

[Remathilis]

I can't speak for [MENTION=70176]Kaychsea[/MENTION], but for me it's pretty typical that breakfast is around 8:30am, lunch is at 11:30am, and then I don't get home from work and shuttling kids to activities until between 7:00pm and 8:00pm, so I'm not normally eating dinner until 7:30pm or later. Lately we've been moving so I've been stopping at the old house on the way home to do some packing and cleaning, that pushes dinner back to 9:00pm or later.

Which speaks to me that it's not a direct effect.




Not far off, usually seven but longer if I'm on the late split.

Though that still leaves the issue of getting your toys renewed shortly before bed. There is little benefit of burning hit dice or regaining spell slots before a long rest where both hp and spells reset to maximum anyway. *

* save a small benefit vs night ambushes or if the dm doesn't allow full hp/spell refresh on a long rest.

 

[Astrosicebear]

If giving the benefit of the doubt, you wouldn't have come to this conclusion. If you were giving the benefit of the doubt, you would have come to something like, "Well, the books haven't been out for very long and it's a new game, so most likely the DM doesn't know how every class works in actual game play and wasn't aware just how this particular ability impacts the game.".

That's applauding ignorance.

If the DM wants to run a game, they should be competent in the material. It would be like auditioning for a part in a play, and the director changing the part around completely, and when asked why, you find out the director hasn't even read the original.