DMs are too easy on their players

[ThirdWizard]

According to some people on this board if you so much as intentionally plan an encounter that has a definite chance of killing a PC or two your an adversarial DM.

The adversarial title probably didn't help.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

just because something can be carried weight-wise doesn't mean it isn't too bulky to carry without a significant effort - enough with trying to fill every cubic inch of a backpack).

I don't want to seem anal, but bulk is already encompassed in weight, if your going to add bulk to the game, you should drop how much the stuff weighs a bit.

 

[Harmon]

Me: The dragon is coming.
Party: That's a CR 20 encounter! We're CR 5.
Me: Tough.
Party: What do we do?!
Me: (raises eyebrows) Run? Hide? Fight? I do hope you make up your minds quickly ...
Party: It's not balanced!
Me: Would you have preferred the 5 beholders I was considering? You ought to thank your lucky stars it's only a young dragon. Now, you have about 10 seconds to do something, before I rule you lose initiative to said dragon ... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 ...
Party: Uh ... ok ... we ...
Me: 4, 3, 2 ...
Party: We act out Operation 21! (pre-planned set of actions for just such an emergency.)
Me: Ok. On with the game ...

Operation 21 - Everyone scatter, meet back up at last nights camp sight. If the Dragon hits your best friend, know that he's dead and you will only be joining him.

So the party scatters, six different directions, the ranger goes for the clump of trees to the North, but the dragon is after the southern traveling Halfling that took the poison of invisibility and is headed for that Dire Weasel hole. Swoop down, and at the end of the Halflings double 20' (40') move rolls a 36 on his to hit.

He swoops back around looking for the Elf in the robe with the spell book and the magic components. He notices the Gnome with the horn as he scrambles east. The wizard is north east. He bites the Halfling in half as the little guy stabs him in the cheek with his dagger- oh, isn't that cute . He claws at the Elf, impacting and cutting through the Elf's Shield spell and Mage Armor like it wasn't even there (28 on his to hit). The Elf staggers but doesn't drop. The dragon lands as he turns a 180. The Wizard throws a lightning bolt at the dragon (26 save). Ouch, couple more dice of damage, still in the 200 hp range. The wizard dies with the next bite.

The Gnome sees a Dire Weasel hole and dives in, only to find himself face to face with a.... ya, you guessed it, a Dire Weasel. The Bard starts singing- "between teeth, I am about to be poo-" The dragon looks in as the Gnome is fending off the weasel, smiles and vows to return for one of them.

The human fighter in her scale mail and shield turns to face the swooping dragon, raises her shield- "come to the ground and fight me!"

From 20' away the dragon takes a dramatic breath, the fighter charges, and the dragon's fire broils her in her armor. She staggers, some how still alive, rolls a natural 20 with her axe, but only a 19 against the dragons Mage Armor + Shield + Natural Armor = normal hit. A dozen more hp down on the dragon. The fighter snarls ripping her axe free and the dragon hits her with the back of his fist, giving the fighter an AoO (miss), and enough subduel damage to KO the once lovely fighter.

Whose next? The human cleric flees fast a foot, two rounds on the wing the dragon lands before the man with the fighter's limp body in his claws- "I show you- mercy." The fighter falls to the ground. "For her life I want your meet point!"

"I-"

"You will lie-" the dragon roosts him too.

He leaps to the air, going towards the clump of trees back int he distance. The ranger is hiding well, but not well enough. The dragon starts strafing the forest, burning trees, the rangers wields his bow with accuracy, and manages to bury one arrow quite expertly into the dragon's hide (hay, 2 natural 20s in one "fight" isn't unheard of).

Finally the trees are ablaze, driving the ranger into the open.

A sword in one hand and an axe in the other- "we should have stayed together."

"You know aside from all the flying, this battle would have gone the same way- make a new character this is a TPK."

And so the "tough" GM goes.

 

[SteveC]

So what you're advocating is basically a combination of one-upsmanship with your players, ego stroking for yourself, and being a jerk when you're behind the screen.

Gotcha.

Sorry, but I don't play with people who game to boost their egos. I play to have fun. Challenge is fun. Danger is fun. When the GM stacks the odds against you, arbitrarily screws the characters and all for nothing more than their own pitiful self-aggrandizement? That's not a game. It's just bad comedy.

Jim,
I just wanted to say that, even though I don't always agree with you, this post is so spot on that I have to say "QFT."

I can't imagine playing in that game for long. Challenge, danger, tension...all that is great in a game. Running encounters designed to create a TPK if the group doesn't immediately run away (and heaven help the character who can't effectively run away) is supposed to be fun? No thanks.

--Steve

 

[Lanefan]

Some of you seem to be missing a point Edena stressed in the original post: the idea is not necessarily to kill the PCs, but to make the players *think* you're gonna kill the PCs...there's a subtle but significant difference.

My house rulebook has, right there in the introduction, a note saying that no matter what happens, sooner or later your character *will* die so be ready to deal with that. And, eventually, they all do...at least temporarily (revival spells are a useful thing), from a staggering variety of causes some of which I as DM have absolutely nothing to do with.

But yes, let the players think the party's going to sail through everything and it gets boring in a hurry. If I'm in a party where we deserve to get TPK'ed, then put the hammer down and bloody well kill us; we might mourn the loss of our characters, but you'll not lose any respect as a DM. (by the same token, if we don't deserve to be TPK'ed, try and let at least one or two of us survive...)

Lanefan

 

[Phlebas]

Much as i agree you need a mix of encounters all the way up to "run away now", my idea of balance is to make sure the PC's can relax and do some RP'ing rather than spending all their time in paranoid video gamer mode. Min-max, special forces style, must power up, must shoot first, no prisoners, no mistakes, kill or be killed. Fun (for a while) when you go into dangerous areas, boring when you can never retreat to other areas where good ideas and a glib tongue make more of a difference between success or failure (and where min-maxed characters can be really weak)

I wouldn't put up with players whinging about balance and waving a rule-book at me anyway.... but theres a whole world of difference between weak DM, tough DM, and everyone bring two spare characters DM

But maybe thats just me - If the game survives, & players come back then its a success. If it runs out of players, or a new DM runs a more successful alternative then it doesn't. No gaming style can suit everyone, it just has to suit the group involved or the group will find a game that does

 

[Volaran]

I think something to remember here is that following Edena's posts for a number of years, I don't think he's actually played 3E or 3.5 very much. Most of his discussions on rules, spells and such that I can recall always used 2E terms. When he uses terms like 'CR20' for a young dragon, I'm not entirely sure if it is ment to be in proper context, or he just means "a very difficult encounter".

With that in mind, while I like running and playing through encounters with a good range of difficulty, it can be very difficult to even run away from a very high CR creature with a low level party without several characters being killed. In those sorts of encounters, the DM in question might as well just have characters suffer from random heart attacks.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Red dragon approaching party.
Party opts for Operation 21.

The elven wizard throws Fly, ascends up to meet oncoming dragon.
The dragon thinks: 'My, tempting target. I'll knock her right out of the air.'
The dragon flies right at the elven wizard. The dragon has decided to ram her (and bite her, which it succeeds in doing, amplifying the results below.)

However, the elven wizard bought a Stonestone scroll (old version of Stoneskin, allowed in my game), cast it earlier, and is Stoneskinned.

The dragon meant the impact as an attack. So the mage takes no damage from it, because of the Stoneskin.
The mage was not attacking the dragon by flying into it's path. So the dragon does take damage from the impact.

The dragon, thanks to it's heavy plate, does not pass onward ... the mage does not pass right through the dragon because the dragon's momentum is carrying it onward.
Instead, the dragon is simply stopped, dead, it's armor crushing under the impact with the mage. It accrues considerable damage as it goes from full speed to 0 speed instantaneously.

Then, the dragon falls to the ground with a wham. And it takes one heck of a lot more damage as it hits that solid ground far below.

The fight is on.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I like a nice, hard game. However, players ought to be "allowed" to retreat without undue harassment. It is when they attempt to bash forward throwing caution to the wind that they should be "punished."

This is a general principle I follow when I referee D&D games.

 

[Someone]

Some of you seem to be missing a point Edena stressed in the original post: the idea is not necessarily to kill the PCs, but to make the players *think* you're gonna kill the PCs...there's a subtle but significant difference.

If you're throwing a CR 20 dragon or 5 beholders against the PCs they are dead, no matter what the party does, and cheating so your monsters have magit items that lose their properties when you take them is awful. Anyway the OP is a strawman and a bad argument: a strawman because I've heard a lot about balanced encounters, but that's when speaking theoretically about things like how many resources should a party use when facing what and so son. I've heard players talking about how a encounter was tough or difficult and even calculating the EL, but never, ever, in the sense Edena is painting the players as if they thought the DM don't have the right to use the encounters they like.

And an bad argument because he's saying that the players should not complain about gross imbalances between characters because the DM's monsters are TOUGH and THEY ARE AFTER YOU!!! and you must SHUT UP!!!