Does the DM guide...

[Jhaelen]

The infamous 3E Oriental Adventures Giant Total Party Kill in my group happened like this. The DM slipped in the wrong column, and one fullround attack and two (great) cleaves later, the party was dead.

I once used an encounter with several wraiths and when looking up the DC for their Con drain I accidentally used the entry for the dread wraith...

Luckily it didn't have any fatal consequences other than a renewed respect for wraiths

 

[MrBeens]

Yep, that sounds like what we were up against. There was 2 other types too, but I can't remember exactly what they were called - sting rays or sting blades? Something like that. Our Paladin at one point was up against some necro class drow that he missed with a 29 also.

Regularly, well...it depends. I'm not sure if you saw one of the first threads I posted here (I'm pretty new/noob material), but we've got 2 regular DMs that rotate, and have had one guest DM that was a "zombie-master" (whole village of undead - approx. 25-30, that came out in waves when the church bell rang. He made a player roll a D6 two times, first roll was number of zombies in the wave, 2nd roll was what building they came out of - fun!). We've had -2- game changing events (IMHO). One, early in the game I had bought a lev2 item that let me read any language while wearing them (reading spectacles). I messed up the DMs plot line by being able to read an encrypted parchment that he had a whole plot fork based on. So the knee-jerk reaction was to ban us from buying anything from the Adenturers Vault, towns no longer had magical shops, and items gained from drops went to zilch. The 2nd was an encounter where our party, as a team, had a heckuva rolling run where all of us critted like mad and we wiped a group that the DM thought should have given us trouble. Result - much higher level groups against us.

<shrugs> I guess that's just the way it goes. That was way back, we're level 10 now, after that fight (9 during it) and its been about -6- levels since we've seen the AV, or a magical shop anywhere. We have seen a *few* magic drops. We found a plus 3 morningstar. After the big zombie fight and follow up fights to that "fork", we actually got some wondrous items , but they were like magic rope, a crippled summoning bag that only lets weasels come out, some feybread biscuits, stuff like that.

I'm kinda worried about when we get to lev11/Paragon. I think out path choices are going to be limited because we'll not be able to acquire any equipment to augment or enhance what we might like to do. For example, as an Avenger, I def. want an increased crit range, but I can't choose daggermaster because I won't be able to get any daggers. I can't choose any path that doesn't offer an increased crit range, because I'll never get a jagged mod for any weapon. Stuff like that - I'm sure its the same for the other team members too.

Its still fun playing though - the gang I play with are a great bunch. We just think that the DMs need to lighten up a bit on the anti-magic bias and not over-react when things actually go the team's way every now and then. They are all good people.

The overlevelled monsters sound fine (as long as it is not all the times).
The other stuff with no magic items and always harder fights because you did well in one fight sound terrible.

If you are having fun then I suppose it's OK, but I would suggest talking to the DMs about it - the game mechanics assume you have access to magic items

 

[Mesh Hong]

I'm kinda worried about when we get to lev11/Paragon. I think out path choices are going to be limited because we'll not be able to acquire any equipment to augment or enhance what we might like to do. For example, as an Avenger, I def. want an increased crit range, but I can't choose daggermaster because I won't be able to get any daggers. I can't choose any path that doesn't offer an increased crit range, because I'll never get a jagged mod for any weapon. Stuff like that - I'm sure its the same for the other team members too.

I'm kinda worried about that too!

Now the running joke in my campaign is that the players never get any loot, and its true that I don't hand out magical stuff that often. But I make sure that each PC has the sort of kit that the player wants them to have. After all, what do I gain by not giving them? (answer: unhappy players)

A player thinking that they can't become a Daggermaster Paragon Class because they can't get any daggers is outrageously wrong on practically every level.

I think everyone playing your game needs to sit down together and have a little chat about exactly what they all expect from the game. I don't really like telling people what to do but in this case I can only say that the DM needs to made to understand that his world actually revolves around his players (PCs) and not him (plot and NPCs).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Agreed with Mesh Hong. Moreover, all that is fairly well laid out in the DMG and DMGII, so tell the DM to just read those books. It's about the PCs, not the NPCs.

 

[Starfox]

Sounds like the goal is/was not: "Kill the attackers"

so much as: "Buy Time" for the ritual casters

And that would be the key.

This is a situation that is pretty hard to set up in a game. If the DM had thrown less at you, you might just have concluded that it would be easier to kill them all and resolve the portal in peace. This way, he got the center of the action where he wanted it - disrupting the ritual in the midst of a hectic fight.

Seems he succeeded very well indeed. Congratulations!

 

[eamon]

+1 for Mesh Hong - serious great post!

 

[Hjorimir]

I put these kinds of encounters in my adventures all of the time, but my players know that not all encounters are designed with the PCs victory in mind. Sometimes, I even design encounters that are designed to encourage the PCs to run for their lives.

I think when encounters fall too neatly into the accepted level range of the characters that a campaign starts to feel stale.