Favored enemies, Sneak Attacks and DM's

[marshaldwm]

Well, I gotta side with you on that. Any rnager who takes plant as a favored enemy probably should not hold his breath waiting to encoutner one in my games. I cannot remember the last time I used one, except some phantom funguses in my curent PBEM. Love those things.

But man, refusing to tell you? What an attitude! If he wants to sue the ability ask you want is a dirt-common enemy in the area(any ranger should know that) and take that as his enemy. If he doesn't see one after that, themn maybe he has some justification for such a point of view.

But now? No way!

DWM

 

[Arnwyn]

Any of you other DM's get accused of not putting in the rangers favored enemies or making the party fight undead a lot as soon as the rogue gets +4d6 sneak attack?

Never. Of course, I have reasonable players.

I suppose I have made it pretty clear to my (very) long-term players of how I design and handle encounters. In short, encounters simply "are". It is absolutely irrelevant on the classes and abilities of the PCs. It is far more dependent on climate, terrain, and world location (for example).

Since my players (generally) know how the campaign world works, they have never accused me of any unfairness.

 

[Hackenslash]

100% in agreement.....

Am I the only one who finds this kind of mentality offensive and insulting? Maybe I'm just overly sensitive, but I hear quips on and off from my players, especially one or two with a good amount of baggage from previous campaigns with previous DMs, that are similar to this. Basically, it seems like any time one fellow isn't going at full capacity (due to a monster's abilities).. its time to mutter how the monster is unfun, and shouldn't be encountered. Stuff of that nature... the suggestion a DM is actively trying to make things annoying or dreadful, or overly lethal. It's a real downer after spending a good number of hours with nothing on my mind but "What can I do to make this an interesting / challenging / entertaining evening for the fellas?"

I do agree with this posted statement and have encountered this a lot in my current group, though I do not find it offencive, it can get a little irksome and frustrating. We have a player, whose sole purpose for changing his "Master of Chains" character was because we fought too many large creatures who were too difficult to trip, also he did not like the way his character could not intimidate someone with his high intimidate score, so he dropped the character and decided to play a Half Celestial Druid with an Awakened Celestial Dire Lion as a Companion, only to give that up after it was feeble minded and not wait for a cure.

He then played a Minotaur Frenzied Beserker, which was a very effective melee combatant but was too unpredictable for the party and caused Havoc when he ran out of enemies to kill. That character was killed in combat so now he is playing a Ranger/Shadow Dancer, who decided to opt for a more melee approach to combat, only to sulk when we came up against 2 Blue Dragons, who quite naturally decided to hit us from the air with hit and run Breath Weapon attacks and snatch attacks. This particular person was quite miserable for the next 2 weeks as the encounter lasted a while and did make disparageing comments about feeling left out because he could not fly and could not shoot a bow properly (meaning he did not get the best bonuses to do so) and wanted the DM to "land" the Dragons so that he could get to grips with them properly. In the end he discovered that his Celestial armor did allow him to fly and he could also use his Shadow Jump ability to get on top of one of the Dragons, but then complained when the Dragon was taken out by a Polar Ray spell from the wizard. He claimed that the DM had designed the encounter without his character in mind and that he was effectively useless.

Now, bearing in mind the player had ample opportunity to create any character he wanted with no restrictions at all as it was effectively a 15th level character and had a lot of treasure to buy. Any number of magic items could have helped, plus he actually had an item that let him fly but did not read up on it so did not know it did allow flying ability.

At the end of the day this illustrates the point perfectly, that players can and often do "Blame" their DM's when the situation does not suit their characters abilities or becomes too challenging and they have to think too much. I am far from a perfect player but I do try to cut my DM some slack and not winge too much when things don't go my way or I find my character in a situation where I can not get the most benefit form my abilites.

Face it guys and gals you are not always gonna have the best case scenario and your abilites may not always seem to fit the scenario, but isn't that what DnD is supposed to be about. Overcomeing seemingly difficult or immpossible scenarios with the abilites you do have, even if you have to use them in different and unusual ways. This was not a rant but it did touch a nerve after some very recent gaming sessions with our group and I think that our players should read this thread and digest and assimulate and maybe we can have better adventures without witch hunting the DM. Just my 2 cents...Cheers All

[Edit] with spaces to make it easier to read.

 

[Aaron L]

Beware the deadly tree hunter.

 

[D'karr]

Re: 100% in agreement.....

Snipped - ENORMOUS PARAGRAPH

Take a breath between sentences man...

 

[blackshirt5]

My players have said that since they critted and killed what was supposed to be a recurring villain in one shot, that I throw a lot of undead at them; I didn't notice it or do it purposely.

 

[Cybern]

As a part-time DM, I have sometimes been accused of tailoring my encounters too much against (as the plant killer guy story) or even FOR the players (cleric VS undead, that kind of thing).

In fact, I do these things knowingly, but now I'm better at hiding this fact in my stories, so the players won't get a sense of over/under fairness.

For the rogue/undead problem, I had a rogue once find an Undead Bane Rapier... and I described hoe each undead he killed died in detail, and that player NEVER complained.

Plants, geez, have I ever put one in my games ... If I have then I don't remember.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Am I the only one who finds this kind of mentality offensive and insulting?

I've encountered such a mentality from many DMs and I've been guilty of it myself in my distant past. Thankfully, I'm with a really good group now, but in my college days I'd figure out what kind of monster I didn't want to face and make that my favored enemy.

I think its important to explain to the player that there are over a dozen different monster types. Given that you're "supposed" to level once every 14 encounters, you're only talking about ~20 - 25 encounters during the course of an entire campaign that meets the specified type.

But yeah. Toss in some undead treants or something. Maybe skeletons that are animated by some kind of creepy vine. Whatever. If you had a fighter with spiked chain as a weapon you'd toss in a couple of spiked chains in as treasure now and again. No harm in upping the plant quota. In the "alphabetical order" thread some guy put in stats for a violent fungus with the fiendish template thrown on. That'd be a nice encounter for when the party was traveling.

 

[Nifft]

But yeah. Toss in some undead treants or something. Maybe skeletons that are animated by some kind of creepy vine.

I knew there was a use for the Yellow Musk Creeper!

-- Nifft

 

[frankthedm]

For some things like favored enemy, knowleges, languages, extra turning , players and dms should talk over what might not be good choices. Sometimes there can be important in-game reasons not to make certain choices.

An empire may have succsessfully purged orcs from the lands.

Undead may be getting gated out to help a certain demon lord somewhere else.

some creatures are not common in the land making a language choice less than optimum.