D&D General GM : Spellcaster Arms Race

[Mannahnin]

I think a number of folks have missed the apparently bad-faith/unfair part of Manbearcat's 1.

Preemptively using unestablished backstory or unilateral access to the offscreen

He's talking about filling in details or creating countermeasures which WEREN'T previously established as part of the worldbuilding or adventure design.

 

[prabe]

I think a number of folks have missed the apparently bad-faith/unfair part of Manbearcat's 1.

Preemptively using unestablished backstory or unilateral access to the offscreen

He's talking about filling in details or creating countermeasures which WEREN'T previously established as part of the worldbuilding or adventure design.

I interpreted @Manbearcat to be speaking at least mostly about doing so in the design stage. While it might not be something the PCs have encountered or had any opportunity to know heretofore, it's not contradicting anything they have.

I don't think he's saying mid-to-high-level spellcasters in D&D require bad-faith DMing. His experience might lead him to think so, but from prior conversations I expect him to recognize that his experience isn't everyone's.

 

[D1Tremere]

My simple answer to the TCs question is, as often as is needed to keep the game fun for the players.
The rules are there to provide a sense of stability, the physics if you will, of the game world. Like the real world they need to trust that in general they can run or jump and so forth as expected. They also know that, like the real world, either their knowledge of the physics may be subtly incorrect or the physics themselves may not work as expected under some circumstances. This is a case of specific beats general. As a DM/GM I don't want to break the physics (fudging dice rolls, creating events on the fly, etc.) to the point where the players lose immersion or stop having fun. I also do not want the players to feel unchallenged when facing adversity. That means I try very hard to know my players, the scenes they will be in for the session, and how best to modify them if needed to maintain both immersion, or player buy in if you will, and a sense of excitement from dangerous adversities. It really is a balancing act as opposed to a formula.
I also have no qualms about adjusting scenes as needed. If I need to fudge a roll, add or remove elements in some way, etc., I will. The caveats to this are that such measures need to be in service to making the game as fun as possible for my players, which is my primary goal when running.
Example: One of my players made the unexpected move of jumping from a ship with an assassin's target while the other players engaged the assassin. Next game I will be using tentacles from the Kraken mini by Wizkids to attack him and the target in the water. The monster that the tentacles belong to is deep in an underwater cave that the PC will not likely be able to access, leaving just the tentacles with HP/attacks/abilities that I choose to be useful for the scene to keep this player engaged and add more tension to the scene.
Obviously this is just my position. There is no right or wrong way to play or DM.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I suppose this falls under (1), but I've found you can't just approach high levels from a "things are larger and hit harder" standpoint. You need more things that fly, do ranged attacks, cast spells, etc. I also largely avoid solo monsters and give them at least a couple minions.

 

[ART!]

I don't think I've ever intentionally countered a spellcaster PC in my adventure design or prep-work. If I'm running a pre-made adventure and it includes things like that, I won't remove them unless they seem nonsensical to me.

I guess I just tend to counter with equally powerful opponents or hordes of less powerful ones, and let the chips fall where they may. Really I'm just after a good time for me and my players, and they're a good-natured lot, so "fun" can be wasting enemies with ease sometimes and other times losing a party member to a powerful threat.

 

[Lanefan]

I think a number of folks have missed the apparently bad-faith/unfair part of Manbearcat's 1.

Preemptively using unestablished backstory or unilateral access to the offscreen

He's talking about filling in details or creating countermeasures which WEREN'T previously established as part of the worldbuilding or adventure design.

A bit of clarification on @Manbearcat 's part might help here:

In this clause in the OP are you referring to backstory established in the design phase and consistently applied through the campaign (which nobody seems to have an issue with) or are you referring to backstory being changed on the fly in reaction to what the PC casters can do and-or are doing (which would be bad form)?

 

[darkbard]

Obviously this is just my position. There is no right or wrong way to play or DM.

I'm quoting you specifically on this but my response is really to the general, oft presented point (which I agree with!). Whatever a group enjoys is good system/approach.

There is no right or wrong way to GM, but there are agendas/principles embedded within every game (articulated or no). Different systems support fluidly or fight against different agendas/principles. In a different sense than you mean it above, using a system at odds with the group's desiderata is GMing the game wrong. Can a deft GM and a group with limited experience of other RPG systems pull it off? Probably, to a limited sense. But it will probably lead to a less satisfying game than one that matches system mechanics/agendas/principles to desired outcomes.

EDIT: There are currently two active threads about the relative importance of system in the General forum that dovetail with this conversation. I don't think it's a coincidence that some systems encourage different approaches to prep or adjudication to account for any disparity between magicusers and other classes.

 

[Quartz]

How often per session or how often per spell deployment are you countering spellcaster PCs via any of the below:

I came in for considerable opprobrium here for liberal use of Disjunction in 3E.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I think a number of folks have missed the apparently bad-faith/unfair part of Manbearcat's 1.

Preemptively using unestablished backstory or unilateral access to the offscreen

He's talking about filling in details or creating countermeasures which WEREN'T previously established as part of the worldbuilding or adventure design.

I don't think the OP was arguing in bad faith. It isn't changing something that the players know of (retroactively changing an established fact). It is changing something pre-emptively (during adventure design, before the party encounter it) that didn't exist or wasn't known before (unestablished).
- So basically writing the adventure.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

The thing is, the only time I've ever had to employ those tactics is whenever a player decides to roll a character that is heavily optimized or min/maxed, and honestly even then I often find the martial characters to be the more frustrating if optimized. At least the archmage can counter a spellcaster's spell, they can't do a damn thing about a sharpshooting archery fighting style crossbow expert ranger that deals literally half their damned health every round. The shield spell only helps so much.

I do have one caveat though: I have nerfed dispel magic in my game to only remove ONE magical effect of the player's choice when cast. Removing them all is incredibly dumb and it is ridiculous a single 3rd level spell can basically instantly trivialize any spellcasting monster.