Holy Schmolly do my players cheat something fierce...

[Dagger75]

WOW I can't believe what happened last night.


First: 16th level Cleric Direct quote "Oh I changed 2 of my levels around. I didn't realized Heirophant don't get spellcasting levels so I changed my class."

WHAT!!!!! You have the darn Forgotten Realm Book in front of you, you neglecticated to read it for 2 freaking levels.

Second: 15th Level Druid: "I am going to turn into an Air Elemental and fly through the tunnel"

Ummm you can't do that till 16th level. That is the second time he has used a special ability that was 1 level to high.

Also making magic items: I am pretty generous with the party making magic items, escpecially now that they are almost epic. As you can see I don't micromanage there characters.
Player: Well I forgot to take off the EXP cost for the magic items I created.
Me: Arggghh.
Player: They also cost more than what you told me.
Me: Whimpers-- Why Me??

Next: (I love the Book of Vile Darkeness) Cast Gut Wrench on the cleric. I munchkined out the Lich a little, DC 29 save or die. Player rolls the dice, Rolls a 2 without batting an eye says "I made it." Now the rest of my party all looked at the player and a collective "What!?!?!" was heard. He did fail his save and died.

So at the end of the night the Druid and the Cleric get there XP and the Fighter got a bonus 3000 NON CHEATING BONUS to his xp.

Oh well. Just my small little rant. Any other stories out there?

*Edit- One of those sentences made no sense to me and I wrote it *EdiT*

 

[La Bete]

One of my (formerly) companion players pulled this stunt-

"ok, I draw the howlers away from from the doomed party members, and then because I can move faster than them (dont ask) and I have trackless step, I can lure them off, and then leave no track"

Good plan. Except when he admitted the next day that he was 1 level too low to have trackless step.....

Whats truly outrageous, is that he dmanded bonus xp from the DM for saving the other party members AFTER he had admitted cheating!! (of course it was an 'error', not 'cheating')

bleagh

 

[Ravellion]

I don't think my players cheat, but they are very sloppy XP bean counters. I now do that bean counting for them. Also saves me from the "Two more Orcs and I'm level up" syndrome.

They might cheat on initiative though, one player said that happened all the time. Now I use initbrowse on a laptop, so that is no longer an issue.

I always look at saves.

Rav

 

[Creamsteak]

What about the guy that told me the grease spell description in 3e said that it was literally flamable grease that caused fire damage! I didn't feel like looking it up, so I let it go... next thing you know I have a tribe of 1/10th CR Mai-Mai Skuupers in a flaming greesy pit...

The tribe of: 20,000 members +...

Their plan was literally retarded, but they did manage to bait the whole tribe into the pit (with 20,000 + gold pieces) and I let them burn the tribe down. I also let them go up to level 8 or whatever it was that they would go up to for all those kills... and THEN I TPKd the group. I had to do it... it was the worst group I EVER played with... and I wanted OUT!

 

[Shadeus]

Back in 2nd-edition, we had a player who would always fudge his attack rolls. Every time. He never seemed to miss!

The DM realized it and gave all of his foes a +4 to hit him. It finally got so bad the DM did all the rolling. It was like that for 8 years until 3rd-edition came out and I begged our DM to let us roll SOMETHING!

Fortunately, he doesn't cheat anymore (I still play with him 1/month).

 

[Arnwyn]

Gah!

Holy mother of pete... you, sir, are a far better and more patient man than I.

I am very intolerant of that kind of garbage, and could definitely be considered a nazi in that regard - if I managed to catch anything like that going on (especially your cleric and druid fiasco)... well, that player's character is dead. Permanently. Roll up a new one. (I have made this very clear to all my players beforehand.)

Of course, I try to proactively avoid any such possibilities of, um..., "errors". I am aware of their save bonuses and attack bonuses. All initiative rolls are to be made on the table, and you may *not* snatch the dice away. Try that trick, and you're rolling again. Same with attack rolls and saving throws - on the table, on your turn only, in front of me. I also track all XP. Finally, I do occasional "random sampling" of PC hit points, etc. throughout the session (ie. quickly ask a player). They never know when and/or if they will be queried, so they keep honest.

This has helped tremendously. So far, the worst I've ever seen is one guy who normally plays spellcasters, and then plays a fighter who always moves his full movement and makes multiple attacks. But that's not because he's cheating, it's because he's an idiot.

Oh, and announcing saving throws was bad for a while until I nipped that in the bud. They would roll their save, and announce "I made it" (I never tell them the DCs). I would promptly tell them "no, actually you didn't". After this happened a few times, they learned to announce the numbers instead.

Sometimes it pays to be a semi-nazi DM, as long as you're up front with the players beforehand (and they're your buddies)!

 

[Drawmack]

player: I'm changing my levels.
me: okay you can take commoner instead for all your levels.
player: That's not what I ment.
me: that's what you got it was the result of an alter identity spell.
player: That's not a real spell.
me: it is now and you're also a female dwarf.
player: That's not fair.
me: with one leg.
player: Okay never mind.
me: that's whay I thought.

player: I'm going to use x ability
me: you can't use x ability for y levels
player: oh I looked at it wrong.
me: that's your second miss look one more and your character undergoes fate of the gods.
player: I'll make note of that.

(Fate of the Gods is me rolling on a table that contains 100 entries. 10 of those entries are good things. The other 90 entries are things like your chest explodes, you become a pixie, you're nor an expert sailmaker)

If a player does not announce their number to me it becomes a natural one. If a player snatches their die up before I see it they loose what every the roll was for they loose.

 

[drnuncheon]

At my FLGS they sell dice that are about 2 inches across. Since my current group doesn't cheat, I haven't had occasion to buy a set, but I've always said that if I saw the "toss-and-snatch" or caught anyone misreading a die, that I'd buy one and make everyone use it.

J
tempted to buy a giant d20 as the "crit die" anyway

 

[Drawmack]

tempted to buy a giant d20 as the "crit die" anyway [/B]

Now that would be cool. I'd like a d20 that is about 5 inches in diameter for the crit die. Even better if it weights about 3 pounds so it really makes an impression.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Oh! I LIKE the crit die!

My "favorite" cheater was a guy who commonly boasted that he never cheated .... and then confided to me that he sometimes fudges the rolls to do things he felt his character should be able to succeed at. I asked him why he did this. He said, "it's roleplaying."


Gaaaaaaaa!