Dagger75 said:
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.
The player made a mistake, noticed it, and admitted to it. So why is this a big problem? We all make mistakes from time to time - myself included.
(Besides, unless the PCs are currently level 19+, which they apparently aren't, you obviously didn't know that Hierophants don't gain spellcasting, either; otherwise, you should have noticed that the character in question had gained the ability to cast spells
of the next spell level, as clerics - among other classes - do every 2 levels. Pretty hard to miss, that, if one knows that a class doesn't advance in spellcasting ability.
And if you didn't know or notice this, how can you blame the player for making the same mistake?)
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.
Is this player too lazy to write his character's powers on his character sheet?!
Or is another character that he often plays (or used to play) a druid of a higher level?
'cause otherwise, I can't see anybody making this mistake unintentionally.
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.
Well, he admitted the mistake and (apparently) corrected it thereafter.
Still, if such mistakes (whether they
really are mistakes or not
) occur regularly, I'd advise you to keep track of the math-challenged player's (or players') xp yourself; nothing else will solve the problem...
Player: They also cost more than what you told me.
Me: Whimpers-- Why Me??
This is the player's fault
how?
He even pointed it out to you, too, so what's the matter with it?
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.
That's a bit more problematic, but not
too hard to solve: Write a "DM cheat sheet" to keep track of the players' save bonuses, attack bonuses, hit points, init bonuses, and similar things.
Then, watch the die rolls and whenever a die roll is
obviously too low, do the calculation to find out whether the player is in error. Still if this becomes a habit, you'll need to take some more drastic measures. My suggestion: Since the player in question "obviously desires"
a less random game, give him one: Instead of rolling d20, he thereafter gets an automatic 10 for
every d20 roll (or, to make it at least a bit random, have him roll, say, 1d3+8 instead of 1d20).
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.
ROFL!
Sounds good to me.
Oh well. Just my small little rant.
I hope it helped ya to vent a little.
Any other stories out there?
Well, I tend to use my computer to roll ability scores nowadays; it's not that my players cheat
per se, but a few of them tend to treat dice that bump into something differently depending on whether these dice rolled high or low.
