I am part of the most incompetent adventuring group.

[reveal]

"We are the group the bad guys level up on."

Now that's funny!!!

There's a cartoon in the newest Nodwick compilation book that has a guy running into a bar and yelling "Everyone hide! There's a group of adventurers coming who only need 5 experience points to level up!"

 

[Xath]

Trust me - there are groups even less competent than yours. *shakes head* Trust me.

...hey.......

 

[Saeviomagy]

To morpheus, derelictjay and anyone else who thinks that sidequests are a good thing, and the DM isn't out to get them...

Tell me what it is that is so great about a guy who already defeated you ruining your stakeout.

Tell me how the guy is supposed to have found them while they're on stakeout, and why he chose that particular moment to jump them.

Tell me why the DM should ruin your plan that will get you information, only to have to hand you the info for free later on for fear that the adventure will be a wash otherwise.

I think the players would be a lot happier with themselves and the adventure if the DM had let the stakeout proceed, then jumped the PC's AFTER they found their clues.

The big thing here is - once the badguy has started his attack, that's it - stakeout ruined. There isn't a way that they could salvage it. And that really sucks.

 

[reveal]

For those of you posting spoilers, please use the spoiler tags. I was going to show this to my group to make them feel better, but I may run them through the adventure described above and don't want them to read it now.

 

[Dagger75]

I have to clean soda off my monitor now.

If you don't mind I'm going to quote this in my sig.

Go ahead and steal the sig

And for tactics, I don't know what going on. We have like 30+ years of combined gaming experience between us.

What really is strange is the dice fail us more often than not. And not just for one person but for all of us. If it invovles more than one check there is a gaurenteed failure. I kid you not. We will not climb anything over 10 feet tall for fear of falling. Morph gives us ample checks with skills with "Pity" DC's of like 10. We roll 1s and 4s. Everybody does. Except the DM, he crits with everything. 4 goblins with javlins, 3 hits, 2 of them are crits. We are critted by every monster we fight. He rolls in front of us so it isn't fudging the dice.

The priest needs to make a DC 10 religion check giving a sermon for his church, DC 10 remember. Now with like a +4 total with ranks and Int HE HAS NEVER MADE IT IN THE SIX TIMES WE PLAYED. He has actually rolled worse each time we play.

The Dragon Marked looking for a favor. +4 to Cha, no Diplomacy, he is some sort of hybrid battle sorcerer from one of those books. He can't get a 10 or better on any sort of check.

My Warforged Barbarian/Fighter +7 to hit, I can't hit the broad side of a barn. I don't hit very often.

 

[Dagger75]

To morpheus, derelictjay and anyone else who thinks that sidequests are a good thing, and the DM isn't out to get them...

Tell me what it is that is so great about a guy who already defeated you ruining your stakeout.

Tell me how the guy is supposed to have found them while they're on stakeout, and why he chose that particular moment to jump them.

Tell me why the DM should ruin your plan that will get you information, only to have to hand you the info for free later on for fear that the adventure will be a wash otherwise.

I think the players would be a lot happier with themselves and the adventure if the DM had let the stakeout proceed, then jumped the PC's AFTER they found their clues.

The big thing here is - once the badguy has started his attack, that's it - stakeout ruined. There isn't a way that they could salvage it. And that really sucks.

The thing is the Guy didn't ruin our stakeout. We literly sat at the table for 2 hours thinking of ways to get into the party. The gnomes got a small posse together and told us we have to get moving. I mean 2 warforged, a priest and wizard standing in front of a house for a couple of hours will draw suspicion. We just went to inn to kill some time waiting for the party to be over. Then the ambush happened. We actually beat the 4 goblins down, they did crit me and it took like 6 rounds for our party to defeat them.

 

[Warrior Poet]

This is one of the funniest threads I've seen in a long time. Thanks, Dagger75!

Hang in there I've been in plenty of groups where things seemed to constantly go wrong. A friend and I once spent an hour trying to get into a door on a space ship in an old WEG d6 Star Wars game. Couple of battle-hardened rebel alliance special forces warriors with combat skills to make the Empire flinch, and we couldn't open A DOOR. We got schooled in plenty of fights along the way, too. Good times

There's an old saying in military circles: No plan survives first contact with the enemy. This is probably one of those immutable laws of the universe. So don't sweat it (too much) when a plan doesn't work out like you hoped.

It can be tough sometimes, too, when a DM has access to your information (you declare a plan of action) AND the enemy's information. I'm not accusing Morpheus of meta-gaming on his side of the screen, but sometimes the DM can see all (or most) of the angles when the players can't.

My group (we've gamed together for more or less 9 years now) actually plans with such ruthless efficiency that it would put the Borg to shame. They make sure when characters are created that most of the bases are covered . . . My PCs clear dungeons with mathematical precision. They use the Law of Square Maps to figure out the likely size of internal spaces. They also run detect secret doors spells and wave elves and dwarves past all surfaces to make sure they find all of the doors/hidden compartments/unnatural constructions.

Do they get . . . bored, at all? Sounds kinda . . . lackluster, stagnant . . . Do you get bored with that kind of rinse-and-repeat approach?

I ran a Dark Sun game for them years ago where in one adventure they realized the highest value treasure in the adventure was the steel front doors to the ancient keep. They launched a diversionary attack and then removed the front doors and then pulled the ancient nails up from the rotting floors inside the main door and fled with them too. They then checked back every few days to see when their enemies had relaxed their guard before they came back for the dungeon itself.

Now that's pretty cool! Good story point, development, planning, and a nice twist on the old raid-the-dungeon scenario.

Warrior Poet

 

[Warrior Poet]

What really is strange is the dice fail us more often than not . . . The priest needs to make a DC 10 religion check giving a sermon for his church, DC 10 remember. Now with like a +4 total with ranks and Int HE HAS NEVER MADE IT IN THE SIX TIMES WE PLAYED. He has actually rolled worse each time we play.

Ouch.

Maybe time for new dice. I know that, in terms of physics, that doesn't mean anything, but psychologically it might just feel better.

Warrior Poet

 

[shilsen]

The priest needs to make a DC 10 religion check giving a sermon for his church, DC 10 remember. Now with like a +4 total with ranks and Int HE HAS NEVER MADE IT IN THE SIX TIMES WE PLAYED. He has actually rolled worse each time we play.

The Dragon Marked looking for a favor. +4 to Cha, no Diplomacy, he is some sort of hybrid battle sorcerer from one of those books. He can't get a 10 or better on any sort of check.

Sounds like the Take 10 rule was made for just your kind of luck.

 

[Parlan]

Nah, what they need to do is buy about 10 D20s and a hammer.

First, set the tone: pound your old d20to smithereens while you make the other watch.

Second, roll one of your new dice. Anything less than a 10 gets wasted. Repeat as needed.

Third, once you have a decent die, remind it (and the other d20s who are certainly listening) that you will only suffer it to live so long as it respects the laws of averages. Make sure to pound the crap out of it if it forgets.


Fourth and most importantly, compliment the d20 every time it gives you a high roll. Say it loudly enough so the others can hear. That way they'll get "crit threat envy" and want to roll high too.

You have to cultivate your relationship with your dice, positive and negative feedback.