I need feedback from experienced DM's

[JDragon]

Well, I just found this thread so I gotta throw the basics down before I throw my 2 cents in.

I'm a player/DM with 15+ years of experience, over 4 editions of D&D. I reugularly run games at the local convention and have done several campaigns of varying lengths and will be starting to run RTTTOEE on Thursday.

From what I've seen and read RTTTOEE is easily in the top ten for most difficult D&D adventures. Along with Tomb of Horrors/ Lab. of Madness / Paladin in Hell / orig TOEE etc.

As far as a DM's right to ban spells/ adjust magical items etc, Thulsa is correct, he has rule 0 in his corner. I don't think its unreasonable for the players to be told why these things are being done, as it is their game too. I myself would not play in such a game unless there were MAJOR campaign/world events explaining these.

I've read alot of info here and on Monte's board regarding RTTTOEE and 22 deaths is really high for the whole campaign not to mention only half of it. As most here, the reason behind this level of deaths is of interest to me.

Realy what this all comes down to is prefrence of playing style, and from what I'm hearing the player and DM are on diffrent pages and need to come to some kinda of amicable agreement or start playing board games where all the rules are spelled out clearly.

I myself would have walked away along time ago. (just my opinion based on what I have read here, which i know is not the full story with very little knowedge about the sources of information other than what they have said about themselves or each other. )

JDragon

 

[nharwell]

I've been running Return... for almost a year now, and it is one of the most difficult adventures I've ever seen -- not as bad as Tomb of Horrors, but exceptionally hard, none-the-less. Regardless of whatever "extenuating circumstances" there may be, I know that if I were a player in Thulsa's game, I would have left by now simply because of the lower-level of magic items (not to mention the banned spells) -- unless he DRASTICALLY reduced the difficulty of the encounters, and apparently he has not done that. The party described has no chance of successfully completing this adventure as it's currently being DM'd. Quit now.

 

[Ormraxes]

Well, we played both yesterday and today, and yesterday went quite well . We killed a bunch of monsters, but since we had used much of our resources, we decided to rest inside the "water temple" in the middle of the volcano. Our session today started with our Rope Trick being dispelled. Since our party consists of only three members, and we were at half strength, we barely managed to defeat our opponents. After this we had very few spells and hps left and we had to drink the few potions we had just found. Our Rope Trick dispelled, we decided to rest in the area surrounding the volcano instead. We didn't get very far before the friendly neighbourhood dragon ambushed us and promptly blasted my friends down to -41 and -30 something. However, this time around Thulsa has decided to use the full PC gear table (although he made it clear this was because of our group's internal discussion, not the internet pressure, hehe). My friends will both start at level 10. It will be interesting to see what happens the next time we play. Thulsa also told me he would try to update the graveyard and post here as soon as he found the time.

 

[Mr Fidgit]

well Ormraxes, i hope things go more smoothly for your group

(with the body count still rising, Thulsa has to post the graveyard!)

 

[Heathen72]

Gaming heaven

It seems to me that this group of players and their GM are made for each other. Particularly in Omraxes case. The players are clearly having fun, despite (because of?) the high potential for player death.
For goodness sake people - this is RttToEE - It's the classic dungeon bash - I imagine that for the most part Thulsa is running it in the sprit it was designed. Maybe he is being a bit ruthless, but the players keep coming back for more - and have done so for ten years!! He must be doing something right. Who are we to tell him that he is a "moron?"
In any case, I don't think that it is necessarily a given that a campaign with a low rate of character death is necessarily a better one than one with a high rate. Surely it is a case of horses for courses. (Or is that courses for horses? or both?)
Thulsa, keep up the good work - If you have to be a bit draconian in order to maintain balance in your party, go for it. If a power-orientated-player isn't whingeing about what you aren't letting him have, you aren't doing your job. As the old saying goes - treat em mean, keep em keen.

 

[S'mon]

However, this time around Thulsa has decided to use the full PC gear table (although he made it clear this was because of our group's internal discussion, not the internet pressure, hehe). My friends will both start at level 10.

Hope things work out for you!

 

[Gumby]

Ormraxes, if my DM ran a game like Thulsa is currently doing, I'd walk. In spite of his condescending and bitter remarks towards your "min-maxing," you seem to be merely a good player, with a sound knowledge of how 3E's rules work.

In fact, I'm betting that the origin of his rude and disrespectful comments is the simple fact that you're more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of 3E than him. From what I've seen in yours and his posts, he's completely lost, floundering around, and arbitrarily banning your spells just because you're the only player he hasn't been able to kill off yet.

I've DM'ed RttToEE. I've read Thulsa's little graveyard page. I know exactly what those monsters are that have killed the party's characters, and where they're placed in the module. And I know what levels of characters are meant to be fighting those monsters. Your characters are much too weak to be encountering these monsters. Thulsa is aware of this - the module, through the CR and EL system, explains at the beginning of every encounter, what the power level of the party is meant to be when first going into these encounters. To willfully flout these recommendations, as Thulsa is obviously doing, means that Thulsa, most likely, is mostly interested in killing off all your characters. If he were interested only in figuring out which parts of 3E he likes, and which he believes are too powerful, or which just don't fit into his gaming style, he wouldn't be sending your characters into certain deathtraps, the way he's doing.

He's floundering, Ormraxes. He has no idea whatsoever what he's doing, but he's aware that you're doing it better than he is, so he's going to make up as many obstacles as he can to put in your path, lest you "beat him" in your knowledge of how to run and play a game of Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Walk away from his gaming group. You can still be his friend, though I don't really know why you'd bother, given both his and Kartanikos' unfriendly descriptions of you as a "coward." Just don't game with him.

That being said, if you're a fan of making up throwaway characters, and think nothing of their inevitable deaths, so that they can be put up on a web page that salutes how many PCs Thulsa has meaninglessly killed, stick around, as that's all you're going to get from this gaming group.

 

[Caedrel]

Let's not take sides

Thulsa mentioned something in one of his earlier posts that I thought was very instructive: that they're all using RttToEE to assess 3e as a whole and see what they like and don't like about it.

From that point of view, the players have almost been given carte blanch to get their PCs killed so they can try some other combination and see if that works any different. The players don't have the same attachment to these PCs as they would if they had nurtured them from 1st level, they just interested in seeing what the classes etc are capable of. They don't mind that their players are being killed off, they're treating it as an extended (really extended!) one shot to work out what they really do want to do. And that really does seem to be the point here.

From my point of view, if I were running this adventure, Ormraxes character wouldn't be alive. I mean, the bad guys in RttToEE are smart as well as powerful, and surely they must be getting tired of all these do-gooders showing up on their door step. Sure, they might be dealing with them all pretty handily, but this one wizard keeps on getting away to lead other people back. One of these days, one of these parties might get lucky, or lead another party who is REALLY powerful into the area - they're trying to lie low, for crying out loud! The bad guy would be finding out where the wizard lives and sending out some assassins/summonings/really nasty viruses to TAKE HIM OUT! Hehehehehe

PS. I'm using the DMG wealth levels as my guideline - as has already been pointed out, adventures designed along standard 3e lines does make the assumption that characters of a certain level have access to a certain amount of magic...

 

[Enkhidu]

A ha!

It seems to me that the 3rd Ed CR system as struck again!

Thulsa may actually be using the encounters in RttToEE correctly to challenge an experienced (and this group seems to be so with several years of gaming under their belts) bunch of players, as long as the characters' levels reflected the power level assumed by the CR system that Monte used to create these encounters.

And that's the key. Monte used standard CRs and the assumption of standard power levels when setting up these encounters. And as anyone who has gone through the 3rd Ed changeover has come to find out, those standard CRs are inextricably tied to the wealth that a character is supposed to have in the form of magic and magic itmes.

In my experience, all characters, (especially fighters and fighter types), need magic in order to maintain the power level assumed in the game after about 3rd or 4th level. Wizards are not necessarily as dependent on this, which is one of the reasons that Ormraxes hasn't kicked the bucket yet. But the fact remains that magic is built into the system.

So how do you fix this? Easy.

If you want to give starting characters of higher level less wealth to start with, that's more than fine (in fact, I like it). If you want to ban spells that could be disruptive to the campaign, that's fine too (I certainly advocate it). But remember to think of your player's characters as being a few levels lower than they really are if you do.

Example, A 12th level fighter without any magic (say only yhe 1500 gold you would give him to start) is about the same power level as a fighter of 9th level with all the magic items a character of that level would have in a default D&D game. That's a big difference, and if it holds true across the board (actually, I've seen it be about 2 levels, average), then a 12th level party with little or no magic (regardless of how that came to be) is really more like a level 9 or 10 party.

So, regardless of how they lost magic, or don't start out with magic, etc, don't be afraid to adjust encounters accordingly.

Also, since you are a longtime 2nd Ed DM, I will direct you to a great example of this principle - the 1st Ed module A4 (the end of the Slave Lord's series) has a section that pits characters with no equipment against challenges appropriate to their power level. Because it's 1st Ed, you should be able to exrapolate very easily (1st and 2nd Ed were just not all that different at the core). And, if you'd like, you can find a 3rd Ed conversion of that module in the ENWorld archives to give you an idea of what CR's to throw.

Hope that helps the situation!