Is picking spells to counter the DM's tactics undermining the fun of the game?

[sniffles]

I didn't read every comment thoroughly so I hope I'm not repeating something that has already been said.

My first thought was, it is perfectly reasonable to use whatever spells are in your arsenal to counteract the threats you have been facing. However, if you don't already have those spells in your spellbook and there is no immediate likelihood of obtaining them, then I would think it unfair of you to suddenly start casting them now just because they'd be useful.

It was perceptive of you to recognize that your DM may be reacting to you by suddenly instituting the body part damage house rule. Perhaps you can comment to him - politely - that it will not be much fun for you to play a spellcaster if you are disabled and incapable of casting spells.

I do not think you must be held to your agreement to this house rule; you did not have time to consider the ramifications in mid-game. Dropping a ruling of this magnitude on you in that situation was ill-considered. Even if you agree to continue with this house rule, you may want to gently suggest that your DM announce all house rules in advance from now on.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Thanks everyone for the replies, and sorry for the delay in response.

As far as adversarial gaming goes, the game has gotten more adversarial of late. However, if I start playing adversarially, then the game goes completely adversarially, with no hope of redemption. I think that's what concerns me about going down this path. I'll essentially be challenging him to a drawn out contest of who can stop who while staying inside some nebulous bounds of 'fair play'. That'll remain fun for anyone for about a month.

While playing the game, I tend to avoid pulling out all the stops. I'm the most rules versed player at the table, and also the most tactically minded. I DM, so I know a lot of the monster stats, and even the ones that I don't know, it's easy to guess at their abilities. So it's easy for me to completely dominate a lot of situations. I try not to. I've been a bad player in the past. And I'm working to make sure that I'll be someone people like to game with.

Now, as far as 'breaking that scenario' goes, in the fight, he expected to get into melee range quickly, where each foe had a series of abilities to deal with our strong points (or, in my case, target my weakness). From there it would turn into a fairly drawn out and difficult battle. He was pretty surprized about the terrain control we pulled.

Talking it over with some of the groupmates, the general opinion is that he probably instituted the 'broken arm' issue to avoid killing my character. Personally though, I think I prefer rolling up a new character to sitting around uselessly for the next x sessions.

As far as the DM feeling adversarial, it's more that he's running into effective high-level characters. The archer, fully buffed shoots five 'hits on a 4 or better' arrows per turn. The fighter uses a greatsword and can deadlift 500 lbs, I can completely alter the battlefield to our advantage in a single spell, and the cleric can command any undead we encounter (great for making us even tougher). We are a vicious little group, and he's having trouble 'challenging' us. He can kill us, sure. But every time he offers a 'challenge' we simply annhilate it (this with a fairly low item worth). That's a lot of why these tactics and situations have come up. And, with my DM he will have a reason why this is all happening.

I figure I'll take that shelter spell. Monsters in the middle of the night is more than I'm willing to take. The scrying can wait for a while. Putting pressure on the tactic that has everyone bothered, but leaving the one that allows for drop-ins and more random encounters available seems like a good compromise.

That, and I'm going to mention the 1 handed casting thing. We'll probablly add a contentration check to the spells if something else is needed.

Once again, thanks.

And Nifft, the best way to end an adversarial situation is to give the DM a little satisfaction. We've been joking that the cleric should run up to things the fighter is engaged with, get backhanded, and then go "OH NO!" and run away screaming.

 

[kenc]

As far as the DM feeling adversarial, it's more that he's running into effective high-level characters. The archer, fully buffed shoots five 'hits on a 4 or better' arrows per turn. The fighter uses a greatsword and can deadlift 500 lbs, I can completely alter the battlefield to our advantage in a single spell, and the cleric can command any undead we encounter (great for making us even tougher). We are a vicious little group, and he's having trouble 'challenging' us. He can kill us, sure. But every time he offers a 'challenge' we simply annhilate it (this with a fairly low item worth). That's a lot of why these tactics and situations have come up. And, with my DM he will have a reason why this is all happening.

Point your GM to this site, with a few simple posts the people here will give him more then enough amunition to challange your group complete with advanced tactics

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Thanks everyone for the replies, and sorry for the delay in response.

No worries

As far as the DM feeling adversarial, it's more that he's running into effective high-level characters. ... We are a vicious little group, and he's having trouble 'challenging' us. He can kill us, sure. But every time he offers a 'challenge' we simply annhilate it (this with a fairly low item worth).

Okay I'm a little confused, are you saying that the party has a low quantity of magic items but are an effective high level group? That seems a contradiction in terms.

Possibly is the DM using monsters in an 'orc manner', i.e. see party, close with party, melee party until dead? It may be that your DM has not evolved the enemy tactics during this transition to higher (mid level 7+?) levels. Monsters are monsters and do what they want and are able but classed npcs act just like pcs - and the higher their level the better their tactics (including escape, otherwise logically they can't be higher level).

Perhaps a relevant question is what source books do you use?

 

[WayneLigon]

But maybe it isn't a good idea. The thought recently occurred to me that the whole broken arm thing may have just been a bad reaction to me destroying the fun in his carefully crafted setup. And I can see that. Questioning that made me wonder if blocking out his two (seemingly) favorite tactics for dropping unexpected trouble on us is an even worse idea.

What's good for the goose is always good for the gander. The rules don't work one way for him and another way for y'all.

 

[howandwhy99]

For the record, there's no problem with bringing bags of holding into a rope trick, as far as the rules are concerned.

I think this was a 3.5 rule change from the original. It also doesn't help that the core SRD doesn't list out the differences between non-dimensional, extra-dimensional, and inter-dimensional spaces.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

What's good for the goose is always good for the gander. The rules don't work one way for him and another way for y'all.

Except that when the DM is able to drop house rules in on the fly there is effectively two sets of rules, with the DM trumping all.

 

[Romnipotent]

subscribe your DM this reading list.:
Art of War
thats pretty much it...
and maybe Asterix and Obelix (its just fun)

 

[Psion]

So, yeah. Obviously abusing the house-rule isn't the thing to do. But is finding a counter to the situations that are plaguing us an equally bad idea?

I think the fundamental question of badness is "am I metagaming?"

In your case, it sounds like what a tactically sound thinker would do in that situation. It's justifiable in mileu.

I had a game once where the party had a text to decipher. One player had to make a new character and explicitly took comprehend languages as part of his spellbook because he (not his character) knew that they were facing that challenge in a game. I ruled that one out in a hurry.

 

[billd91]

I think the fundamental question of badness is "am I metagaming?"

In your case, it sounds like what a tactically sound thinker would do in that situation. It's justifiable in mileu.

I had a game once where the party had a text to decipher. One player had to make a new character and explicitly took comprehend languages as part of his spellbook because he (not his character) knew that they were facing that challenge in a game. I ruled that one out in a hurry.

??? You ruled it out? It's a basic utility spell, useful for any number of reasons and hardly a game breaker even if the player knew before hand that it would be useful.
To think of it another way, why would the other PCs recruit someone into the party as a replacement who didn't have comprehend languages as a spell? Seems to me the player could have been well justified to take the spell so that he would provide a good hook for having his PC be worth selecting by the established party. Otherwise, they're stuck bringing someone in who doesn't even meet their immediate needs and that seems kind of odd. If faced with a choice between the PC who doesn't have the spell and an NPC who does, why choose the PC other than because he has that also metagamey "PC aura" about him?

There is a useful point to metagaming from time to time, particularly when it comes to building a character that will be a good fit with the campaign and the needs of the rest of the party.