Kinda changing rules without telling players.

[JacktheRabbit]

Ok, at last nights session I changed a rule without telling the party.

Basically I decided to go with the new DR rule as we have heard it explained for some were-creatures. So now the DR is only avoided by using a silver weapon. I reduced the overal DR of the creature from 15 down to 10 so I feel it is balanced.

Now I had at least one player who was kind of whining to me when they were attacking the were-rats. When they attacked and hit he would continually remind me that the weapon in question had magic weapon cast on it.

This was starting to get on my nerves for one basic reason. The characters playing last night were using brand new 2nd level characters. None of them in their history had ever seen a were-creature and two of them through very good skill rolls had heard legends that silver could hurt were-creatures. By the standard 3E rules of course any magic weapon will also negate DR. But these are brand new characters none of the CHARACTERS should have a clue about this effect . So the player in question was completely using META knowledge over and over again when he was "reminding" me that the character in question was using a weapon with Magic Weapon cast on it.


So was I being unfair? Sure I changed a rule without telling the party. But the rule I changed is one that their characters in question would know NOTHING about at all. The only confusion on their part would be due to META knowledge that they should not be using. Basically shame on the cleric for casting Magic Weapon if he did it knowing it would automatically defeat the DR and shame on the other player for continually reminding me of something that his character wouldn't have a clue about.

Opinions?

 

[Murrdox]

You're the DM. What you say goes.

I would say you were being unfair if the characters had faced OTHER were-creatures before, and hurt them with magical weapons.

Otherwise, your players should never "complain" because you're changing the stat block on a creature. Just to keep the playing field level, you could have told them ahead of time that you were going to try using some of the new DR rules, but not tell them what it was... a PC should rarely have full knowledge of a creature's stat block.


Interestingly enough, I am in a very similar position.


The PC's in my party are coming to the end of the dungeon they are currently in. The dungeon has a Kyton as the BBEG. Per the monster manual, a Kyton has a DR of 15/+2. I thought that my players would have +2 weapons by now, but they decided against buying them. I know their capabilities, and a 15 DR that they can't defeat, combined with the regeneration of it will make this combat basically unbeatable.

So what I did is take a cue from the new DR types, and the fact that it's been said that just about all DRs are going down. SO, I changed the Kyton's DR to 10/holy silver. Do they have any holy silver weapons? No, but a 10 DR will be beatable... a 15 they would never be able to hurt.

I think your ruling is fine Doc, what do folks think of the adjustments I've made to the Kyton? I took the holy silver idea from the Pit Fiend block that Wizards released.

 

[diaglo]

2nd lvl characters aren't born, they are made.

roll for it.

if they don't know, they don't know. but if they have the knowledge skills, well, let them know you changed the rules.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

2nd lvl characters aren't born, they are made.

roll for it.

if they don't know, they don't know. but if they have the knowledge skills, well, let them know you changed the rules.

The closest they can was two characters with Wilderness Lore. No one else had ranks in any knowledge skill that would help them.

So I was generous and allowed them a Wild. Lore roll with a DC of 20 to know anything about lycanthropes.

Both of them happened to roll well and beat it so I gave them some legends they had heard around the campfire about man-creatures that could be harmed by silver.

 

[Benben]

So was I being unfair? Sure I changed a rule without telling the party.Opinions?

100% Fair. As a DM it's your perogative to make new and interesting encounters. If this involves special wererats that seem invulverable to standard materials then good for you. They will have to work to figure out what they can use to harm their new enemies.

It's immaterial that you're using the rules for 3.5, you could just have easily made this a special wererat breed harmed only by obsidian weapons.

Now regarding the rule changes for 3.5. I'm not going to convert until my current campaign has completed its final story arc, which should be late May or early June if things go well. It's just going to be too difficult to integrate the possible campaign changes.

 

[diaglo]

the rules that the Players and therefore their characters should know, skills aside, are in the PHB. if they succeed at the DC, like you said, then the mechanic they might not know, but the intent like you gave them.

i think you did fine.

the only way for them to learn is thru actual roll/roleplay.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

You're the DM. What you say goes.

I would say you were being unfair if the characters had faced OTHER were-creatures before, and hurt them with magical weapons.

Otherwise, your players should never "complain" because you're changing the stat block on a creature. Just to keep the playing field level, you could have told them ahead of time that you were going to try using some of the new DR rules, but not tell them what it was... a PC should rarely have full knowledge of a creature's stat block.


Interestingly enough, I am in a very similar position.


The PC's in my party are coming to the end of the dungeon they are currently in. The dungeon has a Kyton as the BBEG. Per the monster manual, a Kyton has a DR of 15/+2. I thought that my players would have +2 weapons by now, but they decided against buying them. I know their capabilities, and a 15 DR that they can't defeat, combined with the regeneration of it will make this combat basically unbeatable.

So what I did is take a cue from the new DR types, and the fact that it's been said that just about all DRs are going down. SO, I changed the Kyton's DR to 10/holy silver. Do they have any holy silver weapons? No, but a 10 DR will be beatable... a 15 they would never be able to hurt.

I think your ruling is fine Doc, what do folks think of the adjustments I've made to the Kyton? I took the holy silver idea from the Pit Fiend block that Wizards released.

I thought about telling the players but decided against it. Why tell them? Their characters would have no idea. I would merely be updating the players meta-knowledge that they shouldn't be using anyways.

I see nothing wrong with the DR you chose. At the level they are at they should easily be doing more than 10 points of damage per hit. Depending on level you may run into the same problem I did. Someone may cast a Greater Magic Weapon spell and be upset when it doesnt rip through that DR.

 

[mmu1]

I actually think you should tell them that you made this change.

Why? Because while, presumably, their characters shouldn't know what a lycanthrope's DR is, the caster using the spell does know what Magic Weapon does - it makes the weapon easier to use, makes it inflict more damage, and it helps while fighting creatures that are only affected by unusual or magical weapons. If that's no longer how Magic Weapon works in your game, then the character ought to know about it, or at the very least get a fairly easy Spellcraft roll to have a chance of figuring it out.

 

[Mordane76]

I don't think what you did was unfair, but the general way you went about it is wrong.


If you're changing the rules, the players have a right to know before they go in. Just because players know something doesn't mean their characters know it. If they use obvious player knowledge in-game, then it's meta-game thinking and you should whack the XP reward accordingly (if you decide to give XP for that encounter at all after the meta-gaming).

I'm working on some major rewrites to my homebrew, and I've told all my players that the changes will cause major changes to the basic functioning of some things (especially XP, treasure, magic, and magic-users). I haven't told them the specifics yet, because those aren't completed, but when they are, I'll tell them upfront what I've changed before we start gaming.


Even as GMs, we aren't the end-all, be-all of game. If the players aren't happy, or feel cheated or lied to, they might not come back, and then there is no game.

As for the player who kept reminding you that his weapon had an MW cast on it, obviously this player expected that things work the same way as they normally would... because these are were-rats, they have DR X/silver, which is less than X/+1 weapons.

If he'd said it once, I might have let it slide. Except he kept repeating himself, expecting a different result (which, interestingly, is a definition of insanity -- committing the same action over and over and expecting different results). This is obviously meta-game thinking, and should be treated accordingly. Pull him aside, explain it to him, tell him how things aren't always what they say on Page X in the MM, and then hand him a nice little XP penalty for that encounter. Explain it to the party as well, but don't use the player in question as a direct example.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

The Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon spell say that they add a bonus to hit and damage for that weapon.

They say nothing at all about defeating DR in any way shape or form.

You are making an assumption about the spell based on meta knowledge from using the spell. That knowledge is fine in the mind of a 10th level character that fights demons on a regular basis. It is not fine in the mind of a 2nd level character that has never fought anything tougher than a kobold before.

Magic weapon gives a weapon a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls. If the character is a good cleric, the cleric
of a good deity, or a paladin, the weapon is considered blessed, which means it has special effects on certain creatures.