Lazy DMs doing stupid things

[Pielorinho]

I'm sorry, but is there some reason Dispel Magic will NOT work on a forcecage?

Sadly, yes:

Like a wall of force spell, a forcecage resists dispel magic, but it is vulnerable to a disintegrate spell, and it can be destroyed by a sphere of annihilation or a rod of cancellation.

We lack a disintegrate spell, a sphere of annihilatin, and a rod of cancellation.

(I rolled a natural 20 on my spellcraft check, so the DM said I could look up the spell).

Daniel

 

[gizmo33]

My main problem with this is that I can no longer trust the DM. What is going to keep him from doing this again? When does my warmage become too powerful and have to be nerfed? My main fear is that I will start to use spells that I have every right to use and the DM will be like: "I don't like those spells, they are too powerful, so you can't use them." Hence, my coming here to ask for advice on what to do, outside of quitting.

You have "every right" to use spells? Are you going to force me to reread the Constitution? Hmmm.

My advice is to relax and play the game. There's no sense in worrying about stuff being nerfed when the DM can always just throw 400 fire giants at your PCs and be done with it. ALL of the elements of balance are in the hands of the DM anyway. If he thinks the game would be more challenging without a certain spell or power in the game, you can either play that game or not. I'm sure there are powers in GURPS that aren't in DnD, does that keep you up at night? Maybe look for a new main fear.

 

[Coredump]

To be completly honest, if he had said at the beginning: "No Shifting classes, I do not like them because I think they are too powerful", I would not have cared. I would have said: "OK, fine. No shifting classes." Whether you choose to believe my statement or not is up to you.

Cool. But that leaves the question, 'Why use it anyway?' He is *new*, new to DnD, new to DMing. YOU have to make the correct decisions sometimes

When we first started playing this summer, I was not playing a non-core class; I started by playing a Barbarian w/no PRCs. Over the course of the summer, before restarting his game, the DM complained about 2 things to me.

The first one was how good I was at combat.
the DM was having a hard time throwing enemies at us. He wanted to make them powerful enough to survive more than 2 or 3 rounds, but if he did that, the Rouge, Bard and Druid couldn't stand up to them very well.

Yep, very common problem. Even experienced DM's have a hard time with it, and he is, as I recall, NEW. It was nice of you to offer to switch, *that* is what is needed.

I said I was probably going with the Sorcerer, at which point he showed me the Warmage class, which I didnt even know about until that point. I decided I liked the Warmage, and went with it.

And this is where the advice starts coming in...
Next time *don't* go with it. It is up to YOU to know that he needs to start slow, so START SLOW. Say "Hey that does look cool, but I think I will stick with straight sorcerer for now" That is how you fix the problem. It seems like you are only looking for ways to have HIM fix the problem, you players can have a hand in it also.
He is new. Bright shiny cool new classes always look enticing, and he may not realize how powerful they may be, because well, he is new. So YOU need to keep that in mind.

Now, with my new character, I decided to be one level of Monk for the HP, the AC bonus, and the saving throw bonus. My other 13 levels were comprised of Warmage. I also took the Aestic Mage feat from Complete Adventurer which, among other things, allows me to, if I am allowed to add my wisdom bonus to AC (like an unarmored, unencumbered monk), I can instead add my Charisma bonus to AC. Since Warmages use Charisma to cast spells like Sorecerers do, this was obviously a good feat for me.

So, not only did you take the higher powered class, but you started optimizing it also.... In case you don't remember, he is new, he may not realize how powerful the WM is, let alone how powerful it can be once you start taking one level dips and such.

Before play started, I finished that character and took it to the DM and said: "I did this, and took the Aestic Mage feat, which gives me a pretty high AC. Do you think my character is too powerful? Do you want me to take the away the monk level and the Aestic Mage feat and go all Warmage to make things more balanced?" He said he did not, and that my character was fine.

Good news bad news.
Good News: You took it to him to check out, and even pointed out the areas that you thought were high powered.
Bad News: Eventhough they were high powered, you used them anyway!
NEW DMs often can't tell when something is too powerful, it looks cool, and that is what he sees. But YOU know he is new, you KNOW he needs to start off easy....so YOU SHOULD KNOW to keep it simple. No one level dips, no optimizing.... keep it simple an let him get some experience.

See, before you were complaining because he was to 'lazy' to check over the classes, but he checked out yours, and still allowed it. The problem may not be that he is lazy, the problem may be that he is...wait for it... new. He may not recognize the problems when he sees them. Just because you and your friend were allowed to play high powered characters, does not make it okay that you did. YOU knew better.

He also told my best friend that the Shifter PRC was fine, and then changed it. Despite the fact that it might seem otherwise, the changes to the PRC are not what I care about; I care about the fact that he did this at all. What happens when he thinks I am overpowered? If he decides one day that I have too much AC, I not only lose a feat, I have a totally useless level of monk. That is what I am concerned about, and that is why I came here looking for ways to avoid that happening.

Yep, he *will* make changes. Do you know why? Because he is still learning. That is what new DM's do, the learn. (at least we hope they do.) So he thinks. "Gee,when I said that class was okay, I must have been wrong. I have now learned that it is too powerful for this campaign" So he has learned something, and does something about it.

Do you know what else new DM's do? They over-react. They think "Oh NO!!! I didn't realize he can turn into a stone golem.... and go incorporeal.... that is going to ruin things" Now maybe it really isn't that overpowering, but he over reacts and bans it. He over reacts because he doesn't know any better, because he is (detecting a pattern) new to this. Now if you don't want them to panic and over react, introduce things SLOWLY. That way he will be able to get used to things before he starts feeling overwhelmed. So stick with low level, and as core as you can stand it. Hell, if you can, stick with straight fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric for a bit.

At least, that is my advice...

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Wow. Nonleathal Force and I both wrote very different emails....that both say the same thing. Cool.

Yep, that happens ocasionally! It is, of course, nice to be supported by another person's opinion ... although I admit the strong majority of this thread seems to support the whole "Experienced players held accountable" approach.

Back on topic ... I really think the best solution is to start over - probably at level 3 to be honest. Reason I suggest not level 1 is because new DMs (at least I know this was true for me) don't realize how fragile level 1 characters are and level 1 characters often die at the hands of a new DM. But level 3 gives you a bit of time to realize the DM underestimated an encounter's power and you can flee. [Oh, btw, that also gives the DM a way to back off on the encounter the next time without having to look really dumb in the process. NOBODY likes looking dumb] But if you start at level 3 - there will be no PrCs involved. I'd also suggest CORE spells at the least - and probably CORE classes as well - but that should give the DM an ability to grow into being a DM.

Remember, being a new DM to experienced players is threatening. No DM wants to make a mistake and no DM wants to look stupid ... because when the DM looks stupid it easy to think from the DM's perspective that now the players think the game is stupid as well. That is why an experienced player needs to take responsibility and ease the DM into the special abilities of a character. Only pull out one until the DM demonstrates that they can plan for it effectively. Then pull out another. Before too long, the DM is learning, and you are having fun together.

And honestly, that is what it is all about. Please do us all a favor, though. Stop with the whole "but the DM did this wrong" plea. While the DM certainly made mistakes - I think we ALL agree on that - the DM is not experienced. So even if the DM made mistakes it was probably because the players were playing over the DM's head. Scrambling to cover one's behind leads to making mistakes. When the players are always outplaying the DM ... it leads to many mistakes and frustration. Which, of course, leads to DMs making rules about something being overpowered. If the experienced players are smart ... they'll ease the DM into the role. You'll retain all your abilities if you just bring them out slowly. But the catalyst in this case are the ones with experience. Namely - the OP and the friend.

Take the foot off the gas pedal and get out of the passing lane. Let the DM catch up to you, rather than passing him by.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Or I can get my companions to watch over me as I sleep and reprepare spells; however, if the wizards come in then, I'm in trouble.

Another idea would be to not freakin' go adventuring without a party wizard who can counter a stinkin' forcecage spell.

Any thoughts?

I am a believer in trying weird party mixes because it forces PCs to use old abilities in new ways. Who needs a wizard?

That said, the inability to counter a Wall of Force is a pretty serious oversight at your level. Your party absolutely must have items such as Cape of the Mountebank or better.