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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faerl'Elghinn" data-source="post: 2697605" data-attributes="member: 17810">DMs Will Be DMs...My favorite DM engages in similar activities from time to time.  It becomes especially irritating when he decides that abilities and items which he himself has created and introduced to our characters are deemed too powerful and/or undesirable in a given situation, giving the PCs distinct advantages through inadvertent or opportunistic exploits of the vulnerabilities inherent to the opponents he subsequently decides to introduce.  Almost without fail, whenever such an exploit becomes evident, he arbitrarily rules that the spell or item spontaneously ceases to function the way it has unfailingly functioned hitherto--often at the expense of a critical combat round to one of the PCs.  Failing this, he preemptively precludes any clever play by somehow--temporarily or permanently--depriving the PC of the item or spell in question at some point prior to its evident utility.  In the case of our most powerful party, this often involves a complete or nearly complete deprivation of all spellcasting ability, the distortion of certain spells and effects to render them unusable, and the arbitrary assignment of the Greater Dispelling and Mordankeinen's Dysjunction spells or spell-like abilities to virtually every foe.For example, I have a Wizard with sufficient levels (46), epic feats (multiple instances of Improved Spell Capacity and Improved Metamagic), and Intelligence (71)--all granted and approved by the DM--to augment the Time Stop spell with the Persistent Spell metamagic feat.  In one encounter, it became apparent that--barring some miracle--our party was going to be obliterated.  I cast a Persistent Time Stop, hoping to be able to muster the resources during my 24-hour respite to compete with an otherwise unstoppable opponent.  Of course, I had never tried this trick before, and I agree that it is somewhat abusive, but had recently come to the conclusion--after discussing it with my DM--that there was no reason why it shouldn't work.  As it turned out, it worked exactly as planned, but for some undisclosed reason, it marked me as a target for some type of ridiculously powerful extra-temporal being, which immediately manifested and pursued me--I fled back into the "haven" of time to resume the original encounter.Also, for some strange reason, I am having a great deal of trouble finding the time to research many of the epic spells I have devised.  This is almost certainly because--as a result of the DM's conscious decision to grant me an Intelligence score of over 70--I have a Spellcraft bonus of roughly 91, and I carefully design all of my epic spells to require a Spellcraft check of exactly 92.  Through a liberal application of backlash damage and other drawbacks, some of the spells I can design become completely ridiculous.As a 46th-level vampire, my character should have little trouble recruiting some high level NPC spellcasters to assist him in casting ritual spells; however, our party never seems to be able to reach any sembleance of civilization wherein might be found any potential candidates.  As it stands, I am generally limited to 1st-9th level, run-of-the-mill Wizard spells.  Unfortunately, none of the offensive spells ever seem to do anything to my opponents, buff spells get dispelled on a round-by-round basis, and I begin every session naked in the middle of a different desert from the last, usually stripped of my spellcasting ability altogether.Somehow, despite my DM's best efforts, we still generally manage to have fun.  The reason for this is that his talent mostly lies in the storytelling, and have revelled in the vivid scenarios he has presented for the last 15 years.</blockquote>

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