Major game issue, need advice.

[Camarath]

So, in the simplistic morality of D&D, your half-celestial trolls are good-aligned, right? Do they preach your players to death, then?

Pesonally I view a player vs DM attitude as a heresy agianst the base nature of D&D that automatically changes the alignment of the player's character to evil. Thus allowing my incarnations of pure powergaming Goodness to merciless torment and possibly slay the offending characters with out qualm.

 

[KenM]

From the posts above, that sounded like a player's shaky grasp of the rules, not the DM's.

Its called roleplaying. My dwarf has no idea that it was some kind of undead. Nor does he know that crits don't work against them.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

First, I agree with those who suggest getting him raised with no xp loss. Perhaps he was just "mostly dead."

Second, if anybody in my game said, "hey! the dc for that is 15!" That's metagaming and I'd bust their ass on it and have them fail on a frigging 20.

Not saying you did that, Ken, but something was brought up in that area.

 

[takyris]

Second, if anybody in my game said, "hey! the dc for that is 15!" That's metagaming and I'd bust their ass on it and have them fail on a frigging 20.

I actually made a point somewhere along those lines earlier, and while in principle I still stand by what I said... in practice, the DM doesn't seem to know his stuff. DM didn't know that you only had to MATCH a save DC, not BEAT it, to succeed. DM didn't know that Undead aren't vulnerable to Hold spells (assuming that the wizard wasn't casting some special "Undead-Holding" spell). DM didn't know that Death Effects mean that you can't be Raised normally.

We're not talking about a DM who knows the rules inside and out, and if he advances the hit dice or raises the Cha score, he's got a darn good reason for doing so. We're talking about a new or inexperienced DM who is making incorrect decisions.

In that campaign, it's still your choice, but I personally would start tactfully educating the DM about certain things. And I'd make darn sure that I didn't care too much about the campaign so that I wouldn't get hot under the collar when some ruling on the DM's part, that I didn't rules-lawyer him on, resulted in me getting killed.

If you're a DM and you're complaining about rules-lawyering, make sure you actually know the rules.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Second, if anybody in my game said, "hey! the dc for that is 15!" That's metagaming and I'd bust their ass on it and have them fail on a frigging 20.

That's not metagaming.

Metagaming would be saying "Now, the DC of a Bodak's Gaze Attack is 15, and I've got a +13 Fort Save, so I can only fail on a 1... even though our characters have never met a Bodak and have been told that to look at them is Death, I'm pretty confident I'll be fine."

But if there's an bugbear ten feet away from me with a greataxe, and another bugbear runs up from the opposite side and stabs me for 6d6 damage with a shortsword, it's not metagaming for me to say "Hang on - did he get sneak attack damage? I haven't lost my Dex bonus, and that other bugbear is too far away to provide flanking for him...?"

There's a difference between querying a DM call based on OOC knowledge of the rules, and basing your character's actions on OOC knowledge of the rules. The second is metagaming, the first isn't.

-Hyp.

 

[takyris]

My little blue buddy is right: It's not metagaming to ask for more description of what happened. If the DM just says, "You take 6d6 points damage," you're within your rights to say, "Okay, is his sword glowing? Was this a magnificent thrust, or did he sneakily use the fact that I was flanked by somebody against me. Did he reach me from afar with a chain, or did he dart in too quickly for me to use my polearm against him as he charged?"

It is not metagaming to know that polearms have reach, or that bugbears tend to be strong, or that people who are nimble enough to stab you in tricky spots or take advantage of your distractions are ALSO going to have a tendency to leap out of the way of area effects. That's the world your character was raised in. He'll know how it works. He doesn't have the stats for a battle-axe in front of him, but he knows that it does about as much damage as a longsword, and less than a greatsword, and more than a dagger.

 

[KenM]

DM didn't know that Undead aren't vulnerable to Hold spells

For the third time, I don't remember the excact spell that was used to hold bodak, just it got held due to a spell the wizard cast.

 

[babomb]

IMC I make players with this attitude face Half-Celestial, Half-Elemental(fire), Half-Golem(clay) Trolls.

That's a lot of halves! That reminds me of the <i>Epic of Gilgamesh</i>, wherein it is stated that Gilgamesh is 2/3 god and 1/3 man. I always wondered how that worked.

Anyway, I've always found that players suffer enough from their own mistakes. Therefore, making them suffer from DM mistakes is unnecessary.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

First, I agree with those who suggest getting him raised with no xp loss. Perhaps he was just "mostly dead."
QUOTE]

The dwarf most definately wishes to blathe.

As far as "I don't know what spell was used to hold the bodak!"

What people are saying is that there isn't a spell in the book that holds Undead creatures. Its quite possible that the wizard had a custom special spell to hold Undead creatures ... BUT

The POINT of saying that Undead are immune to Hold Monster putting together a list:

The DC problem.
The "held" Undead when no PHB spell does that.

They sort of build a pattern of behavior. That behavior being that the DM is quite possibly new to the rules and perhaps missing some things.

Thus penalizing you for things not in the rules.

So, those things result in a good argument for you to not be penalized for the DM making mistakes.

Nobody's attacking you, your group, your DM, your wizard, your knowledge, your character-building. Just building a case in our minds as to why you shouldn't be penalized for something that isn't your fault.

--fje

 

[Agback]

So your opinion is that if someone overcharges you, that you should just let them?

Nope. I don't think your analogy is sound. If a checkout chick tries to short-change me and I call her on it, I get to keep the money and there are probably no hard feeling. And if there are I can find another checkout or another supermarket.

But if I ask a GM to retcon a scene in a game and she says 'No, I'd rather let the mistake stand because I don't like retcons', I think it's wiser to go with the flow than to browbeat one of my friends into something that she'll resent even if she complies. And it isn't easy to find a new relaxed relationship with an old friend if you wreck one.

This isn't something which cannot be undone that we're talking about here - it's an easily reversible decision.

Maybe the GM is in a position to reverse the decision easily, but it seems that the original poster isn't. The easy, low-acrimony way forward for him may be to generate a new character. It bears thinking about.

KenM's DM sounds inexperienced and stressed. This is a good time to be a low-maintenance high-fun player. In short: chill out, things aren't so bad that they can't get worse.

Regards,


Agback