Need Help...

[Meek_Monkey1]

I'm new here. So hello all. Let me tell you a little story.Okay...This might be a long post with many a spelling mistake... but here goes...

Me and my buddies were playing D&D this saturday. We were playing the city of the spider queen for the forgotten realms campain setting. We were walking through the under dark when the DM said "what is your marching order." I ended up being in the middle. Then the DM says, "okay, you feel the earth shaking and before you know it a purple worm shoots out from under the ground and grabs you andy (thats not me)." We all start lauphing until we realize that the lead character was 30 ft in front of the group scouting so my wizard was the one that ends up getting attack by the worm. Now one quick side note is that the DM said before we started the campain that he would try to perserve characters, because it is a really hard campain and we get penillized for dieing. (we start at level 11 with a plus 10 total stat bonus EX. My wizard had a 18 int, therefore that counted as a plus 4 stat bonus. So if we die, we drop a level and and our new character only gets +9 stat bonus.) But anywhos i get hit by the purple wyrm and the DM rolls some dice and says "okay you take 43 points of damage." I look at him and then at my paper and say "I only have 42, so I am at negitive 1). He then says, "okay you are dead because you cannot put up resistance to the wyrm." Every one starts lauphing and I say I got taken out like a punk and that it wasn't fair etc. etc. etc. They go on to fight the purple worm but the worm swallows the clerics cohort and runs away. The battle is over and I have to make another character. The DM alows me to make a level 11 character with +10 bonus because it was unfair how I died. So I make a Dwarf fighter and and we go on our way and my dwarf gets introduced etc. etc. etc. Another character in the group dies, to a shadow dragon. Thats fine to me because no one liked the character. (A vampire assassin isn't a cool character in my eyes...). So our group makes it past the shadow dragon through the use of an ethreal spell. Cool we made it. Okay how to introduce the next character... So we see the next character running down the passage to us and he is yelling..."The undead run". Okay... we really can't avoid this battle because we are low on spells that could avoid the battle.(It is very hard to run away when the is a shadow dragon behind you in its den). We fight. Long story short, I die... The group has to be rescuded by an NPC. Then The cleric player looks at me and says "the next day I will raise the dwarf from the dead." And I say, very hot headed and pissed because I lost two characters within 1 hour of eachother, "no". I'm pissed at this point because even if my dwarf was raised, I would loose a level and constitution. And then the DM stands up and says " for all of you that lived (emphasing "Lived") through the battle, you gain 14,000 some experince." That Puts the group at almost level 14 at this point and then the DM looks at me and says... You get to make a level 11 character with a plus 8 total bonus and no magical items. I was irrate. I didn't show it though. Does any one else out there think that this is totally bogus and that the DM is out of line?

Now for the big question... I'm not a munchkin player, but I feel i have been wronged. Could any of you help me with a munchkin character (pref. wizard) of level 11 with no magical items (If this is a all possible). Thanks for your help.

I also understand if you think I'm a looser for wanting to piss my DM off. I'm sure i'll regret it later...

Jake---

 

[kengar]

Okay, I think I understand where you are coming from. The bottom line is the DM can make whatever call he likes. It's his game. However, two small points in the rules as they are written in the books.

1) When you were killed by the purple worm. -1 hp = unconscious. Not dead. -10 hp = dead. Even if the worm did nothing else to you, you would very possibly die in 9 rounds (losing 1 hp/round until -10). But folks could've healed you at any point before then. There are rules for injury and dying in Ch8 of the PHB.

2) According to the DMG, when a character participates ina combat and dies during it, they are still supposed to get XP. This XP is applied after they are resurrected/raised/etc. So your dwarf should get his share of the XP. At least, according to the rulebook. A new character wouldn't. Though there are guidleines (not "rules") about introducing a new character to an existing party and keeping power levels fair for everyone.

I think you have a right to be upset, but if these are friends you're playing with, especially the DM, you should talk to him between sessions and explain why you're upset. Like I said before, it's his game and he can change the rules to fit it, but it's possible he just didn't realize there were rules covering these situations in the books.

Hope this helps.

 

[Airwolf]

1. Greetings and welcome to the boards!! It’s always nice to see new people from west of the Mississippi.

2. Here is my first piece of advice: paragraphs are your friends.

3. The DM is well, the DM. S/He gets to decide how the adventure is run. The DM also gets to decide how the characters are created and how they are introduced. The game session, module, or campaign belongs to the DM, I am sure that s/he has an idea of where the group is going.

I wouldn’t worry much about the lack of magical items. Most DMs try to be fair and you will find some items along the way, the DM may even have already have planned what to hand out and when.

Having a character die twice in an hour is not fun, I’m sure but it is just a game. You know the old saying; “when life gives you lemons …”

The last session my group played I was the DM (I DM about 25-30% of the time). It was a surprise that I Dmed, the regular DM wasn’t able to finish part of a campaign he was working on in time. The section of my campaign was done but designed for characters to be about 2 levels higher than they currently are. I told the regular DM that the session would be tough for characters of that level, he assured me that the group was always surprising him and that I shouldn’t make any changes. He was sure that the group would come through fine (he didn’t know what was in store except that there is a demon waiting at the end for them). Well, I managed to kill the monk in our group twice in about 2 hours. The party had to burn a resurrect scroll and the last wish from a ring of wishes to get him back. I try not to kill characters, but if the walk into an ambush (which they could have detected if they tried) what am I to do?

My final advice: Make the new character and try to contribute as much as possible with what you have. If you make a wizard or sorcerer take invisibility and disappear every time combat happens if you are really worried about losing another character.