Never Trust a New DM

[Savage Wombat]

One of my players has taken over the DM chores for the summer. It's his first time running with 3rd ed. rules - his first chance to play with templates, feats, and the like.

So what's one of the first things he hits us with?

Carrion Crawler Wights.

Do you really want something with nine level-drain attacks per round coming at you?

It's hard for experienced DMs to come up with something that evil.

 

[TiQuinn]

One of my players has taken over the DM chores for the summer. It's his first time running with 3rd ed. rules - his first chance to play with templates, feats, and the like.

So what's one of the first things he hits us with?

Carrion Crawler Wights.

Do you really want something with nine level-drain attacks per round coming at you?

It's hard for experienced DMs to come up with something that evil.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

And I totally agree...there's nothing more wicked than what's in the mind of a experienced player turned new DM.

 

[The_Gneech]

Wow, and I thought the vampiric gibbering mouther was bad!

-The Gneech

 

[Malicene]

yep That's not fair ! but :

- U did it ? remenber your first Dm games...

I've got a very clear memory of my first game as a DM ! played once or twice and was exicted by having DM position. Write a short story in a city, PC had to face a 20th Lev wizard (DnD 1rst ed), there were 3 PC and they were level ... 1 !!

- Help him !

how ? by taking "simple" character, one class, no secret goal, no complex personnal story. Create character has an existing group, so everybody takes his role (balanced party : priest+Wiz+Fighter...) and clear state group goals .

example : a woodland party (ranger/druid/priest/sorc.....with elves ! ) and state that they live in Erehwon Kingdom near an orcish bandit kingdom !
If your brand new DM has no mental disorder, he should back on it to write down first games (expect some : "Whouup SORRY !)
(a great RP came out simple story... sometimes !)


but yes it's S....ks

 

[Yeoman]

One of my players has taken over the DM chores for the summer. It's his first time running with 3rd ed. rules - his first chance to play with templates, feats, and the like.

So what's one of the first things he hits us with?

Carrion Crawler Wights.

Do you really want something with nine level-drain attacks per round coming at you?

It's hard for experienced DMs to come up with something that evil.

damn, that's just...just...wow. That's pure evil. I think I'll be trying that one day.

 

[MarauderX]

Run away. From everything.

I remember several campaigns where the DM was a player and had taken up the reigns just to try it out. For some reason these DMs try to impress everyone with the nasties they create and wipe out half the party with.

One such story...
Once upon a time, our 1st level party comes across a mute harpy, which is kinda cool to find, and just as we are about to try to communicate or interact with it, it's speech kicks back in. We realized that it was under the silence spell, and it quickly wiped out two PCs. So the wizard PC and my rogue ran away from the scene and hide in the tops of some trees for the night before making our way back to town to "find" the new PCs that were just rolled up. Instead of leaving us alone, said harpy finds us and tries to slay us (DM wanted to start the whole thing over with fresh adventurers ). We ran. Then we ran some more. We ran for the whole session. Then when the DM said 'ok, fine, I give up, look at what I had laid out for the adventure' we read what he had with curiosity and couldn't help laughing. We would have recieved enough XP from the harpy to advance 1/2 way to 3rd level. In an adjacent room 40 zombies lay in ambush (?) with an 8th level kobold cleric (kobolds are easy 1st level meat, right?). XP would have upped us to 4th level according to his notes. Next room: Beholder that was to give us an assignment, and if we refused he would give us a magical sex change. The Quest: steal a super-duper staff and matching ring from the thieves guild, whose leader was 18th with 5 10th level fighter-thugs. Accomplishing this task would put us at ~8th level.

---if you read this, sorry J, but it was so funny and glad you realized it too!---

 

[JacktheRabbit]

One of my players has taken over the DM chores for the summer. It's his first time running with 3rd ed. rules - his first chance to play with templates, feats, and the like.

So what's one of the first things he hits us with?

Carrion Crawler Wights.

Do you really want something with nine level-drain attacks per round coming at you?

It's hard for experienced DMs to come up with something that evil.

Is this even rules legal? An undead drains levels with a slam attack. This is not a normal melee attack. Since a carrion crawler does not have a slam attack I would assume it gains one when it becomes undead. so it would either have its 9 normal attacks or 1 level draining slam attack.

 

[SteelDraco]

It sounds scary, but the poor things couldn't hit anyone in the group. We're a 10th level Planescape party, and I believe the lowest AC is a 22 or so, except for the invisible archer pixie.

Even with nine attacks per round, I believe the four carrion crawler wights hit about ... three times throughout the whole fight. Twice on the gnome rogue/wizard, and once on the fensir barbarian.

 

[Utrecht]

Given that - I guess I do not see what the issue is - sounds like he came up with a creature that probably initially scared the cr*p out of the group - but turned out to be a fairly easy encounter.

That and the fact that it really sounds like a cool monster - I would probably go with the Carrion Crawler with the Ghoul/Ghast template (since both are carrion consumers - the synergy is to good)

 

[TiQuinn]

Re: Re: Never Trust a New DM

Is this even rules legal? An undead drains levels with a slam attack. This is not a normal melee attack. Since a carrion crawler does not have a slam attack I would assume it gains one when it becomes undead. so it would either have its 9 normal attacks or 1 level draining slam attack.

What is a slam attack as opposed to a normal attack, assuming their using the same weapon (claw, fist, etc.)?