Opinions on a DM-players conflict last night...

[Tsyr]

Last night, the party was getting ready to camp for the night after having been working on taking down some magical barriers surrounding a cave. As we were about to do so, out of the forest comes crashing some huge golem-like creature who is supposedly the guardian of the cave. Since he was between us and freedom (the cave was on the other side), we turned to fight. The battle went... poorly. As near as I can tell, the creature had these attributes:

AC 28
Either immune to spells, or insanely high SR
Damage reduction +3/25

Our party has 6 people in it.

8th level barbarian/drunken master
12th level fighter
8th level cleric
7th level rogue
6th level monk/druid
7th level shaman (me).

Our magic items are... almost non existant. I have one of the two magic weapons in the group (A +1 dagger of wounding, the other is a +2 axe of some sort that the fighter has), and three or four of us have magic armour of some small amount. 1 potion of healing between us, no wands, scrolls, rings, etc.

To make matters worse, the cleric was low on spells (From trying to take down the wards on the cave), and I was down -5 con and at half hitpoints still from a failed attempt to do the same. The fighter was down about half-hitpoints too, from an earlier attack by something.

We were stomped on. TPK.

Worse, the DM honestly seems to think we were supposed to be able to beat the thing. He insists that whatever it is, wherever he got it from, it has a CR that we should be able to handle.

I tried explaining to him that we are far under-equiped for a party of our level, but... for some reason he's taking the CR as divinly-inspired or something, insisting that it's our fault we couldn't defeat it.

How do I reason with a guy like this? Is there anything we *could* have done different, given that escape was essentialy not an option, at least not for everyone. One or two might have been able to escape, but...

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

He wasn't expecting you to run into the cave, was he? It seems a little odd to me that a guardian of the cave would come out of the forest...

Besides, regardless of CR, the DM should have checked a few details. If you couldn't get through it's DR or bypass it's spell resistance, how were you supposed to beat it?

This points out that it's easy to make mistakes if you stick rigidly to the CR system. The DM has to be aware of the characters actual capabilities.

DM mistake, I think. So now's your chance to make some new exciting characters, right?

 

[Ranes]

From what you tell us, it doesn't appear that the DM was in any way forthcoming about this critter's Achilles heel, assuming you were supposed to find such a thing and use it to turn the battle in your favour.

Perhaps, as the result of the encounter was a TPK, you could ask the DM precisely how you were supposed to win?

Unless his response to this has you and your fellow players slapping their foreheads and uttering, "D'oh!" in unison, I'd have to say that he screwed up, in my opinion.

 

[Crothian]

Well, it's impossible to tell unless we actually hear the other side. Sure, it might have been a challenging encounter but if it was going bad why wouldn't you all run?

 

[Mark Chance]

Well, it's impossible to tell unless we actually hear the other side. Sure, it might have been a challenging encounter but if it was going bad why wouldn't you all run?

Speaking as the former GM of one group in which was a player who threw a die at me while loudly proclaiming that "A shadow is a CR 3 monster and we're only level 1!," I can only say "Amen!" to Crothian's trenchant observations.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Average party level of 8 and you have 2 magic weapons? And the DM is throwing DR+3/25 critters at you? UGH! A major DM mistake for the looks of it. Like Ranes said unless you guys had a minor magic item on them that would sudeenly take away something from the creature (ie SR or DR) I can't see how your party could have defeated it. The spell casters would need 19's or 20's to beat the SR and the fighter would have to do 26 points of damage in a single hit without criticals since it is immune being a golem!.

As presented here (and as always we don't know if there is more to this story) the DM screwed you guys over.




PS
You really couldn't have run away? This seems like it is the only thing the DM was going for (this in spite of him saying you should have been able to defeat it).

PSS
Also if the DM is going to use the CR sytem as written then he should also be using the PC treasure alottments on page 145 of the DMG. Ask him to total up the party's magical and monetary treasure and see what he gets. For your party's average level of 8 you guys should have around (8*27000gp) about 216000 gp worth of money and magical items. Lower if you want less magic items in the campaign (I find a reduction of about 10-50% to be the norm).

 

[Tsyr]

Well, it's impossible to tell unless we actually hear the other side. Sure, it might have been a challenging encounter but if it was going bad why wouldn't you all run?

See my post. We couldn't.

One person tried to. Was killed when they ran beside the golem-thing.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Speaking as the former GM of one group in which was a player who threw a die at me while loudly proclaiming that "A shadow is a CR 3 monster and we're only level 1!," I can only say "Amen!" to Crothian's trenchant observations.

Would you say the same thing if you were a player in a game with four 5th and 6th level PCs that had to take on an NPC party of 5 10th-12th level characters? Happened to me but the DM, realizing we were hopelessly outmatched (2 of our party members went out in the first round) took away all of their magical equipment Those had to be the most messed up 10th level NPCs I have ever seen!

I do agree (the above is meant as humour subjective I know but there it is..) that it would be nice to have the other side of the story as well (as in my other post I have to think it was possible to run away saving a few PCs while sacrificing the slowest )

 

[Crothian]

See my post. We couldn't.

One person tried to. Was killed when they ran beside the golem-thing.

Well, if you would have all ran at the samer time some of you would have made it as it only gets so many AoO as you go past. Or you tumble by it. Or one or two volunteers to fight it while the rest get to safety.

 

[Tsyr]

Well, if you would have all ran at the samer time some of you would have made it as it only gets so many AoO as you go past. Or you tumble by it. Or one or two volunteers to fight it while the rest get to safety.

Heh. That would require self-sacrifice for another... No one in the group really trusts anyone else that far. DM knows that, too...

I'm just thinking he wanted us to make new characters, but I'm a little miffed he couldn't just talk to us about it or something.