Players challenging rulings

[takyris]

Tsyr: what's good for the player is good for the DM.

If I feel that my players are metagaming -- if one guy knows from memory the Base attack bonus and AC of a standard Fire Giant -- those fire giants are going to start using all the knowledge I have of the players.

And on a not-metagaming front, if the PCs can think, "Gosh, I'm hitting this monster a lot, I should probably let loose with some wild swings," and Power Attack (which I consider utterly reasonable), then an Int 10 Fire Giant can do the same thing. In fact, I have in fact gone easy on the players because the Fire Giant charging one PC actually needed a 15 to hit. I knew that. The Fire Giant didn't. He knew that he could usually hit just about everything, so he always power attacked. As a result of his power attack penalty, he missed.

But to deny a monster the same powers of observation (Intelligence and Wisdom permitting) as the players is asking for special treatment, and to let the players metagame while the monsters don't is lame. One-upsmanship is possibly not the bestest way in the whole world to deal with it, but it's better than other ways.

Example of monster intelligence:

My monsters don't generally finish people off once they're down and dying. THE FIRST TIME. Once they see the cleric Heal someone and bring them right back into the fight at full strength, though, any monster with average intelligence or better will, if possible, Coup de Gras the next person they get knock out.

So if I CdG a PC, I do NOT want to hear my players complaining that I'm out to get them because a monster "would never really waste a round hitting someone who was already down when there were other people attacking him".

-Tacky

 

[Draxus the Tainted]

I say define a certian set of areas that are challengable, and then they only get 2 challenges per session. Except for the last 2 minutes before food break, and the end of the session. Only the officials in the booth can challenge these rulings!

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Hardly.

As a player, I've sundered weapons and magic items that would have been of immense value to the party, simply because they were sucking out my hitpoints 2 score at a time.

Sure, you can take your chances in the hopes that you can claim a vorpal weapon from an NPC's corpse, but all that work becomes academic if he chops your character's head off with it.

However, thundershot gave a textbook example of what not to do as a DM: have the NPC act in a totally irrational way just for the fun of annoying a player. Maybe I misunderstood?

As for the general issue of sundering weapons, I wouldn't complain at all as a player as long as the DM is consistent and doesn't metagame for the NPCs. I know that my PC can either get a very high plus weapon or rely on the GMW spell. I also get to laugh at all those NPCs who try to sunder and end up wasting their actions. A savvy player can easily make NPC sundering habits a big tactical advantage. Fair is fair if you teach the players that items will be destroyed from the get go.

As for Happy Monkey's players, some of those challenges are just out of line.

 

[Tsyr]

Tsyr: what's good for the player is good for the DM.

*snipped for brevity*

I agree. But a lot of DMs just do it as a matter of course... "Ok, player B has AC 18, and this guy has BAB +9, so if I...". Thats bad, IMHO. NPCs and monster should be "Roleplayed" as much as any player should be expected to roleplay... IE, they should have a REASON to do that, not just that it's the tacticly best decision from the "god view" of being a DM.

Another one that REALLY gets me is DMs and xxxxbane swords. Somehow NPCs _ALWAYS_ know its a XXXXbane sword, sometimes even before you attack, and quite often before it has done enough damage to note a major difference between an anit-dragon sword and a strong fighter.

One time, in combat with a dragon, a dragon destroyed my dragonbane longsword... BEFORE I hit him. That cheesed me off. Badly.

 

[Tsyr]

However, thundershot gave a textbook example of what not to do as a DM: have the NPC act in a totally irrational way just for the fun of annoying a player. Maybe I misunderstood?

Yeah, this is one of the other things that bugs me "big time".

DM destroys players loved item/kills players loved familiar/character, etc etc.

DM responce: Always similar to "tough, it can happen".

Ok, yes, it can. Your right. It also sucks, and doing it just to show the players you can sucks.

I've killed characters. I've destroyed items. But I always make sure I can back it up. If I kill a character (As in activly, not they get in over their head), there is always a reason, in game. If I sunder a weapon, there is a reason in game.

I mean, look at that situation. A rod of lordly might. Something the player probably loved. He threw it. A moderatly valid tactic to begin with, if the situation was right. Hardly something that makes you "deserving" of it being destroyed. But still, it was thrown. Meaning it was on the ground, of no threat to anyone. The NPC wasted an action for no other reason apparently than to annoy the player, and show that the DM still had his god-powers.

That type of thing ticks me off.

And yes, there very well could be more to this story than I know. Just using it as an example... you can insert any number of horror stories here, trust me. I've played under DMs like that.

*edit*

See? More to it than I figured. But like I said. Strip the specifics out of it, and use it as a hypothetical, and you still have a valid situation.

No offense meant to you, Thunder.

 

[thundershot]

Waaaait a minute! The PC was kicking the other monsters ASSES! He was showing off and switching the rod to a different mode several times during the battle. I had nothing against the rod (he's had it since 1st edition), nor a problem with the player or character. But if you're sitting there watching your minions being mowed down by this thing, and it lands right next to your golem, she had every right to have her golem stomp it. As it was, the rod wasn't destroyed, but it did take a few points of damage.

Sheesh!


Chris

 

[Blood Jester]

Waaaait a minute! The PC was kicking the other monsters ASSES! He was showing off and switching the rod to a different mode several times during the battle. I had nothing against the rod (he's had it since 1st edition), nor a problem with the player or character. But if you're sitting there watching your minions being mowed down by this thing, and it lands right next to your golem, she had every right to have her golem stomp it. As it was, the rod wasn't destroyed, but it did take a few points of damage.

Sheesh!


Chris

O.K. So I'm dumb, but...

I still don't see why the NPC would not pick up what (in your own words) they saw as a powerful weapon to use themselves? Attacking the PC with it would seem a better way to survive the fight than breaking it.

 

[thundershot]

She was a spellcaster with a Strength of 8. It would have been useless to her. She saw what it could do, and while given time she might have been able to find uses for it, but she had to live in the now and get RID of the thing that was massacring her minions. It's not my fault the PC THREW his most prized possession at the golem when he was doing fine hacking everything else up in sword/mace/battleaxe modes... He was showing off. He admitted it.




Chris

 

[Buttercup]

Well, first I should say that I've come to the conclusion that I have an exceptionally genial group. We never fuss & fight about things.

I have been known to make mistakes now and then. I forget to add in a bonus to hit or damage, I calculate something incorrectly, etc. In that case, I'm happy to be corrected, and the way my players do it hasn't ever stopped the flow of the game.

But the sort of challenges HappyMonkey is talking about are just not acceptable. I would talk to the player privately, and if that didn't work, tell them to find another game.

 

[Blood Jester]

Fair enough.

[edit: I'm answering thundershot's answer ]