When DM's attack.....

[Dagger75]

This situation happened at a con, but I can see it crop up in a game.

I playing one of those Living Games for the RPGA/OP and I was with my group of six. Now 4 of us play together alot and know each others str and weaknesses. The other 2 players..... sucked. They didn't know a darn thing.

Now the fighter in my group is a spring attack jump around the battle field type. Wears light armor and fights with a rapier. The other fighters main tactic was brute strength and ignorance. Full suit of plate and a greatsword. Both characters are teh same level.

Now the DM went out of his way to eliminate our effective fighter in the very first round of cambat. We played a few rounds with the DM before so he kind of knew us and saw how we played.

The situation. Big dumb fighter gets intiative before the spring attack guy (it happens). He charges forward hits the bad guy does some decent damage. Now the bad guys go, now we have never encountered this group of evil people, they were not scrying on us or anything. The first thing the wizard does is Force Cage the Effective fighter. The only reason he did this was because he knows the rules and this dufus who some how managed to get to 9th level still doesn't understand how full round attacks work.

Is that fair?? Do you DMs do this?

I do as a DM, I'll admit it. I know which person in my home group will mop up this combat and I think now I unfairly target that player in that situation.

 

[Crothian]

Is that fair?? Do you DMs do this?

I do as a DM, I'll admit it. I know which person in my home group will mop up this combat and I think now I unfairly target that player in that situation.

This is DM metagaming. I don't do it, and I'm not a fan of it. Why do you target the good player? Does he play so good that he totally disrupts your game? I'm unclear at to whay your motivations as a DM are.

 

[Dagger75]

Re: Re: When DM's attack.....

This is DM metagaming. I don't do it, and I'm not a fan of it. Why do you target the good player? Does he play so good that he totally disrupts your game? I'm unclear at to whay your motivations as a DM are.

Because lately, the cleric and the druid havsedominated the combats. They both got there Harm spells and such and the poor fighter in the group has been really bored. I have tried to make fights where he could shine, like fighting death knight disguised as an elf in hand to hand combat but a few flame strikes and a fire seed later my death knight was almost dead and had to retreat. The fighter got 2 swings in. I think I need to attack the spellcasters specifically so the fighter doesn't feel like a 5th wheel.

 

[Crothian]

Re: Re: Re: When DM's attack.....

Because lately, the cleric and the druid havsedominated the combats. They both got there Harm spells and such and the poor fighter in the group has been really bored. I have tried to make fights where he could shine, like fighting death knight disguised as an elf in hand to hand combat but a few flame strikes and a fire seed later my death knight was almost dead and had to retreat. The fighter got 2 swings in. I think I need to attack the spellcasters specifically so the fighter doesn't feel like a 5th wheel.

Okay, at higher levels if the characters look like spellcasters, then that is a great strategy for higher level and intelligent monsters.

Also, you might be having problems because of the Harm spell. It's the most house ruled item in d20. So, you might consider altering the way it is used.

 

[nopantsyet]

I don't target players just to keep things balanced. Now mind you, if a ftr does 50 points of damage to my evil necromancers strongest minion, you can be certain the necromancer has good reason to go after that character. That's a no brainer. In most cases, opponents use their most effective attack against the character that most recently or most painfully hit them. Any creature with an Int above 0 will go after whatever it percieves as it's greatest threat. So if the fighter just dealt major damage and nobody else has, of course the wizard is going to target him.

I am against metagaming once the game has started, but preparation is all meta. If the same characters are dominating combat, I'm inclined to think it's because the same types of opponents keep recurring. For example, if you always fight low-level undead, the Cleric is going to turn every round until they're all destroyed or gone. So look at different types of encounters for them. You could also use opponents that use more magic. Spell Resistance is really good as is anything that can invoke antimagic or dispel.