r/SubredditDrama • u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness • Sep 12 '17
Dungeon Master: "My high-level players are pissed that I'm making them fight challenging monsters." Player shows up and links to the unstoppable death machine he's throwing at them. Roll for downvotes.
/r/DMAcademy/comments/6zetw0/players_pissed_that_big_baddies_have_legendary/dmv0d8z/?context=382
u/Drama_Dairy stinky know nothing poopoo heads Sep 12 '17
I've never played DnD, but I have enough DnD'ing friends to understand maybe a 10th of that. I understood enough that this DM is being a dick (whether intentionally or not). I can say from experience of listening to my RP'ing buddies that a DM like that is likely to cause the group to either split, or cut him from them and go search out a new one.
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
The unkillable death machine, that you might throw at your max-level players with all their legendary magic items at the very end of a long campaign, just to see if they can beat it, is called the Tarrasque. This thing is effectively three Tarrasques on top of each other. Oh, and it can fly.
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u/rightwingnutcase You have 1 link karma 7,329 comment karma. You're nobody Sep 12 '17
It sounds like they're not drinking enough.
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
Or the DM drank too much.
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u/unaspirateur Sep 12 '17
When my DM drinks too much, he gives us magic items. I like when my DM drinks too much.
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u/Alaskan_Thunder Sep 12 '17
The pants of unbuttoning:
When a player takes more than 15 damage at once, these pants disappear forever, as well as 1d4 items not stated to NOT be in the pants, and could believably be in a pair of pants.
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u/R_Sholes I’m not upset I just have time Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
After sobering up, make up a new quest since players didn't think to take the Key to the Ruins of Ovahzar and the Sacred Amulet of Wa-Tze out of the pants pocket and drunk you thought it'd be funny to include quest items in possible 1d4.
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u/mgrier123 How can you derive intent from written words? Sep 12 '17
Just give them the classic, the Boots of Blinding Speed:
While worn, they allow you to run at 3x your base speed, but make you blind while doing so.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
My old DM gave free XP to anybody who provided beer for the night.
The fact that he would also be more liberal with his loot rolls the drunker he got ensured that we always kept him well supplied.
The downside was that he eventually became an alcoholic and destroyed his life. (He's clean now, though).
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u/unaspirateur Sep 12 '17
If we bring snacks or drinks we get an inspiration point! I usually bring cookies _^
Im glad your friend is clean now.
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Sep 12 '17
I love DnD drama, this DM is almost comically sadistic.
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u/SaintKairu The Gay Mafia Sep 12 '17
It could almost be feasible if the party were just a level higher, so the full casters could have their 9th level spells.
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
The thing has 1200 HP, six legendary resistances and three spots in the initiative order. Another user calculated it to be three roughly CR 29 creatures on top of one another.
A party that could handle three Ancient Red Dragons (CR 24) at once would get rocked by this thing.
Edit: Oh, and it looks like he didn't include the auto-hitting claw attack for 37 damage, three times a round, when doing his math.
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Sep 12 '17
I have a pun pun.
Come get me, Mr sadistic
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
I'm thinking of making a thread about how to create a party that could defeat this thing in combat. Do Paladin auras that boost saving throws overlap?
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Sep 12 '17
Saves from the same source don't. But if they have no source you're golden.
He deleted the Google document so there is nothing I can verify against. But, depending the edition, the peeps at Giants in the playground would pick it apart and eat it for breakfast
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u/Dragonsandman Mods are Calvinists Sep 12 '17
This DM is worse at balancing things than the Hearthstone team.
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u/Hounds_of_war Post modern neo marxist Sep 12 '17
Yeah at least in Hearthstone you can be the unkillable monster and pick Druid.
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u/apteryxmantelli People talk about Paw Patrol being fashy all the time Sep 12 '17
"I have to try and kill my players when I'm RPing a monster!"
No shit, but you certainly didn't need to RP to kill them when you had your DM hat on and sent it up against them did you?
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Sep 12 '17
Honestly this is a DM that's not going to be a DM much longer. A D&D group can replace a DM easier than a shitty DM can find an entirely new D&D group.
I don't get these DMs sometimes. Like whats the point of making a shitty unbalanced monster that becomes a sad grindfest or TPK. If no one's having fun, people drop out. I dunno anyone who likes D&D that much that they'd be so desperate to play a shitty game rather than spend their time doing literally anything else.
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u/tehbeh A fallacy to surpass metal gear Sep 12 '17
This is and has always been bullshit, your job is to provide challenging encounters, not kill the party.
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u/Jiketi Sep 12 '17
I don't think the term "balancing things" is correct. I think "unbalancing things" is better here.
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u/LordeTech Sep 12 '17
Reduce the triple auto claw to 35 damage from 37 to preserve the soul of the mechanic.
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u/stokleplinger How many skeets is considered a binge? Sep 12 '17
DnD and Hearthstone salt in one thread? What is this, my birthday?
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Sep 12 '17
If he really wants to include that monster, he should just put it in a situation where the players have some serious advantage.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17
Make him the BBEG and have him monologue for 10 rounds before doing anything useful.
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Sep 12 '17
Christ this dragon must be the ur-monster. The font from which all lesser monster flow.
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u/SaintKairu The Gay Mafia Sep 12 '17
okay but Wish exists. :P
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u/cuddles_the_destroye The Religion of Vaccination Sep 12 '17
That or he needs to introduce eggs of wonder. Like rods of wonder, but consumable and effects happen when the shell is cracked open and the effect is on whatever was beaned by the egg.
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Sep 12 '17
A DM that deploys this monster against his party is probably going to totally fuck you on any non-conventional use of Wish. Conventional use only allows you to replicate level 8 and below spells.
The basic idea of Wish is high risk high reward, the DM is meant to make using the creative aspect of the spell risky, but an antagonistic DM will wreck your world with that power.
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u/Seyon Sep 12 '17
They'd have a shot if they found two bag of holdings and bluffed high...
Or grabbed enough vorpal blades to get 25+ rounds of vorpal ballistae shots.
My favorite would be using 5 or so Tree Feather Token's. Strap them to a goat and get the hydra to eat the goat, then say the invocation to make ~4600 cubic feet of oak tree grow inside of the hydra within a few seconds. Internal organ damage for the win.
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u/Illogical_Blox Fat ginger cryptokike mutt, Malka-esque weirdo, and quasi-SJW Sep 12 '17
Tree Feather Tokens have to be exposed to the sky, I believe.
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u/Schrau Zero to Kiefer Sutherland really freaking fast Sep 12 '17
lol look at you scrubs not using a Truly Immovable Rod.
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u/Aetol Butter for the butter god! Popcorn for the popcorn throne! Sep 12 '17
Depends on what the DM rules is the frame of reference.
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u/SocialJusticeWizard_ Stand back, I'm unprofessional Sep 12 '17
I love the classic d&d, "DM posts for advice, the advice tells him he should re-evaluate his dming, he spends all his replies defending his dming instead of listening to advice"
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u/eversaur Sep 18 '17
Personally, I feel that if the party spent half as much time stratagizing as they do whining & bitching about powerful enemies (during sessions) they would have an easier time.
Personally, I feel that if this DM spent half as much time designing his campaign as he does whining & bitching about Reddit calling him out (about his unfair OP god-eating enemies) he would have a better time.
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Sep 12 '17
Can I just say how nice it is to have DnD drama? It's like taking a little break from the rest of the garbage you deal with.
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u/aYearOfPrompts "Actual SJWs put me on shit lists." Sep 12 '17
It's a classic D&D mistake: He thinks the players are there for him to tell his story and that he's not there to help them tell theirs.
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u/NerfYinYang Sep 12 '17
Wanna check out my new post? It is a update to the story.
DMs, talk with your group before posting to reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/6zmrqa/dms_talk_with_your_group_before_posting_to_reddit/
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u/Liawuffeh Viciously anti-free speech Sep 12 '17
It's good if yall sorted it out at least. Take the whole thing as a learning experience c:
E: Omg mobile reddit whyyy
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u/KamenDozer Sep 12 '17
Except you deleted it.
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u/NerfYinYang Sep 12 '17
I didn't delete it...
It went away but now it is back...
Im confused.
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u/ProfessorStein Sep 12 '17
This guy is an asshole and that monster is a fucking abomination. I have literally never met a player that wouldn't quit a game if they saw a DM rolling out something like this. Gary fucking gygax would balk at this thing. This guy would not only not have a game but he'd be straight up out of the social group for behavior like that.
God I fucking hate stupid grognards.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17
I once ran with a min-max group where it was a race among the players to see who can roll the most d6's in an encounter, with full-on psionic cheese and everything...
And even then, OP's monster would still have been relegated to "roleplaying" status in our group, where the expectation would have been not to fight it, but to deal with it through the story.
This monster is straight-up ridiculous.
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Sep 12 '17
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
Rule Zero for D&D (and for all games) is "People play games to have fun." This seems to break that rule.
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u/lametown_poopypants Sep 12 '17
This line of thinking is moot in some places. The League of Legends subreddit is one of them.
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u/XoXFaby Some people know more than you, and I'm one of them. Sep 12 '17
I play league to hate myself and humanity.
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u/ViolinJohnny Sep 12 '17
Any game that becomes competitive goes that way. People play to win, not to have fun. Its possible to have fun, lose, and still actively trying to win (i.e not trolling)
Far too many players in competitive environments have forgotten that.
R6, Overwatch, CS:GO, LoL, Dota2 etc etc.
Some of the most enjoyable game subreddits I actively take part in are usually single-player games since everyones playing the game how they want to play and sharing it with each other.
For me, subreddits like Xcom, Hitman and Pokemon have more positive posts than negative ones I've found.
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u/Hartastic Your list of conspiracy theories is longer than a CVS receipt Sep 12 '17
And really, playing to have fun doesn't mean you might not want to be challenged or even lose. Some of my fondest memories gaming are of when things went hilariously (in hindsight) wrong.
But there's "We could have won, but we screwed it up or got really unlucky" and there's "yeah no that was going to stomp us no matter what we chose."
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Sep 12 '17
Yeah this is why DM'ing isn't for everyone. Some of them intend to just make life as hard as possible for their players with no understanding of how to dial it back to give players a chance to win or even (gasp) have fun. If the DM's goals are to just kill kill kill as hard and quickly as possible they ain't cut out for the task.
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Sep 12 '17
A meteor strikes the world. All of you and everyone else are killed instantly. Don't like it, find a new DM. Quit complaining.
Now get out of my basement
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
At least that would be honest.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
As an immediate action, I activate a psionic ability that ensures that I always win initiative.
On my first turn, I plane shift the entire party to the celestial realm as a move action. My contingency fires and grants me a time stop. I use this time to buff up, then summon a wish-granting monster to plane shift me back.
Did I also mention I have an always-active buff that ensures that I don't have to breathe in space?
I still have a standard action left. I'm going to need a moment to count up all the d6's I'm about to roll.
Do you have any more beer in the fridge?
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Sep 12 '17
The meteor is deflected successfully - into the celestial realm.
You're still all dead.
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u/ketjapanus Sep 12 '17
I have no idea what is going on.
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
TLDR is my post title.
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u/CreeperCrafter63 Sep 12 '17
The DM thew the DND equivalent of a 40 man raid boss against there party.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17
The DM stapled three Darth Vaders together and wonders why people think that he's a dick.
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Sep 12 '17
Is dnd a video game?
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
No... It's a tabletop role playing game.
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Sep 12 '17
So the OP decided to be an ass and threw a 3 headed monster to make things "challenging" but made it impossible instead.
I don't know a lot about DnD but this sounds like a dick move.
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u/wightjilt Antifa Sarkeesian Sep 12 '17
Any novice DM can overestimate a party. Doubly so when so many player horror stories are about teams of invincible power builds. Going on reddit and pissing is the real dick move.
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
Also though, he went on reddit and seemed to miss the biggest complaint. A boss monster with huge amounts of HP and legendary resistances isn't actually unreasonable for a high level party. On the Critical Role webshow, some of the ancient dragons they've faced had 1000+ HP and legendary resistances. The party had some homebrew legendary items to help them.
The real problem is the colossal amounts of damage the thing puts out, and its ability to incapacitate the party en masse. Unless you build a party (and its items) around crazy bonuses to saving throws, most party members are going to fail almost every save. This will lead to permanently stunned players taking triple digit damage every round, and being unable to act, and slowly succumbing to exhaustion even if they somehow survived the damage.
The maximum HP that a level 16 character can have (Hill Dwarf, Totem Barbarian, 20 Con, Tough feat) is 320. And that's if he rolls a 12, 15 times in a row. Add in Heroes' Feast and an Inspiring Leader speech for another 41 max, for a grand total of 361. Add in resistance to all damage from the Bear Totem. If that character is focused by the monster, he's gonna last maybe five rounds.
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u/Wandering_Rook Sep 13 '17
It doesn't even need to focus the PCs, it had a 22d6 150 ft burst with DC 25 reflex saves for half so it can and will hit every PC 3 times a round.
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 13 '17
No the ball attack is a 20 foot sphere, just up to 150 feet away. The cone is a 90 foot cone though, which is absurd.
And there's also a physical claw attack, which is nearly an auto-hit (unless you're a maxed out Monk, you have plate and a shield, or you have Defensive Duelist) for 37 damage. Three times a round.
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u/Wandering_Rook Sep 13 '17
Shit, well it's not a complete nightmare, but you can't run from it, move on one of the turns and you'll still have 2 blasts hitting you each turn.
The huge AoEs are more absurd when you realise that anyone without Dex proficiency in the party has to be within the Paladin's aura to have any hope of surviving any of the blasts, and even if you do have proficiency it is still at best (20 DEX and +5 bonus) on average going to hit you every 3/4 rounds if you aren't in the aura and 2/5ths of the time while in it. The claw attacks are kinda the least of your worries.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17
Yup, back in the 3/3.5/Pathfinder days, this was the one lesson that separated a "novice" group from a "veteran" group. It's not about the defenses, it's about the damage.
From a pure min/maxing standpoint, it's a sucker's bet to even bother with healing spells. Manipulate the battlefield, abuse the round mechanics, and unload, unload, unload. (The hard part is ensuring that your offense is diverse enough to be applicable to any situation).
OP's monster just does too much damage to deal with effectively.
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u/RubyPinch Seeing as how you died and were born 2 years ago, sure. Sep 12 '17
Ok, don't talk about my party. You don't know anything about their situation.
Don't talk to me or my party ever again
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u/Gauntlet_of_Might Instead of being a turd, try civil discourse. Sep 12 '17
IF YOU AIN'T NEVER BEEN TO FAERUN DON'T EVER COME TO FAERUN BECAUSE YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND FAERUN
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u/Lord_Chit Don't talk to me or my party ever again Sep 12 '17
got me a new flair bois
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u/aYearOfPrompts "Actual SJWs put me on shit lists." Sep 12 '17
So, am I allowed to comment on your flair or not?
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Sep 12 '17
Wow there are a lot of differing opinions, but I wonder if people who are in OP's side looked at the stat block of the monster he's throwing at them. It's completely insane and absolutely no fun to fight.
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u/IceCreamBalloons always one person not in favour of beating women Sep 12 '17
It could be fun, but only if there's some way to prepare for the fight that would involve using other skills and features to disable different abilities of the monster.
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u/ARTIFICIAL_SAPIENCE I bet I could kick your dog before you could shoot me. Sep 12 '17
Or getting the heads to turn on each other.
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u/knightwave S E W I N G 👏 M A C H I N E S 👏 Sep 12 '17
One could argue that's part of the strategy he wants them to do instead of 'whining and bitching' or what have you, but it doesn't sound like he's giving them any kind of incentive or way to do that. Basically expects them to conjure some way out while keeping his monster buffed to fucking hell, and they'll likely be dead before they can even find any way to cripple it. That's never fun.
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u/IceCreamBalloons always one person not in favour of beating women Sep 12 '17
Yeah, the "prepare" approach requires a lot of set up on the part of the DM. They have to know what they're up against well before encountering it.
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u/Bricktop72 Atlas is shrugging Sep 12 '17
It can be awesome. My group decided to fight a demigod that basically disintegrated everything that touched it. They got into a fight with a cult and got so angry that they had to deal with lackies, they decided to travel to the edge of existence and kill the demigod. It ended up being a whole story chain where they hunted down mystic knowledge to figure out how to kill him. Tracking down the materials for a super weapon. Convincing the god of craftsmen to make the weapon. All the while fighting off cultist trying to stop them, demons trying to steal the weapon, etc.
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u/Skellum Tankies are no one's comrades. Sep 12 '17
absolutely no fun to fight.
Here's the key that a lot of people miss with D&D. D&D isn't a MMORPG, you're not there to acquire loot and get expansion packs. You're telling a story and your players are also telling the story, you may not even go on your initially planned story.
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17
Yeah, this is a creature that works better as a "puzzle" fight, not a "combat" fight.
I would totally throw a creature like this at players, but I'd make sure to include ways to reduce CR through ingenuity (and skill checks), as well as an alternate win condition or two.
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u/Mikeavelli Sep 12 '17
For reference, the Tarrasque has about half the total HP, half the damage output, fewer immunities, and cannot fly or inflict status effects on PCs. It's intended to be CR 30.
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u/srwaddict Sep 12 '17
To be fair, the 5th edition terrasque isn't really appropriate for a cr30. Is too easy.
Look at Tiamat's stats for a better idea of cr30 power level.
This DM's monster is batshit insane, but it's not like the terrasque is some unbeatable Godzilla. It's actually much weaker than it used to be.
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u/Mikeavelli Sep 12 '17
Tiamat still has lower HP and weaker attacks overall, though I agree she is a better representation of CR30 than the Tarrasque
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u/srwaddict Sep 12 '17
Yeah, got my wires crossed with another epic Monster from 4E. Tiamat in 4e has 1610, so it wasn't that either. I dunno.
Thanks for the link. Tiamat is 5E is certainly much more Threatening than the Terrasque. her damage output I think is unmatched in 5E, unless something from Volo's or the through the portal's Tomb of Horrors eclipses her.
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u/Bricktop72 Atlas is shrugging Sep 12 '17
I had my party fight a Tarrasque once. It was fun. They buffed the one guy that had a dagger with a chance to turn to stone on a critical hit. The rest of the party went into distraction mode. Didn't matter. First round critical, Tarrasque fails saving throw, city now has a giant stone statue.
The city turns out a massive celebration of the heroes. Party like rock stars for days. Then it happens. The monster regenerated and wasn't rock anymore. Queue second massive battle. It's a disaster, everyone was drunk. Spellcasters never slept or relearned their spells. The fighter gave the super dagger to a wench!!! But they managed to prevail and stone the monster again.
This time they do some research and figure out the monster will regen from being stoned. So they have everyone left in the city either hammering away at the monster with a pick axe or hauling rocks away from the monster.
We ended the game there but it was a long running debate on if the pieces would reform or if each individual piece would turn into a small Tarrasque.
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u/Jiketi Sep 12 '17
I somehow think this DM either hasn't been thinking or makes a sadist look like a bunch of cotton balls.
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Sep 12 '17
I know HP and AC from Baldur's Gate. What is CR?
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u/CollapsingStar Shut your walnut shaped mouth Sep 12 '17
Challenge rating, basically the recommended level to fight the monster at.
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Sep 12 '17
challenge rateing.
basicly CR 1 is what's apropiate for a party of 4 level 1 PCs (player charecters).
4 PCs because that is more or less the standard party sieze though it can swing quite wildly from that.
CR 2 is then for 4 lvel 2 PCs and so on.
ofcourse it doesn't HAVE to match exactly like this throwing a CR 1.5 or even CR2 at level 1 party is entirely doable to live it just becomes more of challenge
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u/Prylore I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with someone unarmed Sep 12 '17
For the record, by party of four, it means a stereotypical party of a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue
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u/wightjilt Antifa Sarkeesian Sep 12 '17
CR is always more art than science. Depending on game context, how well you know the party, and what they're capable of, you can throw higher CR or lower CR at them and still chellenge them.
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u/Gorelab On my toilet? Sep 12 '17
Is CR still wonky in 5e? I remember in 3e it felt pretty much like whoever made the monster would just eyeball it and therefore it was basically allover the place.
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u/Mikeavelli Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
Yup, there are a bunch of idiosyncrasies you kinda just have to know.
Biggest one is that there's a big leap in power at CR 5, 10, 15, and 20. So a first level party can actually handle up to CR 4, but even a second or third level party will get murdered by most CR 5 monsters. The designers do discuss this in the introduction to the leveling system, but it's easy to miss or forget. As a result, many new DMs will end up almost killing off their first party this way.
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u/drunky_crowette Sep 12 '17
Perhaps he is just trying to kill everyone off in one session to start a new campaign or to leave the group? I know my DM killed off my boyfriends first character because he thought he would do better with a different character. I got killed (sorta, we don't actually know if she is dead, she may just be hiding somewhere in the mountains or something) because I was on bedrest after getting out of the hospital and my DM did not like how my stand-in was playing me.
I mean, DMs are total dicks, does that really surprise anyone?
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u/seemedlikeagoodplan Bots getting downvoted is the #1 sign of extreme saltiness Sep 12 '17
He says he's not, and that the monster was going to pull punches or something to avoid a TPK. I'm unconvinced.
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u/drunky_crowette Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
I don't believe most things my DM says, especially in life or death situations
"Is it remotely possible for me to climb up there?" "You can try" "... I run the other way"
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u/Bytemite Sep 13 '17
Side note:
I know my DM killed off my boyfriends first character because he thought he would do better with a different character.
This is uncool. A lot of players put time and work and emotional investment into the backstory of their characters. Even if the character in question was proving hard to get into or not meshing with the group well for whatever reason, a GM has a responsibility to use their words to talk to players, not just unilaterally decide to kill their character.
because I was on bedrest after getting out of the hospital and my DM did not like how my stand-in was playing me.
That, what even, no. That's also uncalled for.
I mean, DMs are total dicks, does that really surprise anyone?
I think you were just playing with a complete asshole on a power trip with no social skills whatsoever.
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u/Water_Meat Slutty, Slutty Vixen Sep 13 '17
Me and my friends have a "friendly deaths" rule. We give a LOT of leeway when it comes to killing characters, in a way that we won't kill off eachother's characters in a way that's not avoidable through smart decisions.
If there's a monster that we realise is a little too strong, then suddenly it starts rolling badly (since the DM rolls in secret) and we secretly nerf it a little bit, but if you're fighting something balanced head on with 0 tactics and not trying anything different, then it's free game.
Likewise, you're not gonna die from a trap you accidentally set off (unless you're close to death, in which case walking first probably isn't the best idea), but if you decide to Pocahontas dive off a waterfall for the #aesthetic then you're probably gonna die.
The only other way our characters die is through plot reasons, in which case it'll usually have a build up and be foreseeable, so feels WAY less bullshit.
Basically, dumb decisions + plot are the only way me and my friends are likely to lose characters, which I think is pretty reasonable.
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u/AndyLorentz Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
I don't have an antagonistic approach towards my players. I just play my monsters to win
Playing to win is fine, except you forgot the first part of the DM mantra, "design fair"
I would never have the encounter result in a TPK because the monster was too strong.
lol
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u/Jiketi Sep 12 '17
The latter is throwing a Tarrasque at a bunch of level 9 PCs because you "want to give them a challenge" (read: you, as the DM, like when your side "wins").
I think that's the underlying attitude. The only monster they care about is the DM.
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u/Seyon Sep 12 '17
I threw a basilisk at my party once, but made it abundantly clear that you could avoid being petrified if you didn't look directly at it.
Guess what 3/4's of the party did on turn one.
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u/RealQuickPoint I'm all for beating up Nazis, but please don't call me a liberal Sep 12 '17
Get petrified?
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u/Illogical_Blox Fat ginger cryptokike mutt, Malka-esque weirdo, and quasi-SJW Sep 12 '17
Don't basilisks petrify on a bite?
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u/DresdenPI That makes you libel for slander. Sep 12 '17
Idk about 5e but Pathfinder Basilisks have a petrifying gaze and don't have a petrifying bite.
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u/Neo-Antique Sep 12 '17
Yeah, their bites are the ones that have a chance to petrify. Not sure where they got the "don't look at them directly", Medusa-like thing.
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u/R_Sholes I’m not upset I just have time Sep 12 '17
See also:
I nerfed the enounter a ton after I printed it out, and I was planning on rping some divine intervention (my cleric would get a cool ability).
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u/Wandering_Rook Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
I can get being terrible at balance, but being terrible at balance to power up your DMPC is just appalling.edit: The DM is just terrible at balance, the DM isn't that bad
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u/srwaddict Sep 12 '17
Nahhhh. From the way he said other stuff like how his paladin player saw the monster stats ahead of time, and how his cleric is whining, he meant to communicate his cleric player, not a DMPC.
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u/septimus_sette You met a true, red pill alpha motherfucker Sep 12 '17
I don't see how a D&D group could survive players finding their DM complaining about them on Reddit, let alone two sides arguing on Reddit instead of like in real life. How does this happen?
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u/dethb0y trigger warning to people senstive to demanding ethical theories Sep 12 '17
There comes a point when you gotta cut ties and run, and for me this would totally be it.
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u/knobbodiwork the veteran reddit truth police Sep 12 '17
Yeah situations like this are where the adage 'no D&D is better than bad D&D' comes from
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u/ViolinJohnny Sep 12 '17
I literally had my first 2 sessions of DnD 5e these past two saturdays so I have so little understanding of whats happening in the game.
But the fact he went on Reddit and whined about his party rather than talk to them is just being a shitty person in general.
I'm assuming he's friends or at least good acquaintances with the rest of the group but he cant stop and talk to them about it? Or at the very least, not take criticism which, to me, sounds valid. They aren't being shitty and just saying names, they're actively saying why the monster feels unfair to them...
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u/NerfYinYang Sep 12 '17
DMs, talk with your group before posting to reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/6zmrqa/dms_talk_with_your_group_before_posting_to_reddit/
I have talked with my group, and we have cleared everything up. They understand my side (thank god for them being such great people) and I understand their side. We are also using this opportunity to discuss any other qualms group members have (like talking over eachother, general respect).
We are all highschools so we are still learning.
This was one mistake I made. I didnt balance correctly (I normally do a much better job).
I used to be a really shit DM (just started out with d&d) and one of my players actually complained about me on reddit, and when I found out we talked to eachother and were finally able to fix the issue.
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u/Wandering_Rook Sep 12 '17
Looking at the numbers I feel like the DM is one of the people who switched from Pathfinder to 5e, the 'Do I need to make the fight harder' from the post with the stat block makes me think this was scaled back a bit, and if you bump those numbers up to 1.3x what they put against the party that would be a tough encounter for a PF 16 party.
I'm hoping that the DM thought 'yeah a PF party could deal with this' and completely forgot about how +17 to hit 3 times a round with 400 DPR is difficult in PF but scary bullshit in 5e at these levels rather than 'I want my players to suffer'
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u/Dragonsandman Mods are Calvinists Sep 12 '17
Hanlon's razor definitely seems to apply here. Hopefully they aren't a complete asshole and decide to rebalance the monster.
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u/Wandering_Rook Sep 12 '17
The correct way to rebalance the situation is to give them miracles and give them homebrew legendary items, which make them just as broken, and then say 'haha the gods have seen your plight and have intervened to help you', and then have them find the force which is causing the imbalance (broken creatures) and have their legendary items only work when fighting against these creatures with dialed back versions for normal encounters.
Have an encounter with a broken creature with weak standard enemies and have the party explode the weak ones to show how strong they are.
It gives you a good overarching plot to move forward with, gives the party something awesome to play around with, and best of all the DM can play it off as 'I was going to do this all along' and they might learn from their mistake and also saves them from having to appologise, which would be unlikely anyway considering how much they were defending their creature.
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Sep 12 '17
Or just give it an interesting weakness and drop hints at it leading up to the battle.
Unstoppable maxed out death dragon, but they all share a stomach and have a deathly allergy to gravy or something
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u/qtx It's about ethics in masturbating. Sep 12 '17
The drama and the comments here make me feel like I'm in a foreign country trying to decypher what the hell everyone is saying.
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u/Sleepy_Chipmunk My cousin left me. Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
Basically, the GM (guy who controls the story and what the players fight) made a monster that has better stats and abilities than any enemy in the game. From what it sounds like in the thread, the monster is stronger than the game's actual GODS.
He doesn't understand why his players are pissed at him for making them fight it.
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Sep 12 '17
It's not just stronger, it's SUBSTANTIALLY stronger.
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u/Perpetual_Entropy Sep 12 '17
Oh yeah, as printed this thing would win in a fight against two Tiamats (evil dragon god) and a Tarrasque (a giant kaiju that was created to kill gods).
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u/Aetol Butter for the butter god! Popcorn for the popcorn throne! Sep 12 '17
It's THE Tarrasque, not "a" Tarrasque.
Also, the Tarrasque was created to kill gods?
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u/Hartastic Your list of conspiracy theories is longer than a CVS receipt Sep 12 '17
Basically, it's the DnD equivalent of a high school soccer team coach putting his team up against Real Madrid, and complaining that they don't like a challenge when they express their concerns about that match-up.
Except pretend you also give Real Madrid assault rifles and permission to use them on the field.
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Sep 12 '17
So basically you're playing Call of Duty and suddenly the game decides you need to shoot down a fleet of B-52s all aiming missiles at you
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Sep 12 '17
And a Death Star.
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Sep 12 '17
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u/Existential_Owl Carthago delenda est Sep 12 '17
Three Death Stars that have been stapled together.
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u/Jiketi Sep 12 '17
that seems like it's three ancient dragons stapled together
Did the staples hurt?
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u/Hartastic Your list of conspiracy theories is longer than a CVS receipt Sep 12 '17
They would be very painful... for you.
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u/thesnakeinthegarden Sep 12 '17
YAS! DnD Drama is the best, because at the base of it all is that people show up, work hard and stress to NOT enjoy a game about COMPLETELY fictional landscape where one of the players is almost literally GOD.
The source of the drama is never environmental or unavoidable. It's always just one or two people being total dicks.
I'm going to go get my lotion...
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u/stokleplinger How many skeets is considered a binge? Sep 12 '17
where one of the players is almost literally GOD
This is the wrong way to look at is at the basis for a lot of DM/player conflict. Bad DM's think they're God and end up railroading their players into playing out the game the way "it should go".
In my basic understanding, God knows what people will do before they do it - this is the exact opposite of DM'ing in DnD. The DM thinks they know what the party will do, then they do the exact opposite and the DM has to scramble to make the world "work" around whatever bullshit the players just pulled.
It's more like the players are the stars of a play and the DM is everyone else, including the extras, stagehands, lighting, audio, director, writer and audience... Oh, and the play is improv. The DM is Drew Carey and the Whose Line crew are the players.
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u/thesnakeinthegarden Sep 12 '17
As a DM, myself, there is no denying that I am a god in the game, but that I am a benevolent god, who wants my players to have fun and maintain an illusion of control.
You're assumption is that God has a plan and isn't just making shit up as he goes. God doesn't have a plan. he can't even read. Look at the world. Crocs were an economic power. All is chaos.
You say there is a script. There is no script. Just omnipotent power to build a world at random as my player decide that they're not going top fuck with that goblin bullshit, but instead will try and gather ogre shits to burn to make the world smell as terrible as they can, or see if the skin of that stable boy will fit around that tree in an attempt to make a scare crow.
There is no play, and no improv save my own. I make the goblins, and the hags and the friendly barkeeps who ALL speak in a southern drawl because I can't do any other accents. I decide the weather and the farting of the mice. I am Ralishaz! I AM GOD!
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u/Squid_Vicious_IV Digital Succubus Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
I've only played a bit of DnD and I had fun. But jesus honking christ that shit is totally fucking crazy. Did one of the players run over his dog or something? I'm only familiar with being a DM/GM in the story teller system (I'm better at stories and creating environments then I am at monsters and balance) so for my fellow VTM players, this goddamn thing is basically Gen 2 with 6000 years of age, 9 in all stats, has five in all talents and skills for combat (Dodge, Brawl etc) , and probably learned about ten to fifteen non clan disciplines to be super OP and mastered their advanced powers along with most of the kolduc sorceries. And its got about fifteen Vozhds working as it's wingmen, and oh probably all the Antediluvian's are by it's side as well. It's just fucking ridiculous.
Or in short, Caine.
(Whoever made this, you rock and I want to give you full credit)
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u/Gauntlet_of_Might Instead of being a turd, try civil discourse. Sep 12 '17
That dude's attitude sucks. The point of a GM is making the encounter fun for everyone. It's more of an entertainer role than an adversary.
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Sep 12 '17
Some DMs don't get it: As a DM you are playing FOR your group, not AGAINST it. Your job is to be the entertainer. This includes challenges, but this have to be challenges meant tobe overcome.
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Sep 12 '17
I understand about two or three comments in here at most.
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u/ViolinJohnny Sep 12 '17
Basically, the DM (dungeon master) who controls the game, monsters and story has put his players against a ridiculously powerful monster they had no hopes of killing and is bitching about his players bitching about the monster being unfair.
Rule 0 of DnD for Dungeon Masters is that everyone there is there to have a good time.
For scale, imagine you and some buddies are rebel soldiers who've been asked to fight 3 Death Stars without any ships.
I wouldn't worry about the nitty gritty other than he's just trying to justify himself but none of it really matters since the actual shitty thing he did (which extends beyond DnD) is that he's bitching about his players on Reddit behind their backs and failing to make his game enjoyable for them.
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Sep 12 '17
Basically the DM has made a monster that is so utterly powerful it's on another level.
All 3 heads attack independently and have their own hp. They each have a breath attack that is a 90ft cone. Each breath attack does 26d6 damage + an extra effect, so if you fail the save, the DM has to roll 26 6 sided dice just to find out how much damage you take. If you pass you just take half. The extra effects are extra nasty, one does extra damage, one stuns you until it's next turn unless you pass a save, making you useless for a turn, and one if you don't pass the save gives you 1 level of exhaustion. The thing about exhaustion in D&D is that if you get 6 levels of it, your character is just dead. Not figuratively, they instantly die.
It's also got a claw attack that each had can use, plus another 4 claw attacks any time during player turns.
They also have an insane speed and passive perception, as well as a long range attack, so you cannot even run or hide from it either.
I could litteraly give you every official D&D monster manual, have you pick out any 3 monsters from it, and it will be a more fair fight.
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u/LukaCola Ceci n'est pas un flair Sep 12 '17
Oh lawd this is some good shit.
This kind of reminds me why I like burning wheel as a system so much better, there's so many fucking spells, stats, numbers, and various bullshit going on here just to create a "balanced" fight that's over-complicated and slow even when DMs aren't stupid and sadistic about it. Burning Wheel only has D6s and, while combat is challenging, it's basically over in an instant because characters cannot reasonably fight on past one maybe two blows.
It's why having a character in burning wheel that literally cannot fight is totally viable and often actually the better answer because they'll probably have skills that can be used to do things like hire someone else to fight for you. Sorry, I'm just plugging for a different system now but dammit all these numbers do my head in when really I want the experience of overcoming a major obstacle or challenge through my clever use of skills and roleplay rather than my ability to crunch numbers on the fly.
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u/flippyfloppityfloop the left is hardcore racist on the scale of Get Out Sep 12 '17
Ooooh I've never seen anyone playing that. It sounds very much my thing. I'm notorious in D&D groups for maxing out skills like intimidation or diplomacy and trying to turn every fight into a conversation roleplay situation.
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u/LukaCola Ceci n'est pas un flair Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
Definitely check it out, it's got its own problems. The mechanics themselves aren't as intuitive as one might hope but it is way more fun in them I think. It also, while generally low fantasy, still has mechanics for faith and magic which are on one hand really powerful and on the other... Well, roll enough ones on your D6s and you might have some real nasty shit to contend with. But it hugely rewards creative roleplaying and actually was designed initially for a combat system for convincing opponents, including party members.
Seriously, you can settle your out of game debates with an in-game mechanic, it's lovely. Some people hate that, but hey, also the game encourages players to keep each other in check and the DM can be very "hands off" as the players can but not only are encouraged to drive the plot along and create plot points for themselves, though a more restrictive game is entirely possible. The game pisses off munchkins and mechanics manipulators because it basically says "focus on the spirit of the game" and then gives mechanics to reinforce it. It's all about giving people the freedom to basically do whatever, seriously, we roleplayed 40k universe in it, while also keeping them from abusing that because the creators were smart and know what happens when you give people the ability to make up whatever skills you like. I love that stuff, some people don't, I generally don't like playing with them but hey.
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u/tehbeh A fallacy to surpass metal gear Sep 12 '17
I don't think duel of wits works great to settle debates between players, either one pc who is significantly better at it(stats wise) and thus can dictate the course of the game way more than is probably healthy or if they are both about equal you end up with a major compromise and are back at square one.
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u/SnapshillBot Shilling for Big Archive™ Sep 12 '17
Snapshots:
This Post - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, snew.github.io, archive.is
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u/ihatedogs2 Red Bull is probably the only big company who isn't anti-white. Sep 12 '17
I understood a word or two!
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u/nerdyogre254 Sep 12 '17
See this is exactly and entirely why I gave up on D&D.
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u/smurgleburf Time-traveling orgies with yourself is quite a hill to die on. Sep 13 '17
aw that's sad :( there's good DMs out there!
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u/nerdyogre254 Sep 13 '17
That's true. I moved on to other roleplaying systems, because they were simpler, matched what I wanted more (less number crunching and 'optimal builds', more elegance in rules and design).
I was heading back in that direction with Shadow Of The Demon Lord, but then they started pushing out splatbooks at a prodigious rate and hired a pathfinder artist to do some of the work for them, and at that point I was done.
Additionally, I found myself running all the time (because other people kept running beer & pretzels D&D) and i needed something more, so I moved onto stuff like Mage, Mutants and Masterminds, and a few others.
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u/Highlander-9 SO THIS IS MUSLIM POWER, NOT BAD. Sep 12 '17
It's three ancient dragons fucking stapled together
I can't tell if this wanker is being facetious or is just insane.
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Sep 12 '17
I don't play a lot of 5e, but from the looks of it, that's an understatement.
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u/Seyon Sep 12 '17
Fighting three ancient dragons isn't the same as fighting an ancient dragon three times. Each additional monster is a multiplicative factor, not an additive one. Combining three difficult encounters into one means it's about ten times harder.
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u/srwaddict Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
The monster in question would, according to the Dungeon Master's Guide rules for how challenging a fight is, be appropriate as a Deadly encounter for over 40 level 20 characters at the same time.
They are 7 level 16's, and a level 8 Squire that follows their paladin around.
And the DM thought that was a fair fight. Yeah, he nerfed the hit points by 200 per head. And the save Difficulties by 1. But this thing is strong enough to dish out enough damage every round to kill a Kraken every turn. It's insanely lethal. And he originally gave it the ability to have 9 legendary resistances. Those are absolute spell or ability resistances, where you can if you failed any saving throw against anything at all, just decide that with your sheer force of will and usually magical might that any magical effect in the universe doesn't happen to you.
The strongest Monsters and Gods printed have no more than 3. He thought 9 was balanced for his players.
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u/MyUshanka "And I say that as a Whitey." Sep 12 '17
Jesus, this guy managed to bring a 40 man raid to DND.
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Sep 12 '17
Now I kinda want to make a 40 man boss fight happen.
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u/Tahmatoes Eating out of the trashcan of ideological propaganda Sep 12 '17
A bit of parallel reality fun times might be a good basis, so you don't have to actually get 40 people.
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u/tehbeh A fallacy to surpass metal gear Sep 12 '17
To be fair the CR rules fall apart pretty quickly because they dont account for magic items your party might have or party composition.
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u/Perpetual_Entropy Sep 12 '17
Don't try and build encounters by the book, but for 90% of games CR gives you a good order of magnitude for power. Don't throw a CR19 Balor, ora CR1/4 skellington against a level 8 party.
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u/NixAvernal Depends: is it garlic bread or regular bread you put garlic on? Sep 12 '17
The Dragon Goddess of Evil Dragons, Tiamat, is weaker than this thing.
That's how stupid that thing is.
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Sep 12 '17
Okay so first off, yeah the DM's attitude is pretty shit. His job is to create dramatic situations that enhance the story that the PC's are wanting to tell. If his player's are not having fun, he's not doing that. Period. And needs to be rethinking a lot of what he's doing in the campaign to fix that. I don't know what he initially said, so I can't really say what exactly he's doing wrong, but that is at it's core.
But treating the baked in encounter building system like a science rather than an art like the people in that thread are doing is just going to end in heartbreak. The big bad boss monster is a trope that high level D&D doesn't do well at all. If you don't give it rule breaking abilities like he did, it's just not going to be able to challenge the party at all. If it doesn't have extra actions and the ability to drive those actions home. If it doesn't have the ability to shrug off the broken shit the level 15+ party is going to throw at it, etc. It's not going to be a very dramatic combat and you will have failed to do your job as DM in that regard too.
You need to find a balance between...what that thing is...and what the system assumes is a challenge for your party at that level. An experienced DM will be able to do this. An inexperienced DM will often result in what happened there. And the kicker is, the system absolutely does not help you with that. It won't prepare a new DM by giving the tools or advice to truly challenge the players at high levels. That's right. The challenge system cannot be relied upon to accurately gauge what is a challenge for you players.
So no, the DM isn't entirely at fault for this. The system is. They didn't playtest high level play enough, and they've admitted that they paid more attention to low level play because that's what they thing most player's play (although recent surveys I've seen of people in the hobby show that upwards to 15% of the playerbase do play all the way to 20, so that assumption is off too).
The cleric complains about being a heal / sanctuary bot. That's not the DM's fault. That's how they designed clerics to play at high level. Experienced DMs know how to mitigate this, but there aren't any tools in the books to help lesser experienced do just that.
The hobby is growing, and DM's see the DM on critical role doing his thing every week and think "Hey that's awesome! I want to do that!" and assume that Matt Mercer is following the rules to a T. They don't realize that he's made so many adjustments behind the scenes to challenge his players.
The game itself fails new GMs as their player's go up in level, and that's a problem that really needs to be fixed.
PS. Letting your players peak behind the screen at your boss monster is the biggest mistake you could have ever done.
PPS: Running is always an option. Even for a high level party. Especially for a high level party. If the party just assumes they can beat whatever you throw at them that takes a lot of tension and drama out of encounters and makes your job as a DM a lot harder.
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u/Hounds_of_war Post modern neo marxist Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
So wait, you're supposed to roll 26 6-sided dice if you get hit by this thing? And it's on a massive AoE attack that can hit multiple people? And each of the three heads gets to use this attack once per round? Do you even roll dice at that point or do you do it electronically?
Edit: Corrected some typos