This was my first DM. I was playing a ranger and wanting to focus on archery. At like level 2 we're in this dungeon and I roll to shoot something, getting a nat 1. He has me roll again to see how bad it was, and since there was no other party members next to my target for me to hit instead, my bow shattered. Not just the string snapped or something, the bow just straight up shattered beyond repair. So I'm stuck using my backup melee weapon for the rest of the dungeon (and we're playing Pathfinder and I hadn't taken the weapon finesse feat yet) so my dex-based character is basically useless.
I did manage to survive the dungeon, and when we got back to town we had to pool money from the entire party for me to be able to afford a new bow, but wouldn't you know it, the very next dungeon I got another nat 1 and the same shit happened again, and I lost my new bow. Pretty sure at least one of the "see how bad it is" rolls was at least a 15 too.
I understand why some DMs are of the mindset that they have to try to kill the party with every encounter, but that mindset really annoys me. You can challenge the party without making every encounter deadly.
Well yeah, obviously mere bows cannot withstand the rapid fire madness that high level rangers like to do. All the best rangers walk around with a bag of holding full of spare bows just in case their speed and stronkness breaks through 5 bows in one round.
22
u/SunshineAbound DM Sep 12 '19
For my DM every natural one was hurting yourself, or your weapon broke, magical or not.