The "bitch about your GM" thread

Before I start, let me clarify and say the GM was (and still is) a good friend of mine, and I love him as a tabletop/larp PC, he's just...not good when in charge.

He started a Dragon Age campaign, which was pretty simple to figure out, although had some weird 3d6 system thing. I knew nothing of Dragon Age going in, so I ended up making a character who really shouldn't exist and ended up having a lot of conversations where the other players were telling me flat out that wouldn't happen.

But that was all on me.

What wasn't on me was the poor GM, who decided to do a module. He wasn't good at anything other than making characters, so it made sense, but it meant he had to read from the book every time, and he was a horrible orator. Which isn't so bad, but for me it was ear bleeding, due to my need of smooth talking otherwise I get antsy. And for some reason the people in Dragon Age like making long-ass speeches.

more importantly, he didn't fully understand how to optimize encounters, so every encounter (...except the boss fights...) were life or death. We kept fighting these guys that were hard to hit, could basically auto hit anyone who didn't have armor/defense high enough (when your defense is 10 by default, and the bad guys are using 3d6 to hit, plus a basic modifier, and since there are so many of them they all get flanking bonuses...), and hit hard enough to two hit a mage. And we usually fought 10 of them at a time or so. And at one point we were level 2 in a level 1 run, so he decided to compensate by adding MORE people, instead of just giving them a bit more hp. He also didn't remove the people if someone couldn't show up.

Naturally this had him squawk when we essentially steam rolled bosses, because there was only ONE of them. Although it wasn't steam rolling, it was just...there wasn't someone below 0 hp every round.

Miraculously, minus one guy, we all lived the entire campaign (which consisted of 3 modules, and a fourth unfinished one), until assassins killed us in our sleep anticlimactically.

Good guy, bad gm.

edited 13th Aug '13 4:50:11 PM by MrAHR

This is less about my GM and more about the fact that apparently the Legend forum's dicebot has it in for me, but the first enemy of the campaign just critted versus my character. Twice. In one attack action. This puts the character that I spent entirely too much time building well under the death threshold, and the first encounter isn't even over.

That happened in a campaign of mine once, back in 3.x (3.0 I think) where some girl had a minotaur crit her with a x3 crit weapon. Since she had cover, her boyfriend managed to convince me to say "well, it seems like if you're attacking someone with cover you shouldn't be able to get the maximum result-" so I just rolled with it, since it was a permadeath campaign and frankly, I was a bit of a spineless DM back then.

Kyle: Don't worry; it was nonlethal damage, so you don't need to make a new sheet just yet.

Context: the match was four level 3 players against one level 4 NPC. The level 4 just dealt 49 damage in one round to an already-injured PC by critting on both of its melee attacks.

Oh does D&D have any official rules (any edition) for subdue damage?

Last game I played all the players had to do was declare the attack nonlethal. Which strain suspension of disbelief when you 'subduing' people with a barrage of arrows

edited 25th Aug '13 6:45:15 PM by joeyjojo

3.x: Subdual (3.0)/non-lethal (3.5) damage accrues at a positive rate. If someone punches you for 1d3 points of nonlethal damage, you've sustained 3 non-lethal damage (or whatever). Once your non-lethal damage exceeds your remaining HP, you fall unconscious.

Creatures with regeneration suffer non-lethal damage instead of normal damage whenever they're damaged; they can only be killed with a non-damage based mechanism of dying or, alternatively, through damage that bypasses their regeneration-either by actually reducing them to -10 HP, or by a coup de grace.

Actually, I'm not even 100% sure that a coup de grace can't kill them anyway; check your rulebook.

4E: Damage is lethal unless the attacker decides otherwise. The only damage that matters is the "killing" blow. There's no explicit rules for non-lethal damage used against P Cs; P Cs that decide to deal non-lethal damage instead knock the target out for 5 minutes. A pair of gauntlets allow characters to instead knock targets out until their next extended rest.

So to KO a npc in 3.5 i've got to keep track of another set of numbers that kick in when they reach the target's current hit points.

That's sounds fiddy seeing as I already generally count upwards for damage.

Do those gauntlets knock out the target until the target's next extended rest or the users next extended rest?

edited 25th Aug '13 8:06:10 PM by joeyjojo

They don't specify. Since monsters don't operate using the same rules as P Cs, there's not really a "thing" as a monster's short/extended rest, so I'd imagine it's the PC's. However, that's ruflcowism, because just because you sleep 8 hours doesn't mean you're benefiting from an extended rest.

As a DM, I tend to ad hoc any rules that aren't part of combat.

I always just tracked it by adding whatever lethal damage they have to the nonlethal damage and letting them count in the same direction.

Let's just say they are KO for a the length of any extended rest, i.e. eight hours.

But how do you work out how many Hit Points the target should have afterwards?

Well, my way's still fiddly and annoying. You end up keeping track of two damage numbers - one that only goes up when they take lethal damage, and another that goes up for both kinds of damage. If the second exceeds their total, they're unconscious. I'm only suggesting this as an alternative to tracking two numbers that march in opposite directions.

Okay I get you now.

You keep track of Lethal damage and Total damaged and make sure just to subtract the former from the targets HP when you done. That should do fine thanks.

Of course that doesn't fix 4e's as lethal as I say it is issues but what can you do?

If you're a player, you go with whatever your DM says. If you're the DM, you use your power as the DM to rule "no, you cannot render someone unconscious with a longbow/shotgun/disintegration ray."

In my campaign, I have the tendency of finishing enemies with fireball, which I usually describe as a blast of flames that asphyxiates the target.

I know I just wish the rules where a little bit tighter that's all.

If you can subdue a opponent just as effectively as you can kill them then there really isn't too much of a reason why a Lawfull Good Chatcter isn't subduing everything unless otherwised noted.

edited 25th Aug '13 10:52:11 PM by joeyjojo

I'm running Legend, in which you can always choose to deal less damage than you roll. Nonlethal is achieved by putting an opponent between 0 and -10 HP.

Thanks, although I've already multiclass too much with different game systems and I want to stick with Dn D for a change. Also I have to admit I have Hyper Aversion towards Legend.

I wasn't particularly impressed with Legend. It deals with some of 3.x's problems, sure, but to me it's like trying Bing.

Yes, Bing is just as good as Google as a search engine-but with all the other Google features, being "as good as" isn't sufficient motivation to switch.

Uses Duck Duck Go, It's basically Bing but greater privacy.

Oh I just thought of a simpler way to handle subdue damage.

Just cross off checkboxes one way to represent normal damage and cross of the other way to represent subdue damage.

Just had a chat with my GM's other group of players. God damn hell fuck, this dude is even worse than I thought! Suddenly it turned out that the crappy village in the fog he pulled out on us twice was an idea stolen from one of his players' campaign, and he's retardedly protective of his GMPCs, heroic or villainous.

I take it you're more a "let me be free to do whatever" type player then?

What, did you set a nuke off in front of them and they just smiled or something?

I make 0 apologies for Okui or the Hitokiri!

edited 31st Aug '13 8:48:28 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

No, the bigger problem here was that nothing made any sense or fit other parts! That and if the GM sets up situations in which his GMPC can be easily iced TWICE like a complete fucking retard, and his only way out is blatant railroading, then seriously, fuck this guy!

Our adventure contained the following plot hooks:

• Newly discovered tomb of a Templar analogue (you know the templars, riches, occult rites, that sort of stuff). Near Wolsung's analogue of London. As in London, United fucking Kingdom.
• Super secret college fraternity of the "Aristocrats Are Evil" kind, you know, Skull & Bones and stuff.
• Ghostapo agents. Still in the analogue of United fucking Kingdom, and ten years after WW 2.
• An even more secret organization of Her Majesty's spies-in-training.
• And a German countess living in the United fucking Kingdom, being suspected of necromancy and other unsavory activities, etc.

NOTHING of that shit was ever important in that campaign for more than fifteen minutes, with tenuous if any link between them! Seriously, if you're making a campaign, just fucking think what you're doing.

why the United Fucking Kingdom? Seems