Hundo's page

Telling a player week after week how to run his character to the point your talking over what he is telling me what he wants to do isnt "advice".

How many times have I asked are you sure thats what you want to do or stopped you from doing something that would have resulted in a TPK or gave you guys a Mulligan ? So dont tell me Im harsh.

You make choices that dont work to your favor and Im the badguy ?

We can blame each other all you want, bottom line is if you dont want to play then dont, the other group I run dosent have the problems your group does and what about the player who left your group calling you guys dysfunctional and joined the other.

Even one of your current players asked to move over to the other group because of the way you play.

I do have a lot of TPK's, all but a few coming from Lair Assault. Six rpg's I run a week and besides Lair Assault, your group has the most TPK or near TPK's. If I was as harsh as you say, wouldnt they all be tallying up the TPK's ?

The point of this post was to see how other people handle TPK's that resulted from poor choices or "rookie mistakes". Your ringing of that bell after I asked several times if that was what you wanted to do and your own party members told you not to was a creative way to start a fight that would have happened anyway.

Thing is most of these players had played 3.5 for years before switching over to Pathfinder. We have been playing the PFOP for almost a year. So these are seasoned players.

What they want is for me to layout thier options multiple choice style for everything they come across and let them pick the best option. Instead of saying thier character wants to use a particular skill they want me to ask them if anybody wants to use the relevant skill and let them roll.

I am not going to play babysitter, when they do get jammed I will remind them of what the npc's, gather info, knowledge, etc have given them.

I have stopped them in the past from starting something that would have ended in a TPK, or allowed a Mulligan. They just dont seem to learn from mistakes at times and its wash, rinse, repeat.

I have a group of players that make rookie mistakes and poor choices that lead to TPK's on a regular basis. Sometimes they play well together and other times they dont. I always hear the scenarios are too hard, keep in mind that they are designed for 4 players and they have 6 and before you ask, I am running them on the proper tier.

They have taken over twice the amount of time then other groups I run to reach 3rd level, due to restarting at 1st after TPK's and on thier first run through a 3rd level scenario, another TPK happened due to thier poor choices. My other groups do not have this problem.

Then the whole "its too hard" and "are you sure you running it right" comments start. I just flat out tell them "this is not 4th ed or a board game, death will happen if you do foolish things". Ticks them off, then I get told I should adjust things to make it easier for them. To which I reply you are running in a scenario designed for 4 with 6 and I dont change anything, thats advantage enough.

Anybody else have similar groups ? Im curious to see how you handle it if you do.

Minor on the fly changes to enhance game play shouldnt be an issue.

Players making a "rookie" mistake and you change things alittle bit to avoid a TPK, again shouldnt be an issue.

Adjusting for the 7-player table, which happens more times then it should, shouldnt be an issue.

Players doing something that allows you to set off the fight in a creative way that was going to happen anyway, again not an issue.

Changing main/key plot points, should never happen.

Problem Im having more and more is cheating players buying the scenarios themselves, reading them ahead of time, and miraculously having a solution to the problem that they normally wouldnt have. When I caught wind of this (by overhearing a conversation) I changed the way a fight happened just to try and catch them with a "not the way it was written" comment. Was I wrong ? Needless to say I threatened to kick that player out and so-far thier game-play as returned to thier "normal" sop.

To re-cap, minor changes shouldnt be an issue, major plot/storyline should be, and changing things to catch a cheating player-by all means.

Im reading too much into the rules and should have left the question as the first part.

Can you perform an attack of opportunity while prone and do you flank while prone ?

Doesnt seem you should be able to if flat on your back and how can you have a dex bonus to ac if not able to dodge/weave if off your feet ?

The second part is hypothetically connecting not being able to make an att of opp while prone (if the case) and because of that being denied dex bonus to ac, and if you cant make an att of opp do you in fact threaten those squares around you thus not being able to gain flanking.

I have 2 quick questions about being prone: are you actually able to perform an att of opp while prone and are you flanking with an ally while down ?

I know the core says you cant perform att of opp if denied your dex bonus to your armor class so in effect if you cant make an att of opp while prone you dont have your dex bonus either to ac and flanking is based on your threatened squares so if you dont have threatened squares you cant perform any att of opp and arent flanking or am I reading too much into the rules ?

I had one of those. She started in our PFOP group and from the word go was a complete rules lawyer and very very pushy and if things didnt go her way would come close to throwing a fit.

One night her husband kept rolling 1's over and over, on one attempt to throw alchemist fire he rolled a 1 on the attack, GM said jokingly "Dont roll a 1 on the miss-direction or it will drop at your feet" needless to say he rolled a 1 and remarked I take 1 point of splash damage.

Later that week when I ran into the GM at the store and he remarked she had sent him a nasty email about the miss rules as they effect thrown flasks yadda yadda yadda and how it wouldnt have landed at his feet. The GM said he just let it go and said 2 can play that game.

The following week she made a minor mistake on the effects of a spell, the GM corrected her and she flat-out tried to start an argument over it, to which he calmly said "Look it up, you have your book right there" after a few minutes she stated "Well I must have read an errata on it and since I have an early copy of the Core its not corrected." So we wasted time after everybody but her agreed to the effects to look it up with an I-Pad because she wouldnt let it go. The GM was right. Her face was beat red and said she would find the errata. She never did.

After a few sessions you could really feel the mood change when she showed up. The GM had asked us all to give her a chance to adjust and fit in and said if she didnt in a week or two he would ask her to leave as she just didnt fit in.

Last week in character she was giving one of the other characters a rough time on finishing his faction mission, as does happen sometimes if missions are opposed somewhat. In the last fight she was knocked down to 0, on her next turn instead of falling and playing dead (she was flanked) she decided to stay standing and do nothing thinking the party healer (the one she was giving a hard time to all night) would save her. On the opponent's next turn, which was before the healer's, he attacked her as he was flanking and the GM rolled a crit (he doesnt roll behind a screen) so everybody saw it, he then rolled another 20 on the confirm. Ended up being 22 points of damage, killing her outright at that point. She was very mad and very loud about her disdain with what just happened, the GM ignored her and continued on. The rest of the party survived by the way.

She whinned and said she would never come back. Fine by the rest of us.

The GM has a house-rule that if he one-shots you like that, he will give you basicly a 50/50 death save that if you make it he allows 1 round for the party to try and save you before you outright die. They have to bring your character above the value you die at. Doesnt come into play much but has been known to save a character or two. Needless to say, since it is a house-rule and not a RAW, he didnt even mention it and the rest of us weren't either.

It appears our problem player solved itself.

He had drawn attention to the party which I then used to start the fight in that area. Creatures where already in that area and it would have been the party perception vs creature stealth. I hadnt changed the creatures' stats or added more of them.

I had asked him at least 3 times if that was the action he wanted to take, to which he replied yes. The rest of the party took precautions and had weapons out. 6 party members with full health/spells vs 2 creatures with a lower CR rating then the party.

Fight started after his rookie mistake, party was spread out by thier choosing that left thier healer and wizard unprotected. The creatures attacked and dropped the healer and wizard then the rest of the party. Didnt help that the creatures also crit several times either, but results would have been the same.

No major plot changes or creature changing, just started the fight after his dumb action. His complaint after he read the adventure and started giving me flak was the creatures shouldnt have attacked and the party should have seen them hiding.

Unless Im missing something, I dont see where I did anything wrong. Wasnt like I took kobolds and changed them all to liches mid-fight, and even if I did-its my dungeon.

I am going to vent for a minute or two so please bear with me then add your comments if you feel inclined to do so-good, bad, or indifferent-I would like other perspectives on this issue.

As the title states, I am so tired of hearing "Thats not the way its written". Some background-I began running games back in the late 70's during the ad&d days before I even had peach fuzz. Took a 15+ year break, missed the whole 3/3.5 editions, walked into a flgs one night and was introduced to 4th ed. I almost gave up then and there as the 4th is such a system shock from what I had run with 1st & 2nd, I even made the comment that what we where playing was not d&d but a pen & paper video game. I then found Pathfinder and the voices in my head where happy again.

So I bought the books, learned the rules, and began running games at the flgs. One-shots, open world campaigns, and organized play. I kept hearing thanks for doing this its hard to find somebody to run a game let alone a good table/fun session, etc time and time again.

I soon realized that with the internet, pdf's, and file sharing that pretty much any published adventure (including organized play sessions) where and are readily available. Not a problem I thought at first as it gave me a lot more options for adventure hooks and story ideas.

Then thats when the whole "thats not how its written" started. I have several players that no matter what happens in the game world always want to debate every little thing that they feel isnt "as written" in the adventure. I stopped telling them the name of the module long ago but it isnt that hard to locate it if you have a few key plot points Ive found out.

Examples-they feel they should be able to rest after every fight to regain abilites without any consequences in any room of a dungeon, that the creatures they come across should always be mindless and walk right into flanking for them, that if 4 players show I should take half the challenges out but if 7 show I shouldn't make adjustments either, that no creatures should ever be able to make a perception roll to notice the fighting in an adjacent room, or come out of that room to investigate or for whatever else reason, and it goes on and on. Most the time I just blow it off.

Recently a player made a huge mistake that set off a fight that resulted in a tpk. Later that same night I started to get text messages from the same player saying he didnt think it was right the tpk happened because it wasnt written that way in the module. I pretty much blew it off and told him does it really matter ? If you went and found the adventure after the fact and read it, which you apparently did, the creatures are in that area and a fight would have happened anyway, you just gave me a creative way to start the fight other then "roll perceptions, sorry you all failed to spot the creatures now roll initiative".

I figured he was just getting it out of his system and let him vent but it now has carried on for weeks and spilled over into the new season of Encounters that started tonight as well. I am done dealing with him and if he shows and starts again with the "as written" I will tell him to leave if he doesnt like the way I run games as Ive got a waiting list that keeps growing and growing of people asking me if spots have opened up. Keep in mind nobody else has complained about my games and many ask if I have other night/games open as well.

I was told after tonight's session that this guy had run a season of Encounters and he drove half the people away as he didnt know what to do most of the time and during the opponents/creatures turns he would sit there for minutes on end trying to figure out what to do. They said it seemed like he was playing a boardgame and had no clue on how to adjust on the cuff or keep flow going. Sessions on average had lasted a minimum of an hour longer than any season before.

Is this what playing rpg's has come to ? Not so much as an rpg but just a fancy boardgame as it appears he thinks it should be ? What has happened to the creative license that I learned to run games with ? Part of being a dm/gm is keeping the flow going and adjusting on the fly if need be, changing the story arc as characters act/react in the game world, the so-called outside of the outside of the box as my mentors back then would say. Has the way 4th plays really tainted noobs as to how rpg's in my opinion are meant to be played ?