B_A_Felton73's page

Your primary melee character in a first level adventure is a first level sorcerer. Who dumped dex and con. And does not have Mage Armor as a spell. Happened in a game I was running. Think he was using the Draconic Bloodline and was going for some type of melee build. He was dropped in one round by the swarming zombies. Because they had to roll a 10 to hit him. Nobody died but he came close.

KnightErrantJR wrote:

On the topic of playing until 1:30 . . .

A few years back I had a really wonky work schedule, and played with guys that were either in school or also had wonky work schedules. We would start playing at 6 pm and often go until midnight or later.

Several sessions were great, but I also noticed that we had a few sessions that had some real peaks and valleys, and sometimes the "rush to finish" a given adventure when we realized that we had been playing until nearly 2 am often flattened the memories of the "highlights" of a few hours previous.

While I wish I had more time to game, now that I've been running games at the local game store instead of a private home, and I've been limited to 3.5 hours more or less for most sessions, I've noticed that overall, the sessions seem to be of a more consistent quality.

Its hard to figure out your "breaking point" where the game starts feeling more like something you have to finish than something you really love doing. I don't know if this is a contributing factor, but I have to say, it felt counter intuitive at first, but there is something to be said about "leave them wanting more."

This is a helpful rule I developed after reflecting on similar occurences in my own games:

If you find yourself asking "Do we want to keep going?" then don't. Chances are you will want to stop in the middle of whatever you start next. Better to call the game and give everyone a chance to refresh for next session.

This is a little off topic, but it goes into one of the possible reason for mr paladin's outburst.

I understand what both of you are saying. However, I probably keep going longer than I want to for a couple of reasons

1. Due to the distance that I drive to get to the game (well over an hour drive time to and from) and family obligations I am only able to run the game once every two weeks. Since we game so infrequently I feel obligated to squeeze in as much gaming time as possible. I try to quit around 1 or so to have time to wrap up, dole out XP, address any issues, etc, and still have time to get home at a decent hour. I am sometimes guilty let the players talk me into running one more encounter. This was not a problem in lower levels when I could run an average encounter in less than 10 minutes. Now that the players are 16th+ level, the average encounter takes close to 40 minutes to run. The paladin, with his aforementioned harpoon missle tactic, (cast rhino's rush and find the gap+full power attack+holy smite+mounted charge with lance+spirited charge and ride by attack feats=more damage than the average ship-killing missle) can take up to 5 minutes to calculate his damage. Same deal with the ranger with his 5 or 6 shots per round. Neither of these are the players' fault or a problem with them making decisions, they are just a consequence of doing so much math. So encounters are taking a lot longer partially due to all the math the combat oriented characters have to do, and as a result we have fewer of them in the time I normally play (and BTW, the extended quadratic formulas needed to calculate damage at higher levels is NOT something I will miss when I switch to 4th edition!)

2. The ranger's player is now on a timetable. His wife recently gave birth and is taking 13 weeks of maternity leave. Once that expires, he will pretty much not be able to play any more and he is going to have to watch his little one friday nights. So we are trying to finish the campaign before that happens.

1. Never game until 1:30 in the morning. Everyone's behavior gets worse and their patience goes down after the witching hour.

1. I wish we had a choice. The ranger's player does not get off work until late, as he is the photo editor for a metropolitan newspaper, and he pretty much has to stay until his job is done. He does not show until around 7:30-8:00 and we don't get started until at least 15-20 mintues after then. I have tried to move the game to another day/time and we can't do it because of everyone's committments.

2. You've lived with this guy for two years. Finish the game and then make him DM next. You won't even have to retaliate: he'll learn simply from being on the other side of the screen.

2. At least 2 of my players have told me privately that they will not play in another game with the paladin's player, especially if he's running it. I actually think he would do better as a DM than as a player. At least he could run the game as he saw fit and not boss other players around. But the bad feelings toward him are so strong that no one wants to give him a chance. Not that I blame them, he's only recently tried to tell me what to do. He's been doing it to the other players for over a year now.

Hi all, party artificer in the OP's game here. I think everyone pretty much touched on the sentiments I have on this matter. I've spoken to quite a few gaming friends on the matter, and almost all of them have echoed the thoughts here. [sarcasm] As the prevalent bat-shiat crazy plan maker, I'm kind of taken aback at the intrusion into my territory. I may just have to make use of that [/i]Tenser's transformation[/i] scroll and be the beefy melee combatant and see if he likes it... [/sarcasm] But I digress. The funny thing is, while the paladin was making the, rather needless in my opinion, plan, the cleric and I spent the entire time buffing the hell out of ourselves preparing to fight the beast with the knowledge we had. The paladin is a one-trick pony, and when he can't get his trick to trick, he gets annoyed. Heck, take it from me, do not even think about blocking his line to charge. All you get is heavy sighs and "Well, maybe you should've held your action instead...". I have no problem with the "say yes" mentality actually. I use it in my Pathfinder game with no trouble whatsoever. My halfling rogue wnats to try and charge through some sparse forest? Cool, make an Acrobatics check to be able to move your full speed. The PCs tell me that they should be able to weave through the trees because it'd be cooler than possibly botching a roll? That's nice, roll your d20. I'm going to press the Submit button before this turns into me venting all over the place.

Also, Boss Man DM, if you could bring the GPS back next game, I'd most appreciate it. The missus and I just got ourselves a new car and we'll be needing it soon. Thanks!

What? No rant? But Golarion, it's so much fun when you rant... :-0)

In fairness, if all you get is a heavy sigh from the paladin when you block his charge line, you are lucky. If you are not lucky he will pout and say something to the effect of "I can't believe you just did that..."

BTW, the missus is getting her own GPS for Xmas, so you will have your GPS by next game.

Lich-Loved wrote:

I am running a game for a group of modern day commandos. Their task is to sink an enemy battleship in port. The problem is, their equipment drop failed to happen and they are left with pistols and submachine guns. Their plan: shoot at the hull with their small arms until it sinks. If I rule that such a thing is impossible, am I being too gamist or too simulationist? What percentage would you assign to the likelihood of success?

These guys need to keep it honest. If they expect that the "Say Yes" philosophy means "Play Doormat", they don't understand what it's about.

If someone wants to bludgeon me with "gamist" or "simulationist" titles, I'd have to ask them what they pictured happening. What is their vision of success? If their plan is to snipe with small arms while munitions are loaded onto the ship, dropping a pallet of high explosives into an open hatch above the ship's magazines, they have a chance. If their plan involves sinking it by shooting through 17" thick armor plates, they'll need to do some pretty fast talking.

People who sling around such phrases ought to watch more war movies and Hong Kong action films, where the melodramatic endings often involve the protagonists dramatically expiring. What fun would adventuring be if heroes never died?

I agree %100. I can think of at least half a dozen plans that would have worked with little to no risk to the players that I would have given a reasonable chance of succeeding. I am not going to post them here as I know at least one of my players reads this board (the paladin's player does not). I got to thinking that I should have told the paladin's player that his plan was not going to work and why, but I figured I'd let him find out for himself.

Now that I think about it, during the planning session, he was doing a lot of "selling" of the plan, exhorting to everyone how cool it would be when the beast would rush right into the prismatic wall and dying spectacularly. He may have trying to sell the plan to me on how cool it would be and why I should have ruled in favor. Sorry, I don't care how cool your plan is, if it doesn't work it doesn't work.

The main issue here seems to be that one player is telling you that he thinks that you are running the game wrong.
Was this because it was the end of a long session and everyone was getting tired?
Has the player apologised since?
What is the perspective of the other players on the issue?

1. Partially, I would imagine.

2. No, nor do I expect an apology out of him. I don't remember him ever apologizing for his behavior.

3. As I stated in subsequent posts, he was the only player who was upset about the whole issue. The ranger's player was the one taking all the risks, and he was not bothered that the beast did not chase him.

B_A_Felton73 wrote:

The wizard of the group made a couple of knowledge checks, and I when I told him about the beast I tried to stress that it was not a dumb beast that they were dealing with but a cunning monster. The paladin's player either did not hear or did not care. His attitude was "I put all this time and effort into my plan, how dare you just rule that it fails?"

Does anyone else feel that this is stemming from the "say yes" rule that is all the rage now?

You should talk to your player about his expectations first. It's clear that he thought the plan SHOULD have worked; presumably he saw the creature as easily drawn out to attack. There are many creatures for which such tactics would be effective: For example, Minotaurs (despite their low cunning) would likely charge to the attack, trusting to their speed and toughness to let them evade any ambush. Giants or dragons might underestimate the abilities of smaller races.

You played the nightmare beast as more cautious: Presumably other parties had stung it badly. It had learned that charging into battle with a party of adventurers was unpleasant, the pain detracting from its leisurely enjoyment of their terror.

Secondly, I would discuss his comments about your style. He needs to understand that you won't always see things his way, but you're responsible for ensuring that they have a fair challenge. If they only win because you let the monster fall for a ruse you didn't believe should be effective, you're doing the players a disservice. If your only intent was to ensure they didn't have a "cakewalk", that might be too "gamist", but that wasn't your motive.

(And now, the Oprah moment...)
After you've achieved understanding about your underlying assumptions, then you can address his approach. Explain how you feel about what happened, focusing on your feelings and frustration. Don't focus on his behavior being rude or inappropriate or he'll feel defensive. Instead, focus on your own feelings and perceptions. Let him...

Thank you very much for the advice. However, I am done with the Oprah/Dr Phil approach. I've explained more than once to the paladin's player that his behavior is not acceptable and why him telling everyone what to do is not a good thing and why it detracts from everyone's fun. I've done so in as non-threatening manner as possible. It has not worked. He has shown himself unable to change, and doesn't seem to think what he is doing is wrong.

Ahhh 4E is there anything it can't ruin?

Just to clarify (once again) I have nothing against 4E. I plan on playing in a 4E game once this is campaign is through. What I have a problem with is immature gamers taking the "say yes" advice and twisting it to it's own ends. I doubt the paladin's player will be invited to said game if he does not change.

Anyway, I don't know if this is stemming from the whole "say yes" movement or the player being immature. Probably the latter.

Clarifying more issues;

This is not the first problem we've had with the paladin's player. He is known to get on everyone's nerves at one time or another, and he's been told by myself and other players that he's being bossy and extremely irritating in telling others how to run their characters. The cleric of the group, for example, has had to walk away from the table in frustration before when he has told her that she made a wrong decision for her action in combat. When I tell him that his behavior is causing problems, he apologizes for the outcome of the behaviour but still justifies his actions in any way possible. I don't think any type of confrontation with him, threatening or no, is going to get him to change his ways. I am reluctant, however, to kick him out of the group, as he is the only one who has been with the campaign from the beginning. Everyone else were late joiners due to people dropping out (most have over a year with the game).

BTW, the paladin was the only one of the group who acted upset when I told them the outcome of their ambush bait tactic. The artificer, in particular, has a penchant for coming up with plans that either work spectacularly or fail spectacularly. He has never acted like this when his plans have failed.

I want to thank all of you for your thoughts on the situation.

To answer some questions that have cropped up;
It was around 1:30am when this happened, so we'd been playing awhile.
The ranger's player, while a great guy, is a bit of a newbie to the game. He basically yelled "nya-nya, can't catch me" to the Nightmare Beast. I said in my first post that I would give any reasonable plan a chance of working. I did not really consider this a plan with any reasonable chance of success. I did not consider rolling for a bluff check (in hindsight I wish I had) but there was not much chance of succeeding with the ranger having little charisma and with the bonuses to Sense Motive I would have applied to Mr Nightmare Beast to see through the ruse. Had he fired an arrow into it, I might have ruled otherwise (it was in complete darkness, good luck hitting it), but all he did was taunt it.
The wizard of the group made a couple of knowledge checks, and I when I told him about the beast I tried to stress that it was not a dumb beast that they were dealing with but a cunning monster. The paladin's player either did not hear or did not care. His attitude was "I put all this time and effort into my plan, how dare you just rule that it fails?"

Does anyone else feel that this is stemming from the "say yes" rule that is all the rage now?

More to come.

I am not sure if this is the proper forum for this issue, but I am not sure where else to post it.

An incident happened in my Age of Worms campaign that I am running has gotten under my skin and I would like some feedback on it. My players, around 16th level or so, were getting ready to confront an advanced elite Nightmare Beast (It’s in the MMII if your interested, basically it’s a big nasty four footed monster with tusks and lots of spell like abilities) in it’s lair, a huge cave with steam fissures in the bottom. This is on the Isle of Tilagos for those of you familiar with the AoW adventure path.

The paladin of the group came up with what amounted to a lure-into-deathtrap plan. His idea was for the party ranger to go into the steam-shrouded lair and lure the monster into chasing him and then have the party wizard throw up a prismatic wall which the nightmare beast would blunder into. The original plan was to throw up a wall of fog to conceal the prismatic wall, but that was ixnayed because of the presence of the steam.

To make a long story short, the plan did not work. The ranger virtually no had no chance of failure when picking his way over the steam crevasses due to his high skill modifiers and could easily outrun the beast with his boots of speed. When he sighted the creature’s glowing red eyes in the back of the cavern, he taunted it and ran back through the steam clouds. I ruled that the beast, this being far from the first adventuring band he’s faced, knew ambush bait when he saw it and instead of blundering through the steam clouds after the ranger started buffing itself with spell-like abilities.

The player of the paladin was extremely unhappy about this turn of events. He basically threw a hissy fit, saying that what I did was a “d**k move” because the creature did not take the bait. His argument was that I should have ruled that the creature charged after the ranger and blundered into the prismatic wall because it made for “good story.” When I explained to him the reason for my decision (detailed previously) he called me a “simulationist,” basically saying that I should have set aside the way I had the encounter planned because it would have made for “cool story.” I could have argued that I disagreed that having the monster blunder stupidly into a deathtrap (automatically failing all it’s saves, mind you) would not have made for a very exciting encounter, but I could see his mind made up, as he was now complaining that they would have to “roll a lot of dice to get the same result.” I ended the session right then and there (it was pretty late anyway) because I did not want to listen to him complaining for the rest of the evening.

Although this player has been a problem for a while with complaining when things did not go his way and telling players what to do and complaining when they did not do the “ideal” thing, this takes the cake. This is the first time he come out and told me how I should run the game. And while it is a group effort, the decision of what will and will not work still (I believe) rests with the DM. I believe that the whole “say yes to everything” mentality that is pushed heavily in D&D 4th edition is at least partially to blame, as it gives some (many?) players the notion that any plan that they come up with will work just fine and if it doesn’t your DM is being a jerk. I believe that is a misinterpretation of the adage, but that is my opinion. As a DM, I will give any reasonable plan a chance to succeed. Other players have come up with plans that have both worked spectacularly and failed miserably, but no one has complained about them.

I would like some feedback on this whole incident, as I am so mad about it I am about ready to quit running the campaign. It is a shame b/c we have put so much time and effort into it (close to 2 years of real time) that I want the players to see it through to the end and have a chance to save the world. However, I know this player is convinced he is right, is not about to change his ways, and I am about ready to tell him that if he is so convinced he is right he can go run his own game.