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Also on the talk about the reading on the campaign. I never read ahead and I enjoy the background lore. I like having the context and the DM is aware that the players do read. I can remember him giving book one to another player.

It could be argued that it might give advantageous info for the future of the campaign... but I don’t think I know enough about Pathfinder itself to utilise it and even if I did, it’s a LOT of information.

Thanks all, super appreciated the range of advice.

On the comments on increasing challenge to match characters, I can appreciate that entirely. Challenge is great in situations to increase the sense of urgency or fun if it’s required against PCs that are notably more prepared or powerful than they should be. As I said though, the DM has been very strict on item levels in line with the campaign requirements and I think that the challenges would be appropriately balanced. And that’s not met just saying so, the challenges have been strong! I just noticed some changes that added unnecessary misfortune.

I also agree that the DM shouldn’t be “against” the players in that way. My understanding is that the game is a collaborative story telling experience that’s supposed to be fun... it’s a game right? And that shouldn’t mean it’s without failures but those failures should be earned, not decided through one instant move that was modified by the DM outside of the balanced rules.

I appreciate the DM and the authority associated completely. I liken it to when I handle my team at work. A large part of my role is to manage the wellbeing of my team and handle the workload so it’s appropriately challenging and rewarding for them. So while yes, the DM has all authority necessary to do his job, with that comes a responsibility to use it correctly and not abuse it.

Hi all!
I'm a relatively new player to the PnP scene and really need some advice. I've been a big fan of the standard single players games like Baldur's Gate, NWN, etc and have recently joined a PnP group. The group is great, but I got some concern about the DM and his attitude to the game... I might be totally out of line by asking this, and please tell me if I am, but some advice on how to handle the situation would be wonderful.

We're playing the Hell's Rebels campaign and I joined the group around the end of book 2. We're nearing the end of book 3 now after a few months of playing and I've been noticing some things I'm a little concerned with regards to how the DM has been handling certain encounters.

As I am totally new to the Pathfinder game, I have been devoting a bit of time to research into the game's mechanics and rules. A lot of time is spent looking at forums and class types so I can make something acceptable to the setting and that is useful to the team while being thematic at the same time. I quite enjoy this part. I have been doing some research into the Hell's Rebels campaign on book 1 and 2 so I can learn some more about the world lore and situation. I figure this important to do so I can learn how to build an optimised character and understand the limitations of the world.

To make clear, I do not read ahead on stuff we haven't done in the campaign as I believe this would be cheating. I'm only focusing on stuff already accomplished by the group. I figure this can be explained away as my character IC asking other PCs whats happened. Also, I just like learning about the NPCs, mechanics and lore.

In my research... i have found that the DM has been changing certain things to kill characters in encounters. There have been three clear examples of when I've noticed this after some reading:

Hei Fen: One character that hates PCs. Fairly strong caster with a spell called Plane Shift. According to her bio, she will not use Plane Shift on the PCs as she 'wants to see them bleed' but the DM used this to instakill one the Pcs. I feel like this wasnt necessary... Maybe the DM just didn't read the character description?

Another Encounter I forgot the name of: DM had the encounter use Waves of Exhaustion to debilitate characters and killed 2 PCs. I read the encounter bio and found that it did not have this spell.

Blue Dragon: The DM fudged the saves... The Dragon had a will save of 12 and was saving against a spell cast with a DC29. The Dragon saved 5 times in a row. It is highly improbable that the DM rolled a 17 or over 5 times.

Some more information, the DM is also extremely draconian on magic items and is not allowing any items higher than a CL4 or +2 enhancement bonuses. This does make sense for the campaign setting and have no issue with this. I would understand if the DM was upping the diffculty of encounters to match the players but this is definitely not the case.

I absolutely appreciate the DMs authority and don't want to dispute his decisions. My reasoning from bringing this up to seek advice is that a game is supposed to be fun and it is not fun to encounter failure because the person in charge doesn't respect the rules. And the rules, I believe, should be absolutely respected in an official campaign setting.

Am I wrong? If I am right to be concerned, how can I approach this with the DM? Is it appropriate for me to ask him about this and voice how I feel? I think something should be done as the mood isn't great sometimes and we all are there to enjoy the game.

Cheers!
Xev