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tonight we started our 'new' age of DnD/Pathfinder playing
i had always been a player, i had DMed one campaign back in 3.5 and it wasnt really an exploration kind of thing, it was a combat a rival party and confront them without doing much exploring, kind of thing
my criticism was that there needed to be more exploring, more dungeons, more puzzles, and more role playing, and i took that to heart
i created and fleshed out a campaign setting
i created a large city, with several developed NPCs with careers, and roles both for the mechanics of the game, and for the purposes of lives within the game world
need a 'magic shop'? what do you need? i have a wizard who works in the college district of town who has access to any scroll you can think of
need potions? i have an alchemist who owns the brewery in town who loves having someone buy something other than booze for a change
need weapons or armor? i have a blacksmith who is bored of making tools
need clothing, or jewelry made to later be turned into wondrous items? theres both a jeweler and a tailor in town
there are thrift stores and pawn shops everywhere that might have the neat minor items that you want, no there isnt a handy haversack yet, you knew that already.... when i set the rules for this a month ago
and thats just the start
they all have roles in the city, and they all have reasons to be visited by my players
i had purposely set aside useful items and starter kits and had them all easily copied and pasted into our groups facebook forum for easy look-up
i did weights and encumbrances for everyone
then, to avoid my players having unbalanced stats, and to avoid the terror that is min-maxing in a point-buy system, i gave my players the following stat array, to be placed wherever they liked
18 16 15 13 12 10
the only thing i banned was firearms and gunslingers, because firearms dont fit into the campaign setting
all races were legal, all variants were legal
3.5 source books are legal for spells, magic items, and monsters for animal companions/summonings
i designed encounters based on expected power levels of their lvl 3 characters
they had moderately high ACs and HP because my players are optimizers who know how to kill things, and kill them well
tonight they turned everything i thought i knew about my group into a pile of ash
there were 4 players, they all decided to play.... wizards (and one sorcerer)
and i told them that if they were all wizards they had to deal with the repercussions, because i know that wizards can do anything, and i know that you guys should know that
they werent prepared for the repercussions, they werent diverse enough to handle it
tonight they encountered ~20 kobalds
4 of them were cr 1/2
8 of them were cr 1
5 of them were cr 2
you have 3 wizards, and no one is bringing in anything that can attack them physically
you buy a horse, and decide you're going to strap a bunch of gear onto it, but you didnt buy a saddle or rope or anything? was i supposed to just assume that you already have it? was it supposed to be free with the horse?
i told you that no NPC was above lvl 2, and no magic items beyond what we randomly generate to be in thrift stores and pawn shops would be available, and im the bad guy when you have to take time for them to make things? or when you cant find wands or rods?
you have the revelation that you three wizards can all pick different spells and just copy each others spellbooks allowing access to a lot more spells, and im the bad guy for wanting you to keep track of how many pages of your spellbook you are using? implying that you may need another spellbook in the future if your first one gets full
you come up with a background story where you work for the college library and i decide you can get 10% discount on scrolls, and im the bad guy because you cant get them for free?
you begged me to let you wake up in the middle of the night when you got attacked by 4 weak little CR1/2 kobolds, your team member on guard duty was taking them on, and then got upset when you didnt get a full nights sleep and couldnt prepare spells the next day? i even let you roll a d8 just to see if you lucked out and got enough hours anyway, you didnt, and again, im the bad guy
i made these things knowing full well that a melee character with the 18 STR that i was willing to give them for free could potentially one-shot these things with a power attack, needing to roll ~10 (average) on the die to hit, and you're upset because you're wizard with a +0 STR and 1 BAB cant hit it? and i'm the bad guy?
never mind the fact that i told you that you needed a melee type character, you even brought a spare pre made melee character in case everyone else wanted to play a caster, and i even offered to NPC one for you
you have these amazing buffers and battlefield controllers, but no one to buff or protect, and thats MY fault?
you make it to the inn that is overrun by kobolds, and you find that the doors to the individual rooms are locked, and you didnt bring anyone with skills to break into things? nor did you even think to look at the reception desk at the front of the room that i clearly drew on there for you to check for keys that i left there in case you didnt have a theif character, and once again, its my fault that you didnt think to do that
instead of sneaking into the rooms and taking on smaller groups of kobolds, you pound on the doors, scream at the top of your lungs, and wake all of them up, while they are behind locked doors safe and sound so they have plenty of time to wake up and equip themselves before unlocking their own doors and coming out to meet you
they are down stairs and behind a wall, and their stealth rolls mean nothing because you should have known where they were the whole time while you waited outside on the balcony for them?
the kobolds sling could only potentially do 1 damage to you if it hits because of the crappy stats they have, yet its ridiculous that you get hit because you're the wizard and things are not supposed to want to hit you?
3 wizards and a sorcerer blow through all of their spells after provoking an army of kobolds to come attack them all at once, and they still have a boss fight to make it through, and im supposed to feel bad for these guys?
i purposely created an open world for them to explore with plenty of other possibilities for them, but when you blatantly do things with ignorance in mind and dont pay attention to the already established campaign setting, i just cant feel bad... originally this was gonna be another "am i a bad DM?" thread, but i dont even feel bad, my guys are playing wizards, they take the most time and effort to play intelligently, and really only one did, and that one player is the only reason there wasnt a TPK, because he strategically bottled them in and created a pit limiting the number of enemies that could get to them at one time
the absolute worst part about this entire thing is that the player that caused the most problems and complained the most is my roommate who said he wasnt even going to play this weekend, and he didnt know how to set up his character for pathdinder (because he's used to 3.5) and acted like it was MY job to make his character for him...
"i wanna be a wizard"
"okay, what do you want to do?"
"you tell me, cuz i need help making a wizard"
"do you want to blast things, or be a buffer, or what?"
"i dont know, you arent helping me"
eventually i made his character for him, but i had to help him with almost every detail
it took us 2 hours to do character creation and taking out a bunch of kobolds took 3 hours.... 3 hours... and they were designed to be 1-2 hit KOs
we didnt even get to the boss yet, and i have no idea how they are going to survive...
hopefully all is not lost as i do have another group that i play with that i want to throw into this campaign, and see if they fair any better
tonight i learned 2 things:
1) rime spell blaster wizards are awesome, just like i always thought and
2) a wizard is useless without a fighter to protect him
it is obscene that my players couldnt beat down the monsters i threw at them, they fought these monsters:
sh*tty kobold
warrior 1
10 hp, ac 15
less sh*tty kobold
warrior 2
17 hp, ac 16
kobold commander
warrior 3
24 hp, ac 19
a lvl 3 party should not have issues fighting these things, especially when the commanders cant do more than 6 damage in a round when they max out on a two-weapon fighting spree...
also its not my fault that you dont have a healer and had to pay full price for healing potions....
thanks for reading my rant, needless to say, i am no longer on the side of the players who want nicer DMs, because i shouldnt have to ignore entire game mechanics because "im a wizard, im supposed to be the best at everything!!!" it almost makes me want to kill their characters, all i know is i am definitely not going to accommodate their ignorance and just throw challenges at them that only one-dimensional players can handle, they are better players than that, and they know better
#end rant
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Summary: you all want to play an all-wizard party. I don't want you to, but instead of just saying that, I am going to jerk you over at every opportunity I can formulate.
i said it
i very said iti even offered them an out, by offering them a BDF NPC
i told them to have a ranger, i told them to have a fighter, i told them to have a barbarian
nothing appealed to them
they at one point planned on having one of the wizards put his 18 in STR, his 16 in INT (so it would be an 18 with race) and have him play an elf so he gets weapon familiarity and can use longswords without using a feat, and still has his good wizard status
i responded with "play a magus, because thats what you're doing anyway! it is everything you want but better! and he's still basically a wizard!"
this is not a matter of i am going to 'jerk them' at every opportunity, this is 'i am not going to skimp on designing challenges that require different kinds of characters to accommodate these players blatant ignorance when they are the ones who asked me to design more diverse campaigns in the first place'
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the fox: It sounds at first read that it's less a matter of an all wizard party, and more the players being idiots. I could be wrong however, and shall retreat before champions of player entitlement pitch their tents in the thread.
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the fox: It sounds at first read that it's less a matter of an all wizard party, and more the players being idiots. I could be wrong however, and shall retreat before champions of player entitlement pitch their tents in the thread.
thats exactly the issue, i know that a party of all wizards can work, but you cant be stupid about it
they were, and they blamed me for it, like im supposed to make everything easy for them
if thats the kind of game they want thats fine, but they told me they wanted more story, more exploring, more skills
they told me to give them a better campaign, where little mechanics like getting a full nights sleep mattered
they changed their minds after they fact i guess
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So step down as DM if you don't want to run the game the players want to play. Or meet them in the middle.
Personally, I think it would be really fun to run a game for an all-wizard party. They could all be members of a wizard academy or guild.
The guild could provide them with a cadre of 1st-level warriors and an expert or two to accompany them on their quests. It really isn't that big of a deal.
Let them use item creation feats and give them the downtime to use them, and it will help offset the cost of all the consumable healing they will need. Also suggest to them that someone invest skill points in Use Magic Device, and in return, promise them access to wands of cure light wounds (either found or for sale).
There is no reason to not let them rest a full 8 hours. Even if their sleep is interrupted with combat in the middle of the night, they should still be able to memorize spells in the morning.
Why are the wizards not using cantrips against the weak kobolds? Ask them.
These are a few ideas that might help your group if you decide to continue with this campaign.
But the whole idea of "you didn't listen to me so I am going to punish you" is really awful, and cannot end in anyone having fun, even you.
Edit: I wish you luck with the campaign, and your group. Talk to them, and I am sure you will work it out.
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You are the DM. You control the encounters. You can choose to either challenge them within their strengths or just attack their weaknesses.
Given how vehemently it seems you opposed their all wizard party, it seems that you already decided to play against them.
They do sound like s%$&ty players, but it's hard to render a judgment other than the one about you playing against them because of how strongly biased this is; it sounds like you're about ready to give up on them though.
Also, YOU might have felt that you explained everything satisfactorily to them, but humans are excellent at misunderstanding, so a lot of the grievances could have arose from everyone thinking they were on the same page only to find out they weren't.
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Only thing I saw was the random roll to see if the character got enough sleep. That's not random, if you need more sleep, you sleep more.
If you have players that want to play, they will. Unless you are a complete failure as a GM.
Not saying your are at all. Maybe your players aren't into it so much. If so, there is the PbP option. Personally, I don't know anyone that wants to play D&D(Pathfinder) so the PbP is my only way to play.
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So step down as DM if you don't want to run the game the players want to play. Or meet them in the middle.
sadly, its always an option, but i dont think im being unreasonable
Personally, I think it would be really fun to run a game for an all-wizard party. They could all be members of a wizard academy or guild.
so did i, i was okay with the idea, but i wasnt going to pull punches in encounter design
The guild could provide them with a cadre of 1st-level warriors and an expert or two to accompany them on their quests. It really isn't that big of a deal.
i offered them that, they refused it
Let them use item creation feats and give them the downtime to use them, and it will help offset the cost of all the consumable healing they will need. Also suggest to them that someone invest skill points in Use Magic Device, and in return, promise them access to wands of cure light wounds (either found or for sale).
i am okay with that, i even told them they could, and i invented an item for them to find called "magical item crafting reagents" that is treated as twice its market value towards magic item crafting should they decide to take crafting feats
and one of the wizards took 'dangerously curious' but no one rolled a Gather Information check to try and find a wand of CLW, they just asked me for stuff like im supposed to just let them have it, i told them in advance about magic item availability, explicitlyit wont matter immediately after this campaign should they survive, because i will level the NPCs along with my PCs so magic item crafting will be available after the first campaign, but for the first campaign of a new setting i didnt want to just give them everything for no effort
There is no reason to not let them rest a full 8 hours. Even if their sleep is interrupted with combat in the middle of the night, they should still be able to memorize spells in the morning.
they set up camp in the middle of the road when they know that monsters are out and about, and i rolled a nat 20 to see if they encounter anything, wizards have to balanced by game mechanics too, they cant just be the best at everything, the same way that paladins are restricted by alignment, wizards have to have restrictions also, to ignore them would be the same thing as letting a paladin behave like a chaotic neutral barbarian imo
Why are the wizards not using cantrips against the weak kobolds? Ask them.
i guess a d3 wasnt enough DPR for them, one of them was a universalist who was using his school power to whip his rapier at the enemies pretty effectively
These are a few ideas that might help your group if you decide to continue with this campaign.But the whole idea of "you didn't listen to me so I am going to punish you" is really awful, and cannot end in anyone having fun, even you.
its also not fun to have them ask me to do all this work just to ignore all of it in the end because they dont like the results
i am not being unreasonable when i say they need to prepare better, and after i said that i gave them options, and they chose to ignore it
not, they didnt realize that they might need something
they chose
theres a significant factor there, had they just been novice players, or been making naive decisions for whatever reason, i could see this being more manageable, but i spent 2 hours listening to them debate over the need for a BDF, i offered them help for free, and they said 'no we'll be fine, we're wizards'
im not kidding, thats the exact quote
i dont want to dumb down my challenge design to be a bunch of armorless, weaponless baddies that they just need to blow up, and dont need to worry about not being able to hit
i dont want them to think that nothing in this game is going to be a challenge
they told me thats not what they want either, and that is what bothers me here more than anything that actually happened in game
I would sit down with them and let know what you expect in terms of preparation (and maybe have them repeat it back to you to make sure they understand), but more importantly let them know that if they're going to refuse your help, that better mean that they're going to play smartly (like that one person did).
Quote:
There is no reason to not let them rest a full 8 hours. Even if their sleep is interrupted with combat in the middle of the night, they should still be able to memorize spells in the morning.
they set up camp in the middle of the road when they know that monsters are out and about, and i rolled a nat 20 to see if they encounter anything, wizards have to balanced by game mechanics too, they cant just be the best at everything, the same way that paladins are restricted by alignment, wizards have to have restrictions also, to ignore them would be the same thing as letting a paladin behave like a chaotic neutral barbarian imo
Rest: To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.
You did say 3.x/PF and I picked up on your gather info check so just so there isn't any question; this rule is exactly the same in the OGL SRD word for word.
They get to sleep in if they want to.
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Hey, if they want to play an all-wizard party, and they get their butts handed to them on platters, that's bad on them for not cooperating with each other to cover the bases as best they could.
I like the Elf Universalist with 18 Str and Int. Hurling a "propeller of doom" is all kinds of fun!
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Quote:
There is no reason to not let them rest a full 8 hours. Even if their sleep is interrupted with combat in the middle of the night, they should still be able to memorize spells in the morning.
they set up camp in the middle of the road when they know that monsters are out and about, and i rolled a nat 20 to see if they encounter anything, wizards have to balanced by game mechanics too, they cant just be the best at everything, the same way that paladins are restricted by alignment, wizards have to have restrictions also, to ignore them would be the same thing as letting a paladin behave like a chaotic neutral barbarian imo
Rest: To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.You did say 3.x/PF and I picked up on your gather info check so just so there isn't any question; this rule is exactly the same in the OGL SRD word for word.
They get to sleep in if they want to.
ok, when i say "you didnt get enough sleep, you are unrested and cannot prepare new spells for the day, but you still have what you had yesterday" they should respond with "i go back to sleep" not "oh well that sucks, we keep heading south"
it is the players job to know how their characters work, i am totally okay with re-doing something if i screw up, and i admit it does happen sometimes
i am not the gygax GM is god complexed kind of GM, and i dont want to be, but i do want to respect the mechanics of the game, especially when it comes to something like wizards following the rules in the book
the way they seem to want it is to where they dont have to rest at all, if its a new day, they get new spells
part of that is what breaks wizards if you ignore what weaknesses they have
and ftr, we have always played in our group that someone needs to be on guard at night in case something attacks, its always been that way, this time is no different, and the attack was expected
it should not fall on me to go "oh, you guys are wizards, and that means that things all of a sudden dont care about attacking you at night anymore because they know you need to sleep"
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I think you are an awesome DM, man! Show your players no mercy. It sounds to me like they are just screwed around with you anyways.
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So, I've got a lot of information about the campaign you want to run, and personally, I think I would have a blast personally.
what kind of game do your players want to play in? They might be expecting something very different, in which case you'll all be unhappy for the duration of the campaign.
Yes, you have the right to run anything you want. But you've also got to convince people to play whatever it is you come up with.
If you don't want to ret-con the whole thing, add in one rival wizard, who does things 'right', and embarasses the PCs with his better tactics and strategy.
See if they don't learn, after he drops most of the kobolds with a sleep spell.
Ah. In real life, my players would have quit from the start when I fleshed all that out and said 'no evil alignments' and 'no gunslingers'...
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Using this experience as any guide for anything other than an example of how the game can go south when the players and GM are not on the same page is a waste of time and internet bandwidth. This has nothing to do with "player entitlement," sheds no light on whether an all wizard party can be successful and demonstrates nothing beyond the rather obvious point that the game can really suck when the players are over-confident, under-prepared and fundamentally at odds with their GM over the type of game they all want to play.
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You designed an adventure for a competent adventuring group and instead your friends showed up.
*blink*
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... sheds no light on whether an all wizard party can be successful ...
Actually, it kind of does.
At low levels the only thing squishier than a wizard is a whole party full of wizards. It's one thing to have a group of expert players challenge themselves by playing an all wizard party and quite another to have a group of beginners all build as wizards because they have some fool notion that the wizard is the best class (or that there even is a best class).
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... sheds no light on whether an all wizard party can be successful ...Actually, it kind of does.
At low levels the only thing squishier than a wizard is a whole party full of wizards. It's one thing to have a group of expert players challenge themselves by playing an all wizard party and quite another to have a group of beginners all build as wizards because they have some fool notion that the wizard is the best class (or that there even is a best class).
No, this example sheds no light on the subject because the players made no apparent effort to adjust their tactics, arrange their spells, purchase items, or do anything else that would have improved their chances to be successful in spite of lower hit points.
Especially against the lame monsters they encountered.
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Actually, I have to defend the OP here. I run sandbox games almost exclusively. I actually give my players a one page handout of character gen rules and things to expect in my game ans suggestions. I then give them a two page handout explaining everything the players need to know about the world before session 1. I explain to them in person and on paper the type of game I am running and if they lake the skills to handle certain obstacles, then they simply cannot do them. So, yes, I feel no sympathy for your players. More so, let them get killed and make a new character if they play "dumb".
At the same time though, I also make EVERY SINGLE QUEST/MISSION have at least 3 options for completion (not including failure). And if they do fail (and they have), they still get half xp for the mission (and no reward). And it seems you left them 3 options as you described above.
[lock pick doors, bash open doors, or go downstairs and get the keys (perception check?)]. So, again, I feel NO SYMPATHY for your players. If they are playing dumb, let them die. DON'T GET MAD! I cannot express this enough. I know you needed to rant, but don't get mad. Let their own consequences play out. Let the dice determine their fate...not you.
... sheds no light on whether an all wizard party can be successful ...Actually, it kind of does.
At low levels the only thing squishier than a wizard is a whole party full of wizards. It's one thing to have a group of expert players challenge themselves by playing an all wizard party and quite another to have a group of beginners all build as wizards because they have some fool notion that the wizard is the best class (or that there even is a best class).
No, this example sheds no light on the subject because the players made no apparent effort to adjust their tactics, arrange their spells, purchase items, or do anything else that would have improved their chances to be successful in spite of lower hit points.
Especially against the lame monsters they encountered.
I think the original poster said it best.
thats exactly the issue, i know that a party of all wizards can work, but you cant be stupid about it
While it's true that any adventuring party needs to have their wits about them with a party of low-level wizards the margins are razor thin and errors in judgement tend to be punished harshly by the rules of the game.
On that we can agree Mr. Boggard.
... if they lake the skills to handle certain obstacles, then they simply cannot do them.
Hmm... I hope you don't make the decision about what skills are needed to overcome obstacles unilaterally and in advance instead of allowing your characters to get creative and come up with unusual ways to handle those obstacles.
I have seen (and done) some rather incredible things to overcome "obstacles" while "lacking the skills required" to handle them. Some of my most memorable moments in the game have come from coming up with creative ways to use the abilities my characters have to solve problems that the GM or module designers assumed would require specific skills.
thats exactly the issue, i know that a party of all wizards can work, but you cant be stupid about it
Yup, this statement probably sums it up. And it sounds like your players have been pretty stupid about it so far.
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... if they lake the skills to handle certain obstacles, then they simply cannot do them.Hmm... I hope you don't make the decision about what skills are needed to overcome obstacles unilaterally and in advance instead of allowing your characters to get creative and come up with unusual ways to handle those obstacles.
I have seen (and done) some rather incredible things to overcome "obstacles" while "lacking the skills required" to handle them. Some of my most memorable moments in the game have come from coming up with creative ways to use the abilities my characters have to solve problems that the GM or module designers assumed would require specific skills.
'
Yes and Yes. I do "pre-plan" what skills are necessary to overcome certain challenges, but, if a player can come up with a creative or reasonable solution to why "this might work" then I let them have a crack at it...usually with a higher DC.
In the case of the doors as the OP listed, you have the 3 obvious ones (disable device, bash, keys). But then you have the not obvious ones; example - I had a player ask if he could roll Know (engineering) to know how to take the door down by the hinges. I allowed it, he rolled high, I knew how. I then allowed him to decrease the DC to bash equal to the difference of the Know (engineering) he got.
The Math: DC bash down a strong door DC 23 [link], the DC to know how to take the door down by hinges I ruled was the same. He got a like a 27 (rolled high) that's a difference of 4. So the DC to bash door became a 19. With aid another from another friend, the two of them were able to do it.
I reasoned, "knowing how" is not the same as being "able to". Since all of the doors in the house were the same, the bash DC for all of the doors was now only 19.
That was more of a long-winded explanation then expected, but yes.
...
You'd think that a party of Wizards + 1 Sorcerer would all prep Color Spray a half a dozen times each, stun everything they encounter, and then stab them while they're down until they die.
In all seriousness, it sounds like you've got a group of players that forgot the great secret of spellcasting: It's a Magikarp Power. At low levels: not particularly amazing unless you cherry pick your moves VERY carefully. Overwhelming at high levels.
They decided to believe their own hype instead of read the fine print, methinks.
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1) Your players aren't optimizers...had then been real optimizers they would have made short work of kobolds of that quality with ease with a party of casters. Optimizing is more then just DPR...it's know WHAT to do with the characters you got. Your players might have been good at generating DPR, and been optimized at playing such builds (which usually involves I walk up and beat them with a stick so it's kinda hard to mess up playing one of those), but they aren't general optimizers who know what to do with anything in their hands. I could be terrifying with a PFS pre-gen in my hands (and they suck as far as the build goes).
2) The ONLY point you messed up was the lack of sleep. They don't have to tell you I sleep more. Their characters just sleep in an hour more and they are all good. The players don't have to tell you that minutia just like they don't have to tell you they eat or go use the bathroom. I mean barring an extra hour of sleep causing some other major issue, the character just do it.
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Actually, I have to defend the OP here. I run sandbox games almost exclusively. I actually give my players a one page handout of character gen rules and things to expect in my game ans suggestions. I then give them a two page handout explaining everything the players need to know about the world before session 1. I explain to them in person and on paper the type of game I am running and if they lake the skills to handle certain obstacles, then they simply cannot do them. So, yes, I feel no sympathy for your players. More so, let them get killed and make a new character if they play "dumb".
At the same time though, I also make EVERY SINGLE QUEST/MISSION have at least 3 options for completion (not including failure). And if they do fail (and they have), they still get half xp for the mission (and no reward). And it seems you left them 3 options as you described above.
[lock pick doors, bash open doors, or go downstairs and get the keys (perception check?)]. So, again, I feel NO SYMPATHY for your players. If they are playing dumb, let them die. DON'T GET MAD! I cannot express this enough. I know you needed to rant, but don't get mad. Let their own consequences play out. Let the dice determine their fate...not you.
Not to mention the knock spell, I actually remember reading one if your posts about sandbox style games and having multiple options and I really tried, but I just can't have sympathy for ignorance, they did no exploring for something that wasn't even hidden (the keys)
And on top of that, you have 3 wizards, you have already had the revelation that you can triple the amount of spells you can normally have in your spell book if you all take different spells, and NONE of you prepared any utility spells, knowing full well that you didn't have a skill monkey character
@AD, as always you have a valid point in that my OP lacks a defining thesis, at least one that is outwardly stated and not implicit
To satisfy that I'd would have to say my overall message is:
"don't feel bad for players who don't want your help, and don't reward their ignorance by taking away the challenges that their ignorance caused them to be unprepared for"
I refuse to be labeled the bad guy after giving them so many options, that they, knowing full well that they needed to prepare, chose to reject
What's even worse is I told them in advance that if they played all wizards I expected them to be able to handle anything
1) Your players aren't optimizers...had then been real optimizers they would have made short work of kobolds of that quality with ease with a party of casters. Optimizing is more then just DPR...it's know WHAT to do with the characters you got. Your players might have been good at generating DPR, and been optimized at playing such builds (which usually involves I walk up and beat them with a stick so it's kinda hard to mess up playing one of those), but they aren't general optimizers who know what to do with anything in their hands. I could be terrifying with a PFS pre-gen in my hands (and they suck as far as the build goes).
2) The ONLY point you messed up was the lack of sleep. They don't have to tell you I sleep more. Their characters just sleep in an hour more and they are all good. The players don't have to tell you that minutia just like they don't have to tell you they eat or go use the bathroom. I mean barring an extra hour of sleep causing some other major issue, the character just do it.
Theres a lot of truth here
One of the wizards was fairly well optimized to be the "god" wizard, one was a fairly well made blaster, who I helped, and the other is the universalist who was originally gonna play a barbarianI don't wanna tell my players how to play, but this is just one of those horror stories that show tiers and over estimating wizards can be disastrous
That said, they did survived the fight thanks to the god wizard doing his job right, but player supporting characters with no one to support is not gonna end well
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... if they lake the skills to handle certain obstacles, then they simply cannot do them.Hmm... I hope you don't make the decision about what skills are needed to overcome obstacles unilaterally and in advance instead of allowing your characters to get creative and come up with unusual ways to handle those obstacles.
I have seen (and done) some rather incredible things to overcome "obstacles" while "lacking the skills required" to handle them. Some of my most memorable moments in the game have come from coming up with creative ways to use the abilities my characters have to solve problems that the GM or module designers assumed would require specific skills.
While being creative and thinking outside the box is great and should be rewarded, I don't think standing there and SHOUTING at the door counts as creative :P Especially if they then just stood there waiting for the kolbolds to open the door after as well ;)
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While being creative and thinking outside the box is great and should be rewarded, I don't think standing there and SHOUTING at the door counts as creative :P Especially if they then just stood there waiting for the kolbolds to open the door after as well ;)... if they lake the skills to handle certain obstacles, then they simply cannot do them.Hmm... I hope you don't make the decision about what skills are needed to overcome obstacles unilaterally and in advance instead of allowing your characters to get creative and come up with unusual ways to handle those obstacles.
I have seen (and done) some rather incredible things to overcome "obstacles" while "lacking the skills required" to handle them. Some of my most memorable moments in the game have come from coming up with creative ways to use the abilities my characters have to solve problems that the GM or module designers assumed would require specific skills.
well said.
Not to mention the knock spell, I actually remember reading one if your posts about sandbox style games and having multiple options and I really tried, but I just can't have sympathy for ignorance, they did no exploring for something that wasn't even hidden (the keys)
And on top of that, you have 3 wizards, you have already had the revelation that you can triple the amount of spells you can normally have in your spell book if you all take different spells, and NONE of you prepared any utility spells, knowing full well that you didn't have a skill monkey character
...and you did. I wouldn't feel sorry for them either.
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... sheds no light on whether an all wizard party can be successful ...Actually, it kind of does.
At low levels the only thing squishier than a wizard is a whole party full of wizards. It's one thing to have a group of expert players challenge themselves by playing an all wizard party and quite another to have a group of beginners all build as wizards because they have some fool notion that the wizard is the best class (or that there even is a best class).
No, this example sheds no light on the subject because the players made no apparent effort to adjust their tactics, arrange their spells, purchase items, or do anything else that would have improved their chances to be successful in spite of lower hit points.
Especially against the lame monsters they encountered.
I think that is his point. The players felt entitled to having the GM nerf the game to what they brought, rather than them adapting to what was provided.
In this case, perhaps the GM is in the wrong with player selection, since 4 people are unhappy with the GM. But in most cases that appear on here, it is one player against the rest of the group.
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A few things stuck out at me as wrong on both sides of the screen.
tonight i learned 2 things:
1) rime spell blaster wizards are awesome, just like i always thought and
2) a wizard is useless without a fighter to protect himit is obscene that my players couldnt beat down the monsters i threw at them, they fought these monsters:
sh*tty kobold
warrior 1
10 hp, ac 15less sh*tty kobold
warrior 2
17 hp, ac 16kobold commander
warrior 3
24 hp, ac 19
Assuming we're talking about the same types of kobolds, we're looking at some rather optimized kobolds here. A 1st level kobold warrior should have no more than 5 hp before favored class or Toughness (NPC classes do not get full starting HP as heroic classes do and kobolds have a Con penalty). So we're looking at kobolds with roughly double HP for the minor ones, almost double for the medium ones, and 1/3 too much HP for the commander. As in 5, 11, 16 HP respectively.
you begged me to let you wake up in the middle of the night when you got attacked by 4 weak little CR1/2 kobolds, your team member on guard duty was taking them on, and then got upset when you didnt get a full nights sleep and couldnt prepare spells the next day? i even let you roll a d8 just to see if you lucked out and got enough hours anyway, you didnt, and again, im the bad guy
This isn't the rules either, so unless you're ranting about your house rules the party just takes an hour more of rest due to being interrupted. Inventing things to complain about is generally a bad idea.
Now before you feel like I'm ratting on you for being a bad GM, hold up and know I'm not. I think you're the victim here, and I'm not blaming you. I just pointed out these three things as what I saw in the post that struck me as odd.
Now for your players...
VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING ELSE
Your players have no clue as to how they play their class, or seemingly no clue about anything in the game. Though you seemed to have made a few mistakes about the rules, they were making them in leaps and bounds.
I'm playing a 3rd level wizard right now in a game on Saturdays. In that game I:
1) Keep track of the pages in my spellbook (I'm at 33/100 right now).
2) Pay full price to copy spells into my spellbook (as detailed in the Magic chapter).
3) Only purchase magic items in our town center's purchase limits and check for randomly generated items from time to time (though I haven't had the funds to buy anything special thus far).
4) Craft magic items during my downtime for myself and my party, including scrolls and wondrous items.
5) Prepare for the unexpected, and have put ranks into Perception, Heal, and will be putting ranks into Stealth and Disable Device.
Our group has rested inside dungeons. We find rooms that are relatively safe and defensible, and bar or even nail doors shut (with pitons) to protect against roaming monsters in the dungeon-crawler we're in (the only thing I wish we had a wee bit more of in the game was RPing and character development, but you can't expect too much of that too quickly in a megadungeon so I'm pretty happy with what I've got :P).
In general I'm a cautious wizard. I believe a party of wizards is more than capable of handling most of the challenges that you seem to have put forth. Heck, at 3rd level, all of them could have simply prepared flaming sphere and destroyed those kobolds and their inflated HP (flaming sphere x4 means each round there are 4 3d6 damage balls of fire moving around in addition to what the wizard wants to do or cast, and if you focus the balls on 1-2 enemies at a time you can wipe mooks pretty quickly at low levels). As others mentioned, spells like colorspray or even magic missile would have worked wonders.
I think a single-class challenge like that would be fun, personally. :P
In general it just sounds like your players are pretty whiny. I would have been happy with simply having access to spells as a prize for my backstory, and elated at a 10% discount.
I think your players would probably have problems (at least initially) with my games as well and most on these boards have probably placed me in the "pro-player" category of posters and GMs.
On a final note, while wizards are incredibly strong, when you are playing against their strengths and not acknowledging their weaknesses as a wizard player you are setting yourself up for failure just as a fighter who specializes in swords and wields and axe while insisting on wearing no armor and specializing in Basketweaving. No matter how great a tool is, you still have to know how to use it.
I think that was probably in the "shouting at the door in the middle of an overrun inn" part :P
From the sounds of it, he had intended for the pcs to fight small pockets at a time in each room altho it sounds like they drew them all together into a single encounter via their bold proclmation.
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1) Your players aren't optimizers...had then been real optimizers they would have made short work of kobolds of that quality with ease with a party of casters.Spoken by someone who's never been up against Tucker's Kobolds.
I did specify "of those quality" did I not? Do the stats of the kobolds given in the OP match that of tucker's kobolds? No you say? So yeah, what I said still hold and I have no idea why your attempting to derail this into kobolds don't have to suck thread.
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Actually, I have to defend the OP here.
I am not sure you need to, as the overwhelming majority of the posts are of the "you did well, your players are stupid whinies" variety.
Also they are absolutely not useful.
Sure, they will make the OP feel better and vindicated in his position. However, these posts will in no way help him have a better experience next time he plays with these guys. And I do not even want to think about how these players will feel (not that many posters seem to care anyway).
To the OP, I feel that one thing is missing in your description : why did they want to play wizards ? What was their expectation ? Did you talk with them about this ?
Do they understand what a wizard is and what the limitations of the class are ?
BTW, you mention their "ignorance" as something that needs to be punished. But I do not get what this means. If someone does not know an important piece of information, why should he be punished ?
What I'm seeing is a Level 3 party who couldn't regain their spells because they helped an ally in a 4 on 1 fight during the night were faced with a CR 10 encounter?
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I'm not saying the players weren't extra poor in strategy. But then we've got things like this ...
you begged me to let you wake up in the middle of the night when you got attacked by 4 weak little CR1/2 kobolds, your team member on guard duty was taking them on,
Where the GM is chastising/punishing the players for joining their ally in a 4-on-1 fight in the middle of the night because, apparently, they were supposed to know that these were a bunch of CR 1/4 kobolds (who probably deserve a CR boost up to 1/2 due to the extra HP) that their friend would easily defeat (leaving aside that 1 3rd level PC vs 4 1st level warriors isn't exactly a no doubter).
If the GM is expecting the players to have this sort of insight into the level and threat of some NPCs and metagame to just stay in bed, then he's probably got unreasonable expectations of the sort of knowledge they have of everything in the setting.
There was a "clearly drawn" reception desk where they could have got keys, is it actually clearly drawn and identified, or is the GM just assuming that because he drew a square on a battle map near the door, that they should know this is where the keys to the rooms are kept?
I've played with lots of GMs who like to come up with some scenario that is basically unwinnable unless you follow a very specific strategy and then is amazed when you don't realize that you were supposed to push over the giant stone pillar in the center of the room to escape, but, oh wait, no one in the party is strong enough to do that anyway unless they burn a hero point before rolling a natural 20, so you're all going to die.