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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.
Agreed. Even the best GMs sometimes forget (or rather do not realize) that what is obvious to them might not occur to any of the players. That is often because the GM knows exactly what is happening while the players only know what the GM tells them and then add their own guesses, sometimes forgetting the exact words the GM said, especially if the crucial info was given a few RL months ago :-(
Did the PCs know that there was a reception desk in the inn? As in, did they know it was more than a rectangle? Even if they did, they may not have thought to look for keys there. I'm not sure I would think of that on short notice.
It sounds like you really need to sit down and talk to the players about the campaign you want to run and the campaign they want to play. You may have different expectations. While it seems like they did make some bad decisions, you don't need to always be hard on them.
tonight they encountered ~20 kobalds
4 of them were cr 1/2
8 of them were cr 1
5 of them were cr 2
.....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
That was a boss fight for a level 3 party.
Giving them 3.5 books does not make up for that.
Exactly how they provoked the kobolds is unknown since I am only on the first post. Could we have a player here, if one is not here already, to tell their side of the story?
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.
i did up the CR to 1/2 per kobold
and this was designed knowing that my players, years ago in the past, had played optimized fighter-types and i prepared the encounters for one of them to play that so the encounters werent all squishy
I did have one player who knew very well what he was doing, he even pointed out that someone should have prepared knock.
And am I as the GM supposed to spill every single detail of the place the second they walk in? "you see a reception desk with keys on it labeled 1a-2c" without making them so much as roll a perception for it? If something appears on the map, why aren't you asking questions about it? The player making assumptions that things aren't important is just as bad as a DM assuming they will take any one specific action.
If someone wants to knock me for the nights rest thing, fine, but I don't think it would be stated so clearly in the rules that you need X many hours of sleep if you were just going to sleep extra anyway to the point where the rule itself is negligible, for future reference i will play it differently, but I will not ignore that rule completely like some of you guys seem to be suggesting I should.
There was no specific strategy that they needed to use to win, I just put sleeping kobolds in locked rooms, and made several options available to the players to deal with it.
When it comes to the stats of my kobolds being pumped, there is an actual reason for it, and it isn't because I want to pwn my players. I gave my characters their stats, so they were guaranteed to have at least one 18. Putting that into STR would mean that swinging a two-handed weapon yields +6 damage per hit. Factor in Power Attack, and a weapon that rolls 2 dice for damage (such as a flachion or greatsword) and you have >10 damage per hit at all times. I gave them enough WBL to afford masterwork weapons (3000gp per character) and I calculated the ACs to be based on an 18 STR using a masterwork weapon, because my players in the past have always known how to swing and kill things. A kobold with 16 HP can be one-shotted by such a melee character using a great sword 50% of the time. A kobold with 10 HP is guaranteed to be one-shotted by the same attack every time. The stronger kobolds had 24 HP and they were designed to take 3-4 hits before they died. Two-hits assuming the player rolls well. Their AC was based on the design that a lvl 3 melee character with full BAB and 18 STR would have roughly +7 to hit, factoring in the +1 and -1 from using a masterwork weapon and power attack. Sh*tty kobolds with 15 AC require a natural 8 or better to hit, and Less Sh*tty kobolds would require a natural 9 or better. The AC was taken straight from the bestiary. I purposely made the commanders have better AC to make them stronger opponents, and it would require an 11 or better on the die to hit with power attack, or 10 or better to hit without it. And all of that math was done with the assumption that the character did not use racial modifiers to boost the STR to +5 and it also assumed they would be attacking without any magic buffs on them. Is my design engineering wrong?
Without power attack, increase the number of hits those monsters need to be defeated by one, and they still aren't that powerful. They couldn't even do that much damage.
After reading more of the post I can see your players were not ready to run an all wizard party. They need more experience with the system to pull that off.
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Master_Marshmallow, a few comments, just for whatever they are worth:
1. I suppose it is perfectly explainable as frustration over the situation but your posts here have been, in my opinion, unusually hostile towards your players. I think some of the responses are reacting as much to the tone of your comments as to the content of them.
2. The night's sleep thing is an odd situation. I've been playing this game a long, long time, and I don't think I ever remember a single time, even with the greenest, newest newbs ever, where if the party was woken up in the middle of the night, the spellcasters didn't say "I'll sleep a little later tomorrow to make up for it." I suppose it's probably not RAW but our group has always allowed spellcasters to break up their sleep into chunks so that they can take a share of watch, and a fight in the middle of the night would be treated the same way. For an entire party full of wizards and a sorcerer to not make some statement about sleeping late just defies all experience I have in playing the game.
3. The situation with the kobolds all being alerted and joining together to attack the party en masse is completely defensible from a logical cause and effect perspective, but it still boils down to the GM throwing a huge attack at the party. You could easily have made the call that some of the kobolds believed the situation had to be a trap or a diversion and as such stayed to guard the rear door or left to alert their own boss. So while it is true that the players did something stupid, as the GM your response can only be described as a deliberate effort to punish them or teach them a lesson.
4. All the talk about the kobold's AC being designed to be consistent with a typical level 3 melee character is pure meta gaming. Why would kobolds have their armor and other attributes tailored to fight a level 3 melee character? Since you arbitrarily set the AC to some level that you felt was "appropriate" you are making it clear that you deliberately set the encounter not to meet the party you had, but a party you feel you should have had.
In the end it sounds like they survived anyway. There is no doubt they could do a better job as players. But in your position I'd be taking a good look in the mirror to ask myself about my own job as a GM.
It seems to me that the problem is that they dont know what they want or that you misunderstood what they want. I'd avoid the "bad guy" language, even if they use it. You're all trying to do the same thing (have an enjoyable game) so you're all on the same side.
Double check with them what they want and when they appear to be describing what you gave them, ask why they feel you were not delivering it. If they're not interested in that sort of discussion, dumb everything down and run an easy game for them. It's hard to tell from just a report of what happened, of course, but it sounds to me that that's really what they want - the fresh approach of 'all being wizards' without having to think too hard. The fact they turned down the fighter NPC over strong hints from you is a clue that they expect you to tailor the encounters to them as well, in my opinion (even if they said they didnt want you to).
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.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.You've never read about Tucker's kobolds or you didn't really understand about his article. There nothing special stat wise about Tucker's kobolds. They were regular run of the mill monster manual Kobolds... With a DM who knew how to run a tribe of small humanoids whose specialty was dirty tricks and ambush.
Fact is a party of wizards especially at first level is going to do a lot of face planting unless the campaign is built especially for them. Even so it will still fail if the players involved insist on blunderbuss approaches to the game.
THe PC's never bothered to actually go after the kobolds, either.
One air elemental in their little tunnels could have wiped them all out. There are so many ways to kill the little runts with magic that I shake my head.
It's a great example story on its face, and then if you think about it, you wonder, wtf? Just wipe them out, man.
==Aelryinth
I am truly surprised that no one has ever had issue with wizards having interrupted sleep. It seems pretty straight forward, you need this much sleep, which is why the wizard can't be on guard. The wizard is a high maintenance class, just like a paladin. At least, that's how I read it when I learned how to play one a few months ago. It seemed like a good balancing factor in that, "No, wizards can't do everything better."
As pissed as I am with my players for all that has been discussed, if I may, I would like to change the direction of the discussion toward the function of the party itself, why I felt it failed, and a better way I think it could have been run.
First, the party had one caster who specialized in battlefield control. He strategically placed the characters in a situation after his team mates so stupidly woke up the army of kobolds to where they actually only had to fight them one small group (2-3) at a time. There were 2 doors leading outside to the balcony of the inn's upper deck. That balcony had plenty of tables on it. I didn't bother making them roll STR checks to move the tables around mostly because I liked and appreciated the idea, because they barricaded one of the doors closed using the tables. Then, once the kobolds started coming at them from the door they left open, they created a pit that forced the kobolds to have to make jump checks across the hole and into the balcony to come face them. It also dropped some of them down into the hole, where they could not possibly hope to climb out, less they roll a natural 20.
On the other side, 2 of the stronger kobold commanders bull rushed and pushed in the tables blocking the entrance, it took them 3 rounds to move them 10 feet so the party was fully aware and had plenty of time to prepare for it. On that side they created a puddle of grease that was later caught on fire, completely blocking the kobolds from entering without taking some serious damage. He is my optimizer who knows what he was doing, I knew and expected him to play a wizard, and he was the one player who had no issues with anything that I thew at them. He is also our former DM who also liked to throw difficult scenarios at us.
Second, there was the blaster whom I had helped make the build for. He had many issues with me not telling him what to do, even saying "so it's on the player to know that I need these kind of things?" He showed up at the last minute after telling us he wasn't going to be there, but he had access to all the information that everyone else did about the rules of the campaign. Using my interpretation of metamagic feats, he was able to completely lock down a handful of kobolds for several turns in a row with Rime Spell while he chipped away at them. He is my roommate and he is the one who had the most issue and frustration with the challenges I placed in the game. Mostly I feel it is because he is unfamiliar with Pathfinder wizards, and found it to be much more different than the 3.5 class he was used to. His character was effective, but he ran completely out of spells before the fight was over. He wanted his character to be DPS, and running out of spells really made him ticked at me. I designed this campaign prior to them deciding to be all wizards, and I truly expected at least one or two different kinds of character classes.
Third, there was the universalist. He was an elf who was planning on being the melee DPR guy at first. He was going to put his 18 into STR so he could do melee damage because elves get weapon familiarity. His name is Chris and his old barbarian from 3.5 (which he remade for pathfinder and even brought the character sheet for, but purposely didn't play it) was named Kryzgar. The decided they wanted to name his character "The Kryzard." It was a hilarious idea. He retooled and reworked his character so many times, he eventually landed on going back to his original build. I let him start at old age so he could cheese his way into having a 22 INT. The task of melee damage ended up still falling on him because of his hand of the apprentice school power. Though he complained less than the blaster about my GMing style, his build was the least practical and the group really suffered because of it. He also had blasting spells prepared, mostly magic missle and burning gaze.
Finally there was the gnome sorcerer. He hasn't really been talked about much this thread, and that's because he really didn't do anything besides waste space. There was a minute there where he tanked a little bit with his 19 AC while my kobolds couldn't hit him.
Imo the party had a lot going for them in theory, but in practice it was a disaster. The battlefield control expert has nothing to fear, because he did his job flawlessly, and the rest of the party is still alive because of him. The blaster wizard imo should have spent less time trying to kill things and more time just trying to make sure every enemy had some damage put on it with area of effect spells, wearing tehm down and making them easier to whack down and take out in fewer hits in melee. As much as I hated the idea because why not just play a magus, the Universalist really should not have been of old age and should have valued the physical stats more and played the Kryzard. He also should have been the utility spell guy, knock, detect secret doors (by the way there is still a secret door with a lot of treasure in it that they have not found yet), rope trick. All of the neat wizard tricks that normally a player can't dedicate more than one or two memorizations for he can do because he has 2 other wizards to do the wizards job. The sorcerer needed to not waste space, and probably invest in a better STR since he has the draconic bloodline and I even suggested that he rebuild his character and consider the Dragon Deciple prestige class. Overall that player has a tendency to waste space and everyone else at the table knew that.
I do believe that the best solution, now that we've tested their all wizard theory, would be to offer them the chance to make these changes after this particular campaign, should they actually survive. I want to be fair, and I think sharing my opinions on how the party could work better and offering them the chance to change it will overall be a better idea than throwing more and more at them until they figure it out. That said, the difficulty of the campaign will remain static, I plan on keeping this campaign made exactly the way I have it and letting other groups play it. I may even post it online for others to use, because I actually am quite proud of all the work I put into creating the world.
One last note, I created this campaign before the characters were made, and I did not just plan on throwing a bunch of anti-wizard challenges at them. Kobolds are sneaky light-sensitive monsters who are out at night, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that they would attack a group of travelers in the middle of the night by sneaking up on them.
I am truly surprised that no one has ever had issue with wizards having interrupted sleep. It seems pretty straight forward, you need this much sleep, which is why the wizard can't be on guard. The wizard is a high maintenance class, just like a paladin. At least, that's how I read it when I learned how to play one a few months ago. It seemed like a good balancing factor in that, "No, wizards can't do everything better."
On that side they created a puddle of grease that was later caught on fire, completely blocking the kobolds from entering without taking some serious damage. .
Ah, "a few months ago', well, that does explain a lot, I only learned to play a wizard about 4 decades ago.
Yes, the rest thing was done incorrectly.
Next- Grease doesn't burn like that. Read the spell. It does not mention anywhere it is flammable.
Perhaps you need to play a few more years before you DM.
Some things I'm still confused about...
How did this encounter "fail?" If the math others on the thread have done is correct, you threw a CR10 encounter at an APL 3 group of three wizards and a sorcerer and they survived.
I am wondering if I would ever describe one of my players as having "a tendency to waste space". I don't think I would, and I have a player who has on occasion come to play having forgotten both his dice and his character sheet. Since I mostly created that character for him, I always have a copy available, but it would be nice if he kept up with it. He only plays to get out of the house and spend an evening with friends and we typically provide him with suggestions for pretty much all of his actions. Coincidentally, he also plays a sorcerer. He does lots of fireballs. But "waste space"? I don't think so.
I understand being proud of having created a campaign environment to game in. I am quite proud of my own world. But I still make allowances for whatever party makeup I am presented with.
Your initial post stated that these were good and experienced players, but your direct comments about them seem to gainsay that at every turn. If they are really that experienced they should surely know better than to do the things you've listed here, so I have to wonder if they aren't doing some of it deliberately.
Anyway, if I were you I'd give them a chance to see if they learned anything from this first encounter. It sounds like in the end they actually did OK, they just could have done much better with some planning and preparation.
Some things I'm still confused about...
How did this encounter "fail?" If the math others on the thread have done is correct, you threw a CR10 encounter at an APL 3 group of three wizards and a sorcerer and they survived.
I am wondering if I would ever describe one of my players as having "a tendency to waste space". I don't think I would, and I have a player who has on occasion come to play having forgotten both his dice and his character sheet. Since I mostly created that character for him, I always have a copy available, but it would be nice if he kept up with it. He only plays to get out of the house and spend an evening with friends and we typically provide him with suggestions for pretty much all of his actions. Coincidentally, he also plays a sorcerer. He does lots of fireballs. But "waste space"? I don't think so.
I understand being proud of having created a campaign environment to game in. I am quite proud of my own world. But I still make allowances for whatever party makeup I am presented with.
Your initial post stated that these were good and experienced players, but your direct comments about them seem to gainsay that at every turn. If they are really that experienced they should surely know better than to do the things you've listed here, so I have to wonder if they aren't doing some of it deliberately.
Anyway, if I were you I'd give them a chance to see if they learned anything from this first encounter. It sounds like in the end they actually did OK, they just could have done much better with some planning and preparation.
The encounter has not failed, yet.
They still have to face the boss of the dungeon. One lvl 5 draconic blooded sorcerer kobold.And when I say 'waste space' I am specifically referring to Treantmonk's party member role as described in his wizard guide. Character's who really do not accomplish any of the goals that a 'successful' party wants, DPR is low to non existent, spells don't really help the battle, and offers no skills or healing to the team. He is just kinda.... there.
I may have fudged the rules a bit to let the grease catch on fire so they could get some damage going on the kobolds. So sue me, I did it for them. I say these guys are experienced because I know at least one of them knows his optimizations for multiple classes (the battlefield controller) and the others I have been playing with for years. And sadly I do believe that a lot of the stupidity was deliberate in an attempt to 'ruin' my campaign. It's one of the reasons I am so hostile towards this situation. I would hate to think that my players don't know as much as me, they all do the same amount of research and build testing as me.
I agree on the point of them doing okay, I still feel a reworking of the characters' main roles in the party may be more beneficial than just letting them learn the hard way. I think I may spend more time helping them with their preparation, which I hate because it isn't the DM's job to tell the player's exactly how to beat his encounters and challenges.
Who knows, maybe they have been lying to me the whole time, and actually have some decent spells left and are going to completely change the tide of the next fight. Wouldn't that be a twist?
The way I try to run interrupted sleep nights is, randomize a chance of an encounter
I rolled a natural 20 to see if they encountered anything.
I usually roll a d20 and if i roll above a 17 they get an encounter during the night.It's not like I was deliberately trying to poke at the weaknesses of wizards, tho they should be prepared for it, and they had a guard who could easily have taken out 4 crappy kobolds on his own while the others got some sleep, but it's like they wanted to forget about the mechanics of wizards needing full rest, and I do not want to reward players who want to ignore their classes weaknesses. There have to be counter balances to the class.
and this was designed knowing that my players, years ago in the past, had played optimized fighter-types and i prepared the encounters for one of them to play that so the encounters werent all squishy
Why are you preparing encounters against what players did years ago in different games but not adjusting to what the players wanted to do in this game?
And am I as the GM supposed to spill every single detail of the place the second they walk in? "you see a reception desk with keys on it labeled 1a-2c" without making them so much as roll a perception for it? If something appears on the map, why aren't you asking questions about it? The player making assumptions that things aren't important is just as bad as a DM assuming they will take any one specific action.
IMO you're supposed to spill every obvious detail that's in plain sight, that's how players know what their characters are seeing.
If there's a desk marked as reception and there's a wall with hooks labeled with room numbers behind it, then, yes, that's what you should tell them. And how hard can it be to see such a thing as the hotel is, by design, going to have it located in a place that it will be among the first thing that any idiot who walks in off the street will notice.
Or maybe you think the desk is obvious, but there's a chance they wouldn't notice the keys behind it, so you call for a perception check to notice the key hooks and numbers (which, IMO, should be a pretty easy check since we're talking about things that would be in plain sight).
Of if you told them "there's a desk over there" and the players don't seem to take any meaning from that, you could have them roll a knowledge or INT check for their 18 INT Wizards to see if they realize that, "Hey, a desk near the front of the hotel is probably where people check in and get the keys to their rooms" because your players are probably not as smart as the super geniuses that they're playing.
and this was designed knowing that my players, years ago in the past, had played optimized fighter-types and i prepared the encounters for one of them to play that so the encounters werent all squishyWhy are you preparing encounters against what players did years ago in different games but not adjusting to what the players wanted to do in this game?
Because I didn't know what the players were going to do, and one of them had a barbarian prepared that I even told him to play that would have been perfect.
They chose not to.
Did I tell them there was a desk, yes. I gave a simple explanation of everything in the room. They saw doors and went straight to them. They didn't even try to come up with a way to get into the doors, they just kept going on to the next one.
And did you give them a perception check to notice the keys or an INT check to realize what the desk was for?
The way I try to run interrupted sleep nights is, randomize a chance of an encounterI rolled a natural 20 to see if they encountered anything.
I usually roll a d20 and if i roll above a 17 they get an encounter during the night.It's not like I was deliberately trying to poke at the weaknesses of wizards, tho they should be prepared for it, and they had a guard who could easily have taken out 4 crappy kobolds on his own while the others got some sleep, but it's like they wanted to forget about the mechanics of wizards needing full rest, and I do not want to reward players who want to ignore their classes weaknesses. There have to be counter balances to the class.
Why are the players supposed to assume that these kobolds are so "crappy" that 1 guy can fight off four of them by himself and they should just roll over and go to sleep?
If the kobolds had managed to get lucky and kill the guard then what would you have done?
Would they have just wandered off and left the sleeping PCs alone?
And did you give them a perception check to notice the keys or an INT check to realize what the desk was for?
The way I try to run interrupted sleep nights is, randomize a chance of an encounterI rolled a natural 20 to see if they encountered anything.
I usually roll a d20 and if i roll above a 17 they get an encounter during the night.It's not like I was deliberately trying to poke at the weaknesses of wizards, tho they should be prepared for it, and they had a guard who could easily have taken out 4 crappy kobolds on his own while the others got some sleep, but it's like they wanted to forget about the mechanics of wizards needing full rest, and I do not want to reward players who want to ignore their classes weaknesses. There have to be counter balances to the class.
Why are the players supposed to assume that these kobolds are so "crappy" that 1 guy can fight off four of them by himself and they should just roll over and go to sleep?
If the kobolds had managed to get lucky and kill the guard then what would you have done?
Would they have just wandered off and left the sleeping PCs alone?
the kobolds would have most likely gone after the horses next, noise would be made, and we'd roll to see if they wake up
the kobolds would have most likely gone after the horses next, noise would be made, and we'd roll to see if they wake upAnd did you give them a perception check to notice the keys or an INT check to realize what the desk was for?
The way I try to run interrupted sleep nights is, randomize a chance of an encounterI rolled a natural 20 to see if they encountered anything.
I usually roll a d20 and if i roll above a 17 they get an encounter during the night.It's not like I was deliberately trying to poke at the weaknesses of wizards, tho they should be prepared for it, and they had a guard who could easily have taken out 4 crappy kobolds on his own while the others got some sleep, but it's like they wanted to forget about the mechanics of wizards needing full rest, and I do not want to reward players who want to ignore their classes weaknesses. There have to be counter balances to the class.
Why are the players supposed to assume that these kobolds are so "crappy" that 1 guy can fight off four of them by himself and they should just roll over and go to sleep?
If the kobolds had managed to get lucky and kill the guard then what would you have done?
Would they have just wandered off and left the sleeping PCs alone?
What amazingly stupid kobolds. Clearly any humanoid with a brain knows to stab them while they sleep and then loot without worry.
And when I say 'waste space' I am specifically referring to Treantmonk's party member role as described in his wizard guide. Character's who really do not accomplish any of the goals that a 'successful' party wants, DPR is low to non existent, spells don't really help the battle, and offers...
Many of us disagree strongly with many of Treatmonks opinions. He does a good analysis, but he has strong opinions and they color his guides so strongly that a naïf will come out of them with some wrong ideas.
The way I try to run interrupted sleep nights is, randomize a chance of an encounterI rolled a natural 20 to see if they encountered anything.
I usually roll a d20 and if i roll above a 17 they get an encounter during the night.It's not like I was deliberately trying to poke at the weaknesses of wizards, tho they should be prepared for it, and they had a guard who could easily have taken out 4 crappy kobolds on his own while the others got some sleep, but it's like they wanted to forget about the mechanics of wizards needing full rest, and I do not want to reward players who want to ignore their classes weaknesses. There have to be counter balances to the class.
Doesn’t matter what you rolled. Once the get done with the encounter, they can just go back to sleep, sleep in a bit, and all their spells are back.
Unless they had to catch the early train...
Doesn’t matter what you rolled. Once the get done with the encounter, they can just go back to sleep, sleep in a bit, and all their spells are back.The way I try to run interrupted sleep nights is, randomize a chance of an encounterI rolled a natural 20 to see if they encountered anything.
I usually roll a d20 and if i roll above a 17 they get an encounter during the night.It's not like I was deliberately trying to poke at the weaknesses of wizards, tho they should be prepared for it, and they had a guard who could easily have taken out 4 crappy kobolds on his own while the others got some sleep, but it's like they wanted to forget about the mechanics of wizards needing full rest, and I do not want to reward players who want to ignore their classes weaknesses. There have to be counter balances to the class.
False, letting them sleep extra without wasting time out of the adventuring day is bad time management. I will not ignore a plainly stated rule just because "WIZARDS!!!"
If they want to sleep more, it will not be 'just implied' that they sleep more. Serious time will be spent out of teh day to make up the extra 2 hours of sleep and the hour it takes them to prepare their spells, eventually they will run out of daylight. Your opinions seem to be that "wizards are god, they have no weaknesses!!!! your dm is badwrongfun!!!!" And you have offered nothing constructive thus far.
I am not just going to throw a bunch of mindless, weaponless, armorless enemies at them for them to just blow up, nor am I going to tell them to do some minor exploring in an open room that as adventurers they should be doing that anyway.
Hmmm... How long did that fight take for the four wizards to defeat the kobolds in the night?
MM, do you take the position that if a spellcaster's sleep is interrupted for any reason, the 8 hr clock starts over?
This isn't an all-wizard party issue. Most parties have spellcasters who take a share of the watch. Are you saying that all spellcasters would have to take first or last watch and get 8 hrs uninterrupted sleep to regain spells?
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It is not an extra 2 hours, it is an extra 1 hour for each interruption. The 1 hour for prepping spells is an hour they need to spend anyway. In total, they spend 9 hours sleeping, 5 minutes fighting kobolds, 1 hour prepping spells, an hour for breakfast, an hour for lunch, and an hour for dinner. They still have almost 11 hours of adventuring left in them before they repeat the whole shebang tomorrow.
Nobody is suggesting you ignore a rule.
You are taking the rule and using to tell your players: YOU LOSE!
What is it that they need to get done that they can't do in 11 hours, but they can in 12 hours?
Unless there is some really urgent time crunch, letting the PCs sleep in is really no big deal.
Honestly, what will you tell your players the next time their PCs wake up tired and they say they want to go back to sleep until they are rested?
Looks like you fell in love with your setting. I bet if you want to keep your group your gonna have to tear up parts of your planning and start all over.
Maybe just put away your setting and move the party elsewhere... Like a Mage Academy located England only accesible by a strange steam powered wagon...
Sounds like when you give them advice something is getting lost in translation.
Who knows you just might talk one of them into to GM role and you could be their fighter/cleric/rogue.
Good luck.
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Look Mate,
I understand your frustration. Lots of time went into build a world for your players to explore. They didn't appreciate the effort and wanted to do something particular.
Role Playing games in general are about fun for all people. the DM gets to create a world with specific challenges. The Players, make characters to explore this world and attempt the challenges.
The duet campaign I am running for my friend, he wanted to play a bard, solo. I carried him through the first few levels. Because I wanted him to have fun with this character he had created. I create challenges that a bard could and can be good at. Spy missions to get into court... Oh the court is hiring entertainers for a party...
The goal is to figure out the party your friends want to run, and build a campaign that they can enjoy.
It is a partnership.
That is well said, Ranzo!
Master Marshmallow, everyone here IS offering you constructive feedback. You are finding it painful to hear. Oftentimes the best feedback is painful to hear. DrDeth did not say that you are a bad DM. But you are currently not having fun running the game you are running. It is tough to tell without asking them, but I would bet your players aren't having fun either (it is tough to enjoy a game the GM is not enjoying).
If you want to make the game better, consider listening to the advice people are giving (especially Ranzo, DrDeth, and Adamantine Dragon). They really are giving useful advice.
False, letting them sleep extra without wasting time out of the adventuring day is bad time management. I will not ignore a plainly stated rule just because "WIZARDS!!!"
If they want to sleep more, it will not be 'just implied' that they sleep more. Serious time will be spent out of teh day to make up the extra 2 hours of sleep and the hour it takes them to prepare their spells, eventually they will run out of daylight. Your opinions seem to be that "wizards are god, they have no weaknesses!!!! your dm is badwrongfun!!!!" And you have offered nothing constructive thus far.
You are already ignoring a plainly stated rule. If there’s an interruption, they need ONE extra hours sleep. No biggie. Geez, dude, don’t you ever sleep in a extra hour? Does that ruin the whole day?
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If they want to sleep more, it will not be 'just implied' that they sleep more. Serious time will be spent out of teh day to make up the extra 2 hours of sleep and the hour it takes them to prepare their spells, eventually they will run out of daylight.
Dude, what? If they are traveling, they can only do so for eight hours of the day before having to make Con checks. Shifting those eight hours to the right a bit is not going to cause havoc.
False, letting them sleep extra without wasting time out of the adventuring day is bad time management. I will not ignore a plainly stated rule just because "WIZARDS!!!"
If they want to sleep more, it will not be 'just implied' that they sleep more. Serious time will be spent out of teh day to make up the extra 2 hours of sleep and the hour it takes them to prepare their spells, eventually they will run out of daylight. Your opinions seem to be that "wizards are god, they have no weaknesses!!!! your dm is badwrongfun!!!!" And you have offered nothing constructive thus far.
You are already ignoring a plainly stated rule. If there’s an interruption, they need ONE extra hours sleep. No biggie. Geez, dude, don’t you ever sleep in a extra hour? Does that ruin the whole day?
Asked and answered. The OP already admitted to that mistake(he thought it reset the rest time). The players wanted to completely hand wave the need for rest entirely, and none of them bothered to look up the actual rule. One fairly minor mistake on the part of the DM does not excuse gross mistakes on the players parts. I have had groups do this as well. They see a situation, then one or more players impulsively decides to do something stupid, and when their stupid actions lead to consequences, they start picking everything apart. "You didn't tell us this." "You didn't use these exact words to describe the situation accurately" "How do you expect us to know this?" I am sorry, as a DM, I don't play the game of "Lets retcon the whole damn thing, because the DM didn't adjudicate every single rule perfectly."
The inn full of kobolds. It sounds like they didn't even take time to explore any other options, they just took the very first impulsive, stupid plan that came to mind and ran with it. We are talking about a group with an average int of 16 and they thought "Let wake them all up(and lose any tactical advantage of surprise we may have had)" was a good plan.
That said, there are at least 2 other methods for dealing with the encounter that the players ignored.
1. Do the rooms have windows on the outside? Maybe we can get in through those.
2. Burn the inn down with the kobolds inside. That will make them come out, and they won't know they are under attack, and they won't have time to gear up.
That plus the original ones pointed out by the OP plus some others mentioned in this thread brings us to a total of no fewer than 6 ways to deal with the kobolds that are all better than, "Lets scream until they all wake up and come out to fight us"
The problem is not a lack of options on the DMs part, but the player lack of willingness to explore any option beyond the first on that jumps into their heads. When the stupidly impulsively character is a half-orc barbarian with an int of 8, the party usually expects it and manages to compensate and pull through. When the in character impulsiveness and stupidity is coming from the guy with a 20+ int who really should know better, things will get grim very fast.
Which brings me to a final tip for DMing. Remember, a lot of characters with an int or wisdom of 20 are being played by a player with an int and wisdom of 10. If one of my players was about to do something that colossally stupid, I would give them an int or wisdom check followed by a "You seem to think there might be a smarter/wiser way to handle things" before they did it. If they ignore the warning, I let the dice fall where they will.
The 2 hours comes from 2 interruptions, being the attack, and switching guard duties
The hour of preparation takes 3 hours out of the day total
That's about 1/4 off daylight wasted, so they can only travel about 3/4 worth of days travel, unless they hustle and tire themselves out, for a 2 day journey that means they are half a day later than if they had full rest, and for a 4 day journey they sow up at night
also waking up when they're spossed to when the normal spell prep time is, is another interruption that I am willing to ignore
But wasting time when it takes time to travel will have consequences when you have sleeping enemies that you can sneak up on, or enemies that are wide awake
A thought that crossed my mind is that "good" and "experienced" players are not necessarily "effective" players. I have played with some friends that are "good" in that they are fun to play with and "experienced" in that they have played for decades, but still are not that effective. They don't know all the rules or misremember them. They don't use the greatest tactics, at least not in the sense of exploiting the rules to their maximum effect. They usually try to use some basic tactics like trying to out flank their opponents (not to be confused with flanking in the game sense) and making effective use of ranged attacks.
Something else that occurs to me is that the "kicking the hornets nest" tactic that was employed would absolutely be a tactic that my group would employ with their high-powered characters, and be successful. They would then occasionally forget that they are playing fresh low-level characters, employ the same tactics, and only realize afterwards that maybe they should play it a bit more cautious to begin with.
The 2 hours comes from 2 interruptions, being the attack, and switching guard duties
The hour of preparation takes 3 hours out of the day totalThat's about 1/4 off daylight wasted, so they can only travel about 3/4 worth of days travel, unless they hustle and tire themselves out, for a 2 day journey that means they are half a day later than if they had full rest, and for a 4 day journey they sow up at night
also waking up when they're spossed to when the normal spell prep time is, is another interruption that I am willing to ignore
But wasting time when it takes time to travel will have consequences when you have sleeping enemies that you can sneak up on, or enemies that are wide awake
The rules specifically state that they do not actually need to sleep the entire time. Changing of guard and and other mundane activities should not add to the time.
And again, the hour of prep time would be the same even if they had just one caster in the group.
In our group we generally assume 12 hours spent resting. There is time spent finding a campsite, setting up camp, eating, taking care of "other" needs, etc. Then waking up, eating breakfast, breaking down camp and so on. All of which is non-stressful work. Obviously if there is a time limit this is sped up, but we always have to make some kind of accommodation for the casters. I don't think we have ever played in an all mundane group.
Edit: Oh, and I don't think we have ever slept through a combat with the idea that "Eh, he can handle it." Are you crazy! If we tried that I am positive that we will eventually get attacked by some wimps, go back to sleep, only to wake up dead the next morning when we realize the wimps were just a distraction for the guard while the assassin moved in to coup de grace the idiots still in their bedrolls.
The 2 hours comes from 2 interruptions, being the attack, and switching guard duties
The hour of preparation takes 3 hours out of the day totalThat's about 1/4 off daylight wasted, so they can only travel about 3/4 worth of days travel, unless they hustle and tire themselves out, for a 2 day journey that means they are half a day later than if they had full rest, and for a 4 day journey they sow up at night
also waking up when they're spossed to when the normal spell prep time is, is another interruption that I am willing to ignore
But wasting time when it takes time to travel will have consequences when you have sleeping enemies that you can sneak up on, or enemies that are wide awake
Why would switching guard duties necessitate another hour of sleep? I only see one interruption here.
In any case, whether it's one extra hour or two, they can still sleep in. Sure, they can't travel as far. But most wizards would gladly travel less far to refresh their spells per day. Did the players know that was an option?
The 2 hours comes from 2 interruptions, being the attack, and switching guard duties
The hour of preparation takes 3 hours out of the day totalThat's about 1/4 off daylight wasted, so they can only travel about 3/4 worth of days travel, unless they hustle and tire themselves out, for a 2 day journey that means they are half a day later than if they had full rest, and for a 4 day journey they sow up at night
also waking up when they're spossed to when the normal spell prep time is, is another interruption that I am willing to ignore
But wasting time when it takes time to travel will have consequences when you have sleeping enemies that you can sneak up on, or enemies that are wide awake
Why would switching guard duties necessitate another hour of sleep? I only see one interruption here.
In any case, whether it's one extra hour or two, they can still sleep in. Sure, they can't travel as far. But most wizards would gladly travel less far to refresh their spells per day. Did the players know that was an option?
The rules clearly state uninterrupted sleep, and out also states that they need more sleep, if they didn't know it was an option, it can't always be on me to explain how their characters work. I'm not in this to play solitaire, and it is the responsibility of the player to know how his class works. If you are arguing that I need to tell my players on advance that they need to follow the rules, you are probably waving the flash of player entitlement. And I'm not even against the players, MY players specifically in this campaign are trying to get out of having to follow the rules, are making brash, unintelligent decisions, and then blaming me for the consequences. They may be performing well enough to survive agaisnt crappy monsters, but what happens when I throw something not so crappy at them?
Grease being flammable was a precedent set by our group years ago that I didn't even realize wasn't in the rules. I brought it up to them and they are now arguing with me about 1) whether our not it's flammable and 2) if I am willing to house rule it to work like the incendiary slime spell from 3.5 with no consequences, then I'm the bad guy still because I have to explain the logic of why grease isn't flammable or why it would be flash flammable and not burn slowly for the entire duration of the grease spell.
Now I wanna say the main reason I'm holding onto this campaign is because I want the chance to play it with players that aren't so whiny.
I admit I was wrong about Grease. I'm not unwilling to admit when I screw up. The thing about the sleep seems like a big deal to me, especially in a party where everyone needs full, uninterrupted rest, according to the rules to be able to function.
In my view, the question you should ask is whether imposing such a strict definition of what "interrupted sleep" means will add to the fun. In our group, we accept that rule but count a wizard who sleeps four hours, then takes his uneventful shift, then sleeps another four hours to have had uninterrupted sleep. (We equally dont make him roll to see if he wakes up to go to the toilet, thus making his eight hours begin again).
We do that because it's more fun for us. If we have a battle in the middle of the night, we generally say it adds a couple of hours to our resting time.
Ultimately though, you need to run the game your players want to play or you'll have arguments/ill feelings on one or both sides of the screen. Either you're misunderstanding what they said they wanted or they're misunderstanding what you said you'd give them. There is no "correct" way to play this game - you and them just need to be playing it the same.
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The rules clearly state uninterrupted sleep
No they don't.
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.
Uninterrupted rest, not sleep.
The rules clearly state uninterrupted sleepNo they don't.
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.Uninterrupted rest, not sleep.
I figure movement is in there to prevent players from "resting" while walking, but I wonder if mind numbing tasks that require no thought would be included, such as washing the dishes or clothes.
I think we may need to actually look at the rules.
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.
So my reading of this is a simple changing of the guard would not be considered an interruption. And waking up in the morning and sitting quietly with your eyes closed for an hour would be enough to get you another hour. Or you could, you know, sleep for another hour.
The rules go on to say what happens if you do cast a spell (or fight a combat or have a long talk with your friend) during your rest.
Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions
If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.
If, as you say, he must have 8 uninterrupted hours of rest, then how was he able to cast a spell within the last 8 hours that now counts against his daily limit?
Really you should be looking at this new understanding of the rule as a way to help your unique party to succeed. Not trying to find a way to circumvent it to screw them over.
Edit: I'm slow and got majorly ninja'd. :)
I like that apparently the GM knowing/informing the party of the correct rule is "playing solitaire".
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The rules clearly state uninterrupted sleep, and out also states that they need more sleep, if they didn't know it was an option, it can't always be on me to explain how their characters work. I'm not in this to play solitaire, and it is the responsibility of the player to know how his class works. If you are arguing that I need to tell my players on advance that they need to follow the rules, you are probably waving the flash of player entitlement. And I'm not even against the players, MY players specifically in this campaign are trying to get out of having to follow the rules, are making brash, unintelligent decisions, and then blaming me for the consequences. They may be performing well enough to survive agaisnt crappy monsters, but what happens when I throw something not so crappy at them?
The rules state no such thing as pointed out repeatedly. That said, YOU ARE SUPPOSE TO KNOW THE FRAKING RULES. Your an arbiter of the rules so how the heck can you be an arbiter of something you seem to know or care very little about?!? Your suppose to know what your players can do with their characters. It's part of running a game. And I don't see your players trying to get out of a rule in the case of the rest issue...I see you working VERY hard to justify a unwritten houserule (as I assume that you did not tell your players ahead of time that you are houseruling the rest rules as you yourself seem completely unaware of what the actual rest rules were)...and FYI, unwritten houserules are NEVER justified. If you don't tell your players your houserules before hand, then that issue is entirely your fault. Now there is plenty that IS the player's fault...but seriously, you screwed the pooch on the rest rules. Try running the game with the correct rest rules, I bet it will cut down on the whining.
In my view, the question you should ask is whether imposing such a strict definition of what "interrupted sleep" means will add to the fun. In our group, we accept that rule but count a wizard who sleeps four hours, then takes his uneventful shift, then sleeps another four hours to have had uninterrupted sleep. (We equally dont make him roll to see if he wakes up to go to the toilet, thus making his eight hours begin again).
We do that because it's more fun for us. If we have a battle in the middle of the night, we generally say it adds a couple of hours to our resting time.
Ultimately though, you need to run the game your players want to play or you'll have arguments/ill feelings on one or both sides of the screen. Either you're misunderstanding what they said they wanted or they're misunderstanding what you said you'd give them. There is no "correct" way to play this game - you and them just need to be playing it the same.
There was combat....
Therefore I ruled it as an interruption.And it is not an unwritten houserule, there was a time period where they woke up and I said "you didn't get enough sleep and are too tired to prepare spells." None of them even asked about going back to sleep. And I should not have to go step by step and tell you every little rule that is in effect. I rolled to give them a chance to NOT have to go back to sleep. I gave them a chance to not have to do something, and that makes me a bad DM? You are the player, this is a new campaign. Unless I otherwise say something does not apply, you should assume all rules are in effect. What about the rest of the party? There was a wizard who didn't cast any spells in the mid-night conflict. Choosing to move forward with the spells you have was just that, a choice. Had my players asked if there was anyway to get enough rest to prepare their spells, i would have said "yes."
It is not my job as DM to spell out every single option my players have. If that's what you want, go play a video game.
In my view, the question you should ask is whether imposing such a strict definition of what "interrupted sleep" means will add to the fun. In our group, we accept that rule but count a wizard who sleeps four hours, then takes his uneventful shift, then sleeps another four hours to have had uninterrupted sleep. (We equally dont make him roll to see if he wakes up to go to the toilet, thus making his eight hours begin again).
We do that because it's more fun for us. If we have a battle in the middle of the night, we generally say it adds a couple of hours to our resting time.
Ultimately though, you need to run the game your players want to play or you'll have arguments/ill feelings on one or both sides of the screen. Either you're misunderstanding what they said they wanted or they're misunderstanding what you said you'd give them. There is no "correct" way to play this game - you and them just need to be playing it the same.
There was combat....
Therefore I ruled it as an interruption.
Sure. I thought you said that being on guard would have been another. My bad.
.Irrespective, my point is that you should be trying to run a game that they enjoy. "Doing it right" is nothing more than doing what increases all of your enjoyment. If they find such things stifling and not fun, why insist on it? I've seen DMs insist on encumbrance calculations (including gold pieces) when players couldnt care less - it's the same thing, in my view. There isnt some platonic ideal of roleplaying experience we're all trying to live up to. Merely a bunch of people sitting around pretending to cast spells.
And it is not an unwritten houserule, there was a time period where they woke up and I said "you didn't get enough sleep and are too tired to prepare spells." None of them even asked about going back to sleep. And I should not have to go step by step and tell you every little rule that is in effect. I rolled to give them a chance to NOT have to go back to sleep. I gave them a chance to not have to do something, and that makes me a bad DM?
I didnt say you were a bad DM. I said you were running a game under one set of assumptions and the players seem to be playing under another. That's the issue (and it's easily solvable).
You are the player, this is a new campaign. Unless I otherwise say something does not apply, you should assume all rules are in effect. What about the rest of the party? There was a wizard who didn't cast any spells in the mid-night conflict. Choosing to move forward with the spells you have was just that, a choice. Had my players asked if there was anyway to get enough rest to prepare their spells, i would have said "yes."
It is not my job as DM to spell out every single option my players have. If that's what you want, go play a video game.
Sure. I dont particularly care, by the way - I dont think there's some gold standard way to run a game. I'm trying to give you some advice (mainly - try to understand what they actually want out of a game, rather than what you think they want) that will help you and them have more fun. If it turns out they want to play a game you dont want to run, you'll save a lot of hassle. If it turns out they or you are willing to shift, then everyone is better off.
Arguing about how it "should" be is a waste of time, in my view (especially if you're not arguing with them about it but are rather arguing on a messageboard).
There is no should beyond what everyone at the table wants.
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MM, I think the reason I've never seen players opt to ignore taking an extra hour or so of sleep is the I, and every GM I've played with, would say "OK, it's morning and the final watch is over. If you get up now you'll be an hour short of resting enough to recover spells, do you want to go ahead and sleep another hour?"
This, from your conversation above, seems to qualify in your mind as "playing solitaire". In my mind it's more that I want the players to make the best choices for their characters. I at least want them to be aware of the consequences of their actions so they can choose what their characters would do in that situation. In this case their characters are wizards. They would certainly know that another hour of rest would be the difference between regaining spells and not regaining spells, although that might escape the notice of the players at that moment.
Just as a general philosophical statement, as a GM I actually do consider it to be part of my job to keep the players in the context of the situation so that their characters react properly. I do it all the time. I will even remind the players as they are camping that "now would be a really good time to use up any remaining heal spells before you sleep."
Maybe I just like solitaire... I dunno. But I don't seem to have the problem you are having here however you look at it.