So GM did something I find very upsetting, and I'm on the verge of quitting, but I'd rather not...
Basic Description:
He beefed up a monster to counter every plan I made. Totally crushed my character. Then gave me a Deus ex machina, another NPC saved my life just before my character died. I quit a previous game (with a different GM) after this happened 4 or 5 times.
I know I'm just hypersensitive because of past experiences, but I really *HATE* the "you can do nothing, you are helpless before me, and only by my pity will you live" style of GMing.
I'm playing a 3rd Level Sylvan Sky Druid. I decided to hunt for plants that might give a resistance to the monster's nausea effect.
I made good knowledge nature, and survival checks, and found a bark to resist the nausea. I also spoke with a local fey who told me where to find some of said bark.
I decided to stay in the trees and jump from treetop to treetop because Sky Druids have perma-featherfall. Gathered the bark just fine.
Then I saw a ghoul 30'- 40' below. I had previously been docked XP for not challenging undead, as a good aligned druid. So after checking that it was alone, I decided to throw sling- stones at the ghoul from 30ish feet up. (I've used up most of todays spells, and I want to save tomorrows spells for the big bad. My first shot missed.
This is where it got interesting. The ghoul turns, sees me, runs to the tree trunk, grows claws, climbs 10', skewers a rodent, climbs another 10'.
I'm like, "ok, its a bit stronger than I bargained for. Fair enough." I develop a plan to climb as high as possible, then jump to another tree, and try to knock the ghoul down, so he'll die of falling damage.
Round 2-- I say I will double-move climb. Unless it gets close, in which case I will jump for my second action.
The ghoul closes the gap and gets an attack of opportunity when I jump. (???) When I started my move it was more than 5' away. I questioned the attack of opportunity. He said I waited too long to jump. I took 8 points of damage. Down to 10hp. ooohhhh kay.
I made a 27 on my fly/jump roll, which apparently just barely got me to the next tree.
For his action, the ghoul spoke and gave me a chance to run. (The GM was hinting here, I see that, but I *really* hate the kobayashi maru/pity combo.) So I stuck with my plan, which I thought should still have a reasonable chance of success. We are 42' up at this point.
I use the supernatural wind druid ability, "Wind Blast" which is an air bull rush attempt. I was hoping the ghoul would jump, but he didn't. So I cast it anyway. I rolled a CMB of 25. This did not beat the ghouls CMD. (???)
Then the ghoul cast a 3d4+3 (5th level) magic missile at me. (???) Coincidentally it did 9 damage, leaving me with exactly 1 hit point.
On my turn I auto-feather fell to the ground.
On its turn the ghoul jumped to the ground (42') without taking damage.
It was about to kill me, when the fey came back and distracted it, allowing me to live, just barely.
In closing the fey prattles on and on about how proud it is of itself.
And I am seething.
For those of you playing along at home, the ghoul had:
* stench
* claws
* climb speed
* speech
* the ability to move and take an attack of opportunity on the other players turn
* 26+ CMD
* 5th level spellcaster
* ability to jump 42' without damage
(is there such a creature? and if so, what is its CR? appropriate for a 3rd level solo character?)
I understand making it a little bit of a challenge. A regular ghoul I would have been able to pummel with slingstones without taking any damage myself. Ok, increase the challenge.
But making his monster into a super creature that I couldn't touch? I couldn't even knock it out of a tree with a 25 CMB? And then give it magic missile when I jumped to a different tree?
THEN to get me down to 1 hp and give me the pity save?
I hate this style of game mastery. I am *this* close to rage quitting. But I don't really want to.
Advice?
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Docked XP? Like, the GM actually removed XP from your character? That's . . . not really supported by the rules as written. It appears your GM is houseruling. The ghoul moving while you move to interrupt your move is another example. PF is turn-based, and unless someone readies an action, they can't do something to interrupt your action (unless it provokes an Attack of Opportunity). The ghoul could get an AoO if you fell past it when you jumped, but it couldn't move and then attack while you jumped.
Stench is a ghast ability, not a ghoul ability. The GM may have misspoken, or your character may have misidentified it. I'm going to assume he meant ghast.
Ghasts do have claws and enough intelligence to speak normally. PF even has whole communities of the things, functioning somewhat like a normal city of living creatures.
They have a Climb bonus of +8 (from the default stat block) and a movement rate of 30ft. The DC to climb a tree is 15. Using accelerated climbing (check with a -5 penalty), he could clear 15ft each round of climbing, 30ft with a double move.
Their base CMD is 18.
If this ghast happened to be a 5th level spellcaster, it's possible that he had feather fall available, rendering the 42ft drop a non-issue. Casting it is an Immediate action, and so could occur when he dropped after you. It may have even had spider climb as a spell, and used that to scale the tree, but that wouldn't provide any bonuses to CMD against your wind attack.
Also, it's not a sylvan sky druid you're playing. It's a Sylph sky druid, for future reference. Sylvan and Sylph are two different things. No snark, just friendly clarification.
Thanks for input, guys.
He *is* an experienced gamemaster of many years, altho I've only been playing with him a few weeks.
He has announced on several occasions that his pet peeve is meta-gaming, and that if he suspects a player is using out-of-game knowledge, he will beef up a monster. If I say "show me the creature in a monster manual," he'll just defend with "I told you I don't tolerate metagaming."
Which *might* be his logic here. Except my character has run into both ghouls and ghasts in recent play. So it wouldn't be metagaming for my character to think, "Hey I'm up in a tree, I can probably take out a lone ghoul before it gets to me."`
It turns out I miscalculated and its a ghast? It has stench, claws, and a +8 to climb? Ok. It looks like my character has more of a challenge on her hands? ok.
But my Sylph has a base 35' move speed (Like the wind racial trait), and a +4 to climb herself, and made her climb checks. So wouldn't her double move climb/accelerated climb be faster then the ghasts?
He must have given the creature an actual climb speed.
Then the ability to take an attack of opportunity in the middle of my turn.
Then a 26+ CMD
Then 5th level spell-casting
(Thanks for the tip about the creature having feather-fall too Stockvillain, that makes sense if its a 5th level caster)
I don't mind an bigger-than-expected challenge.
What really rankles tho, is the sense that he was upgrading the creature on the fly, in order to counter every idea I came up with.
I thought climbing higher and faster then the creature, jumping to a neighboring tree high off the ground, and pelting it with sling stones, or knocking it to the ground with a gust of wind was a reasonably good plan for a 3rd level character.
But he kept adding features to make sure none of that worked.
Then gave me a pity -out.
I'm not sure how to have a conversation with him, without him hunkering down that he beefed up the creature because I was using out of game knowledge...
It sounds like the conversation you need to have with him is not about the rules, but about play style. GMs are specifically encouraged to invent / modify / improv monsters in order to get the game they're looking for, so unless you've been promised a by-the-book experience, challenging the monster stats probably isn't going to get you the game you're looking for.
If the problem is that you feel frustrated by no-win situations, and have had bad experiences in the past with adversarial, GM-vs-players gaming styles, then that's the conversation you need to have with him -- it's about your fun, and your experience, and your experience at the table, not a question of whether he's doing something right or wrong.
Ultimately, if his fun and your fun aren't compatible, maybe it's not the table for you, but you should have that conversation first, to see whether that's actually what's up.
I despise it when the npcs come and ' do ' the adventure
I struggle with a lot of AP stuff in this regard
I feel your pain
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Here's my two coppers from the perspective of somebody who is usually a GM.
First, I actually agree with the GM with regard to the "let me see the Bestiary write up on that thing" mentality. As a GM, I look at the monster stat blocks as a basis and as something that as a general rule of thumb will work if I just want a quick monster to throw at the the PCs. However, I think it makes perfect sense to occasionally alter said monsters to fit either a) the theme of the adventure/campaign or b) the actual challenge level presented by the PCs.
Second, all that said, the game is not one (in my opinion) of the GM vs. the Players. Let's face it, that's a rigged contest that the GM will win every time. "Dragon". "Oh, you beat that, well . . . Summon Bigger Dragon." "Hmmmm, still alive? 17 Bigger Dragons". etc., etc. I will say though that often times it can feel as though the GM really needs to up the ante (though it shouldn't already feel that way by level 3). After all, if you have a highly optimized, or even just a very good and efficient group of PCs, then the standard monsters are going to be turned into mops.
Third, personally, I have (to my knowledge) never put my players in a no-win scenario. Or at least not intentionally. Occasionally an encounter will end up being a lot harder than intended, at which point things can get a bit dicey and fall into either "fudge or calvary" scenarios. However, I will at times put my players into a really tough situation. Perhaps one that they even should run from. Usually its because it works for the story. i.e. want to set up the BBEG of the campaign. Or maybe even use it to introduce a potentially helpful faction, etc.
Now, let's play devil's advocate for a moment. It does seem as though its at least plausible to give a ghast most of what you saw -- though in doing so you have created a critter that really isn't a suitable challenge for a single level 3 PC (i.e. its too tough). The big question mark here is the CMD. If we assume the ghast was a caster, its plausible that it had also buffed itself with either Bull's Strength or Cat's Grace, which would add another +2 to its CMD. It may have even had a feat that boosted it (though that seems less likely). But lets say that it did, now with Improved Bull Rush and say Bull's Strength you are looking at a CMD of 22. Still not high enough. However, you said the ghast was in a tree? With branches to hold onto? A trunk to maybe brace it? It's possible that the GM gave the ghast a circumstance bonus to avoid getting knocked out of the tree (again not likely, but plausible). Of course, I probably would have made it clear that I had done that, but its also easy to say that with the advantage of being a Monday Morning QB.
Now, all that said, I think your initial impression is the more likely correct one. So how do you go about talking to him about it? I agree that this can be a difficult issue. I would suggest something along the lines of "Hey, last session was pretty cool how you gave us all something to do in a solo situation. I like how it shows us how much we depend on each other and helps to make it feel more like a group/shared experience. However, I was just curious, what was I doing wrong with that undead thing? It seemed like nothing I tried really had a shot at working. I'm sure its something obvious that I just overlooked, but I was curious because I love the occasional outside the box challenge I just wanted to know what I missed.
What you are doing here is basically saying "Dude, wtf?" but you are doing so in a way that makes it hard for him to really get upset. You are not accusing him of rigging the game, or of just being out for blood. Or rather, not in a way that he can prove it. You are also thanking him and complimenting him at the same time, while also letting him know that you think it may have been a bit of an unfair challenge. Hopefully with this approach, if your GM is a decent GM, he will either a) give you an answer as to how it could have been defeated "Well, did you look at your inventory? I remember you had that Holy Club of Undead Bashing." or "Well to be honest, I was kind of trying to let you guys know that sometimes, the best answer is to beat feet rather than just automatically attack everything. Not all fights need to be fair in this rough and tumble world that I have built." Or else it will be something along the lines of b) "Heh, yeah I kind of realized that I screwed up on the stat block on that guy. Unfortunately, you were already getting pounded by the time I realized how hard it really was, sorry about that. I hate the whole "Here comes the NPC Cavalry to save the day as much as the next guy, but I didn't want to just kill you off either."
Of course, its also just possible that your GM simply feels as though he can win the game by beating the PCs. Hopefully if he is that experienced, this is not the case. So I certainly applaud your decision to try to talk to him first. I will say that even though I have been GM'ing for nearly 15 years now, I still make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. I would also suggest talking to the other players in your group and see if they had similar experiences. If they all did, then its more likely that there is something fishy going on.
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Gargs454
that is an excellent post, fostering discussion and reason.
Dont approach something so hostile and you tend to get better answers.
Definitely try to talk to your GM, I am trying to get 2 of my 6 players to talk to me why they feel like their plan of digging 5.5 billion tons of dirt (sadly that number is not a embellishment..) and replacing it with gun powder (magical gunpowder that they want to be as potent as C4 or Symtex) in a single night while undetected to blow up an enemy base/ compound.
Still working on my issue, but I wish you the best of luck with yours Apocalypso.
i'm kind of upset at the GM docking exp for not confronting undead, since druids are the type of person who will wait 20 years before taking revenge... they don't hastily attack things because they think they're abominations, but they certainly won't give them any help.
I think it could go either way here. I think both of you suffer from different versions of abused gamer syndrome. You have had to deal with too many wannabe authors who give you no agency whatsoever. He has had to deal with cheaters and munchkins ruining his hours of preparation. It seems like he judged you a munchkin and is treating you badly on purpose to see how you react. You are trying to see if he is a good GM who is a little paranoid or a wannabe author who hates player agency. I'm inclined to think the latter from your version of events, but he may be a good guy who misjudged you, so talking it out like Gargs454 suggested is going to be worthwhile.