Advice for what to do with tough GM


Advice

101 to 150 of 185 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>

Also that fighters can get three to four tries to hit each full attack. I used all my upper level fireball spells during the fight. I only had basic fireballs left after the end of the fight. And my 7th level fireball was the one that fizzled.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Lower the productivity of save or suck and blasters further then you simply make buffers and summoners more optimal...


The problem in higher level pathfinder games is two-fold.
One is action economy. Same level fighters get multiple attacks that hit 50% or better for X DPR every round they are alive. Casters get ONE spell per round unless quickened with multiple saves (SR plus regular saving throw plus immunities/feats) potential from the bad guys. Fact of Math, casters are going to lose hit for hit 90% of the time, but when they get in the 10% they are going to be decisive. Just accept it as part of the mechanics.
The second issue is scaling. Pathfinder isn't built well for high level games, thus the reason most games peter out at that level.

To defend the GM: A PC one-shotting his monster with a failed save/sr in round one = no fun for a BBEG fight. He should have kept his mouth shut and plotted quietly. Don't forget that monsters of Dragon CR can also buff before a fight.

To the player: Don't make up an optimized one shot Fireballer and be surprised when things are immune at level 12+ to fire, its the most common immunity and common choice for a cheap item/spell resist. Now, if you make an optimized chain lightning (elemental acid) caster, thats wacky good fun.

Grand Lodge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Heimdall666 wrote:


To the player: Don't make up an optimized one shot Fireballer and be surprised when things are immune at level 12+ to fire, its the most common immunity and common choice for a cheap item/spell resist. Now, if you make an optimized chain lightning (elemental acid) caster, thats wacky good fun.

But the game already has checks and balances against the fireballer, he shouldn't have to deal with all the games normal limitations (which he should be prepared for) and a GM arbitrarily ratcheting things up. He has taken precautions to make himself particularly effective against one type of defence, but creatures still have saves, and resists/immunities, so it should be fair. SR is usually clocked in at 11 + CR, so if the GM is bumping the CR of the creature, then the SR should go up, but not by an unreasonable and arbitrary amount.

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I kind of want the OP to stick this out, just so I can see where this s%$% goes.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Heimdall666 wrote:


To the player: Don't make up an optimized one shot Fireballer and be surprised when things are immune at level 12+ to fire, its the most common immunity and common choice for a cheap item/spell resist. Now, if you make an optimized chain lightning (elemental acid) caster, thats wacky good fun.

It wasn't 1 shotting his guy. I used 8 spells in that fight. And I'm not surprised with fire immune. What my issue is that as a lv 13 wizard I'm going up against SR 31, and the GM feels that that's too low so he's going to raise it even more without granting extra EXP.

And I agree, there are lots of ways the dragon can do better that doesn't involve arbitrarily raising SR more. him having a protection from energy spells, energy resist spells, etc. That would be cool, I'd have to overcome that. But I can't raise my spell pen any more.

I feel what the GM is doing is like this,
player: I have a +10 on my rolls to hit. GM: it has 28 AC. Player: I go buy better gear and take some feats and now have a +18 to hit. GM: Woah, now you're hitting my AC 28 monster to easy, I'll raise his AC by 8, just because I don't want it to be too easy.

Now what is the player to do? He can't just raise his to hit more. Sure he could do combat maneuvers, but he's not invested in that at all. And yes it would be okay if this kind of fight was every so often, but it's now the main enemy of the campaign.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Forget upping Spell Resistance. That's not the important thing to take away from the OP's experience.

Spoiler due to all caps.

Spoiler:
THE GM DENIED THE PARTY TREASURE BECAUSE THE WIZARD USED TELEPORT.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. Oh sure, someone might say "well it makes sense that the Dragon wouldn't have it's treasure with it". But the treasure a monster gives (especially the treasure of a Dragon, which is explicitly more than standard) is just as much of a reward as the experience points you get for encountering it!

Denying your players treasure based on their BAD decisions is one thing; here we have a guy who (apparently) said "oh you did something smart and tactical. Haha, no loot for you!"

I'd walk. I mean, the GM said "make high level characters so you can fight my Dracopocalypse". Which would mean more if you had played your characters long enough to have real investment in the campaign setting, but this already has the hallmarks of a very short campaign.

Then, having already agreed to run a higher-level campaign, he blatantly and openly admits to stacking the deck in his favor, specifically to invalidate wise decisions on the part of the players.

(Though, as an aside, I never would have made a blaster caster for such a game. 700 hp? 1200 hp? You'd be better off spamming Save or Lose spells, 3E style).

That's all bad, but then he decides to deny actual rewards because...he doesn't feel you deserve them?

Oh and the "stop being a baby" comment is equally ridiculous. I mean, how dare anyone expect the game to have any sort of baseline math. It's just like saying "oh your Fighter has too much AC, all monsters now have +5 BAB" or "Sneak Attack does too much damage, Dragons now have light fortification".

Bah.


Heimdall666 wrote:


To defend the GM: A PC one-shotting his monster with a failed save/sr in round one = no fun for a BBEG fight. He should have kept his mouth shut and plotted quietly. Don't forget that monsters of Dragon CR can also buff before a fight.

I half-hoped someone would defend the GM, so I'd have a reason to really attack the GM (not the poster, although the logic behind the post would be fair game).

I don't care if the GM has it ruin his fun. The GM is supposed to be a referee, not an opponent, to the players. If a player sacrifices abilities in other places to be really, really good at X (in this case, overcoming SR) he should get to be really, really good at X.

It may have been a mistake to have an all-dragon (at high levels) campaign, which allows someone to specialize in things that kill dragons. A reasonable response would be to have other types of NPC's in the campaign, still keeping it dragon-heavy, but have other sorts of NPC's that require other tactics.

It's not okay to raise just SR or give extra elemental immunities to thwart a player with a specific build, though it is okay to raise those along with others, just making the dragons tougher as a whole, while raising the CR and thus the experience and treasure to be gained.

"This PC is too good at X, so I'll ramp up X resistance, but not experience" is always wrong, whether it's Perception against a Stealthy character, Sense Motive against a great Bluffer, AC against a great martial attacker, Wisdom against a great enchantment wizard, or anything else to thwart a specific ability. You go all out to get a given ability, you get to be great at that ability.


Side note: be sure to prepare Create Treasure Map before your next battle, so your GM can't screw you out of your loot again.

Seriously, the best part about killing a dragon is finding the hoard!


One other comment: Have you talked to the other players? If they agree you're right, which is likely given that over 90% of the posts here agree you are, you can all tell the GM that if he raises the dragons' SR without raising the CR and thus rewards, he has no players and thus no campaign to GM.

I did miss the part about him denying you treasure for teleporting in. That's also BS. The GM creates and referees the playing field (and comes up with tactics for the NPC's). If it becomes GM vs. the players, the game won't work.


Lynceus wrote:


(Though, as an aside, I never would have made a blaster caster for such a game. 700 hp? 1200 hp? You'd be better off spamming Save or Lose spells, 3E style).

I agree, I thought we'd be fighting more "normal" dragons. Not dragons with triple or more HP, doubled saves, and the like. Also I didn't want to go SoS/SoD because I didn't want to win the fights alone for the party, I had a feeling that this GM wouldn't know how to handle a real High level Wizard (the unoptimized paladin played a high level wizard with this GM before, that wizard just tried to use baleful polymorph, but didn't take feats or anything to boost it's likelyhood to land.), I just didn't think he'd kick this hard against blaster. I have three melee in a DRAGON campaign. So I figured a blaster would let me have fun, let me win fights, but not make it seems like the others were useless. I think they did more damage to this dragon than I did.


Chess Pwn wrote:
Wheldrake wrote:
It does sound like it was a hard fight. But it also sounds like you're ready for a slightly harder one. As long as the rewards are commensurately greater. Those dragons have got to have some good loot!
haha, good loot? Since we teleported to where the dragon was it "hadn't had time to bring it's horde" with him. So me being a wizard left us with no loot either for this.

I missed this the first time around. You don't have any method with which to figure out where this horde was? Speak with dead? Commune? Locate Object? Bardic knowledge for where the dragon's horde was last? Create treasure map the day after (but not more than 24 hours)?


The other players don't care one way or the other, they had fun fighting the dazed dragon, they think it would have been the same if the dragon wasn't dazed, just would have been a bit longer of a fight. I don't think they realize that unless the GM plays the dragons stupidly, they'll get killed being all melee. And even if the dragon fights melee with them, with the dragons being as boosted as they are I wouldn't be surprised if the dragon still manage to kill them in a straight up melee fight.


Tarantula wrote:
Chess Pwn wrote:


haha, good loot? Since we teleported to where the dragon was it "hadn't had time to bring it's horde" with him. So me being a wizard left us with no loot either for this.
I missed this the first time around. You don't have any method with which to figure out where this horde was? Speak with dead? Commune? Locate Object? Bardic knowledge for where the dragon's horde was last? Create treasure map the day after (but not more than 24 hours)?

Nope, the dragon "didn't have time" to teleport his loot down. The dragon was going to spend the day making a lair and then teleport his loot there I guess. But since we teleported and skipped the days march, the dragon had no loot. Some of us suggested that he'd just have a pile of loot nearby since he wouldn't leave his loot that far away from him. But the GM didn't buy that.


Chess Pwn wrote:
Tarantula wrote:
Chess Pwn wrote:


haha, good loot? Since we teleported to where the dragon was it "hadn't had time to bring it's horde" with him. So me being a wizard left us with no loot either for this.
I missed this the first time around. You don't have any method with which to figure out where this horde was? Speak with dead? Commune? Locate Object? Bardic knowledge for where the dragon's horde was last? Create treasure map the day after (but not more than 24 hours)?
Nope, the dragon "didn't have time" to teleport his loot down. The dragon was going to spend the day making a lair and then teleport his loot there I guess. But since we teleported and skipped the days march, the dragon had no loot. Some of us suggested that he'd just have a pile of loot nearby since he wouldn't leave his loot that far away from him. But the GM didn't buy that.

Right, so you found his new home before he moved his stuff in. Whats stopping you from finding his old home? It should be within teleport distance, and if your cleric or you can cast the spell to get the info on where it is soon enough, then you can just teleport the party there (and hope his rival dragons haven't already moved in).


"Their plane has a veil blocking travel to or from it, thus trapping the dragons in and keeping the world safe. But that veil is breaking and letting some dragons through. But Earth's spellcasters are still to weak to be able to get through the weakened veil" yeah, can't go get his loot.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Chess Pwn wrote:
The other players don't care one way or the other, they had fun fighting the dazed dragon, they think it would have been the same if the dragon wasn't dazed, just would have been a bit longer of a fight. I don't think they realize that unless the GM plays the dragons stupidly, they'll get killed being all melee. And even if the dragon fights melee with them, with the dragons being as boosted as they are I wouldn't be surprised if the dragon still manage to kill them in a straight up melee fight.

So just to clarify, you were casting Fireball with Dazing Spell metamagic, and your GM got upset that his dragon spent the entire fight Dazed and unable to act? Well that explains a lot.

Cheburn wrote:
I must be missing something. Were these dazing fireballs or something?

If his SuperDragon(TM) spent the entire fight Dazed, I sympathize with your GM a bit more. Still, just beefing up Spell Resistance is a cheap way out, and I think he's in the wrong. He could have future dragons use some of their spells before an encounter (Resist Energy, Stoneskin, Fire Shield all come to mind). Depending on the dragon type, you might start off against an illusion of some kind. Anyway, you get the point I'm sure.

Also, the no-loot thing is just silly.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Chess Pwn wrote:
"Their plane has a veil blocking travel to or from it, thus trapping the dragons in and keeping the world safe. But that veil is breaking and letting some dragons through. But Earth's spellcasters are still to weak to be able to get through the weakened veil" yeah, can't go get his loot.

Ah, well, what you need to do is craft a bunch of giant iron golems. I'm talking about golems so big and complicated that it takes two people to pilot them. Then you need to find that rift that they're slipping in through.

Sovereign Court

@Chess PWN, Sounds like you are going to have to play to this GMs whims. You are going to have to decide if you are all right with that or not. I don't think you are going to change his mind with or without the help of the internets.


Chess Pwn wrote:
"Their plane has a veil blocking travel to or from it, thus trapping the dragons in and keeping the world safe. But that veil is breaking and letting some dragons through. But Earth's spellcasters are still to weak to be able to get through the weakened veil" yeah, can't go get his loot.

Umm..... okay then. Maybe the kingdom you saved will "gift" you some resources equal to the treasure the dragon should have given you for saving them from the dragon? (I.e. the GM shouldn't take away treasure rewards)

And if they don't, then maybe when the next dragon comes, you wait for him to bring his loot with him before killing him. Which lets him ruin the countryside for a bit.

Also, I suggest you pick up a Dragonfoe Amulet. It lets you roll your SR twice. 20,000gp. Its in UE.

Grand Lodge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I don't know why you think the GM is going to give Chess the resources to overcome these house rules..


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Rhaleroad wrote:
Optimized characters complaining about optimized encounters? Remember the GM is a person playing the game too and might not want to spend time making what he feels is balanced only to watch the group shred it in a matter of rounds. Your ranger with +32 to hit and your +30 spell penetration probably means most encounters are just a slay fest. To then complain when he wants to make the encounters harder seems like you want to walk through as gods. If you don't care for the GM you can always leave the game instead of calling foul.

Balanced to many of us means balanced for that group. It does not mean throw stock monsters at super characters. However the GM is trying to negate a character entirely, and wants every fight to be really difficult.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
TriOmegaZero wrote:
I don't know why you think the GM is going to give Chess the resources to overcome these house rules..

He won't. They'll die, and then someone who isn't a !@#$ can GM.


Chengar Qordath wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:

Yes the GM should consider the players when he makes his games, but he does not have too. He is the judge and the jury, and there is no democracy. If the GM says "this is the rule" then that is the rule.

Yes, you can leave, but the point still stands that if the GM says something, then that is how it is. As an example if he said all dragons have SR = to CR+25 then that is what they have. If he says they get double hit points, then they have double hit points. If he says they get a +35 to saves, and never roll a nat one then that is how they work. There is not much you can really do as a player expect find a better GM.

For the record I would think the example GM I just made up would be a crappy GM.<---In before someone misreads my post and thinks that is how things should be done.

Yeah, at the end of the day the GM has the final say.

However, a good GM knows that it's generally better to work with your players than against them. The game might not be a democracy, but even dictatorships need to worry about public opinion. The GM making sure that his players are on-board with any house-rules or other changes goes a long way towards ensuring they have a fun, harmonious game.

That is what I always say here. I am pointing out the difference between should and "have to".


Kthulhu wrote:
Pan wrote:
What % of failure is acceptable for most of y'all?
What I usually get from threads like these is that 0% is the absolute maximum chance of failure that should be allowed.

That is not what I get. People who resort to such extremes tend to have player or GM bias, whether they realize it or not.


Again, the checks and balances in the game are not written in stone, and every monster can be reformatted by the GM. I find it particularly amusing to see people post about rules-lawyering how to GameMaster, like that ever works. I agree it would be unfair to "Evolve" to suit the parties strengths and weaknesses. As a pre-pathfinder GM I find that most higher level encounters are not "Epic". They tend to last 4-5 rounds at most, require extensive dice rolling and rules lawyering, and are not designed within the ruleset to be typically challenging especially in a Party vs Single BBEG challenge rating fight. The CR is usually set at reducing the parties daily output by 25-30%, so they can have multiple fights throughout the day.

For example, in our recent game we faced a CR25 BBEG with 1 CR20 lieutenant & 6 CR17 helpers against a CR15 party of 6. Five rounds of combat and the fight is down to the enemy lieutenant alive and one temporary party casualty due to a crit. Our GM certainly didn't pull any punches and he had a custom made BBEG. Everyone in the group could have gone another 5 rounds of similar combat.

I think the people who say "quit the game" are living in a paradise of plentiful players, not a longterm group of friends. It can tough to manage a write up weekly to amuse for 4-6 hours, and if your GM likes a particular theme, suck it up buttercup.

Edit: I do think your GM is a %^$#% for taking away dragon loot, thats cheap. My GM motto is "Crunch all you want, I'll make more..."


Heimdall666 wrote:


I think the people who say "quit the game" are living in a paradise of plentiful players, not a longterm group of friends. It can tough to manage a write up weekly to amuse for 4-6 hours, and if your GM likes a particular theme, suck it up buttercup.

I know I'd rather not play than to play under a GM that invalidates my build by changing opponents' abilities just to indirectly nerf my character, which I'd spent so many of my in-game resources building to be especially good at a specific task.

If the GM feels the fight wasn't enough of a challenge, it's legitimate for the GM to beef the opponents up, across the board, not just against this character's strength, and then when they are beefed up the CR and rewards go up alongside that.

Creating a character means choosing what you want the character to be good at. The game, like any good one, is balanced enough that no one is good at everything (which is why a pure dragon-fighting campaign is not IMO a great idea). But you get to choose what to be good at, or to specialize and be great at something specific, and you get to be. Period. It's not okay to override that by giving opponents resistance against that specific ability.


Oly wrote:
If the GM feels the fight wasn't enough of a challenge, it's legitimate for the GM to beef the opponents up, across the board, not just against this character's strength, and then when they are beefed up the CR and rewards go up alongside that.

The GM may (rightly) feel that the dragon would have been a threat if it hadn't been Dazed the entire fight. Beefing it up "across the board," including resistance to Daze, would be even more likely create a TPK than just increasing the SR. After all, the party didn't have to fight the dragon when it was free to act, they just hacked it apart while it was dazed the entire fight.

None of this makes it a good GMing strategy just just jack SR up sky-high.

That being said, if you're a DM and you have a player whose 'strategy' is, "Chuck Dazing Fireballs at everything constantly, so that no monster ever gets an action off," you need to make sure there are encounters where that particular trick is not super effective. There are a number of ways to do this -- layered fights, fights with enemies in enough different positions you can't hit all of them, enemy resistances, walls (terrain or magic), illusions, invisible enemies you might not have known about (maybe a caster with Greater Invisibility up who can Counterspell Fireball ...). A game where every fight devolves into "I cast Dazing Fireball, we win," is boring.

I'm not defending this particular GM, since there seems to be a lot going on here (poor encounter design, loot shenanigans, a weird campaign, followed by heavy-handed tactics to "fix" design problems).

I'm just saying, if you're in a campaign and your only strategy is Dazing Spell, don't be surprised if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The world changes, and enemies adapt. If it's a non-PFS campaign, you should expect it.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Cheburn wrote:


I'm just saying, if you're in a campaign and your only strategy is Dazing Spell, don't be surprised if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The world changes, and enemies adapt. If it's a non-PFS campaign, you should expect it.

I'll say again. I'm totally cool if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The issue is that (this next bit is example), if the SR is always going to be 10 higher than my spell pen, then why grab spell pen feats? Why grab spell pen gear?

To me I feel it's like telling the archer fighter that all enemies will now have windwall always on because his to-hit is too good. It's not going to effect the other players, but it's shutting down his build. Would you just tell the fighter to "Suck it up" and go melee? Even though he'd have lots of feats and items devoted to archery?
This is what I feel it's like. No smarter tactics for the Enemy, No trying to avoid the caster, No way for me to overcome the counter. Just as the archer can't do anything about the windwall, I can't really do anything more to my spell pen. And this will make any spells I'd want to cast fail worse, because they aren't as high a caster level. So what, I still should just "suck it up and buff or conjure"? Maybe if I had feats to work with those, or some items, but I don't. Totally cool if it's a fight here and there. BUT EVERY FIGHT, it'd be boring, or cause me to dominate combat by controlling all the summons.

Grand Lodge

Lay down, and die.

I know that sounds extreme, but that's where you are.

Let your DM just TPK the party, and, hopefully, learn something.

DM vs Player arms races are an act in futility.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go in and not cast to simulate spell failure, and then when the party gets wiped I'll teleport away, or join the dragons. Thus the campaign will end and we'll see what happens.

Shadow Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I look forward to hearing the results.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Chess Pwn wrote:
Cheburn wrote:


I'm just saying, if you're in a campaign and your only strategy is Dazing Spell, don't be surprised if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The world changes, and enemies adapt. If it's a non-PFS campaign, you should expect it.

I'll say again. I'm totally cool if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The issue is that (this next bit is example), if the SR is always going to be 10 higher than my spell pen, then why grab spell pen feats? Why grab spell pen gear?

To me I feel it's like telling the archer fighter that all enemies will now have windwall always on because his to-hit is too good. It's not going to effect the other players, but it's shutting down his build. Would you just tell the fighter to "Suck it up" and go melee? Even though he'd have lots of feats and items devoted to archery?
This is what I feel it's like. No smarter tactics for the Enemy, No trying to avoid the caster, No way for me to overcome the counter. Just as the archer can't do anything about the windwall, I can't really do anything more to my spell pen. And this will make any spells I'd want to cast fail worse, because they aren't as high a caster level. So what, I still should just "suck it up and buff or conjure"? Maybe if I had feats to work with those, or some items, but I don't. Totally cool if it's a fight here and there. BUT EVERY FIGHT, it'd be boring, or cause me to dominate combat by controlling all the summons.

Oh, I completely understand. And, as I've said a few times, I think that just jacking the SR up is a stupid way to counter things. You've invested in (multiple) feats to overcome SR. You should be rewarded for doing so when you fight enemies with SR. I think your GM is just treating SR as a knob to limit Dazing Spell, which is IMO the wrong way to do things. So I wish you luck, and I wish him enlightenment in the ways of GMing. :-)

Chess Pwn wrote:
I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go in and not cast to simulate spell failure, and then when the party gets wiped I'll teleport away, or join the dragons. Thus the campaign will end and we'll see what happens.

Or you could go in and cast, and see if the party survives. I understand it's frustrating for you to feel like your investment is for nothing, but doing actions you think will cause a TPK is not really in the right. You'll end up with the party blaming you, rather than the GM, and the GM will have a scapegoat for TPKing the party.


Chess Pwn wrote:
Cheburn wrote:


I'm just saying, if you're in a campaign and your only strategy is Dazing Spell, don't be surprised if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The world changes, and enemies adapt. If it's a non-PFS campaign, you should expect it.

I'll say again. I'm totally cool if opponents figure out a few ways to fight back eventually. The issue is that (this next bit is example), if the SR is always going to be 10 higher than my spell pen, then why grab spell pen feats? Why grab spell pen gear?

To me I feel it's like telling the archer fighter that all enemies will now have windwall always on because his to-hit is too good. It's not going to effect the other players, but it's shutting down his build. Would you just tell the fighter to "Suck it up" and go melee? Even though he'd have lots of feats and items devoted to archery?
This is what I feel it's like. No smarter tactics for the Enemy, No trying to avoid the caster, No way for me to overcome the counter. Just as the archer can't do anything about the windwall, I can't really do anything more to my spell pen. And this will make any spells I'd want to cast fail worse, because they aren't as high a caster level. So what, I still should just "suck it up and buff or conjure"? Maybe if I had feats to work with those, or some items, but I don't. Totally cool if it's a fight here and there. BUT EVERY FIGHT, it'd be boring, or cause me to dominate combat by controlling all the summons.

There are non-SR spells you can use. Dazing acid arrow (or some other SR:no spell). The archer could get enlarge person potions and large arrows (only giving a 30% miss chance instead of complete negation; with a seeking bow, it would just hit.) What does the archer do if he casts darkness? Or has fog, or goes around a corner? There is tactics on both sides.

Yes, you have strong spell penetration. Dazing spell is a seriously strong metamagic. I have a feeling that your GM wasn't prepared for a scry&fry with dazing spell completely shutting down the dragon. Maybe he could just throw you up against a Red. Negating your fireball entirely. That'd be a lot simpler than saying "all dragons are suddenly more resistant to spells".


Why would they blame me? All my spells "fizzled". That's not my fault. Can't be useful if my spells don't work. And as a blaster I don't prep very many other combat spells. It's mainly utility and two summons. So after I have my spells fizzle all I'll have to offer is a succubus and some lantern archons.


Tarantula wrote:

There are non-SR spells you can use. Dazing acid arrow (or some other SR:no spell). The archer could get enlarge person potions and large arrows (only giving a 30% miss chance instead of complete negation; with a seeking bow, it would just hit.) What does the archer do if he casts darkness? Or has fog, or goes around a corner? There is tactics on both sides.

Yes, you have strong spell penetration. Dazing spell is a seriously strong metamagic. I have a feeling that your GM wasn't prepared for a scry&fry with dazing spell completely shutting down the dragon. Maybe he could just throw you up against a Red. Negating your fireball entirely. That'd be a lot simpler than saying "all dragons are suddenly more resistant to spells".

Dazing acid splash would go against will, which is I think should be higher than reflex. so while useable, it will be less likely to work.

If the enemy casts darkness, fog, or hides then you respond to it. That's playing smart as the enemy, and as a player you get daylight, fireball the fog, or run around the corner. The ebb and flow of things. And for the sake of the example, you are unable to get large arrows. But even still, you'd need to not have those large arrows affected by the spell.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Chess Pwn wrote:
Why would they blame me? All my spells "fizzled". That's not my fault. Can't be useful if my spells don't work. And as a blaster I don't prep very many other combat spells. It's mainly utility and two summons. So after I have my spells fizzle all I'll have to offer is a succubus and some lantern archons.

You don't know what your DM is going to do with SR. Maybe he'll bump it up by 4-5, giving you a 75% chance of success. If that's the case, you've got a 1 in 16 chance of missing 2 SR checks in a row (and a 1/64 chance of missing 3 in a row). In other words, maybe the dragon will get off a round or two before you daze it and every starts killing it.

If you actually try to cast spells and they fizzle because your DM set the SR too high, that's not your fault. If you passive aggressively refuse to cast, you're basically throwing a tantrum when you might have been able to help your party. That is your fault, and your party would be in the right to blame you for their deaths.

The short version: You're in control of your own actions. Don't purposefully risk wiping your party because you don't like what your GM is doing. It won't end well.


Without the shaman casting font of spirit magic I already had a 35% chance of failing the spell pen check. increasing it by 5 puts that at a 60% fail rate. That's basically 2 out of 3 spells failing. So now the likelyhood of failing 2 in a row is 36%, 3 in a row is 21%.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

While the GM is being an asshat. No need to respond in kind. Just quit instead of wasting the other players time by going to sit down and waiting death.

And yes quitting is in my opinion the best way to go about it. Assuming the story is correct and I will assume so untill proof otherwise is presented. This GM should have never picked up the task for ANY system. Hell with that kind of attitude I think they should not interact with people socially. No game is better than bad game end of story.


Do you have Aqueous Orb in your spell book? It doesn't worry about spell resistance and is a reflex save. Making it dazing, and just have it sit on the dragon for 12 rounds is a way to ruin the dragon's day. Sure, it is only 2d6 non-lethal, but that's sufficient to trigger the dazing metamagic.

Heck, if it is just a large dragon, it can get engulfed, and you can drop it off a cliff.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Chess Pwn wrote:
I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go in and not cast to simulate spell failure, and then when the party gets wiped I'll teleport away, or join the dragons. Thus the campaign will end and we'll see what happens.

Nah, go ahead and cast. Fight your damnedest within the build that you have-- keep using the spells you were built to use, don't suddenly swap to conjurations.

Lying over and taking it does nothing but convince the GM that you're at fault, not him. Fight back within the constrains of your build, and let the GM see what the heavy-handed approach does.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

While calling you a baby was totally uncalled for, I have to say, if you've been using Dazing Fireball I think the gm has a right to change the game to account for that because Dazing Fireball is really dumb.

Of course, it would make more sense to just ban Dazing Metamagic and ask you to rebuild but he doesn't seem like the most rational guy around...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Thing is, according to him, the easier a fight is the harder he'll make the next one. So yeah, I can go get a amulet of dragonfoe and try to blast through the SR, but if I do then he says he'll raise it even more. It the GM mentality that the DC is always like 10+the higher ability. That way it's always hard. SO yes, kinda the idea that tying shoes gets harder as you gain proficiency.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Arachnofiend wrote:
Of course, it would make more sense to just ban Dazing Metamagic and ask you to rebuild but he doesn't seem like the most rational guy around...

This would be the much more mature way to handle the situation, yes.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Chess Pwn wrote:
Thing is, according to him, the easier a fight is the harder he'll make the next one. So yeah, I can go get a amulet of dragonfoe and try to blast through the SR, but if I do then he says he'll raise it even more. It the GM mentality that the DC is always like 10+the higher ability. That way it's always hard. SO yes, kinda the idea that tying shoes gets harder as you gain proficiency.

If I was in your shoes, Chess, I would have a talk with the other PC's. If they felt as I do, that your GM nerfing you is sucking the enjoyment from the game, we'd have an intervention with the GM. While your GM can stamp his feet and have things his way, he likely won't like playing alone. If he realizes that optimized PC's should get what they pay for, all is well. If not he can sit at an empty table.


Chess Pwn wrote:
Thing is, according to him, the easier a fight is the harder he'll make the next one. So yeah, I can go get a amulet of dragonfoe and try to blast through the SR, but if I do then he says he'll raise it even more. It the GM mentality that the DC is always like 10+the higher ability. That way it's always hard. SO yes, kinda the idea that tying shoes gets harder as you gain proficiency.

At that point, why even have character sheets or statistics? Just flip a coin to decide if you succeed or fail.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Acid arrow uses a ranged touch attack, has no saving throw and no SR. Touch AC on a dragon should be relatively easy. Make *that* dazing and the DM will be crying like a baby. <g>

One of the fundamental problems with this scenario is it seems to be predicated on a DM vs player mentality where the only "fun" come from defeating bigger and badder monsters, like my friends who got off on killing all the "monsters" from Gods, Demigods & Heros when it first came out. FRPGs have so much more to offer than simple slugfests.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

In my opinion, both, players and gm have the responsibility to make a game really fun.

Optimized or even highly specialized encounters/characters tends to be boring.

In my first campaign as gm I have had a similar problem.
My players killed my monsters within 1-2 rounds. So I build harder encounters, harder monsters and so on. In the end, they killed a apl 4+ encounter in 5 rounds.

It was no fun for me. To watch, that every encounter I build was wiped out with ease was simply boring.

So I stopped building encounters and the fights looks like: "You found a hill giant. You kill the hill giant. Here is the loot."

After that we rebuild campaign AND characters

Long story short:
You complain that the gm is ruining your fun, but you have no problems with ruining the fun for the gm?

ps
After the experience with my campaign, I stopped building highly optimized characters


1 monster that is apl+4 is easy. an APL+2 and 20 apl-2 is harder.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, if you really want to challenge optimized characters you don't bring a bigger and badder monster, you bring a ton of smaller monsters. The reason boss types go down so quickly is because they have a huge action economy disadvantage compared to the PC's; when the monsters have control of the action economy things get much tougher and even fights against seemingly minor enemies can drain a ton of resources.

101 to 150 of 185 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Advice for what to do with tough GM All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.