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Give and take
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Wrong. I'm perfectly capable of creating comex encounters. It's just a fact that the system actively punishes any DM who tries to set up a FUN encounter because there's so many special abilities that just simply solve any inconvenience at the cost of an action. My players should feel rewarded because they managed to build a campfire from discarded boxes so that they have a steady source of light during an important fight and not feel punished because they picked one of the threeish races that don't have darkvision. My players should feel clever because they managed to fashion a pulley system to move a significant amount of treasure out of the dungeon and not because they just stuffed everything into their bag of holding and forgot about it. 5e is boring by design and making it interesting means fighting against the system every step of the way!“Wrong, I don’t reward players for being smart so it’s bad!” Dude my group went into town and bought a bunch of fertilizer and other things(because I checked and making explosives actually isn’t that difficult apparently) and that, plus a bomb-crazy dwarf we knew nearby, let us do some crazy damage to a golem. You like a certain style of play, fine, but acting like that’s the only way to feel rewarded is showing _your_ limitations, not the system’s.
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This post did not contain any content.Did that and when the monk was engulfed in the cloud of poison taking no damage he felt like quite the badass going for a flurry of blows with advantage (I told him with advantage because the dragon wasn't expecting him to be unfazed and he kept himself concealed in the cloud on his approach). That's also when the rest of the party found out the monk was immune to poison. 10/10 would do that again
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I managed to work up an immunity to Poison, so our DM had a drow princess get one last action when she got to 0 hp to attack me with her only attack spell as I had severely pissed her off, and it was cast at 5th level But her only attack spell was Ray of Sickness
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I have a character in a campaign DM'd by my buddy, and they're a pretty weak build, as he was giving powerups to the party I asked for a much weaker change to my character that would let me make an attack while staying hidden. Literally, the first time I got to try out the strategy, it was immediately invalidated, and I wanted to quit on the spot. The one cool thing my character could do I wasn't allowed to do...Reminds me of the time my GM buddy wanted lunch at school and offered me 3 capital ships in our SW RPG game if I bought him a taco salad. So I did and then promptly lost two of them in a battle that was more of a cutscene than anything else. I was pissed but whatever the one ship ended up being fun. So later, in another game, I did the same for a submarine. Again, same session, we found the enemy on land after searching around in the sub. So we get out and have this epic battle where our characters take out a goblin army or something. Then we go to get back in the sub. "You never said you turned it off, so it's gone." So what we breached the surface and all tuck and rolled to get off of it, no roll to avoid getting sucked in to the propellers or anything? I think that's about when I just went back to playing magic most of the time at lunch at school.
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That's all we'll and good but in my experience DMing, it takes a lot of work to prepare interesting outcomes for the actions my players might take during a pivotal moment. A player with a guaranteed success at something is usually something I try to avoid so they don't feel railroads or like doing things that way is the ONLY solution. With 4 players I want everyone to have an equal share of interesting moments but when one person starts being a powerbuilding min/maxer I tend to build events from time to time that won't let them just steal the whole show. Unfortunately, because they are a min maxing powerbuilder they are keenly aware of any opportunity for which they should have been the most OPest of characters and will sniff out how they have been silently slighted. They lock on to the fact that they didn't get to shine a few times while glazing over the times where they were OP because in their mind, that's how it's supposed to be! Before you know it they start pouting, complaining to others, backseat rules lawyering, and just generally acting like they are being mistreated rather than trusting the DM to be trying their best to fit their fucking chadly, mind-controlling demigod in to situations with 3 other people who haven't hyper focused for days on the most efficient use of their action economy. I'm bitching sure but end effect was similar to this meme's bad DM. I just stopped putting effort into letting the flawless demigod look cool because while he was A main character he was not THE main character and if that upset him... Well maybe next time he'll finally learn why the actual best characters to play are the ones with lots of interesting flaws
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I once let our monk deflect a ballista bolt because he said he was going to do the redirecting with his flying kick instead of his hands, so I had him roll acrobatics with disadvantage since his reaction time would have to be through the roof to pull it off. rolled two nat 20's. Not only did that ballista go sailing right back at the machine that fired it, it utterly destroyed it and the three dudes manning it, because after kicking half a telephone pole back at your enemies, you've earned the right to walk away from an explosion without looking at it. I also made him roll to see if he hurt himself landing and he did, so he had to deal with a bad ankle the rest of the encounter (-3 dex, I am a jealous god)
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Monk - *burns reaction catching arrow* Dm - "and now they turn the balista on you" Monk - O_OI meant to reply to you with this https://lemmy.world/comment/19940495 he was a pretty high level at the time and had some magical tattoos as well It was a fun game.
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I feel like too many DMs play *against* the players instead of *with* them The goal is not for the DM to win and feel cool The goal is to let the players win and feel cool
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I managed to work up an immunity to Poison, so our DM had a drow princess get one last action when she got to 0 hp to attack me with her only attack spell as I had severely pissed her off, and it was cast at 5th level But her only attack spell was Ray of Sickness
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This post did not contain any content.Last campaign I ran the paladin was so proud of herself for smiting down a couple lesser demons and gushed about it for the rest of the week. So for the next 3 arcs of that campaign I snuck in a cambion who was hounding the party and got his lights clocked in multiple times just knowing the dopamine release it gave that player even when every 'challenging' encounter crafter for that group was done in about 5 terms and took me nearly and hour to craft ahead of time. To me as the DM it's your job to learn what quirks or functionality of the players particularly enjoy about their characters and find a way to sneak in encounters, puzzles or situations that give that player time to shine and enjoy it. Even and especially if it trivializes the challenge you put into it.
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I feel like too many DMs play *against* the players instead of *with* them The goal is not for the DM to win and feel cool The goal is to let the players win and feel coolThe number of online dms I hear complaining about flight speed races and flight spell boggles my mind. You just got licence to make 3d puzzles and encounters. And also show those players why spiders in magic the gathering had the ability to defend against flying creatures through out the 90s
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not sure. i think i'd rather dm for my nieces and nephews.
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This post did not contain any content.I tailor my encounters to what my players like, not what's going to challenge their dice and IRL luck. If my players are finding themselves having to cheese their build and pick the optimum feats and talents just so they can stand a chance, then I've failed as a DM. If you're cheesing your build because you want to feel powerful, just tell me, and I'll do a campaign where you can feel powerful without needing to cheese your build. You should be able to make the character you want to roleplay as without feeling like you're inadvertently gimping yourself. It's why I like Genesys and Powered by the Apocalypse, because those are RP heavy systems that don't require you to spend ages messing with stats in order to play the character you want to play.
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I tailor my encounters to what my players like, not what's going to challenge their dice and IRL luck. If my players are finding themselves having to cheese their build and pick the optimum feats and talents just so they can stand a chance, then I've failed as a DM. If you're cheesing your build because you want to feel powerful, just tell me, and I'll do a campaign where you can feel powerful without needing to cheese your build. You should be able to make the character you want to roleplay as without feeling like you're inadvertently gimping yourself. It's why I like Genesys and Powered by the Apocalypse, because those are RP heavy systems that don't require you to spend ages messing with stats in order to play the character you want to play.Some people like to cheese their build to feel clever. But then again, solving riddles has a similar effect. Tbh, I don't really get why this is an issue. As a DM I balance the game however feels good for everyone. My main strategy is that being more powerful shouldn't make the game easier but should give you more freedom and options.
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“Wrong, I don’t reward players for being smart so it’s bad!” Dude my group went into town and bought a bunch of fertilizer and other things(because I checked and making explosives actually isn’t that difficult apparently) and that, plus a bomb-crazy dwarf we knew nearby, let us do some crazy damage to a golem. You like a certain style of play, fine, but acting like that’s the only way to feel rewarded is showing _your_ limitations, not the system’s.Congratulations, you found out what DnD actually stands for: Damage and Damage. Everything that helps you deal more damage is cool and innovative and everything that doesn't deal damage is just a waste of time. But here comes the problem. Your fertilizer bomb is extremely effective at doing the only important thing in the entire system. So why don't you use it every time against all of the enemies? Your DM has two choices if you decide to do that: Either block you from doing so which will almost always feel forced or use enemies with bigger hp pools which is effectively a debuff to all other character abilities. Either way sucks. Welcome to DnD!
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“Wrong, I don’t reward players for being smart so it’s bad!” Dude my group went into town and bought a bunch of fertilizer and other things(because I checked and making explosives actually isn’t that difficult apparently) and that, plus a bomb-crazy dwarf we knew nearby, let us do some crazy damage to a golem. You like a certain style of play, fine, but acting like that’s the only way to feel rewarded is showing _your_ limitations, not the system’s.
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This post did not contain any content.I mean, the Monk being immune to poison doesn't save anyone else in the breath attack. Part of D&D is building synergy between the classes and operating as a team. At the same time, it's the group's biggest vulnerability. Mind-splort the meat shield, gum up the support, grapple the damage dealer, or backstab the controller. Suddenly, the team is scrambling as their game plan falls apart. And green dragons have so many tricks up their sleeves! The last thing I'm worried about is the breath weapon. It's my horny bard falling for her damned come-hither smile that keeps me up at night.
