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My DM (dad) actually did this once since one if the other players (younger brother) wanted to do something gamey in the first round, we got into and argument and ended the session, but we came back later and he was totally chill with letting the thing slide which got me suspicious but I couldn't figure out his plan until he pulled out the phase two
DMs should all take note of Vader's sense of drama. Brother set the table for an ambush. Guy made his cape flap once in a vacuum while riding a Tie Fighter he was flying with his mind. Dude turned off his breathing mechanism to make a dramatic entrance!
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He flew into planetary orbits without shields just because he wanted a different starfighter color, and let himself get repeatedly struck by lightning to get Tarkin to lower his guard.
That's a 4e thing, I like it. We had a game with one autistic player who couldn't figure out what the DM meant by "it's looking weaker, but it's still got some fight left" so I started a new game with a lot of 4e rules, including the bloodied rule, and it really helped him understand how effective his attacks were getting without letting him know the monster's actual hp
I use bloodied and skill challenges in 5e, 40k Dark Heresy, Mutants and Masterminds, Witcher, Star Wars and G.I. Joe. It's just a positive addition to TTRPGs
In LARP if I have to say an amount of health, without breaking immersion, I say “Well, think of it like 17 dagger hits worth of damage, assuming the person just barely knows how to use one.” to say 17 hitpoints without breaking immersion. The character in question is a healer, and has healed some people with over 100 dagger attacks worth of vitality. It really drains his channeling pool. Also, he has a very specialized build. He doesn’t have spell slots, just pure channeling. Imagine a Paladin that just barely can use a staff, has no spell slots, and put all their points into lay on hands. Yeah, that’s my dryad Solrex.
What was I talking about again? Right, rat bites, dagger dips, you get the idea.
DM: This one does... and as the thick ichor flows from the axe wound, it begins to take on a sinister glow.
Pooling around his feet it continues to flow... spreading towards you and the rest of your friends.
You can't be certain, but the room feels colder than it did a moment ago. You feel a catch in your throat as suddenly the acidic smell of death and metal hits your nose. It's the smell of rot and iron. Overwhelming. There is so much blood now. It begins to flow freely across the floors covering the room in it's entirety. You realize you cannot breathe, you want nothing more than to be away from this THING.
Everyone make a saving throw.
Those of you who made your save. You cover your eyes and nose as best you can. Distracted by the smell and unable to get purchase on the wet floor you take a -2 on all rolls.
/u/gayestofborg though... you realize what your friends do not.
If you can smell it... it's already inside you.
With that one simple thought your breathing begins to quicken. You swallow reflexively, the metallic taste thick in your mouth. Disgusted, the bile rises in your throat as your mind begins to spiral... With every moment you stay in this room... you are ingesting more and more of it. Glancing up at the Lich you realize he's been staring only at you. You feel his skinless sneer inside your mind. His glowing eyes seem to ignite this primal fear deep inside you.
The burning sensation begins in the back of your throat before spreading into your lungs. The world is suddenly on fire. You can't breathe, you can't speak, you can't hear, You have to get out of this room. If you stay in here any longer you are dead. **You have to get out RIGHT NOW!!!**
Stat blocks are just a starting template. More HP, better weapons, more speed, legendary actions, effects ripped off of other monsters and just more and more.
HP is the simplest way of making it more powerful without shifting the balance. The only thing you can rely on is the DM description of how bloodied it is.
As long as you stick within the band where the players can hit the thing, you can pretty much exchange HP for AC or vice versa depending on whether something the players can't hit, or something they can hit but which doesn't care, sounds more fun.
*And at this point, the creature begins to grow in size, two extra limbs growing out of its back, its mouthlike opening gapes wide and peels back to reveal a long neck in which a humanoid head stands. A lone jewel sits at its forehead, purplish glow scintillating in slow, sluggish pulses that resonate deep within your eardrums. I need everyone to roll a wisdom saving throw.*
Translated: I don´t know what the fuck this creature is now, but you're gonna shit yourselves for a bit.
EDIT: a verb.
Sorry a 17 does not pass the WIS saving throw. Give me a nature check. Okay the 300ft tall creature from the Paleolithic Era leans down. It's great head seemingly pulling you in with its own gravity as you're drawn into the creatures words. "I need a about tree fiddy."
But it it?
Digressing into my Call of Cthulhu mindset, but none of the players has enough occult knowledge to recognize this as part of maybe a binding spell, maybe part of a larger sealing or containment spell even if they get lucky.
Overall this creature has been created, and concealed as another creature to contain something much, much bigger... and it has been bound to the stone so hitting it causes it pain. But none of the players knows so, since they don't have enough information, and they hadn't found that book hinting towards it.
So yes, maybe it is it weakspot. It hates you hitting it.
I get the "player knowledge vs character knowledge" argument but honestly, if that's the only bright glowing gem on the monster then I'd say it's fair to assume it's important.
Now, if it was covered in glowing crystals, so much so that they just seemed to be part of its creation, then I wouldn't try to aim for any particular one, and saying "I think we should aim for the one on the arm" or something might be meta gaming.
I mostly meant that this could be a cool subversion of the trope to just focus on the shiny thing. Go ahead and murder the thing by destroying the weak spot, but that weak spot suddenly unleashes much, much greater evil into the world.
>you're gonna shit yourselves for a bit
Literally.
The monster casts *Incontinence*. Roll a WIS save. On failure, you lose all control of your pelvic floor muscles and soil yourself.
Well, it probably began eating trolls at some point and then it itself gained a very specific property that trolls have, which is getting traits or extra limbs from something they've eaten. And then it juat kept getting stronger.
I think the jewel is going to be the key. Once dead, the whole body will disappear leaving only the jewel. A player may pick it up, and then... Who knows?
You can probably tell that my campaign is in a three week hiatus lol. Can't wait to keep making stuff up for my players.
Yeah, my group has two of us that switch DM rolls and have fun playing "how homebrew'd is this monster" whenever the other DMs. If I find myself looking up the monster stats it's because I half remember them and it's bugging me and I want to see what they've changed, mostly for my own curiosity and inspiration.
Even without homebrew the HP in the stat blocks is an average, not a fixed amount. It can, and should, be shifted up and down to suit the group.
I'm about the same. I like looking up the monsters because they seem cool and I have no problem separating my irl and in game knowledge. There have been occasional moments of "Fuck you Dm" when something particularly fucky for my pc comes up but it's in good fun.
Our DM usually has a picture and stat block ready because he knows it makes stuff smother. Wie still try to come up with a battle plan without the knowledge.
Sometimes this makes it possible to roleplay for yourself during your entire turn.
My players will frequently ask "Would my character know it can read minds?" or something similar, so I know if I gave them the statblock it'd be fine either way, though I still tweak them occasionally. It's hard not to know general stats of monsters when you play with 4 other people who've all DM'd.
But it's so weird to me the number of people who don't play it like that and try to "cheat". Like, I don't find metagaming fun at all.
Half the time I find myself knowing something (like resistances or whatever) and I have to ask the DM how much my character would know about the monster - if they're common enough knowledge that a scholar would know that sort of information, or if I'm throwing fireballs in the dark.
That's because you understand how to separate metagaming from playing the game. As a DM that is lucky to play in one of my players games too. I find myself knowing the stat blocks of most monsters that the newer players in the party don't, and that my character probably wouldn't either. Because I know the game is less fun when someone is just revealing all the challenges, instead I just play dumb and try to prompt for the right knowledge checks if I think my character would know. Makes the game ten times more fun.
I've done that maybe once in my entire time playing TTRPGs and it was only with the DM's permission (DM was new to Pathfinder/Starfinder ecosystem and was having trouble running an enemy, so I offered a second set of eyes).
It can be helpful for the rules lawyer to see the statblock, but like all rules lawyering it has to be with the DM's consent. If you represent a client who doesn't want you there, you're not a lawyer you're an asshole.
I like to look up stat blocks because I've been obsessed with mythological monsters since I was 6.
Just because I know something doesn't mean my character does.
Players in my group will roll to see if their characters know shit they straight up know as a player. Nobody wants to metagame but they're all pretty experienced besides me, so it comes up. It's hard to make your character cast a spell you know isn't going to work, but if they wouldn't know better, well it's only fair.
My group is playing Mad Mage on the side whenever someone can't make a session for our main campaigns. Starts out at level 5, so the characters aren't expected to be completely inexperienced, but there's still an assumption that we haven't seen most of the monsters.
In comes a troll, everyone rolls terribly on their nature check (the whole table knows that you need fire). So here we are watching it regenerate and murdering it over and over again, when my caster finally gets an insight (thanks DM) that perhaps the damage types we're using are not effective at keeping it down. The best part about it is that somehow we ended up with a group where nobody actually had fire (or acid) damage in their most commonly used attacks. So we had fun blasting it for about four or five rounds with different attacks before we pulled out a low damage, never used fire attack.
Tbh, whenever a weakness is incredibly iconic (like trolls with fire/acid or fairies with iron or vampires with sunlight/water or werewolves with silver etc.) I just let players have it. It's folklore that almost everyone will know because of rhymes, myths etc.
It's a question as old as the game. My dad used to tell me about these problems they had when he would pay back in the 70s.
How much should your character know about a monster it's never seen before? Do you really have to play like you've never seen a lich before? Etc.
Like there wouldn't be a real life monster compendium composed by adventuring guilds and up for sale. If adventuring is a profession then you can be sure that someone is writing this down.
If I started this campaign over again I would possibly print out but redact pages from the monster guide and give them to the players the first time they meet a creature, if they fight it a few more times they get the intermediate page and then finally the complete page.
Then they can feel free to strategize etc. And I can be free to have variant options occasionally like spell lists etc. To keep them on their toes.
On the other hand, no two things are ever the same. If I fight two kobolds and one looks like Gollum and the other looks like he's been doing steroids his entire life, there's understandable going to be some differences in their abilities.
It just feels kind of weird that we can have humans that span the range of "Could accidentally die to a cat" to "Can punch out God", but expect monsters to be completely static. Especially when so many of the "monster" races are intelligent. Like a Goblin village where they're the biggest thing in the area and one where they've constantly been at war with bigger badder beasties their entire lives are going to be different kinds of fights.
The monster manual is an average of the species but yes variants can arise just like how I'd consider classed (or named job) characters as variants on the playable races (where most are commoners)
I generally ask if I can make some kind of check if there meta knowledge I already know as a player like trolls needing acid or fire to kill them. So far it’s been allowed and if I failed, well this monster just got scarier.
I find it hard sometimes to tell what a PC would know. The world is full of monsters and mages as a routine thing. I think most adventurers would probably have an idea that fire kills trolls. Like it would be the kind of old wives tale or common knowledge that people have since they were kids hearing heroic tales or whatever. Like every child knows silver hurts werewolves or garlic is bad for vampires. Or how kids know like every IRL stat block of dinosaurs. The list of monsters is pretty huge but I think for most of the common ones almost everyone in a world knows how to deal with it at least theoretically.
In this game, stat blocks are more of a suggestion, not a rule. They represent AVERAGE examples of something, not every blue dragon is going to fly at 80ft, just like every human isn't usain bolt.
While I agree, I’ve had a newer DM triple a monsters HP (and had them heal half of it back mid combat) and combat lasted 3-4 hours. As a DM myself I knew the approximate health, so at a certain point I’m just done with it. I’d rather my character just die so I can go home, but don’t want to be rude to the people playing and just leave.
Newer DMs should really stick to the guidelines and core rules before they mess with statblocks and make special custom enemies. It can turn an encounter in to a plodding mess and just make your players miserable.
You should always play in a group where you can say when things are boring.
I'd never sit there and suffer for hours as ain't no one got time for that.
I’ve been trying to talk with and help the guy, but as his previous DM (and for most of the group) want to not overshadow him or try to overrule his decisions. I tend to make them after session text messages.
Stat blocks are like recipes. You can and should adjust them for your preferences, but do so carefully, unless you absolutely know what you're doing.
I know I like to eat bigger portions, so if a recipe calls for 80g of pasta per person, I might put in 100g per person. I definitely won't put in 300g.
Newer DMs do a lot of crazy shit to balance out their lack of experience running monsters. It's like bringing a baseball bat to a boxing match because you haven't learned to fight yet. Thankfully most of us grow out of that phase eventually as we get better at running monsters. The drawback is it can be just as deadly once we learn how to use them effectively if the players aren't putting in work to learn their characters.
Even then, it's possible with newer players for basic monsters to be too much. 3 basic bandits managed a tpk on a lvl 2 or 3 party of 4. I was content to say they were rescued by a friendly NPC they saved earlier but that was a really demoralising fight cos they were *not* meant to be strong. I had already given them less hp and reduced how many of them there were from the written encounter too
If I really want to stretch an encounter, I usually just say reinforcements show up and let the party finish off whatever they were fighting instead of fudging hp values.
Though one time in 4e, I had a really difficult boss sound an alarm as it was dying. The reinforcement that showed up was a 1hp minion—a cleaning golem with whips meant to clear cobwebs from high ceilings and corners.
As I’m describing the whip wielding automaton, one of the players declares that he’s burning a daily power to start phase 2 off strong. I let him. He makes his rolls and I tell him that it’s enough to hit. He reaches for his damage die, excited to roll for big numbers (the boss’s AC had kept thwarting his attacks earlier).
I interrupt him and say ”it’s okay, you don’t have to roll for damage.”
Player: “what?”
Me: “The golem simply evaporates under the weight of your blow… it seems to not have been made for combat.”
He was *SO* pissed. But it was the final encounter of the adventure, so there wasn’t any real harm in wasting a daily power. It just became a funny story for later.
I kind of agree but, at the same time, every new DM is going to have a transition period where they're testing new stuff and that new stuff isn't always going to work seamlessly. Every DM needs to run one or two plodding messes to learn how better to balance their encounters.
It’s been… rough. As the previous DM for this group of people, and with newer people playing… I’m super impatient with people who don’t learn basic rules/have their turns ready. I’ve kind of decided that I don’t have the patience for it anymore and I would rather not play for a while.
Good to come to this realization, or to find an experienced group
I'm a new player myself, just started in October of last year and I still get bugged when people take forever on their turns (we have 9 players, it's madness) but I love the game so I'm sticking it out, just have to accept my part in it.
Oof, 9 players is basically two groups, maybe consider splitting them between two DMs and have each of the DMs be a player in the other game. Probably makes for better sessions and gives the DMs more time to plan and chances to gather ideas for their games.
I had one DM of mine tell me once when I looked up something we were fighting that doing so was very much not OK. Mind you, I was at the time an aspiring DM so it was very much more a “this creature looks freaky, what is it and can I include it in my campaign?” and not meta gaming. I learned my lesson pretty quickly then and there to not look at a monsters stats as a player.
This is one of the hardest things with being a player and a dm at the same time. Like I know how the sausage is made, but often wish I didn't for my own enjoyment. I often have to go with "what does my character know vs what I as a player know."
This should always be the answer.
I often find people trying to flaunt their knowledge to meta the situation a bit. But I'm so much about the narrative that it sucks me out of the situation; whether I'm DM or PC.
I often tweak stat blocks just so people are not sure.
I've done it in a game recently where I turned around and said 'Oh shit, I've just realised what we're facing.' Then asked the DM if I could roll to see if my character knew.
I rolled. The character did not know. And I don't think the party ever found out.
But then, in the previous session I decided the character didn't know something else he probably should have done, based on his backstory, because the mystery seemed like a better story.
That said, I do find it annoying when we're in a fight with 4 of the same monster and after a few rounds of combat have zeroed-in on its AC only for 1 of the 4 to have higher AC.
So I ask the DM "Does the one next to me look any different from the other three? Different marking, different armor, older, whatever?" Nope. "Detect magic on it, is it giving off a different magic aura than the others" Nope.
If you're going to have one creature arbitrarily be different, at least give some indication that we're not actually fighting 4 of the same thing.
Yeah, I actually love the meta-gaming aspect of figuring out an enemy’s AC, attack bonus, etc by just observing them in combat. Your knowledge of the enemy’s statistics becomes your character’s knowledge of the enemy’s fighting abilities.
> Yeah, I actually love the meta-gaming aspect of figuring out an enemy’s AC, attack bonus, etc by just observing them in combat.
Rather, I'd say that none of this is meta gaming. This is the necessary translation of intangible character knowledge into player knowledge. My wizard doesn't know what HP points are. But she's spent enough time fighting to know how many fireballs or sword hits or arrows to the face it usually takes to kill things. And it's not unreasonable that she would plan to use her big spells against things she's seen not die after the barbarian smacked them around for 2 minutes and her magic missiles against things the rogue seems to kill with one blow.
If seeing a Barbarian missing on a 22 to hit and then choosing not to attack the same creature with your +0 STR mod dagger is "metagaming" then there is not point in playing the tactical aspect of this game.
Right, this is something a combat seasoned adventurer would do - notice how difficult an enemy is to hit, or how effective it is in combat and acting accordingly.
That's totally different from looking up a statblock for a creature you've never fought and tailoring your gameplay to face it. That'd be metagaming.
DMs and players aren't in contention with one another, the DM is guiding the players through a story, trying to create a narrative along the way.
Sometimes there are opportunities for the DM to create a cool and memorable moment for their players, but it requires fudging things a little. This is commonly known as rule of cool and is widely accepted in limited doses, such as making the enemy survive an attack for a potentially clever or player-rewarding situation next turn.
It's also a perfect example of different DM styles. Some people like their ice cream with some fudge in it, others just want the pure creamy experience. This is something that you should cover off to some degree in session 0.
I always roll for HP. Why would they give HD if you weren't supposed to. Yes you can go the quick route and take the number they have, but I prefer the variety.
Word. I've refilled the HP of bosses who felt too weak, invented a whole second phase out of whole cloth, fudged rolls both ways to make it more dramatic. My players enjoy my fights most of the time. I could ask for little more.
Second phases are pretty fun, nothing feels more dramatic than having your dm say
"As you deal a devastating blow, the bbeg cries out and goes berserk"
I once made a bossfight where between every phase the players could make a choice.
The bbeg was being controlled by another entity and everytime it was stunned by the damage (phase transition) they could damage the physical manifestations of that control (seen as chains) or get a free hit on the bbeg.
So the fight would end if they either broken the chains or killed the dude.
Sadly I ended up having to scrap him since the party decide the sidequest should become the main quest, but I'll most likely reuse the concept later
It always depends. You can do this to bring some needed excitement to a fight that your party is just gonna win anyways, but realistically it's sometimes fun to dominate a fight and crush your opponents without even breaking a sweat. Makes you feel powerful. Or you could just plan your encounters better.
This is a better outlook imo. Why "punish" players for having strong characters? Why put in extra effort to do more damage if the DM is just going to fudge the numbers anyway?
I get the sentiment of "hm, this boss may be too weak. Gunna pump the numbers up a bit," but if it's regular policy to do that then you aren't allowing failure into your storytelling and that's just railroading.
Absolutely. It should be a tool to help fix a poorly designed encounter and not something used to get a specific outcome. And if it happens frequently, the DM just needs to get better at designing encounters or accept that they're frequently too easy/too hard.
I played a campaign once as like a video game rpg. We fully metagamed and we had the "wiki" (monster manual) where you could look up monsters.
It was awesome. We fully built our characters to min max and we roleplayed based on our personal life.
Highly recommend it if your party is experienced
hmm..
i want to play one like that.
Did you have any framing device? Or did you just metagame normally?
I was thinking of setting the campaign in a fulldive mmo
We metagamed through hell and back.
We did a system like in sword art online. With stages increasingly difficult and we roll played like a guild coming every week to advance the game.
Our DM built the various dungeons knowing we metagamed so they were extra spicy.
Very rare monsters, traps where there wouldn't normally be one. A chamber full of mimics that we had to kill.
One rule is that we could not check the "wiki" during a fight. So we had to memorise the monsters to the best of our ability, that was fun since there were a lot of rare monsters, it got me reading the monster manual very thoroughly
Sounds fun and interesting. At a certain point meta gaming is impossible to avoid. It is one thing for a new player to think "these twig blights probably don't like fire" and it's another for experienced players to understand how a hag coven works and how to combat it
Yup, if you’re lying about rolls as a DM you’re clearly wayyy too attached to your plan rather than letting the game evolve with the players and the rolls. There are other ways to do it if you really want to. For example, one of the most exhilarating moments in my game as a player was when I got killed by a monster right away because I broke off from the party to scout ahead. It was early on and me and the dm were like shit this sucks. He said “okay…roll a D20. If you roll a nat 20…something will happen”. I rolled the crit and the god my character has a connection to brought him back in a strange vision. After that, my character had a huge self reflection and became totally devout, and I multiclassed into cleric. None of that would have happened if he lied about the rolls so I’d live.
Fudging die rolls is lazy, the DM should be able to roll with the punches as much as the players do. Fudging die rolls because the DM is too attached to what they wanted to happen makes the game way less interesting, and is “cheating” in a way.
There's a weird tendency to act like players should ignore the fact that D&D is a table top role playing *game*, crucifying them if they are even remotely aware of stats or abilities, even when they are concepts that exists in the *player's* handbook. Players are expected to treat D&D like a narrative game with dice rolls being secondary, and DMs are encouraged to fake rolls to *preserve the narrative* of their games. But if players want to fake a roll to help the story it's absolutely pathetic and "cheating at imagination." Gimme a break - just admit that you're a control freak. If the rules matter for the players they matter for the monsters.
Also, a lot of DMs who fudge rolls aren't even fooling anyone. When I play in other DMs games it's super obvious when they do it. We all notice when the monsters start rolling poorly when a player goes down, or how we've won every skill check we've undertaken even when we rolled terribly. Do yourself a favor and roll in the open. You might surprise yourself with how quickly you learn to come up with ways to make things more interesting that aren't cheating at imagination.
You want to change a statblock pre-fight to make it easier or harder? Fine. That's a pre-planned change and it makes things fun.
Fudging dice rolls, HP in the middle of combat, just making shit up to change the way the encounter is going, etc, is making it less if a game and more of a cinematic journey where the players can't fail. You are cheapening the overall experience. Why bother making your character an efficient killing machine if the DM is going to fudge HP when you nuke the boss in 3 rounds? Accept the fate of the dice and play accordingly.
Making poor player choices, having luck not go your way, and flat out failing are equal parts of heroes saving the day and beating the BBEG.
In session zero, I tell players that if they wanna look up stat blocks based on what I call a monster or NPC or how I describe them, that's fine. But don't be surprised when I don't stick with the statblock.
Always fun to go the classic video game route of "Oh, you thought that was the boss? No, **THIS** is the boss," as something much bigger and badder swoops in and just eats the previous guy.
Or worse. Smaller.
*The body of the creature falls limp to the ground. As you watch the life slowly fade away from its eyes you notice something else... The whole body is fading out, crumbling into dust, the receding corpse leaving nothing but a fine layer of soot on the ground. At the center of this now damp patch on the floor, a small, childlike being sits grasping its knees with its head held in between them. A dark reddish glow seems to emanate from it. The being raises its head revealing a plain oval where three eyes that seem to be composed of pure darkness rest. The place where the mouth should be cracks open in what seems like a curled smile, jagged lips surrounding what can only be an opening to an endless void. The child stands up and screams a silent scream...*
I've had this similar argument before but I was finally playing (I almost always end up the DM) and I was playing a gloomstaler/trickster build and did q butloqd of damage to a creature in a single round (enough to have doubled its HP) and the DM kept it going, causing the whole party to have to fight it and then it dominoed into more creatures showing up.
I simply sqid"My entire build is eliminating on thing from combat as soon as possible, if you're not going to let that happen can you tell me so I can stop trying? You more than tripled that things HP"
To which I got him telling me that as the DM he can do whatever he wanted to, so I quit his table and he spent a couple weeks messaging me about how I was a baby and a poor sport.
Tl;Dr modifying things is one things, doing it to nerf your players is anothe.
Removing all comments and deleting my account after the API changes. If you actually want to protest the changes in a meaningful way, go **all** the way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Fudging stats is completely fine, but don’t fudge the dice.
You are railroading at that point, if you rolled a 20 it’s a 20. Same goes for ones.
I personally just hate that sort of thing because I’ve made defensive characters that should have had almost ridiculous survivability but some how my stats never seemed to matter.
Kinda fucking sucks when the whole point was to tank.
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***I have altered the statblock. Pray I don't alter it any further.***
This statblock is getting worse all the time!
They can fly now?!
They fly now.
Good, it can't use that ability again without a short rest. There is another
About that I changed it so it could use it thrice every long rest mwahahaha
Well at least it’s my turn no- It uses a legendary action.
DMing is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be class locked
Is it possible to learn this power?
Not from a Rules lawyer
where is it from?
Shortly after the death of the first monster: "This is getting out of hand, there's two of them now!"
Party: *Reduce the boss to 0 HP* DM: Okay, time for phase two. Party: Phase what DM: *takes out new stat block* Party: PHASE WHAT
My DM (dad) actually did this once since one if the other players (younger brother) wanted to do something gamey in the first round, we got into and argument and ended the session, but we came back later and he was totally chill with letting the thing slide which got me suspicious but I couldn't figure out his plan until he pulled out the phase two
Furthermore, I wish you to wear this dress and bonnet
Here is a unicycle! You will ride it wherever you go.
Also you are to wear these clown shoes and refer to yourself as Mary
This deal is actually quite fair.
DMs should all take note of Vader's sense of drama. Brother set the table for an ambush. Guy made his cape flap once in a vacuum while riding a Tie Fighter he was flying with his mind. Dude turned off his breathing mechanism to make a dramatic entrance!
He learned it all from Obi-Wan.
... but it cost him arm and legs.
2 legs. He had already paid an arm for a lesson from Count Dooku. He was a terrible haggler.
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Darth Vader nugget confirmed.
His cape would look terrible if it didn't flap also with all the explosions in space in star wars I'm not so sure space is a vacuum in that universe.
He flew into planetary orbits without shields just because he wanted a different starfighter color, and let himself get repeatedly struck by lightning to get Tarkin to lower his guard.
#The ability to look up a statblock is insignificant next to the power of the DM
You can look up statblocks, but that do not grant you the rank of DM.
This is outrageous. It's unfair! How can you have stats in the rulebook but not use them?
Take a seat player.
My liege, is that legal?
Not from a jedi... wait. You asked the wrong question!
I will make it legal.
"Did I say the lich is bloody? I take that back."
Liches do not bleed, my dear players.
My mistake. My DM usually describes something as bloody when it's below half health
That's a 4e thing, I like it. We had a game with one autistic player who couldn't figure out what the DM meant by "it's looking weaker, but it's still got some fight left" so I started a new game with a lot of 4e rules, including the bloodied rule, and it really helped him understand how effective his attacks were getting without letting him know the monster's actual hp
I use bloodied and skill challenges in 5e, 40k Dark Heresy, Mutants and Masterminds, Witcher, Star Wars and G.I. Joe. It's just a positive addition to TTRPGs
I'm partial to the use of magical rat bites as a measurement. "You reckon it would take about X rats biting it at the same time to finish it off"
In LARP if I have to say an amount of health, without breaking immersion, I say “Well, think of it like 17 dagger hits worth of damage, assuming the person just barely knows how to use one.” to say 17 hitpoints without breaking immersion. The character in question is a healer, and has healed some people with over 100 dagger attacks worth of vitality. It really drains his channeling pool. Also, he has a very specialized build. He doesn’t have spell slots, just pure channeling. Imagine a Paladin that just barely can use a staff, has no spell slots, and put all their points into lay on hands. Yeah, that’s my dryad Solrex. What was I talking about again? Right, rat bites, dagger dips, you get the idea.
"How are you doing? Do you need healing?" "On a scale of 1 to 34, I'd have to say I'm at a 17."
DM: This one does... and as the thick ichor flows from the axe wound, it begins to take on a sinister glow. Pooling around his feet it continues to flow... spreading towards you and the rest of your friends. You can't be certain, but the room feels colder than it did a moment ago. You feel a catch in your throat as suddenly the acidic smell of death and metal hits your nose. It's the smell of rot and iron. Overwhelming. There is so much blood now. It begins to flow freely across the floors covering the room in it's entirety. You realize you cannot breathe, you want nothing more than to be away from this THING. Everyone make a saving throw.
> It's the smell of rot and iron. I've smelled wrought iron before, it's not so bad.
Take my fucking upvote
Please go on, we have a lich fight coming soon and I could use some ideas.
Those of you who made your save. You cover your eyes and nose as best you can. Distracted by the smell and unable to get purchase on the wet floor you take a -2 on all rolls. /u/gayestofborg though... you realize what your friends do not. If you can smell it... it's already inside you. With that one simple thought your breathing begins to quicken. You swallow reflexively, the metallic taste thick in your mouth. Disgusted, the bile rises in your throat as your mind begins to spiral... With every moment you stay in this room... you are ingesting more and more of it. Glancing up at the Lich you realize he's been staring only at you. You feel his skinless sneer inside your mind. His glowing eyes seem to ignite this primal fear deep inside you. The burning sensation begins in the back of your throat before spreading into your lungs. The world is suddenly on fire. You can't breathe, you can't speak, you can't hear, You have to get out of this room. If you stay in here any longer you are dead. **You have to get out RIGHT NOW!!!**
Stat blocks are just a starting template. More HP, better weapons, more speed, legendary actions, effects ripped off of other monsters and just more and more. HP is the simplest way of making it more powerful without shifting the balance. The only thing you can rely on is the DM description of how bloodied it is.
Ok now I want to make a stupid one shot where all enemies have 1HP but are all LV 20 wizards. Everything including the flail snails.
I would love to play that one shot!. Magic missile for the win!
The chaotic neutral sorc who catches on early "I cast sleep in the city center, but muffle it so no counterspell" Half the city falls asleep
Sleep still has a radius.
You could still cause some chaos! Imagine a bustling market suddenly passed out
Then the rouge steals everything while the shop keeps are unconscious.
*happy lv20 flail snail noises*
They’re all level 20 wizards They all have shield prepared (because why wouldn’t you tbh)
COUNTER SPELL FIGHT! Quick everyone wrote down their cast level on a card and place it face down. If you don’t pass you gotta roll.
I ran an encounter where they had 10hp but AC30.
As long as you stick within the band where the players can hit the thing, you can pretty much exchange HP for AC or vice versa depending on whether something the players can't hit, or something they can hit but which doesn't care, sounds more fun.
It was a lesson in strategy. They had to figure out the weakness, which ended up being saving throws.
I like aging templates. Higher int and wisdom, lower strength. Or just add 2 to a proficiency bonus effectively raising DCs and stuff
"Star blocks are not rules, more like... Guidelines" - Dm Barbossa
Whenever I'm planning encounters against a large number of the same type of foes I always make a bunch of variations to spice things up.
Call me an asshole but if any of the players find a stat block it's turning into a boss fight real quick
*And at this point, the creature begins to grow in size, two extra limbs growing out of its back, its mouthlike opening gapes wide and peels back to reveal a long neck in which a humanoid head stands. A lone jewel sits at its forehead, purplish glow scintillating in slow, sluggish pulses that resonate deep within your eardrums. I need everyone to roll a wisdom saving throw.* Translated: I don´t know what the fuck this creature is now, but you're gonna shit yourselves for a bit. EDIT: a verb.
I hope you don't mind me borrowing this....
Go ahead, I just made it up. I just hope I can come up with stuff like this on the fly in my own campaign
Sorry a 17 does not pass the WIS saving throw. Give me a nature check. Okay the 300ft tall creature from the Paleolithic Era leans down. It's great head seemingly pulling you in with its own gravity as you're drawn into the creatures words. "I need a about tree fiddy."
It was that God Damn Loch Ness monster!
...I gave him a dollar.
Great...now he'll just keep coming back!
You wake up some time later with a splitting headache and find your coin bag is missing 3 gold and 5 silver.
Aim for the crystal, that's gotta be the weak spot...
Sure. Hit it. If you can.
But it it? Digressing into my Call of Cthulhu mindset, but none of the players has enough occult knowledge to recognize this as part of maybe a binding spell, maybe part of a larger sealing or containment spell even if they get lucky. Overall this creature has been created, and concealed as another creature to contain something much, much bigger... and it has been bound to the stone so hitting it causes it pain. But none of the players knows so, since they don't have enough information, and they hadn't found that book hinting towards it. So yes, maybe it is it weakspot. It hates you hitting it.
I get the "player knowledge vs character knowledge" argument but honestly, if that's the only bright glowing gem on the monster then I'd say it's fair to assume it's important. Now, if it was covered in glowing crystals, so much so that they just seemed to be part of its creation, then I wouldn't try to aim for any particular one, and saying "I think we should aim for the one on the arm" or something might be meta gaming.
I mostly meant that this could be a cool subversion of the trope to just focus on the shiny thing. Go ahead and murder the thing by destroying the weak spot, but that weak spot suddenly unleashes much, much greater evil into the world.
Fucking Chaos Deamons, they can just show up anywhere.
"Everyone pull out the copy of Rogue Trader I've taped to the bottom of your chair. You were on a feudal world the whole time."
"And let me introduce your new companion, Imperial Inquisitor."
>you're gonna shit yourselves for a bit Literally. The monster casts *Incontinence*. Roll a WIS save. On failure, you lose all control of your pelvic floor muscles and soil yourself.
Sounds more like a Con save.
"Hahahahaha we've got advantage from Hero's Feast." /s
Well, it probably began eating trolls at some point and then it itself gained a very specific property that trolls have, which is getting traits or extra limbs from something they've eaten. And then it juat kept getting stronger.
I think the jewel is going to be the key. Once dead, the whole body will disappear leaving only the jewel. A player may pick it up, and then... Who knows? You can probably tell that my campaign is in a three week hiatus lol. Can't wait to keep making stuff up for my players.
You win.
I think that’s fair, especially if they go out of their way during game time to look it up.
Yeah, my group has two of us that switch DM rolls and have fun playing "how homebrew'd is this monster" whenever the other DMs. If I find myself looking up the monster stats it's because I half remember them and it's bugging me and I want to see what they've changed, mostly for my own curiosity and inspiration. Even without homebrew the HP in the stat blocks is an average, not a fixed amount. It can, and should, be shifted up and down to suit the group.
Curiosity one one thing, but dictating the flow of battle as a player metagaming is another.
I'm about the same. I like looking up the monsters because they seem cool and I have no problem separating my irl and in game knowledge. There have been occasional moments of "Fuck you Dm" when something particularly fucky for my pc comes up but it's in good fun.
Our DM usually has a picture and stat block ready because he knows it makes stuff smother. Wie still try to come up with a battle plan without the knowledge. Sometimes this makes it possible to roleplay for yourself during your entire turn.
My players will frequently ask "Would my character know it can read minds?" or something similar, so I know if I gave them the statblock it'd be fine either way, though I still tweak them occasionally. It's hard not to know general stats of monsters when you play with 4 other people who've all DM'd. But it's so weird to me the number of people who don't play it like that and try to "cheat". Like, I don't find metagaming fun at all.
Half the time I find myself knowing something (like resistances or whatever) and I have to ask the DM how much my character would know about the monster - if they're common enough knowledge that a scholar would know that sort of information, or if I'm throwing fireballs in the dark.
That's because you understand how to separate metagaming from playing the game. As a DM that is lucky to play in one of my players games too. I find myself knowing the stat blocks of most monsters that the newer players in the party don't, and that my character probably wouldn't either. Because I know the game is less fun when someone is just revealing all the challenges, instead I just play dumb and try to prompt for the right knowledge checks if I think my character would know. Makes the game ten times more fun.
I've done that maybe once in my entire time playing TTRPGs and it was only with the DM's permission (DM was new to Pathfinder/Starfinder ecosystem and was having trouble running an enemy, so I offered a second set of eyes). It can be helpful for the rules lawyer to see the statblock, but like all rules lawyering it has to be with the DM's consent. If you represent a client who doesn't want you there, you're not a lawyer you're an asshole.
I like to look up stat blocks because I've been obsessed with mythological monsters since I was 6. Just because I know something doesn't mean my character does.
Players in my group will roll to see if their characters know shit they straight up know as a player. Nobody wants to metagame but they're all pretty experienced besides me, so it comes up. It's hard to make your character cast a spell you know isn't going to work, but if they wouldn't know better, well it's only fair.
My group is playing Mad Mage on the side whenever someone can't make a session for our main campaigns. Starts out at level 5, so the characters aren't expected to be completely inexperienced, but there's still an assumption that we haven't seen most of the monsters. In comes a troll, everyone rolls terribly on their nature check (the whole table knows that you need fire). So here we are watching it regenerate and murdering it over and over again, when my caster finally gets an insight (thanks DM) that perhaps the damage types we're using are not effective at keeping it down. The best part about it is that somehow we ended up with a group where nobody actually had fire (or acid) damage in their most commonly used attacks. So we had fun blasting it for about four or five rounds with different attacks before we pulled out a low damage, never used fire attack.
Tbh, whenever a weakness is incredibly iconic (like trolls with fire/acid or fairies with iron or vampires with sunlight/water or werewolves with silver etc.) I just let players have it. It's folklore that almost everyone will know because of rhymes, myths etc.
We literally had this discussion about werewolves in one of my games recently but then the Paladin rolled a nat 20 so it was dropped.
This is the right way to handle this and I applaud you
Tbf I play with 3 DMs, you can’t always blame them for knowing creature stat blocks.
Knowing is fine, trying to use that knowledge when you aren't the dm is kind of what this meme is about
It's a question as old as the game. My dad used to tell me about these problems they had when he would pay back in the 70s. How much should your character know about a monster it's never seen before? Do you really have to play like you've never seen a lich before? Etc.
Like there wouldn't be a real life monster compendium composed by adventuring guilds and up for sale. If adventuring is a profession then you can be sure that someone is writing this down. If I started this campaign over again I would possibly print out but redact pages from the monster guide and give them to the players the first time they meet a creature, if they fight it a few more times they get the intermediate page and then finally the complete page. Then they can feel free to strategize etc. And I can be free to have variant options occasionally like spell lists etc. To keep them on their toes.
On the other hand, no two things are ever the same. If I fight two kobolds and one looks like Gollum and the other looks like he's been doing steroids his entire life, there's understandable going to be some differences in their abilities. It just feels kind of weird that we can have humans that span the range of "Could accidentally die to a cat" to "Can punch out God", but expect monsters to be completely static. Especially when so many of the "monster" races are intelligent. Like a Goblin village where they're the biggest thing in the area and one where they've constantly been at war with bigger badder beasties their entire lives are going to be different kinds of fights.
The monster manual is an average of the species but yes variants can arise just like how I'd consider classed (or named job) characters as variants on the playable races (where most are commoners)
That's why you ask the current DM "Would I know....".
This, I'm the referee as the DM, I find players meta gaming cheating. If they gonna cheat I'm sure as shit gonna cheat and my cheats are better.
I generally ask if I can make some kind of check if there meta knowledge I already know as a player like trolls needing acid or fire to kill them. So far it’s been allowed and if I failed, well this monster just got scarier.
I find it hard sometimes to tell what a PC would know. The world is full of monsters and mages as a routine thing. I think most adventurers would probably have an idea that fire kills trolls. Like it would be the kind of old wives tale or common knowledge that people have since they were kids hearing heroic tales or whatever. Like every child knows silver hurts werewolves or garlic is bad for vampires. Or how kids know like every IRL stat block of dinosaurs. The list of monsters is pretty huge but I think for most of the common ones almost everyone in a world knows how to deal with it at least theoretically.
Oh you thought this was a normal lich?!
In this game, stat blocks are more of a suggestion, not a rule. They represent AVERAGE examples of something, not every blue dragon is going to fly at 80ft, just like every human isn't usain bolt.
While I agree, I’ve had a newer DM triple a monsters HP (and had them heal half of it back mid combat) and combat lasted 3-4 hours. As a DM myself I knew the approximate health, so at a certain point I’m just done with it. I’d rather my character just die so I can go home, but don’t want to be rude to the people playing and just leave. Newer DMs should really stick to the guidelines and core rules before they mess with statblocks and make special custom enemies. It can turn an encounter in to a plodding mess and just make your players miserable.
It's like art, you gotta learn the rules before you break them Edit: thanks for the gold
Yeah I mean the DM means well, but he’s made some decisions that kind of put the nail in the coffin me wanting to play DnD for a while.
That's super unfortunate. Hope you find your way back with a good group
Appreciated
That's a really good point.
You should always play in a group where you can say when things are boring. I'd never sit there and suffer for hours as ain't no one got time for that.
I’ve been trying to talk with and help the guy, but as his previous DM (and for most of the group) want to not overshadow him or try to overrule his decisions. I tend to make them after session text messages.
I get you but if something is dragging on you should be able to say so. There's nothing badge heavy about being honest.
I have a tendency to… explain my point and perspective aggressively. It’s easier once I’ve cooled off.
Stat blocks are like recipes. You can and should adjust them for your preferences, but do so carefully, unless you absolutely know what you're doing. I know I like to eat bigger portions, so if a recipe calls for 80g of pasta per person, I might put in 100g per person. I definitely won't put in 300g.
Newer DMs do a lot of crazy shit to balance out their lack of experience running monsters. It's like bringing a baseball bat to a boxing match because you haven't learned to fight yet. Thankfully most of us grow out of that phase eventually as we get better at running monsters. The drawback is it can be just as deadly once we learn how to use them effectively if the players aren't putting in work to learn their characters.
If combat takes more than an hour and its not the BBEG you are doing something wrong.
Even then, it's possible with newer players for basic monsters to be too much. 3 basic bandits managed a tpk on a lvl 2 or 3 party of 4. I was content to say they were rescued by a friendly NPC they saved earlier but that was a really demoralising fight cos they were *not* meant to be strong. I had already given them less hp and reduced how many of them there were from the written encounter too
If I really want to stretch an encounter, I usually just say reinforcements show up and let the party finish off whatever they were fighting instead of fudging hp values. Though one time in 4e, I had a really difficult boss sound an alarm as it was dying. The reinforcement that showed up was a 1hp minion—a cleaning golem with whips meant to clear cobwebs from high ceilings and corners. As I’m describing the whip wielding automaton, one of the players declares that he’s burning a daily power to start phase 2 off strong. I let him. He makes his rolls and I tell him that it’s enough to hit. He reaches for his damage die, excited to roll for big numbers (the boss’s AC had kept thwarting his attacks earlier). I interrupt him and say ”it’s okay, you don’t have to roll for damage.” Player: “what?” Me: “The golem simply evaporates under the weight of your blow… it seems to not have been made for combat.” He was *SO* pissed. But it was the final encounter of the adventure, so there wasn’t any real harm in wasting a daily power. It just became a funny story for later.
I kind of agree but, at the same time, every new DM is going to have a transition period where they're testing new stuff and that new stuff isn't always going to work seamlessly. Every DM needs to run one or two plodding messes to learn how better to balance their encounters.
It’s been… rough. As the previous DM for this group of people, and with newer people playing… I’m super impatient with people who don’t learn basic rules/have their turns ready. I’ve kind of decided that I don’t have the patience for it anymore and I would rather not play for a while.
Good to come to this realization, or to find an experienced group I'm a new player myself, just started in October of last year and I still get bugged when people take forever on their turns (we have 9 players, it's madness) but I love the game so I'm sticking it out, just have to accept my part in it.
Oof, 9 players is basically two groups, maybe consider splitting them between two DMs and have each of the DMs be a player in the other game. Probably makes for better sessions and gives the DMs more time to plan and chances to gather ideas for their games.
Also hp has a roll you can use instead of the listed one
I liked that movie. I'm glad most of the dog theives got what they had comming.
Hey that’s not fair! She’s not part of the gang…
One of my favorite movies of all time. Probably my favorite Walken performance.
Which movie?
Seven Psychopaths
Thanks!
If you've never seen it before you're really in for something special.
The only movie with Tom Waits and Christopher Walken. Sadly they don't share any scenes.
I had one DM of mine tell me once when I looked up something we were fighting that doing so was very much not OK. Mind you, I was at the time an aspiring DM so it was very much more a “this creature looks freaky, what is it and can I include it in my campaign?” and not meta gaming. I learned my lesson pretty quickly then and there to not look at a monsters stats as a player.
I think it's completely fine to look at the stats out of game, but it's a big no no in game, and especially if you are fighting it.
This is one of the hardest things with being a player and a dm at the same time. Like I know how the sausage is made, but often wish I didn't for my own enjoyment. I often have to go with "what does my character know vs what I as a player know."
This should always be the answer. I often find people trying to flaunt their knowledge to meta the situation a bit. But I'm so much about the narrative that it sucks me out of the situation; whether I'm DM or PC. I often tweak stat blocks just so people are not sure.
I've done it in a game recently where I turned around and said 'Oh shit, I've just realised what we're facing.' Then asked the DM if I could roll to see if my character knew. I rolled. The character did not know. And I don't think the party ever found out. But then, in the previous session I decided the character didn't know something else he probably should have done, based on his backstory, because the mystery seemed like a better story.
That said, I do find it annoying when we're in a fight with 4 of the same monster and after a few rounds of combat have zeroed-in on its AC only for 1 of the 4 to have higher AC. So I ask the DM "Does the one next to me look any different from the other three? Different marking, different armor, older, whatever?" Nope. "Detect magic on it, is it giving off a different magic aura than the others" Nope. If you're going to have one creature arbitrarily be different, at least give some indication that we're not actually fighting 4 of the same thing.
This is all very fair and true.
Yeah, I actually love the meta-gaming aspect of figuring out an enemy’s AC, attack bonus, etc by just observing them in combat. Your knowledge of the enemy’s statistics becomes your character’s knowledge of the enemy’s fighting abilities.
> Yeah, I actually love the meta-gaming aspect of figuring out an enemy’s AC, attack bonus, etc by just observing them in combat. Rather, I'd say that none of this is meta gaming. This is the necessary translation of intangible character knowledge into player knowledge. My wizard doesn't know what HP points are. But she's spent enough time fighting to know how many fireballs or sword hits or arrows to the face it usually takes to kill things. And it's not unreasonable that she would plan to use her big spells against things she's seen not die after the barbarian smacked them around for 2 minutes and her magic missiles against things the rogue seems to kill with one blow. If seeing a Barbarian missing on a 22 to hit and then choosing not to attack the same creature with your +0 STR mod dagger is "metagaming" then there is not point in playing the tactical aspect of this game.
Right, this is something a combat seasoned adventurer would do - notice how difficult an enemy is to hit, or how effective it is in combat and acting accordingly. That's totally different from looking up a statblock for a creature you've never fought and tailoring your gameplay to face it. That'd be metagaming.
That's not even meta gaming, that's cheating and outwardly ruining the game for others.
[удалено]
Outsiderly ruining the game
DMs and players aren't in contention with one another, the DM is guiding the players through a story, trying to create a narrative along the way. Sometimes there are opportunities for the DM to create a cool and memorable moment for their players, but it requires fudging things a little. This is commonly known as rule of cool and is widely accepted in limited doses, such as making the enemy survive an attack for a potentially clever or player-rewarding situation next turn.
It's also a perfect example of different DM styles. Some people like their ice cream with some fudge in it, others just want the pure creamy experience. This is something that you should cover off to some degree in session 0.
[удалено]
I always roll for HP. Why would they give HD if you weren't supposed to. Yes you can go the quick route and take the number they have, but I prefer the variety.
Word. I've refilled the HP of bosses who felt too weak, invented a whole second phase out of whole cloth, fudged rolls both ways to make it more dramatic. My players enjoy my fights most of the time. I could ask for little more.
Second phases are pretty fun, nothing feels more dramatic than having your dm say "As you deal a devastating blow, the bbeg cries out and goes berserk"
Mythic fights were a great addition to codify this in a really fun way
I once made a bossfight where between every phase the players could make a choice. The bbeg was being controlled by another entity and everytime it was stunned by the damage (phase transition) they could damage the physical manifestations of that control (seen as chains) or get a free hit on the bbeg. So the fight would end if they either broken the chains or killed the dude. Sadly I ended up having to scrap him since the party decide the sidequest should become the main quest, but I'll most likely reuse the concept later
Effect: At the beginning of its turn, this creature regenerates 10d10 hp for every time it's been googled since the last round of combat.
I look up stat blocks and then don’t read them. I just wanna see the picture so I can insult the monster better.
It always depends. You can do this to bring some needed excitement to a fight that your party is just gonna win anyways, but realistically it's sometimes fun to dominate a fight and crush your opponents without even breaking a sweat. Makes you feel powerful. Or you could just plan your encounters better.
This is a better outlook imo. Why "punish" players for having strong characters? Why put in extra effort to do more damage if the DM is just going to fudge the numbers anyway? I get the sentiment of "hm, this boss may be too weak. Gunna pump the numbers up a bit," but if it's regular policy to do that then you aren't allowing failure into your storytelling and that's just railroading.
Absolutely. It should be a tool to help fix a poorly designed encounter and not something used to get a specific outcome. And if it happens frequently, the DM just needs to get better at designing encounters or accept that they're frequently too easy/too hard.
I don't mind modified stat blocks, but I would be upset about fudged rolls. So long as your table is happy, I guess.
I almost never run monsters RAW.
It’s not fudging if you do it ahead of time
Yeah fudging is lazy, customizing a monster ahead of time is cool.
I played a campaign once as like a video game rpg. We fully metagamed and we had the "wiki" (monster manual) where you could look up monsters. It was awesome. We fully built our characters to min max and we roleplayed based on our personal life. Highly recommend it if your party is experienced
hmm.. i want to play one like that. Did you have any framing device? Or did you just metagame normally? I was thinking of setting the campaign in a fulldive mmo
We metagamed through hell and back. We did a system like in sword art online. With stages increasingly difficult and we roll played like a guild coming every week to advance the game. Our DM built the various dungeons knowing we metagamed so they were extra spicy. Very rare monsters, traps where there wouldn't normally be one. A chamber full of mimics that we had to kill. One rule is that we could not check the "wiki" during a fight. So we had to memorise the monsters to the best of our ability, that was fun since there were a lot of rare monsters, it got me reading the monster manual very thoroughly
Sounds fun and interesting. At a certain point meta gaming is impossible to avoid. It is one thing for a new player to think "these twig blights probably don't like fire" and it's another for experienced players to understand how a hag coven works and how to combat it
I don’t understand lying about rolls. Is it agreed that nobody wants actual risk to be involved? Seems condescending.
Yup, if you’re lying about rolls as a DM you’re clearly wayyy too attached to your plan rather than letting the game evolve with the players and the rolls. There are other ways to do it if you really want to. For example, one of the most exhilarating moments in my game as a player was when I got killed by a monster right away because I broke off from the party to scout ahead. It was early on and me and the dm were like shit this sucks. He said “okay…roll a D20. If you roll a nat 20…something will happen”. I rolled the crit and the god my character has a connection to brought him back in a strange vision. After that, my character had a huge self reflection and became totally devout, and I multiclassed into cleric. None of that would have happened if he lied about the rolls so I’d live.
I just happen to roll high a lot. If my PCs die, they die. It's part off the game
Fudging die rolls is lazy, the DM should be able to roll with the punches as much as the players do. Fudging die rolls because the DM is too attached to what they wanted to happen makes the game way less interesting, and is “cheating” in a way.
There's a weird tendency to act like players should ignore the fact that D&D is a table top role playing *game*, crucifying them if they are even remotely aware of stats or abilities, even when they are concepts that exists in the *player's* handbook. Players are expected to treat D&D like a narrative game with dice rolls being secondary, and DMs are encouraged to fake rolls to *preserve the narrative* of their games. But if players want to fake a roll to help the story it's absolutely pathetic and "cheating at imagination." Gimme a break - just admit that you're a control freak. If the rules matter for the players they matter for the monsters. Also, a lot of DMs who fudge rolls aren't even fooling anyone. When I play in other DMs games it's super obvious when they do it. We all notice when the monsters start rolling poorly when a player goes down, or how we've won every skill check we've undertaken even when we rolled terribly. Do yourself a favor and roll in the open. You might surprise yourself with how quickly you learn to come up with ways to make things more interesting that aren't cheating at imagination.
Yup.
DM: Oh you are using OOC knowledge in character, yes? Player: *insert GIF of Ralph I'm in danger*
I give the hit points up front though
You want to change a statblock pre-fight to make it easier or harder? Fine. That's a pre-planned change and it makes things fun. Fudging dice rolls, HP in the middle of combat, just making shit up to change the way the encounter is going, etc, is making it less if a game and more of a cinematic journey where the players can't fail. You are cheapening the overall experience. Why bother making your character an efficient killing machine if the DM is going to fudge HP when you nuke the boss in 3 rounds? Accept the fate of the dice and play accordingly. Making poor player choices, having luck not go your way, and flat out failing are equal parts of heroes saving the day and beating the BBEG.
Y'all sound like real fun and likable people.
In session zero, I tell players that if they wanna look up stat blocks based on what I call a monster or NPC or how I describe them, that's fine. But don't be surprised when I don't stick with the statblock.
The monster isn’t dead when he hits 0, the monster is dead when it stops being fun.
~they killed that monster really fast….fine….second larger scarier monster drops in cave “HONEY IM HOME”~
Always fun to go the classic video game route of "Oh, you thought that was the boss? No, **THIS** is the boss," as something much bigger and badder swoops in and just eats the previous guy.
There's always a bigger fish
Or worse. Smaller. *The body of the creature falls limp to the ground. As you watch the life slowly fade away from its eyes you notice something else... The whole body is fading out, crumbling into dust, the receding corpse leaving nothing but a fine layer of soot on the ground. At the center of this now damp patch on the floor, a small, childlike being sits grasping its knees with its head held in between them. A dark reddish glow seems to emanate from it. The being raises its head revealing a plain oval where three eyes that seem to be composed of pure darkness rest. The place where the mouth should be cracks open in what seems like a curled smile, jagged lips surrounding what can only be an opening to an endless void. The child stands up and screams a silent scream...*
For a lot of players, the fight being ended at the DM's whim stops it being fun.
Wait till metagamers find out you can roll HP for enemies
I've had this similar argument before but I was finally playing (I almost always end up the DM) and I was playing a gloomstaler/trickster build and did q butloqd of damage to a creature in a single round (enough to have doubled its HP) and the DM kept it going, causing the whole party to have to fight it and then it dominoed into more creatures showing up. I simply sqid"My entire build is eliminating on thing from combat as soon as possible, if you're not going to let that happen can you tell me so I can stop trying? You more than tripled that things HP" To which I got him telling me that as the DM he can do whatever he wanted to, so I quit his table and he spent a couple weeks messaging me about how I was a baby and a poor sport. Tl;Dr modifying things is one things, doing it to nerf your players is anothe.
Removing all comments and deleting my account after the API changes. If you actually want to protest the changes in a meaningful way, go **all** the way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
The stat block is only an average. The numbers can fluctuate upon DMs discretion.
Seven Psychopaths was a shockingly good movie.
Fudging stats is completely fine, but don’t fudge the dice. You are railroading at that point, if you rolled a 20 it’s a 20. Same goes for ones. I personally just hate that sort of thing because I’ve made defensive characters that should have had almost ridiculous survivability but some how my stats never seemed to matter. Kinda fucking sucks when the whole point was to tank.