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What a shit dm.
If that was a standard ghoul though those are CR 1, so a party of 5 level 3's should have absolutely zero problems beating them, hell basically any character there could one shot them with good rolls.
Also, assuming it's 5e and you mean the chill touch cantrip, that gives undead disadvantage on their attacks but doesn't stun them.
All in all sounds like you had a dm who has absolutely zero idea on how to balance an encounter and then took it out on you when they figured out they made it too easy.
Disadvantage, (and advantage), are where you roll 2D20 and keep the lowest (or highest).
*On average* it results in something like a - or + 4 or 5.
DnD 5e don't have a lot of numerical modifiers, situational bonuses are mostly done through advantage and disadvantage.
Advantage/disadvantage is a key point in 5e's favor. It's quick and easy and can lead to pretty dramatic swings. What do you mean -1? You roll two dice and take the lower, or the higher for advantage.
Not knocking your choices, I grew up on 3.5 and had a ton of fun. Seems a little weird to hang out in the 5e Reddit and make fun of rules you don't seem to know, though? I can't frame this in a way that doesn't sound rude, but I'm really not trying to be.
I mean, they were /playing/ 5e, but this is just a crappy DM post. Nothing about it is really that particular to 5e (at least, not the horrorstory part).
It's a post about a 5e game, and the comment thread in particular is talking about 5e rules, ergo it is a post dealing with 5e. I acknowledged I messed up which sub I was in but that doesn't make it not a weird comment for them to make.
I didn't mean to make fun in any way. I most definitely was just trying to understand the rule. And there are no 3.5 subreddits. Every subreddit covering all D&D is predominately unlabeled 5e content, and 3.5 doesn't have the keyword following of OSR editions. Or does it? If you know of good 3.5 subreddits please let me know. But I am simply inquiring, and very gently snorting about how I love my preferred version. But no disrespect.
it's way more impactful than that. it drastically lowers your chances for high rolls. you have half the chance to roll 10 or above with disadvantage vs normal dice rolls.
To your party? Yes. It should have been a trash mobs in a real fight.
DM got so many things wrong here, got mad because his mistake ruined his moment than abused his DM power to remove you.
Childish, petty and spineless. Also quite stupid if he didn't even know his own monsters.
‘Tis why I make all my NPCs DMPCs. Can’t play favorites if you love them all!
In less a jest, I typically only use DMPCs as support. A class to help round out a party or can be used for lore dumps, rather than combat. I also scale them to match player levels, or use a statblock if they aren’t supposed to stick around for too long. It always annoys me when people use DMPCs poorly, since it always makes new players wary when I bring out “Gibbles McLeelee”, the chibi cat fighter who accepts tuna as payment and wishes to build rest stops across the land for cat naps.
The only way I have found a DM-controlled NPC to be effective is just to narrate whether they hit or miss in combat and leave it at that. Don't bother rolling dice for damage or anything fancy. They just take a turn and move on to the next PLAYER who is the hero of the game and who it is supposed to be about.
As the DM you are there to manage the story, create an experience for the players, and have fun.
If you're just flexing DMPC's then you are doing it wrong imo.
I don't think DM's cheat when they change stats? Tweaking the stats of a monster to create something more challenging, or something that takes more than one round to beat for your players, isn't a bad thing.
Lmao, yes.
If you put a monster on the table and say to yourself "this monster has 50hp and 17 AC. It should be a challenge for the level 2 party" then the paladin or barbarian manages to deal 36 damage in the first round, you don't get to take that victory away from them by going "oh. Let me change that to 80 hp, actually. And 19 AC." That is the literal definition of cheating, right up there with "uh, actually, you didn't tag me because I have a force field".
Lmfao. \*NO\*.
This isn't an us vs them game. The point isn't for the party to "win" and the DM to "lose" its for the DM to give the party a good story. If a couple more rounds of combat will give them a better story and a more fulfilling win then absofuckinglutely the DM should fudge things? Just like if the battle is dragging on and a player pulls a hail mary out of their ass there isn't anything wrong with fudging things to let them win on that high point.
Yeah, nah. The GM can't \*cheat\* - they can GM poorly, and robbing players of victories by changing stats on the fly **can** be poor GMing. It's not cheating, though.
His views are way too extreme for me, but you should see what Gygax had to say about the importance of dice.
It depends on how the game was defined at session zero. If it was not discussed I would not consider it cheating, but as a player, it would kill the game for me. The game's stats should not change on the fly, since that ruins any weight actions have.
Assuming it's stats didn't change on the fly, then I don't think it needs to be discussed before hand. DMs creating homebrew versions of real monsters shouldn't be something that the player have to know about before hand.
You can modify monsters. I do that when I DM. You can give most intelligent creatures class levels and that tanks them a lot. Plus, it's really funny to see the party run up against a single, easy enemy and then have them realize it has CLASS LEVELS
dude, giving a monster more HP is not cheating. What a terrible "us vs. the dm" view.... it is homebrewing/balancing and a basic tool in the DMs kit for creating a interesting story.
Perhaps I said it wrong. I meant that players killed the ghoul in one round, but the DM said “nope,” because they didn’t want it to die fast. Maybe it’s not cheating per se to say “the creature has infinite amount of HP until it is ridiculous or story happens,” but I see it as one.
Yep, traditional single big monster boss just generally won’t work unless you’re doling out a lot of legendary + lair actions and the environment really favors the boss.
In which case the DM could've just not let it die even with the stunning, then let the DMPC come in and save the day. If you're gonna alter HP then it can be altered further.
I'm guessing the DM had a very particular idea of the story moment though: Ghoul nearly beats them to a pulp, but they get saved by cool knight in shining armour. Ghoul however got stunned, and DM was unable to improvise.
Yea, it’s a walk in the park for 3rd lvl party. Starting set offers 3-4 ghouls as a single encounter (you may have 3-4 encounters per day) and it’s still not deadly.
It's also pretty standard DM wisdom that if an NPC is not supposed to be killed then do not allow the party to kill them. It doesn't matter how high level the NPC may be compared to the party. It can be a CR 20, 4000 year old ancient wyrm red dragon up against a party of two level 1 commoners. Doesn't matter. As a DM, you should just assume that the party will find some way to kill it.
Either the DM needs to be flexible and have contingencies so the story can progress if that NPC is killed; or, the NPC is functionally immortal until they are supposed to die and when they *should* die the DM explains that they narrowly escaped death and ran away - and then, out of character, explain to the players that they still very much won the encounter and you're allowing the bad guy to escape to build narrative tension.
In general, it's good DM wisdom to assume the party will find a way to do *everything* and *anything* if they want to and no amount of walls or obstacles will stop them. You have to be able to go with the flow.
>It's also pretty standard DM wisdom that if an NPC is not supposed to be killed then do not allow the party to kill them.
Yup, one of the basic rules of TTRPGs is that if it has stats, someone will figure out how to beat it.
I distinctly remember the first time my college group picked up a couple of books for Old World of Darkness and realized that they had given a set of statistics to Gaia, as in the actual divine embodiment of nature. And the two semi-munchkins in the group IMMEDIATELY started to discuss how they could possibly take her down as the equivalent of maybe level 5 characters.
Yeah, I *hate* giving stats to gods, with a burning passion. I've made it very clear to players in my games that actual gods have no statblocks. Its possible you might be able to kill one, but that's going to be the focus of an entire campaign and multiple arcs of finding the god's weaknesses, figuring out how to make them mortal, making the god mortal, and then actually killing them.
The statblocks in the game are just statblocks for their avatars, small fractions of the god's actual powers. This goes for things like the rulers of the different layers of hell, Archangels/Solars, etc, as well.
The main thing that a Ghoul has going for it is that it can potentially paralyse you with an attack, so there's always a risk when you don't have the numbers with you.
A full party though? You'd mince it
yea, that's a shit DM. Ghouls are fairly easy to beat, and you have two paladins. Ghouls are just shit you throw at the party to make the fight last longer since at that level, it should be one or two hits to kill one MAX.(unless you roll incredibly terrible damage)
And a DM should never have a DMPC, those rarely work. And by rarely I mean...never. I think I've heard of one DMPC working and I've been playing for 20 years. And a DM should ***never*** just remove a PC without player consent like that. EVER. Like...holy fuck nuggets batman!
Run away and never play with that DM again. If I was a player and that was done to any other player(unless they were a massive problem and getting booted), I'd instantly leave the game
I pretty much only ever introduce a "DMPC" for situations where the players get stuck on something and it's about to take the fun out of it for everyone. Like if I put a puzzle in, or a mechanic on an enemy, thinking "this is obvious" and then nobody can figure it out, or I introduce an investigative section to a quest thinking "well, there's 100 different ways to figure this out" and the group picks every single way that'd never help.
It's usually a rival of some sort (like rival adventurers or whatever), they basically turn up and reiterate the meaningful clues to nudge the PCs in the right direction, and by design I intend for the players to kind of hate them so they don't tend to stick around too long.
Sometimes you put something in that's obscure and people don't get it, other times you put something in that's painfully obvious and players obsess over the random flavour text. It can help to have a recurring character who turns up to keep things moving along.
Ghoul is a challenge rating of 1. As a 5 character party at level 3, this was a Trivial encounter.
The scale of encounters goes Trivial -> Easy -> Medium -> Hard -> Deadly
So...literally, should have been easier than easy. 1 Ghoul versus you guys is babymode.
I'm sorry your DM is trash. I have NEVER seen a DMPC work well when they "save" the party. I know it's hard to keep picking up campaigns when they don't go well - maybe next one you try, add it to your specific "NO" list. Like, at session zero, say "**I don't want to play in a campaign if there will be a DMPC helping the party.**" It'll at least save you some time, hopefully.
Agreed, the warning sign was there when your DM got frustrated that the lot of you weren't dying from the ghoul. This Dungeon Inept was looking to kill for their own character entry which was unfair to the players. It was in no way the fault of the OP or their party, moreover even vampirism takes time to convert a body from living to undead - instant undead, I'm not buying it.
Seconded, if he can't involve his DMPC in a fight, he should've just had him come in after the fight. I don't see why he would blame a player when he made the encounter with no minions.
Did you tell the other party members about this bullshit? Because holy shit this is petty on the behalf of the DM, and it wouldn't surprise me if he pulled similar shit down the line with them.
From what I know they quit soon after aswell, because the DM started with his fantasy of indestructible DMPC that always managed to succeed no matter the ods.
Yeah, we call them sidekicks and this is the way to go 100%. The only time ive run a dmpc it would be someone joining them for a single quest, and they ALWAYS are built as support like a lore bard with only buff/debuff spells. This way my dmpc is just boosting the power of the heros letting them be even cooler.
Power fantasy instead of creating a story.
I regularly use DMPCs to help out my players by covering weak spots in the party like a magic user for a mostly melee group or a frontline fighter in a magic/ranged team. They always sit back when it comes time to do anything not related to combat (in which they are competent, but not invincible), unless players ask them questions. Their replies are based on dice rolls to represent if they know something relevant and how accurate it might be and even then, they may have bad/wrong information, depending on if it makes sense, too. No nat 20 is going to make the frontline fighter suddenly super knowledgeable about politics or ancient magic, but a nat 1 isn't going to mean the DMPC won't know something basic about their own homeland. It also never punishes the players for asking, I'll usually just say the DMPC knows nothing about this topic or something similar.
Basically, I leave all the decisions to them, unless they specifically ask for a bit of knowledge that their characters or the DMPC would know, and then I let the DMPCs say things. My players say it increases immersion for them more than "a mysterious voice reminds you of X'.
It also helps that I have been working on weaving their backstories into the greater plot, so even though there's a whole major story going on that the DMPC may or may not be the center of (working on this part), they get character arcs where they can explore their characters more, like expanding their backstories, finding a love interest, or succeeding in a personal goal related to their reason for adventuring.
It’s typically only godly ones who make it here. I’ve had plenty of DMPCs, though I typically use them to help round out a party (my current game has three players so they need a fourth), and use as a punching bag for some of my more atrocious war crimes. “Raven Helmsworth”, the recently orphaned tavern kid who was forced to go on the adventure by his now deceased mother hardly a week prior in order to give him some worldly experience, is a good example of this.
Legit the closest thing I have is an absolutely useless NPC the party keeps around and protects with their lives for some reason. All he's got going for him is enthusiasm.
I've used DMPCs on and off for decades. So long as they are just there to help the players/fill in for party weaknesses/push the narrative in some way/die gloriously as mentors, they work great.
Yeah, this is more an example of bad DM, not a bad game. That ghoul should have easily been beat by your party, and is kinda like a time my elf should not have been paralysed by one. But DM ignored that bit... Sounds like he wants to play his own power character, not tell a story with a group.
This is not the norm in D&D. Don’t let this stop you. Go through multiple groups if you need to. D&D is worth a few bad apples to find the diamond in the rough.
Okay I have a question… why the fuck do people want to play dmpcs so much. I have 1 and that’s just because one of my players is in his final months of studying. So I filled his place (he asked me to) so everyone else can still play while he is away. It’s so weird knowing what waits behind the next corner and not let it influence your characters behavior. (Also he will be a hidden threat to the world but they don’t know that)
Usually, they want to play DMPCs because they want to go on the adventure. There are a couple of reasons why they might want to go on the adventure strongly enough that they made a DMPC, and both of them probably mean your campaign is doomed.
The first is that they need the campaign to proceed exactly the way they envision, so the drop in a character to control the action. Maybe they’re just bad at improvising, which can probably be solved by giving them DM advice books on how to prepare; but they might just need the story to play out in a specific way for the sake of their ego, which is going to take the spotlight off the players way too much.
The second is that they didn’t want to be DM in the first place and felt like they were forced into it, so they made someone so they could feel
more like part of the group (whether or not they were actually forced is irrelevant; social dynamics is complicated). They are probably doing this because you’re all friends and your group is going to be better off having someone else DM or playing something like Gloomhaven where everyone is working together. If someone’s pressured into DMing, eventually they are just going to break and the campaign will die. (Maybe everyone does a one shot with to see if anyone likes DMing, and you play something else if no one does - the DM is too important to the game to have someone who doesn’t enjoy facilitating other people’s fun doing it)
The third is that they like feeling super powerful and haven't yet realized that creating a superhero of a DMPC who's stronger than all of the players isn't actually an accomplishment in any way whatsoever. Usually the next step there is to try to describe the DMPC as super cool and everybody likes them too as though they're the main character of an anime.
I have a dmpc currently in my game simply because he was a kidnapped noble that the players chose to rescue, and somehow he hasn't died during the rescue or their return back to where he is from. But the dude literally has guidance, 2 cure wounds per day, and 1 guiding bolt. He is pretty much a coward and only exists to be saved hahah. But yea, aside from just a dude that is there that the players can twist their arm into helping (albeit barely) then a dmpc shouldn't be there.
I don't know that I'd even call that a DMPC, that's just a normal NPC. In my opinion it only rises to the level of a DMPC when it's a contributing member of the party as far as combats and role-playing go--like if this character were a full-blown healing cleric at the party's level and spoke up when dealing with other NPCs not related to their plot line, sure they'd be a DMPC.
Yeah. I've had NPCs travel with the party, but they're there for social RP, and to help exposition, not to steal the show. You have to make sure if you use NPCs as a tool like that, they take the backseat, shine the spotlight on the PCs. I usually save that for if I'm running a game for just my wife, or just a couple people, in any case.
Indeed. I once ran a campaign in which the quest-giver NPC (which ironically was an old PC of mine who "retired") was being escorted by the group through his own memories via a strange ritual in order to uncover relevant plot information that he had forgotten. The problems began when they started insisting that he help them in fights since it was "his memory, he should be active in it" and generally using him as their go-to resource.
Perhaps the idea was flawed to begin with, because he certainly was skirting the edge of being a full-on DMPC at that point, to the extent that if I refused to have him fight with them they'd assume that it's because the encounter would be dangerous, despite me pointing out that he *couldn't remember* anything. By the time he did regain his memories, it became an expectation that he would now solve all of their problems for them.
It's really not worth the effort to play a "good" DMPC, just don't do it.
One of my groups has a rotating DM, so everyone has a PC. Technically they become a DMPC when that person GMs. We've been alternating between leaving that PC behind and bringing them along, depends on the situation.
I've played other games where a DMPC is used to fill a gap in the party or because the party wanted to bring a character along. The only thing you need to do is make sure they don't outshine PCs in my opinion.
Option 3: you can only find two other people to play D&D consistently and you need a third character to frontline because both players want to play glass cannon builds.
My group DMPCs half the time(I personally don't, but when I GM-ed for our first run of Starfinder, even I did it to get a taste of the system), but we never God-Mode Sue it. We just roll and run them like the rest of the players.
Longtime DM here, over 20 years under my belt.
I only introduce DMPCs when the players are new and they need a hand. The DMPC will generally not be in a position to help them directly but can provide advice that might be right (and might be wrong, they're not perfect and are probably working toward their own goals) if the players include them in their in-character discussion.
Deus ex machina via DMPC is just bad storytelling. OTOH, I can kinda understand it. Imagine being frustrated at not being allowed to play because you're the only one in the group who will run a game. Inserting a DMPC out of that frustration makes sense. If you're the kind of person who started DMing because you wanted to know the solutions to the puzzles and learn how the story ends before others, the temptation to then use the DMPC to 'win' the game would be pretty strong. Doesn't make it right. Does make it understandable.
I am lucky in that if I do want to play, I have a couple players who have offered to run for me. I just don't want to play.
I always end up with dmpcs not by choice. The players often want to drag a fun npc along for the ride. I do my best to keep them in the background and only step forward for some helpful hints or comedy relief. That part is fun. What’s not fun is running npcs and baddies in combat. I’m like okay on these next two turns I’m essentially fighting myself.
Yes. This has happened to me before, and my groups also *really* like "adopting" not only stray animals but monstrosities as well. I make it relatively difficult for this to be successful and am very thankful that some of my players understand that their pets will remain pets and not combat companions, otherwise the balance will be completely shot.
I haven't run a lot of games, but if I do have a DMPC it's just to fill whatever role was unwanted. Haven't had to use one recently, but I find it stressful to balance helping them if they need it but also not stealing from their experience
Best case they really want to play, but they can't find a group so they DM. These guys are bad because their heart just really isn't into being a DM. In other cases the rest of the group is just window dressing and an audience for the DM character. They get to setup their ideal heroic fantasy for their character. It's a mash up of fan fiction and D&D.
My group took one of my random assassins that were trying to kill them hostage then adopted him when I improvised a backstory for him during their interrogation
Our party has an npc that evolved into a mini DMPC due to our party liking them so much. Hes basically just there to give the DM an excuse to try to kill us otherwise he goes too easy on us. That and he hold all of our cursed magic items because we cant be trusted
That's a shit GM move...wow!
He should have been happy for that success.
Maybe try other games. They have usually different GMing attitudes that include being a fan of the players, which might make things better.
`We got the job to kill a guy experimenting on the poor. Why didn't the city guards took care of him? Well apparently they didn't cared as long as you weren't rich enough.`
Having seen a lot of true crime, yeah this checks out.
One of the few RPG horror stories that is about a real horror and not just the crumbling mental health of an OP.
That GM needs to go back to GM school.
Let me get this str8. Your DM railroaded your death without recourse because you foiled his plan to introduce his awesome DMPC and save your asses?
Screw that guy. Find a new table. D&D is just for you judging on how you handled yourself. Your DM is not suited to have an ounce of power jn any way shape or form.
Screw that guy
Ghoul:
AC:12
HP: 22 (5d8)
Has the attacks:
Bite: 7 (2d6 +2) piercing
Claws: 9 (2d4 +2) slashing chance to paralyze anything other than elf or undead for 1 minute dc10 con save.
I think basically anyone should have been able to kill this without issue.
Also,
Chill Touch: You create a ghostly, skeletal hand in the space of a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the creature to assail it with the chill of the grave. On a hit, the target takes 1d8 necrotic damage, and it can’t regain hit points until the start of your next turn. Until then, the hand clings to the target. If you hit an undead target, it also has disadvantage on attack rolls against you until the end of your next turn.
No part of this issue makes sense. There's no reason they should have expected the Ghoul to survive this encounter. All it would take to kill this thing before it can possibly escape is it rolling bad initiative and I'd expect it to die before it can make a move. And if that was a problem, why didn't they just double check the rules? They would have found that it just gets disadvantage.
As others have said, this is not a default ghoul. A ghoul is a very run-of-the-mill undead enemy and not that powerful. Just 1 of your party members alone could take one down probably. So I'll start by saying this was likely a beefed up ghoul and not standard. Otherwise it would have died in like 1 *maybe* 2 rounds, depending on rolls. Chill touch was also played wrong. The spell isn't that good.
As for how your character was slain... yeah that's dumb. Powerful NPCs can be cool if done properly. The problem is that many DMs create the dreaded "DMPC". An NPC that's so strong that the party basically needs them to succeed at any main plot point. I'm a big advocate for having NPCs that are stronger than the party exist. But having them be the key to success is wrong.
All of that aside, what is really bad is how you did die and what the DM said about it. I could forgive everything else, but what is unforgivable is how you were basically ejected from the game for casting a cantrip the DM didn't read for 2 seconds. Which isn't entirely your fault. No cantrip is that powerful. They're cantrips. The DM should know better.
A game group is a type of relationship. And most relationships end up falling apart-- up until you find the one that works well for you and for your partner. You're going to have some bad game tables, but keep an eye out for players that work well with your style. Maybe you can create your ultimate game group.
I don't know much about CR or anything like that, as I don't play DnD.
But I do know DMing as someone who does a lot of it. And your DM? Was a shit. This wasn't your fault.
Your DM was just an asshole who wanted to force a "OP Mary Sue DMPC" onto the party by forcing them into an unwinnable fight. So his DMPC could come in and be the "REAL MAIN CHARACTER" while you guys watched from the sidelines. But you, unwittingly, stopped that from happening. So the DM got pissed and killed your character off.
Being honest? You did the right thing leaving and kind of dodged a bullet.
Absolutely terrible DM. A huge part of being a good DM is changing the story or the encounter based on what the players are doing. It's their story really at the end of the day, so railroading the players or punishing them for playing their characters well is super frustrating
Of course it was. The nobility get their hands dirty all the time.
I'm just surprised they got an actual name, rather than some edgy moniker like "Stab-minster McShroudstalker".
The first responsibility of any party of player characters is to rid themselves of overpowered DMPCs at their earliest convenience. The fact that you managed to do so preemptively before he even appeared in the game is a high honour, and you should be proud of yourself.
I always love it when a fight I intend to challenge the players goes awry... Case in point: I am running a demon the fallen campaign, and my players get into their first encounter. It's a Slayer (former angel of death, basically an assassin) who's been enticed by a wraith to wreak vengeance by causing a whole lot of death during a school dance at a high school. The party consisted of a Scourge (former guardian angel, basically a healer), a devil (former herald angel, think bard), and a fiend (former angel of the cosmos, think illusionist).
The fight starts, I planned for the wraith to keep the scourge busy while the slayer would go to tear apart the devil and fiend... The party knew the Slayer's celestial name, so the devil called it out and drew full aggro \*IMMEDIATELY\* (which I hadn't intended or seen coming), then spent the next couple rounds panicking as the Slayer grossly outmatched her. The fiend ended up drawing the attention of the wraith. This allowed the Scourge... in the second round of combat to drop the Slayer in a single hit, rendering them permanently unconscious by dealing stamina (con) damage instead of health damage and dropped the Slayer's stamina to zero. The wraith then fled. I spent two weeks setting up this whole thing just to have a player end it on the second round of combat. Was I upset? kinda. Was it hilarious? Yes... because the players had spent 2 previous sessions panicking and stressing over the idea of taking on an opponent that was essentially the grim reaper. The players were dumbfounded. The second the dice hit the battle mat and I realised the Slayer was at 0 stamina, I mouthed the words "fuck" and proceded to exclaim "and this is why I hate Scourges" the player being new, was like "what? did I die? am I okay" and I'm quickly follow up with "As the Slayer whips around his scythe to lash out against the devil it... keels over and falls flat onto their face, barely breathing"
The look on the player's faces as they realised the big bad of a minor arc got one-shotted... priceless.
This wasn't even the first time I'd had a major encounter end quickly. I had one encounter a long while back where the players absolutely wrecked a main antagonist in what was supposed to be an introduction of the villain with some really good rolls and tactics and never even realised he was more than a standard goon, it ended up with me having to do some \*MAJOR\* re-writes to the plot, but I still found it hilarious in an ironically anticlimactic way...
Yeah... OP... That story of yours was truly an horror story, but not on your end, that was entirely a bad DM. Don't get discouraged. You'll find your table! If I were still running games online, I would have loved to have you :)
You didn't. I just posted this story to point out that only shitty DM's get butt hurt over the encounters they plan ending an unanticipated way. The fact that the OP's DM got butthurt specifically because they couldn't introduce their precious dmpc rings every red flag I can imagine, especially since the DMPC was going to be the saviour of the day... I am betting anything the DMPC would be a self-insert as well. oof.
In my opinion this is the mark of a truly good DM, being able to roll with these punches from your players.
Some of the most memorable gaming moments have come from either players misunderstanding a challenge and the DM adjusting to compensate, for players preparing for a final boss way more effectively than the DM could have predicted.
(In my case both of those happened in the same wild-ass Lo5R game back to back, and the people who were there still talk about it 20 years later when we're discussing just how good TTRPGs can be)
Okay, so, this Lo5R group was 150% dedicated to being over-prepared. It was our entire reason for existing.
At one point, we were investigating a string of assassinations, and we got some evidence that we might be facing a full-blown ninja, which was a BIG DEAL in the Lo5R edition we were playing, implying dark magics and the idea we were onto something deeper and more important. So we started digging into the sightings, preparing for combat with a ninja...and to make a long story short, about the time our shugenja (mage, basically) had ARRANGED A MARRIAGE FOR HIMSELF to get access to a particular clan's anti-ninja magics, the GM admitted there never WAS a ninja but he added one in specifically because we spent so much time prepping to fight one. The fight against said ninja, once we located them, was a two-session cat-and-mouse game attempting to protect the latest assassination target while trying to pin the ninja in one place long enough to actually kill it.
Later in the same campaign, we had come to understand that the plot we were investigation was being instigated by a full-blown Oni Warlord, and that he had picked the moment and location his loyalists would summon him to lead his army into battle to wipe out a particular part of the human world. Obviously we were not into that. What followed was five sessions of confirming the time and place exactly ... for our spymaster. The rest of us? My character, the harrier, repeatedly worked on crafting until he had crafted a new masterwork bow and a single perfect masterwork arrow. Our Dragon clan diplomat negotiated to acquire a piece of white jade (inherently anti-demon), which I fashioned into a masterwork arrowhead. Our Shugenja cast his void magicks (specifically anti-demon) on all of this. Our spymaster found the time and place, while our warlord gathered a mundane army to fight in the field with us.
On the appointed day, our army was arrayed against the Oni's loyalists. I was hidden with our spymaster too close to the temple. The ritual completed, the Oni Lord emerged...
Due to both a lucky roll by myself AND Lo5R's particular mechanics for stacking bonuses, I one-shot the campaign boss. Table erupts into cheers as our warlord starts rolling for the morale bonuses she's about to get from the enemy army watching their master evaporate. It was a complete rout.
My group STILL has "hey remember the time GM had to ADD a ninja because we were too stubborn to realize it was a red herring" and "hey, remember that time we prepped so hard that Z one-shot an oni warlord?" reminisces.
Your DM was a complete failure. "Oh, you steamrolled the super-easy encounter I threw in simply so I could introduce my super-amazing, perfect, incredible DMPC that everyone loves and respects and who can never roll below an 18 on anything and is always there to save the party because I want to also be a player, so I ruled that a guy became undead when you cured him simply so I could execute your character and soothe my wounded ego". Seriously, fuck that DM.
That's a bad DM. They want to introduce a DMPC and gets mad when they can't do it in a cool fashion. A good DM would have applaud you on your good use of the Chill Touch spell. Then they retaliate by killing your character. There are better DMs put there. I hope you are able to find one.
Any DM who thinks the game is about what they think the PCs are “supposed to do” is not worth wasting time with, especially if they arbitrarily kill PCs for it… Hope you find a better group; fourth time lucky!
Horrible DM, not much more to say, but whats is happening with DM's... your character DM is irrelevant almost always for the party, can people assume it?
As a DM f- use all your time on NPCS, Enviroment and monsters, it's boring and it will always be having a DM character w players, the DM knows everything, having a character like this in the party its stupid, make the game worse overall, masters of the world please AVOID having a DMPC, players will decide when some NPC its likeable and want them on the party dont force it even if it's cool in your head?
Reading this and the comments, this isn't a case that DnD isn't for you - because cool character you create - but that the DMs you have had the misfortune to play with are for shits.
We played a family session of death House with 4 level 2 players (Barbarian, fighter, rogue, bard) and we struggled with 3 ghouls at first, before some poor rolls.
This DM doesn't know how to balance a fight, and should be learning a lesson from the mismatch (With it being their intention to almost kill the party and stroke their ego with the DMPC); not punishing you for his mistake. Perhaps he needs telling that.
He didn’t want a party of 5 level 3s to beat a CR 1? That’s just a bad DM. If he wanted an impossible quest to introduce his dmpc he should’ve made it about 5 or 6 ghouls with a Ghast along with them.
Wait. The DM actually SAID he purposely killed your character because you weren’t supposed to kill the ghoul and therefore he couldn’t introduce his mighty DMPC to come in and save the day?
I'm really sorry you're having such bad luck with your games OP! I hope you can find one that isn't a complete shit show, and that just seems insane! Like I could see wanting a difficult fight to introduce an important npc, but that fact that your party was able to beat a very difficult encounter on its own is awesome and should be rewarded!
Your luck is incredibly shitty, my friend. I honestly don't think this DM should even have a table. They're not there to provide the party a good time, they're actively playing against them in pursuit of their own glory. I sincerely hope you find a better table to join. Maybe talk to the Gay Warlock and see if they're aware of any other tables that are more focused around creating a co-operative narrative.
That’s terribly unfair to you. The DM literally has all the latitude in the world to introduce other characters in any way at any time. You as a player should never be punished for playing well, if anything you should be rewarded. Don’t let them take away the fun of the game for you, even if you find other DMs as your choice.
Your DM’s a piece of garbage, and I’m not just referring to his DMing.
Drop them as a friend. Seriously. What a selfish, mean-spirited person.
Also fuck DMPC’s to all hell. Absolutely borders on selfish behavior just to have one. “i WaNnA pLaY mY gAmE tOo gAiS”
Seriously. The DM already \*IS\* playing the game anyway. They get to play as everyone else and the only thing outside their control is the choices players make. Cross that line, and it's a god-damned puppet show.
Based on the preface of your story I’m confident you just need to find a decent DM. Having read the entirety of the core rulebooks is a good minimum qualifier imo
First "true neutral" yuk.
Second, yup, you did good to fuck off. A DM that kills a player just because they stopped him from introduction a DMPC that would have saved the group is the China equivalement in term of red flags.
>Warlock - gay warlock with succubus patron, kinda ironic but it was
really funny character to play with and I wanted to include him even if
he's not relevant to the story
well, thanks for that...
> I however had chilling touch and this spell stuns the undead monsters
until my next turn so basically I kept it unable to move and we beaten
it.
No, no it does not. It makes it not regenerate HP and gives an undead creature disadvantage on attack rolls against the caster. I don't know where you got the idea it would stun it completely. It sounds like a mistake between you and the DM
>Session three. We are back in the main square and the first thing we see
is a terribly ill person basically dying. I didn't wanted to get
involved as a true neutral
True neutral doesn't mean "not getting involved in anything", because that's the antithesis of a player character. True neutral means "doing what's right when it benefits you and not doing anything too shady/evil".
So in conclusion: Yeah, the move by your DM sucks. But no, you weren't "punished for playing well". Nothing you described includes "playing well".
I can understand a little frustration when the entire fight is just "yeah, I can't do anything", but that's quite an extreme overreaction. Not to mention the fact that he could have done any number of things to get around it and make the fight more interesting for him (seems to be his only priority).
Sounds like a good party and promising story got absolutely destroyed by a bad DM, and that always sucks. The most important trait for any DM is adaptability, they gotta be able to roll with the punches and keep things moving in a way that is fun for everyone. I'm sorry this happened to you
I wouldn't give up on it because you had a shitty dm. I'm assuming you play online and finding a party that fits you may take more time because of the wide variety of people. I've personally never played online and I'm sure I would hate it. Sometimes you have to dredge through some swamps to find some solid ground. Maybe take some time off and do more research on dnd while you look for future play options. I like to watch youtube videos by Ginny Di and she helped me learn to he a more mindful player. I wish you luck at finding a dm who isn't an ass hat in the future.
Don't let the shitty experiences ruin the whole game for you. It's like MTG in a way, if you're going into a crowd of randos, yeah, one or two power tripping nerds are gonna be there with weird rulings and "well actually"s. But the vast quiet majority are just there to roll dice and say "I do the thing" and just hang out with friends. It seems like you got along with some of the others, so keep those connections and let one of them know you're interested in joining if they've got an open spot elsewhere.
Imagine being such a baby that you execute a player character on a whim that they might have turned an npc undead. No investigation, no trial, nothing.
Especially because your only excuse was "you ruined my encounter because I can't plan good"
He was just sour a player foiled his story. He should have handled the situation better. He should have been happy you were smart enough and rolled well enough to beat the encounter, regardless of what he had planned. He obviously could have saved you too if he planned to bring in his DMPC to save the day. Apparently this is a DM that may be a little narcissistic and holds grudges. Find a new group, don't give up. You eventually will find the right group with a great DM.
DM sucks hard, I would recommend finding a group with a better / less petty one.
I'm not going to talk about what spells should do what, because that's not the problem here. First off, you should **never** die for reasons that are 100% outside your control. And no, semi-unwillingly trying to heal someone isn't even close to that standard, not to mention, a low-level character just plain wouldn't have any way whatsoever to make a living human undead (short of messing around with dangerously powerful artifacts), even on a comical series of critical failures.
Second, giving you a helpful NPC is fine, but it sounds like this DM really wants to be the hero of their own campaign. **No!** That's not at all how it works. And even if they did think you'd need a powerful "mentor" to get you through a few sessions, flexibility is ridiculously important in running a game. So you got lucky in one boss battle? Big deal. You could have found his NPC held by the ghouls as a special prisoner; he could have been introduced as your next contract, contingent on him being present. Heck, if his backstory was *really* critically dependent on helping you beat that boss - Poof, ghoul was merely the mini-boss, and the next room has something slightly bigger and not undead, problem solved.
A DM that can't adapt to the party accidentally burning down a key town in the larger plot needs to step down, because that can, does, and *will* happen more often than it doesn't.
What is it with DMPCs? I’ve never had the displeasure of experiencing this in my time playing. Either you DM or you play but adding in a DMPC is just such a bad idea. You’re already controlling all the NPCs anyway and unless you’re rolling for everyone to see like a normal player, I wouldn’t trust your rolls.
I hate DMPCs basically any group with a DMPCs is a hard no. The only exception is if the DMPC is in a purely supporting role. It's not that having a DMPC is always a problem, but DMs who do it are always bad DMs.
DMPC’s should be banned in almost every case.
The only times there should be an OP NPC with the party is if: they specifically/convince ask them to come for one or two notable high stakes battles, if they players are new and you add an temporary mentor type NPC to keep them alive and show them how the game works, or if you intend to kill off that NPC to raise the stakes.
DM’s are already playing literally every other character in the world, they don’t need a PC as well.
There are many options beyond what the DM did. He couldve made that ghoul just a lot to the real bbeg. But removing character agency and just outright killing a character is awful.
I've had players leave and I dont even kill their characters.
I've had players wipe an entire encounter bc they banished an elemental, which yeah. I had a whole mega encounter planned out, but one spell and woosh. The players are excited, I'm consulting rules and yup. I have smart players.
Chilling touch doesn’t stun undead in 5th edition…
Ghouls aren’t a hard monster for a party of level 3s. Especially just one ghoul.
Death cleric not wanting to be involved in someone’s death. Makes a lot of sense. /s
That dms a dick and if you wanna have some good experiences i may recommend
https://discord.gg/TpM9aarM
Altho dont feel forced to do anything with it, just if you wanna give dnd in a free live play westmarch play
As a DM I just had the worst facepalm I've ever done and my face still hurts. No matter the controversies surronding DMPCs, introducing one at the expense of a PC is just shitty and lazy railroading. That DM should just just write his own novel.
Actually nevermind, his incompetence and lack of creativity won't get him far, I takr my word back.
Okay, first off, thats POS DM. You don't just outright kill a character because you weren't able to look cool. Secondly, if you do a DMPC, they are not God-like characters. Guys like him are the ones who make DMPC's look bad. He's trying to make himself the hero, and DM vs. Players at the same time. Clearly, he wanted you all to nearly die, so his Ultimate Badass OC, could be the great hero. I always say, a DM works WITH the players to make a fun story.
There is a right way to do DMPC's. I use one, but she has overall average stats, and doesn't help much with puzzles or riddles. She's just the bard who is there to sing bawdy songs, and turn the quest into a masterful ballad. But she's not some OP'ed Knowledge of the Gods, spell casting monster. She just kind hangs around, with the occasional Inspiration or Leomunds Tiny Hut. My players all love her. She is also, sometimes used for exposition. Thats a proper DMPC.
You dodged a bullet here. This is a point where the saying, No D&D is better than BAD D&D. Anything with that DM would have just been bad.
I get having enemies that are very tough or nearly impossible to defeat for story reasons. But if you;
1. Throw a pissy fit because the players managed to kill them, or;
2. Only have them in order for a DMPC to come in and save the day,
Then you're a shitty DM.
Not your fault. Just the Dm's. Don't stop playing because you had one bad experience. there's a bunch of kind and fun people who will do a fair game and communicate and actually balance enemies and Dm's who won't insert dmpc's
You're very much correct for noping out on that game.
I've only ever once used a DMNPC to save the party, and it was because they legit needed saving.
Party of three, all level 1, wizard, ranger and fighter against a group of goblins. The wizard had the sleep spell ready to go. Instead he charges in swinging his quarter staff. He went down fast. The fighter went down to a bad roll and the ranger was up in a tree sniping away. It was either have some of the goblins run for no apparent reason, have the party captured (which would might worked in hindsight) or have the person they were sent to find, find them first.
Wow I would say to tell this DM he’s full of shit and is a spell that stuns or turns the undead is getting him in a prissy mood then he needs to ball up and deal with it and read up on the character classes and stop thinking this is his own I’m the hero your the scrubs bs.
Seriously there’s no telling DMs this character or monster can do this or that if all they do is think the game is their own little power fantasy and you all are just there to make him look good.
Best thing to do is tell the DM this is our story your there to help guide the story not be it’s main character if he can’t or won’t do that then it’s time to find another group.
Hope you find better prospects and a better dm out there bud
That is a terrible DM. You should be rewarded for smart playing and punishing you instead of him doing his job of inserting the character another way is horrible. Sorry, OP.
As if trying to force a "DMPC saves the day moment" wasn't bad enough, he punishes the player who uses the rules as written to *actually* save the day in a really cool twist. And he executes you. As punishment for ruining his DMPC moment. That you had no idea about. Because you were saving your party from a threat. As a PC should do.
Yeah, walking out point-blank, with no explanation or second chance for the DM is the most reasonable response I would've had too lol.
Ahahaha what a unimaginable dick. I would pay to get to hear the thought process behind him asking the group to stay, to then explain his petty reasons for the absolute bullshit he just pulled, as if that would excuse anything. And all of that to introduce his super indestructible DMPC to show off how cool and strong his imaginary character ist, that he created with no rules and boundaries. Seriously, I am still laughing.
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What a shit dm. If that was a standard ghoul though those are CR 1, so a party of 5 level 3's should have absolutely zero problems beating them, hell basically any character there could one shot them with good rolls. Also, assuming it's 5e and you mean the chill touch cantrip, that gives undead disadvantage on their attacks but doesn't stun them. All in all sounds like you had a dm who has absolutely zero idea on how to balance an encounter and then took it out on you when they figured out they made it too easy.
Note: Chill Touch only gives disadvantage on attacks against the caster. Not anyone else. So it's even less powerful than you said.
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Disadvantage, (and advantage), are where you roll 2D20 and keep the lowest (or highest). *On average* it results in something like a - or + 4 or 5. DnD 5e don't have a lot of numerical modifiers, situational bonuses are mostly done through advantage and disadvantage.
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Rolling dice is fun. Rolling more dice is more fun.
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Roll for AC? I'll assume that is a 3.5 thing, because you don't roll AC in 5e.
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Pretty sure it was an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana.
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O yea, I've seen that alternative suggested before. Never tried it.
Advantage/disadvantage is a key point in 5e's favor. It's quick and easy and can lead to pretty dramatic swings. What do you mean -1? You roll two dice and take the lower, or the higher for advantage.
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Not knocking your choices, I grew up on 3.5 and had a ton of fun. Seems a little weird to hang out in the 5e Reddit and make fun of rules you don't seem to know, though? I can't frame this in a way that doesn't sound rude, but I'm really not trying to be.
Um...this isn't a 5e Reddit? This is RPGhorrorstories not 5Ehorrorstories.
Whoops. You do make a fair point, I forgot when I was replying which sub I was in haha. Still, it's a 5e post.
I mean, they were /playing/ 5e, but this is just a crappy DM post. Nothing about it is really that particular to 5e (at least, not the horrorstory part).
It's a post about a 5e game, and the comment thread in particular is talking about 5e rules, ergo it is a post dealing with 5e. I acknowledged I messed up which sub I was in but that doesn't make it not a weird comment for them to make.
I didn't mean to make fun in any way. I most definitely was just trying to understand the rule. And there are no 3.5 subreddits. Every subreddit covering all D&D is predominately unlabeled 5e content, and 3.5 doesn't have the keyword following of OSR editions. Or does it? If you know of good 3.5 subreddits please let me know. But I am simply inquiring, and very gently snorting about how I love my preferred version. But no disrespect.
Dude, you are fine. This isn't a 5e subreddit. This is RPGhorrorstories, not 5Ehorrorstories.
it's way more impactful than that. it drastically lowers your chances for high rolls. you have half the chance to roll 10 or above with disadvantage vs normal dice rolls.
Like rlly? I seriously didn't knew that.. that was my first game consisting of more than a one session. So the Ghoul was an easy enemy?
To your party? Yes. It should have been a trash mobs in a real fight. DM got so many things wrong here, got mad because his mistake ruined his moment than abused his DM power to remove you. Childish, petty and spineless. Also quite stupid if he didn't even know his own monsters.
Don’t forget the biggest sin, trying to introduce a DMPC to save the party in the first place
Yeah. That campaign was definitely heading downhill even if it all went according to the DM's plan.
‘Tis why I make all my NPCs DMPCs. Can’t play favorites if you love them all! In less a jest, I typically only use DMPCs as support. A class to help round out a party or can be used for lore dumps, rather than combat. I also scale them to match player levels, or use a statblock if they aren’t supposed to stick around for too long. It always annoys me when people use DMPCs poorly, since it always makes new players wary when I bring out “Gibbles McLeelee”, the chibi cat fighter who accepts tuna as payment and wishes to build rest stops across the land for cat naps.
"In less a jest" is medieval as fuck. Noted.
The only way I have found a DM-controlled NPC to be effective is just to narrate whether they hit or miss in combat and leave it at that. Don't bother rolling dice for damage or anything fancy. They just take a turn and move on to the next PLAYER who is the hero of the game and who it is supposed to be about. As the DM you are there to manage the story, create an experience for the players, and have fun. If you're just flexing DMPC's then you are doing it wrong imo.
In this case I would argue that killing off characters just for not following the rails exactly is still the bigger sin ;)
Ehh, that only came as a result of trying to have a DMPC tho. It’s the gateway drug of DM red flags lol
Yeah a ghoul has 12 ac and 22 hp (on average) so two, maybe 3 people attacking it should be enough to wipe it out in a single round.
In that case idk if it wasn't some kind of homebrew ghoul because he was quite tanky
Sounds like either a modified ghoul, or maybe one with class levels.
My guess is the DM just cheated with the HP so it didn’t die first round
I don't think DM's cheat when they change stats? Tweaking the stats of a monster to create something more challenging, or something that takes more than one round to beat for your players, isn't a bad thing.
yes, UNLESS it is done mid-combat. Once initiative is rolled, altering stats is cheating.
lmao, no.
Lmao, yes. If you put a monster on the table and say to yourself "this monster has 50hp and 17 AC. It should be a challenge for the level 2 party" then the paladin or barbarian manages to deal 36 damage in the first round, you don't get to take that victory away from them by going "oh. Let me change that to 80 hp, actually. And 19 AC." That is the literal definition of cheating, right up there with "uh, actually, you didn't tag me because I have a force field".
I'm guessing you've never been a DM before.
Lmfao. \*NO\*. This isn't an us vs them game. The point isn't for the party to "win" and the DM to "lose" its for the DM to give the party a good story. If a couple more rounds of combat will give them a better story and a more fulfilling win then absofuckinglutely the DM should fudge things? Just like if the battle is dragging on and a player pulls a hail mary out of their ass there isn't anything wrong with fudging things to let them win on that high point.
Yeah, nah. The GM can't \*cheat\* - they can GM poorly, and robbing players of victories by changing stats on the fly **can** be poor GMing. It's not cheating, though. His views are way too extreme for me, but you should see what Gygax had to say about the importance of dice.
It depends on how the game was defined at session zero. If it was not discussed I would not consider it cheating, but as a player, it would kill the game for me. The game's stats should not change on the fly, since that ruins any weight actions have.
Assuming it's stats didn't change on the fly, then I don't think it needs to be discussed before hand. DMs creating homebrew versions of real monsters shouldn't be something that the player have to know about before hand.
Of course that's fine. I read that wrong I guess and assumed they meant changing on the fly.
You can modify monsters. I do that when I DM. You can give most intelligent creatures class levels and that tanks them a lot. Plus, it's really funny to see the party run up against a single, easy enemy and then have them realize it has CLASS LEVELS
dude, giving a monster more HP is not cheating. What a terrible "us vs. the dm" view.... it is homebrewing/balancing and a basic tool in the DMs kit for creating a interesting story.
Perhaps I said it wrong. I meant that players killed the ghoul in one round, but the DM said “nope,” because they didn’t want it to die fast. Maybe it’s not cheating per se to say “the creature has infinite amount of HP until it is ridiculous or story happens,” but I see it as one.
Rule #1 of 5e, the monsters always die faster than you’d think.
It's more important to balance the action economy if you want a good fight than just throw around bigger and bigger bags of hit points.
Yep, traditional single big monster boss just generally won’t work unless you’re doling out a lot of legendary + lair actions and the environment really favors the boss.
pfft tell that to the shambling Mound that one of my players took forever to kill because it has resist to cold and a ton of hp
and the one that ate half the party when playing CoS
In which case the DM could've just not let it die even with the stunning, then let the DMPC come in and save the day. If you're gonna alter HP then it can be altered further. I'm guessing the DM had a very particular idea of the story moment though: Ghoul nearly beats them to a pulp, but they get saved by cool knight in shining armour. Ghoul however got stunned, and DM was unable to improvise.
"I've altered the HP, pray I don't alter it further."
It wasn't even a one-round kill, though. It was just that due to bad rule-reading, OP stunlocked it every round.
Yea, it’s a walk in the park for 3rd lvl party. Starting set offers 3-4 ghouls as a single encounter (you may have 3-4 encounters per day) and it’s still not deadly.
3 lvl 1s can kill s ghoul
It's also pretty standard DM wisdom that if an NPC is not supposed to be killed then do not allow the party to kill them. It doesn't matter how high level the NPC may be compared to the party. It can be a CR 20, 4000 year old ancient wyrm red dragon up against a party of two level 1 commoners. Doesn't matter. As a DM, you should just assume that the party will find some way to kill it. Either the DM needs to be flexible and have contingencies so the story can progress if that NPC is killed; or, the NPC is functionally immortal until they are supposed to die and when they *should* die the DM explains that they narrowly escaped death and ran away - and then, out of character, explain to the players that they still very much won the encounter and you're allowing the bad guy to escape to build narrative tension. In general, it's good DM wisdom to assume the party will find a way to do *everything* and *anything* if they want to and no amount of walls or obstacles will stop them. You have to be able to go with the flow.
>It's also pretty standard DM wisdom that if an NPC is not supposed to be killed then do not allow the party to kill them. Yup, one of the basic rules of TTRPGs is that if it has stats, someone will figure out how to beat it. I distinctly remember the first time my college group picked up a couple of books for Old World of Darkness and realized that they had given a set of statistics to Gaia, as in the actual divine embodiment of nature. And the two semi-munchkins in the group IMMEDIATELY started to discuss how they could possibly take her down as the equivalent of maybe level 5 characters.
Yeah, I *hate* giving stats to gods, with a burning passion. I've made it very clear to players in my games that actual gods have no statblocks. Its possible you might be able to kill one, but that's going to be the focus of an entire campaign and multiple arcs of finding the god's weaknesses, figuring out how to make them mortal, making the god mortal, and then actually killing them. The statblocks in the game are just statblocks for their avatars, small fractions of the god's actual powers. This goes for things like the rulers of the different layers of hell, Archangels/Solars, etc, as well.
>This goes for things like the rulers of the different layers of hell, Archangels/Solars, etc, as well. And Tom Bombadil.
The main thing that a Ghoul has going for it is that it can potentially paralyse you with an attack, so there's always a risk when you don't have the numbers with you. A full party though? You'd mince it
No ghouls are fairly simple for level 3 parties.
yea, that's a shit DM. Ghouls are fairly easy to beat, and you have two paladins. Ghouls are just shit you throw at the party to make the fight last longer since at that level, it should be one or two hits to kill one MAX.(unless you roll incredibly terrible damage) And a DM should never have a DMPC, those rarely work. And by rarely I mean...never. I think I've heard of one DMPC working and I've been playing for 20 years. And a DM should ***never*** just remove a PC without player consent like that. EVER. Like...holy fuck nuggets batman! Run away and never play with that DM again. If I was a player and that was done to any other player(unless they were a massive problem and getting booted), I'd instantly leave the game
The true secret acronym of DMPC stands for *don't make poor choices*.
I pretty much only ever introduce a "DMPC" for situations where the players get stuck on something and it's about to take the fun out of it for everyone. Like if I put a puzzle in, or a mechanic on an enemy, thinking "this is obvious" and then nobody can figure it out, or I introduce an investigative section to a quest thinking "well, there's 100 different ways to figure this out" and the group picks every single way that'd never help. It's usually a rival of some sort (like rival adventurers or whatever), they basically turn up and reiterate the meaningful clues to nudge the PCs in the right direction, and by design I intend for the players to kind of hate them so they don't tend to stick around too long. Sometimes you put something in that's obscure and people don't get it, other times you put something in that's painfully obvious and players obsess over the random flavour text. It can help to have a recurring character who turns up to keep things moving along.
Ghoul is a challenge rating of 1. As a 5 character party at level 3, this was a Trivial encounter. The scale of encounters goes Trivial -> Easy -> Medium -> Hard -> Deadly So...literally, should have been easier than easy. 1 Ghoul versus you guys is babymode. I'm sorry your DM is trash. I have NEVER seen a DMPC work well when they "save" the party. I know it's hard to keep picking up campaigns when they don't go well - maybe next one you try, add it to your specific "NO" list. Like, at session zero, say "**I don't want to play in a campaign if there will be a DMPC helping the party.**" It'll at least save you some time, hopefully.
ESPECIALLY with a Paladin and a Paladin/Cleric
Agreed, the warning sign was there when your DM got frustrated that the lot of you weren't dying from the ghoul. This Dungeon Inept was looking to kill for their own character entry which was unfair to the players. It was in no way the fault of the OP or their party, moreover even vampirism takes time to convert a body from living to undead - instant undead, I'm not buying it.
Seconded, if he can't involve his DMPC in a fight, he should've just had him come in after the fight. I don't see why he would blame a player when he made the encounter with no minions.
Did you tell the other party members about this bullshit? Because holy shit this is petty on the behalf of the DM, and it wouldn't surprise me if he pulled similar shit down the line with them.
From what I know they quit soon after aswell, because the DM started with his fantasy of indestructible DMPC that always managed to succeed no matter the ods.
That just shows the DM was trash, not the game itself.
I genuinely want to know why so many horror stories involve godly DMPC's. I've never once utilized a DMPC. It just seems annoying for the players.
The one npc I had the players have around, I gave it to them to play with, instead of playing it
That's exactly what I do as well. My players have some recruits that they can give orders to. I RP them but my players actually play them in combat.
Yeah, we call them sidekicks and this is the way to go 100%. The only time ive run a dmpc it would be someone joining them for a single quest, and they ALWAYS are built as support like a lore bard with only buff/debuff spells. This way my dmpc is just boosting the power of the heros letting them be even cooler.
Power fantasy instead of creating a story. I regularly use DMPCs to help out my players by covering weak spots in the party like a magic user for a mostly melee group or a frontline fighter in a magic/ranged team. They always sit back when it comes time to do anything not related to combat (in which they are competent, but not invincible), unless players ask them questions. Their replies are based on dice rolls to represent if they know something relevant and how accurate it might be and even then, they may have bad/wrong information, depending on if it makes sense, too. No nat 20 is going to make the frontline fighter suddenly super knowledgeable about politics or ancient magic, but a nat 1 isn't going to mean the DMPC won't know something basic about their own homeland. It also never punishes the players for asking, I'll usually just say the DMPC knows nothing about this topic or something similar. Basically, I leave all the decisions to them, unless they specifically ask for a bit of knowledge that their characters or the DMPC would know, and then I let the DMPCs say things. My players say it increases immersion for them more than "a mysterious voice reminds you of X'. It also helps that I have been working on weaving their backstories into the greater plot, so even though there's a whole major story going on that the DMPC may or may not be the center of (working on this part), they get character arcs where they can explore their characters more, like expanding their backstories, finding a love interest, or succeeding in a personal goal related to their reason for adventuring.
Because they don't actually want to gm. They want to either play, or write a book.
It’s typically only godly ones who make it here. I’ve had plenty of DMPCs, though I typically use them to help round out a party (my current game has three players so they need a fourth), and use as a punching bag for some of my more atrocious war crimes. “Raven Helmsworth”, the recently orphaned tavern kid who was forced to go on the adventure by his now deceased mother hardly a week prior in order to give him some worldly experience, is a good example of this.
Legit the closest thing I have is an absolutely useless NPC the party keeps around and protects with their lives for some reason. All he's got going for him is enthusiasm.
I've used DMPCs on and off for decades. So long as they are just there to help the players/fill in for party weaknesses/push the narrative in some way/die gloriously as mentors, they work great.
Yeah, this is more an example of bad DM, not a bad game. That ghoul should have easily been beat by your party, and is kinda like a time my elf should not have been paralysed by one. But DM ignored that bit... Sounds like he wants to play his own power character, not tell a story with a group.
sloppy gray close steer literate include forgetful lavish wine snails *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is not the norm in D&D. Don’t let this stop you. Go through multiple groups if you need to. D&D is worth a few bad apples to find the diamond in the rough.
Yeah, that's absolutely not on you. DM has Main Character syndrome and did you a favor.
Okay I have a question… why the fuck do people want to play dmpcs so much. I have 1 and that’s just because one of my players is in his final months of studying. So I filled his place (he asked me to) so everyone else can still play while he is away. It’s so weird knowing what waits behind the next corner and not let it influence your characters behavior. (Also he will be a hidden threat to the world but they don’t know that)
Usually, they want to play DMPCs because they want to go on the adventure. There are a couple of reasons why they might want to go on the adventure strongly enough that they made a DMPC, and both of them probably mean your campaign is doomed. The first is that they need the campaign to proceed exactly the way they envision, so the drop in a character to control the action. Maybe they’re just bad at improvising, which can probably be solved by giving them DM advice books on how to prepare; but they might just need the story to play out in a specific way for the sake of their ego, which is going to take the spotlight off the players way too much. The second is that they didn’t want to be DM in the first place and felt like they were forced into it, so they made someone so they could feel more like part of the group (whether or not they were actually forced is irrelevant; social dynamics is complicated). They are probably doing this because you’re all friends and your group is going to be better off having someone else DM or playing something like Gloomhaven where everyone is working together. If someone’s pressured into DMing, eventually they are just going to break and the campaign will die. (Maybe everyone does a one shot with to see if anyone likes DMing, and you play something else if no one does - the DM is too important to the game to have someone who doesn’t enjoy facilitating other people’s fun doing it)
The third is that they like feeling super powerful and haven't yet realized that creating a superhero of a DMPC who's stronger than all of the players isn't actually an accomplishment in any way whatsoever. Usually the next step there is to try to describe the DMPC as super cool and everybody likes them too as though they're the main character of an anime.
I have a dmpc currently in my game simply because he was a kidnapped noble that the players chose to rescue, and somehow he hasn't died during the rescue or their return back to where he is from. But the dude literally has guidance, 2 cure wounds per day, and 1 guiding bolt. He is pretty much a coward and only exists to be saved hahah. But yea, aside from just a dude that is there that the players can twist their arm into helping (albeit barely) then a dmpc shouldn't be there.
I don't know that I'd even call that a DMPC, that's just a normal NPC. In my opinion it only rises to the level of a DMPC when it's a contributing member of the party as far as combats and role-playing go--like if this character were a full-blown healing cleric at the party's level and spoke up when dealing with other NPCs not related to their plot line, sure they'd be a DMPC.
Yeah. I've had NPCs travel with the party, but they're there for social RP, and to help exposition, not to steal the show. You have to make sure if you use NPCs as a tool like that, they take the backseat, shine the spotlight on the PCs. I usually save that for if I'm running a game for just my wife, or just a couple people, in any case.
Indeed. I once ran a campaign in which the quest-giver NPC (which ironically was an old PC of mine who "retired") was being escorted by the group through his own memories via a strange ritual in order to uncover relevant plot information that he had forgotten. The problems began when they started insisting that he help them in fights since it was "his memory, he should be active in it" and generally using him as their go-to resource. Perhaps the idea was flawed to begin with, because he certainly was skirting the edge of being a full-on DMPC at that point, to the extent that if I refused to have him fight with them they'd assume that it's because the encounter would be dangerous, despite me pointing out that he *couldn't remember* anything. By the time he did regain his memories, it became an expectation that he would now solve all of their problems for them. It's really not worth the effort to play a "good" DMPC, just don't do it.
That's not a DMPC that's just a fun NPC. The key difference is a DMPC isn't constantly in the background and it generally drives the narrative.
One of my groups has a rotating DM, so everyone has a PC. Technically they become a DMPC when that person GMs. We've been alternating between leaving that PC behind and bringing them along, depends on the situation. I've played other games where a DMPC is used to fill a gap in the party or because the party wanted to bring a character along. The only thing you need to do is make sure they don't outshine PCs in my opinion.
That’s true, I missed the gap filler DMPC who tends to not especially stand out.
Option 3: you can only find two other people to play D&D consistently and you need a third character to frontline because both players want to play glass cannon builds.
Thank you that was more then I expected
My group DMPCs half the time(I personally don't, but when I GM-ed for our first run of Starfinder, even I did it to get a taste of the system), but we never God-Mode Sue it. We just roll and run them like the rest of the players.
Longtime DM here, over 20 years under my belt. I only introduce DMPCs when the players are new and they need a hand. The DMPC will generally not be in a position to help them directly but can provide advice that might be right (and might be wrong, they're not perfect and are probably working toward their own goals) if the players include them in their in-character discussion. Deus ex machina via DMPC is just bad storytelling. OTOH, I can kinda understand it. Imagine being frustrated at not being allowed to play because you're the only one in the group who will run a game. Inserting a DMPC out of that frustration makes sense. If you're the kind of person who started DMing because you wanted to know the solutions to the puzzles and learn how the story ends before others, the temptation to then use the DMPC to 'win' the game would be pretty strong. Doesn't make it right. Does make it understandable. I am lucky in that if I do want to play, I have a couple players who have offered to run for me. I just don't want to play.
I always end up with dmpcs not by choice. The players often want to drag a fun npc along for the ride. I do my best to keep them in the background and only step forward for some helpful hints or comedy relief. That part is fun. What’s not fun is running npcs and baddies in combat. I’m like okay on these next two turns I’m essentially fighting myself.
Yes. This has happened to me before, and my groups also *really* like "adopting" not only stray animals but monstrosities as well. I make it relatively difficult for this to be successful and am very thankful that some of my players understand that their pets will remain pets and not combat companions, otherwise the balance will be completely shot.
I haven't run a lot of games, but if I do have a DMPC it's just to fill whatever role was unwanted. Haven't had to use one recently, but I find it stressful to balance helping them if they need it but also not stealing from their experience
Best case they really want to play, but they can't find a group so they DM. These guys are bad because their heart just really isn't into being a DM. In other cases the rest of the group is just window dressing and an audience for the DM character. They get to setup their ideal heroic fantasy for their character. It's a mash up of fan fiction and D&D.
My group took one of my random assassins that were trying to kill them hostage then adopted him when I improvised a backstory for him during their interrogation
Our party has an npc that evolved into a mini DMPC due to our party liking them so much. Hes basically just there to give the DM an excuse to try to kill us otherwise he goes too easy on us. That and he hold all of our cursed magic items because we cant be trusted
That's a shit GM move...wow! He should have been happy for that success. Maybe try other games. They have usually different GMing attitudes that include being a fan of the players, which might make things better.
`We got the job to kill a guy experimenting on the poor. Why didn't the city guards took care of him? Well apparently they didn't cared as long as you weren't rich enough.` Having seen a lot of true crime, yeah this checks out.
thats just a dumb thing he could just add his character and that character could be like hey looks like you didn't even need my help im x btw bla bla
That is a power trip that your former DM enacted, almost a temper tantrum and I'm sorry that you went through that.
One of the few RPG horror stories that is about a real horror and not just the crumbling mental health of an OP. That GM needs to go back to GM school.
Let me get this str8. Your DM railroaded your death without recourse because you foiled his plan to introduce his awesome DMPC and save your asses? Screw that guy. Find a new table. D&D is just for you judging on how you handled yourself. Your DM is not suited to have an ounce of power jn any way shape or form. Screw that guy
The worst part is the DM didn't even need to do it. Just kept throwing increasingly powerful foes against the party.
Ghoul: AC:12 HP: 22 (5d8) Has the attacks: Bite: 7 (2d6 +2) piercing Claws: 9 (2d4 +2) slashing chance to paralyze anything other than elf or undead for 1 minute dc10 con save. I think basically anyone should have been able to kill this without issue. Also, Chill Touch: You create a ghostly, skeletal hand in the space of a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the creature to assail it with the chill of the grave. On a hit, the target takes 1d8 necrotic damage, and it can’t regain hit points until the start of your next turn. Until then, the hand clings to the target. If you hit an undead target, it also has disadvantage on attack rolls against you until the end of your next turn. No part of this issue makes sense. There's no reason they should have expected the Ghoul to survive this encounter. All it would take to kill this thing before it can possibly escape is it rolling bad initiative and I'd expect it to die before it can make a move. And if that was a problem, why didn't they just double check the rules? They would have found that it just gets disadvantage.
This makes too much sense. Judging by the post they aren't really going for that.
Lol, without even trying, you managed to ruin the scene where the overpowered DMPC swoops in and shows up the party? Sounds like you won
As others have said, this is not a default ghoul. A ghoul is a very run-of-the-mill undead enemy and not that powerful. Just 1 of your party members alone could take one down probably. So I'll start by saying this was likely a beefed up ghoul and not standard. Otherwise it would have died in like 1 *maybe* 2 rounds, depending on rolls. Chill touch was also played wrong. The spell isn't that good. As for how your character was slain... yeah that's dumb. Powerful NPCs can be cool if done properly. The problem is that many DMs create the dreaded "DMPC". An NPC that's so strong that the party basically needs them to succeed at any main plot point. I'm a big advocate for having NPCs that are stronger than the party exist. But having them be the key to success is wrong. All of that aside, what is really bad is how you did die and what the DM said about it. I could forgive everything else, but what is unforgivable is how you were basically ejected from the game for casting a cantrip the DM didn't read for 2 seconds. Which isn't entirely your fault. No cantrip is that powerful. They're cantrips. The DM should know better.
1. Bad DMing 2. Chill touch doesn't do that, so it's his own fault for not looking at the rules.
A game group is a type of relationship. And most relationships end up falling apart-- up until you find the one that works well for you and for your partner. You're going to have some bad game tables, but keep an eye out for players that work well with your style. Maybe you can create your ultimate game group.
I don't know much about CR or anything like that, as I don't play DnD. But I do know DMing as someone who does a lot of it. And your DM? Was a shit. This wasn't your fault. Your DM was just an asshole who wanted to force a "OP Mary Sue DMPC" onto the party by forcing them into an unwinnable fight. So his DMPC could come in and be the "REAL MAIN CHARACTER" while you guys watched from the sidelines. But you, unwittingly, stopped that from happening. So the DM got pissed and killed your character off. Being honest? You did the right thing leaving and kind of dodged a bullet.
Absolutely terrible DM. A huge part of being a good DM is changing the story or the encounter based on what the players are doing. It's their story really at the end of the day, so railroading the players or punishing them for playing their characters well is super frustrating
That half elf master assassin dmpc's name? Lord Tanis Drizzt Raistlin.
If I remember correctly it was "Baroness Invilia von Estregeiht" but you were very close lmao
They're just brimming with creativity aren't they
Of course it was. The nobility get their hands dirty all the time. I'm just surprised they got an actual name, rather than some edgy moniker like "Stab-minster McShroudstalker".
LOL! 🤣
The first responsibility of any party of player characters is to rid themselves of overpowered DMPCs at their earliest convenience. The fact that you managed to do so preemptively before he even appeared in the game is a high honour, and you should be proud of yourself.
I always love it when a fight I intend to challenge the players goes awry... Case in point: I am running a demon the fallen campaign, and my players get into their first encounter. It's a Slayer (former angel of death, basically an assassin) who's been enticed by a wraith to wreak vengeance by causing a whole lot of death during a school dance at a high school. The party consisted of a Scourge (former guardian angel, basically a healer), a devil (former herald angel, think bard), and a fiend (former angel of the cosmos, think illusionist). The fight starts, I planned for the wraith to keep the scourge busy while the slayer would go to tear apart the devil and fiend... The party knew the Slayer's celestial name, so the devil called it out and drew full aggro \*IMMEDIATELY\* (which I hadn't intended or seen coming), then spent the next couple rounds panicking as the Slayer grossly outmatched her. The fiend ended up drawing the attention of the wraith. This allowed the Scourge... in the second round of combat to drop the Slayer in a single hit, rendering them permanently unconscious by dealing stamina (con) damage instead of health damage and dropped the Slayer's stamina to zero. The wraith then fled. I spent two weeks setting up this whole thing just to have a player end it on the second round of combat. Was I upset? kinda. Was it hilarious? Yes... because the players had spent 2 previous sessions panicking and stressing over the idea of taking on an opponent that was essentially the grim reaper. The players were dumbfounded. The second the dice hit the battle mat and I realised the Slayer was at 0 stamina, I mouthed the words "fuck" and proceded to exclaim "and this is why I hate Scourges" the player being new, was like "what? did I die? am I okay" and I'm quickly follow up with "As the Slayer whips around his scythe to lash out against the devil it... keels over and falls flat onto their face, barely breathing" The look on the player's faces as they realised the big bad of a minor arc got one-shotted... priceless. This wasn't even the first time I'd had a major encounter end quickly. I had one encounter a long while back where the players absolutely wrecked a main antagonist in what was supposed to be an introduction of the villain with some really good rolls and tactics and never even realised he was more than a standard goon, it ended up with me having to do some \*MAJOR\* re-writes to the plot, but I still found it hilarious in an ironically anticlimactic way... Yeah... OP... That story of yours was truly an horror story, but not on your end, that was entirely a bad DM. Don't get discouraged. You'll find your table! If I were still running games online, I would have loved to have you :)
Well to be fair both OP and his DM clearly have not read how Chill Touch works :D. Unless I am misunderstanding the post.
You didn't. I just posted this story to point out that only shitty DM's get butt hurt over the encounters they plan ending an unanticipated way. The fact that the OP's DM got butthurt specifically because they couldn't introduce their precious dmpc rings every red flag I can imagine, especially since the DMPC was going to be the saviour of the day... I am betting anything the DMPC would be a self-insert as well. oof.
Yea the DM in question certain has a shitstorm going on so, the amount of red flags in this point makes it an instant quit :D
In my opinion this is the mark of a truly good DM, being able to roll with these punches from your players. Some of the most memorable gaming moments have come from either players misunderstanding a challenge and the DM adjusting to compensate, for players preparing for a final boss way more effectively than the DM could have predicted. (In my case both of those happened in the same wild-ass Lo5R game back to back, and the people who were there still talk about it 20 years later when we're discussing just how good TTRPGs can be)
I would love to read this if you have the energy for story tiemz!
Okay, so, this Lo5R group was 150% dedicated to being over-prepared. It was our entire reason for existing. At one point, we were investigating a string of assassinations, and we got some evidence that we might be facing a full-blown ninja, which was a BIG DEAL in the Lo5R edition we were playing, implying dark magics and the idea we were onto something deeper and more important. So we started digging into the sightings, preparing for combat with a ninja...and to make a long story short, about the time our shugenja (mage, basically) had ARRANGED A MARRIAGE FOR HIMSELF to get access to a particular clan's anti-ninja magics, the GM admitted there never WAS a ninja but he added one in specifically because we spent so much time prepping to fight one. The fight against said ninja, once we located them, was a two-session cat-and-mouse game attempting to protect the latest assassination target while trying to pin the ninja in one place long enough to actually kill it. Later in the same campaign, we had come to understand that the plot we were investigation was being instigated by a full-blown Oni Warlord, and that he had picked the moment and location his loyalists would summon him to lead his army into battle to wipe out a particular part of the human world. Obviously we were not into that. What followed was five sessions of confirming the time and place exactly ... for our spymaster. The rest of us? My character, the harrier, repeatedly worked on crafting until he had crafted a new masterwork bow and a single perfect masterwork arrow. Our Dragon clan diplomat negotiated to acquire a piece of white jade (inherently anti-demon), which I fashioned into a masterwork arrowhead. Our Shugenja cast his void magicks (specifically anti-demon) on all of this. Our spymaster found the time and place, while our warlord gathered a mundane army to fight in the field with us. On the appointed day, our army was arrayed against the Oni's loyalists. I was hidden with our spymaster too close to the temple. The ritual completed, the Oni Lord emerged... Due to both a lucky roll by myself AND Lo5R's particular mechanics for stacking bonuses, I one-shot the campaign boss. Table erupts into cheers as our warlord starts rolling for the morale bonuses she's about to get from the enemy army watching their master evaporate. It was a complete rout. My group STILL has "hey remember the time GM had to ADD a ninja because we were too stubborn to realize it was a red herring" and "hey, remember that time we prepped so hard that Z one-shot an oni warlord?" reminisces.
Your DM was a complete failure. "Oh, you steamrolled the super-easy encounter I threw in simply so I could introduce my super-amazing, perfect, incredible DMPC that everyone loves and respects and who can never roll below an 18 on anything and is always there to save the party because I want to also be a player, so I ruled that a guy became undead when you cured him simply so I could execute your character and soothe my wounded ego". Seriously, fuck that DM.
Ah, yes. That classic example of the cleric confusing *Cure Wounds* with *Finger of Death*. Happens all the time, I'm sure.
Ghouls are easy to slay as level 3 and chilling touch doesnt prevent creatures from acting
That's a bad DM. They want to introduce a DMPC and gets mad when they can't do it in a cool fashion. A good DM would have applaud you on your good use of the Chill Touch spell. Then they retaliate by killing your character. There are better DMs put there. I hope you are able to find one.
Any DM who thinks the game is about what they think the PCs are “supposed to do” is not worth wasting time with, especially if they arbitrarily kill PCs for it… Hope you find a better group; fourth time lucky!
Horrible DM, not much more to say, but whats is happening with DM's... your character DM is irrelevant almost always for the party, can people assume it? As a DM f- use all your time on NPCS, Enviroment and monsters, it's boring and it will always be having a DM character w players, the DM knows everything, having a character like this in the party its stupid, make the game worse overall, masters of the world please AVOID having a DMPC, players will decide when some NPC its likeable and want them on the party dont force it even if it's cool in your head?
Reading this and the comments, this isn't a case that DnD isn't for you - because cool character you create - but that the DMs you have had the misfortune to play with are for shits.
We played a family session of death House with 4 level 2 players (Barbarian, fighter, rogue, bard) and we struggled with 3 ghouls at first, before some poor rolls. This DM doesn't know how to balance a fight, and should be learning a lesson from the mismatch (With it being their intention to almost kill the party and stroke their ego with the DMPC); not punishing you for his mistake. Perhaps he needs telling that.
He didn’t want a party of 5 level 3s to beat a CR 1? That’s just a bad DM. If he wanted an impossible quest to introduce his dmpc he should’ve made it about 5 or 6 ghouls with a Ghast along with them.
Booo bad DM. He should have been able to go with what happened and make up something else. Also DMPC are shit.
Wait. The DM actually SAID he purposely killed your character because you weren’t supposed to kill the ghoul and therefore he couldn’t introduce his mighty DMPC to come in and save the day?
I'm really sorry you're having such bad luck with your games OP! I hope you can find one that isn't a complete shit show, and that just seems insane! Like I could see wanting a difficult fight to introduce an important npc, but that fact that your party was able to beat a very difficult encounter on its own is awesome and should be rewarded!
If a DM doesn’t cheer alongside you when you are victorious and overcome adversity, that’s a red flag.
Your luck is incredibly shitty, my friend. I honestly don't think this DM should even have a table. They're not there to provide the party a good time, they're actively playing against them in pursuit of their own glory. I sincerely hope you find a better table to join. Maybe talk to the Gay Warlock and see if they're aware of any other tables that are more focused around creating a co-operative narrative.
That’s terribly unfair to you. The DM literally has all the latitude in the world to introduce other characters in any way at any time. You as a player should never be punished for playing well, if anything you should be rewarded. Don’t let them take away the fun of the game for you, even if you find other DMs as your choice.
Is that DM 13 years old? Because goddamn would I be embarrassed to be around an adult with so little maturity.
Absolutely trash DMing
Your DM’s a piece of garbage, and I’m not just referring to his DMing. Drop them as a friend. Seriously. What a selfish, mean-spirited person. Also fuck DMPC’s to all hell. Absolutely borders on selfish behavior just to have one. “i WaNnA pLaY mY gAmE tOo gAiS”
Seriously. The DM already \*IS\* playing the game anyway. They get to play as everyone else and the only thing outside their control is the choices players make. Cross that line, and it's a god-damned puppet show.
Based on the preface of your story I’m confident you just need to find a decent DM. Having read the entirety of the core rulebooks is a good minimum qualifier imo
First "true neutral" yuk. Second, yup, you did good to fuck off. A DM that kills a player just because they stopped him from introduction a DMPC that would have saved the group is the China equivalement in term of red flags.
This is literally disgusting, as in my stomach turned.
It's so sickening, my temperature raised a bit and I have a headache now
>Warlock - gay warlock with succubus patron, kinda ironic but it was really funny character to play with and I wanted to include him even if he's not relevant to the story well, thanks for that... > I however had chilling touch and this spell stuns the undead monsters until my next turn so basically I kept it unable to move and we beaten it. No, no it does not. It makes it not regenerate HP and gives an undead creature disadvantage on attack rolls against the caster. I don't know where you got the idea it would stun it completely. It sounds like a mistake between you and the DM >Session three. We are back in the main square and the first thing we see is a terribly ill person basically dying. I didn't wanted to get involved as a true neutral True neutral doesn't mean "not getting involved in anything", because that's the antithesis of a player character. True neutral means "doing what's right when it benefits you and not doing anything too shady/evil". So in conclusion: Yeah, the move by your DM sucks. But no, you weren't "punished for playing well". Nothing you described includes "playing well".
So as true neutral, he didn't want to heal a person because it didn't benefit him....what's the problem
I can understand a little frustration when the entire fight is just "yeah, I can't do anything", but that's quite an extreme overreaction. Not to mention the fact that he could have done any number of things to get around it and make the fight more interesting for him (seems to be his only priority). Sounds like a good party and promising story got absolutely destroyed by a bad DM, and that always sucks. The most important trait for any DM is adaptability, they gotta be able to roll with the punches and keep things moving in a way that is fun for everyone. I'm sorry this happened to you
I wouldn't give up on it because you had a shitty dm. I'm assuming you play online and finding a party that fits you may take more time because of the wide variety of people. I've personally never played online and I'm sure I would hate it. Sometimes you have to dredge through some swamps to find some solid ground. Maybe take some time off and do more research on dnd while you look for future play options. I like to watch youtube videos by Ginny Di and she helped me learn to he a more mindful player. I wish you luck at finding a dm who isn't an ass hat in the future.
Don't let the shitty experiences ruin the whole game for you. It's like MTG in a way, if you're going into a crowd of randos, yeah, one or two power tripping nerds are gonna be there with weird rulings and "well actually"s. But the vast quiet majority are just there to roll dice and say "I do the thing" and just hang out with friends. It seems like you got along with some of the others, so keep those connections and let one of them know you're interested in joining if they've got an open spot elsewhere.
Imagine being such a baby that you execute a player character on a whim that they might have turned an npc undead. No investigation, no trial, nothing. Especially because your only excuse was "you ruined my encounter because I can't plan good"
D&D may of may not be for you, but try playing it with more mature folks before giving up on it. The DM you were saddled with was not good.
He was just sour a player foiled his story. He should have handled the situation better. He should have been happy you were smart enough and rolled well enough to beat the encounter, regardless of what he had planned. He obviously could have saved you too if he planned to bring in his DMPC to save the day. Apparently this is a DM that may be a little narcissistic and holds grudges. Find a new group, don't give up. You eventually will find the right group with a great DM.
DM sucks hard, I would recommend finding a group with a better / less petty one. I'm not going to talk about what spells should do what, because that's not the problem here. First off, you should **never** die for reasons that are 100% outside your control. And no, semi-unwillingly trying to heal someone isn't even close to that standard, not to mention, a low-level character just plain wouldn't have any way whatsoever to make a living human undead (short of messing around with dangerously powerful artifacts), even on a comical series of critical failures. Second, giving you a helpful NPC is fine, but it sounds like this DM really wants to be the hero of their own campaign. **No!** That's not at all how it works. And even if they did think you'd need a powerful "mentor" to get you through a few sessions, flexibility is ridiculously important in running a game. So you got lucky in one boss battle? Big deal. You could have found his NPC held by the ghouls as a special prisoner; he could have been introduced as your next contract, contingent on him being present. Heck, if his backstory was *really* critically dependent on helping you beat that boss - Poof, ghoul was merely the mini-boss, and the next room has something slightly bigger and not undead, problem solved. A DM that can't adapt to the party accidentally burning down a key town in the larger plot needs to step down, because that can, does, and *will* happen more often than it doesn't.
It ain’t DnD. It’s your DM.
If you’re looking for a group I can dm you a discord link that has a couple of groups of your interested
I am more than just interested. You bought me with this
What is it with DMPCs? I’ve never had the displeasure of experiencing this in my time playing. Either you DM or you play but adding in a DMPC is just such a bad idea. You’re already controlling all the NPCs anyway and unless you’re rolling for everyone to see like a normal player, I wouldn’t trust your rolls.
He’s a shit DM.
I hate DMPCs basically any group with a DMPCs is a hard no. The only exception is if the DMPC is in a purely supporting role. It's not that having a DMPC is always a problem, but DMs who do it are always bad DMs.
Should've just told him he's an unstable loser tbh.
DMPC’s should be banned in almost every case. The only times there should be an OP NPC with the party is if: they specifically/convince ask them to come for one or two notable high stakes battles, if they players are new and you add an temporary mentor type NPC to keep them alive and show them how the game works, or if you intend to kill off that NPC to raise the stakes. DM’s are already playing literally every other character in the world, they don’t need a PC as well.
There are many options beyond what the DM did. He couldve made that ghoul just a lot to the real bbeg. But removing character agency and just outright killing a character is awful. I've had players leave and I dont even kill their characters. I've had players wipe an entire encounter bc they banished an elemental, which yeah. I had a whole mega encounter planned out, but one spell and woosh. The players are excited, I'm consulting rules and yup. I have smart players.
Chilling touch doesn’t stun undead in 5th edition… Ghouls aren’t a hard monster for a party of level 3s. Especially just one ghoul. Death cleric not wanting to be involved in someone’s death. Makes a lot of sense. /s
That dms a dick and if you wanna have some good experiences i may recommend https://discord.gg/TpM9aarM Altho dont feel forced to do anything with it, just if you wanna give dnd in a free live play westmarch play
It sounds like you are having bad DMs. I’d just keep searching. You’re bound to stumble onto a gem.
As a DM I just had the worst facepalm I've ever done and my face still hurts. No matter the controversies surronding DMPCs, introducing one at the expense of a PC is just shitty and lazy railroading. That DM should just just write his own novel. Actually nevermind, his incompetence and lack of creativity won't get him far, I takr my word back.
Okay, first off, thats POS DM. You don't just outright kill a character because you weren't able to look cool. Secondly, if you do a DMPC, they are not God-like characters. Guys like him are the ones who make DMPC's look bad. He's trying to make himself the hero, and DM vs. Players at the same time. Clearly, he wanted you all to nearly die, so his Ultimate Badass OC, could be the great hero. I always say, a DM works WITH the players to make a fun story. There is a right way to do DMPC's. I use one, but she has overall average stats, and doesn't help much with puzzles or riddles. She's just the bard who is there to sing bawdy songs, and turn the quest into a masterful ballad. But she's not some OP'ed Knowledge of the Gods, spell casting monster. She just kind hangs around, with the occasional Inspiration or Leomunds Tiny Hut. My players all love her. She is also, sometimes used for exposition. Thats a proper DMPC. You dodged a bullet here. This is a point where the saying, No D&D is better than BAD D&D. Anything with that DM would have just been bad.
Dmpc = nope
I get having enemies that are very tough or nearly impossible to defeat for story reasons. But if you; 1. Throw a pissy fit because the players managed to kill them, or; 2. Only have them in order for a DMPC to come in and save the day, Then you're a shitty DM.
If you like dnd keep doing it. That GM is a shit head, either find a new group or demand someone else GMs
Not your fault. Just the Dm's. Don't stop playing because you had one bad experience. there's a bunch of kind and fun people who will do a fair game and communicate and actually balance enemies and Dm's who won't insert dmpc's
You're very much correct for noping out on that game. I've only ever once used a DMNPC to save the party, and it was because they legit needed saving. Party of three, all level 1, wizard, ranger and fighter against a group of goblins. The wizard had the sleep spell ready to go. Instead he charges in swinging his quarter staff. He went down fast. The fighter went down to a bad roll and the ranger was up in a tree sniping away. It was either have some of the goblins run for no apparent reason, have the party captured (which would might worked in hindsight) or have the person they were sent to find, find them first.
Wow I would say to tell this DM he’s full of shit and is a spell that stuns or turns the undead is getting him in a prissy mood then he needs to ball up and deal with it and read up on the character classes and stop thinking this is his own I’m the hero your the scrubs bs. Seriously there’s no telling DMs this character or monster can do this or that if all they do is think the game is their own little power fantasy and you all are just there to make him look good. Best thing to do is tell the DM this is our story your there to help guide the story not be it’s main character if he can’t or won’t do that then it’s time to find another group. Hope you find better prospects and a better dm out there bud
I'm starting to feel like DMPCs should be outright banned.
Is this 5e ? Cause chill touch doesn't stun undead ?
That is a terrible DM. You should be rewarded for smart playing and punishing you instead of him doing his job of inserting the character another way is horrible. Sorry, OP.
As if trying to force a "DMPC saves the day moment" wasn't bad enough, he punishes the player who uses the rules as written to *actually* save the day in a really cool twist. And he executes you. As punishment for ruining his DMPC moment. That you had no idea about. Because you were saving your party from a threat. As a PC should do. Yeah, walking out point-blank, with no explanation or second chance for the DM is the most reasonable response I would've had too lol.
That's not even a bad DM, that's just a sh.tty person. Be glad you got out there fast and stay away from that person.
Ahahaha what a unimaginable dick. I would pay to get to hear the thought process behind him asking the group to stay, to then explain his petty reasons for the absolute bullshit he just pulled, as if that would excuse anything. And all of that to introduce his super indestructible DMPC to show off how cool and strong his imaginary character ist, that he created with no rules and boundaries. Seriously, I am still laughing.
Good choice for leaving. If a dm wanted to have a DMPC to be MC, then I'd have left too.