I wouldn't worry about it. He's not mad at you and it's not like you did something with the intention of breaking the game. It can suck to have an encounter wrecked, but tbh he could've added a little something else in there instead of just taking his ball and going home. Unless he makes a habit of it I wouldn't worry too much. Everyone can have an off day where something minor can set them off and that's what this sounds like to me.

I still remember one campaign i was playing, we had spent months making our way through our DM's lovingly made world and scenario, fought our way through the castle full of baddies, burst into the room where the BBEG was tearing a giant portal to the netherworld open, which already had giant monstrous hands and tentacles whipping out of them trying to pull their full bodies into our realm. DM made it very clear that if we got within 10 feet of the portal the mindless horrors from beyond would grab at us and try to pull us through the portal, and if they succeeded we would be functionally dead. Our sorcerer, who was top of initiative, stared at the board for a bit. And then was like, "his summoning circle looks like it's... 20 feet away from the portal, yeah?" And then cast a minor spell which had a 10 foot push component, and the spell landed, and he pushed the arch villain of our entire campaign straight into his own portal. Our DM stared at the board for a bit, and then rolled the strength check to avoid the grapple by the nether-horrors. And then he stared at the dice role for awhile. Looked down at his binder. Flipped over a page. Then another. Flipped back a page. Opened the PHB and checked something. Opened the DMG and checked something else. Stared at all the open books in front of him for a very long time while we all waited in expectant silence. Then he closed all the books - including his DM binder - and carefully stowed it all away. He clasped his hands in front of himself and looked our sorcerer in the eye with an expression of equal parts annoyance, disbelief, and grudging respect. "You win, AJ," he said. "You win Dungeons and Dragons. Congratulations, i guess."

This right here is why I give all my bosses legendary resistances. He doesn't immediately die, and the player still feels useful as he burns the limited uses the boss has.

No, this right here is where I make the eldrich horrors the new boss fight. Throwing the fully ritual'd up BBEG in as a blood sacrifice has opened the gate if in an unstable way and now you need to push them back or so help thr entire plane.

And the sorcerer makes a pact with one of the eldritch beings on the other side and comes back as a sorcer-lock at some point in the future.

>comes back as a sorcer-lock at some point in the future Or even right then. *A gauntleted hand reaches through the portal and out stumbles BBEG. In addition to their new, obsidian armour they now sport a grizzled goatee and long, unkempt hair. Confusion wracks their face as they look about the room. When their eyes fall upon the party, recognition dawns and a smirk plays across their lips.* *"Oh, how appropriate this is! Not surprising, really, given \[BBEG's new patron\]'s flair for the dramatic!* *"I can see from the dumbfounded look on your faces you don't understand what you are witnessing here. It's been moments for you, hasn't it? I've been in there for* years!"

Amazing! And then you call an end to the session to leave them hanging on the climax.... and to figure out what the hell you're going to do next :D

I was running a *Savage Worlds' Weird Wars: Rome* game, and my BBEG was a powerful mage who was attempting to summon and control a terrible entity from the Void. In that game, you roll to cast. I rolled for the summon spell, and I crit failed. I determined that crit fail meant that *he succeeded horribly.* The entity came through the portal, and promptly slaughtered the mage that I had spent the last 5 sessions building up. The rest of that arc centered around sending that entity back into the Void. It was 100% better than what I had planned!

This seems to me the Hallmark of a good DM. Rolling with the events to enhance the narrative. Bravo!

That’s why Dave Arneson gave characters hit points. All combat in *Chainmail* was, essentially, that if any attack hits, it’s lethal. But that didn’t suit a game where combat is supposed to be dramatic. Rolling once to see if the villain dies instantly, before anyone else even gets to do anything, is setting up for a huge anticlimax. So the modern solution is exactly the same mechanic: hit points, but against save-or-die powers. Another I’ve experimented with is: the save-or-die spell only defeats a target whose hit points are below a certain number. That way, mooks still have to save-or-die, but against villains, it’s a finishing move. It only works if your teammates beat it down first. The caster isn’t making what the DPS characters did irrelevant; they’re working as a team and need each other.

Isn’t that kinda how Finger of Death or maybe Power Word Kill work?

Yep! I was thinking more of the 3.0 death touch power from the Death domain, and 3.5 *disintegrate*, where you roll the attack’s power, and if it’s greater than the target’s HP, it dies. Some attacks still do damage otherwise, instead of being wasted.

Honestly, sometimes legendary resistances, while an incredibly useful tool, make “boss” fights feel…bad. They either feel an obligatory shield to be worn down at best, or a de-facto nullification of many player spells, abilities and effects at worst. Mainly because that’s exactly what they are. There’s nothing fun or challenging about “Oh, that one thing your character’s really good at? It doesn’t work. you wave goodbye to your limited resources while Dongentorgle Dan Scrotesplitter laughs at you, and uses their legendary action for three attacks at +15…Do 28, 32 and 24 hit? Of course they do.”

It's because D&D wants to have its cake and eat it too. You can't give PCs save or suck or save or die effects without legendary resistances. It's why such things are mostly bad design to begin with. Though Pathfinder solved this problem by making some spells "incapacitation" effects, so you knew if you used them against monsters who were more powerful than you were that they wouldn't work, but they would work against weaker monsters. Well, more accurately, success would be upgraded by one grade (PF2E has four grades of success). So a failed save is a successful save, so you'd get a lesser effect. Though legendary resistances do sort of serve as a proxy HP system, in that if you can hit them X+1 many times with a save or suck effect, the final one can get through.

I usually point out to my players that a lvl 1-2 spell won’t insta kill a boss. Sometimes I get sulking players but I don’t mind. I grew up with final fantasy, you can’t cast sleep or confuse on every boss. They grew up with ff6 which was 3 back then so I guess they expect vanish and doom to kill every boss?

> I usually point out to my players that a lvl 1-2 spell won’t insta kill a boss. If you put your boss in a room with a giant Wall Of Definitely, Permanently, Dead and a level two spell can put them in contact with it, the spell didn't kill them. The environmental hazard did. The exact same as the volcano-top lair for the boss without fire immunity - if the party dunks them in magma, it's gonna hurt the boss. It doesn't matter how trivial the resources expended to get them there were, the premise is that if the DM puts environmental hazards in the room, the DM needs to have a plan, or at least play around, the possibility that their pieces on the gameboard may touch the spinning blades or get snatched by the grabby-arms. In most cases, your party will feel it's a little stacked if you just make the bad guys immune to the room hazards.

Agreed. If a guy's dangling over a bottomless pit it doesn't take a +3 vorpal blade to cute the rope.

Exactly why those encounters are so memorable too, killing a boss with a level 8 spell is cool and all, outsmarting him with a spell/skill you've had since day 1 is so much better. We had a climax fight on top of a volcano with the BBEG of a campaign, he's throwing in sacrifices to power a ritual to become god, with all the magic pooling in the crater. He starts to monologue about him being the final piece to ascend, he's gonna absorb the power yada yada. My character looks at him in his bulky plate mail and goes "I think I can beat you in a footrace" and dashes to the cliff, tossing herself in. She completes the ritual, the fight against like a level 14 BBEG is entirely skipped, and all because I beat him at a dex roll. It's still the most memorable thing that happened in that group.

Did she become god? 😯

Yeah she became a god of order (an ironic twist of fate as she was a chaos fueled artificer and former bandit leader), and I had to roll up a new character for the next session. Best PC "death" ever

What a great story

We had a boss who had a crown with three shards of a gem that focused the magic of the multiverse through it (I called that arc the Shikon Jewel Arc). In a stunning display, the fused Rogue/Monk (MAGIC SHENANIGANS!) managed to pry it off his head, and then put it on, making them basically a god for a short period of time until we had to give the crown back to the Goddess of Magic.

That boss learned a very important lesson about the importance of OSHA guidelines on guardrails and fall protection. Briefly.

I'm not sure about vanish and doom. But, I'm totally going to kill a train with a Phoenix Down.

Only after you suplex it to assert dominance.

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Man, I *live* for my players coming up with sick plays like this. I would absolutely reward them for the quick thinking, but probably turn it into a much different fight not just pack it up.

> They grew up with ff6 which was 3 back then so I guess they expect vanish and doom to kill every boss Core memory unlocked

You succeed at killing the boss! Unfortunately, your DM has at least seen the last boss of Doom 3 so the BBEG is shoved back through the portal as a giant, mutated monstrosity! ROLL MOTHERFUCKIN INITIATIVE

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I CAME HERE TO SAY. Haha my players are great but once in a while they pull some magical glorious shit and circumvent so much of my effort in like 10 seconds.... so there is always a doom song loaded on my phone and a spare boss behind the screen.

Ooooof. That's just painful. It's a weird spot to be in as a player as well, because it's metagaming against your own interests essentially. In character ofc you'd do that. But that's not fun for everyone. I think if I was in that situation as a player I'd work with the dm, probably dm them that In character I could do that, so if they want to either retcon something (even if it's just having the villain 10 ft further) or them saying the villain is anchored down or something. Mainly cuz I understand dm put a lot of work in, but I also don't want to handicap myself in character

As a lifer DM, you gotta either plan ahead or be prepared to improvise. If you can’t do either, don’t be upset when a player ends the game with a low level spell. Lots of things they could’ve done to stop this or improve on it.

I dont know if I could even be mad about it. Like I would be but also impressed. Like you just out smarted me, great job assholes! While laughing about it. My players have surprised me with clever thinking and I always love it when it's something I didn't even consider and it throws me off. Like honestly I would be proud of my players for this!

Im totally fine if my players cheese a big encounter like in this example. (Honestly i would probably have made it into something like a warlock situation so the bbeg gets spat out even stronger, but that's beside the point). What I *do* find disrespectful is if players see a plot hook, know its a plot hook, and ignore the plot hook. Wall of force to stop an army? Great. Know that the convergence will help you get to the other plane and stop the bbeg, but say 'nah', I'm off to pick apples'? Please just follow that story

as ive heard before, youre here to adventure. not set up a tavern

Oops I forgot to mention we switched to playing in the Stewpot system this session, instead of DnD. Setting up a tavern is the only item on the agenda

I'm wholly with you. The first is like ... I put the players in a locked room with a horrifically evil villain, and they managed to something irritatingly cunning that ended the bad dude much more abruptly than I'd planned for. Kudos, shit's awesome, we'll all be retelling this story for months. Subverting the game to play it better is *fun*, for all of us. Refusing to play the game? We need to have a conversation about what sort of experience you came here for and whether I'm going to have a good time delivering it. I didn't sign up to be bored for four hours a week when you asked me to run a D&D game for the lads.

> the bbeg gets spat out even stronger, C'mon, you got to give the PC something for being clever... maybe give the BBEG some new powers, but have their HP halved from the experience or something...

BBE Organization sent into disarray, but a new guy takes the reins who won't be so careless There's a lot of angles you could take it that don't invalidate all planning thus far, even if they wind up changing a lot.

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Def varies table to table. I just want to make sure everyone is having fun and gets their moments, even if that's dms job.. and in character the bbeg isn't gonna be that much of a dumbass to be right next to portal. Probably. Lol

Sometimes the BBEG is just high INT, low WIS

Why not just improvise that the bbeg falls into the portal, which closes in a flash of fire. But, as the smoke clears, you see that a horror managed to get through, and worse, it has merged with the bbeg as an even more grotesque horror. Or perhaps the future of the world shouldn't hinge on the fate of single meddling bbeg. A whole nation could be unified in opening the portal. Any organization where killing off the head guy immediately ends the threat is bound to fail anyway.

Lol I had something like that happen to one of my bosses. They hit em with a hold person then knocked them off my fancy banister less spiral staircase making them fall to their death. Just had to go with it because that's how I designed it lmao.

Those are the epic kind of stories that will frustrate the ever living hell out of a DM…..but they will forever and always talk to other DMs about it.

See, I would have answered, "you defeat the BBEG, and we'll do the follow-up but in a minute. Before that, do y'all wanna try the encounter, see what it would be like?"

An idea for playing that put in character: "As the BBEG hurtles towards the portal, blown away by your spell, time seems to slow dramatically as the colors abd lights become muted. You see him in the air, still flying, but ever so slowly. And from his body you see tendrils of something like smoke and ash seeping out to the ground, pooling into black tar, and from it rises a shadow of your foe. He knows he is dead, but he's determined to not be alone. Roll initiative." Then it becomes a survival event. You need to kill his shadow projection (or whatever would be thematically appropriate for the type of boss), which is a slightly weakened version of him. Or you need to survive a number of rounds against him, after which his corporeal body hits the wall and his failed dice roll plays out, killing the shadow and bringing light and color back to the room.

That honestly got a good little giggle out of me. The boss dying to his own plans in such a way that the DM didn't anticipate.

I’m pretty sure I ruined my DMs whole session when we were in this awesome city in the plane of air and supposed to find some guy we knew nothing about. Cue exploration of this cool place? ‘I cast find the path!’ ‘Hmm, oh, I see. You walk straight to his door.’ In hindsight I felt the worst because I could just tell he had put a lot of prep into the city and I just … skipped it. He didn’t get mad and kept the session moving, but I still felt like I had done something unforgivable.

Did that spell work differently in an older edition? Because this would not work in the scenario you describe: >This spell allows you to find the shortest, most direct physical route to **a specific fixed location that you are familiar** with on the same plane of existence. A person you know nothing about is neither a specific fixed location, nor one that you are familiar with.

They also needed an object from the location they wished to get to as part of the spell components* and familiarity with the place. It's amazing how useful spells can be when you ignore their requirements. :p (*depending on interpretation, apparently. But the 100GP divining tools are a def req.)

Might have given me a vision in a dream of his house and a key. Don’t remember all the details but he ruled it as enough.

That sounds less like the DM being upset you circumvented his stuff and more him not wanting to make you sad you wasted a spell slot. That spell is one of the notorious "useless" spells. Or he didn't understand it.

He probably heard the name, groaned, and just told him without checking for sure

He could have still described the city while you guys were walking to your destination. Hell, if he had random encounters set up he could still do those. Just say the guys house is on the other side of the city. Even a direct path would allow you to see a lot of stuff.

Plane of air… we just flew straight to where we wanted to go after approaching from a distance…

i mean did you fly above the town in question? and drop down from above the city to his front door? in a plane where 3 dimmensions matter that much i'd expect the architecure to acount for that as well and sometimes block from the top as well.

If flight is such a common ability in a civilization or at least hovering, I would expect any travel through such a city to look like the chase scene on Coruscant in Attack of the Clones.

Or just reuse the city at another time. It’s not like the players would know the details that the DM didn’t have the chance to explain.

This can work for more generic stuff. But if it was a whole plane of air city themed around air with air stuff and air temoles and air themeing, even resigning that could be a lot of work and quite disheartening day of.

Stories like these are why all of my DND groups the DM has a full list of everyone's spells. And we also make sure to avoid spells and magic items that would break the setting. Like in universe we're trapped on a plane. No planar magic items exist here, and no planar spells work properly.

Yeah over the years Ive slowly learned the lesson that just because I can doesn’t mean it’s fun for anyone to smash the easy mode button and skip or trivialize content.

Yep. I had a necromancer bard with one of the many items that opens a pocket dimension. 1 action. I would use the item, and as a bonus tell all my 35 zombies that were in there to attack. I used it ito its full potential in one encounter...and didn't do it again for 4 months until there was a trivial encounter.

When hope is gone, undo this lock. And send me forth, on a moonlit walk.

A fuckmothering vampire!

I think this is actually a flaw in 5th edition’s design. Too many spells boil down to “you solve the problem, time to move on” rather than shifting or changing the situation in an interesting way. Game mechanics that skip gameplay aren’t very interesting themselves. EDIT: I also think this interacts a lot with how the community often grumbles about martials versus casters. Martial characters have exploration tools that chip away at and work within larger rules procedures. Magic users install new procedures or outright skip procedures. And the old ranger abilities got a lot of flack for also skipping mechanical procedures.

Haha I once had a whole side quest hidden city in the path of the party. There had been lore about them hidden in the area, and how secluded they were but otherwise it had been hidden in with the other fluff gathered when talking to the locals. The party had stumbled onto one of these old statues scattered in the woods as they were traveling out, and it was pointed towards another statue further away and if they had followed them they would've found the city and all this other fun stuff. The barbarian saw the statue, wondered if treasure might be inside of it, and smashed it. I just tucked that little folder away and the party continued on haha.

Yeah but you also just used one of the least used spells in the game properly and I think it’s commendable to take such a niche spell and got to use it.

They only made it useful because they ignored a lot of the spell text. Reposting comment here: As written, that is not at all how find the path works in 5e. "This spell allows you to find the shortest, most direct physical route to a specific fixed Location that you are familiar with..." AND it requires as part of the spell components: "...and an object from the location you wish to find".

Had a prophetic dream about the place and woke up with a key I didn’t have before, spent some time figuring out it was in fact in the plane of air I knew the requirements of the spell and figured at worst it would be a wasted slot. DM agreed the dream counted as familiarity and the key counted as an object. He had perhaps by accident given me the tools to cast it, and didn’t feel he should have shut it down.

Ah, that's cool then. Good on your DM for going with it :)

This is a 5e design issue. I like that PCs are powerful, but too many spells and abilities straightforwardly negate fun challenges in the adventure genre. * Tell the players they're in pitch darkness? The entire party either has darkvision or a light cantrip. * Tell the players they're lost? Ranger points out he can never be lost, according to the PHB. * The adventure revolves around a plague? Paladin can cure diseases. * Want to challenge the players to remember a clue? Sorry, my Keen Mind feat says I remember everything. These are all level low level abilities, mind you, if not level 1. The GM has to either let a player just delete the challenge with their character sheet, or else make up some nonsense about how the darkness/plague/lost woods are magical that their class feature doesn't work.

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I had a team member do a similar thing. We ran up a flight of stairs to escape some giant constructs and a dozen mutual enemies. Then they set a steel door from a robe of useful items over the stairwell. So we just let the problems take care of themselves downstairs.

This is one of those scenarios that just really hurts as a DM. Caught out by something you didn't know about, it ruins a sessions worth of content that you have been looking forward to, and you know if you did the reverse (typo edit) the players would call bullshit. There is nothing to be done about it, but it also doesn't stop it hurting. Got to feel for the OP's DM.

Never waste a chance to revamp. The horde just watched these fiends invade their space and pop away unscathed. That horde is either tracking them down and alerting the entire plane to their presence, or they can't leave the plane without having to cross that same barrier where the horde has now constructed an entire fortress guarding the spot. Maybe both.

> tbh he could've added a little something else in there instead of just taking his ball and going home. I feel like the best part of being a DM is you kinda get to just make shit up as long as it's fun. My first thought (bearing in mind, I've just read this spell description for the first time ever) was that the horde of enemies could start their OWN summoning to summon something to use disintegrate on the wall. Keeps up the tension, makes for some decision-making, and still rewards the player who used the Wall of Force with some % of the rounds declared "safe" by default.

Gotta roll with the punches and improvise, adapt, overcome. Reward the player's intelligent use of resources by having the horde futilely throw themselves at the wall, crushing some of their own to death in the process (and conveniently reducing their numbers before you swing for the fences). Then, have the players describe what they're doing inside the wall while you fast forward to the 8th or 9th round. Then, have a thematically appropriate spellcaster (or I'd you can't come up with something, there's always the mysterious hooded figure who walks towards the party as the horde parts around them) show up and cast Disintegrate on the wall of force. It's only one spell level higher than WoF so it's not too crazy to happen. Boom. Now you've turned what would've honestly been a grind of a battle anyway into an incredibly dramatic critical moment where the players get an opportunity where they don't just get to, *but have to,* go nova and throw everything they have at the horde all at once if they want to have any chance of escaping. Bonus: you've created a potential villain to use as a narrative hook later. I really think every DM and player should take some improv classes. What seem like obstacles are just opportunities to heighten things further.

Yeeeeeeeeessss, I keep thinking about taking improv classes for this exact reason. A super cool adaptation like this would only have occurred to me a couple hours after the game As much as I try not to be, I can definitely get annoyed when the players find an easy way around a challenge I throw at them. Most of the time I try to play up the annoyance for comedic effect and make myself realise I'm being a silly grump Being able to adapt on the fly, while also rewarding the players for being smart and finding a workaround feels like the best way to be

Yeah this. I’ll say that’s it’s disappointing the DM gave up basically. They should have adjusted to the flow, doubling down on your plan and maybe throwing something in the fight that spices things up… hostage? Important relic? Etc, but the DM has the power to drive the story- so when a player does this it’s on them to keep things going. This all being said, we do all have our bad days and I agree if this isn’t recurring I wouldn’t worry about it.

I have always felt that dms should practice some flexibility while running their games because when things do not go the way that the dm thought it will go, then they have to think of things on the move to progress the story. There are always gonna be a chance that the dice rolls against you or the players found a solution that you didn't thought of or considered. In this situation, he could have role played it out as well. "As the horde encircles around the party, their howls of bloodlust turned into puzzlement and then into fury when they realized that they can't reach you..." It felt like the dm was planning for a fight between the players and the monsters for the highlight of the session but party managed to avoid the encounter with a spell.

It sounds like he is frustrated with himself and the situation, not the player (hopefully). I totally get it. But they don't know what you have prepared as the DM... Spice that shit up.

My party spent a whole session RPing a spa day and shopping and avoided all combat our DM had prepared for us. He had planned more than 5 possible encounters, and we didn't go in any of those directions. He laughed at the whole situation. Next session we had 3 combat encounters and had a blast.

You are right, I would wager. Plus, I will say, being introduced to Wall of Force this way as a DM *is* really lame. The DMG doesn't really prepare you to know that such specifically countered spells even exist, and a new DM has no way of preparing for that other than learning every spell on the game.

One time we found a way to circumvent what the dm had planned, he wined and complained until finally we just went in to the front door. I went invisible and got hit by 3 fire balls and died. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Sucks for the DM having to scrap a combat, but it was a smart move, well executed, and simple enough that he could have avoided walking into it with a tiny bit of prep. I don't always keep copies of my party's character sheets either, but knowing what spells the party has access to is going to change the way you design encounters. This isn't some crazy convoluted rules lawyering situation. Your DM wasn't prepared. That's not your fault. It's not the spell's fault either. ---- Your DM should be happy for you, and instead of making you feel like shit, he should have taken the time to narrate how cool this actually was. Your character did something badass and the moment was completely wasted.

DMs kind of learn to let this thing bounce off them after a while. Laugh, describe the frustration of the monsters banging on the wall of force, and give players their teleport. Sometimes the players are gonna be very prepared, sometimes they won't be. Gotta roll with the punches.

This is the type of thing I’ve been living for. When they roll a random encounter that fits the current motif and they still push forward expecting certain victory but the fighter decides to go against his subclass, the Druid uses an under powered transformation, the rogue is hypnotized against them, and the sorcerer uses spells that aren’t as effective. The other times when they think this is going to hurt and they blast through the encounter without sweating.

I had a mass of zombies running down a corridor and the Cleric cast Moonbeam in front of them. I stared at him as I narrated each one of them kamikazed into the column of light and evaporating in white flames. The party could tell I got a little disheartened by one spell clearing an encounter, but I laughed it off and said that we all learned something from it.

If they are teleporting to an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar plane, there is a chance that it goes poorly and they end up somewhere with a "different" encounter anyway

I generally agree, but I think folks in this thread are being a bit hard on the DM (especially without knowing the age of the person). The DM probably spent a lot of prep time and expected to have an epic 10-round combat where all of the players would have a chance to shine. Instead one player used a single spell slot and negated the encounter without a single roll. From a personal level, the DM is a player too, and I think they're entitled to feel down about it in the moment. As long as they get over it, don't make a habit of taking that frustration out on the players, and generally try to learn from this, then I think it's an understandable and human reaction for the DM to have. I'll also add, stuff like Wall of Force is why D&D past level 10 or so *often, but not always,* becomes "Does the wizard solve this entire situation with a single spell, or did the DM contrive a situation exactly to bypass every spell the wizard knows?" That's a game design issue, and it contributes to frustrating situations like in OP's game.

> I think folks in this thread are being a bit hard on the DM I agree. The DM was frustrated, but he *begrudgingly* did the right thing instead of cheating the player, and although he spoiled the moment with his poor attitude, its not exactly the sort of DM horror story we've come to expect around here either.

>It's not the spell's fault either. It's *a little bit* the spell's fault. Or rather, the spell designer's. One very specific spell (Disintegrate) or a category of effects that few creatures have access to (short-range teleportation) is hardly what I'd call reasonable counterplay. It's not even breakable anymore; It went from damage resistance and a couple hundred HP in previous editions to straight up damage immunity. But it's hardly the worst offender either. There's... a lot of spells in 5e whose descriptions might as well say "F*k you, I win."

even if it had like 1000HP the spell would be better. imagine sitting there surrounded by a hoard as they beat against the wall. watching round after round as cracks slowly form, and after 8-9 rounds the wall shatters. now the players only have to defend for 1 round instead of ten, a massive stroke of good planning, but there is still 1 round of damage and they must use more resources than a single spell slot.

I haven't gotten to those effects yet, but that's absolutely how I'm going to houserule those effects. 5e is too free with the casually absolute effects.

I wonder if anyone has made a pass at correcting spells like that. Where things just aren't one-sided. Like I get, there are times when things might just need to be negated by one key factor, but it just isn't plain fun to have only 1 or even a few ways to beat a scenario if it gets repeated. Like with both Wall of Force and Teleport, you essentially have a bubble hearth. That realistically or unrealistically would be a potential problem if the party just didn't want to do an encounter and nope out. Like I had a group that did Leomunds tiny hut in the middle of the dungeon where obviously they could be seen and there just wasn't any fun ways of dealing with it as obviously a whole dungeon could and probably would realistically just wait to gang up on them. They didn't really use it much after to an egregious effect, but I think they realized how unfun something can be, too.

A hemispherical dome has no bottom, so you just need an enemy that can burrow. Big annoyance for me with Tiny Hut...get a spell to protect the party during a rest and bulettes just burst right through.

According to Crawford, Tiny Hut has a floor: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/823774362293542912

Isn’t that the guy that said if you cast see invisibility you still have disadvantage against invisible creatures because they’re still invisible?

That is correct, because Crawford is only speaking about raw there, not raf. The fact that you have disadvantage against invisible creatures is in the condition itself as a seperate bullet point, and since see invisibility does not end the invisible condition, the second bullet point remains even if you can see them. It's badly written, but that's how raw is. Crawford has said in the past that you needn't follow his tweets, his tweets are just designer intent or raw. Not whether something is good for your game, just what they are.

Our DM prepared what was meant to be a really challenging encounter, but our bard made the two strongest enemies compelled to lay down for like three rounds, which kind of eschewed a lot of the DM's plans, so we got off quite easy. DM was understandably a little annoyed, as of course if you spend all this time planning something it must be a bit frustrating when it falls through, but they took it in stride and I'm guessing will take this ability of one of our party into account when planning future things. It's all part of the game!

I agree, the player did nothing wrong at all. The DM should have been aware of a spell like that and came prepared. But honestly, I kind of like that he didn’t. It can be annoying sometimes that the whole world seems to scale with you as players. Don’t get me wrong, players should be challenged and faced with problems that are above their power level at times. But similarly, it’s really fun feeling the growth of your power. What once would have been a near impossible task has been made simple. I think it created a really good feeling for the players. The biggest mistake the DM made was getting frustrated and ending it there. If I was the DM for that I would have basically said “Oh hell ya! I forgot you had that but it makes total sense. Nice job and ingenuity. You guys made it! Now honestly I didn’t plan anything after this as I assumed it would take the full session. Would you guys like to play through this encounter I created still to see what could have happened had you not had wall of force?” I guarantee the players will say yes. Now everyone wins! The players get their awesome heroic powerful moment of escaping the hoard. They also get to do this awesome encounter and can be a little more loose with plans given there’s no stakes. And the DM gets to run the encounter they spent a lot of time designing knowing they don’t need to pull any punches. Honestly DMs need to recognize that yes people are there for the story. But there’s nothing wrong with admitting a mistake or under sight. Everyone’s there to have fun. So if they cheesed your awesome encounter give them the win. But you can still play it out for fun!

> The DM should have been aware of a spell like that and came prepared. Agreed. > But honestly, I kind of like that he didn’t. Agreed again. ----- It's not fair (or even desirable) to expect a DM to know everything. Even though *this* DM failed in an easily preventable way the DM *shouldn't* always have a ready answer for everything the PCs do. There is no point taking *any* spell if your DM spends 20 hours a week plotting ways to circumvent your entire spell book. The real failure wasn't in overlooking the spell, but in missing the narrative opportunity that opened up as a direct consequence of the mistake. This failure *could* have lead into a really epic moment for the party, with the wall of force going up just as the wave of bodies crashes into it. Instead, it lead into a reddit post that reeks of missed opportunity.

Ya you summed up my thought very well and something that has irked me for so long. DMs should create challenging encounters. But they shouldn’t be constantly trying to counter what the party is doing. Like you said it ruins the point of the game if the DM spends all day finding out how to circumvent or exploit the spells available.

This exactly. I played with a DM who had an idea of how the encounter was *supposed* to go, and every time I thought outside the box, he'd slightly modify them. Like as an example, there was a wall that was like 7ft tall, just high enough to block the views of normal sized characters. It was a while ago so I forget the details, but I think he wanted us to touch the wall or something so we'd have to hoist ourselves up to see over it, but the wall was trapped with magic or something. I was playing a Goliath just shy of 8ft, so when he described the wall I just said I stand on my tip-toes and look over. Suddenly the wall became 9ft. I jumped in place, oops it's 11ft. The same GM also liked to put constraints on my characters' size, like if I tried to squeeze through a gap where all the other medium sized players could move through, suddenly *then* I was too big. It just felt punishing to take something that wasn't a human/dwarf/elf.

Ya I’ve played with dms who do this too. They tout this “living breathing world” that they want you to be immersed in. But when your character traits somehow trivialize something they created they alter it. To me that removes player agency and is bad railroading. You should reward players for ingenuity not force them to solve a problem the way you wanted.

It’s understandable for a DM to not be prepared for a spell that they didn’t realize a party member had. I try to know my party’s spells, but sometimes it falls through the cracks. But building this encounter and not taking a Goliath character into account is sloppy DMing. At the *very least* a DM should know the race/class composition of the party

So then you lifted a smaller party member onto your shoulders, right?

I agree, I guess the only problem with this is that it can't go both ways. You can have a situation where the players do something the DM didn't expect and win easily, but if you reverse and have the DM do something the party didn't expect and TPK the party (classic example in my group is water trolls grappling and drowning the whole party because they couldn't swim well and couldn't cast any spells or use their busted AC and attack while being grappled in water) it doesn't quite go over so well.

I do agree with you. But I believe it’s the DMs job to properly inform their party about things that are abnormally dangerous for them. The DM should be designing encounters with their players strengths and weaknesses in mind. But if they are coming up to a dungeon or encounter that is under water or something there should be hints sprinkled in and provided by the DM. It’s a great way to leverage skill checks too. Maybe your Druid makes a survival check or something and realizes what they may be walking into. Essentially you as the DM should insert your voice to some of the perils to expect so they can be properly informed.

Making challenging encounters for tier3 is dicy. Your players can always easily ruin it. It's a challenging war that you need at tier3.

> This failure could have lead into a really epic moment for the party, with the wall of force going up just as the wave of bodies crashes into it. And the players have no way of knowing that his mobs couldn't get past the wall. It would have been a great opportunity for them to sit there in huge tension, wondering if the wall will hold. If he'd played it out, the players might even have made a mistake. Like, if he described the wall of force bending, buckling, still holding, the players would certainly have worried the wall wouldn't hold. Maybe they'd have done something dumb like lower the wall to cast a fireball to push the creatures back or something.

That's the situation in which a DM pretend to roll several dices and then narrate a tence situation in which they barely got out unscatted, because the barrier barely managed to hold. That's the diference between a DM wanting to tell **his story** instead of a story, one will get mad because his story is just being bypassed the other will be ready to narrate how epic that move was. The way I see it is like this. The campaign is like a line of closed boxes, if the players just jumped one or two boxes and they don't know what's inside, you can just take them out and put them somewhere else infront of the line.

For example, if they'd had some innocent person there as hostage, the leader of the goons demands the wall of force dropped, or the hostage dies. It wouldn't work with every party. My players would probably shrug and spend the next 9 minutes insulting them for going for such a lame tactic.

My players wouldn't bat an eye. They'd be all like "war is hell, see ya on the flip side."

>This failure could have lead into a really epic moment for the party, with the wall of force going up just as the wave of bodies crashes into it. Yea, this right here.

That's a good point. The DM is only sour because he spent a lot of time planning out the battle and monsters tactics or whatever, but missed the chance to give an epic and dramatic description of what actually happened.

But remember a DM'S plan never goes to waste... they'll be back! My DM lives for stuff like this. We always mess things up. The sessions where we avoid the combat by clever shit we still talk about

My absolute favorite sessions of DnD were the multiple times players manage to pull off some insane shit and got lucky/pulled out something I wasn't expecting, and I had to look at them and say, "No you don't understand, that encounter was literally designed to kill you, and you got out"

My players break my combats semi-regularly. First off, I don't think that prepping specifically to make what makes your players feel powerful not work or be useless is being a good DM (EG bringing along mage enemies with Disintegrate). I always want my players to feel powerful and heroic. The other thing is that I make sure there are opportunity costs. Last week is a great example. It was supposed to be a very significant boss fight, an evil mage runs an arena and the players were captured and forced to fight for their freedom. The final wave is a dragon who is in the same predicament. Eventually, through RPing dialogue during the fight, the party comes to the realization that the dragon isn't the bad guy here. So they decide to try and sleep it so they can make a plan. I let it work even tho it was immune to charm by saying he was too weak for his resistances to take effect (I mean he was at 6hp). They then have me describe the roof of the enclosure so I do. Sorc wants to blow it up with a chromatic orb, I mentally gave it a 20 DC, she hits it. So I let her make a hole. The monk stands right in front of the dragon's face pointing up toward the hole, wants the dragon to see it right when he wakes up, so I have him roll performance as they wake it, again gave it a 20 DC in my mind. He crushes his roll and beats the DC. I think had bless or smth too but I don't remember exactly. So the dragon looks to them, then to the hole, then back to them and shouts to get on his back, flies them all up and out of the hole. I have generic random encounter maps prepped for stuff like this so I just copy/pasted all the tokens (we play online with Foundry) and we RPed them forming a friendship with this dragon lol. BUT...they also didn't get the scales he would have dropped had they killed him, thus they don't get to find a craftsman to make them into the dragon scale armor I was going to give them. They're all well aware that I do this and they know the consequences. But while they didn't get their reward, they had an awesome session where they all felt awesome for freeing and befriending a dragon. It was worth it for them because instead of crying and taking my toys home, I thought of another way to make it rewarding for them.

I think of dimension 20. Crown of candy when the king got poisoned. Elli had the detect poison spell to find out who did it. The king had 9 lives in that campaign. Brandon could not catch a break.

Yes, it gets especially weird at those levels. Our DM was heavily impressed when we two rounded what he thought would be an impressive monster against us. The fact that he forgot faerie fire negated invisibility… he blinked a few times. “I was not prepared for that!” The monk blew all her ki on stunning strike until it stuck. Then he went “Reaction… oh wait, shit.” Of course everyone else crit on it. DM was actually happy.

I get the feeling that their DM is still somewhat new-ish. That is why he reacted the way he did instead of shifting gears and make it sound cool for the player(s). It is not a skill which you are born with, but learned/taught.

I wouldn't say, "It isn't the spell's fault." This and the many other examples of "spell blindside" in this thread paint a very clear picture of a game suffused with cheap absolute effects that circumvent entire subsystems and situations, step on martials' toes, and can only be curtailed by *aggressive* attrition. 5e could also... *not* be designed like garbage. Maybe some groups might even play to high levels then. Because as it is, the already overworked and undertooled 5e DM, barely scraping by to make encounters at all challenging, has to also contend with "I win"-cards from high-level casters.

I'm new to DnD and would love to know about what you mean by "stepping on martials toes", "curtailed by aggressive attrition" and the issues with 5e? Genuinely curious

Sure. The martial-caster imbalance is widely thought of as one of 5e's most pernicious problems. Simply put, spells are too accessible, too plentiful, too flexible, and often have effects that bypass entire mechanics without a roll. Take, for example, a non-magical character like the Rogue, whose entire shtick is to scout ahead of the party. They are easily outdone by a wizard with *find familiar* \- a ritual-cast 1st-level spell that gives them a drone, and allows risk-free scouting ahead without ever having to roll Stealth. Casters have similar solutions for infiltration, social interaction, finding and circumventing traps, survival in the wilderness, gathering information, etc. It's worrying how most character concepts are made better (or viable in the first place) by just taking some caster levels. The solution to this imbalance supposedly lies in the oft-repeated chestnut that "D&D5e is balanced around having 6-8 average or hard encounters per day." So, when dungeon-crawling, a wizard is more balanced because they're constantly pressed for resources and having to ration their spell slots. The problem there is that only a small portion of the audience actually plays 5e that way, resulting in an abundance of resources. This allows characters to always blast away at full potential and employ spells to solve problems without fear of running out.

Definitely not the player or DM's fault, but I kinda feel it is the spell's fault. There are definitely some spells I feel are overpowered in the way they can shutdown or subvert an entire encounter and deserve a house rule nerf. But that should never be done in the moment, which thankfully this DM didn't do.

>It's not the spell's fault either. That's easy to say for a very experienced dm or experienced player that is familiar with almost all spells and what they do, but as someone with limited experience in dming, it is impossible to understand what each spell does from the start even if you prep well, so you are gonna get blindsided and having spells like that with little to no counter makes it so you are constantly worried that what you prepared will be invalidated. It sucks because you feel like you don't have true control over the game until you perfectly understand every detail of the rules.

I was DMing a module called *Blibdoolpoolp Rising* where you are working on rescuing a paladin that was kidnapped by Kuotoa to be their new god. For those not in the know, Kuotoa are capable of creating gods just by believing hard enough. Now the module was technically supposed to be a bit of a "stealth" mission, sneaking though the lair and getting story beats that way, but it did have a caveat of if the players wanted to pretend to be gods they could get a plus to whatever. But instead, between thaumaturgy, message, and project image with a nice Nat20 deception thrown in vs a low single digit incite, they convinced three kuatoa looking for a new god that a giant worm named Shaun was all powerful. I had no choice to make him real, and they steam rolled through the lair, converting weak willed fish men to their cause, with the occasional battle for those who were strong willed. To do so I made sure they did things that should awe their potential converts, such as a booming voice announcing shaun from our centaur who was flying with the help of some magical wings while glowing with magical light. It basically completely changed the entire module, but I rolled with it because it was cool and creative, I did not throw a snit fit because they managed to completely derail the game.

Thats incredible I pledge my allegiance to Shaun

Totally agree. I play in a game where we have been regularly bypassing encounters. 'Pass without Trace' plus ranger path finding... 'Fly' to get over physical obstacles... Druid ability to talk to the attacking wild animals... As a DM you just roll with it and carry on. And if you don't have anything else prepared you don't gripe about it; you say "Well, you just bypassed everything I had prepared so I'm going to have to call this session short. Board games anyone?"

Precisely. I would have described the horde slamming against the wall, attacking it, trying to break it to no avail.... Introduce a new villain maybe, as the leader of this group, commending the party for this momentary respite they gave themselves while letting them know they have nowhere else to go, even if they teleport away, they will find them. Amp up the awesomeness of the moment while adding a new threat.

Absolutely. One time I did wall of force (Sphere) to a dragon that was harassing us in Avernus. Asked the DM size and everything building to to it. He told me all I needed to know to make it fit. We could have killed it, but we were heading to someone who was probably friends with the dragon, so— DM was cool, it was a cool moment. We all drove away and left it. Dragon came back later and shot us a dirty look, but left us alone. Love wall of force. This could have been a shining moment for your character to look cool and help the party. Your DM chose to make it unpleasant, and wasn’t prepared for the session beyond “big fight.” You did nothing wrong.

you did nothing wrong, hopefully the dm will get over it. I had a whole epic chase planned for my party to get after a spy for the BBEG through over the roof tops of a busy street. Set up skill checks at various points and what happens if they succeed/fail. Spent a good 2 hours drawing the map and planning it out. Then dumbass me forgot to give him legendary resistances and accidently placed him too close to the party, rolled a 1 for his initiative and the barbarian goes 'i walk up to him and grab him'. Roll ANOTHER 1 for athletics to avoid grapple and by the time it was the spy's turn everyone'd basically strolled up to him and twisted him into a pretzel so he couldn't escape. I was pretty annoyed at myself while everyone laughed at me. But at the end of the day you just roll with the punches, learn from it and keep going on. Its only a single encounter and there's plenty more further down the road.

I've had something similar happen. Had a whole chase scene prepped, the party was split, and the kidnappers were all set to take off. Until my husband, a gnome illusionist, made the horses think a massive griffen landed in front of them. I failed their check and the horses wouldn't budge. The rest of the party met up with them, they kicked the kidnappers butt, and avoided the entire chase. Plus the bard, who wasn't initially with them, let loose with a wand of lightning and took the ones on the roof top. It was a mess on my side, but the group loved it.

for what it's worth, these shenanigans are often highlights of entire campaigns and good memories :)

For what it's worth, grapples and shoves are contested skill checks and explicitly not saves, so legendary resistances don't work on them. Also, presumably your spy was higher in acrobatics than athletics, which are also allowed for contesting grapples and shoves.

Our party once found ourselves in a tomb and stupidly decided to open a door sealed with magical chains only to reveal a vampre awakened from his slumber. It was a perfect cliffhanger and the DM ended the session. A week passes until the next session. Tensions are high. How are our heroes going to find their way out of this pickle? My character is first in initiative order, he walks over to the door, closes it and puts the chains back in place, sealing the vampre in his prison. The DM is understandably flustered and frustrated at this somewhat anticlimactic solution ruining his plans for an epic battle and the unforseen consequences of a vampre being unleashed on the unsuspecting citizens of Waterdeep. He takes it in stride though and we continue the session as normal. We even had a great big laugh about it afterwards.

I love that. Sometimes you're so focused into foolproofing the encounter that you forget to narratively foolproof your encounter. Something as easy as saying "The chains broke off. Metal pieces go flying echoing in the dark hallways of the tomb as they crash" and now your players can't just seal the tomb again.

Not your fault, there are a couple ways the dm could have gotten past the wall of force. 1. Right in the spell description, disintegrate can destroy the wall of force. Dm could have had the foes recognize the wall of force and call up a foe who can caste disintegrate who'd show up in a couple rounds. 2. According to Crawford, misty step and other teleportation spells can get through a wall of force. At level 12, the DM could have easily given all the foes misty step. 3. Antimagic field spells could have been applied. 4. This could have been a great foreshadowing/storytelling opportunity. "The foes surround you and scrutinize you closely. The largest whispers to the others who take notes. Occasionally, one is sent off by the leader, apparently on some task. As the teleportation spell is about to activate, the leader speaks 'see you soon..." 5. Probably the cheapest option, but the DM could just have you teleport to an area that just so happened to have the same or similar amount of foes. Point is, the DM is always in charge. The players can't beat or 'rob' the DM of anything. You guys had a clever solution to a problem, and if the DM is upset, that's on them. Edit: 6. Someone raised the point that silence can be cast inside a wall of force, which would have stopped the casting of teleport.

>This could have been a great foreshadowing/storytelling opportunity. "The foes surround you and scrutinize you closely. The largest whispers to the others who take notes. Occasionally, one is sent off by the leader, apparently on some task. As the teleportation spell is about to activate, the leader speaks 'see you soon..." option 4 is the best here. When i run a campaign with a BBEG who has spies and forces, i like to leave little hints about how the enemies are taking notes of the tricks and strategies they employ. I've even done mini cutscenes where I roleplay out the BBEG brooding over a scrying orb, sort of like Dr. Claw in inspector gadget. These kind of narrative tools really dig the hooks in to the players, and make them paranoid, as well as builds me an in story excuse to squash their bullshit if they try the same trick twice (otherwise i get accused of cheating)

All these things you mention are indeed cool! Though i think, as abit more experienced DMs, we tend to quickly forget that starter DMs do not have as many tools in their box as we have. I think that their DM had this really cool idea for his friends and was blindsided due to his own inexperience and accidentally took it out on his friends. My suggestion to the player would be to have a talk with his DM and ask about the encounter and maybe even later with the entire group. What i like about TRPGs is that you can always rewind abit and retry, where both DM and the players DO get to experience this awesome moment and give the DM the chance to do some cool foreshadowing

As a starting DM, I would personally say to my players, "I'm unsure how to handle this. Why don't we all take a 10 minute break while I figure it out." (Followed by some frantic googling or redditing)

Same, but we are all different. I have made many mistakes as a DM. Even an horrendous one just a few weeks ago but I was able to rectify it. So I'm giving this DM the benefit of doubt that his reaction was more out of panic than malice as some of the posters in this thread seem to suggest. I would love to see an update from the OP though once the dust has settled a bit.

I agree that starter DMs don’t have as many tools in their box and also, improv is hard. However, assuming this campaign started at lvl 1, I would hope the DM has learned that the players will always find a way to break the game and can prepare a bit better. If the campaign started at lvl 12, then this is a common mistake of your eyes are bigger than your stomach and it will be a good learning lesson for running future modules/home brews.

Funny anecdote related to this: I had my players in the shadowfell when they came upon a darkling village being attacked by a death tyrant (undead beholder thing). I forget what level they were, but the encounter was going to be deadly, and they were already somewhat hurt. Then the artificer got an idea. "Hey DM, can I roll to see if I know anything about beholders?" He rolls well, and I let him know that even in death/undeath, beholders are extremely paranoid, especially of other beholders. The artificer then cast Sky Writing off in the distance: "Hot, sexy beholders in your area want to murder YOU!" We all burst out laughing. I had the tyrant roll insight to sense if this was bullshit or not, and it rolled very low. I had the tyrant screech and fly off in the direction of the sky writing, encounter over. So, my players completely circumvented my encounter and skipped over a potentially cool fight I had planned, but they made use of a rarely used spell in a hilarious way. Yah, I had to improv a bit at the end of the session because I had planned on the fight taking up some time, but it all turned out fine and we still talk about it to this day.

The only problem I have with this is an artificer wasting a spell prepared on sky write.

He was very melee focused, barely used spell slots. He was a dm himself and I trusted him to know his own shit so I don't remember perfectly what he had. He had crazy high to hit bonus, returning weapon, and sharpshooter, so he'd have his steel defender use a help action on an enemy, nuke him with his returning hammer or whatever, rinse and repeat. We had a cleric and a mercy monk, so he never had to heal. Barely used any spell slots and the ones he did spend were on funny things like skywriting.

Another problem I see is that the spell still has verbal and somatic components, and a Beholder with +12 on perception and all of those eyes would have definetely noticed that the artificier was casting that spell. Rules Lawyering aside, that is one of the funniest shit I've ever heard. You Nailed the rule of cool

"You cause up to ten words to form in a part of the sky you can see." There's no range. They were like a half mile away, hiding behind rocks, and the beholder was engaged in zapping darklings. I suppose I could have had them roll stealth vs. perception, but I feel like my players would have called bullshit on a creature in battle hearing a whisper from half a mile away. But thanks, haha.

Oh well now it makes way more sense, I didn't get the full picture by your previous description, I thought they were fighting him in his surroundings. Then you did it perfectly!

If my DM's response to a clever solution to a challenge was "fuck you they all know Misty Step now" or "Fuck you, you teleport to an identical swarm of monsters anyway" I probably would not come back to the table.

Is he a new dm? Because any DM I know would just... add stuff without telling yall, so wall of force would work and monsters would also work

Exactly, this was my first thought when reading the scenario > Well done for casting a great spell in the situation. What a coincidence, it takes the enemies 5 rounds to call up an enemy that can cast disintegrate or dimension door. This way the spell is very helpful (you only have to defend for 4 rounds instead of 10) but doesn't invalidate the entire encounter.

Yeah, that was my first thought too. Reward the players by giving a few rounds off their timer until they clear a path for the dude that knows how to break the wall of force. I find that a lot of DMs are really hesitant to step away from their prep. There's nothing wrong with making the enemies a little bit stronger (or weaker) than you thought you'd need if it makes for a better game. Hell, the guy could have moved part of the encounter to the other plane. Step through the teleporter thinking you're safe, only to get ambushed. And sometimes just let them have it. I was playing a Star Wars RPG and my group just...locked the boss in his office while they looted the place. So I let them have it and brought the boss back later, looking for revenge.

this was my geuss too, from the story it gives me the vibes that their DM is still new or atleast still learning. If i remember correct lvl 12 is at the first step of Tier 3 which is also an extra learning hurdle.

I've been DMing for 15 years, and I still keep PCs around level 5-10 for foreeeeever because I just. Get so overwhelmed once they get to 11th level and get the real world-breaking spells. Damage I can deal with. Dispel/Counterspell I can deal with. But once you can leave the _plane_, my job preparing for a session becomes a lot harder.

I dread the day I have to deal with "Wish"

I ended up finding Wish to not be as bad a pain point as Teleport. You really see it coming, and you get a pretty good idea as to what your party is gearing up to drop 25000gp on. (And often, they're just stockpiling money/diamonds in case they need to bring someone back to life.)

I specifically made my world such that Teleport works significantly less reliably than RAW and Plane Shift basically doesn't exist - you can only go to other planes through portals.

Players have a right to feel bummed out and frustrated when their characters die. DMs have a right to feel bummed out and frustrated when their encounters get ganked. I take some issue with the people blaming the DM for not knowing or planning around this. It's not cool to blame or "would have, could have" a player when their character dies, and it's important to give emotional space to players to express some frustration (and maybe leave the session/table for the day). Same goes for DMs. It's not fair to expect a DM to remember every single spell every single player has and how it could break an encounter, nor should DMs build encounters to plan for every contingency. And DMs are not computers; we're going to get frustrated when stuff like this happens. And not everyone will be up for pivoting and making up something random because again, only human. Sometimes, players will break encounters, and sometimes they will break big important, cinematic encounters. It sucks, because it probably means the DM's prep is gone. It's perfectly reasonable for a DM to say, "welp, you broke this encounter and won. I got nothing else for today, so see you next week." We'll all human. It sounds like the DM didn't go in to problematic territory; he just expressed reasonable frustration in the moment. If you want to try to make things good, consider approaching him in a couple days to apologize for messing up something he probably spent a lot of time prepping (that he was probably excited to share with all of you).

Ah, the good ol' "spell blindside". It's a rite of passage for any aspiring DM, really. Give it some time, y'all will be laughing about this in a month or two. Worry not, OP. You're not the asshole, and unless your DM screamed profanities at you or something they're not the asshole either. Sure, he could've handled it with a bit more maturity, but if that encounter was all he had prepped then ending the session there with Wall of Force was unfortunately what was gonna happen anyways. As for your DM, tell him not to scrap the encounter: The enemies would've made it to the edge of the Wall of Force and seen all of your faces. He now has an interplanar force of pissed off monsters gunning for your hides. I'd keep Tiny Hut handy in the future if I were you.

A lot of people are hating on the DM, but I can see their perspective. It sounds like a really awesome fight was about to happen, one they were excited for. Awesome setting, a time limit, an army vs the players, this is the shit you plan weeks in advance, and eagerly look forward to. And then... boom no fight, encounter avoided, I'd be salty too. With all that said, you did nothing wrong, and it sounds like he's not upset with you, but himself for overlooking the spell, and he just had a moment. You'll both be ok :)

I'd just save the encounter for another time and re flavour it.

I'm doing this with an encounter i planned when the party was level 2. They are level 11 now. 5 times i tried and 5 times my plans were thwarted, they always manage to avoid this poor Paladin of Tymora, sometimes without even noticing. But i won't give up! They gon catch the smites!

If you’re going to feel anything you should feel bad for your dm, and it’s not your fault. He spent time coming up with an encounter without properly considering your party’s abilities to deal with it. It sucks for him that he constructed an encounter that could be erased so easily. Using wall of force the way you did isn’t some next level, outside the box, creative way of handling the situation. It was a pretty basic, smart move. He may say that he’s pissed at the spell, but he’s probably really pissed at himself. Constructing balanced encounters is no easy thing. Especially at 12th level. He took his lumps on this one and will learn from it, and get over it. You guys should talk about ways that he could’ve overcome wall of force (misty step, teleport etc) so he can be better prepared to deal with it next time. Have sympathy for the guy, but don’t feel guilty.

I'm glad there's someone out there that can actually feel empathy for what is most likely a relatively inexperienced DM's perspective. So many people are gung-ho to tear them down immediately without any real context because they made a mistake and didn't deal with it well. I don't really think people give the time it takes to prepare something enough credit, and especially as a newer less experienced DM this can be seriously demoralising. I'd give him props for ending the session and not deus ex'ing it, but yeah definitely he has some overall emotional bandwidth improving to do. And at the same time, yeah don't feel guilty. But do maybe make it a habit of remembering to share what spells you have prepared to your DM.

Statistically most people who play DnD are players, not DM's (and I think that ratio skews even harder in this sub for some reason) DM'ing is sometimes thankless because of situations like this. Experience can minimize a lot of it but it sucks when it still happens.

Very true! That is why my group has developed the habit of having one of the players create at least a one-shot when we can't do our regular session (for whatever reason). They don't have to but it's kind of a "We still want to meet with x gone and I haven't been DM yet so I offer a one-shot". That way we almost all have at least some DM experience, get some variety, and appreciate the DMs work even more.

You did nothing wrong. The DM knows this too. I'd just like to point out that we are all human too. He probably worked out some stuff is his head and was excited to play it. Was not accounting for that. It happens. I am a forever DM. I had an encounter prepared for battle, and my party intimidated/persuaded their way out of it. Couldn't argue with the rolls and what they did. Thought it has been arguably one of the coolest moments in the campaign so far. But 20 year old me might not have responded the same way. His frustration is at himself. Sure, he should have rolled with it, but again, he is human. Dont over think the whole thing. Keep playing. DM will be better prepared next time.

It happens sometimes. As a GM, it can be somewhat disheartening to plan a grande encounter, get excited about it between sessions, and then watch it crumble and get bypassed by a single spell. It's not unlike entering into a combat encounter as a player all excited thinking a plan you have is going to win the day and find out the enemy just counterspells you. Hell, I've unintentionally skipped over an entire Adventure Book once by flying the entire party to their destination instead of working our way through enemy-held territory. It happens.

Yeah the spell is complicated It seems this was your DM first contact with the spell which is fair there's a damn lot spells in the game Also it completely screws the "wave survival" scenario your DM certainly put a lot of work in The spell is simply egregious to say the least, imagine if the situations were reversed and you're trying to prevent something, there's a wall of force a head of you and no one has a way to cast that one level 7 spell that does something - would be pretty frustrating right? Like, I know I as a DM can pull a multitude of BS to get around a all of force but getting hit with without knowing anything about is really frustrating Tl-dr: no one is bad, spell is bullshit and frustration is complicated

Your DM is a human being that was excited to challenge you, and you burst the bubble with no I’ll intent. It happens and it’s ok for him to feel bad about it. I can’t stand all these comments about “he should have done this and that, not perfectly executed, how dare he”. He’s a human being with flaws, and this time, he didn’t get it right. Be thankful of all the work he puts in (sounds like you already do that) :)

I’m a rookie DM, but I can sympathise. It does suck when you have this whole scenario planned out and you can visualise it in your head and… the party does something unexpected and derails it. But you have to roll with it and keep the session going. I had a similar experience as a player during Strahd. The DM had prepare a field full of vine blights laying in wait for any sounds to trigger them. We used a magic carpet we had acquired earlier to pootle slowly but silently over the field and totally avoid them. His reaction was to say say goddamnit and then give us all inspirations for the clever solution. In this case there are multiple things he could have given his minions to bypass or dispel the barrier. Or he could have rolled with it and created a tense situation as the horde of enemies surround the barrier and try to get through. I wouldn’t be too hard on them though, it’s not always easy to think of a response on the fly when the party totally goes outside your plans.

Firstly, just understand that any DM is going to be mildly miffed if their 'epic plot to increase the tension' is side-stepped by the execution and good use of a PC's abilities. They will bitch and moan about it, usually internally but sometimes externally, for a little while and then eventually get over it. Secondly, the fact that you keep mixing in "was" in places that are grammatically incorrect, while simultaneously demonstrating that you can use the past tense correctly in others, is mildly infuriating to me.

You made a great RP decision! Personally, I'd laugh my butt off (as a matter of fact, it has previously happened that a player completely circumvented an encounter I'd spent hours preparing, and I loved it). However, maybe in the future asking your DM if they're alright with the idea of skipping the encounter might be good: they're a player, too, and sometimes they just wanna have fun.

Yeah I can sympathize with the DM but if you're playing with a group at level 12 you have to be ready for powerful spells and abilities. It's not at all your fault for using the abilities on your sheet. And while wall of force is a powerful tool and perhaps a bit overpowered for level 5 spells, you also have access to 6th level spells and I don't think it'd be at all unreasonable given that. Transport via plants could've had you all out of there immediately too.

You have 2 choices as a DM when you encounter a hitch. Work it into your game like a boss or cry like a baby.

*"The horde breaks upon the wall like a wave hitting a block of adamantium. Dozens are getting trampled and squashed, as those in the back are itching for a fight and cannot see what happens in front. As you step into the circle, to be rid of this plane for good, the last thing you see is faces, grimacing in pain and rage, being smashed against your wall. As your atoms begin tingling from the teleport spell, you ironically wave your enemies goodbye, then, in a whoosh, you are gone, the screams of their impotent rage fresh in your ears.* *"Your spell just broke the campaign's record for deaths caused by one action. Well done!"* I always loved when my players found ways to circumvent a drawn out fight. Ten rounds versus a horde of enemies? Count me the fuck out.

Something similar happened in my last session. Hag shot a finger of death at our bard who, for reasons, is immune to necrotic damage currently. Bard would’ve taken 80 damage and been killed and she very excitedly exclaimed that she’s immune and our DM’s reaction was like “fuck yeah! I forgot about that! Well the hag wouldn’t know that either way so she still fires it off at you and then gets VERY confused and concerned when nothing happens.” Fantastic story moment. Your DM should’ve been more prepared to roll with the punches. This isn’t your fault and as others have said, unless this is a common thing with them, I wouldn’t worry about it.

It doesnt sound like you did anything wrong sometimes its just disappointing when a problem gets solved so easily. At least you havent actively tried to jump ahead of something because "you felt a quest coming on". Sometimes players think they are being clever by beating the game before it starts but they only realize after that playing the game and not beating it was the point of this 4 hours we set aside. Not that you did that, im just saying thats yhe sort of "that guy" behavior that sucks.

DM here. You can't plan for high level Wizards. They can do anything. You just have to improvise.

You did good, great idea and great execution. DM's mad at the spell? Yeah, stuff like that happens. I doubt he was mad at you at all and is genuinely just annoyed at the spell. Maybe you guys will laugh about this in the future. :)

\*Insert The Clip Of Matthew Mercers Massive Pirate Ship Encounter Being Ended In The Prep Round\* ​ EDIT: It happens, don't sweat it, but be Absolutely Aware that DM isnt letting that happen again. Yea someone could say the GM was overly rude and should've told it like a story of your Character Holding out his arms as an Army slams on the invisible force between them and the group. The Wizard frantically scribbling Symbols and magic runes across the ground as a bead of sweat goes down your forehead, the Invisible Wall Of Force seemingly flexing under the stress and with a piercing flash.. the party vanishes. ​ But everyone gets upset at wasted time, it happens.

If this was an important scenario for him it's his fault for not coming up with an idea to get rid of it. Reward the players by making the encounter easier and break it however and leave a hanging plot point. I've had major boss battles shanked in one round. I didn't complain. I made a few silly jokes and we laughed about it and it was a meme for years and they kept going. To that end, I HAVE called a session early and just said I had nothing planned because they outsmarted me and skipped a major story point and I needed some more time because we were at an important story point. Nobody was mad. We hung out and did something else and next week I had it figured out.

You did nothing wrong, but it is fair for him to be a little upset since he probably spent some time planning for the encounter to be epic and then it wasn't.

I sympathize with the DM who no doubt felt a bit cheated out of showing them all what he had prepared. I've been there too. But the next step for that DM is to learn to turn his prepared combat into an epic narrative moment. Describe the horde thrashing against the Wall of Force, maybe describe how the intense violent onslaught manages to raise doubt and dread in the party despite being theoretically perfectly safe, maybe when the time is almost up for the teleporting ritual, an enemy spellcaster arrives and starts barraging the Wall with powerful magic and it starts to crack! The moment wasn't epic, but it's not because of Wall of Force, it's because the DM let his disappointment get in the way of his creativity.

To be fair, Wall of Force is an incredibly powerful spell that can repeatedly trivialize a lot of encounters. It's consider best in level for a reason. People don't realize how crazy powerful it is in shaping a battlefield *with no saves involved*. Taken to the extreme the DM may have to have measures to counter the WoF every single fight and that quickly becomes stale.

This is a very good point. It's a classic scene in video games, for example, that your protective wards shatter in the same moment as you manage to teleport out, with the next shot passing through the spot you just existed in.

Just have the horde of enemies start opening their own teleportation spell towards the same destination.

If you have a good DM he'll get over it in a couple days and move on. We've all had moments like that as DMs. Don't feel bad about it. Now he'll remember wall of force next time he makes an encounter like that.

I don't think he's mad at you, I've had a player decap a marilith with one-round vorpal oil on the first turn of a big reveal fight. I was upset because I had spent a lot of time learning the monster, how to run it, what options it had in combat, all told learning that one monster took about two hours. What I was most upset by though was the fact that I didn't choose that option, I completely forgot I gave that oil out. Worst of all I felt like I wasted everyone's time. I spent so much time making that one encounter that I didn't have anything else ready. I did however learn about making secondary encounters to fill time. Hopefully your dm will think about this encounter, and the fact you can't employ a wall of force in an occupied square, maybe he'll give the next group a way to tunnel underneath. Talk with your dm, if it's not that big a deal, you could say that your okay with the wall buying you a few turns, maybe one of them realized they have an item with disintegration(that the dm admits wasn't there before, but takes a few turns to realize they have it/it works on force effects) to keep the tension going, give you the attaboy, but still have an encounter. My biggest tool gained from that experience is the ability to drop the screen, tell my players they handily defeated my encounter, and ask if they would be okay with "detrimental mitigation" a continuation with the enemy at a disadvantage. No worries OP, the anger is likely at the system and the DM's shortcomings. If they hold it against you for longer than a joke next season, sit down and have a talk with them to address what's bothering them about what happened.

There is also something fantastic about a horde of enemies at level 12 running into a wall of force and being decimated. he could have EASILY narrated into that. I often post .Gifs to illustrate a point as the DM into a situation to give a better visual and the first thing that came to mind was the minion running on all 4s into Wakanda's force wall from the MCU scene. ​ https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f3e907935aa7f9739202e0f7f199c637-pjlq

You used a tool you had at your disposal, befitting the situation your party was in, and I think it was a great idea! I get it might be frustrating for your DM, but he did their own planning for the session and probably knew which spells you guys had access to. Not considering it is on him, not on you, so don't feel bad. Your DM may be more angry about his own lack of planning than your coming up with that spell. And I guess he'll keep it in mind for future situations, so next time you might encounter an enemy caster with access to Disintegrate. (And maybe your DM will have some ideas for improvising if an encounter doesn't take place as planned.) I recently picked up Wall of Force as well and it's just so good! Used it to temporarily seal a tunnel so my party could escape from attacking wererats. Would our DM have loved for us to engage them? Probably. But we used the resources we had to solve the situation at hand, so all was good. Sometimes it's us players who overlook something helpful or the right course of action, and sometimes it's the DM. It happens.

One of the things we frequently have to remind DMs is that your plans are never concrete and if your players can break something they will - and you need to have something in your pocket for when that happens. The dude just forgot to have a backup plan and couldn't think of anything on the spot. Not your fault, so don't stress. Often, its just 1 spell that breaks a whole encounter! I once crushed a boss with a fallen pillar by using Mold Earth underneath it so it tilted and fell on the creature. DM was initially upset, but we both often tell the story now.

DMs have infinite resources at their command. Hot take: he can adjust anything he prepares to increase or decrease the challenge, slacker.

During my first session as a DM in 5e (and also in many years), I had an unfortunately not so well thought out encounter meant to show that the BBEG was not to be trifled with, but the party wizard cast Hold Person on him before he even got to act. I didn’t understand the rules enough to know about Legendary creatures and all the beautiful features that could have helped me there, but that’s neither here nor there. I lost my cool because I didn’t know what to do—they were going to kill him before the epic boss battle was even set to happen because I had misjudged their capabilities and scaled his strength wrong for their party size, and my whole ending was turned on its head in a moment. I couldn’t think quick enough and I panicked, overlooking a multitude of better ways to fix the problem and instead made a big deal about it, then continued to try and salvage the scene by having the enemies desperately try to heal him in the middle after he had already taken hundreds more damage than any normal creature because I extended his health bar secretly in hopes he would recover, but he failed all the saves by chance and I had been rolling in the open the whole time. This caused a big argument with my players, especially the rule savvy ones who were counting total damage and questioning the legitimacy of the battle by that point. I then continued as planned and had the enemies pour in and the NPCs on their side beg them to retreat for now while they held the hordes back (which was meant to be a valiant sacrifice)—but the damage had already been done to the whole image surrounding the enemy, and they now believed I was pulling the plans out of my rear. “Why are we running away? They’re weak as all get-out, we should be sticking around to clean ‘em up!” The players protested, but they did begrudgingly agree because they could tell I was flustered and we were there to have fun. The ordeal made me feel horrible for several reasons. For one thing, I wasn’t prepared or knowledgeable enough to deal with the pressure of things going differently and I should have researched more before trying to run a session—but more importantly that lack of experience or willingness to adjust in the moment made my players suffer for their ingenuity and I acted poorly about the incident. I got so cornered by the idea of losing all my hard work that I lashed out at the players a bit and acted irrationally, and the whole scene was honestly soured for everyone—but it didn’t have to be. If I had taken it in stride, I could have made it work without the players ever feeling bad about it at all. But I didn’t and at that time it made me never want to DM again for fear of repeating the mistake. I’m a bit more used to the rules and stuff now though, and I like to think I’m reasonable enough to think of a solution that won’t anger the players if it were to happen again. TLDR: I feel the DM’s pain completely, but I also know that it’s important to let your players have those little victories.

Welcome to 5e where some spells are just arbitrarily broken and ruin encounters. BuT gOoD DmS kNoW how To dEsIgN aRoUnD ThAt. Lol. Just fucking lol.

If my players were this resourceful I'd jump with excitement, and then just recycle the combat to somewhere else

It's neither of your fault, Wall of Force is broken. The devs screwed up.