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View Full Version : Evil Things a DM Can Do [3.5]



Salvonus
2009-01-13, 09:57 PM
No, no, I'm not trying to gather up a list of stuff to inflict on my players. I do want to hear the Playground's opinion, however, on some of the common (or not so common) pitfalls in DMing.

Ones I've commonly heard of are:

The classic "make the Paladin fall no matter what" crap.
Using Mage's Disjunction and ruining all their equipment.
Sundering valuable equipment.
Instant Death traps.
Killing off PCs out of a grudge.
Favoring one PC over another.


Can we expand that list?

One thing I'm not sure about is how evil sundering really is. It IS a pretty valid tactic in this game... Would it be better to just go for a disarming route if you want to strip PCs of their weapons (just to add another dimension to melee combat, really), or can sundering be considered acceptable when used in moderation? I kind of like the idea of using sunder, but it worries me that it might be just a little too unfair.

Canadian
2009-01-13, 10:03 PM
You can always get more equipment. I think that sundering it makes it very obvious that you're trying to remove the equipment in a forceful manner. If you can get rid of the gear through a more gentle tactic it wouldn't be evil at all. It all depends on how the players perceive your intent when removing a piece of equipment.

KillianHawkeye
2009-01-13, 10:31 PM
Personally, I wouldn't use sundering attacks in order to eliminate specific pieces of equipment from the PCs' arsenal. But if it makes sense for the creature to use that strategy, then I go ahead.

EDIT: To add something to the list, energy drain. Maybe it isn't super evil, but negative levels totally suck, and everybody hates getting stuck with them.

TakeV
2009-01-13, 10:33 PM
Over do grappling, when no one has any grappling ability...

Lycanthromancer
2009-01-13, 10:46 PM
Sundering is usually useless, and even when it's not it's generally a very bad idea.

It's useful against spellcasters that carry material component pouches, against spellcasters that carry holy symbols, against hydras, against characters with Vow of Poverty or Item Familiar, and against characters wielding weapons that nobody in their right minds would want to touch (such as that 'I kill any non-Evil creature who wields me' longsword-wielding blackguard). Other than the first two, it's an extremely niche-oriented feat at best. Against pretty much anything else, it's either useless (many monsters don't use equipment at all), or it means you're wrecking your soon-to-be spoils. If nothing else, the rest of the party is going to pretty hacked-off at you.

Heck, it's often better (at higher levels, at least) to be killed than to lose your +8 weapon of awesome. Which costs more, that near-epic item, or the cost of a resurrection or raise dead spell?

And sundering the players' items tends to be a Very Bad Thing (tm) as well, just for that fact. Destroying a character's signature item, whether it be his primary weapon, his best armor, or a component pouch or holy symbol, will nigh-destroy his viability, especially for a fighter. A wizard might be nerfed for a day or two, after which he can get a really cheap replacement pouch, but that barbarian just lost a sword that costs fully half of his wealth; that hurts.

It's the same with Mordenkainen's disjunction, only that's worse.

evil-frosty
2009-01-13, 11:08 PM
It was my understanding when i read sundering that u could sunder a body part like an arm or the monsters head, since thats the best way to kill a hydra, now if you could do that wouldnt sundering be worth it? Now i might of misread the rules but that was my understanding that you could break an item or body part of the creature. Like break his head or arm.

Keld Denar
2009-01-13, 11:10 PM
Sundering isn't that bad, depending on the nature of the campaign, and the DM. When I played Living Greyhawk, sundering was WAY worse than death because of the way wealth and xp happened. After each module, you got both cash and xp, and then item access. You used the cash to buy items you got access to. Thus, money was finite, and access was often limited. If you lost a bunch of gear and fell behind WBL, things got harder for you as a PC, and death was more likely. Death, on the other hand, was not so bad. My main character finished with like, 4 favors for half priced raise dead, 2 of which he used. When dying only costs you 2500g, but potentially 5-10 thousand xp, you put yourself quite a ways ahead of the WBL curve. Because of the way APL is calculated, its actually better to be lower level with more stuff, since you are ahead of the power curve. Because there is no "DM" for the campaign, if you fall way behind on WBL, you can't just have a plot exposition and find new gear. You have to earn it back, module by module. Oh, and cash per module is capped, for balance, so even if you find a dragon horde, you only get to keep part of it, depending on which APL you played at.

This all changes with a home game, and a normal DM. So, you have an epic fight with a Rust Dragon, losing your armor, your primary weapon, and your secondary weapon in the battle, finally killing it with your tertiary weapon. Dang, you just lost 100k gold worth of gear. Oh darn, now you have a dragon horde to loot, and look, magic weapons. Now you have new gear to replace the old, and where you fall on the WBL curve is restored to normal. This is possible because the DM has absolute control. Same with MDJ, or sundering, or getting captured, or any other possibilities. A good DM will scale back the EL to account for your relative position on the WBL curve, and things will be the same approximate challenge as if you had full gear. And sure enough, pretty soon you'll come back up to WBL, and resume fighting things of normal EL.

Look at a lot of truely epic fantasy stories. Many of them contain some point at which the hero is stripped of his Messerschmidt's Reaver of Doom, but he gets through it in noteably heroic fasion and eventually gets it back, or gets an upgrade. Drizzt did it when he left the Underdark, for example. He lost first one, then the other of his heavily enchanted adamantite scimitars, but was able to replace them in due time with Twinkle and Icingdeath. Now that's what I call an upgrade. Drizzt DM was challenging him and rewarded him for not moping around because he lost his weapons.

And then there is the case of a truely sadistic SoB of a DM, who takes all your stuff, and feeds you screaming to a random Tarrasque encounter. These are the power tripping bastard DMs you revolt against by voting with your feet. If its not fun for anyone but the DM, then the DM better be able to come up with new players to torture on a regular basis. If a DM is truely evil and takes all your crap and then pits you against horribly impossible encounters, then they aren't doign a good job at being a DM and should be reasoned with or removed.

Wealth and challenge are proportional. If the players have a lot, encounter should be hard. If they have only a little, then that should be taken into account, however they came into the situation where they have little.

EDIT:

It was my understanding when i read sundering that u could sunder a body part like an arm or the monsters head, since thats the best way to kill a hydra, now if you could do that wouldnt sundering be worth it? Now i might of misread the rules but that was my understanding that you could break an item or body part of the creature. Like break his head or arm.

No, you can't normally do that with a Sunder attack action. Hydra's specifically have an exception, due to their ties with mythology and whatnot. Cutting off heads is how Hercules did it back in the day. Normally though, it would be way deadly, since sundering someone's head would naturally kill them, making it the prefered method of killing since it completely negates the whole hp system. Does that make sense? Plus, being a PC would be incredibly dangerous, since you are often out numbered. Statistically speaking, if you had 20 single HD goblins all try to sunder your level 20 PCs head, one would succeed and insta-gib him, and thats not very heroic. If thats the way you like to play, there are other systems that are much more deadly, but D&D don't really work that way.

ChaosDefender24
2009-01-13, 11:21 PM
To elaborate on TakeV,

Any encounter in which the DM knows that the PC's aren't equipped to handle the fight,

Ex:

Put a diminutive swarm against a bunch of melee'ers
Flying ranged harriers against people who can't fight at range


And of course nullifying the PC's advantages.

Like immunities to the PCs' main attacks. Undead against precision/mind-affecting, magic circle against possession, etc. etc.e tc...


My PC's invariably have aurorum gear for a reason

Jade_Tarem
2009-01-13, 11:25 PM
One of my personal favorites (/sarcasm): the greased chute.

Perhaps the only railroading tactic more aggravating than box text. This DM fault is exactly like box text, but with the illusion of some kind of control - an illusion that only lasts until the players realize that there is no way out of their situation and there never was - usually at the expense of time and energy. While a good DM might be able to gently steer his PC's down a certain path (actually, he has to), creative or observent players will begin to notice jarring and sudden changes to the fight that gradually erode suspension of disbelief, such as monsters that suddenly gain much higher attack bonuses and hit dice, massive reinforcements from nowhere, spells with EL-inappropriate DCs being fired off, and the like. If questioned, the DM usually dodges with, "It's a really well-prepared ambush." Or perhaps, "Some members of X monster race are more powerful than others."

Right, a really well prepared group of monsters, who just happened to remember how to fight after twelve of them died. And invented merciful bazookas.

Look, if there's only one possible ending for the fight, just tell your players and move on. Don't force them through half an hour and twenty rounds of combat only to have them all leveled by a Great Wyrm at the end.

evil-frosty
2009-01-14, 12:14 AM
Keld Denar i see what you are seeing. Thats what i get for skimming some rules i guess. Thank you for clarifying it for me

Z-dan
2009-01-14, 05:58 AM
My favourite 'evil' dm thing to do, though it's more a rule-keeping thing... if a player is being annoying for whatever reason (such as a cleric who casts geas every day) bring in the inevitables! obviously buffed up a bit, but they work well, and you can invent a new one for every eventuality (like the OOC inevitable)

shadow_archmagi
2009-01-14, 06:09 AM
Cursed Helmet of Being Full of Water. They put it on, it clamps on, and then activates and fills with water, drowning them. It's the opposite of a diving helmet.

Cheesegear
2009-01-14, 06:32 AM
Cursed Helmet of Being Full of Water. They put it on, it clamps on, and then activates and fills with water, drowning them. It's the opposite of a diving helmet.

That would actually be awesome for one of those 'Aquatic' races who can't hack land for more than two minutes at a time.

Other 'evil' things include
- Introducing DMPCs. That hang around. That are ten levels above the averge party level. Usually have builds that look like Fighter 2 / Rogue 2 / Sorcerer X, and are always equipped for any situation.
- 'Targeting Weaknesses' can be a Well Played GM, or a Bastard. If the party doesn't have anyone with Trapfinding (which is a stupid move on their part), the DM can set all Trap CRs to 21, making them undisarmable. Or, the DM can fill all his encounters with Shivering Touch traps.
- 'Bad' Magic Items. Like the Ring of Invulnerability. The ring is invulnerable, not the wearer (Handy as a Doorstop). :smallwink: Or introducing a +5 Sword of Awesomness, except the sword refuses to harm living creatures (Constructs and Undead are all fair game though).
- Giving class levels to Dragons.

BobVosh
2009-01-14, 06:54 AM
++DMPC
-DMPC Lite: The DM's Girlfriend.
-Pulling out Tomb of Horrors/similiar
-Changing rules midcombat because they didn't like that.
-Railroading
-Ridiculus puzzles that require remember small things from 3 game sessions ago
-Bringing back a dracolich in one round from its phylactery that an animal companion somehow bit off in combat (what kind of damn lich keeps a soul-hidey place on itself?) killing the animal companion and "just after the buffs wear off" (this may, or may not be a specific nitpick...I told the guy I wanted to fight an evil, undead dragon...I meant it)
-Killing off a character of a player you know enjoys playing X chacter because you (you=DM in this case) really like one kind of setting specific class
-Anything from here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57805
-Screwing characters due to backstory, as per the classic: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784


Also on the spell component pouch: Who the hell only carries one? I got like 4 on all my characters. At first this was because I was afraid the DM would say I ran out (didn't know they didn't run out), then I decided I wasn't going to loose all my casting because someone grabbed my bag.