DM Custom monster TPK

[Quertus]

The issue isn't that the GM created a custom monster, it's that he through a grotesquely overpowered opponent at the PCs with no real warning. If crazy old jerk McNPC had turned out to be a polymorphed dragon you'd have had essentially the same issues.

That's pretty much my point. But the OP's tone was blaming the custom nature of the monster, rather than the ridiculously overpowered nature of the encounter.

The PCs didn't blunder into this encounter, the DM had the NPC quite deliberately pick a fight with them.

Did the pc's know who the NPC was, or what the monster could do? Did they go in, prepared via scouting or research? Or did they just kick in the doors and attack? This is what I mean by blundering into an encounter.

No, the NPC didn't pick a fight with them, he bullied him. Did the GM follow the "rule of 3" for giving the PCs enough hints that he was overpowered? Let's see... He's 1) a monster hunter who 2) believes he can bully the PCs. He 3) gets the drop on them with 4) a non-fatal trap, and 5) lets them live. He can not just 6) create golems, but has even 7) created his own custom designs. Although I'd say that these are horrible hints, there certainly are plenty of them, even from what the we have in the OP's description.

One, the party's apparent options boiled down to 1) allow themselves to be robbed or 2) fight an overpowered opponent with special DM-fiat powers.

Did they? I've been in few games where "call down the law" and "research the scary guy, plot your revenge" wouldn't have also been valid options. And that's without knowing anything about the specifics of the situation, which might have provided more options.

The important takeaway is that the DM allows the creation of custom content. So become the overpowered opponent with DM fiat powers. When life gives you lemons, and all that.

Two, given the numbers involved the result can't really be brushed off as a result of poor optimization on the part of the players. As Efrate pointed out, the monster's death throes dealt sufficient damage to kill virtually any character at that level regardless of optimization.

I didn't say that the players were poor optimizers. But I have known people who had the mentality, "bring the very best possible build, or die". So it is technically possible that this is an (extremely high) optimization issue.

My goal is to help the OP see the various possibilities, so that they can go to the GM with their eyes open when they ask, "WTF?!" And to make the GM more receptive to the question, by having them ask, "what were you expecting?" or "what would a successful version of that encounter entailed?", instead of the likely deserved version of that question.

[icefractal]

No, the NPC didn't pick a fight with them, he bullied him. Did the GM follow the "rule of 3" for giving the PCs enough hints that he was overpowered? Let's see... He's 1) a monster hunter who 2) believes he can bully the PCs. He 3) gets the drop on them with 4) a non-fatal trap, and 5) lets them live. He can not just 6) create golems, but has even 7) created his own custom designs. Although I'd say that these are horrible hints, there certainly are plenty of them, even from what the we have in the OP's description.

Dropping someone in a pit trap counts as a starting a fight, IMO. It's still a lethal trap, the PCs were just durable enough to survive it. If someone stabs you, but they only do 1d4 damage, are you going to say that was mere rudeness and not the intent to start a fight?

Also, only the last two of those are hints that this NPC may be too powerful for them.
Monster Hunter? Anyone can call themself that.
Believe he can bully the PCs? So does an overconfident goblin.
Get the drop on them? Anything can do this if it gets lucky.
A non-fatal trap? Again, Pit Traps are not non-lethal unless they're shallow ones. And using a crappy trap proves that he's more powerful? Wha?
Lets them live? So because they survived his trap, he "let them live"? I guess random 1st level goblins are powerhouses also ... after all, they're always "letting people live".

Being able to make golems is pretty impressive, true. But it doesn't sound like a level of impressive that the PCs were unable to deal with. Had he "merely" had a custom golem, but without that mysterious self-healing and death throes, they would have been ok.


On a more OOC level, "too powerful to fight" NPCs that show up to bully the PCs and then leave are squarely in the category of "things that sound cool to some DMs, but to virtually no players ever".

[Stealth Marmot]

Did the pc's know who the NPC was, or what the monster could do? Did they go in, prepared via scouting or research? Or did they just kick in the doors and attack? This is what I mean by blundering into an encounter.

One of the responsibilities of a DM is not figure out some of the likely actions that players may take. If someone was trying to take their rightful kill and treasure, how can the players not be expected to attack the person taking it without permission? The player said they tried talking, tried diplomacy, but it failed. How were the PCs supposed to know that the character was that powerful?

Sure, Sense Motive can be use to assess general power level, but the level of DM fiat involved would probably skew that number to begin with. What's more, yes the PCs might have blundered into the fight, but keep in mind that they actually WON, and they probably would have mostly survived were it not for the death throes ability this person had, which was entirely custom.

Tell me, how were the PCs supposed to even think to prepare for something like that? Unless this character was a campaign spanning BBEG, there is no way the PCs could have been expected to do that much research, much less have the slightest inkling about the death throes. It was vindictive, plain and simple. The DM didn't want the players to have the treasure, so he had an ubernpc take it away.

I don't know what the DM actually expected the party to do here. Did he expect them to let the guy take their hard earned money? If that was the case, why even bother giving it to them to begin with? What reason would they have to let him have it?

If the DM expected the players to carefully plan and pick apart this guy, then I am curious as to what exactly they would be expected to do. Were they expected to sneak in and murder him in his sleep? Because looking at the character described, that is the only way i see that could have worked. A creature with DR-10 and if a golem, most likely spell resistance if not immunity, and the guy had over 50 hit points and a "full heal", so effectively over 100 hit points. The man had improved cover, so he couldn't be shot very well.

My point is this: If the PCs go busting the door down on a villain, they should be at a disadvantage, but the description here is basically impossible even if prepared for, short of having abilities, powers, or consumables way above 4th level WBL. Did you expect the level 4 PCs to pull out a disjunction to take the golem out?

On a more OOC level, "too powerful to fight" NPCs that show up to bully the PCs and then leave are squarely in the category of "things that sound cool to some DMs, but to virtually no players ever".

I agree with this a whole lot. No one wants to watch the DM flex his ubercool NPCs by beating up on the players. it's like forcing a 5 year old to arm wrestle you then trying to act impressive when you win. The DM can ALWAYS win.

[Quertus]

How were the PCs supposed to know that the character was that powerful?

Sure, Sense Motive can be use to assess general power level,

Tell me, how were the PCs supposed to even think to prepare for something like that?

My point is this: If the PCs go busting the door down on a villain, they should be at a disadvantage, but the description here is basically impossible even if prepared for, short of having abilities, powers, or consumables way above 4th level WBL. Did you expect the level 4 PCs to pull out a disjunction to take the golem out?

I expect the PCs to die like chumps in that encounter. I want to know what the GM expected.

Maybe the GM did expect the diplomacy using players to also use sense motive, whether to care about the other person and not just themselves, or just as a tool. Maybe the GM did expect the players to do the research. Maybe the GM requires players to build characters who can survive that **** at level 4. Maybe the GM thought those were awesome hints that this guy was well beyond the party. Maybe a great many things. Asking the GM a nice open-ended question is, IMO, the safest and least frustrating way to find out.

[prufock]

Then, we encountered a Young Blue Dragon (CR 7, though he said the module said it was only CR 6).

Young blue dragon is CR 6.

So yeah... a Dragon, which are notoriously under-CR'ed, with a nearly unbeatable advantage on top of that.

So... why didn't you leave the room? The enemy has a clear tactical advantage, wouldn't it be better to regroup?

This sounds more like a mix of bad luck and lack of tactics than a DM issue. You also mention that he's running a module - which I take to mean a published adventure, not something he made up - so even the choice of enemy isn't really on him. It sounds like a boss fight. Any chance you guys circumvented some of the module and got to the boss sooner than expected?

[Dagroth]

Young blue dragon is CR 6.


So... why didn't you leave the room? The enemy has a clear tactical advantage, wouldn't it be better to regroup?

This sounds more like a mix of bad luck and lack of tactics than a DM issue. You also mention that he's running a module - which I take to mean a published adventure, not something he made up - so even the choice of enemy isn't really on him. It sounds like a boss fight. Any chance you guys circumvented some of the module and got to the boss sooner than expected?

That's changed from the MM print book I have that says CR7.

And no, it wasn't the boss fight. We saw a ruined building, encountered 3 giant frogs while heading to the main gate. Went in to the courtyard. Saw some stairs leading to large doors. Went through the large doors and to the middle of the room where the dead body was. Dragon attacked.

Quite literally the second combat encounter of the module.

[LastOblivion]

I'm going to take a moment to sum up the entire encounter with the old monster hunter.

The party is search of an item found at the lake of doom. No information is given to explain where is or what it is. All gather information comes back false. No Npc will share any information regarding the item. No other option but to travel to the Lake is given by the DM. The Item is required to protect the party from the outsider hunting them as a game.

The party meets the old monster hunter at his lake side shack before venturing out onto lake. He is unfriendly, insults the party and clams they are pirates. No useful information is gathered from him. He is insulted by the quality of their makeshift raft and improves it enough to make it usable.

On the lake the party is attacked by Custom monster which is part shark, part bear, part crocodile. The beast got close to swallowing a party member but it is defeated without any deaths or massive resource usage. The raft is destroyed during the fight. Once the monster was slain the old monster hunter appears with his boat, harpoons the monster corpse and leaves the party stranded.

Once the party returns to the old mans shack, they see a massive treasure chest overflowing with treasure. The monster has been cut open and the chest is covered in monster guts. The old man states that he has been hunting the monster for years and since he was the one to harpoon the beast that treasure is his alone by the laws of the sea.

All negotiations fail and old man is convinced that the party are thieves after the treasure that is rightfully his. He pulls a lever revealing individual pitfall traps underneath each party member. All party members make their reflex saves. The halfing attacks the old man after avoiding the trap.

The old man runs to his boat while 3 party member pursue him. The remain two party members stay on shore. Once reaching his boat the old man turns into a 50ft golem. The 3 party member that pursue deal minor damage before either being knocked off or falling into the water. The rough waters leave them unable to aid in the rest of the fight.

The two party members on the shore engage in a ranged battle with the old man and golem. The ranger his hit by 3 out 4 harpoons fired from a harpoon burst and dealt 43 damage, killing him on the spot. The remaining character, my character remains ranged shoot out as the remaining character in the water fail to either climb to the golem or swim to shore. One character is teleported away mysteriously.

Both my character and old man are verge of death. The old man threatens to ignite the core of his golem killing everyone unless my character surrenders. His cannons are at the ready pointed at my characters hiding spot. Knowing that I cannot leave my hiding spot without entering his line of fire I decide to bet on a use of lore song to land a final shot. I leave my hiding spot to shoot and arrow triggering the old mans ready action. His cannonball misses and my arrow his for max damage. The old man is brought to -10 and killed.

Despite being dead, the old man has time to ignite his golem's core causing it to explode. The explosion turns all mater to ash, destroying all cover, I fail my save with a 23. The only surviving party members are the one teleported away and the one that made the save with a natural 20.

I was told by the DM, "well of course you did not win, you were not suppose to." and "You were suppose to run away. The golem did not leave the water for a reason, it couldn't."

Part of the reason I was so pissed off by this, a while back during on of my campaigns as DM I had created a optional boss in the form of an advanced "That Damn Crab" with the monster of legend template. The boss was passive unless provoked and a large treasure chest sat on its back. The first time the party attempted to fight they were beaten back and decided to return more prepared. The geared to counter it, dammed a river and fought it on their terms. But at the time It was crunch time for Finals and i sleep deprived and not properly testing my fights. That, and i gave it the final strike feat since it got the elemental sup type from monster of legends. So even thought they won the fight, the crab exploded killing all but one character.

Now this is something i regret doing and consider it on of my biggest mistakes i have made as a DM. The party used the crabs treasure to raise their dead but this was the fight that more or less ended that campaign. But the player that whined and complained about that fight, it the current DM which has topped by mistakes with a bigger one, and doesn't even thing he as done something wrong. On top of it, the explosion of the golem destroyed the treasure completely and turned the dead players to ash to deny any raising.

[theasl]

Reading that, I think he's doing it just to spite you. Get out of there as fast as you can.

EDIT: Quertus makes a good point: did you admit your mistake?

Either way, I still think he's doing it to spite you, and it's infinitely worse than yours, since he railroaded you all into the fight while yours was an optional thing. It's just sad that the other players have been sucked into this morass, twice.

[Quertus]

The original post did not have enough information to reach a conclusion. Given this most recent post, I don't think anyone needs our help reaching a conclusion. Unless, perhaps, to inquire whether the old GM admitted his mistake, and so this was just spite, or failed to do so, and so this could have been intended as a lesson.

[LastOblivion]

The original post did not have enough information to reach a conclusion. Given this most recent post, I don't think anyone needs our help reaching a conclusion. Unless, perhaps, to inquire whether the old GM admitted his mistake, and so this was just spite, or failed to do so, and so this could have been intended as a lesson.

I did admit i was mistaken with my exploding crab, I apologized for it as it wasn't a mistake i would have made if it was not for lack of time and sleep due to finals. I would normally put an immense amount of time into any campaign i made so a mistake like that was rare.

Though he whined a lot over the exploding crab when it happened about a year ago, i don't think his last encounter was in any way related to it.

I should also mention that the reason i was against his custom monsters is that we have fought more custom monsters and normal monsters recently. All of which he makes up with very little time and are completely untested and unbalanced. I feel like a custom monster is not something that should be used freely, or at all if untested. If a DM wants a creature that is not in any MM in his game, he should find a similar monster of similiar CR and adjust its appearance and abilities to that of the desired form.

[Blu]

Sounds like a lot of railroading that resulted in a "screw you" explosion. Just leave the table, if the DM don't see what he did wrong, he is kinda of lost. No one likes vindictive DM's. Personally, i hate having characters killed in this kinda of manner, one time i got seriously pissed at a half-dragon "cleaving" a breathe attack at one of my characters.

Be it for spite or just for some sadistic tendencys, is not fun.

[LastOblivion]

The Situation has more or less been resolved. I brought my argument to the DM for him being out of line for his actions. He still felt he had done nothing wrong and had no reason to apologize.

The DMs reasoning for his actions.
- The Old man felt threatened so he was in the right for starting the fight.
- "You were not suppose to win the fight." (taking out the old man was pure luck)
- "you could have surrendered."
- The players could have run (abandoning those players trapped in the water)
- Since the old man threatened to take them with him, the golem triggering death throes on the death of the old man was fair play
- There is nothing wrong at all with the death throes detroying all matter in the area, destroying the treasure and the party corpses
- We could have just let the old man take our treasure

I've decided to not be apart of any more campaigns run by this DM. This ended up not being an issue as a previous DM who had left the table decided to return since we can't be trusted to run dnd without him.

[Firechanter]

Alright then. I think you did absolutely tbe right thing and I'm glad you pulled it through and drew the consequences. Nobody needs this kind of DM.
All the better that you're actually going to get a better game now. Best of luck! ^^

[Vizzerdrix]

So he was a butt right till the very end? Shame, but at least this had a happy ending.

[Blu]

It happens. :/
Has i said, if the DM think he was in the right, he is lost as a DM. Railroads that result in PC's deaths are not fun. Good luck on your next table.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I feel the need to point out that DnD assumes you will, rarely, run into encounters you are not prepared for or capable of beating and be forced to escape and, in my experience running various systems, it is important to have times that players appreciate just how they are as well as times players have to appreciate how strong they are not.

The big problem for me here is that the DM seemed extremely spiteful in how he went about things: he clearly ignored rules to punish the players, death throes were not necessary (and he again ignored rules to make them more devastating) and how he started this encounter was clumsy as all get out. The fact he is unrepentant of his mistakes as well is not a good sign and you are right to leave, to be clear.

[Blu]

I feel the need to point out that DnD assumes you will, rarely, run into encounters you are not prepared for or capable of beating and be forced to escape and, in my experience running various systems, it is important to have times that players appreciate just how they are as well as times players have to appreciate how strong they are not.

The big problem for me here is that the DM seemed extremely spiteful in how he went about things: he clearly ignored rules to punish the players, death throes were not necessary (and he again ignored rules to make them more devastating) and how he started this encounter was clumsy as all get out. The fact he is unrepentant of his mistakes as well is not a good sign and you are right to leave, to be clear.

Some DM's dont respect some of the logics behind the game. The idea of surrender should be presented very rarely, but even so, by the op description, there was no chance, old guy simply started hammering them down with WAAAAAY to much damage. It is the remark of a bad DM, not knowing how to handle or improvise situations.
PC's don't act the way i want/predited they deserve to die and i'm on my right to do so and even punish their luck if they come close to sucede.

Edit: There was a chance to surrender, only one, when everything already had went down.

Edit 2: The worst part of this encounter is throwing a lvl 5 spell against a lvl 4 party, what is unreasonable and vindictive. Besides the multi attack enemy of course.

[Bronk]

Thanks for letting us know how it turned out!

[Yahzi]

in a large room... it flew off

A room large enough for a dragon to fly in?

[Dagroth]

A room large enough for a dragon to fly in?

Young Blue Dragon, Size M, Flight speed 150 (poor). Room was 100x100 and 2 stories tall.

[Stealth Marmot]

*cracks neck*

Okay time to do a post mortem on this puppy.

I'm going to take a moment to sum up the entire encounter with the old monster hunter.

The party is search of an item found at the lake of doom. No information is given to explain where is or what it is. All gather information comes back false. No Npc will share any information regarding the item. No other option but to travel to the Lake is given by the DM. The Item is required to protect the party from the outsider hunting them as a game.

I don't hate the idea of an outsider hunting an adventuring party as sport and them looking to find a way to duck its gaze. This actually makes for a good motivating factor. That said, this was clearly some pretty clumsy exposition there. Good idea, flawed execution. I might have to keep the idea in the back of my head.

The party meets the old monster hunter at his lake side shack before venturing out onto lake. He is unfriendly, insults the party and clams they are pirates. No useful information is gathered from him. He is insulted by the quality of their makeshift raft and improves it enough to make it usable.

An old curmudgeon can make a great NPC, if pulled off well. I wasn't there to see his acting chops and execution so I can't say whether this worked, but the idea of an old curmudgeon insulting the party as "damn kids and their feats, in my day we had non-weapon proficiencies and liked it." yet in the end being helpful in a backhanded way "These kids cant even make a raft, let ME do it. Damn kids." is actually rather entertaining to me. That said, he should remember that the NPC was unfriendly to a degree.

On the lake the party is attacked by Custom monster which is part shark, part bear, part crocodile.

Second cousin to Man-Bear-Pig. Call Al Gore.

The beast got close to swallowing a party member but it is defeated without any deaths or massive resource usage. The raft is destroyed during the fight. Once the monster was slain the old monster hunter appears with his boat, harpoons the monster corpse and leaves the party stranded.

And here he's being a ****, but believe it or not I don't have a huge problem with it so far. In fact, if the guy had just claimed the corpse and it was a creature whose hide or bones were rare or valuable BUT they had to be treated and sold to proper vendors, and the party found out about this later it would have just been an odd but entertaining side venture. If it were me I would have found some method of rewarding the players beyond XP, but not every DM wants to necessarily feel everything exists to give random money to players for doing random stuff like in an MMO.

Once the party returns to the old mans shack, they see a massive treasure chest overflowing with treasure. The monster has been cut open and the chest is covered in monster guts. The old man states that he has been hunting the monster for years and since he was the one to harpoon the beast that treasure is his alone by the laws of the sea.

And immediately we can pinpoint the very moment where the DM took a south turn into problemville. Up until this moment all the old man did was fix their boat, complain a lot and claim a corpse the party probably would not have cared about.

A creature that the party killed, that they got hurt and spent time and resources for, dropped a chest full of money out of its guts. Remember when I said that I would have found a way to reward the party? This is the most blatant way possible.

I recall a scene in the game A Bards Tale:

Narrator: The Bard, having slain the random wolf, found that it had digested not only the contents of a small treasury, but also various household goods... Wait, am I reading that correctly? That can't be right.
The Bard: You'd be surprised. I find all kind of things inside these beasties. Did I ever tell you about the time I killed this rat, and out popped an entire chest?

That's this scene, minus the self awareness.

Setting that aside, the players would not see such a thing without thinking that they were entitled to it. When the laws of verisimilitude spin towards dropping a chest full of treasure, how is the party of adventurers NOT supposed to think this is for them? Except...the old man decided to say it was all his because why?

He harpooned it and that's "the law of the sea". Ahem. BULLCRAP. First off, LAKE, not SEA. Second off, that's the sort of troll reasoning that Eddie Izzard described in his comedy routine "Do you have a flag?" (Look it up it's the funniest thing you will see all day.)

Now keep in mind that the old man DID assist the party and DID drag the corpse to shore, so it's not like he did nothing, and he should have felt entitled to part of the treasure, but here he is claiming ALL of it.

Still, it is possible that he's just being a curmudgeon and the players are meant to try to negotiate and he will give at least half if not more depending on their negotiations skill. This is not an unsalvageable at this point, and I could see an expected path for the players: Talk to the guy.

It's volatile since the players could be a bit mad at the guy and be willing to play murder-hobo, but I still see this as not an impossible scenario.

All negotiations fail and old man is convinced that the party are thieves after the treasure that is rightfully his.

Unless someone rolled a critical failure on a diplomacy check, I don't see how this could be a logical outcome. This is pretty much where the whole thing has crossed the threshold of "You dun goofed." for the DM. The players defeated the monster by themselves, and the old man provided only partial assistance, yet is expecting the party to just let him have all the gold for a random and very obviously made up "law of the sea" when they aren't even AT the sea, they are at a lake. This law of the sea is about as legit at the law of "DIBS!" Which only is law in the Red vs. Blue universe.

So the players either have to leave hard earned coin to a guy who has been a total jerk to them while they themselves are being hunted by an outsider and need all the resources they can get, or go murderhobo. This is the sort of choice that makes a DM a jerk.

Characters don't just want money because they are greedy, they NEED it in order to be effective adventurers. Much as she is meta about it, Hayley is correct that keeping Wealth Per Level Guidelines is important to being an effective character.

He pulls a lever revealing individual pitfall traps underneath each party member.

There are so many reasons for calling BS on this, I actually have to take a second to think where to begin.

Okay let's first discuss why he has pits to begin with. What exactly was this guy expecting? Is he a Bond villain? Is he Mr. Burns? This guy is living by himself at a lakeside in what I can only assume is a shack, why would he be expecting an adventuring party?

So lets say for the sake of argument that it's for rampaging orcs or owlbears. Why are they lever activated instead of pressure activated or just tarps over pits? This does not seem like an effective system.

Moreover, do you have any idea how hard it is to actually DIG pits that deep? Considering he has a lakeside house, I also would expect any pits near a major water source to be unstable at best due to the saturated ground. How did this old man find the time? WHY would he spend that much time instead of other traps? At least nets would have sort of made sense for a fisherman.

But the king of all BS has to e the convenience factor. Not only did he HAVE trap doors, but he had trap doors that happened to be exactly at the PCs feet. Beyond that, those exact pit traps were ALL activated by the same lever. This man is not a Bounty Hunter, he's an Oracle AND an Engineer.

This whole encounter SCREAMS "I did not think this through!" to the point that I think the DM was surprised the players expected him to actually share the treasure.

All party members make their reflex saves. The halfing attacks the old man after avoiding the trap.

No one should be able to blame a neutral or even GOOD character at this point because the old man made the first actual offensive action. This is at the very least someone stealing from them, and even closer someone who stole from them and attempted to HURT them.

The old man runs to his boat while 3 party member pursue him. The remain two party members stay on shore. Once reaching his boat the old man turns into a 50ft golem.

This is the second part someone should have just started calling BS.

So this guy who claims to have been pursuing the Shark-Bear-odile turns into a 50 foot water golem. Keep in mind that your team KILLED Shark-Bear-odile with a rickety raft and did so without much info or wasting many resources. Yet this guy has been trying to kill it for YEARS and has an Optimus Water Prime form? This is like hearing that some old man has been trying to kill an Owlbear for years yet turns out to be a Cloud Giant in disguise.

Pure BS.

If this was some lame attempt to create an NPC that would be secretly powerful and help the players out, maybe don't have them effectively STEAL from the party.

The 3 party member that pursue deal minor damage before either being knocked off or falling into the water. The rough waters leave them unable to aid in the rest of the fight.

I would have to see the layout of the house or shack or whatever to really get what was going on here.

The two party members on the shore engage in a ranged battle with the old man and golem. The ranger his hit by 3 out 4 harpoons fired from a harpoon burst and dealt 43 damage, killing him on the spot.

Unless this was a crit, the fact that the DM put a character with a potential one shot kill as a possible opponent shows poor planning to the point that they should be willing to retcon or make it up to the player.

The remaining character, my character remains ranged shoot out as the remaining character in the water fail to either climb to the golem or swim to shore. One character is teleported away mysteriously.

"Teleported away mysteriously"?

That's when you take out the masterwork manacles and chain down the DM and tell him to explain this BS before we pull out the thumbscrews because this is strike 3 on BS. The pits were 1, the golem form is 2, and the mysterious teleport is 3. Strike 3, you're out.

Both my character and old man are verge of death. The old man threatens to ignite the core of his golem killing everyone unless my character surrenders.

Now at least the DM did TECHNICALLY warn you about the death throes, or the suicide capability. However, it's still BS because "Oh yeah you can overload a golem core". Since when?

You did have the option to surrender, true, but you also had no reason to believe that he would not kill you. You made a decision that I can't fault you for.

Truth is, the fact that his NPC was able to nearly wipe your team out and only lost due to luck already was an indicator that the DM had messed up.

His cannons are at the ready pointed at my characters hiding spot. Knowing that I cannot leave my hiding spot without entering his line of fire I decide to bet on a use of lore song to land a final shot. I leave my hiding spot to shoot and arrow triggering the old mans ready action. His cannonball misses and my arrow his for max damage. The old man is brought to -10 and killed.

Anyone else want to negotiate? </BruceWillis>

Despite being dead, the old man has time to ignite his golem's core causing it to explode.

This is the moment that I would not have blamed you if you had punched the DM in the face.

The explosion turns all mater to ash, destroying all cover, I fail my save with a 23.

In. The. Face.

Any explosion that would vaporize all cover should have been large enough that a reflex save was no longer applicable. This was the DM being vindictive, plain and simple. He was killing you if he had to destroy physics and verisimilitude to do it.

The only surviving party members are the one teleported away and the one that made the save with a natural 20.

I'm willing to bet the DM was best friends with the one who was teleported away and didn't want THEIR character to die.

I was told by the DM, "well of course you did not win, you were not suppose to."

And one in the crotch.

and "You were suppose to run away. The golem did not leave the water for a reason, it couldn't."

It also one shot the Ranger with a ranged attack.

Assuming that the players were somehow supposed to know it couldn't leave the lake, which I have NO idea how they could have known that, that would have meant leaving the treasure and dead or disabled friends behind.

Part of the reason I was so pissed off by this,

You don't need extra reason. If you see him again, tell him that you were instructed to punch him in the face and testicles and only due to your sheer magnanimity do you leave his nose and genitals intact.

a while back during on of my campaigns as DM I had created a optional boss in the form of an advanced "That Damn Crab" with the monster of legend template. The boss was passive unless provoked and a large treasure chest sat on its back. The first time the party attempted to fight they were beaten back and decided to return more prepared. The geared to counter it, dammed a river and fought it on their terms. But at the time It was crunch time for Finals and i sleep deprived and not properly testing my fights. That, and i gave it the final strike feat since it got the elemental sup type from monster of legends. So even thought they won the fight, the crab exploded killing all but one character.

Take a moment to punch your own crotch.

Now this is something i regret doing and consider it on of my biggest mistakes i have made as a DM. The party used the crabs treasure to raise their dead but this was the fight that more or less ended that campaign.

Now you at least admitted your mistake and Im willing to bet that you said you regretted it to them pretty much immediately.

But the player that whined and complained about that fight, it the current DM which has topped by mistakes with a bigger one, and doesn't even thing he as done something wrong. On top of it, the explosion of the golem destroyed the treasure completely and turned the dead players to ash to deny any raising.

This was not random. This player wanted YOU dead. They were trying to teach YOu a lesson. he should apologize to you, and then apologize to the players he roped into this outcome.

This is not the act of a good DM. This is not even the act of an adult. This is the act of a child getting petty revenge on someone who made them mad before. I cannot abide pettiness, especially when you are a DM.

The Situation has more or less been resolved. I brought my argument to the DM for him being out of line for his actions. He still felt he had done nothing wrong and had no reason to apologize.

Then he has forfeited his testicular infrastructure.

The DMs reasoning for his actions.
- The Old man felt threatened so he was in the right for starting the fight.

Unless the players outright threatened his physical being, then his feeling threatened is not their fault. If they did however, keep in mind that he was stealing from them. They still had the right to try to intimidate him into letting them have their share of the treasure.

- "You were not suppose to win the fight." (taking out the old man was pure luck)

This is the DM flat out telling you it was a TPK level fight and he knew it. That is not justification, that's a confession of guilt in my book.

- "you could have surrendered."

You could have, but that was one of many options and not one that was indicated as a good option. He had just killed party members and others were in deep danger. He had essentially picked up arms to take treasure from them. Fighting to the end was a viable option when he just murdered your friend after stealing from you. Most of all, you had no indication he wouldn't kill you and everyone else. Soon as you put your weapons down.

- The players could have run (abandoning those players trapped in the water)

If he thought this was a GOOD option, **** him. I would never play, or work, or even hang out with him again.

- Since the old man threatened to take them with him, the golem triggering death throes on the death of the old man was fair play

This is clearly a definition of the word "fair" I wasn't previously aware of.

- There is nothing wrong at all with the death throes detroying all matter in the area, destroying the treasure and the party corpses

If he thinks this, I would never want to play with him ever again. Him putting a near impossible task in front of you and despite all odds overcoming it should not be punished, especially in a way that hurts the whole party. Gods, this is just like the first edition DM I had when he utterly destroyed the campaign. If I find it I'll add it in a spoiler tag.

- We could have just let the old man take our treasure

Why would your characters be motivated to let this man walk all over them without standing up for themselves? Especially since they just beat the monster he had spent years trying to kill?

I've decided to not be apart of any more campaigns run by this DM. This ended up not being an issue as a previous DM who had left the table decided to return since we can't be trusted to run dnd without him.

Good. Don't let that guy run a game ever again if possible.

There is a wide difference between a new DM that needs to learn how to run a game and a person who is vindictive, unapologetic, stubborn, callous, irresponsible, petty, and self-centered.

And I have no reason at this point to think this person is otherwise.