AL DM altered the stats on a monster and killed two PC's during death curse.

[Mikal]

My...God...

You're right, what was I thinking? He should probably slash that DM's tires and spend every AL session verbally abusing him/her. Or crowd fund plane tickets for us so we can go beat them up.

Or you know, complain to the organizer.
But hey, why try and provide something constructive when we can just tell the players to suck it up and then be sarcastic whens someone calls us out on telling the players to suck it up?

[Big Papa Turnip]

Interesting to see how some people respond when they find out there are scenarios where DMs have to follow rules and guidelines, too.

Imagine running Curse of Strahd via AL and the DM gives the big man himself battlemaster levels and immunity to radiant damage. I'd march straight to the owner of the shop and call shenanigans.

Adventurer's League isn't a home game, you can't fudge the encounters however you want. This is not 'Nam, this is bowling AL. There are rules.

[Mikal]

Interesting to see how some people respond when they find out there are scenarios where DMs have to follow rules and guidelines, too.

Imagine running Curse of Strahd via AL and the DM gives the big man himself battlemaster levels and immunity to radiant damage. I'd march straight to the owner of the shop and call shenanigans.

Adventurer's League isn't a home game, you can't fudge the encounters however you want. This is not 'Nam, this is bowling AL. There are rules.

Exactly. While I personally wouldn't play AL, if I did, I'd expect everything that's part of it to be followed.
If I as a player have to follow certain guidelines, then the DM needs to follow their guidelines too.

[The_Jette]

Question for the OP: Were you in the creature's lair? Because Legendary actions can only be used by the creature: 1) at the end of a player's turn in combat; and, 2) inside their own lair. Also, they can only do one Legendary action at a time. So, if it was using Legendary actions on its own turn (which is what it sounds like), multiple at a time, and/or outside of the creature's own lair, then the DM was wrong and should retcon the deaths. If he refuses, demand a different DM. You may have to be willing to step up and run the game yourself. But, you shouldn't continue playing an AL game with someone who isn't willing to play by the rules.

[lunaticfringe]

Or you know, complain to the organizer.
But hey, why try and provide something constructive when we can just tell the players to suck it up and then be sarcastic whens someone calls us out on telling the players to suck it up?

Lol I suggested not playing with that guy in my first post, which seems the most sensible approach to me.

You can't prove the DM in question did anything wrong. He made a monster tougher, which apparently is legal. As I mentioned there are no rules regarding how a monster should be played so the whole meta gaming argument is kinda weak. And are there rules against meta gaming or is it just frowned upon? I never told him not to complain to whoever just that "Hey he played that monster wrong" is a silly argument.

Is the DM being a jerk? Probably. I was not there. DMing is a volunteer job, the only thing you can really do about bad DM's is not play with them or suck it up.

[TheUser]

Question for the OP: Were you in the creature's lair? Because Legendary actions can only be used by the creature: 1) at the end of a player's turn in combat; and, 2) inside their own lair. Also, they can only do one Legendary action at a time. So, if it was using Legendary actions on its own turn (which is what it sounds like), multiple at a time, and/or outside of the creature's own lair, then the DM was wrong and should retcon the deaths. If he refuses, demand a different DM. You may have to be willing to step up and run the game yourself. But, you shouldn't continue playing an AL game with someone who isn't willing to play by the rules.

We were in it's "lair" if you can call it that... except those are lair actions, not legendary actions, neither of which it possesses.

[Naanomi]

He broke the rules of AL, and you are justified rewinding it but...

Do you read every adventure beforehand to fact check the GM? Or play the same adventures over and over until you learn all the details? I don’t play a lot of AL, but I can’t imagine knowing an adventure well enough to be able to call a GM on a change in that way...

[Caelic]

You can't prove the DM in question did anything wrong.

Multiple players affirming that the monster did things which it can't do according to the stat block in the module would be pretty solid evidence.

He made a monster tougher, which apparently is legal.

It's not. Adding monsters is legal. Rewriting stat blocks is not.

As I mentioned there are no rules regarding how a monster should be played so the whole meta gaming argument is kinda weak. And are there rules against meta gaming or is it just frowned upon? I never told him not to complain to whoever just that "Hey he played that monster wrong" is a silly argument.

This is true; there's honestly a LOT of metagaming in AL, and no real enforcement mechanism for penalizing it.

Is the DM being a jerk? Probably. I was not there. DMing is a volunteer job, the only thing you can really do about bad DM's is not play with them or suck it up.

Unfortunately, this is also true. It wasn't always; before WotC got nervous over the whole "Volunteers-who-are-treated-like-employees" legal mess, AL had coordinators who could deal with these situations, at least at tournaments and stores.

However, one thing that CAN be done is to make it clear that the game wasn't run according to AL rules, and as such, was not a legal AL session and should not be counted, for good or for ill.

If the DM was altering the rules for the monster, that in and of itself invalidated the session from an AL standpoint.

[Caelic]

He broke the rules of AL, and you are justified rewinding it but...

Do you read every adventure beforehand to fact check the GM? Or play the same adventures over and over until you learn all the details? I don’t play a lot of AL, but I can’t imagine knowing an adventure well enough to be able to call a GM on a change in that way...

To be fair Naanomi, there are only so many AL-legal modules. An AL DM is very likely to play in some of the same modules he or she has run; there's just no way to avoid it if you're very active as both a DM and a player. In general, you try not to let it influence your reactions, but that's about the best you can do short of giving up either playing or DMing.

[PeteNutButter]

"While the adventure provides suggestions on how to adjust an encounter to provide an appropriate challenge for your players, they are just that—suggestions. You may, at your discretion, make other adjustments to the encounter by adding or removing monsters. While the monsters you add may be different from those listed in the encounter or the sidebar, they should be thematically similar. For example, if your players are encountering a group of zombies, adding a bunch of pixies doesn’t make much sense. However, adding a zombie or a ghoul might. Keep in mind that while the characters earn XP for these new monsters, the maximum amount of XP they earn for the adventure does not change. Remember to give them a challenge, but don’t make the adventure unbeatable."

-Excerpt from the ALDMG

Honestly I wish my DM did this. We fought this thing last week and made short work of it. It barely even managed to drop the wizard, and he only did so from literally dropping the wizard out of his mouth dealing his last two hit points in falling damage when the thing died.

I'll give you 80 ft misty step is a bit much, but the other changes are fine. Any solo monster that is going to matter pretty much needs legendary actions. Do you think the DM actually tried to kill people or did he just buff the monster too much? It can be tough knowing exactly how to challenge the party without murdering them, and takes some experience to know how to properly buff challenges for the party. If he was trying to kill people, then just leave the table.

I've pre-buffed monsters before and then had certain players not be able to show for the week, leaving me with monsters that would have TPKed the party if I didn't bring them back down. There are all sorts of variables in D&D combat. Maybe a lot of rolls went bad? You did mention the monster crits. Crits on fistfuls of d12s are nasty. Where you missing any regular players that session? Was the party low on resources?

I always assume incompetence over malice, but know the DM...

[TheUser]

He broke the rules of AL, and you are justified rewinding it but...

Do you read every adventure beforehand to fact check the GM? Or play the same adventures over and over until you learn all the details? I don’t play a lot of AL, but I can’t imagine knowing an adventure well enough to be able to call a GM on a change in that way...

No, as posted in the OP, I was suspicious after the DM said "it was like fighting a CR 16 creature!" post fight, and then proceeded to blame the module for designing it that way instead of fessing up to the fact he altered it. He also fed us the information that it uses misty step (through intelligence gathered by NPC Red Wizards), so when it teleported 80ft instead of 30 my eyebrows were raised, so to speak, even during the encounter.

Thinking that CR 16 was a bit overkill for where we were in the module I decided to double check then and only then. I don't read modules while playing them, I like the surprises but something didn't sit well with me. I could tell the DM was out for blood and he got it and given that there was very little agency associated with the two deaths and a bit too much clever tactics and damage output from legendary actions that seemed ill suited for level 6 adventurers I decided to go look up the specific piece of information in the module that outlined the creature's modifications. Turns out my intuition was spot on.

"While the adventure provides suggestions on how to adjust an encounter to provide an appropriate challenge for your players, they are just that—suggestions. You may, at your discretion, make other adjustments to the encounter by adding or removing monsters. While the monsters you add may be different from those listed in the encounter or the sidebar, they should be thematically similar. For example, if your players are encountering a group of zombies, adding a bunch of pixies doesn’t make much sense. However, adding a zombie or a ghoul might. Keep in mind that while the characters earn XP for these new monsters, the maximum amount of XP they earn for the adventure does not change. Remember to give them a challenge, but don’t make the adventure unbeatable."

-Excerpt from the ALDMG

Honestly I wish my DM did this. We fought this thing last week and made short work of it. It barely even managed to drop the wizard, and he only did so from literally dropping the wizard out of his mouth dealing his last two hit points in falling damage when the thing died.

I'll give you 80 ft misty step is a bit much, but the other changes are fine. Any solo monster that is going to matter pretty much needs legendary actions. Do you think the DM actually tried to kill people or did he just buff the monster too much? It can be tough knowing exactly how to challenge the party without murdering them, and takes some experience to know how to properly buff challenges for the party. If he was trying to kill people, then just leave the table.

I've pre-buffed monsters before and then had certain players not be able to show for the week, leaving me with monsters that would have TPKed the party if I didn't bring them back down. There are all sorts of variables in D&D combat. Maybe a lot of rolls went bad? You did mention the monster crits. Crits on fistfuls of d12s are nasty. Where you missing any regular players that session? Was the party low on resources?

I always assume incompetence over malice, but know the DM...

The crits were from the T-Rex continuing to attack unconscious players (the precise amount of attacks to kill them too I might add, pretty savy for a 2 int creature).

I mean it had accompanying swarms, one can always add more creatures to the boss' brigade (like a lot more). Considering it killed 2 players in 2 rounds it strikes me as a bit overkill....

Also that excerpt doesn't allow for tooling the creature's stat block or abilities in anyway, only to add more creatures to the combat.

[Caelic]

"While the adventure provides suggestions on how to adjust an encounter to provide an appropriate challenge for your players, they are just that—suggestions. You may, at your discretion, make other adjustments to the encounter by adding or removing monsters. While the monsters you add may be different from those listed in the encounter or the sidebar, they should be thematically similar. For example, if your players are encountering a group of zombies, adding a bunch of pixies doesn’t make much sense. However, adding a zombie or a ghoul might. Keep in mind that while the characters earn XP for these new monsters, the maximum amount of XP they earn for the adventure does not change. Remember to give them a challenge, but don’t make the adventure unbeatable."

-Excerpt from the ALDMG

Pete, please reread the quote. Notice what it says you can do. You can use the suggestions in the adventure; you can make other adjustments by adding or removing monsters.

Notice, too, what it does NOT say you can do: make other adjustments by rewriting the stat block of the existing monsters.

This is a pretty important distinction, and one which is well established in AL. Frankly, I wish they'd rewrite the AL DMG to make it absolutely clear.

Adding things that are within the existing rules is kosher. Altering rules (including stat blocks) is not.

[PeteNutButter]

Pete, please reread the quote. Notice what it says you can do. You can use the suggestions in the adventure; you can make other adjustments by adding or removing monsters.

Notice, too, what it does NOT say you can do: make other adjustments by rewriting the stat block of the existing monsters.

This is a pretty important distinction, and one which is well established in AL. Frankly, I wish they'd rewrite the AL DMG to make it absolutely clear.

Adding things that are within the existing rules is kosher. Altering rules (including stat blocks) is not.

True, my mistake. Although, I believe it does allow for giving monsters up to max hp, since that is within the range of normal for them (at least that's how my local groups have taken it). It's definitely better if DMs stick to existing monsters. Many DMs might over or underestimate their changes to stat blocks. Case in point.

[Keral]

Well, not to play devil's advocate. But if those are the only rules about it, it's debatable whether what the guy in question did was legal or not.

"While the adventure provides suggestions on how to adjust an encounter to provide an appropriate challenge for your players, they are just that—suggestions. You may, at your discretion, make other adjustments to the encounter by adding or removing monsters. While the monsters you add may be different from those listed in the encounter or the sidebar, they should be thematically similar. For example, if your players are encountering a group of zombies, adding a bunch of pixies doesn’t make much sense. However, adding a zombie or a ghoul might. Keep in mind that while the characters earn XP for these new monsters, the maximum amount of XP they earn for the adventure does not change. Remember to give them a challenge, but don’t make the adventure unbeatable."

I may be nitpicking, but it doesn't actually say that the added monsters need to come from a published book. Technically, we could see the rewriting of the stat blocks as removing the intended monsters and adding another monster. Which is, also technically, legal. [Assuming the new monster was temathically correct.]

I'm not familiar with AL, I'm only saying this because while the complaints may be justified, I'm not sure there's much that can be done about it; other than avoiding the DM in question in the future.
Unless there's some 'higher power' that one can appeal to, in order to have the issue settled. But from my understanding there isn't one.

[The_Jette]

Well, not to play devil's advocate. But if those are the only rules about it, it's debatable whether what the guy in question did was legal or not.



I may be nitpicking, but it doesn't actually say that the added monsters need to come from a published book. Technically, we could see the rewriting of the stat blocks as removing the intended monsters and adding another monster. Which is, also technically, legal. [Assuming the new monster was temathically correct.]

I'm not familiar with AL, I'm only saying this because while the complaints may be justified, I'm not sure there's much that can be done about it; other than avoiding the DM in question in the future.
Unless there's some 'higher power' that one can appeal to, in order to have the issue settled. But from my understanding there isn't one.

Any monster that doesn't come from published material is homebrew. And, homebrew is 100% not allowed in AL.

[Keral]

Well, nevermind then. As I said, I'm not familiar with it and was only working with the provided quotes. If there's addictional stuff elsewhere everything crumbles :P

[Waterdeep Merch]

Killing players- permanently- in a method that is cheap and difficult to stop is poor DMing, period. That they also possibly broke AL rules by unleashing a homebrew monster to do it is kind of obscene. I'm pretty sure that wasn't really their intention, but I'd ask them straight up to retcon doing something like that and to not do things like that in the future, as it's unfun and frustrating. If they refuse, talk to your organizer (if any) and don't play in their game.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Was there a reason the DM did that or did he just want to kill you all off or what?

[TheUser]

Was there a reason the DM did that or did he just want to kill you all off or what?

The group's been steamrolling most encounters save for that one and one prior where we made two attempts to murder a CR 10 dragon named Tinder, it killed 2 PC's on the first attempt and almost killed another the second attempt (which makes sense given only half of the group was level 5 and everyone else was below). The second attempt we downed her but only because of Phantasmal Force and the addition of a level 5 cleric party member who was absent the week prior as well as 1 of the dead PC's coming back with a level 8 surrogate.

Given that a PC is always fully rested at the beginning of a session it makes for some challenging DM work to squeeze out attrition in a max 2-4 encounter night.

I don't envy his position, he has 6 or 7 players to balance encounters around. This was just a time where he clearly attempted to re-introduce the element of mortality and went overkill.

[KorvinStarmast]

Giving Legendary Actions to a creature who doesn't have them is probably the clearest exemple of going against AL rules

@TheUSer: report the DM to your AL coordinator for your location. Spell out explicitly what it is that happened. Not sure why you are posting here rather than communicating with you local AL coordinator.

He upped the teleport distance, let it teleport other creatures, gave it a slew of legendary actions and used metagamey tactics like playing keep away from healers that didn't even heal once in the entire encounter.

No, they absolutely can't. There are certain things an AL DM can do to alter an adventure, and certain things he or she cannot.

An AL DM is free to make minor changes to adventurers, but is expected to adhere to the text of both the rules and the adventure. He or she can add thematically-appropriate monsters to an encounter, as described in the AL DM's Guide. However, there are also numerous things an AL DM is not empowered to do. He or she cannot, for example, add rewards to the adventure. He or she cannot alter rules, or use optional rules beyond those explicitly approved for AL use. He or she also cannot customize monster stat-blocks, which falls under the category of "altering rules." This is an extremely well-established principle of AL play; if you like, I'd be more than happy to hunt down admin posts clarifying this point, of which there have been many.

Adding more monsters to the encounter would have been within an AL DM's purview. Rewriting the monster's stats is a significant no-no.

Yeah, but I see that most of the topics have been covered.

Any monster that doesn't come from published material is homebrew. And, homebrew is 100% not allowed in AL.

I am puzzled that a DM who is AL DMing is not aware of that.

Killing players- permanently- in a method that is cheap and difficult to stop is poor DMing, period. That they also possibly broke AL rules by unleashing a homebrew monster to do it is kind of obscene. I'm pretty sure that wasn't really their intention, but I'd ask them straight up to retcon doing something like that and to not do things like that in the future, as it's unfun and frustrating. If they refuse, talk to your organizer (if any) and don't play in their game.

Again, reporting this conduct is a MUST if the DM'ing in your area is to remain good for AL.

[mephnick]

Given that a PC is always fully rested at the beginning of a session it makes for some challenging DM work to squeeze out attrition in a max 2-4 encounter night.

Yikes, I didn't think about this. That makes the poorly designed adventuring days in these things even worse.

I....think I'd probably end up being this guy in AL.

[The_Jette]

Given that a PC is always fully rested at the beginning of a session it makes for some challenging DM work to squeeze out attrition in a max 2-4 encounter night.

You do know that you're not supposed to begin every session fully rested, right? You only start fully rested if you end your last session with a full rest, or completed the adventure, already. So, if you end at the climax of a battle, then you're still down those slots, hp, special abilities, etc that were used up to this point.

[Easy_Lee]

You could report him to the shop, but I doubt doing so is worth the time or even justified given her D&D is a game.

So, I have a question for you: do you wish to continue playing with this DM?

If you do, I recommend bringing a more powerful character. A bear totem barbarian is a good example of a generally powerful character. Abjuration Wizards are also quite good. Additionally, a coffeelock, if built properly, is quite powerful - though it sounds like your DM might change the rules to prevent it from working. Crossbow expert Sharpshooter battlemaster fighters are quite potent as well. And everyone knows that Sorcadins can be ridiculous.

This is one rare case where, since your DM is changing things on you and lying about it, I would simply not tell him what your build does unless he asks. Don't give him the ammunition he needs to counter you.

[Rogerdodger557]

Yikes, I didn't think about this. That makes the poorly designed adventuring days in these things even worse.

I....think I'd probably end up being this guy in AL.

Maybe, but its not that hard to have a tpk in any adventure. I'm running an AL Storm King's Thunder, and if the pcs get hit, by god it hurts. The only reason the party tank(read: only tank) hasn't died is because the character has adamantine plate. I'm not even joking. There was a section where she spent the night in the woods where an oni was, and if a party member hadn't followed her, she would have died. I downed her a few times when I rolled up some orcs as a random encounter. Decided to make it a throwback to A Great Upheaval, and made it 2 Eyes of Gruumsh and a War Chief. The only difference? They all had plate mail on. I had the Eyes actually cast command on her horse(the pc is a pally) and made it run away. There goes her free dodge every turn. It's not hard to make a tpk using allowed modifications.

[War_lord]

Report him to whatever the authority is for this stuff, you have an example of him clearly breaking the rules by essentially replacing Misty step with a homebrew spell, and then lying about said cheating, and you have witnesses to that happening. If he gets away with it once, he'll keep doing it. Probably to people who won't realize they're being cheated.

[TheUser]

You could report him to the shop, but I doubt doing so is worth the time or even justified given her D&D is a game.

So, I have a question for you: do you wish to continue playing with this DM?

If you do, I recommend bringing a more powerful character. A bear totem barbarian is a good example of a generally powerful character. Abjuration Wizards are also quite good. Additionally, a coffeelock, if built properly, is quite powerful - though it sounds like your DM might change the rules to prevent it from working. Crossbow expert Sharpshooter battlemaster fighters are quite potent as well. And everyone knows that Sorcadins can be ridiculous.

This is one rare case where, since your DM is changing things on you and lying about it, I would simply not tell him what your build does unless he asks. Don't give him the ammunition he needs to counter you.

I'm just leaving the table. I'd rather not be in a group where the players and DM have an antagonistic relationship and the DM is inclined to murder PC's with homebrew. Using homebrew isn't AL legal and when someone put it into the perspective of "it's homebrew" I kind of thought to myself, "we as PC's aren't allowed to use homebrew why should the DM?" After lying to the group that it was simply the way the encounter was designed I decided to say **** it and change to another table.

I also e-mail the DM in question and let him know the jig is up. He tried to give a half-measure in that he would undo the session and the death for that one PC and allow the PC to be played at other tables (but not his own), but said nothing of the surrogate casualty (maybe just expect that player to play another surrogate). I'll just let the aggrieved players know and let them notify the event organizer.

[mephnick]

After lying to the group that it was simply the way the encounter was designed

That's the big red flag to me. It's easy to say "Damn guys I really over tuned that" and even easier to not make excuses at all "Damn, sucks you're dead. Make a new character."

It's another thing to say "It's not my fault, that's how it was designed.", especially when this is easily fact checked, that makes me lose trust in the guy. And without trust, you cannot function as a group.

[History_buff]

That's the big red flag to me. It's easy to say "Damn guys I really over tuned that" and even easier to not make excuses at all "Damn, sucks you're dead. Make a new character."

It's another thing to say "It's not my fault, that's how it was designed.", especially when this is easily fact checked, that makes me lose trust in the guy. And without trust, you cannot function as a group.

Ignoring the overkill and unwarranted buffs to the monster, this is the worst part, lying about it.

There has to be trust between the DM and the players in order to have a healthy table. Lying is a sure fire way to blow that trust to smithereens.

I also don’t particularly care for making fights tougher midstream and fudging hp. It feels like being punished for doing well or being lucky, and that sucks. And at unhealthy tables it leads to an arms race between DM and players that the players are GUARANTEED to lose eventually.

[Caelic]

Much to my astonishment, it appears that, as of Tales from the Yawning Portal, it IS now legal to modify stat blocks. However, some changes are "okay," and some are "not okay." Minor changes are "okay" and major changes are "not okay."

An admin has said (albeit not in an official ruling) that adding legendary actions would not be okay, but given that the DM is to use his or her judgement to determine which changes are and are not okay...*shrug*

[krugaan]

Maybe, but its not that hard to have a tpk in any adventure. I'm running an AL Storm King's Thunder, and if the pcs get hit, by god it hurts. The only reason the party tank(read: only tank) hasn't died is because the character has adamantine plate. I'm not even joking. There was a section where she spent the night in the woods where an oni was, and if a party member hadn't followed her, she would have died. I downed her a few times when I rolled up some orcs as a random encounter. Decided to make it a throwback to A Great Upheaval, and made it 2 Eyes of Gruumsh and a War Chief. The only difference? They all had plate mail on. I had the Eyes actually cast command on her horse(the pc is a pally) and made it run away. There goes her free dodge every turn. It's not hard to make a tpk using allowed modifications.

I was going to say, I get that Storm Kings Thunder is a giant campaign, but ... damn. Our barbarian is the only party member who's actually survived more than one hit from a giant. I got knocked out to an unlucky double crit when I had a temporary 23 ac from blade flourish, and I have rolled exceptionally high on hp (51 hp at level 5).