How to deal with a DM who is specifically targeting you

[caoshunter22]

If there is a narrative reason for enemies to be tunnel visioning you, it needs to come out fast or you leave.

Well that's assuming the DM is telling the truth

[caoshunter22]

In my experience things like this happen with inexperience, incompetence, malice, or some combination of the above.

For each of the situations listed there are a few explanations,

Undead CR,
1 used to playing 3.X the DM genuinely confused the ability.
2 the DM switched turn undead and destroy undead in their mind.
3 The DM had an idea in his mind on how he wanted the adventuring day to go and A, wasn't very good at adapting, B, was to stubborn to change, or C, had some secret he was really really bad at forshadowing.
4 the DM hates your guts and you should find a different group.

Shield loot
1 "Crap what was I thinking? That is too powerful of an item to give at level 2!"
2 the DM had some secret he was really really bad at hinting at.
3 the DM has some outdated notions about what clerics should be doing in a game and decided to "teach the new guy" how to play a cleric in a terribly conceived manner. (That's a game i walked away from and never looked back)
4 the DM hates your face and you should find a different group.

Blood clerics
1 the DM had some detail about this cult that he was very very bad at communicating (Clerics have to have their holy symbols out to use them, so they may have a beef with your deity)
2 the DM wanted to make a point about how dangerous these fellows are what with their coordination and tactics and whatnot and you just happened to be the one in the back line.
3 you really were the easiest target for them.
4 the DM hates the cut of your jib and you should find a different group.

These lists are by no means exhaustive.
(He could also hate that certain je ne sais quoi you have about you.)

I tend to go with the quote "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." But you are the one who is actually there not us. Talk to the DM and find out.

And if it so be that it really is malice on the DMs part. Walk out that door and don't ever look back.

Well I'm hoping talking to him will clear things up but who knows.

[Metahuman1]

1: That shield thing? Magic Items don't work that way in 5E. That's a carry over form 2nd edition at the most recent, if not further back, if it was ever an official rule at all.

2: That said, even then, it's a nifty item, sure, but even in 5E it's not THAT powerful, unless it scales and/or has other abilities beyond 3d6 healing (Even if that 3d6 healing comes back after a long rest. Or hell, really, even a short rest.).



Enemy unholy priest types B-lining for you? I'd buy that. I'd even buy enemy's who are reasonably tactically smart knowing to drop the healer first to make life easier on themselves. But that's not quite the impression I'm getting from you.


And yeah, he's certainly got his turn undead rules mixed up with older editions, or he's buggered them up outright and just happens to have been so incompetent as to make it a rule that was changed.

Anyway, best of luck. But If I were you, I'd be looking to have an exit strategy from the group as a failsafe. Another group on Roll20 or Discord or Reddit or here or something lined up. Either IRL or live chatting in.


Worse case? You won't need it.

[caoshunter22]

1: That shield thing? Magic Items don't work that way in 5E. That's a carry over form 2nd edition at the most recent, if not further back, if it was ever an official rule at all.

2: That said, even then, it's a nifty item, sure, but even in 5E it's not THAT powerful, unless it scales and/or has other abilities beyond 3d6 healing (Even if that 3d6 healing comes back after a long rest. Or hell, really, even a short rest.).



Enemy unholy priest types B-lining for you? I'd buy that. I'd even buy enemy's who are reasonably tactically smart knowing to drop the healer first to make life easier on themselves. But that's not quite the impression I'm getting from you.


And yeah, he's certainly got his turn undead rules mixed up with older editions, or he's buggered them up outright and just happens to have been so incompetent as to make it a rule that was changed.

Anyway, best of luck. But If I were you, I'd be looking to have an exit strategy from the group as a failsafe. Another group on Roll20 or Discord or Reddit or here or something lined up. Either IRL or live chatting in.


Worse case? You won't need it.

Yeah I need it. The group's healer is a druid so I was only ever meant to be a back up. It sort of makes sense that unholy would attack me first but I was far from doing a lot of damage so when the fighters started to do a loads of damage it would make sense to at least one of the clerics to switch to the fighters but no they had to make my character was down first. Also the blood clerics had a 18 ac.

[Son of A Lich!]

First things first, Are YOU being Targeted/Hazed/Unfairly treated in the game? You can play Schrodinger's Rogue all day long (Anything could be a well crafted lie to trick you), but you need evidence first and foremost of deliberate mistreatment at the exclusion of others. It could be a case that the DM is trying to target you on basis of the Evil Clerics fighting the Good Clerics*. Or maybe the shield makes it really hard to challenge you in the combat encounters that are appropriate for your level.

Now, even if he doesn't MEAN to make you uncomfortable, or doesn't mean to make you feel like you are being mistreated, that doesn't excuse the behavior. I would say have a chat and hear him out. If you aren't comfortable talking to the DM about what's been going on in your headspace, you can ask a friend to talk to him for you.

If it really is a case of him trying to kill your character out of malice and he is trying to pick on the new guy, Tell your friend that invited you to the group that you have indefinite plans and won't be able to play, go to the main forum boards here, down to Recruiting Players and find a good online game to play instead.

I agree whole-heartedly with Randuir, earlier. Hazing has no space at D&D tables.

*My read here is that he's teaching you to get into combat and you're not as squishy as you've been playing. That Nat 20 rule is an artifact of AD&D rules, where characters typically didn't live to see level 5. Usually, you don't target healers in D&D. Doing more damage is always better then healing, and Clerics of any type have armor, weapons and Hit Points to survive a lil' scuffle (There is a reason Cure Wounds is a Touch spell). This sounds to me like you've been a bit timid when initiative rolls and he wants to get comfortable being in Melee range to put that shield to use.

**Side questions -

Do you have a background in MMOs? Healers are really important to take out in MMOs, and you've insisted pretty regularly that you're not a healer but still being targeted.

Is most of your Damage Per Round being done with cantrips? are you trying to play a blaster on a Cleric Chassis?

Class/Race/Attributes?

Does your DM have the Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's guide or Monster Manual open while he is DMing? Does he break to look things up frequently (Lets say, more then 4 times an hour) and argue to the letter of the book?

[caoshunter22]

First things first, Are YOU being Targeted/Hazed/Unfairly treated in the game? You can play Schrodinger's Rogue all day long (Anything could be a well crafted lie to trick you), but you need evidence first and foremost of deliberate mistreatment at the exclusion of others. It could be a case that the DM is trying to target you on basis of the Evil Clerics fighting the Good Clerics*. Or maybe the shield makes it really hard to challenge you in the combat encounters that are appropriate for your level.

Now, even if he doesn't MEAN to make you uncomfortable, or doesn't mean to make you feel like you are being mistreated, that doesn't excuse the behavior. I would say have a chat and hear him out. If you aren't comfortable talking to the DM about what's been going on in your headspace, you can ask a friend to talk to him for you.

If it really is a case of him trying to kill your character out of malice and he is trying to pick on the new guy, Tell your friend that invited you to the group that you have indefinite plans and won't be able to play, go to the main forum boards here, down to Recruiting Players and find a good online game to play instead.

I agree whole-heartedly with Randuir, earlier. Hazing has no space at D&D tables.

*My read here is that he's teaching you to get into combat and you're not as squishy as you've been playing. That Nat 20 rule is an artifact of AD&D rules, where characters typically didn't live to see level 5. Usually, you don't target healers in D&D. Doing more damage is always better then healing, and Clerics of any type have armor, weapons and Hit Points to survive a lil' scuffle (There is a reason Cure Wounds is a Touch spell). This sounds to me like you've been a bit timid when initiative rolls and he wants to get comfortable being in Melee range to put that shield to use.

**Side questions -

Do you have a background in MMOs? Healers are really important to take out in MMOs, and you've insisted pretty regularly that you're not a healer but still being targeted.

Is most of your Damage Per Round being done with cantrips? are you trying to play a blaster on a Cleric Chassis?

Class/Race/Attributes?

Does your DM have the Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's guide or Monster Manual open while he is DMing? Does he break to look things up frequently (Lets say, more then 4 times an hour) and argue to the letter of the book?

Maybe Hazed is putting it to harshly but definitely being targeted. It appears he only has books relating to 5e and does look at them when he supposedly doesn't remember a rule. So when I used turn undead and it didn't work because the challenge rating was too high which as other people pointed out in the thread it could be considered cheating. With 17 hp at level 2 with medium armor and even with a shield I'm a bit on the squishy side. So even in terms of cure wounds it's more of a delaying tactic rather then something that will save my skin since I taking a lot damage from 3 blood clerics. My character has a wisdom modifier of 4 so that was the only reason why my character lasted til round three until I went down. The DM decided not to kill of my character so the druid of the group was able to use cure wounds on me and get me back into the fight but by then the fight was almost over anyways. The blood clerics had an ac of 18 so using spells was the only way I could succeed an attack roll. I did most of my damage from scared flame. I was hoping to use toll the dead but since it's not a spell from the PHB it's not allowed.

I'm use to playing healers in MMO's but from talking to people I found out to be the best healer it's best to negate damage rather then being a heal bot so I figured since the druid was planning to pick circle of dreams at the start of the campaign I'd let him do the healing and I'd focus on using shield of faith, bless, guidance and cure wounds for emergencies as my support spells and the rest of my spells for doing damage.

Stats

11 strength
14 dexterity
14 constitution
11 intelligence
19 wisdom
11 charisma

Class cleric of the trickster domain

Race WoodElf

[Metahuman1]

You might consider, if you can get access to Hexblade Warlock, taking 2-3 levels of Paladin and then Going into Hexblade Warlock for the rest of your career. Max Cha as much as you possibly can, then lot's of Con and at least a 15 Str so you can use Plate. Pick Duelist for your fighting style and use Longsword and Shield.

Perhaps invest heavy in training Cha based skills so you can maximize using that high Cha.

All you need between fights is a short rest, and you can increasingly safely Nova your way through things with massive DPS and a solid defense. And you have something to do outside of combat. Bonus: As you get higher level, you can afford to use Warlock spells and Invocations for Utility as well as for Hexblade Cursing+Wrathful Smiting your way through anything that starts crap with you.



This of course assumes you want to stay with this group.

[GreyBlack]

You're a trickery cleric? I'm assuming you're proficient in deception?

Before anything, talk to the DM about things. Tell him, point blank, you feel unfairly targeted and want to know why. If he provides you an adequate answer, and you don't just straight up leave the group, proceed to the next paragraph.

Next game, first round, ask to make a deception check to make yourself look like a tiny, meek idiot who isn't a threat. Roll openly. If that doesn't work, or you roll low, just start using the dodge action/sanctuary.

Make it obvious that because of how the DM is running things, you can't play effectively. If he continues to target you despite you making it obvious, to the point of saying at the table to the other characters, "My character feels that he can't help you guys while there's a threat near him like this," just leave. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

Just to put this in perspective; I recently left a 5e gaming group because I wasn't having fun. I felt like the rules we were running with were too limiting and didn't leave enough room for inventive or innovative character gameplay, which is something I very much enjoy. Besides that, I was asked to play a character type who I really was not a fan of (i.e. cleric whom the rest of the party assumed was a healbot).

I made my dissatisfaction known to the DM, we tried to work around it, but in the end my dissatisfaction outweighed my desire to game with this otherwise great group of friends.

I'm now at another gaming group and honestly having more fun because I feel like I have more leeway to play the game. Not all is lost when you leave a group; you'll find something else.

[Tawmis]

I've been playing with a DM that for whatever reason wants to kill off my character very quickly. My character is a level 2 Cleric following the trickery domain and isn't even the healer of the group. In combat I'm not doing a lot of damage compare to the 2 fighters or the wizard in the group yet for some reason the DM keeps making most of the enemies come after me. I think I was getting lucky since most of the attack roles the DM did for the creatures where bad so my character has never been killed yet but has gone down a few times already. I was given a magical shield that gave my character a pool of dice 3d6 dice to heal. However for some reason the DM decided to take it a way since the DM said it was too over powered and the narrative reason was it's a artifact of some god. So I don't want to just leave the game since it took a long time to find a group that was excepting inexperienced players. I have already asked the DM but all I've gotten back is there is a narrative reason which isn't related to my character's backstory

So some advice on how to deal with a DM like that and maybe some ideas for a tank or high damaging characters.

So, I would ask the DM (the next time he does this), why the monsters are targeting you specifically? And point out, that perhaps they would go after the warriors (being the biggest threat) or the actual healing cleric (who is preventing the monsters from taking down their targets).

See if he can provide a reason why intelligent monsters would behave that way.

[MrStabby]

Two main points...

One, check if you are being unfairly targeted. For example is it you being targeted or the closest person who does not wear heavy armour? How many times is it "unfair".

Second point is to ignore the first. Who cares if it is justified or unjustified. All that matters is if you are going to have fun in the future and are having fun now. There may be a predictive element to point 1 though. No matter how well justified the targeting is, if it is going to stop you having fun you need to fix it or walk. Likewise if you like being the centre of attention even if it isn't justified then stay and have fun.

It sounds like the DM is new to the edition (checking rules, confusing rules with previous editions, difficulty judging power in the edition). Getting the role of DM right is tough at the best of times, if you are adjusting to a new edition, trying out new narrative roles and trying to ditch preconceptions form old editions then it is harder still.

If you feel persecuted it might be right. I wouldn't rule it out but bear in mind that the DM was generous enough to give you an item that was so powerful that he felt the need to take it back later (whilst I might question their judgement their willingness to give you cool stuff seems to be there).

Best answer to pretty much everything is to speak to the DM. Do it privately. Do it politely. Make sure you listen to the responses with an open mind then decide what you want to do.

[Potato_Priest]

Go Life, grab Heavy Armor Master. When he decides he doesn't want to focus you anymore, start abusing Warding Bond + Heavy Armor Master for some great synergies.

I'd just like to point out that, while this combo is fun and creative, it doesn't work as per RAW, since heavy armor master only prevents nonmagical damage, while the warding bond damage comes from a spell. Totally unimportant unless you're playing AL though, I'm pretty sure I would still allow it.

[sophontteks]

I'd just like to point out that, while this combo is fun and creative, it doesn't work as per RAW, since heavy armor master only prevents nonmagical damage, while the warding bond damage comes from a spell. Totally unimportant unless you're playing AL though, I'm pretty sure I would still allow it.

Warding doesn't come from a spell, its an ability. Not that it matters, because this doesn't change the damage type of the incoming damage.

EDIT: sorry mistook warding bond for the abjurers ability, so what I said is mostly BS.

[Samayu]

Caos, why does it bother you so much that he's targeting you?

I'm not saying it shouldn't bother you, but I think you should be certain as to why it does? If you're surviving the threat, that's pretty cool. A couple of good reasons for being unhappy are that if you spend a round or two unconscious (in most combats) before someone can revive you, that's lost play time. You have to stare at the table while your compatriots continue to do their thing. Similarly, if the onslaught means you have to act purely defensively, dodging or whatnot just to stay alive, you're not able to do your job. You're not able to do the things you designed the character to do. This happens to all of us occasionally, and it's part of what makes the game interesting and challenging, but if you have to redesign your character just so it can survive, that's no fun.

This is something to discuss with your DM.

[BaconAwesome]

If you want to try to work with it, role play it. Have your character ask the other PCs if they notice people gunning for you, or try to interrogate the NPCs and find out what their battle strategy is.

Your DM says he has narrative reasons - if you want, try playing along and have your character try to figure out what's going on.

[opaopajr]

If the Druid is predominantly the healer, then yeah, I'd talk to the GM to ask why you seem to get the majority of the attention. I could get it if you are keeping your allies alive and enemies want to win & live. I could get it if you look like the easiest yet still annoying target. But it sounds like there's more squishies & healers than you.

That said, Dodging behind cover is your friend. At the very least use your allies as cover for +2 AC. If you can get behind 3/4 cover, even better for +5 AC. Throw on Dodge, which is Disadv vs. AC, it's also Adv vs. DEX saves.

DEX 14 with Medium Armor should be Chain Shirt for 13+2DEX AC. Add Shield for another +2AC. That's 17 AC. Add another +2 or +5 AC for cover, and then Dodge? That's 19~22 AC with Disadv to hit you, which is very challenging. You should be mostly fine as long as you run around the board Dodging behind cover.

Then you just change the board state by your free one interact with objects, any bonus actions, and reactions. Eventually the GM will discover diminishing returns, I think.

[MrStabby]

That said, Dodging behind cover is your friend. At the very least use your allies as cover for +2 AC. If you can get behind 3/4 cover, even better for +5 AC. Throw on Dodge, which is Disadv vs. AC, it's also Adv vs. DEX saves.

DEX 14 with Medium Armor should be Chain Shirt for 13+2DEX AC. Add Shield for another +2AC. That's 17 AC. Add another +2 or +5 AC for cover, and then Dodge? That's 19~22 AC with Disadv to hit you, which is very challenging. You should be mostly fine as long as you run around the board Dodging behind cover.

Then you just change the board state by your free one interact with objects, any bonus actions, and reactions. Eventually the GM will discover diminishing returns, I think.

I am not sure the "punish the DM by being totally ineffective at him" approach is going to be the most fun though. I can't speak for the OP but running around in combat doing nothing pro-active is not my idea of a good time. If the problem is a player not having a good time then I am a little unconvinced that this will work as a fix.

Agree that cover is good though. Cost of movement is a lot lower in terms of fun than cost of an action.

[opaopajr]

Having a chat like adults is most important. That said, there may be a contextual setting reason he's being targeted. In that case, yeah, Dodge & Cover, use your interact to change the battlefield state. It's WAY more powerful than people think.

If I could reliably pull the aggro knowing how well I can manipulate Dodge & Cover with one free interact, I'd gladly do it. Let's the two fighters and caster mop the floor with what's left. I'd probably be counting the encounters until the GM remembers about Grapple or Shove prone.