I Accidentally Joined a Bearworlds Game
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:41 am
A few weeks ago, I decided to try playing a game on Roll20, not a tome game, just a game with random strangers. They said that they were open to homebrew, and even showed me a class that one person was using. Bloodmage, basically a nerfed wizard that can take con dmg to increase spells per day.
Looks sort of promising, so I show them my paladin, and immediately, they get really worried. It has 9th level spells, he doesn't even look at the spell list, just the number, and immediately wants me to reduce a prepared caster to bard spell leves, and spells known.
I thankfully manage to talk him out of the spells known thing, which means that I have a class that I can live with. Essentially a core paladin with bard spellcasting.
The second thing that I get crap for is that I added the ability to make healing kits from NWN2 as a first level ability, they cost 30 gold. He thinks that these are too powerful, but I explain how they aren't viable in combat, and I can't afford one right now anyway.
So far he seems like a reasonable guy that just doesn't have all that much experience as a DM.
the first session
First session comes. I see an Imp. I detect evil at the Imp, and ask it's intentions. Turns out the Imp is a PC. I am then declared an asshole for assuming that a normally evil creature is evil.
Then I ask the party members what classes they are, and what they do, we have a ranger, a badwizard, a knight, and myself as a mildly buffed pally.
Apparently this is too much for the DM. He sets aside a personal call to me to tell me not to metagame. By this point I am drunk, and can't argue anyway, so I just apologize and stop talking to the party members. After 30 minutes of bad jokes between the mage and the ranger, nothing has happened.
We are shipwrecked, we get to a castle, and see some lizards. In about 2 1/2 hours, this is all that has happened. So, 3 lizardmen, my character has ranks in diplomacy and speaks everything, so I try to persuade them to let us use a room in their castle. I roll a 26, and so they decide to try stabbing me in the face. By this point, I stumbled outside to vomit, and then I went to bed.
the second session
So, before this session starts, I take the time to tell our DM, a person which I am not yet convinced to hate, that the knight is going to suck and never actually tank. I suggest a mild buff of allowing him to taunt per encounter instead of per day. This is accepted well.
Then I explain, in the same message how detect evil works, because he wasn't sure the night before.
So, we begin the next session. I arrive a bit early, and the DM excitedly tells me that a "healer" is joining the group. So, at this point, I ask if he means healer class, or someone with healing powers. Healer class.
Next thing I find out, is that he has an annoying voice, is under the impression that he is the god of the party because he could heal enemies, he has taken a vow of nonviolence, and his entire character concept is based around screwing with the rest of the party. I mean, in one exchange, he took the time to talk for so long about sparring the poor lizard's life that we had taken prisoner. No one was even talking about killing it. I just wanted to leave it tied up for a bit while we figured out what we were doing. Eventually I gave in because the guy was so longwinded. So, we start exploring, and this guy decides to pick up everything, at which point, I discover that he has a vow of poverty, and nonviolence... And he mentioned something about point blank spell being a good feat...
We get to the lower level of the dungeon, there is a trap in a room, the floor is falling, so I take my axe to a door to try to smash my way out. But I roll a 5, apparently rolling low means that something bad has to happen. I start falling through the floor, and for some reason a bat is able to lift me. So, first off he basically kills me, and then decides to keep me alive through fiat. Oh, and the square through which I fell, isn't even a part of his original falling floor pattern.
Next we fight 4 lizard men. I take my position in the front line, and roll my first 1, he has fumble charts. Except they aren't really fumble charts, he just says that, because I noticed that a result of 42 on the fumble chart did different things each time...
So, we are level 1, the knight didn't show up to this game, the healer won't attack, the ranger has no dex and is using a light crossbow, and the imp doesn't cast a spell on his first turn. The lizardmen that we are fighting have an AC of 18. We start seeing red.
All of a sudden the imp casts a spell, evards black tentacles... Which nobody actually knows how to use, so I have to walk them through it step by step. So, we win that because apparently the Imp can cast 4th level spells.
I use detect evil, and the healer decides that he wants to save the life of these lizardmen that radiate evil. I coup de grace as many as I can before he can heal them.
The fight ends with everyone at 3 hp.
The session ends here.
3rd session
We level up at the beginning of the session.
So, we get into another fight, and this is the big boss of the castle, a giant lizardman! We set up to fight it, and I start with detect evil. He and his minions are all evil. wooo! I wrote smite to work on every creature hit provided I know that they are evil.
So, thats +3 atk rolls, and +2 dmg. OMG wayyyyy tooo strong. Instantly they stop being evil. And I am pretty sure that there will never ever ever be another evil creature. He justifies it by "forgetting" that I had told him that detect evil detects evil power, rather than actual alignment... whatever, I'm still the best melee in the group. And I'm just biding my time for my pokehorse when I will charge and the DM won't like me anymore.
So, we are fighting this boss, and suddenly phantasmal killer, and the boss dies. So, apparently my paladin that is basically a nerfed cleric, was too strong, but the level 1&2 casting of 4th level spells isn't. And then the ranger goes exploring with the imp, and opens a chest, the imp calls out that they found a chest, so the rest of us show up and the ranger complains that we wouldn't know about it. He eventually relents, but there is no team unity in this game.
The session ends with me crafting a heal kit, and I'm sure that it will be nerfed next session because someone might end up at full hp. Oh the horror!
So, session ends, I almost have enough money to buy a riding dog.
After this the Imp calls me on skype to talk to me about.... I have no idea, I think he was trying to persuade me that he isn't getting anything special because he is the DM's friend, but he has 4th level spells. And he was so drunk that he was just talking in circles for hours.
I have another session coming up on friday. Things that I expect, my lay on hands will be nerfed, and my healing kit will be nerfed because I will make the healer redundant. which will make my class abilities divine grace... and a few spells at bard level. I should probably just never return.
TL;DR
Elements of Dischord
1. Fumble charts
2. DM favouritism where a character has 4th level spells at lvl 1
3. Any low roll has negative effects, it is better to not act unless you are guaranteed a result of 10
4. 2 players that are just there to fuck with other players.
5. nerfs to things that are not actually powerful, but only when applied to my character. (No one else has seen a single nerf, and they have all performed better than me.)
Looks sort of promising, so I show them my paladin, and immediately, they get really worried. It has 9th level spells, he doesn't even look at the spell list, just the number, and immediately wants me to reduce a prepared caster to bard spell leves, and spells known.
I thankfully manage to talk him out of the spells known thing, which means that I have a class that I can live with. Essentially a core paladin with bard spellcasting.
The second thing that I get crap for is that I added the ability to make healing kits from NWN2 as a first level ability, they cost 30 gold. He thinks that these are too powerful, but I explain how they aren't viable in combat, and I can't afford one right now anyway.
So far he seems like a reasonable guy that just doesn't have all that much experience as a DM.
the first session
First session comes. I see an Imp. I detect evil at the Imp, and ask it's intentions. Turns out the Imp is a PC. I am then declared an asshole for assuming that a normally evil creature is evil.
Then I ask the party members what classes they are, and what they do, we have a ranger, a badwizard, a knight, and myself as a mildly buffed pally.
Apparently this is too much for the DM. He sets aside a personal call to me to tell me not to metagame. By this point I am drunk, and can't argue anyway, so I just apologize and stop talking to the party members. After 30 minutes of bad jokes between the mage and the ranger, nothing has happened.
We are shipwrecked, we get to a castle, and see some lizards. In about 2 1/2 hours, this is all that has happened. So, 3 lizardmen, my character has ranks in diplomacy and speaks everything, so I try to persuade them to let us use a room in their castle. I roll a 26, and so they decide to try stabbing me in the face. By this point, I stumbled outside to vomit, and then I went to bed.
the second session
So, before this session starts, I take the time to tell our DM, a person which I am not yet convinced to hate, that the knight is going to suck and never actually tank. I suggest a mild buff of allowing him to taunt per encounter instead of per day. This is accepted well.
Then I explain, in the same message how detect evil works, because he wasn't sure the night before.
So, we begin the next session. I arrive a bit early, and the DM excitedly tells me that a "healer" is joining the group. So, at this point, I ask if he means healer class, or someone with healing powers. Healer class.
Next thing I find out, is that he has an annoying voice, is under the impression that he is the god of the party because he could heal enemies, he has taken a vow of nonviolence, and his entire character concept is based around screwing with the rest of the party. I mean, in one exchange, he took the time to talk for so long about sparring the poor lizard's life that we had taken prisoner. No one was even talking about killing it. I just wanted to leave it tied up for a bit while we figured out what we were doing. Eventually I gave in because the guy was so longwinded. So, we start exploring, and this guy decides to pick up everything, at which point, I discover that he has a vow of poverty, and nonviolence... And he mentioned something about point blank spell being a good feat...
We get to the lower level of the dungeon, there is a trap in a room, the floor is falling, so I take my axe to a door to try to smash my way out. But I roll a 5, apparently rolling low means that something bad has to happen. I start falling through the floor, and for some reason a bat is able to lift me. So, first off he basically kills me, and then decides to keep me alive through fiat. Oh, and the square through which I fell, isn't even a part of his original falling floor pattern.
Next we fight 4 lizard men. I take my position in the front line, and roll my first 1, he has fumble charts. Except they aren't really fumble charts, he just says that, because I noticed that a result of 42 on the fumble chart did different things each time...
So, we are level 1, the knight didn't show up to this game, the healer won't attack, the ranger has no dex and is using a light crossbow, and the imp doesn't cast a spell on his first turn. The lizardmen that we are fighting have an AC of 18. We start seeing red.
All of a sudden the imp casts a spell, evards black tentacles... Which nobody actually knows how to use, so I have to walk them through it step by step. So, we win that because apparently the Imp can cast 4th level spells.
I use detect evil, and the healer decides that he wants to save the life of these lizardmen that radiate evil. I coup de grace as many as I can before he can heal them.
The fight ends with everyone at 3 hp.
The session ends here.
3rd session
We level up at the beginning of the session.
So, we get into another fight, and this is the big boss of the castle, a giant lizardman! We set up to fight it, and I start with detect evil. He and his minions are all evil. wooo! I wrote smite to work on every creature hit provided I know that they are evil.
So, thats +3 atk rolls, and +2 dmg. OMG wayyyyy tooo strong. Instantly they stop being evil. And I am pretty sure that there will never ever ever be another evil creature. He justifies it by "forgetting" that I had told him that detect evil detects evil power, rather than actual alignment... whatever, I'm still the best melee in the group. And I'm just biding my time for my pokehorse when I will charge and the DM won't like me anymore.
So, we are fighting this boss, and suddenly phantasmal killer, and the boss dies. So, apparently my paladin that is basically a nerfed cleric, was too strong, but the level 1&2 casting of 4th level spells isn't. And then the ranger goes exploring with the imp, and opens a chest, the imp calls out that they found a chest, so the rest of us show up and the ranger complains that we wouldn't know about it. He eventually relents, but there is no team unity in this game.
The session ends with me crafting a heal kit, and I'm sure that it will be nerfed next session because someone might end up at full hp. Oh the horror!
So, session ends, I almost have enough money to buy a riding dog.
After this the Imp calls me on skype to talk to me about.... I have no idea, I think he was trying to persuade me that he isn't getting anything special because he is the DM's friend, but he has 4th level spells. And he was so drunk that he was just talking in circles for hours.
I have another session coming up on friday. Things that I expect, my lay on hands will be nerfed, and my healing kit will be nerfed because I will make the healer redundant. which will make my class abilities divine grace... and a few spells at bard level. I should probably just never return.
TL;DR
Elements of Dischord
1. Fumble charts
2. DM favouritism where a character has 4th level spells at lvl 1
3. Any low roll has negative effects, it is better to not act unless you are guaranteed a result of 10
4. 2 players that are just there to fuck with other players.
5. nerfs to things that are not actually powerful, but only when applied to my character. (No one else has seen a single nerf, and they have all performed better than me.)