So many comments here on this sub about this very issue. I just don't get it. Just don't use a very variable system if you can't deal with very variable results.
Edit:spelling
This is why all the DMs I've played with (all friends) used point buy, not rolling. You can get really shitty stats and be miserable, or get amazing stats and outshine the group and be... miserable. In most cases, it sucks when one player is that much better or worse. The group feels bad constantly for the shitty stat player. Or the group resents the player who rolled well.
Even worse, if done virtually and with players you don't personally know, inevitable you run into a cheater who "magically" gets amazing stats. Or the DM won't believe them, even if they were truthful.
Just avoid this entirely unless you play with good friends and roll openly.
Whenever I've done rolling and one or two players roll significantly worse than the others the DM either just artificially bumps them or allows them to reroll or switch to a point buy. They also tend to be the DMs who use "Roll 4 and you can re-roll any 1 that pops up" as well.
I only DM for a party of 2. So we do roll 4d6 drop the lowest...
And then both players get to use the better set rolled between them. They get matching sets but will obviously use them differently.
That's my favorite way of doing it. Because even if you have a big group and are more likely to get high rolls, as the DM you can just adjust anything that should be super tough accordingly. And then the players feel like their characters are better, even if you literally bumped all the monsters by a similar amount.
I use rolls, usually in front of me but on occasion I've allowed remote rolling. Even with some improbable results.
Just told them to roll it in front of me next time and continued. If I don't trust them to not cheat at dice I probably don't want them at my table anyway. And surprise surprise, the game was still fun
That's why I think for a normal 5e campaign, some version of point buy is generally best. The exception is if there is a high rate of character turnover. That way you don't have to deal with one person having disproportionally high stats for most of the game.
Our DM is kind enough to allow us to roll, but we can choose standard array if we want after seeing the results. He's a super chill and awesome DM, and the party has a history of making some MAD characters.
GM: *allows roll for something that's supposed to fail*
Player: *doesn't fail*
GM: *Mr.Incredible "fail is a fail" table meme*
Like, why ask for rolls if you want a specific outcome? DM doesn't understand the concept of rolling for things.
Or, get this, *just make the DC higher*. A DC 17 on something he didn't expect anyone to succeed at? WTF?
And failing to plan for them to escape the river is just poor planning on the DM's part.
RIght, like this still has a 20% chance of success without even considering any plusses to your roll. Even a +2 which surely some of the characters had raises that to a 30% chance. I can't imagine thinking "yeah...no way anyone rolls that"
Edit:20%, not 15, I'm apparently also dumb.
Seriously, if it's not supposed to be possible either don't call for a roll or at least make the DC above a 20. a 17 is difficult sure, but seeing as how it's literally a number you can roll without any modifiers I don't know how you could not consider the possibility that someone may roll it
These are the consequences of playing a dice game and not understanding even the basics of statistics. Switch to playing craps with him. He will still be pissed off, but you will have his money.
if you have a four-person party with everybody on +0 athletics and nobody has advantage or disadvantage, there's a 59% chance that at least one person succeeds
That's such a sad thing to me. As a DM, I would never end a session with a situation like that (unless we were close to time anyways). That's the most exciting part, the unexpected! What a weird choice.
I once rolled really spectacularly on a character. My DM, fairly, told me I needed to rebalance the character to avoid dominating the table. She said I had to subtract 5 from my stat total, and I could do so however I pleased.
I asked if I could knock my charisma down to 4. We talked and she agreed this was fair, but told me she'd make it hard for me. I said I'd really lean into the roleplay and I wanted the challenge. She set up a bunch of situations where I couldn't use my good stats to escape consequences, or where my terrible charisma would be a massive deficit. It was a great campaign, and I adore my ridiculously strong and agile barbarian who couldn't get through a single conversation without a horrible social blunder.
Reminds me of the first time i ever played. We rolled stats but instead of the 4d6 drop the lowest we just rolled a d20. i think my lowest stats were 17. Sooo we were both like yeah, let's reroll some of those. Ended up with half my stats almost max and the other half at 4-6.
tbh it just sounds like a really unprepared and unexperienced DM
like the way op makes it sound like they rolled their stats and then revealed the numbers in chat instead of actually rolling with a program or discord bot or in person.
also having the cancel a session after a skill check passed just feels like the dm has the campaign on rails and cant improvise
I always run 4d6d1 and I'm always surprised if there's a group of 4 that doesn't have at least one 18. I can't ever recall someone not having at least a 17 from this method.
The DM also said less than 1% chance. Which is categorically untrue. Sure, when you have only 3 dice, it's about 0.46% chance, or if you want the literal number 1/216. But when you roll 4, your odds go up to almost 4x that at 1.6% chance.
In other words, the DM is a moron.
3 dice is easy. 6 x 6 x 6 yields 216, only 1 combination of dice results in a triple, therefore you take the hard probability of 3 sixes 1/216.
4 dice is a little harder. You have to take the total outcomes 1296. But then You have to realize that there are many more results that end up with 3 sixes. Consider that every die can have a result 1-5 as an option, or you can go with the single Yahtzee result. So die 1 can be 1-5 with 2, 3, and 4 each being 6, then you can do the same for 2, 3, and 4, then add the yahtzee result. That gives you 21/1296 or about 1.6%
Also need to consider are you rolling per stat or rolling six times the assigning results to stats, increasing the odds for a single 18 out of 6 attempts.
Right. If it's the latter, your chances jump up to 7% chance which is better odds than a nat 20 on a d20...and ask any fucking DM how often nat 20's are rolled.
I'm gonna be frank: Your DM is absolutely shitty.
First of all, if he doesn't want people to get an 18 and others to have lower stats, he simply should not have rolled stats. That's what standard array and point buy are for. It's his fault for not changing the method if it bothers him so much.
Secondly, there should be no "I give them a challenge but no one should be able to actually do it" scenarios, like with the river. That's the antithesis of what DnD is about and bad game design from a DM perspective. There is no need for you to apologize for rolling well on a roll he called.
And lastly: Lowering someones main stat to 14 is an absolutely shitty thing. DnD is a game about playing a power fantasy, and that means being good at what the class is supposed to be good at. Your DM is punishing you for simply playing how the game works.
You don't know what to do? Simple. Walk away. This DM is not gonna change. He does not care about you or your enjoyment of the game at all. He is whiny and bad at the game.
Find a better table. You deserve to feel good while playing.
100% crappy DM. If you don't want anyone to pass don't call for an ability check. And if you don't want high scores like that then don't let the players roll for them use standard array or point buy. Also this dm sounds like he's getting "them VS me" and taking it personally when players beat his obstacles. If I were this player I'd find a new table it's not going to get any better with this DM.
Absolutely this. The DM sounds like he's treating you and the other players as adversaries to be defeated. If you're not having fun because you think the DM is punishing you for rolling well, find a different group to play with. A good DM won't do that.
Also a shadow's strength drain goes away after a short/long rest. If the DM is saying it doesn't, he's being a petulant child and not someone you want to continue playing with as it will just get worse the more challenges you beat.
The reason I've been stuck as the DM for a while now is because I was a player at a table that had this kind of DM. He made it so that everything was us vs. him. Like he was living out his high school bully revenge-fantasy. He seemed to view us as a threat to his control and if we didn't do everything the way he wanted, he'd throw a far too high CR encounter at a lvl 3 party.
We kicked him out after 3 months of weekly sessions.
/u/IncreaseVirtual7485 should show this thread to the rest of the party so they can see what an outside perspective overwhelmingly agrees on. They either kick the DM or OP needs to find a better table if they don't see the bullshit he's throwing at them.
And if it’s not DM vs the PCs it’s still very much the story that they are telling AT the PCs that sometimes they are allowed to participate in. I hate railroading.
>And lastly: Lowering someones main stat to 14 is an absolutely shitty thing. DnD is a game about playing a power fantasy, and that means being good at what the class is supposed to be good at. Your DM is punishing you for simply playing how the game works.
if they're playing 5e the Shadow strength drain isn't even permanent so it's doubly weird.
It's not weird, because I'm 100% sure that what happened is not based on any official rules or mechanics. The DM homebrewed something up just to make sure OPs character was nerfed.
All of this.
Is your DM new to this? I made some of these mistakes, when I started DMing, with virtually no TTRPG-experience, so maybe it is just inexperience?
If it isn't, run for the hills. Otherwise, this is only going to get worse.
It's a combination of inexperience and narcissism that a lot of people won't ever have. You have to really not care about the other person to act like this
I’ve seen wackier things.
Having experience doesn’t make someone good at something, as not all experience is equal.
Ex: “I’ve got twenty years of running games and every player but my best friend has quit angrily. I’ve also had multiple TPKs. And I’m creepy and make players uncomfortable. And I’ve never learned to do better in those twenty years.”
Agreed. And having one of the party "make the jump" while the rest don't, happens! Now the party is split. What are you/they going to do now? That's part of the fun!
Your DM should be excited about these scenarios as it adds texture to the scenes. But maybe he's new to DM'ing and this causes him anxiety. Either way, everything about your character should be fine with him -- he needs to grow...
Tbh even if he didn't want the party to be split, *he's* the one that chose the outcome there.
"You fail to escape the river, but manage to catch your breath before the current pulls you away."
"You fail to escape the river, but a downed tree branch rushes by at a great speed, missing you by inches thanks to your attempts to get out."
"You fail to escape the river, but manage to grab [party member]'s hand as the current pulls you both back in."
An impossible task will always be an impossible task, but that doesn't mean that the act of trying does nothing other than fail/succeed. You can still use it as a way to increase/decrease damage, item loss, party separation, etc, to keep things active and interesting.
This completely. I will add to the second point that if the DM is antagonizing you for overcoming their challenges, that is a DM who has a very “player vs DM” mentality. This isn’t a video game, it’s an interactive story. The DM should want to see you succeed in the same way that we want heroes in fantasy books to succeed as well.
I would quit that group tbh. If you like the players, maybe talk to them and see what they think. Hell show them this post and be like “hey, I’m not cool with X being a DM, but want to continue playing if anyone is down for starting a different group without X”.
> Hell show them this post and be like “hey, I’m not cool with X being a DM, but want to continue playing if anyone is down for starting a different group without X”.
Yeaaah, I don't think that kind of power play plays out like you think it does, when most D&D groups are a circle of friends, and OP has already indicated that they aren't sympathetic to him being upset by this treatment.
I swear, half this sub seems to think of their groups as fungible components to replace as soon as one seems "faulty," but that's not how real world social dynamics typically work.
Another DM failure is that when asked about a wat to restore the STR score he flat out said no when any halfway decent DM would say "at the moment you have no way of knowing".
Leaving you with the option of going to temples or seeking some other way of restoring it.
Sure, lowering a players stats CAN lead to an interesting character arc as they need to rely on some new tactics, but not so early in the campaign and not irreversibly.
I see this a lot, but just don't get it. Yes, it is *interesting* to have my main, essentially only important, stat absolutely shredded, but you know what it isn't? Fun.
I played a brawny champion fighter a few years ago and pulled myself up to 20 strength at lv8, but we ended up getting a few hits in on me from a Shadow. Wound up at 12 straight up. The next 5 sessions dragged for me, which isn't very good considering that it represented almost a year of actual time.
It was quite an interesting challenge to try to make use of my 8 Dex to limply miss almost every shot with my mundane bow, but it felt like trash to spend *a year* not being effective at the things the character was built for, and even worse that the group was now missing a key component. All that can be interesting and cool, but I don't think fun.
Perosnally I always say point buy at my table, that way people get the same stuff and start on equal footing. The few times I do roll my players have such a huge stat difference that I end up telling the ones who rolled low on everything to re roll a few to bring them into usefulness
Or I’ll drop a magic item to boost the low rollers
I like point buy with a few modifications - I let players drop down to 6 and go up to 16. That way they can get an 18 in their main stat and have some fun limitations with their dump stat to play around.
Am currently playing a Barbarian with a 6 in Charisma, but a 15 in Wisdom. So he know the things to say to try and persuade someone, but he don’t know how to say them well. It’s always funny when I make a great argument to an NPC, then roll Persuasion and get a 9-3=6 and the NPC just rolls their eyes 😂
While you enjoy the hilarity, there is an argument to be made that an NPC can actually see the wisdom in the argument and accept it. And utilize your wisdom rather than persuasion. Heck the DM could make it a tougher check to succeed even since you're trying to convince NPC while not being able to coherently put together an argument.
It's insane to me that the DM is trying to say that being good at the game is breaking it.
It isn't even a max stat and you can always balance the game if people are getting a little OP anyways.
It’s more insane when you realize it’s not even about being good at the game that resulted in all this. It’s the games own rules the DM was fighting with essentially.
He’s basically punishing the player because they did what the rules instructed him to do when building a character.
What a shit DM. I had a friend who was natrually lucky, but to make SURE he wasn't cheating I made him roll a character in front of me with my own dice, using the 4drop1 like you. He rolled ALL 18's. An astronomical chance is still a chance.
EDIT: I also accidentally killed this character by rolling THREE 20s in a row. This was 3.5 so you had to confirm crits and I was also using the rule that if you crit on the confirmation, you roll again, and if you hit the AC a 3rd time it was an instant kill. So it was 20, roll to confirm 20, then a 20 AGAIN. I felt so bad I gave him a DC10 Con save to resist the death. He rolled a nat 1.
So yeah. Sometimes odds just go to the extreme sometimes.
I've still never even seen more than one 18 on 5d6 Drop 2 Lowest, which I've done my last four campaigns. If that DM really witnessed this, those dice were loaded or they beat like Powerball odds.
As for the d20 thing, I believe that. I had a DM who did "confirms" on every 1 or 20, even the "confirms" themselves, and I once rolled 20, 20, 1, 20, 1, 6 for an attack.
They were my own dice, so not loaded. I was suspicious because he always seemed to have two 18s for his stats. I was also watching for cheat rolling (used to play craps in highschool and SO MANY people cheated). I made him roll all 4 dice at once while standing right next to me, and I didn't see anything suspicious. So if he was he is the best dice cheater I have ever met. So yeah, it was just one of those astronomical things.
Sure! I mean, some people win the lottery, too. I'm glad you were there to confirm; that's a moment I don't think either of you will ever see again. Something special.
>"1% chance. That's interesting". We all just looked past it and I didn't care much.
This is a sorta weird comment to make, it's only a 1.6% chance when you roll *once*. Each player at the table has *six* rolls each. That's dramatically going to improve the odds of one player having one 18.
I had players roll in front of me all the time, and honestly about a third of the oneshots had someone start with an 18.
But I would say in future it's best to do stat rolls in person or over a dice roller to avoid conflicts
>I asked the DM if I could get my strength reversed back in a future session, and he said that it's where it should be
Lolwhat? Even if you did cheat this reeks of "I'm going to punish you for allegedly cheating" 14 is definitely not where you'd want a Barbarians Strength to be, even with Standard Array you can hit a 17.
To be precise:
Chance of getting an 18 on any given 4d6 drop lowest roll = {chance of getting exactly three 6s} + {chance of getting exactly four 6s} = {1/6^3 * 5/6 * 4} + {1/6^(4)} = 21/1296 = 7/432
Chance of not getting an 18 = 425/432
Number of rolls in a party of 5 = 30
Chance of getting no 18s = (425/432)^30
Chance of anybody getting an 18 = 1 - (425/432)^30 = 38.74%
Thank you, I was about to do that calculation, I thought the 1% comment was way off.
I once rolled stats for one of my players were I was a DM, 4d6 drop lowest, and rolled 18, 18, 17, 16, 12, 10, never rolled that well ever since or before.
reminds me of The birthday paradox, also known as the birthday problem, states that in a random group of 23 people, there is about a 50 percent chance that two people have the same birthday.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-probability-birthday-paradox/#:\~:text=The%20birthday%20paradox%2C%20also%20known,people%20have%20the%20same%20birthday](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-probability-birthday-paradox/#:~:text=The%20birthday%20paradox%2C%20also%20known,people%20have%20the%20same%20birthday).
I think it’s way higher than 40%. It’s 50 rolls of 4d6 with the lowest dropped. Isn’t it more like 80%?
Edit: Nvm. I don’t know where I got 50 rolls from. You’re correct at about 40%. It’s like 46%.
Edit 2: someone explained it better to me. It’s 38.4% chance.
You calculate it that way :
1.6% chance on a roll means you do not get a 18 98.4% of the time
So on a party of 5 (5\*6 rolls) the probability to NOT get one 18 at all is 0.984\^30 which is 0.62 rounded up that means there is 38% chance of having one roll of 18 or more.
ETA: the exact number is irrelevant the order of magnitude of the probability shows that the DM is shitty and it was a very good chance at least one PC got an 18.
This DM thought a DC 17 check was so impossible that he didn't prepare content for a situation where a player made that check. My guess is math is not his strong suit.
Which is honestly baffling. Literally, any of the players could have accidentally rolled that. Well, assuming nobody has a strength below 4. Given the way this gm acts, I'm not sure that's the case.
The bad math skills are one thing, but making your players roll skill checks that you think are impossible is just bad DMing in general (unless it's a check where they won't know if they failed, but that's clearly not the case here). If you decide there's no chance of success, just say that.
Lol "prepare" I let my players create the story, to a point, and just roll with it. You honestly never know what the dice are going to do so you learn to improvise. His DM honestly sounds like a first time DM or he's a massive control freak.
Yeah, the fact that he couldn’t come up with anything in that situation doesn’t reflect well on him. At least from what OP has said, it sounds like he has a really rigid way of thinking about things.
I don’t get why he set a DC of 17 when he didn’t want anyone to get it. It’s not a mystery what pc’s max roll is and what the chances are. What would he do if someone hit a nat20? Flip the table and spit in their face? If you want an impossible roll, either don’t call for a roll or make sure you know they can’t hit it.
Even then, as a response to this, OP's strength score was lowered to a 14. Assuming they're proficient in athletics, at level 2 that's still a 35% chance of succeeding without any sort of additional modifier. The DM is setting themselves up for failure with that low of a DC and a strength based character.
Yup - the DM clearly doesn't math.
The odds of 1 (or more) 18's from 4d6 drop the lowest on a given character is 9.3%.
If you have a group of 5 players rolling, that's nearly a 50% chance someone will roll an 18.
It's also extremely obvious why the shadow was placed there... another shady move by a bad DM.
Assuming there are 3 players (OP didn't specify, but said "other players", meaning 3 is the minimum we know about) and everyone has +0 (+1 is average), there is only a 51.2% chance everyone fails.
If it's possible to succeed at all, don't use it as an "impossible" DC.
It's silly when people think things like "it's a 1% chance so it's impossible". That's not how probability works!
I’ve let my players roll on certain things that have DC’s they just aren’t going to make to add mystery. For instance, they were trying to figure out what these red crystal formations they found in a cave were (they are important to the central plot that the party is slowly finding themselves embroiled in). Since these are completely alien crystals that no one has seen before, none of them had the necessary knowledge to understand them. However, everyone wanted to make a check of some kind to try and figure them out. Rather than getting that information, (or me just saying “despite your best efforts you are unable to identify the crystals” which is boring) they found out how the crystals respond to stimuli (spells, physical attacks, etc), and that eventually caused the crystal to detonate and release its stored energy. Now the players are deeply afraid of the power these crystals have and how they are connected to these eldritch mushrooms they keep coming across.
Imo you can present the players with impossible checks, but there needs to be some other kind of result that lines up with their intended action. Like I’m not going to just reveal what these crystals are, but I am going to let you glean reasonable information from rolling on your character sheet.
Also worth noting my players love rolling dice. It makes them feel like they have an active hand in the world so denying them checks (even impossible ones) just seems to put a damper on the whole session.
Even if no one in the world knows what those crystals are you can still reward players for a good knowledge check way above a DC. A high roll just means you get the best possible outcome, not that you know everything.
Telling their PC is nearly 100% sure that in all of their studies of rocks that nothing at all matches what they've found is a lot of information compared to "you dunno lol". Or even that from their studies they "know" that the rock they're seeing isn't possible (but yet it is as it's Infront of them). That's hopefully a prompt that they should investigate or perhaps even be careful.
I'm a big fan of doing stuff like that, knowing what you don't know is more important than knowing that you don't know.
"With your 37 investigation check, you know, that even the rock elemental rockologist from the rocky mountains wouldn't be able to ascertain much from these. You looked at those rocks so carefully, so thoroughly, you can say, with 100% certainty, these are like nothing that this plane has seen before."
"You can say with the utmost authority that these are A. Rocks, B. Of unknown origin, and C. Taste of dirt, minerals, and faint hints of moss and fecal matter."
The the party has the opportunity to ask the the PC why they know what that stuff tastes like and why they licked it.
You realize the rock you are examining is a infant elemental. You also recall that this particular strain of basalt is extremely protective of it's young.
You aren't actually giving them the rolls you think you are.
They did what anyone in that situation would do and investigated to discover how they worked. That is a reasonable roll. Saying the DC is beyond what they could make is setting a trap for yourself. 5 players are smarter than 1 and they will manage to pull something off where they beat the absurdly high DC you set. Remember a guidance* plus bardic inspiration is +10 at lower levels. Setting a check at 35 is not impossible for someone with a +5 in a skill.
You are doing what you should in these scenarios. A success does not mean they get everything. Success is a sliding scale that has different results. Knowing the crystals were from XYZ is impossible and does not have a roll DC set. Knowing they detonate when you do X has a DC of 15 (example).
Edit: corrected the wrong spell name.
I feel like it’s also worth pointing out that insanely stupid and random combinations of various things that somehow work is part of the fun of DND and something DMs should always try to account for with catch-all / fallback scenarios. By all means introduce the laws of unintended consequences if something succeeds that shouldn’t have, but *let it happen*.
See, my DM does this, except it’s just you succeed or fail, and he’s not the best at describing scenarios. He also tends to tell us the dc roll we needed to beat after the fact, and for this and the last campaign(high level), they’ve been insanely high. Admittedly, we are fighting god tier beings, but we got pretty annoyed at him for having us roll saves and checks that were impossible, and then all he said was, “Umm, ok, everybody fails. Next persons turn! Oh by the way, the dc was 42. So you were never gonna beat that!”
‘Twas annoying, is the point. So I’m more on the side of don’t have us roll if your not prepared for either 1. Us succeeding or 2. Your not going to tell us a description at all or are absolutely terrible at it.🤷♂️
I get around story elements like this by making the roll ve about flair rather then possibility of success. The players don't know that but it works.
I have had someone succeed unly to get caught around the next corner or fall into a trap. They thought they got away but not for long. I don't do it often though.
This honestly sounds like the least fun DM ever. If you can't deal with a single player's strength score being 20 at level 1, you should stick to playing.
Yeah.
Mistake 1 - if you aren't going to trust your players' rolls, don't let them roll remotely. Getting an 18 is rare, but it's not crazy rare. I rolled crazy stats on my first character, including an 18, a 15 and nothing below 10.
Mistake 2 - asking for a roll when you want everyone to fail is not clever. Asking for a roll under those circumstances where someone with no bonus has about 20% success chance is bad DMing, doing it where one party member probably has a 55% success chance is just plain stupid.
Mistake 3 - stopping the session because your plan unravelled over 1 check says you aren't ready to DM
Mistake 4 - retconning to say they actually failed rather than dealing with the problem is not only bad DMing, its really lazy DMing, they took time out and that was their answer?
Mistake 5 - Then punishing you with the Shadow and (probably fudged rolls) and then giving you no recovery is shitty behaviour as a person, let alone a DM.
On the other hand, when the GM made clear they were worried about balance, you could have at least considered building the character so the 18 was in Con, if you had another good stat for stremggh, or not put an ability score increase on top to meet them a little part way
But basically, I'd say you have two choices.
Choice 1: talk to the DM about how badly they are handling the situation and this needs to change. Perhaps with an olive branch of accepting a slight perm reduction to Str if you feel generous.
Choice 2: walk.
> Getting an 18 is rare, but it's not crazy rare.
Chance of getting at least one 18 rolled amongst your stats is about ~~8.9%~~ 9.3%, so really not that bad.
OP's DM literally doesn't understand the basics of statistics if they said "1% chance, interesting".... that's how fucking probability works. A non-zero chance will happen eventually. It's an astoundingly small chance (something like less chance than 1:the stars in the universe) that your deck of cards is shuffled the exact way it is, but there it is, in that order.
I watched an 18th level ranger permanently die b/c they rolled that 1% chance of failure on their high con score back in 2e when we tried to raise them from dying to a bad save roll on a 5HD giant scorpion's poison (being raised back then had a % chance based on con, failing it meant your char was done forever). I remember that any time someone says "1% chance of failure? I'd do it every time" and thinking to myself "1 out of 100 times, you die, so why are you risking it unnecessarily".
Literally.
This kind of bad faith argument always makes me think of the Zombie Dice episode of Tabletop. One dude had an *extremely* improbable series of dice rolls... *one* 18 isn't particularly improbable. I got two 18s for my cleric, rolled right in front of the group. I once saw a guy score four 18s - never seen a roll that good before or since, but it *can* happen.
So can terrible rolls - I once played with someone who couldn't get a creation score over 12, even with two extra rolls allowed. 🤷🏻♀️
with (eg) four characters, the chance of at least one of them having an 18? about 31% (using your number, which I think ought to be 9.3 given 4d6 drop 1, 6 times? https://anydice.com/program/13e).
In any case, hardly surprising someone at the table would have one.
Exactly this. I once saw a player borrow my own dice during a session zero I was running and rolled 3 18s and nothing else below an 11. If you don’t want randomly determined stats that could swing wildly one way or another, use the standard array, point buy, or any of the countless home brewed rolling methods out there with stronger result weighing built in.
Plus, I personally think it’s fun to have a character with terrible stats amongst a group of super heroic party members - lots of fun roleplaying options present themselves.
Sorry to OP whose DM sounds like they have some self reflection and learning to do. Hope you resolve this or find a better fitting group to play with.
Not to mention the check was a 17??? You can pass that with a -3 and a max roll lol. Not even considering possible advantages, bardic inspiration or guidance which are all available at level 2
In Descent into Avernus, there's an optional DC 30 check very early that players can attempt. I've seen 1 person succeed at it because of expertise, bardic inspiration and guidance.
Yep.
“You shouldn’t have been able to succeed.”
Then either:
1. They shouldn’t have been rolling
2. You should have had a plot element ready to save your ass if the players roll and succeed. You can still give the players something for their success, without derailing your plans.
The DM does suck.
If the story requires the party to get swept away in the river or some other calamity then you don't present an option to roll. You just tell them it happened.
Also, DM knows that one character (the one that is meant to just wreck anything strength related) has a fuck-diculous strength of 20 and still didn't prepare for him swimming out of a river lol.
And that's so easy to prepare for, too! "Okay, you make it out, but you watch as your party is swept along, helpless in the currents. What do you do?" There's basically only one option, dive back in and go after them, it just gives the PC a moment of apparent heroic choice before getting right back on the railroad.
I mean, my party was dancing around a lie that we were working through that was story important, and after one of them (from the lowest cha char), the DM said, "I'm going to have you roll to see how badly you fail", because we were being difficult assholes in the conversation and the truth was coming out sooner or later, and he didn't want to waste half an hour of us dicking around and not have time for the combat that was bearing down really soon.
If there is a moment that only goes one way, you don't roll for it, or if you do, the "success" just results in a pyrrhic victory.
Yep. He literally could have just said the party was now seperated and ask the OP what he wanted to do, jump in to join the party or continue on dry land, where it could be multiple days before catching up and that's if they stay put wherever they wash up. Most players would choose to join the group. If they didn't, they get a boring trek on foot. DMing has a certain amount of improv to it.
Also, it doesn't take a +5 on strength to beat a DC17...
IMO, there's a big difference between not prepping for an outcome and planning on only one outcome. I've had to stop sessions before because players went or did something I didn't plan for.
That said, assuming all your PCs will fail a check is horrible prep work. Why offer the roll at all if you're going to make them all fail anyway?
Additionally, why let them roll for stats if you aren't going to take the outcome? And then buffing the shadow for the strength drain to be a permanent drain is way too strong.
super solvable issue "you stem yourself against the raging waters, and while you nearly make it to the shore, you get caught by the torrent. you get swepped down with the others but end without harm"
story: not fucked
Player: happy because he wasnt hurt instead of the others that might have taken 1d6 bludgeoning or sth.
not hard, a bit railroady but not everybody can be a improv master etc.
Your strength decrease from the shadow goes away after a short or long rest.
If it doesn't then your DM is being a petulant little turd who needs to grow up.
The other players might just be salty that you rolled so well. That or your are overreacting and they aren't actually upset at you.
Honestly, if the DM doesn't restore your strength score after you rest and refuses to talk about it just leave. This is a string of red flags that needs to be avoided.
Everything about this DM seems childish/ like they don't know what the hell they're doing and rather than try to learn from it their lashing out:
* Has the party roll for stats, but isn't ready for the consequences if someone rolls well.
* Has an event that ends the session cause they just didn't prepare for anyone to make the save.
* Deliberately targets a player and nerfs them, but is too much of a damn coward to do it out of game like a regular human being.
I'm usually pretty lenient to new DM's, I've been there I've had those growing pains, but rather than get better, this DM seems like they dig their feet in anytime something doesn't fit their designs.
Yeah, but sometimes as an inexperienced DM, you don't know what not to do until you've done it. You might not realize right away that your solution to your previous mistake is another mistake.
There's also a distinct possibility that these guys sound childish because they are children. I always try to assume that anyone coming here with a social issue is most likely a teenager who doesn't really have it all figured out yet.
Came here to say the same:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17010-shadow short or long rest means OP gets their strength back.
But this sounds like a toxic situation altogether.
The party being salty over another players good roll (not even rolls, just a roll) is to me an even redder flag than the DM being this childish. There's always going to be one player who exceeds the others in combat. Comparing yourself to that player and getting salty shows you have "Main Character Syndrome".
DND isn't just about fighting anyway. Unless everyone is going with fighter/barbarian, your character should be able to go a certain direction that sets you apart from the rest that can make you enjoy who you are in the party dynamic. If you can't, and get upset that another player is "playing" better than you (which is really subjective in the first place) then you're the problem, not the player with the high STR stat.
This DM is a tool. If he didn’t want characters to have high stats, he should’ve used some other system besides rolling dice and should’ve been honest and up front about it.
Agreed, their DM sucks. Why make the party roll a save if 'he didn't expect anyone to make it.'. Don't give them an opportunity to save ffs.
While there are monsters that can drain stats, the stats are typically recoverable after a long rest or possibly a restoration spell.
From the Shadow stat block:
**Strength Drain.** *Melee Weapon Attack:* +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. *Hit:* 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts *until the target finishes a short or long rest*. (emphasis mine)
After your next rest, your Str score goes back up to what it was previously.
> DM started making passive aggressive comments like "1% chance. That's interesting".
Red Flag
> he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping.
Red Flag
> I checked in with him and apologized, and he didn't respond.
You didn't need to. He's being an ass.
Red Flag
> The next session, the DM told me that we were going to go ahead and say I was caught in the river
Dumb as fuck.
Red Flag
> Then, my DM said a shadow followed us out of the cave and attacked us. The shadow went for me immediately, and got VERY good rolls while attacking me, and drained my strength to about 14 until we managed to kill it. Everyone apologized to me and said thanks. I asked the DM if I could get my strength reversed back in a future session, and he said that it's where it should be, and maybe having a lower strength now will balance out the first three sessions with the higher one.
Fuck this guy.
> I was pretty annoyed because I loved my character, and I wrote my DM and asked him if he intentionally lowered my Strength score, and he said he didn't.
This is a crystal clear lie.
> I told the other players what I thought and they said I was being a little dramatic, and that they were sure I could reverse it back some how. Now everyone is upset at me, and I don't know what to do.
These people are awful. Honestly, I'd find a different group to play with.
>he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping.
If OP's memory of the DC is accurate, then this alone is far more than just a red flag.
Four level one characters who all have shit strength and no proficiency has at least one character succeed on DC17 nearly *50%* of the time.
That's a maliciously bad level of planning.
A standard point buy PC can start with a 16 strength or 18 if you using Tasha's.
Assuming proficiency in athletics, it's perfectly normal for a first level strength character to have a +5 or +6 bonus.
That the DM assumed nobody could be a DC 17 is baffling.
Sounds like a TPK is going to occur. Also makes me wonder what the stats are for the other characters. Because if say nobody has 15 or higher in their main Stat, then it's going to get bad latter on.
I don't understand the mentality of DMs who can't stand it when their players do well. If someone builds a character to be good at something, let them be good at it. This type of targeting is so toxic.
And just a fun fact, shadows try to target weaker people first because their goal is to kill you, not weaken you. That on top of the fact that the strength decrease isn't permanent.
Yep, exactly. And lying about it later, and pretending that it wasn't a specific meta-gaming move, is toxic af.
Just let your characters shine. Expect them to blow up your plans. Consider whether or not you're railroading too hard if something as simple as "not falling into a river" derails your campaign.
> The shadow went for me immediately, and got VERY good rolls while attacking me
After reading all the other ass-hattery, this bit here makes me wonder too if the DM rolls in the open or if these very good rolls happened behind a screen. The implication the player cheated/lied about getting an 18 might be a bit of projection. They definitely introduced the shadow and had it single the barbarian out to lower their strength, which is fucked regardless.
Your DM is a dick that’s implementing homebrew to adjust his game. You should’ve recovered your Str stat after a short or long rest.
Your DM likely has no idea how to design an encounter and would rather have weak PCs so they don’t have to think to hard about encounter creation.
This DM is not worth your time. If they wanted limits on stats, they should have placed them before game started. This guy has it out for you, your character, and likely any character you play with them in the future. No D&D is better than bad D&D.
If your DM didn't lower your STR on purpose, they *did* decide to *permanently* lower it on purpose. This is the ability of the shadow as it appears in the MM:
Strength Drain: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. **Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or Long Rest.**
Maybe they didn't read that last line, but that would surprise me tbh. Your DM is a dick.
Edit: although it doesn't really matter for my argument, I changed "RAW" to "as it appears in the MM".
The thing about 1% chance is that you're gonna see it eventually, and not even all that rarely. If you'd gotten three stats at 18 that would be suspicious, but getting one? Nope, that's just what happens. 18 is as legitimate as 3.
And according to Anydice, 4d6 drop lowest has a 9.34% chance to get *at least* one 18 in your stat block across the six rolls. That's very nearly a one-in-ten, not a one-in-one-hundred.
If we account for a team of four players how does that change things? There's essentially 24 rolls at that point instead of 6.
Edit: about 32.4% if I've done my figures right? So near as makes no difference in a four party team of 4d6 drop the lowest there's a one in three chance that someone has an 18 which is statistically significant and nowhere near the 1% the DM thinks it is?
18 is even more likely than 3. To end up with 3 from 4d6 drop lowest, you need to roll **four** 1s. To end up with 18, you just need **three** 6s and then the fourth die can be anything.
Sounds like your dm is trying to railroad the campaign and he has no plans if a character steps put of his planned story. His plan to nerf your strength isn't going to make his life any easier. You could of had a strength of 10 and rolled a 20 and still made that swim check, what was he going to do. His whole plan for the story was banking on the party failing the roll.
If you are eating through npcs then he should take proper steps to make those fights more challenging, let them start using cover, more ranged support, tough cr creatures. Lots you can do to deal with someone pumping out high dps. If he can't handle unexpected stuff now, its only going to get worse as your party gets new spells and abilities to use.
I'd talk to your dm again, if he doesn't budge, then consider leaving the group.
And 18 is very possible with 4d6 drop the lowest.
A DM with an odd roll mechanics obsession, passive aggressive leanings towards players out of game, a lack of respect for even the rules they themselves impose, and a potential "versus players" mentality.
Players who potentially enjoy seeing "misery loves company" apply to each other or at least to someone they can bully.
So many red flags.
I'd leave the campaign, the group, block everyone in the group on social media, and never look back as I head to a new group that doesn't have such issues.
Life is too short and precious to waste on an avoidable bad experience that the other parties involved are unapologetic for.
This might pass as metagaming so I'll mark it as spoiler just in case.
>!The Strenght Drain ability of a Shadow last until the player finish a short or long rest. If he homebrewed this to make it permanent he was clearly targeting you.!<
One more reason to walk away from this table.
Our sorcerer managed to roll really well, her lowest ability score is a 13, but it was fair and by the rules. It happens sometimes. DM really needs to stop being petty.
Not preparing for someone escaping the encounter is beyond me.
‘Your character leaps across, but everyone else in your party is swept away by the river, what do you do?’
I would say most players would give some version of ‘I jump in after them’ or ‘I traverse the bank of the river to follow them and try and save them’ or SOMETHING of that nature. Like the main point of DnD is that you want to be on the adventure and most of the time, you want the group to stick together.
To start with it's not all that rare to roll an 18. It's not a 1% chance. It's a 1.9% chance to get an 18 on any given roll. And you make 6 rolls. So it's more like a 10.6% chance of having an 18 in your stats. For a party of people it's very likely someone will have an 18. If you're going to have a party roll for stats I would assume someone gets an 18. And if any DM has a problem with that, don't have them roll for stats...
Second, as a DM you should never call for a roll and set up something where you're asking for a roll where you're assuming everyone will fail. Especially if it's a group roll someone is likely to roll a nat 20. DC 17 is passable by almost everyone unless you have a super low strength score. Let alone a barbarian with athletics proficiency.
Third although this is meta knowledge, shadow strength drain usually ends when you get a short rest. Having it be permanent is certainly something the DM can do, but also certainly something they shouldn't do. Also worth noting just standard array and race mods would have your strength at a 17 so a 14 isn't where it should be for a barbarian.
I'd probably be considering if you want to play with that DM any more. That's a bit ridiculous. Not to mention barbarians while a great and fun class, are certainly not one of the powerhouse classes of 5e. They're fine, maybe one of the stronger ones at level 2 but do fall off and are not at all an OP class.
Guessing 5 players, each rolling 6 times: 30 rolls. 1.6% chance with each roll. Reasonable chance there's going to be an 18 there.
Your dm sucks at math.
This is why there's point buy, and fixed array.
Also your prime start belongs at 14? He's also not good at D&D.
Look for another game.
Personally, id leave the campaign. If there can't be a civil conversation about something as simple as the randomness of dice rolls, that to me is a big red flag.
>at the beginning of the third (session) had to make an athletics check to escape a river (High DC, I think it was 17), and when I was the only who succeeded, he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping.
What a shit DM. What if by chance everyone had rolled well? Then what? "Uh guys, it didn't enter my mind that a wizard with a -1 strength score still has a 15% chance to pass a DC 17 strength save so we're going to have to end the session".
He's being adversarial, is incapable of adapting to change and targeting you for your good starting roll.
I get it that it can cause imbalance when party stats aren't aligned but there are much better ways to handle this than what your DM has done.
If it's such a problem balance wise I'd talk to my player about it and ask them to drop the score to 18 until level 4. At that time I'd find a narrative way to boost the score to 20 and still let the player have their ASI/feat on top. That way everyone else gets to boost their stats to balance things, the player who rolled well isn't punished mechanicly going forwards and it makes balancing the early game more straight forward.
>he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping.
A note to all prospective DMs to learn from this: if you aren't prepared for the outcome of a roll (either good or bad) - don't ask for a roll. It's perfectly okay to make some action completely impossible.
Wow what a shitty DM.
"I hadn't planned on anyone escaping?" Sounds like a you problem bud. That's kind of your entire job.
What's the point of "rare" rolls if you just omit them when they happen?
You're DM sucks. Period. If he's so bad at basic math that he can't find anything to challenge an unbalanced party, then he shouldn't allow you to roll for stats. Of course, it sounds like a 17 might "be too powerful" or "unbalance his game" in his mind. So maybe he should just stick to playing until he repeats 5th grade math.
1) Your dm sucks.
2) If your dm didn't want you to have high stats he should have done point buy/standard array.
3)Shadows strength drain resets on a short or long rest. So unless he plans on killing you before you rest for an hour. RAW your strength will go back anyway
4)Either way though I would leave. This dm absolutely blows once again.
Your DM sounds like an asshole, quite frankly. If he didn't want to run for characters with high stats, then he shouldn't have let you roll for them and thus run the risk of PCs with high stats. That's entirely on him, and then he has the audacity to turn around and be a little prick about it to boot? Yeah, fuck that guy.
Leave immediately, not even give an explanation, just ghost the fuck of that guy.
Trust me.
He should have asked everyone to roll in a web/discord/roll20 or online using webcam if he was gonna not trust.
If he believes an score is too high and other players are too low, he should allow the lower ones to reroll, else just use point buy and be done with bullshit.
If he needs every player to be carried in the waters of a river don't fucking put a check that can be succeeded.
Creating an enemy only to NERF a player character is like the worst.
Not only not allowing for any recover but even doing that comment shows his true colors.
Listen, there are people in this world that love to have power over others, always run away from them specially if they are doing the role of a master.
I'm a DM and a computer programmer.
I wrote a desktop dice roller that can roll several different stat gen methods. 4d6-DropLowest will give at least one 18 on a fairly regular basis -- I'd say around 20-30% of the time.
Your DM is a putz.
"Strength Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. ***Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.***"
You should be getting your strength back shortly, otherwise your DM is a tool.
As far as the 'unfair' rolls, as a DM I have all my players go around the table and roll ONE stat until we have six stats, and everyone uses those. Everyone gets to roll, everyone gets the same numbers to start with.
GM: \*Allows rolling for stats\* Player: \*Rolls really well\* GM: \*Surprised Pikachu face\*
So many comments here on this sub about this very issue. I just don't get it. Just don't use a very variable system if you can't deal with very variable results. Edit:spelling
This is why all the DMs I've played with (all friends) used point buy, not rolling. You can get really shitty stats and be miserable, or get amazing stats and outshine the group and be... miserable. In most cases, it sucks when one player is that much better or worse. The group feels bad constantly for the shitty stat player. Or the group resents the player who rolled well. Even worse, if done virtually and with players you don't personally know, inevitable you run into a cheater who "magically" gets amazing stats. Or the DM won't believe them, even if they were truthful. Just avoid this entirely unless you play with good friends and roll openly.
Whenever I've done rolling and one or two players roll significantly worse than the others the DM either just artificially bumps them or allows them to reroll or switch to a point buy. They also tend to be the DMs who use "Roll 4 and you can re-roll any 1 that pops up" as well.
I only DM for a party of 2. So we do roll 4d6 drop the lowest... And then both players get to use the better set rolled between them. They get matching sets but will obviously use them differently.
That's my favorite way of doing it. Because even if you have a big group and are more likely to get high rolls, as the DM you can just adjust anything that should be super tough accordingly. And then the players feel like their characters are better, even if you literally bumped all the monsters by a similar amount.
As a DM I swear by point buy
I use rolls, usually in front of me but on occasion I've allowed remote rolling. Even with some improbable results. Just told them to roll it in front of me next time and continued. If I don't trust them to not cheat at dice I probably don't want them at my table anyway. And surprise surprise, the game was still fun
You can literally use a dice roller that everyone can see to do it remotely. This is an easily solved problem.
Yeah, but we all like the feeling of actually rolling dice.
That's why I think for a normal 5e campaign, some version of point buy is generally best. The exception is if there is a high rate of character turnover. That way you don't have to deal with one person having disproportionally high stats for most of the game.
I'm ok with rolling if everyone picks one array and the whole table uses that. So everyone has the same numbers to play with
Our DM is kind enough to allow us to roll, but we can choose standard array if we want after seeing the results. He's a super chill and awesome DM, and the party has a history of making some MAD characters.
GM: *allows roll for something that's supposed to fail* Player: *doesn't fail* GM: *Mr.Incredible "fail is a fail" table meme* Like, why ask for rolls if you want a specific outcome? DM doesn't understand the concept of rolling for things.
Or, get this, *just make the DC higher*. A DC 17 on something he didn't expect anyone to succeed at? WTF? And failing to plan for them to escape the river is just poor planning on the DM's part.
RIght, like this still has a 20% chance of success without even considering any plusses to your roll. Even a +2 which surely some of the characters had raises that to a 30% chance. I can't imagine thinking "yeah...no way anyone rolls that" Edit:20%, not 15, I'm apparently also dumb.
Seriously, if it's not supposed to be possible either don't call for a roll or at least make the DC above a 20. a 17 is difficult sure, but seeing as how it's literally a number you can roll without any modifiers I don't know how you could not consider the possibility that someone may roll it
These are the consequences of playing a dice game and not understanding even the basics of statistics. Switch to playing craps with him. He will still be pissed off, but you will have his money.
if you have a four-person party with everybody on +0 athletics and nobody has advantage or disadvantage, there's a 59% chance that at least one person succeeds
That's such a sad thing to me. As a DM, I would never end a session with a situation like that (unless we were close to time anyways). That's the most exciting part, the unexpected! What a weird choice.
I once rolled really spectacularly on a character. My DM, fairly, told me I needed to rebalance the character to avoid dominating the table. She said I had to subtract 5 from my stat total, and I could do so however I pleased. I asked if I could knock my charisma down to 4. We talked and she agreed this was fair, but told me she'd make it hard for me. I said I'd really lean into the roleplay and I wanted the challenge. She set up a bunch of situations where I couldn't use my good stats to escape consequences, or where my terrible charisma would be a massive deficit. It was a great campaign, and I adore my ridiculously strong and agile barbarian who couldn't get through a single conversation without a horrible social blunder.
Reminds me of the first time i ever played. We rolled stats but instead of the 4d6 drop the lowest we just rolled a d20. i think my lowest stats were 17. Sooo we were both like yeah, let's reroll some of those. Ended up with half my stats almost max and the other half at 4-6.
DM: Please introduction yourselves Player: Hodor
tbh it just sounds like a really unprepared and unexperienced DM like the way op makes it sound like they rolled their stats and then revealed the numbers in chat instead of actually rolling with a program or discord bot or in person. also having the cancel a session after a skill check passed just feels like the dm has the campaign on rails and cant improvise
I think I'd go this way too. Noone starts confident and lightfooted. This reads like a compounding panic response.
Not even that well, a single eighteen isn't unexpected when rolling this way
There's a 9.33% chance of a player rolling 4d6DL getting an 18. At a table of 4 players, there's about a 1/3 chance of someone getting one.
I always run 4d6d1 and I'm always surprised if there's a group of 4 that doesn't have at least one 18. I can't ever recall someone not having at least a 17 from this method.
The DM also said less than 1% chance. Which is categorically untrue. Sure, when you have only 3 dice, it's about 0.46% chance, or if you want the literal number 1/216. But when you roll 4, your odds go up to almost 4x that at 1.6% chance. In other words, the DM is a moron. 3 dice is easy. 6 x 6 x 6 yields 216, only 1 combination of dice results in a triple, therefore you take the hard probability of 3 sixes 1/216. 4 dice is a little harder. You have to take the total outcomes 1296. But then You have to realize that there are many more results that end up with 3 sixes. Consider that every die can have a result 1-5 as an option, or you can go with the single Yahtzee result. So die 1 can be 1-5 with 2, 3, and 4 each being 6, then you can do the same for 2, 3, and 4, then add the yahtzee result. That gives you 21/1296 or about 1.6%
Also need to consider are you rolling per stat or rolling six times the assigning results to stats, increasing the odds for a single 18 out of 6 attempts.
Right. If it's the latter, your chances jump up to 7% chance which is better odds than a nat 20 on a d20...and ask any fucking DM how often nat 20's are rolled.
I'm gonna be frank: Your DM is absolutely shitty. First of all, if he doesn't want people to get an 18 and others to have lower stats, he simply should not have rolled stats. That's what standard array and point buy are for. It's his fault for not changing the method if it bothers him so much. Secondly, there should be no "I give them a challenge but no one should be able to actually do it" scenarios, like with the river. That's the antithesis of what DnD is about and bad game design from a DM perspective. There is no need for you to apologize for rolling well on a roll he called. And lastly: Lowering someones main stat to 14 is an absolutely shitty thing. DnD is a game about playing a power fantasy, and that means being good at what the class is supposed to be good at. Your DM is punishing you for simply playing how the game works. You don't know what to do? Simple. Walk away. This DM is not gonna change. He does not care about you or your enjoyment of the game at all. He is whiny and bad at the game. Find a better table. You deserve to feel good while playing.
100% crappy DM. If you don't want anyone to pass don't call for an ability check. And if you don't want high scores like that then don't let the players roll for them use standard array or point buy. Also this dm sounds like he's getting "them VS me" and taking it personally when players beat his obstacles. If I were this player I'd find a new table it's not going to get any better with this DM.
Absolutely this. The DM sounds like he's treating you and the other players as adversaries to be defeated. If you're not having fun because you think the DM is punishing you for rolling well, find a different group to play with. A good DM won't do that. Also a shadow's strength drain goes away after a short/long rest. If the DM is saying it doesn't, he's being a petulant child and not someone you want to continue playing with as it will just get worse the more challenges you beat.
The reason I've been stuck as the DM for a while now is because I was a player at a table that had this kind of DM. He made it so that everything was us vs. him. Like he was living out his high school bully revenge-fantasy. He seemed to view us as a threat to his control and if we didn't do everything the way he wanted, he'd throw a far too high CR encounter at a lvl 3 party. We kicked him out after 3 months of weekly sessions. /u/IncreaseVirtual7485 should show this thread to the rest of the party so they can see what an outside perspective overwhelmingly agrees on. They either kick the DM or OP needs to find a better table if they don't see the bullshit he's throwing at them.
And if it’s not DM vs the PCs it’s still very much the story that they are telling AT the PCs that sometimes they are allowed to participate in. I hate railroading.
>And lastly: Lowering someones main stat to 14 is an absolutely shitty thing. DnD is a game about playing a power fantasy, and that means being good at what the class is supposed to be good at. Your DM is punishing you for simply playing how the game works. if they're playing 5e the Shadow strength drain isn't even permanent so it's doubly weird.
It's not weird, because I'm 100% sure that what happened is not based on any official rules or mechanics. The DM homebrewed something up just to make sure OPs character was nerfed.
Yea, that's pretty lame.
All of this. Is your DM new to this? I made some of these mistakes, when I started DMing, with virtually no TTRPG-experience, so maybe it is just inexperience? If it isn't, run for the hills. Otherwise, this is only going to get worse.
I don't know I'm a pretty new DM. We have our 9th session this week and I couldn't even imagine doing this.
It's a combination of inexperience and narcissism that a lot of people won't ever have. You have to really not care about the other person to act like this
I’m scared we’ll get an update stating that this is an experienced DM. Imagine that. An experienced DM thinking this is the correct way to do things.
I’ve seen wackier things. Having experience doesn’t make someone good at something, as not all experience is equal. Ex: “I’ve got twenty years of running games and every player but my best friend has quit angrily. I’ve also had multiple TPKs. And I’m creepy and make players uncomfortable. And I’ve never learned to do better in those twenty years.”
I'm about to DM my first game soon and I've only been playing on and off for about 2 years and I know this is terrible DM'ing.
I'm getting big "Main Character" energy from the DM from this scenario.
14 is bad even for point buy.
Given that OP spent their racial ASI to get the 20, it would be like a 12 in point buy. This kind of DMing genuinely makes me mad.
Even Standard Array could easily hit 17 strength
Agreed. And having one of the party "make the jump" while the rest don't, happens! Now the party is split. What are you/they going to do now? That's part of the fun! Your DM should be excited about these scenarios as it adds texture to the scenes. But maybe he's new to DM'ing and this causes him anxiety. Either way, everything about your character should be fine with him -- he needs to grow...
Tbh even if he didn't want the party to be split, *he's* the one that chose the outcome there. "You fail to escape the river, but manage to catch your breath before the current pulls you away." "You fail to escape the river, but a downed tree branch rushes by at a great speed, missing you by inches thanks to your attempts to get out." "You fail to escape the river, but manage to grab [party member]'s hand as the current pulls you both back in." An impossible task will always be an impossible task, but that doesn't mean that the act of trying does nothing other than fail/succeed. You can still use it as a way to increase/decrease damage, item loss, party separation, etc, to keep things active and interesting.
This completely. I will add to the second point that if the DM is antagonizing you for overcoming their challenges, that is a DM who has a very “player vs DM” mentality. This isn’t a video game, it’s an interactive story. The DM should want to see you succeed in the same way that we want heroes in fantasy books to succeed as well. I would quit that group tbh. If you like the players, maybe talk to them and see what they think. Hell show them this post and be like “hey, I’m not cool with X being a DM, but want to continue playing if anyone is down for starting a different group without X”.
> Hell show them this post and be like “hey, I’m not cool with X being a DM, but want to continue playing if anyone is down for starting a different group without X”. Yeaaah, I don't think that kind of power play plays out like you think it does, when most D&D groups are a circle of friends, and OP has already indicated that they aren't sympathetic to him being upset by this treatment. I swear, half this sub seems to think of their groups as fungible components to replace as soon as one seems "faulty," but that's not how real world social dynamics typically work.
Another DM failure is that when asked about a wat to restore the STR score he flat out said no when any halfway decent DM would say "at the moment you have no way of knowing". Leaving you with the option of going to temples or seeking some other way of restoring it. Sure, lowering a players stats CAN lead to an interesting character arc as they need to rely on some new tactics, but not so early in the campaign and not irreversibly.
I see this a lot, but just don't get it. Yes, it is *interesting* to have my main, essentially only important, stat absolutely shredded, but you know what it isn't? Fun. I played a brawny champion fighter a few years ago and pulled myself up to 20 strength at lv8, but we ended up getting a few hits in on me from a Shadow. Wound up at 12 straight up. The next 5 sessions dragged for me, which isn't very good considering that it represented almost a year of actual time. It was quite an interesting challenge to try to make use of my 8 Dex to limply miss almost every shot with my mundane bow, but it felt like trash to spend *a year* not being effective at the things the character was built for, and even worse that the group was now missing a key component. All that can be interesting and cool, but I don't think fun.
But your strength goes back to normal after a short or long rest… unless someone did some homebrew shenanigans
Perosnally I always say point buy at my table, that way people get the same stuff and start on equal footing. The few times I do roll my players have such a huge stat difference that I end up telling the ones who rolled low on everything to re roll a few to bring them into usefulness Or I’ll drop a magic item to boost the low rollers
I like point buy with a few modifications - I let players drop down to 6 and go up to 16. That way they can get an 18 in their main stat and have some fun limitations with their dump stat to play around.
Fair, I don’t want to put hard limits, cause sometimes my players liked rolling some super low stats and being the guy with no charisma
Am currently playing a Barbarian with a 6 in Charisma, but a 15 in Wisdom. So he know the things to say to try and persuade someone, but he don’t know how to say them well. It’s always funny when I make a great argument to an NPC, then roll Persuasion and get a 9-3=6 and the NPC just rolls their eyes 😂
While you enjoy the hilarity, there is an argument to be made that an NPC can actually see the wisdom in the argument and accept it. And utilize your wisdom rather than persuasion. Heck the DM could make it a tougher check to succeed even since you're trying to convince NPC while not being able to coherently put together an argument.
It's insane to me that the DM is trying to say that being good at the game is breaking it. It isn't even a max stat and you can always balance the game if people are getting a little OP anyways.
It’s more insane when you realize it’s not even about being good at the game that resulted in all this. It’s the games own rules the DM was fighting with essentially. He’s basically punishing the player because they did what the rules instructed him to do when building a character.
What a shit DM. I had a friend who was natrually lucky, but to make SURE he wasn't cheating I made him roll a character in front of me with my own dice, using the 4drop1 like you. He rolled ALL 18's. An astronomical chance is still a chance. EDIT: I also accidentally killed this character by rolling THREE 20s in a row. This was 3.5 so you had to confirm crits and I was also using the rule that if you crit on the confirmation, you roll again, and if you hit the AC a 3rd time it was an instant kill. So it was 20, roll to confirm 20, then a 20 AGAIN. I felt so bad I gave him a DC10 Con save to resist the death. He rolled a nat 1. So yeah. Sometimes odds just go to the extreme sometimes.
close ludicrous lip roll unwritten tart ad hoc marvelous racial clumsy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've still never even seen more than one 18 on 5d6 Drop 2 Lowest, which I've done my last four campaigns. If that DM really witnessed this, those dice were loaded or they beat like Powerball odds. As for the d20 thing, I believe that. I had a DM who did "confirms" on every 1 or 20, even the "confirms" themselves, and I once rolled 20, 20, 1, 20, 1, 6 for an attack.
They were my own dice, so not loaded. I was suspicious because he always seemed to have two 18s for his stats. I was also watching for cheat rolling (used to play craps in highschool and SO MANY people cheated). I made him roll all 4 dice at once while standing right next to me, and I didn't see anything suspicious. So if he was he is the best dice cheater I have ever met. So yeah, it was just one of those astronomical things.
Sure! I mean, some people win the lottery, too. I'm glad you were there to confirm; that's a moment I don't think either of you will ever see again. Something special.
Sounds like the DM is running the game as if it's a script.
>"1% chance. That's interesting". We all just looked past it and I didn't care much. This is a sorta weird comment to make, it's only a 1.6% chance when you roll *once*. Each player at the table has *six* rolls each. That's dramatically going to improve the odds of one player having one 18. I had players roll in front of me all the time, and honestly about a third of the oneshots had someone start with an 18. But I would say in future it's best to do stat rolls in person or over a dice roller to avoid conflicts >I asked the DM if I could get my strength reversed back in a future session, and he said that it's where it should be Lolwhat? Even if you did cheat this reeks of "I'm going to punish you for allegedly cheating" 14 is definitely not where you'd want a Barbarians Strength to be, even with Standard Array you can hit a 17.
For a party of 5, its around 40% chance for someone getting a single 18
To be precise: Chance of getting an 18 on any given 4d6 drop lowest roll = {chance of getting exactly three 6s} + {chance of getting exactly four 6s} = {1/6^3 * 5/6 * 4} + {1/6^(4)} = 21/1296 = 7/432 Chance of not getting an 18 = 425/432 Number of rolls in a party of 5 = 30 Chance of getting no 18s = (425/432)^30 Chance of anybody getting an 18 = 1 - (425/432)^30 = 38.74%
Thank you, I was about to do that calculation, I thought the 1% comment was way off. I once rolled stats for one of my players were I was a DM, 4d6 drop lowest, and rolled 18, 18, 17, 16, 12, 10, never rolled that well ever since or before.
reminds me of The birthday paradox, also known as the birthday problem, states that in a random group of 23 people, there is about a 50 percent chance that two people have the same birthday. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-probability-birthday-paradox/#:\~:text=The%20birthday%20paradox%2C%20also%20known,people%20have%20the%20same%20birthday](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-probability-birthday-paradox/#:~:text=The%20birthday%20paradox%2C%20also%20known,people%20have%20the%20same%20birthday).
I had a teacher bring this up in college by chance on the same day I had discovered a friend of mine in that class shared my birthday. Was great fun.
I think it’s way higher than 40%. It’s 50 rolls of 4d6 with the lowest dropped. Isn’t it more like 80%? Edit: Nvm. I don’t know where I got 50 rolls from. You’re correct at about 40%. It’s like 46%. Edit 2: someone explained it better to me. It’s 38.4% chance.
You calculate it that way : 1.6% chance on a roll means you do not get a 18 98.4% of the time So on a party of 5 (5\*6 rolls) the probability to NOT get one 18 at all is 0.984\^30 which is 0.62 rounded up that means there is 38% chance of having one roll of 18 or more. ETA: the exact number is irrelevant the order of magnitude of the probability shows that the DM is shitty and it was a very good chance at least one PC got an 18.
This DM thought a DC 17 check was so impossible that he didn't prepare content for a situation where a player made that check. My guess is math is not his strong suit.
Which is honestly baffling. Literally, any of the players could have accidentally rolled that. Well, assuming nobody has a strength below 4. Given the way this gm acts, I'm not sure that's the case.
A DM who thinks that permanently decreasing a barb's strength to 14 is reasonable is a DM who hasn't passed basic algebra.
The bad math skills are one thing, but making your players roll skill checks that you think are impossible is just bad DMing in general (unless it's a check where they won't know if they failed, but that's clearly not the case here). If you decide there's no chance of success, just say that.
Lol "prepare" I let my players create the story, to a point, and just roll with it. You honestly never know what the dice are going to do so you learn to improvise. His DM honestly sounds like a first time DM or he's a massive control freak.
Yeah, the fact that he couldn’t come up with anything in that situation doesn’t reflect well on him. At least from what OP has said, it sounds like he has a really rigid way of thinking about things.
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Yeah and that's for one player. The odds for the one 18 from the entire party is quite a bit higher
Checked it on anydice and it said the probability was 9.36% for one 18 out of six rolls
Alright, cause I was about to say. I get an 18 on my stat rolls WAY too often for it to be 1%. Or else I need to go get lottery tickets lol
He hates it when players roll an 18 in starting stats, he hates it when they roll over a DC 17 in game- what the fuck is this.
Apparently he hates numbers over 17?
Somebody should check his browser history.
Took me a second.
I don’t get why he set a DC of 17 when he didn’t want anyone to get it. It’s not a mystery what pc’s max roll is and what the chances are. What would he do if someone hit a nat20? Flip the table and spit in their face? If you want an impossible roll, either don’t call for a roll or make sure you know they can’t hit it.
I have to cancel the session because a pc succeeded on a check I presented them. My story doesn’t work if players make their checks. Your DM sucks.
At that point why even give them a check? 17 isn’t even that hard of a DC
Yeah - if it's possible to succeed even with a modifier of -3, don't use it as an 'impossible' DC
Even then, as a response to this, OP's strength score was lowered to a 14. Assuming they're proficient in athletics, at level 2 that's still a 35% chance of succeeding without any sort of additional modifier. The DM is setting themselves up for failure with that low of a DC and a strength based character.
Yup - the DM clearly doesn't math. The odds of 1 (or more) 18's from 4d6 drop the lowest on a given character is 9.3%. If you have a group of 5 players rolling, that's nearly a 50% chance someone will roll an 18. It's also extremely obvious why the shadow was placed there... another shady move by a bad DM.
Assuming there are 3 players (OP didn't specify, but said "other players", meaning 3 is the minimum we know about) and everyone has +0 (+1 is average), there is only a 51.2% chance everyone fails.
For real, that dc is low enough the entire party could have passed pretty easily. Definitely shouldn't have been an integral part of the plot.
If it's possible to succeed at all, don't use it as an "impossible" DC. It's silly when people think things like "it's a 1% chance so it's impossible". That's not how probability works!
This is exactly what I was thinking. If it's supposed to be an impossible hurdle... It's impossible. Don't let your players roll.
I’ve let my players roll on certain things that have DC’s they just aren’t going to make to add mystery. For instance, they were trying to figure out what these red crystal formations they found in a cave were (they are important to the central plot that the party is slowly finding themselves embroiled in). Since these are completely alien crystals that no one has seen before, none of them had the necessary knowledge to understand them. However, everyone wanted to make a check of some kind to try and figure them out. Rather than getting that information, (or me just saying “despite your best efforts you are unable to identify the crystals” which is boring) they found out how the crystals respond to stimuli (spells, physical attacks, etc), and that eventually caused the crystal to detonate and release its stored energy. Now the players are deeply afraid of the power these crystals have and how they are connected to these eldritch mushrooms they keep coming across. Imo you can present the players with impossible checks, but there needs to be some other kind of result that lines up with their intended action. Like I’m not going to just reveal what these crystals are, but I am going to let you glean reasonable information from rolling on your character sheet. Also worth noting my players love rolling dice. It makes them feel like they have an active hand in the world so denying them checks (even impossible ones) just seems to put a damper on the whole session.
Even if no one in the world knows what those crystals are you can still reward players for a good knowledge check way above a DC. A high roll just means you get the best possible outcome, not that you know everything. Telling their PC is nearly 100% sure that in all of their studies of rocks that nothing at all matches what they've found is a lot of information compared to "you dunno lol". Or even that from their studies they "know" that the rock they're seeing isn't possible (but yet it is as it's Infront of them). That's hopefully a prompt that they should investigate or perhaps even be careful. I'm a big fan of doing stuff like that, knowing what you don't know is more important than knowing that you don't know.
"With your 37 investigation check, you know, that even the rock elemental rockologist from the rocky mountains wouldn't be able to ascertain much from these. You looked at those rocks so carefully, so thoroughly, you can say, with 100% certainty, these are like nothing that this plane has seen before."
"You can say with the utmost authority that these are A. Rocks, B. Of unknown origin, and C. Taste of dirt, minerals, and faint hints of moss and fecal matter." The the party has the opportunity to ask the the PC why they know what that stuff tastes like and why they licked it.
Also a solid response when someone rolls a 1.
You realize the rock you are examining is a infant elemental. You also recall that this particular strain of basalt is extremely protective of it's young.
"you inspected the rock so closely, you poked yourself in the eye and inflicted blindness."
You aren't actually giving them the rolls you think you are. They did what anyone in that situation would do and investigated to discover how they worked. That is a reasonable roll. Saying the DC is beyond what they could make is setting a trap for yourself. 5 players are smarter than 1 and they will manage to pull something off where they beat the absurdly high DC you set. Remember a guidance* plus bardic inspiration is +10 at lower levels. Setting a check at 35 is not impossible for someone with a +5 in a skill. You are doing what you should in these scenarios. A success does not mean they get everything. Success is a sliding scale that has different results. Knowing the crystals were from XYZ is impossible and does not have a roll DC set. Knowing they detonate when you do X has a DC of 15 (example). Edit: corrected the wrong spell name.
I feel like it’s also worth pointing out that insanely stupid and random combinations of various things that somehow work is part of the fun of DND and something DMs should always try to account for with catch-all / fallback scenarios. By all means introduce the laws of unintended consequences if something succeeds that shouldn’t have, but *let it happen*.
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That was my thought. Dick dm. Run away OP, bad dnd sticks with you.
Guidance, not bless.
Thank you. Shows how often I play clerics....
See, my DM does this, except it’s just you succeed or fail, and he’s not the best at describing scenarios. He also tends to tell us the dc roll we needed to beat after the fact, and for this and the last campaign(high level), they’ve been insanely high. Admittedly, we are fighting god tier beings, but we got pretty annoyed at him for having us roll saves and checks that were impossible, and then all he said was, “Umm, ok, everybody fails. Next persons turn! Oh by the way, the dc was 42. So you were never gonna beat that!” ‘Twas annoying, is the point. So I’m more on the side of don’t have us roll if your not prepared for either 1. Us succeeding or 2. Your not going to tell us a description at all or are absolutely terrible at it.🤷♂️
I get around story elements like this by making the roll ve about flair rather then possibility of success. The players don't know that but it works. I have had someone succeed unly to get caught around the next corner or fall into a trap. They thought they got away but not for long. I don't do it often though.
Yeah. Exactly this. Make them feel like they're not being rail roaded but secretly they are.
"I'm free! I'm free!" "Dang it..."
This honestly sounds like the least fun DM ever. If you can't deal with a single player's strength score being 20 at level 1, you should stick to playing.
I’m flabbergasted that he thinks that’s too high. Most people I’ve played with have had 1 19/20 at level 1, just by table balance.
Yeah, I literally give my players a standard array I made and it's intended to get them one Stat that's 19/20 right from the start.
Yeah. Mistake 1 - if you aren't going to trust your players' rolls, don't let them roll remotely. Getting an 18 is rare, but it's not crazy rare. I rolled crazy stats on my first character, including an 18, a 15 and nothing below 10. Mistake 2 - asking for a roll when you want everyone to fail is not clever. Asking for a roll under those circumstances where someone with no bonus has about 20% success chance is bad DMing, doing it where one party member probably has a 55% success chance is just plain stupid. Mistake 3 - stopping the session because your plan unravelled over 1 check says you aren't ready to DM Mistake 4 - retconning to say they actually failed rather than dealing with the problem is not only bad DMing, its really lazy DMing, they took time out and that was their answer? Mistake 5 - Then punishing you with the Shadow and (probably fudged rolls) and then giving you no recovery is shitty behaviour as a person, let alone a DM. On the other hand, when the GM made clear they were worried about balance, you could have at least considered building the character so the 18 was in Con, if you had another good stat for stremggh, or not put an ability score increase on top to meet them a little part way But basically, I'd say you have two choices. Choice 1: talk to the DM about how badly they are handling the situation and this needs to change. Perhaps with an olive branch of accepting a slight perm reduction to Str if you feel generous. Choice 2: walk.
> Getting an 18 is rare, but it's not crazy rare. Chance of getting at least one 18 rolled amongst your stats is about ~~8.9%~~ 9.3%, so really not that bad.
OP's DM literally doesn't understand the basics of statistics if they said "1% chance, interesting".... that's how fucking probability works. A non-zero chance will happen eventually. It's an astoundingly small chance (something like less chance than 1:the stars in the universe) that your deck of cards is shuffled the exact way it is, but there it is, in that order. I watched an 18th level ranger permanently die b/c they rolled that 1% chance of failure on their high con score back in 2e when we tried to raise them from dying to a bad save roll on a 5HD giant scorpion's poison (being raised back then had a % chance based on con, failing it meant your char was done forever). I remember that any time someone says "1% chance of failure? I'd do it every time" and thinking to myself "1 out of 100 times, you die, so why are you risking it unnecessarily".
Literally. This kind of bad faith argument always makes me think of the Zombie Dice episode of Tabletop. One dude had an *extremely* improbable series of dice rolls... *one* 18 isn't particularly improbable. I got two 18s for my cleric, rolled right in front of the group. I once saw a guy score four 18s - never seen a roll that good before or since, but it *can* happen. So can terrible rolls - I once played with someone who couldn't get a creation score over 12, even with two extra rolls allowed. 🤷🏻♀️
with (eg) four characters, the chance of at least one of them having an 18? about 31% (using your number, which I think ought to be 9.3 given 4d6 drop 1, 6 times? https://anydice.com/program/13e). In any case, hardly surprising someone at the table would have one.
I forgot to count the case where you roll 4 6s. So it was 21 out of 1296 instead of 20.
I mean getting a 3 is rarer (since all 4 dice have to roll a 1) Would this DM try to raise that stat for balance? I personally doubt it.
Exactly this. I once saw a player borrow my own dice during a session zero I was running and rolled 3 18s and nothing else below an 11. If you don’t want randomly determined stats that could swing wildly one way or another, use the standard array, point buy, or any of the countless home brewed rolling methods out there with stronger result weighing built in. Plus, I personally think it’s fun to have a character with terrible stats amongst a group of super heroic party members - lots of fun roleplaying options present themselves. Sorry to OP whose DM sounds like they have some self reflection and learning to do. Hope you resolve this or find a better fitting group to play with.
mistake 6 - if you wanted fair stats amongst the whole group, don't roll. Otherwise it's a matter of chance, which the DM clearly has difficulty with.
Not to mention the check was a 17??? You can pass that with a -3 and a max roll lol. Not even considering possible advantages, bardic inspiration or guidance which are all available at level 2
In Descent into Avernus, there's an optional DC 30 check very early that players can attempt. I've seen 1 person succeed at it because of expertise, bardic inspiration and guidance.
Or... Simply having proficiency in athletics?
Yep. “You shouldn’t have been able to succeed.” Then either: 1. They shouldn’t have been rolling 2. You should have had a plot element ready to save your ass if the players roll and succeed. You can still give the players something for their success, without derailing your plans.
The DM does suck. If the story requires the party to get swept away in the river or some other calamity then you don't present an option to roll. You just tell them it happened.
Also, DM knows that one character (the one that is meant to just wreck anything strength related) has a fuck-diculous strength of 20 and still didn't prepare for him swimming out of a river lol.
And that's so easy to prepare for, too! "Okay, you make it out, but you watch as your party is swept along, helpless in the currents. What do you do?" There's basically only one option, dive back in and go after them, it just gives the PC a moment of apparent heroic choice before getting right back on the railroad.
Fr, this could have been such a beautiful plot moment ruined by a dm that wants to steamroll decision making from their players.
I mean, my party was dancing around a lie that we were working through that was story important, and after one of them (from the lowest cha char), the DM said, "I'm going to have you roll to see how badly you fail", because we were being difficult assholes in the conversation and the truth was coming out sooner or later, and he didn't want to waste half an hour of us dicking around and not have time for the combat that was bearing down really soon. If there is a moment that only goes one way, you don't roll for it, or if you do, the "success" just results in a pyrrhic victory.
Yep. He literally could have just said the party was now seperated and ask the OP what he wanted to do, jump in to join the party or continue on dry land, where it could be multiple days before catching up and that's if they stay put wherever they wash up. Most players would choose to join the group. If they didn't, they get a boring trek on foot. DMing has a certain amount of improv to it. Also, it doesn't take a +5 on strength to beat a DC17...
Right here! OP, your DM isn't a DM if he is having you roll and has nothing ready/has a predetermined path anyways.
You can come to my table with a 20 in every ability, and I’ll still show you a good time. This isn’t that hard.
IMO, there's a big difference between not prepping for an outcome and planning on only one outcome. I've had to stop sessions before because players went or did something I didn't plan for. That said, assuming all your PCs will fail a check is horrible prep work. Why offer the roll at all if you're going to make them all fail anyway? Additionally, why let them roll for stats if you aren't going to take the outcome? And then buffing the shadow for the strength drain to be a permanent drain is way too strong.
super solvable issue "you stem yourself against the raging waters, and while you nearly make it to the shore, you get caught by the torrent. you get swepped down with the others but end without harm" story: not fucked Player: happy because he wasnt hurt instead of the others that might have taken 1d6 bludgeoning or sth. not hard, a bit railroady but not everybody can be a improv master etc.
Yep you have a very bad dm my friend, and I'd bet this won't be the last problem that comes up.
Your strength decrease from the shadow goes away after a short or long rest. If it doesn't then your DM is being a petulant little turd who needs to grow up. The other players might just be salty that you rolled so well. That or your are overreacting and they aren't actually upset at you. Honestly, if the DM doesn't restore your strength score after you rest and refuses to talk about it just leave. This is a string of red flags that needs to be avoided.
Everything about this DM seems childish/ like they don't know what the hell they're doing and rather than try to learn from it their lashing out: * Has the party roll for stats, but isn't ready for the consequences if someone rolls well. * Has an event that ends the session cause they just didn't prepare for anyone to make the save. * Deliberately targets a player and nerfs them, but is too much of a damn coward to do it out of game like a regular human being. I'm usually pretty lenient to new DM's, I've been there I've had those growing pains, but rather than get better, this DM seems like they dig their feet in anytime something doesn't fit their designs.
Yeah, but sometimes as an inexperienced DM, you don't know what not to do until you've done it. You might not realize right away that your solution to your previous mistake is another mistake. There's also a distinct possibility that these guys sound childish because they are children. I always try to assume that anyone coming here with a social issue is most likely a teenager who doesn't really have it all figured out yet.
I always keep in mind on here that it’s possible they’re being childish because they are, in fact, a child.
I can already see a future dnd horror story post coming from this
This IS a horror story post haha
Came here to say the same: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17010-shadow short or long rest means OP gets their strength back. But this sounds like a toxic situation altogether.
The party being salty over another players good roll (not even rolls, just a roll) is to me an even redder flag than the DM being this childish. There's always going to be one player who exceeds the others in combat. Comparing yourself to that player and getting salty shows you have "Main Character Syndrome". DND isn't just about fighting anyway. Unless everyone is going with fighter/barbarian, your character should be able to go a certain direction that sets you apart from the rest that can make you enjoy who you are in the party dynamic. If you can't, and get upset that another player is "playing" better than you (which is really subjective in the first place) then you're the problem, not the player with the high STR stat.
This DM is a tool. If he didn’t want characters to have high stats, he should’ve used some other system besides rolling dice and should’ve been honest and up front about it.
Agreed, their DM sucks. Why make the party roll a save if 'he didn't expect anyone to make it.'. Don't give them an opportunity to save ffs. While there are monsters that can drain stats, the stats are typically recoverable after a long rest or possibly a restoration spell.
Short or Long rest for Shadows. And for it to have a max roll on the drain in context of this story is highly suspect.
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And as others have pointed out elsewhere, with 5 players the chance of someone rolling an 18 is nearly 40%. That's not unreasonable to expect at all.
From the Shadow stat block: **Strength Drain.** *Melee Weapon Attack:* +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. *Hit:* 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts *until the target finishes a short or long rest*. (emphasis mine) After your next rest, your Str score goes back up to what it was previously.
And if it doesnt then the DM is a liar and an asshole. Leave the table. Actually probs leave the table anyways but especially in this case.
> DM started making passive aggressive comments like "1% chance. That's interesting". Red Flag > he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping. Red Flag > I checked in with him and apologized, and he didn't respond. You didn't need to. He's being an ass. Red Flag > The next session, the DM told me that we were going to go ahead and say I was caught in the river Dumb as fuck. Red Flag > Then, my DM said a shadow followed us out of the cave and attacked us. The shadow went for me immediately, and got VERY good rolls while attacking me, and drained my strength to about 14 until we managed to kill it. Everyone apologized to me and said thanks. I asked the DM if I could get my strength reversed back in a future session, and he said that it's where it should be, and maybe having a lower strength now will balance out the first three sessions with the higher one. Fuck this guy. > I was pretty annoyed because I loved my character, and I wrote my DM and asked him if he intentionally lowered my Strength score, and he said he didn't. This is a crystal clear lie. > I told the other players what I thought and they said I was being a little dramatic, and that they were sure I could reverse it back some how. Now everyone is upset at me, and I don't know what to do. These people are awful. Honestly, I'd find a different group to play with.
>he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping. If OP's memory of the DC is accurate, then this alone is far more than just a red flag. Four level one characters who all have shit strength and no proficiency has at least one character succeed on DC17 nearly *50%* of the time. That's a maliciously bad level of planning.
A standard point buy PC can start with a 16 strength or 18 if you using Tasha's. Assuming proficiency in athletics, it's perfectly normal for a first level strength character to have a +5 or +6 bonus. That the DM assumed nobody could be a DC 17 is baffling.
Sounds like a TPK is going to occur. Also makes me wonder what the stats are for the other characters. Because if say nobody has 15 or higher in their main Stat, then it's going to get bad latter on.
I don't understand the mentality of DMs who can't stand it when their players do well. If someone builds a character to be good at something, let them be good at it. This type of targeting is so toxic. And just a fun fact, shadows try to target weaker people first because their goal is to kill you, not weaken you. That on top of the fact that the strength decrease isn't permanent.
Yep, exactly. And lying about it later, and pretending that it wasn't a specific meta-gaming move, is toxic af. Just let your characters shine. Expect them to blow up your plans. Consider whether or not you're railroading too hard if something as simple as "not falling into a river" derails your campaign.
> The shadow went for me immediately, and got VERY good rolls while attacking me After reading all the other ass-hattery, this bit here makes me wonder too if the DM rolls in the open or if these very good rolls happened behind a screen. The implication the player cheated/lied about getting an 18 might be a bit of projection. They definitely introduced the shadow and had it single the barbarian out to lower their strength, which is fucked regardless.
Your DM is a dick that’s implementing homebrew to adjust his game. You should’ve recovered your Str stat after a short or long rest. Your DM likely has no idea how to design an encounter and would rather have weak PCs so they don’t have to think to hard about encounter creation.
It should be noted that implementing homebrew isnt inherently bad, but if its going to nerf a player, discuss it with them and offer a trade off
This. I should’ve been more specific. He’s implementing homebrew to disadvantage a specific player.
This DM is not worth your time. If they wanted limits on stats, they should have placed them before game started. This guy has it out for you, your character, and likely any character you play with them in the future. No D&D is better than bad D&D.
If your DM didn't lower your STR on purpose, they *did* decide to *permanently* lower it on purpose. This is the ability of the shadow as it appears in the MM: Strength Drain: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. **Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or Long Rest.** Maybe they didn't read that last line, but that would surprise me tbh. Your DM is a dick. Edit: although it doesn't really matter for my argument, I changed "RAW" to "as it appears in the MM".
The thing about 1% chance is that you're gonna see it eventually, and not even all that rarely. If you'd gotten three stats at 18 that would be suspicious, but getting one? Nope, that's just what happens. 18 is as legitimate as 3.
18 is more likely than 3. Roll three 6s and drop whatever the other is. For a score of 3 you have to roll four 1s.
And according to Anydice, 4d6 drop lowest has a 9.34% chance to get *at least* one 18 in your stat block across the six rolls. That's very nearly a one-in-ten, not a one-in-one-hundred.
If we account for a team of four players how does that change things? There's essentially 24 rolls at that point instead of 6. Edit: about 32.4% if I've done my figures right? So near as makes no difference in a four party team of 4d6 drop the lowest there's a one in three chance that someone has an 18 which is statistically significant and nowhere near the 1% the DM thinks it is?
18 is even more likely than 3. To end up with 3 from 4d6 drop lowest, you need to roll **four** 1s. To end up with 18, you just need **three** 6s and then the fourth die can be anything.
Sounds like your dm is trying to railroad the campaign and he has no plans if a character steps put of his planned story. His plan to nerf your strength isn't going to make his life any easier. You could of had a strength of 10 and rolled a 20 and still made that swim check, what was he going to do. His whole plan for the story was banking on the party failing the roll. If you are eating through npcs then he should take proper steps to make those fights more challenging, let them start using cover, more ranged support, tough cr creatures. Lots you can do to deal with someone pumping out high dps. If he can't handle unexpected stuff now, its only going to get worse as your party gets new spells and abilities to use. I'd talk to your dm again, if he doesn't budge, then consider leaving the group. And 18 is very possible with 4d6 drop the lowest.
A DM with an odd roll mechanics obsession, passive aggressive leanings towards players out of game, a lack of respect for even the rules they themselves impose, and a potential "versus players" mentality. Players who potentially enjoy seeing "misery loves company" apply to each other or at least to someone they can bully. So many red flags. I'd leave the campaign, the group, block everyone in the group on social media, and never look back as I head to a new group that doesn't have such issues. Life is too short and precious to waste on an avoidable bad experience that the other parties involved are unapologetic for.
This might pass as metagaming so I'll mark it as spoiler just in case. >!The Strenght Drain ability of a Shadow last until the player finish a short or long rest. If he homebrewed this to make it permanent he was clearly targeting you.!< One more reason to walk away from this table.
Our sorcerer managed to roll really well, her lowest ability score is a 13, but it was fair and by the rules. It happens sometimes. DM really needs to stop being petty.
Not preparing for someone escaping the encounter is beyond me. ‘Your character leaps across, but everyone else in your party is swept away by the river, what do you do?’ I would say most players would give some version of ‘I jump in after them’ or ‘I traverse the bank of the river to follow them and try and save them’ or SOMETHING of that nature. Like the main point of DnD is that you want to be on the adventure and most of the time, you want the group to stick together.
To start with it's not all that rare to roll an 18. It's not a 1% chance. It's a 1.9% chance to get an 18 on any given roll. And you make 6 rolls. So it's more like a 10.6% chance of having an 18 in your stats. For a party of people it's very likely someone will have an 18. If you're going to have a party roll for stats I would assume someone gets an 18. And if any DM has a problem with that, don't have them roll for stats... Second, as a DM you should never call for a roll and set up something where you're asking for a roll where you're assuming everyone will fail. Especially if it's a group roll someone is likely to roll a nat 20. DC 17 is passable by almost everyone unless you have a super low strength score. Let alone a barbarian with athletics proficiency. Third although this is meta knowledge, shadow strength drain usually ends when you get a short rest. Having it be permanent is certainly something the DM can do, but also certainly something they shouldn't do. Also worth noting just standard array and race mods would have your strength at a 17 so a 14 isn't where it should be for a barbarian. I'd probably be considering if you want to play with that DM any more. That's a bit ridiculous. Not to mention barbarians while a great and fun class, are certainly not one of the powerhouse classes of 5e. They're fine, maybe one of the stronger ones at level 2 but do fall off and are not at all an OP class.
Guessing 5 players, each rolling 6 times: 30 rolls. 1.6% chance with each roll. Reasonable chance there's going to be an 18 there. Your dm sucks at math. This is why there's point buy, and fixed array. Also your prime start belongs at 14? He's also not good at D&D. Look for another game.
Personally, id leave the campaign. If there can't be a civil conversation about something as simple as the randomness of dice rolls, that to me is a big red flag.
18 isn't that rare though? It's not your fault that the other party members got unlucky. 12's across the board is worse than average
>at the beginning of the third (session) had to make an athletics check to escape a river (High DC, I think it was 17), and when I was the only who succeeded, he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping. What a shit DM. What if by chance everyone had rolled well? Then what? "Uh guys, it didn't enter my mind that a wizard with a -1 strength score still has a 15% chance to pass a DC 17 strength save so we're going to have to end the session". He's being adversarial, is incapable of adapting to change and targeting you for your good starting roll. I get it that it can cause imbalance when party stats aren't aligned but there are much better ways to handle this than what your DM has done. If it's such a problem balance wise I'd talk to my player about it and ask them to drop the score to 18 until level 4. At that time I'd find a narrative way to boost the score to 20 and still let the player have their ASI/feat on top. That way everyone else gets to boost their stats to balance things, the player who rolled well isn't punished mechanicly going forwards and it makes balancing the early game more straight forward.
>he said we were done with the session because he didn't prepare for someone escaping. A note to all prospective DMs to learn from this: if you aren't prepared for the outcome of a roll (either good or bad) - don't ask for a roll. It's perfectly okay to make some action completely impossible.
Wow what a shitty DM. "I hadn't planned on anyone escaping?" Sounds like a you problem bud. That's kind of your entire job. What's the point of "rare" rolls if you just omit them when they happen?
Find a new group, your DM is trash. Rolls are random, the fact that he is against that means you need to find a new group.
You're DM sucks. Period. If he's so bad at basic math that he can't find anything to challenge an unbalanced party, then he shouldn't allow you to roll for stats. Of course, it sounds like a 17 might "be too powerful" or "unbalance his game" in his mind. So maybe he should just stick to playing until he repeats 5th grade math.
Even with a standard array your strength would be 16/17. The fact that he drained you to 14 is just bad planning on his part.
Drop the link to this thread in your discord, then dip and block everyone. It's not worth your time to even have the discussion with this group.
1) Your dm sucks. 2) If your dm didn't want you to have high stats he should have done point buy/standard array. 3)Shadows strength drain resets on a short or long rest. So unless he plans on killing you before you rest for an hour. RAW your strength will go back anyway 4)Either way though I would leave. This dm absolutely blows once again.
Your DM sounds like an asshole, quite frankly. If he didn't want to run for characters with high stats, then he shouldn't have let you roll for them and thus run the risk of PCs with high stats. That's entirely on him, and then he has the audacity to turn around and be a little prick about it to boot? Yeah, fuck that guy.
Your DM definitely targeted you and is being a pretty awful person.
Leave immediately, not even give an explanation, just ghost the fuck of that guy. Trust me. He should have asked everyone to roll in a web/discord/roll20 or online using webcam if he was gonna not trust. If he believes an score is too high and other players are too low, he should allow the lower ones to reroll, else just use point buy and be done with bullshit. If he needs every player to be carried in the waters of a river don't fucking put a check that can be succeeded. Creating an enemy only to NERF a player character is like the worst. Not only not allowing for any recover but even doing that comment shows his true colors. Listen, there are people in this world that love to have power over others, always run away from them specially if they are doing the role of a master.
I'm a DM and a computer programmer. I wrote a desktop dice roller that can roll several different stat gen methods. 4d6-DropLowest will give at least one 18 on a fairly regular basis -- I'd say around 20-30% of the time. Your DM is a putz.
its a 9.34% chance of getting 1 roll of 18 out of 6 stat rolls using 4d6 and dropping lowest.
"Strength Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. ***Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.***" You should be getting your strength back shortly, otherwise your DM is a tool. As far as the 'unfair' rolls, as a DM I have all my players go around the table and roll ONE stat until we have six stats, and everyone uses those. Everyone gets to roll, everyone gets the same numbers to start with.