ITT we trigger players

>>54826389
> trolling players when you only have 3.

Hope you like your game with zero players OP.

>You rolled a natural 1? Haha, I guess your bowstring snaps.
>No, of course a regular bowyer can't repair a magical bow.

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>>54826483
>Let me see your character.
>Hmm, no, Gunslinger is too OP, play a different class.

Later

>So, this Gunslinger NPC is joining you guys for the next adventure.

>>54826389
Homebrewed anything

>>54826483
>You rolled a natural 20? Haha, you smash the golem with the axe so hard, it gets stuck inside.

>>54829499
>"The enemy is using a homebrew Path of War maneuver I came up with."

>>54826389
Alright, I've made this super easy for you all. I've made characters for you all and assigned personalities for them all. All you need to do is read their backstories and roleplay them accordingly. You'll all be helping support the hero of this adventure, whom I've commissioned artwork for here.

>>54826389
> You sleep in the inn? Roll perception, you fail and were robbed blind. A trail leads through this cultist tomb. What, no your stuff isn't here it was a false trail and all your new cultist stolen weapons were cursed and also stolen. The town guard blames you for the theft.

>you know how last games you started as shunned orphans everyone hated?
>well, we are just going try that again in this new setting and all your past character concepts are banned because i didnt like how they played

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You guys are too good at this.
I'm a nearly forever GM and I'm still triggered.

>Roll charisma save
>"Oh, you failed. So the [Homebrew Monster] convinces you to engage in hot sex with it."

Combining Charisma = Mind Control with fetish monsters is always going to get at least one of your players pissed.

>As the party is almost passed out, a tall dark being in a bright green trenchcoat smashes a giant cleaver into the boss, killing it instantly.
>No, there didn't need to be a roll for that.
>He introduces himself. His name is [Anagram of the DMs real name]

Based on true events

>>54833277
>that fucking spoiler

I am so sorry anon

I think your character has too many tropes, why don't you make him a black girl?

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>>54833457
You think that's bad, variations of
>>54829516
>>54829472
>>54826483
and
>>54826389
All happened to me.
This was in one of the two games I wasn't DM
Never again.

>>54833494
>Too many tropes
You've got me triggered and I don't even play RPGs

>>54833537
I feel your pain
my players would always power trip when I wasn't DM

>Okay everyone here's your piss jugs, saves time when we're not all getting up to use the bathroom

>This is a low magic game, so no magic items!

>>54826389
>The enemy ranger targets your bag of holding
>The goblins rush your pack mule, hoping to get a slab of meat for dinner
>The slime latches onto your shield. You hear a sizzling noise as it begins to eat

>>54833579
oh, my players don't DM.
They've all tried it, certainly (Mainly when I wasn't there, was in another state so they realized it was a hassle having me DM)
But they've never gotten past session one or zero. Realized it wasn't rewarding for them, which I can accept.

What I CAN'T accept is this guy has according to him, been DMing since 2E.
He's been spewing this concentrated crazy since I was around 2.
I could probably post enough from that single campaign to hit the bump limit. The other DM for that I was playing for was veritably god-tier though.

Some minor examples:
>"Oh, you're level 3? Here is a vorpal sword"
>Roll to hit, oh that's a 1, roll to see who you hit, oh that's a 20....
>roll to confirm party member death
>"Geez, (me), why did you have to go and break the parties rod of resurrection?"

>"The Lich Grins, as he lifts up 12 spell gems, all glowing, starting to shoot off spells"

>"I know polymorph explicitly doesn't allow dragons, but just let him (other party member) do it"

>"What? No, you can't sneak attack that guy the model is facing you"
>"Even though it says party members nearby allows a sneak attack, I don't think it should work like that, it's facing you"

I still somehow had fun.

>>54833736
That first one is unclear.
Here's what happened.
>Character is a Drow priestess at level 3, has an "heirloom" +0 vorpal sword
>Fighting some Kuo-toa in a clusterfuck
>roll to hit: 1
>Roll to see who you hit, 1d6: 5(me)
>Roll to see if you hit the AC of 12: 20
>roll to confirm crit, again over AC: 15
>My character dies
>I was level 2
>Party decides to use a known (He DID warn them twice, I'll give him that) faulty Rod of Resurrection rather than let me just roll a "new" character
>It works
>but roll to see if it breaks, which it does
That entire game was just a concentrated trainwreck

>>54833966
This is what broke me, and I'm a nearly-foreverGM too.

Fuck this thing.

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>>54834015
How about this

>>54826389

You suggest a course of action for your character to take, but someone else chimes in after you finish.

>Before his character does that, my character is going to go into the next room and see if there is anything to steal

>>54834091
The deck has taught me that there are only two kinds of players.

Those who will draw every single card if allowed, and those who would not draw a single card even if you paid them.

Never had anyone get upset about it though

>So, which hand are you opening the door with?

>>54833699
Is the pack mule one really so bad? Makes sense to me.

As long as you're allowed to track them back to their camp to rescue the mule and treasure of course.

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>>54829499
>not being smart enough to pull off homebrew

Im sure life is hard for them with the helmet strapped so tight.

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>>54826389
>That book on Thai cuisine

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>>54833736
>"What? No, you can't sneak attack that guy the model is facing you"

Unless you were invisible, or if the guy is facing you and theres no cover, this is correct.

>>54836352
When an ally is adjacent to the enemy you are targeting, and you are adjacent to the target as well, you can preform a sneak attack and roll your sneak attack dice.
Rp wise you're taking advantage of your opponent being distracted to strike them where they are vulnerable and deal more damage

>>54836352
Since when did D&D have facing?

>>54829499
Honestly, that's the core principle of a game idea I have. Players get to make their own race with the Advanced Race Guide from Pathfinder, and cook up their race's history, behaviors, etc.
Then I pull the rug out from under them, as their character's are homunculii created by a wizard experimenting in copying souls. They are just copied minds of adventurers in monstrous bodies, that I would slowly clue them onto the truth, like discovering an elf marching under "their" family banner,
or meeting a beloved friend that doesn't recognize the abomination they are.

>>54833545
>I don't even play RPGs

Modern /tg/ in a nutshell

>>54826389
>You land on your backpack in the fall
>Hand me your character sheet and I'll tell you what breaks.

>>54826389
>We're using the encumbrance rules.

>I'm balancing wizards by restricting their spell list access

>>54836623
Ok that's a really cool idea. Hope you get to try it out.

>>54837452
>We're using the encumbrance rules.

Nothing wrong with that.

Although I only use them for determining a Pc's carrying capacity.

I don't use the combat rules for encumberance.

>>54826389
I what a low magic campaign, so you can not have/use magic/psi (space game).powers. 3 weeks later My NPC mage .... You need magic to hurt it...my Psi God NPC

>>54836586
It doesn't.

>>54826389
I hate this rule and a group of whines on the web site forms agreed with me.

>>54833228
>>54826483
>>54829516
>>54837452
I had all of these

>>54836352
Let me specify on that.
The MODEL was facing me.
We were not using facing, his last action was to attack someone else, and I was running a build specifically focused around using party members as decoys rather than outright sneaking.
This was after he allowed the druid to cast polymorph on both our fighters.
I basically coasted on not giving a shit for the rest of the campaign after that.
Trying to actually say "no" to one of the core mechanics of a core class after approving the character is a no-go. Certainly not 4+ months into the campaign.

>>54833228
I'm a mediocre DM, but holy shit why would you do that

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>>54833494
>oo many tropes
Like what? Everything has tropes. Some are good, some are bad, some good ones are bad when combined or are cliche
>why don't you make him a black girl?
Pic related

>>54833699
The ranger one is a bit of a dick move, but if they know what it is, it makes sense.

The goblin and ooze ones are even better.

>>54833966
Hahahahaha oh man, my party is fighting an entire infestation of those in the mines in a session or three.

Granted, they can buy more weapons in the same town as the mine so it won't be a long loss, and I'm warning them beforehand, but still.

>>54829516

What kind of retarded motherfucker applies the effect of a 1 on a natural 20 ?

>>54843022
People who've fallen for the 20-1 crit memes

>No you can't use that pickaxe to break the door down. It's just scenery.

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I unironically do that except with clerics because nobody in my group ever wants to roll a healer
Then I get accused of being a shit DM when my NPC tends to do well

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I had this shit happen to me once
>I roll a memory check to try and remember <detail>
>get a 1
>"You forget your whole childhood

>>54843297
you don't need to add a npc cleric to the party just because no one wants to play one, you dumbass.

>>54843316
This does bring something about memory checks. Characters failing memory checks really hard should remember wrong information, not remember nothing at all.

>>54826483
>>54829499
>Roll a natural 20? The guard you're trying to knock out crumples to the ground stone dead.
This caused an argument with the DM shouting that he was in charge and what he says goes.

>>54843316
>>54843390
When do you call for people to make memory checks? Because I hate taking notes and our GM insists on never repeating names unless the NPC is their to be asked what their name was.

>>54843297
>needing a healer
this isn't an mmo. if no one makes a "tank" do you make a paladin who takes all the hits for the PCs?

Honestly the "nat 1/nat 20 makes crazy shit happen" is alright as long as it doesn't have an actual effect on the game. Like rolling a 1 on an attack roll and describing some humorous way in which the character misses their attack is fine, but saying something like "oh you slip and take 1d4 bludgeoning damage as you fall" then making you waste your action next round getting up and picking up your weapon again is pants-on-head retarded and isn't fun for the player.

It's not as though the player was doing something boneheaded for which they deserved punishment upon failure; it was a normal roll that comes about as a matter of course within normal gameplay.

>>54843297
LOL trust me someone will make a healer or just build to heal themselves. Happen ever time/ all the time

>>54826389
>Be lawful good
>Do literally anything, including nothing
>Be chaotic evil
>Smited by the paladin and shanked by the edgelord

>Roll Intimidate to scare the guy into telling me what he knows
>1
>You shit yourself

>>54836586
OD&D. But it got rid of it in 3e.

>>54843450
I never tell characters things they should know without a knowledge/memory check, except for the first time. Every time after that, faulty memory is possible.

Shadowrun really supports that with the amount of knowledge skills and memory dice you get, though.

>>54836586
Its at Dm discretion of changing stealth checks if a guy isn't even looking your way. Not like hes got eyes in the back of his head, and is more of a common sense rule to reward people using their heads and not pressing their proverbial stealth button brainlessly.

>>54826389
>The locals are terrified of arcane magic, so the Senate has decreed that all arcane magic practiced or performed within the kingdom must be done with a license from one of the approved Royal Anglend Universities.

>All divine magic must be sanctioned by the Royal Church of Anglend. Those who perform the blasphemy of casting spells outside of domains approved by the Grand Cardinal, or by the worship of false idols, shall be drawn and quartered when found.

>Psionics is considered a sign of mutation and all found capable of it are put to death and burned.

If there's one thing that pisses off 3.PF and 5e kids, it's placing any kind of restriction on magic and magic like powers.

>you can't just buy potions of healing there aren't any magic wal-marts in this setting
>you can't get rid of the monster's weapon, he's gimped without it

>>54826389
>In this game, your actions will have realistic consequences

>>54843450
>Because I hate taking notes and our GM insists on never repeating names unless the NPC is their to be asked what their name was
I had a DM that did this when said NPC's name was plot-relevant, and said that since I couldn't remember the NPC's name, then my character must have forgotten it. I responded by having my character repeatedly ask the name of any NPC we met, sometimes during the same conversation, because apparently forgetting names was now a character trait of his.

It was like 2 sessions of that before the DM just gave up and told me that if the character should IC remember something without needing a check, then he'd just assume they remembered.

>>54845424
>I responded by having my character repeatedly ask the name of any NPC we met, sometimes during the same conversation, because apparently forgetting names was now a character trait of his.
lol'd exactly the kind of player I am. problems with authority lead to sarcasm and interpersonal disputes

>>54829499

>Homebrewed Only War

Holy shit.

40k sessions can be either cringey as fuck or hilariously fun, but god damn was this the worst thing ever

>A guard blocks the door. You try to tackle him? It was actually a troll. You get knocked down.

Ohboy was I trolled that time.

>>54844860

>Roll to attack chaos cultist with bayonet strike
>Roll 1
>Lose control of my rifle and drive the bayonet-end into my own foot

>>54845267
Dude you DO NOT need to hide to use sneak attack.The rules state it work a set way. If you want to homeberw your rules go ahead. But as the guy stated this happen out of the blue after 1/3 of a year of game play. Homeberw should be made know to players starting.

>>54845271
and the bad GM come out = If the NPCs have magic then the PC must as well or I never set at your table. After +20 years of playing many systems and under many GMs. The sure sign that a GM is bad is not letting players have magic/pst powers in a setting that has them. With your lame setting why could I not start the game with a license? Also real world, Though out history, the more the government tries to outlaw something the more cool it becomes and a underground doing it is formed.

>>54833699
These aren't so bad. Players abuse called shots like this all the time, so why wouldn't NPC's occasionally?

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A lot of this stuff just sounds like players whining.

Boo hoo, you have to deal with encumbrance, law in a civilized society, and occasional inconveniences. You can't just wield infinite magic power with no consequence.

I mean, it's fine to want to play an escapist fantasy and just dick around. That's standard fare for a beer and pretzels game. But if the GM says they're going to run a serious game, why are you surprised when they do?

I get really tired of players whining at every little freaking thing. I've had players whine when I had raccoons steal some of their food during the night, when they were in the middle of the woods. Because obviously they would have tied their supplies up in a tree before they went to sleep. Obviously.

>>54843297
Fucking idiot. The most fun I've ever had was was 2 rogues, a fighter/rogue, and a sorceror/rogue. You don't need to fill out some checklist of classes.

>>54846267
sigh, if it was 5e did you even give the group a survive roll? Making sure animals do not steal food is basic 101 outdoors man stuff.

>Everyone already chose their classes and we need to fill the X Role. So you'll be playing a (X).

>>54846063
>Dude you DO NOT need to hide to use sneak attack.The rules state it work a set way.
>Hurf durf only one set of RPG rules exists

>>54846267
no, it is a way to learn to be a better GM. Rules should be stated and agreed by everyone starting out. (the faceing nonsense). Do not remove important parts of a setting due to your lack of being able to GM on a level playing field (magic for NPCs only.

>>54846449
Triggered player detected.

>>54846553
a smart player tried of bad GMing after 20 plus years of play and a lot better GM than you clearly are. Please open your mind and become better. I let this go now before the thread becomes poison

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>>54846392

This was GURPS. To be honest, it didn't even occur to me that tying up their food to save it was a possibility, because I'm no outdoorsman, but I assumed if they wanted to take precautions against it, they would have said so. I can't keep track of all the things their characters would be doing passively, I have a shit ton of other things to think about.

Several of the players had survival skills, but anyway, their claim was unjustified. Tying your food up isn't going to save it. Animals can just jump, climb trees, or climb the rope. Besides, I was just rolling on a random happenings table for the forest of doom. I didn't expect them to get so triggered over a tiny amount of missing food from their giant stockpile.

The main point is, I just get mad anytime I make something happen, and the players immediately get pissed off that I didn't give them ample warning and chance to do something about it. If I can't throw any inconveniences or curveballs at you, the game is no fun. I know it's frustrating when bad things happen to you that are out of your control, but without that happening, the game has no challenge, and it becomes super dull, at least for me as the GM.

And an even deeper point, is that I do agree that players should be given a chance to do something about anything bad that might happen to them. But one, it may seem obvious to you now that the event has happened, but if I had asked you what things your character would always be automatically doing, you would have to come up with your answers on the fly, because of course you didn't think of it all beforehand, unless you're really autistic. And second off, I just hate it when players act whiny and over-entitled, for any reason. I'm doing a lot more work than the players to keep the game going, I just want them to be a little more polite.

>>54846267
>>54846392
>>54846908
>you didn't say you took the keys out of your car when you got out, your car/keys get stolen lol
>you didn't say you were breathing, so you fall unconscious lol
>you didn't say you took a piss earlier, your bladder explodes lol

>>54846999

Your hyperboles do nothing to alleviate the problem.

>>54846267
The point is about triggering players. If a majority of players are triggered by encumbrance rules, it doesn't really matter for our purposes whether their complaints are valid.

>>54833736
>"Even though it says party members nearby allows a sneak attack, I don't think it should work like that, it's facing you"
I was once in a group where the DM did something like that.

He would have every enemy within melee range of the Rogue turn and focus specifically on him, which meant those guys couldn't be sneak attacked.

iirc he gave the rest of us +4 to attacks against those guys instead of the normal +2, but that's still pretty shitty.

He would also do 1-on-1 and 2-on-1 sessions for the 3 players who lived with him, and the other guy and I (who lived about 100ft away) didn't hear about these until the next session.

They'd get XP, loot, custom items and abilities during these sessions, while in the regular ones the group tended to get no gold or loot and very little xp. I played for about a month and a half once per week and literally only had what I bought with my starting money.

Another time, on one of these unscheduled sessions I only heard about later, they advanced the plot about 2 years because they sat around while the Wizard crafted magic item after magic item, so they had high level items (I remember an eye or something of True Sight for the Barbarian. I don't know about him but I was level 6).

I'm still not sure how I feel about the one time he tried to throw me a bone, since his idea of helping me was having Bahamut offer to let my Cleric convert to his church when the rest of the group was CE/CN with one NE.

>>54826424
You're not very smart.

>>54843473
I had a DM do that for us once, though I think it was because the story he'd planned (and, foolishly, had planned the entirety of it in advance) didn't allow for him to just let the Rogue + Ranger + Sorcerer party just sneak around and ambush people from cliffs and rooftops and the like.

It was also his first time DMing, so it may have not occurred to him that you could do without the tank+DPS paradigm.

>>54843297
In future, nobody playing a healer is actually (potentially) really great for you. Now, you get to decide exactly how much healing they have access to, since everything has to come in the form of healing potions or other (usually consumable) items.

This works better when you keep track of how many they have left, so you can give them a few near the beginning of the adventure and then dole extras out as loot over the course of any given adventuring day, so you can make the Fighter run low on HP at about the same time as the Wizard runs low on spells, though that is more work.

>>54843022
I actually have a GM who's game and general style and etc. I really enjoy, but he has this bad habit of saying "You rolled so well something bad happened as a side effect" For example, a wind spell to sweep out some poison fog from an area that ends up flinging characters out into the fog. Or a wave of force directed at a single target that is so strong it shatters some adjacent but not in the way of the attack windows all over some civilians, because why not.

>>54843421
Ooh, I used an arrow with the tip snapped of and then wrapped in cloth to try to distract/slightly bludgeon a man and the DM ruled that because my attack roll was high I killed him.

>>54846181
By your reasoning there should be more black market surgeons than actual surgeons, because medical law is extensive as shit.

>what would stop me from starting with a license
Nothing, and I'm honestly impressed you're intelligent enough to see that as an option. Bravo.

Most of your peers here assume you're starting off as a low-life criminal unable to afford the licenses and training required.

>you're a bad gm is NPCs have something the players can't get access to
And now you're being retarded. Some NPCs are actual gods in earthly form. Does this mean I should allow my players eventual access to divinity? Lol, no.

>>54844566
You say that, but I have players in my game with no one to heal, and they whine that combat is too hard because they don't have a healer, but won't buy potions or anything to help because it costs money

>>54849241
Kill a couple of their characters then, they'll learn. Or they leave and stop wasting your time.

>>54846181
You seemed to have missed the point of the thread, you goose.

>>54833699
Better than just "They hit you with their sword!" nonsense.

>>54849300
I plan to. Not actively going for it, but they've already narrowly avoided death.

Still no healing

>>54833196
/tg/ - triggered grognards

>>54836215
>>54842982
>>54846199
>>54849380
Something doesn't have to be bad DM'ing to trigger a player. Enemies that target my equipment fill me with fear and loathing.

>>54846908

You sound like an alright guy.

>>54850255
Missing the point of this thread, anon.

>give player tips on how to make their rogue
>reveal only at the start of the first session it's an undead-focused campaign

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>>54849241
Excuse me sir, but have you heard about healing surge?

I do this thing where I give my players real life puzzles to solve and little games to play occasionally what would you think if your gm did this? Stuff like simple alphabet cypher notes and a a gem tied up in a yarn ball knot they have to untie, game of 20 questions with a trickster and stuff like that.

>>54850971
I would love to just get encrypted message I have to decode, maybe with in game knowledge checks or something to get hints about type of cipher or alphabet or whatever. That'd be cool as shit.

>>54846999
>You didn't say you closed the wound after feeding, so you broke the Masquerade and the Prince executes you
(this actually happened to me)

>>54846000
In a 40k system, a 1 would be a resounding success, so you would skewer that chaos cultist like nobody's business. Wasted trips on your post right there

>>54846199
The bag of holding and the mule aren't fighting back. Why are the enemies targeting things that aren't a threat instead of things that are?

>>54843421
With 3.x rules, you can actually kill someone with non-lethal damage by accident fairly easily if you're mid level and they're low level. This goes double if you crit.

>>54851356
Why did Mario go for the axe instead of duking it out with Bowser?
Why would a country assassinate an enemy king? The soldiers are clearly the threat advancing upon you.
How come in MTG, there are cards that make an enemy discard? Why would you use that instead of more attackers and blockers?
What are tactics?

If an intelligent adversary knows that he can put his opponents at a disadvantage with a called shot, he should. The players do.
As for the slime, I assume it got blocked and latched onto what touched it. Also totally reasonable.

>>54831272
I hate to say it but I had to tell a player his character wouldn't work with the party. It was a good character, a changeling rogue in an Eberron game, but he played her as a lone wolf and did everything in his power to keep her from joining with the other players, constantly. I felt bad cause he played her well, but he was essentially forcing me to run a completely different game just for him. Every session. In the end I had a separate notebook for all his stuff, finally I had to shut it down.

>>54848468
>because why not.
Does he give a positive bonus to rolls of 1? Why would rolling a 19 be better than rolling a 20? It doesn't make sense. If he feels the need to balance a nat 20 with some negative effect then why not just lessen the positive impact to something more reasonable?

>>54851354
>In a 40k system, a 1 would be a resounding success, so you would skewer that chaos cultist like nobody's business. Wasted trips on your post right there
Oh, but we're playing in the 40k setting using Pathfinder.

>>54837452
>I'm balancing wizards by restricting their spell list access
Literally nothing wrong with this, so long as you do the same for all casters.

>>54845271
Here is your (you).

>>54833612
>fucking run

>>54842913
>based on what I've observed, either
1. Their self hatred make the idea of social approval so intensely uncomfortable that they deliberately push people away with the most awful shit they can think of
>or
2. They have no healthy outlet for their fetishism and sexual tension, and when the opportunity comes along to decide what happens in someone else's play-pretend, they lack the basic tact and compassion of self-restraint
>but more often, some pitiable combination of the two

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>>54851705

>>54851705
The only solution is murder-suicide.

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>>54851705

>>54849241
as a player and a GM. Happens to me all the damm time. I can not for the life of me see where the forever GM mind set clerics are over powered comes from. No one never wants to play one. Let one of them die (that is a good thing to happen once in a while anyway) and point out they need a healer.

>>54850935
The group I played 4th with had to follow the web site rev. rules. The "clerics are to powerful" group kept getting healers nerfed. Each splat book the melee fighter got more better self healing and the healers became more and more useless. One reason I hated 4th was the ever changing rules. Just one more thing that made it WOW like

>>54851009
Maybe one of these days I will post a special coded message and key that I am 99.9% sure no one has made before I did. Has circles, symbols both real and false, and regular clockwise/counter switching.

>>54851954
Nah, just mixing two things I as a player don't like into something worse. The only way I see such a situation as not being a problem is if the player has a thing for hypnosis or the like, and even then I don't think they would be for it.

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>>54851705
let the world burn

>>54846908
There is a huge difference in how you present the setbacks to your players. I refuse to believe that you don't know that difference. If you subject the characters to setbacks despite their obvious preparations (regardless of player action, the characters are just good at what they do) and sufficiently describe that you noted and adjusted for that, the players will accept it.

If you, however, apply the setback situations and present the characters as clueless fools, you will have bitching players. Rightly so, because you made them less capable just because you were too lazy to aptly describe the situation.

Apply that to the example in the woods and see yourself.

>>54851510
Speaking as a forever DM...
I can understand the slime hitting the shield on a specific roll (corresponding to the extra AC the shield gives).
I can understand the ranger aiming for the bag of holding AS LONG as the ranger has a reasonable reason to think the bag is a key strategic target (e.g. they pulled a powerful object out of it in an earlier confrontation with rangers), otherwise that's ridiculous.
The goblin thing is kinda questionable. Why would the goblins kill a helpless dude when they're currently under attack from skilled fighters? Are the little bastards going to carry the pack mule away? Now, ghouls though, I'd understand, they're undead with a hunger for flesh and an habit of dragging victims away to eat them.

>>54851767
Why, thank you. I'll cherish it.

>>54851457
Actually no. Non-lethal damage will never kill iirc.
This has come up with my group several times and all that happens is you can keep applying -hp in non-lethal damage effectively making a target comatose.

>>54854565
If a creature’s nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. This does not apply to creatures with regeneration. Such creatures simply accrue additional nonlethal damage, increasing the amount of time they remain unconscious.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Nonlethal-Damage

The same rule applies to 3.5 as well.

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>>54829516
>>54848489
>tfw my DM bragged about one time he rolled a bunch of nat 20s with exploding dice while making a campfire and his DM ruled he killed the entire party in an inferno and they all had to make new characters

>>54854815
>Exploding dice with d20
The horror

>>54854815
pic related

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>>54854914
Son of a bitch

>>54833966
Our work used to have a joke, "How does a Warforged lose its virginity?"

>It runs into a rust monster, then it's fucked.

>>54843390
The problem with that is if you roll that low then they're going to reasonably guess what they were told is wrong and probably metagame. You could roll behind their back but I think rolling skill checks for the players is a big can of worms that shouldn't be opened (though I'm a lot more reasonable at the thought of closed rolling for enemies).

>>54843022
I've seen a few GMs do it. "You critted him so hard the splashes of his blood blind you, you'll need a full round to wipe your eyes out." "The Scorching Ray you fired was so powerful you burn a massive hole through his armor, hope you didn't want to recover it as loot." Etc.

When asked, they gave a variety of rationales for it, ranging from "realism" to "I want to challenge you" to "I don't want you guys to feel like your characters are powerful and get cocky."

>>54843316
>Roll to identify magic crystal
>1
>Take 1d4 for poking your eye with it

It was home brew.
All 1s even on skill checks cause 1d4
Starting health was between 10-20

They argued that it was good gameplay

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>>54855370
>not going for misidentified ultra-powerful artifact
>missing perfect opportunity for 'long-term hilarity ensues'
>being this uncreative

>>54855132
>"The Scorching Ray you fired was so powerful you burn a massive hole through his armor
>I don't want you guys to feel like your characters are powerful
That's pretty awesome. It would have the opposite effect since a player who makes use of Scorching Ray probably does not give two fucks about armor.

>>54855407
One of the abilities you can take is "Common Sense"
In which the GM will hint things to you.
The GM was disappointed noone took it so they could tell us what the gems were when we wouldnt roll to identify since I was the only one with a high INT skill.

They were powerful anti undead gems we were supposed to use when ganked by, and this isn't an exaggeration, over 30 skeletons, with a party of three.
We killed about half, used all our potions, one guy was knocked out twice, I was near dead, GM made the other half slowly disappear as it became obvious we weren't using the gems.

After more bullshit like this I had eventually made the GM mad by telling them all the faults in the shitty Homebrew and style they didn't invite me to the next session