DM Q&A: DM: Is a DM targeting my friend?

[Kain]

It has come to my attention that one of my friends has a serious knack for creatures acquiring true seeing out of nowhere to kill him when they shouldn't be able to. I have persoanlly witnessed at least once, and from what I can tell it's not as if he was doing anything in need of DM punishment. His frinds were killed and he was leaving invisible when a Frost gaint magically gained true seeing and killed him. Is there some sort of rule against ever being invisible? Or is there a rogue script for random creatures to suddenly see past invisibility fro no apparent reason? I say this becuase this regular disheartening occurence has driven my friend away from Cormyr and he is a skilled roleplayer and a good player.

[heimdall]

It's hard to say for sure not having any idea who your friend is or what the actual circumstances to this are.

If he/she has a complaint however, he/she should voice it.

Contrary to perception, the DM team doesn't just 'punish' players in this fashion without first giving a warning of some kind ~ quite often players are talked to a half a dozen times regarding a type of abuse before the 'big guns' are pulled out.

I do find it unlikely that he would be 'punished' in such a fashion and not talked to about whatever offense (percieved or otherwise) that was causing the creatures to come after him in such a fashion.

I would encourage you to have your friend send me (or any DM of his/her preference) a PM detailing the complaints.

Invisibility has always seemed a bit buggy to me anyhow. Sometimes if cast too close to enemies, they will see through it. And creatures 'do' get a listen check against it. Finally, it's not uncommon for creatures such as Frost Giants to have this ability.

[Aodhan the Unusual]

From personal experience using invisibility potions/scrolls that there are many times I'll down a potion, and that thing that was chasing me, is STILL chasing me... And hitting me too, while running past new spawns doesn't trigger them to come after me. I think it's just a bug with the NWN engine where, in some cases, if you down it while "locked" in combat (you have the little attack icon in the upper left hadn corner of your screen), the spawn(s) you're fighting stay locked in combat with you. There's also the distance thing. If you're close to soemthing when downing the potion, they WILL be able to see you. True, it's an NPC metagaming thing, but they're just stupid computers.

[heimdall]

Also, I'd advise anyone with specific concerns to either post them or PM a DM regarding those concerns. (preferably multiple Dm's as my own internet was down most of last week, and just went down again for about another 40 minutes between my last post and this one...which makes my own response time...rather unpredictable)

[Booze Hound]

yea Frosties DO cast True Seeing.

and like Tori said, if you are fighting something and drink the potion, 9/10 times it is still going to beat your head in.

and they get listen checks against you. SOmetimes you have to invis, and go into stealth mode to have them finally leave you alone.

[Kain]

Ok, specifics then. His name was Elthranthir Raelvar. In this particular case, he was with Elyl Jr'ein and Sky Glendagger. They were fighting two frost giant warriors when the summoned movanic deva unsummoned, Elyl was killed, Sky was stable on the ground and Elthranthir was invisible, he attempted to lure them away so as to attempt to save his companions. He went uninvis and reinvised, after which the warrior (fighter, whichever it is that uses the big forsty axes) followed him through a transition and killed him, and it wasnt just a succesful listen check because those would yield 50% concealment on the attacks which there was none. All three attacks were made as though invisibility was not there, No there were no priestesses so no one cast true seeing.

As for the warning before punsihment claim, I do not discredit all DMs in saying this, but I have persoanlyl been punished with mulitple epic traps in the ettin cave for metagaming, though I admit that what I did was wrong and I apologize, I was not warned nor was I reprimanded after setting of the traps, simply put I took 100 elecric dmg without any word from anyone as to why. So, the point being, that I know that most of the DMs make sure to issue warning before punishment, there have been instances when DMs have not, and no I do not know who did this to me. As hard as it may be for some to accept, there are DMs that are not the greatest model of the DM team.

A question that may lead to explanation, when a DM posses a creature, does it maintain its usual behavior an ddoes it recieven any bonuses like spells or abilites (perhaps tru seeing) Becuase if so than it is possible that a Dm watching the events was posessing the creature and it was granted True Seeing on the side and thus acted on that Just an Idea.

Anyways, I have no intention of discrediting the DMs as most of them are quite helpful and friendly. I am trying to point out that my friend has faced multiple penalties without warning, one of which I witnessed, and Myself having encountered un explained punsihment as well.

[heimdall]

This helps. Your friend had been warned on multiple occassions about taking advantage of invisibility for the sole benefit of farming the server.

I know this because I spent over an hour myself discussing this issue with him. So...if he's telling you he was punished without warning - then he's not telling you the truth.

~ edit ~ I was not there however for the incident you are refferring to (just letting you know that your friend was indeed warned on at least one lengthy occassion ~ if these 'incidents' kept occuring, it was because would not alter in his behavior), nor would I 'epic' trap you without later on giving you an explanation as to why.

[DM Richard (Retired)]

kain said:

He went uninvis and reinvised, after which the warrior (fighter, whichever it is that uses the big forsty axes) followed him through a transition and killed him...

It sounds very much to me like the Frost Giant locked onto him in combat. If anyone (DM, Player, NPC) cast True Seeing on the giant you would see the True Seeing visual effect appear on the giant then disappear. If this didn't happen then no one cast True seeing on the giant.

kain said:

... and it wasnt just a succesful listen check because those would yield 50% concealment on the attacks which there was none. All three attacks were made as though invisibility was not there...

Unless he rolls a hit and still misses there is no way to tell if the giant made his 50% roll each time or had True Sight. Saying he was hit all three times doesn't mean that there wasn't 50% concealment on the attacks. You are making an assumption that could be incorrect.

kain said:

A question that may lead to explanation, when a DM posses a creature, does it maintain its usual behavior an ddoes it recieven any bonuses like spells or abilites (perhaps tru seeing) Becuase if so than it is possible that a Dm watching the events was posessing the creature and it was granted True Seeing on the side and thus acted on that Just an Idea.

To answer your question, DM possession doesn't effect the visual senses of the creature.

This will be brought up in the DM forums to find out if a DM was involved.

I will say that based on what you have told us SO FAR this could EASILY have happened without any DM involvement.

[Kain]

I agree that the events could have transpired without DM involvemetn, but not quite so easily, first the fact that it follwed a transition and STILL has the lock is unlikely in my experience, also the the odds of thee successive rolls without being affected by a 50% concealment do not allow for "easily" plausible. If I still remember statistics class correctly the odds of that are... about 12.5% or about 1 in 8. Anyways, I have shifted my disucssion to another thread more focused on invisibilty.

[hexer]

Unfortunately, NPCs are capable of passing through area transitions without having to go through the whole loading process like we as players have to go through. What this means is that when you feel through an area transition with a baddy on your tail, they'll be on the other side waiting for you. This will, in effect, briefly break combat... however...

The NWN system kinda goofed on invisibility, making anyone (PC or NPC) invisible who goes within a few feet of another person (PC or NPC) 'visible' to said person. In the case of hostile NPCs, this means that they can lock onto you and continue attacking, and in the case of area transitions, they get a jump on you.

Sadly, we are unable to alter being able to 'see' invisible people nearby as it is something that's been hardcoded into the game itself.

This sounds like a series of unfortunate circumstances that resulted in a loss. But, if you ask any veteran player, they'll tell you these things happen and the best thing you can do is just forget about it and move on instead of blaming the DMs for picking on you.

Either way, I consider five DM replies to this thread giving you reasons why this could have happened enough. Whether you choose to accept those answers or not is completely up to you.

Thank you.