So, we're doing this 2024 campaign in a somewhat homebrew setting. At level 6, a few weeks ago, the DM made us fight a Marilith. We were given 1 rare item of our choosing each, which was unexpected at such a low level, but it at least gave us a winning chance. We only survived because I had fought them before and knew exactly which item to pick so we could cheese the fight, but otherwise I'm convinced this would have been a TPK. While the collaborative aspect of the cheese strategy was fun to setup, the fight in itself was quite short as a result. And now he's paired us against 2 parties a OP sorcerers, and one of them has been casually dropping 8th and 9th level spells. At this rate I feel he's soon going to send us fight liches and minor deities... I don't know much about DMing, but aren't they guidelines regarding how to balance fights? I assume that monster CRs are there specifically to help with that, right?
So, we're doing this 2024 campaign in a somewhat homebrew setting. At level 6, a few weeks ago, the DM made us fight a Marilith. We were given 1 rare item of our choosing each, which was unexpected at such a low level, but it at least gave us a winning chance. We only survived because I had fought them before and knew exactly which item to pick so we could cheese the fight, but otherwise I'm convinced this would have been a TPK. While the collaborative aspect of the cheese strategy was fun to setup, the fight in itself was quite short as a result. And now he's paired us against 2 parties a OP sorcerers, and one of them has been casually dropping 8th and 9th level spells. At this rate I feel he's soon going to send us fight liches and minor deities... I don't know much about DMing, but aren't they guidelines regarding how to balance fights? I assume that monster CRs are there specifically to help with that, right?
Players always have to the choice to retreat, not engage, disengage, run away and find allies to help in the future or discuss ways to get more powerful (level up) in order to prepare for revisiting that fight in the future or avoid it all together.
The DM also has ways to "help" players if the battle is going sour for them. Reinforcements could arrive, a stronger monster could come and engage with the one(s) you're fighting (aka "there's always a bigger fish"), a monster could flee or decide it just wanted to beat you down but not kill you - maybe take you prisoner or offer you as a sacrifice or negotiate/blackmail you.
Unfortunately, until you actually all die, you don't really know what the DM is doing. But it might not hurt to express your concerns so as not to waste your time.
I had a DM where I died 3 times in an hour at level 1 and he bent over backwards to fix the situation, but I kept dying. At one point, he even had a god appear and resurrect me. I think it was a combination of inexperience and bad rolls. Even so, I hated that game. I was angry and depressed about it for some time. My brother's character lived and looted everything and was victorious, so it was like salt in the wound, haha!
Maybe he thinks by doing this he's upping the excitement, but it sounds like he's using enemies that are just too strong. Maybe have a chat and tell him it's not fun for you (if that's how you all feel).
Is your DM an inexperienced one? This sounds like a case of an over-ambitious new DM trying to force some tension into the fights. If he is not, I do have an alternative idea - your DM might be looking for a TPK for story reasons. It is possible that he has planned a story arc where you all die and find yourselves in the seven hells, then go on to have to escape or fight your way out, perhaps culminating in a a fight with a confrontation with one of the rulers of the hells. If this is the case, you might be in for some tough choices, and possibly have to choose with which devil you have to make a deal.
All those enemies are well, well above what a level 6 party could reasonably expect to defeat. I'd suggest talking to your DM out of session and find out what they're trying to do. Are they just very inexperienced and making mistakes? Did the party specifically ask for extremely tough challenges?
I do think that we're his first DM experience. He clearly spent a lot of time writing his homebrew setting and lore, and I'm wondering if he's simply DMing so he could have fun in the world he created.
There are several clues indicating that he may have little experience, like frequently needing to look up the rules, making questionable decisions (sometimes contradictory with his own previous rulings), constantly struggling and complaining about his VTT (I know, VTTs suck, but he complains 10 times more about it than all my other DMs put together), not understanding what's Legacy by 2024 rules and what isn't (and arbitrarily banning some sources and not others), making rulings at the last second to get what he wants and obviously setting up the party for failure, etc.
On the other hand, he seems to be juggling with a lot with story elements and things happening behind the scenes while we play the game, making me think that what really matters to him is bringing his setting to life, rather than the balance of the game. Another thing that gives me this impression is the fact that there doesn't seem to be a story to his campaign. It feels more like an open world that we're invited to explore. It's actually a fantastic experience as a party, for the feeling of freedom it gives us, if we ignore the less enjoyable parts.
I do think that we're his first DM experience. He clearly spent a lot of time writing his homebrew setting and lore, and I'm wondering if he's simply DMing so he could have fun in the world he created.
There are several clues indicating that he may have little experience, like frequently needing to look up the rules, making questionable decisions (sometimes contradictory with his own previous rulings), constantly struggling and complaining about his VTT (I know, VTTs suck, but he complains 10 times more about it than all my other DMs put together), not understanding what's Legacy by 2024 rules and what isn't (and arbitrarily banning some sources and not others), making rulings at the last second to get what he wants and obviously setting up the party for failure, etc.
On the other hand, he seems to be juggling with a lot with story elements and things happening behind the scenes while we play the game, making me think that what really matters to him is bringing his setting to life, rather than the balance of the game. Another thing that gives me this impression is the fact that there doesn't seem to be a story to his campaign. It feels more like an open world that we're invited to explore. It's actually a fantastic experience as a party, for the feeling of freedom it gives us, if we ignore the less enjoyable parts.
You said it's kind of like an open world campaign. Maybe the thing is that you went to an area that was meant for later game, which would also explain the rare magic items. He may have seen those "railroading is terrible and if you railroad your party you suck" videos online and took that as "oh, so the players should be able to do anything they want like in a sandbox" and didn't create a main plotline.
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I'm just your everyday dungeon master. Ignore that jar full of souls. And those bones in the corner are just props, don't worry. I'm definitely NOT a lich. Definitely.
Yes, I like beholders. Yes, I curated an exquisite personality for commoner #2864. Yes, my catchphrase is "are you sure?"
The thing is that we got access to this area very easily. It was almost served to us on a silver platter. I also don't think he had these encounters prepared before we went that route. When I talked to him after the Marilith fight to know if he had any kind of Deus Ex Machina prepared, he tried to convince us that we actually stood a chance. It was also quite clear that he didn't expect us to trap it under a wall of force (that we got from a cube of force) and a fog cloud, as he kept looking at the spell descriptions and the Marilith's stat block to try and find a way out of it while we chipped away its HP with intangible AoE spells. Without rare items, we probably wouldn't have taken the fight at all. It's only out of sheer luck that I knew what a 2024 Marilith could do, because I fought one in Eve of Ruin just a few weeks before. I don't think the DM would (or should) expect players to look up enemy stat blocks, and/or metagame the way we did. I guess I'll just talk to him again about it. I'm starting to think that he's not really trying to kill us. He's just trying to give us some difficulty, despite giving us items that are OP for our level.
I'm starting to think that he's not really trying to kill us. He's just trying to give us some difficulty, despite giving us items that are OP for our level.
For a new DM, the lack of experience can make this effort very difficult. A CR is a guideline, not a hard & fast stat. Trying to follow the path of challenging but not too easy/difficult can be trying for even experienced DMs when the characters are a higher level, not that 6 is that high.
New DMs also can get caught up trying to to run "their" world/write up, instead of knowing when to adjust and if needed, to scrap/abandon their 2 -3 nights worth of prep work.
I believe this question shouldn’t appear on this forum (laughs).
Seriously, the DMG and MM provide various approaches to Challenge Rating (CR), but they share one principle: CR is merely a rough gauge of a monster’s threat level. An experienced GM should understand how to properly balance encounters. Many monsters in official materials are either disproportionately lethal for their CR or trivially weak, allowing underleveled PCs to triumph.
Challenge A monster's challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one. Monsters that are significantly weaker than 1st-level characters have a challenge rating lower than 1. Monsters with a challenge rating of 0 are insignificant except in large numbers; those with no effective attacks are worth no experience points, while those that have attacks are worth 10 XP each. Some monsters present a greater challenge than even a typical 20th-level party can handle. These monsters have a challenge rating of 21 or higher and are specifically designed to test player skill.
However, this is tangential. For your concern, the MM 2014’s note about “specifically designed to test player skill” is instructive. Your PCs’ success against the Marilith reflects skillful play, much like my recent Rrakkma campaign:
I designed an Elder Brain with 6 ninth-level spell slots, the ability to cast spells via Legendary Actions, and the capacity to maintain multiple Concentrations. Additionally, there were 3 Mind Flayer Prophets capable of casting ninth-level spells and using the Portent class feature, 4 Vampiric Mind Flayers, 2 Neothelids blocking all passageways, layered spell traps (Wall of Force, Silence, Glyph of Warding, Symbol), and planar effects such as an airless environment, arcane chaos, and warped physical laws. Starting from Round 3, the Gith Capacitor imposed Disadvantage on all d20 Tests for Gith characters and inflicted Psychic Vulnerability (removing Psychic Resistance).
Despite this, the 9th-level PCs trivialized the encounter:
Their Temporary Hit Points even withstood Meteor Swarm through high Saving Throw bonuses and full Damage Resistance.
They waltzed through Incendiary Cloud, Sickening Radiance, Confusion, and Slow, as though treading on Verdant Path.
They exhausted all enemy sixth-level and higher spell slots (over 10 ninth-level spells and 20 seventh/eighth-level spells) across 8 in-game rounds (over 5 hours).
They ultimately reached the Pool of the Elder Brain, basking in the glory of victory for the gith’s survival.
The encounter, modified with enhanced DCs and homebrew abilities, totaled 80,600 XP—a Deadly challenge even for level 20 PCs. Yet the players praised it as their most exhilarating 5e victory, battling until 3 AM.
Your GM likely aren’t aiming to frustrate players or "enjoy slaughtering PCs," but may lack system familiarity to design thematically intense yet balanced encounters. My advice: Communicate openly. Crafting “difficult but solvable” encounters requires talent and experience—participating in this learning process can be valuable (laughs).
Based on your description 100% your DM is trying to kill your PCs, there is no way those are fights one would expect level 6 players to be able to win. There are a few options for what's going on here:
(1) Your DM is on a power trip and will continue to do this because they want to feel good by engaging in their power fantasy to kill your PCs. (2) Your DM wants the party to turn around and go somewhere else, but thinks they aren't allowed to tell players what to do because that would be railroading, so they are trying to convince you the enemies this way are too hard for you. (3) Your DM wants one or more of the PCs to die as a narrative point - perhaps to get the party involved with gods/devils via some sort of bargain to be ressurrected. (4) Your DM thinks they have to do this because the party keeps cheesing fights and/or built OP characters so this is the only way to "challenge" the party. (5) Your DM doesn't care about game balance or mechanics or rules, and just wants to show off how cool and epic their world is.
It could really be any of these or some combination of them. Personally I'd advise against assuming the worse, because it's easy to offend people that way. Assume the most charitable explanation you can and go talk to them.
After having a few chats with the DM and the rest of the party, we actually came to the conclusion that it's option 5. He doesn't give a flying shit about balance, the rules, or the players' wishes for that matter. The only thing that matters to him is his homebrew world. Everything else is secondary. He even tried to force one player to retire his character for plot reasons. I don't think he even bothered to read our abilities because we have to remind him of what they do almost every week (and I'm pretty sure we're his only party), and we're all starting to doubt he even bothered to read the DMG. So yeah, we're already decided to leave, but one of us is stuck in a very tight window (6am-10am EST) and we haven't found an available DM in that timeline yet.
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So, we're doing this 2024 campaign in a somewhat homebrew setting.
At level 6, a few weeks ago, the DM made us fight a Marilith. We were given 1 rare item of our choosing each, which was unexpected at such a low level, but it at least gave us a winning chance.
We only survived because I had fought them before and knew exactly which item to pick so we could cheese the fight, but otherwise I'm convinced this would have been a TPK.
While the collaborative aspect of the cheese strategy was fun to setup, the fight in itself was quite short as a result.
And now he's paired us against 2 parties a OP sorcerers, and one of them has been casually dropping 8th and 9th level spells.
At this rate I feel he's soon going to send us fight liches and minor deities...
I don't know much about DMing, but aren't they guidelines regarding how to balance fights? I assume that monster CRs are there specifically to help with that, right?
Players always have to the choice to retreat, not engage, disengage, run away and find allies to help in the future or discuss ways to get more powerful (level up) in order to prepare for revisiting that fight in the future or avoid it all together.
The DM also has ways to "help" players if the battle is going sour for them. Reinforcements could arrive, a stronger monster could come and engage with the one(s) you're fighting (aka "there's always a bigger fish"), a monster could flee or decide it just wanted to beat you down but not kill you - maybe take you prisoner or offer you as a sacrifice or negotiate/blackmail you.
Unfortunately, until you actually all die, you don't really know what the DM is doing. But it might not hurt to express your concerns so as not to waste your time.
I had a DM where I died 3 times in an hour at level 1 and he bent over backwards to fix the situation, but I kept dying. At one point, he even had a god appear and resurrect me. I think it was a combination of inexperience and bad rolls. Even so, I hated that game. I was angry and depressed about it for some time. My brother's character lived and looted everything and was victorious, so it was like salt in the wound, haha!
Maybe he thinks by doing this he's upping the excitement, but it sounds like he's using enemies that are just too strong. Maybe have a chat and tell him it's not fun for you (if that's how you all feel).
Yes there's loose guidelines for DM making encounters using number and Challenge Rating of monsters, the party level and other parameters.
A Marilith is CR 16, which is well above the party level, so are likely NPCs able to cast level 9 spells.
In most case where such party is reasonably built and monsters well run, it's TPK material for sure unless the DM helps a lot.
Is your DM an inexperienced one? This sounds like a case of an over-ambitious new DM trying to force some tension into the fights. If he is not, I do have an alternative idea - your DM might be looking for a TPK for story reasons. It is possible that he has planned a story arc where you all die and find yourselves in the seven hells, then go on to have to escape or fight your way out, perhaps culminating in a a fight with a confrontation with one of the rulers of the hells. If this is the case, you might be in for some tough choices, and possibly have to choose with which devil you have to make a deal.
All those enemies are well, well above what a level 6 party could reasonably expect to defeat. I'd suggest talking to your DM out of session and find out what they're trying to do. Are they just very inexperienced and making mistakes? Did the party specifically ask for extremely tough challenges?
I do think that we're his first DM experience. He clearly spent a lot of time writing his homebrew setting and lore, and I'm wondering if he's simply DMing so he could have fun in the world he created.
There are several clues indicating that he may have little experience, like frequently needing to look up the rules, making questionable decisions (sometimes contradictory with his own previous rulings), constantly struggling and complaining about his VTT (I know, VTTs suck, but he complains 10 times more about it than all my other DMs put together), not understanding what's Legacy by 2024 rules and what isn't (and arbitrarily banning some sources and not others), making rulings at the last second to get what he wants and obviously setting up the party for failure, etc.
On the other hand, he seems to be juggling with a lot with story elements and things happening behind the scenes while we play the game, making me think that what really matters to him is bringing his setting to life, rather than the balance of the game.
Another thing that gives me this impression is the fact that there doesn't seem to be a story to his campaign. It feels more like an open world that we're invited to explore. It's actually a fantastic experience as a party, for the feeling of freedom it gives us, if we ignore the less enjoyable parts.
You said it's kind of like an open world campaign. Maybe the thing is that you went to an area that was meant for later game, which would also explain the rare magic items. He may have seen those "railroading is terrible and if you railroad your party you suck" videos online and took that as "oh, so the players should be able to do anything they want like in a sandbox" and didn't create a main plotline.
I'm just your everyday dungeon master. Ignore that jar full of souls. And those bones in the corner are just props, don't worry. I'm definitely NOT a lich. Definitely.
Yes, I like beholders. Yes, I curated an exquisite personality for commoner #2864. Yes, my catchphrase is "are you sure?"
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . .-.-.-
The thing is that we got access to this area very easily. It was almost served to us on a silver platter.
I also don't think he had these encounters prepared before we went that route.
When I talked to him after the Marilith fight to know if he had any kind of Deus Ex Machina prepared, he tried to convince us that we actually stood a chance.
It was also quite clear that he didn't expect us to trap it under a wall of force (that we got from a cube of force) and a fog cloud, as he kept looking at the spell descriptions and the Marilith's stat block to try and find a way out of it while we chipped away its HP with intangible AoE spells.
Without rare items, we probably wouldn't have taken the fight at all. It's only out of sheer luck that I knew what a 2024 Marilith could do, because I fought one in Eve of Ruin just a few weeks before.
I don't think the DM would (or should) expect players to look up enemy stat blocks, and/or metagame the way we did.
I guess I'll just talk to him again about it. I'm starting to think that he's not really trying to kill us. He's just trying to give us some difficulty, despite giving us items that are OP for our level.
For a new DM, the lack of experience can make this effort very difficult. A CR is a guideline, not a hard & fast stat. Trying to follow the path of challenging but not too easy/difficult can be trying for even experienced DMs when the characters are a higher level, not that 6 is that high.
New DMs also can get caught up trying to to run "their" world/write up, instead of knowing when to adjust and if needed, to scrap/abandon their 2 -3 nights worth of prep work.
Based on your description 100% your DM is trying to kill your PCs, there is no way those are fights one would expect level 6 players to be able to win. There are a few options for what's going on here:
(1) Your DM is on a power trip and will continue to do this because they want to feel good by engaging in their power fantasy to kill your PCs.
(2) Your DM wants the party to turn around and go somewhere else, but thinks they aren't allowed to tell players what to do because that would be railroading, so they are trying to convince you the enemies this way are too hard for you.
(3) Your DM wants one or more of the PCs to die as a narrative point - perhaps to get the party involved with gods/devils via some sort of bargain to be ressurrected.
(4) Your DM thinks they have to do this because the party keeps cheesing fights and/or built OP characters so this is the only way to "challenge" the party.
(5) Your DM doesn't care about game balance or mechanics or rules, and just wants to show off how cool and epic their world is.
It could really be any of these or some combination of them. Personally I'd advise against assuming the worse, because it's easy to offend people that way. Assume the most charitable explanation you can and go talk to them.
After having a few chats with the DM and the rest of the party, we actually came to the conclusion that it's option 5. He doesn't give a flying shit about balance, the rules, or the players' wishes for that matter. The only thing that matters to him is his homebrew world. Everything else is secondary. He even tried to force one player to retire his character for plot reasons. I don't think he even bothered to read our abilities because we have to remind him of what they do almost every week (and I'm pretty sure we're his only party), and we're all starting to doubt he even bothered to read the DMG.
So yeah, we're already decided to leave, but one of us is stuck in a very tight window (6am-10am EST) and we haven't found an available DM in that timeline yet.