I'm fairly new to D&D, but I have about 30 sessions under my belt and have played under 3 different DMs. I'm having a hard time telling if my most recent DM just has a very different play style or if he has a poor understanding of game mechanics and the role of the dungeon master. I'm curious to hear people's opinions on the following situation.
Our party of five returned to a city after completing a quest. As we entered the city, the DM notified us that we could hear a commotion ahead down the street at our favorite tavern. As we got closer (~100 feet according to the placement of our figures on the playing board). The DM notified us that we could see the city's mob boss and 12 of his henchmen standing outside the tavern. Arrow fire was being exchanged through the windows with the people inside. The mob boss had just ordered one of his men to set the tavern on fire. Our party had vested interest in saving the tavern and people inside as we needed to collect a reward from the questgiver who was likely inside along with several NPCs we cared about. We asked the DM if anyone had seen us yet, and he said, "they seem to be preoccupied with the fight they are engaged in". We devised a plan to surround them stealthily and see if we could surprise them. From a game mechanics point of view I think we were hoping we could start combat with most of our enemies surprised, or at least get advantage on our first attacks from being undetected.
The cleric and sorcerer in our party were notoriously bad at sneaking so they stayed back 100ft and stepped into an alley with their crossbow and ranged spells at the ready. The DM didn't make them roll stealth as he had already said that the party wasn't noticed at that distance. Our monk shadow stepped to a stable next to the tavern beyond the enemies. The Rogue and me slipped down a back road and into the building accross the street from the tavern so that we were at the enemies backs. The Rogue set his position crouched below a window on the main floor and I climbed to the roof of the two story building. We each were asked to roll stealth checks to see if we got into position undetected. We all got lucky and rolled high (Rogue 25, Monk 24, myself 22), the DM told us that we were undetected. We told the DM that we all wanted to attack at the same time, but he insisted that one of us needed to lead the attack to see how it played out. Since my character was at a vantage point where all other party members could see, it made sense that I would start the engagement and all other party members would join in with their attacks as soon as they saw me engage. I asked the DM how high I was and he said 20ft. The mob boss was standing 5 feet away from the building I was on so I thought it would be cool if my Goliath Fighter lept from the building and brought the full force of his maul down on his head mid-air. I was familiar with the mechanics of fall damage so I was well aware that I would probably receive 2D6 bludgeoning damage for jumping from that high, but the maneuver sounded cool enough that I didn't care. I asked if I would have to roll stealth again to surprise the enemy and the DM said no I'll just count the one you just rolled. He instructed me to roll one D20 for the attack and one D20 for an acrobatics check. (Attack roll 19, acrobatics roll 7) as soon as I rolled 7 I knew that the cool maneuver I attempted was probably going to be slightly less cool, but I was not prepared for how the DM said it played out,
"Your Goliath leaps from the building, midfall the mob boss looks up at you smile's and places his glaive in the path of your fall. You are impailed, receive 27 points of piercing damage and fall prone to the ground his glaive still inside you, everyone roll initiative." Please note that the DM only seemed to roll one dice behind his screen presumably for damage as he never asked my armor class. It seems he just decided that this pre-initiative attack from an NPC that was supposedly unaware of my presence was an automatic hit, and that my mediocre acrobatics check was enough to negate all effects from both my high stealth check and high attack roll.
I probably should have just accepted the DMs decision and moved on with the combat and story, but I was a little bit flabbergasted at what seemed to me to be reckless abandon of game mechanics and a really high. consequence for a very small failure. It was nearly half of my hit points. I challenged the DMs decision and the conversation went something like the following.
"Wait a second, how did he know I was there?"
"Oh he knew you were there the whole time"
"But what about all of our stealth checks, are you telling me that this guy has a passive perception of 22?"
"No, not passive perception, active; he noticed the party approach and was actively tracking each of your movements"
"But you said nobody noticed us"
"No, I said that they seemed to be preoccupied with the the fight in front of them. He was pretending not to notice the party to lure you into a trap of his own."
"So the three stealth checks we rolled over 20 mean absolutely nothing"
"Sure they do, none of the henchmen know where the rogue or monk are. They know where you are only because you threw yourself off of a building"
"But what about his attack? How did he get a surprise attack on me before combat"
"He got a chance to attack before combat just like you got a chance to attack before combat".
"I wasn't really given a chance, I was allowed to roll and got a 19 which I assume is above his armor class, but then you just decided it didn't happen, and decided that he got a free hit on me, not a chance but an automatic freeby hit. You aren't going to let us roll intuition against his deception to see if we can sense that he is leading us on? He doesn't have to make perception checks against our stealth checks to see if he can keep track of our movements? He doesn't have to roll to hit?
"Look, what's happened has happened. I'm the DM and this is how I want the story to go. Let's play it out. Everything is going to be fine"
At this point I could tell that I was making the other players uncomfortable and that the DM wasn't going to budge, so I chilled out and played along as grudge free as I could muster. I wasn't really mad at the DM, just mad that I was now stuck in a game where the rules didn't matter and the dice didn't mean anything, and my influence on the outcome of the story seemed subservient to the DMs. I played with that group several more times until the conclusion of the campaign, had a few more similar interactions where high dice rolls were nixed by the DM. They invited me to come back and start a new campaign with them, but I politely declined.
Do I have unreasonable expectations on DMs? or was this DM way out of line? I would love to hear your thoughts? Especially if you have an opinion on how the scenario should have played out according to RAW?
The DM probably should have made you roll the Acrobatics check and resolved that before you rolled the attack roll as that set an expectation that you had hit when in fact you ended up in a heap on the floor. Allowing the mob boss to hit you was adding insult to injury I'd probably have given you some fall damage and started the fight with you prone. Heck I might even have had you land on top of him and you both start prone.
"Look, what's happened has happened. I'm the DM and this is how I want the story to go. Let's play it out. Everything is going to be fine"
If something like that happened I'd just speak to the DM after the session, it was probably an off hand comment to difuse the argument but players do need some sense of being in control of the narrative rather than simply being driven by it.
The DM isn't way out of line, but there were things which could have been done better here.
The DM had obviously decided that this was a trap for the party, laid on by the mob boss, and then orchestrated it somewhat poorly.
One way which would have worked better would have been:
- perception checks called for when asking if they had noticed you, against a pre-rolled deception check DC from the group. A success o nthe check would see them perhaps pointfully not looking this way, or an occasional sideglance, implying they know you're there. - The boss getting to react to your surprise attack, not just auto-succeed. Either a held action to dodge when you attacked (giving disadvantage), or a less RAW option to make a dex save against your attack roll as a DC, to try and dodge the attack. - The boss getting an attack of opportunity on you, as part of their trap. The damage from this may include the 2d6 fall damage you would have taken, instead of just bludgeoning. - You get a con save or something to prevent yourself falling prone. This may have been the acrobatics check.
The most important thing is the weirdly absent hit. You rolled high, you should hit them, even if their plan with the glaive is a success.
One thing that you may need to consider as well is Metagaming. Whilst I agree that this example seemed very, very railroady, you also mention that "The DM didn't roll any dice except damage". This is exactly the sort of thing which a DM may consider pre-rolling, or just pre-deciding a DC for the sake of the plot, in order to avoid the characters suddenly changing tack because the magical man in the sky rolled a math rock. The players think they are unseen, and so if every time you moved or stealthed, the DM rolled a dice behind the screen, you (the player) may cotton on to the fact that you're being watched, whilst you (the character) would be entirely unaware of it. Perhaps the DM has been on the recieving end of metagaming before, and has taken measures to avoid it.
I do think the DM could have handled this better, and it does sound like they are already set in how the game is going to go, which is bad for the player agency and potentially good for the story, but frankly player agency trumps story 99 times out of 100. Having the BBEG banished in one surprise round would be something for the DM to bypass to keep the story going, for a good result. A small ambush being turned around by savvy, sneaky characters should have been the story, not "you are ambushed, whatever happens".
The DM seems to have had the emob boss have a read action just in case someone jumped down on him from above?
Even if he was aware of your presence 'all along' (despite the DM having said otherwise without asking for any perception checks, despite the roof being out of line of sight, even if he noticed you having gotten there, despite him not looking up at all until after you jump, etc... ), that seems very far fetched.
There is no 'chance to attack before combat.' Attacking is combat. And you were very much aware he was there and in the middle of an attempted attack. "Before your attack" you were out of glaive reach.
This seems like a DM who feels the need to be in complete control. Of everything.
Right. That whole surprise mechanic was handled incorrectly. There is no mechanic for a free attack before initiative. Once you initiate a hostile action, everyone rolls initiative, and those that may be surprised have the surprised condition until their turn in combat passes during round one. If that mob boss was not surprised they would not have the condition but their actions still need to happen on their initiative count, including preparing the glaive move.
Generally, the approach up to the execution of the jump seem fine, even with the high stealth rolls; depending on the situation the mob boss could have seen the party at the moment of visual contact (or knowing they might show up) be putting on a performance to look preoccupied, he could have a magic item that allows for no surprise, etc.
The big issue here in this DMs opinion was the handling of your jump attack. 1) even if the mob boss wasn't surprised, initiative should have been rolled at the moment of the jump, so that proper ready/ reactions and actions could be used in order. 2) if the completion of your acrobatics check was crucial to the performance of the hit, it should have been resolved first. 3) in this situation, since the DM allowed the attack roll, your hit should have been taken into account, so that even if you suffered consequences of the check, your hit should have possibly damaged the boss. and 4) the boss move should have required an attack roll to pull off as well.
Ultimately, this seems like the DM had a specific outcome in mind and fudged the rules to make it happen. If this kind of behavior is common to them, that might be a problem, but if your experience has been good so far, just chalk it up to a poor execution and move on (but be on the lookout for other instances)
I've had this kind of issue before, and for me it's largely about feeling like the DM has lied to me; because technically they have. And while it is 100% a thing that DM's can/should/will lie to you in order to say, convey a NPC that is a liar and would lie, and thus they are succeeding at playing that character by lying - it's another thing for the DM in their DM role to tell you "They didn't see you," and for that to actually be false. That is a lie.
What the DM SHOULD have said was "It doesn't APPEAR as though anyone has seen you."
This basically says 'As far as your character knows, you can't tell that anyone has seen you.' - aka, it's not a lie if someone has seen you, but also it's entirely plausible that no one actually has seen you. It's proper information - it tells you, the player, that there is still a CHANCE that someone has seen you. it is not word from god that no one has seen you, which is what the DM said before and you took at face value, and then he slapped you with it.
This is a pretty standard social faux pas so I'm not saying hold it against him, but also I think you'd be entirely in your right to have a talk with him about semantics and how you feel in this situation. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be able to trust this DM again whenever he said anything - because how do I know it's true?
"The chest isn't a mimic." could just as easily turn into "it was actually a mimic and now you have no hands." so why would I ever believe anything he said again?
If you want to make paranoid players that insist on doing checks for everything because they can't tell if the DM is 'tricking' them or not, this is how you make that particular concoction. It's not fun though and I wouldn't recommend it.
Well, it's possible they did say something akin to that. The only direct quote in the above scenario is "they seem to be preoccupied with the fight they are engaged in". It's entirely possible that the DM said something like "nobody seemed to notice you".
Even if they had not phrased it that way, with the improper use of the concept of surprising someone and not taking initiative into account the boss could have readied an attack with the trigger being 'first character to come in range' once they saw them the first time (which should have required an attack roll to place the pole arm properly). That ends up looking railroad like but that's a result of messing around with things like attacks and aggressive actions that are allowed to happen prior to initiative being rolled.
To be honest it's been a few months since the encounter. I don't really remember his exact wording. It is entirely possible that every time he told us the result of our stealth he wordsmithed us into thinking we had succeeded without actually telling us we had succeeded. I would be fine if that was the case. We had rolled mediocre dice. I think it's more his ignoring high dice rolls, and applying low dice rolls to circumstances beyond the domain of the check. In my opinion acrobatics checks should have acrobatic consequences for failure, stealth checks should have stealth implications, and attack rolls should connect according to the mechanics of the game.
Yeah this kind of thing would happen a lot with this DM. Like we once encountered an evil wizard. He cast a pre-combat spell without allowing us to make a saving throw that caused cuffs of ice crystals to form around our wrists and ankles. Attempts to move or break free caused us damage. (Not sure if that is a real spell or just one he made up). I felt like my character wouldn't immediately submit, so even though my comrades just took damage for struggling I proceeded to break free with all my might and throw the axe that was in my hand. He had me roll a strength check to break free and I got a Nat 20. I was pretty stoked about the idea that this wizard that clearly was more powerful than us was about to get a hatchet stuck in him. Instead I took damage and remained restrained. I know not everyone subscribes to automatic Nat20s, but surely what I was trying to do wasn't impossible. My character had a 19 strength score and some reward for taking a chance seems reasonable.
Yeah this kind of thing would happen a lot with this DM. Like we once encountered an evil wizard. He cast a pre-combat spell without allowing us to make a saving throw that caused cuffs of ice crystals to form around our wrists and ankles. Attempts to move or break free caused us damage. (Not sure if that is a real spell or just one he made up). I felt like my character wouldn't immediately submit, so even though my comrades just took damage for struggling I proceeded to break free with all my might and throw the axe that was in my hand. He had me roll a strength check to break free and I got a Nat 20. I was pretty stoked about the idea that this wizard that clearly was more powerful than us was about to get a hatchet stuck in him. Instead I took damage and remained restrained. I know not everyone subscribes to automatic Nat20s, but surely what I was trying to do wasn't impossible. My character had a 19 strength score and some reward for taking a chance seems reasonable.
Yeah, run, don't walk away.
There are some DM's out there who get their kicks kicking PC's around. Unless you are a masochist, you are better off avoiding them. At least in my experiences.
Assuming the DM isn't just a new DM who's not good at improv yet so they railroad to avoid feeling like they don't know what to do.
DMs are people too with all the same faults of a player who also tries overly hard to protect their concept of their character.
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I'm fairly new to D&D, but I have about 30 sessions under my belt and have played under 3 different DMs. I'm having a hard time telling if my most recent DM just has a very different play style or if he has a poor understanding of game mechanics and the role of the dungeon master. I'm curious to hear people's opinions on the following situation.
Our party of five returned to a city after completing a quest. As we entered the city, the DM notified us that we could hear a commotion ahead down the street at our favorite tavern. As we got closer (~100 feet according to the placement of our figures on the playing board). The DM notified us that we could see the city's mob boss and 12 of his henchmen standing outside the tavern. Arrow fire was being exchanged through the windows with the people inside. The mob boss had just ordered one of his men to set the tavern on fire. Our party had vested interest in saving the tavern and people inside as we needed to collect a reward from the questgiver who was likely inside along with several NPCs we cared about. We asked the DM if anyone had seen us yet, and he said, "they seem to be preoccupied with the fight they are engaged in". We devised a plan to surround them stealthily and see if we could surprise them. From a game mechanics point of view I think we were hoping we could start combat with most of our enemies surprised, or at least get advantage on our first attacks from being undetected.
The cleric and sorcerer in our party were notoriously bad at sneaking so they stayed back 100ft and stepped into an alley with their crossbow and ranged spells at the ready. The DM didn't make them roll stealth as he had already said that the party wasn't noticed at that distance. Our monk shadow stepped to a stable next to the tavern beyond the enemies. The Rogue and me slipped down a back road and into the building accross the street from the tavern so that we were at the enemies backs. The Rogue set his position crouched below a window on the main floor and I climbed to the roof of the two story building. We each were asked to roll stealth checks to see if we got into position undetected. We all got lucky and rolled high (Rogue 25, Monk 24, myself 22), the DM told us that we were undetected. We told the DM that we all wanted to attack at the same time, but he insisted that one of us needed to lead the attack to see how it played out. Since my character was at a vantage point where all other party members could see, it made sense that I would start the engagement and all other party members would join in with their attacks as soon as they saw me engage. I asked the DM how high I was and he said 20ft. The mob boss was standing 5 feet away from the building I was on so I thought it would be cool if my Goliath Fighter lept from the building and brought the full force of his maul down on his head mid-air. I was familiar with the mechanics of fall damage so I was well aware that I would probably receive 2D6 bludgeoning damage for jumping from that high, but the maneuver sounded cool enough that I didn't care. I asked if I would have to roll stealth again to surprise the enemy and the DM said no I'll just count the one you just rolled. He instructed me to roll one D20 for the attack and one D20 for an acrobatics check. (Attack roll 19, acrobatics roll 7) as soon as I rolled 7 I knew that the cool maneuver I attempted was probably going to be slightly less cool, but I was not prepared for how the DM said it played out,
"Your Goliath leaps from the building, midfall the mob boss looks up at you smile's and places his glaive in the path of your fall. You are impailed, receive 27 points of piercing damage and fall prone to the ground his glaive still inside you, everyone roll initiative." Please note that the DM only seemed to roll one dice behind his screen presumably for damage as he never asked my armor class. It seems he just decided that this pre-initiative attack from an NPC that was supposedly unaware of my presence was an automatic hit, and that my mediocre acrobatics check was enough to negate all effects from both my high stealth check and high attack roll.
I probably should have just accepted the DMs decision and moved on with the combat and story, but I was a little bit flabbergasted at what seemed to me to be reckless abandon of game mechanics and a really high. consequence for a very small failure. It was nearly half of my hit points. I challenged the DMs decision and the conversation went something like the following.
"Wait a second, how did he know I was there?"
"Oh he knew you were there the whole time"
"But what about all of our stealth checks, are you telling me that this guy has a passive perception of 22?"
"No, not passive perception, active; he noticed the party approach and was actively tracking each of your movements"
"But you said nobody noticed us"
"No, I said that they seemed to be preoccupied with the the fight in front of them. He was pretending not to notice the party to lure you into a trap of his own."
"So the three stealth checks we rolled over 20 mean absolutely nothing"
"Sure they do, none of the henchmen know where the rogue or monk are. They know where you are only because you threw yourself off of a building"
"But what about his attack? How did he get a surprise attack on me before combat"
"He got a chance to attack before combat just like you got a chance to attack before combat".
"I wasn't really given a chance, I was allowed to roll and got a 19 which I assume is above his armor class, but then you just decided it didn't happen, and decided that he got a free hit on me, not a chance but an automatic freeby hit. You aren't going to let us roll intuition against his deception to see if we can sense that he is leading us on? He doesn't have to make perception checks against our stealth checks to see if he can keep track of our movements? He doesn't have to roll to hit?
"Look, what's happened has happened. I'm the DM and this is how I want the story to go. Let's play it out. Everything is going to be fine"
At this point I could tell that I was making the other players uncomfortable and that the DM wasn't going to budge, so I chilled out and played along as grudge free as I could muster. I wasn't really mad at the DM, just mad that I was now stuck in a game where the rules didn't matter and the dice didn't mean anything, and my influence on the outcome of the story seemed subservient to the DMs. I played with that group several more times until the conclusion of the campaign, had a few more similar interactions where high dice rolls were nixed by the DM. They invited me to come back and start a new campaign with them, but I politely declined.
Do I have unreasonable expectations on DMs? or was this DM way out of line? I would love to hear your thoughts? Especially if you have an opinion on how the scenario should have played out according to RAW?
The DM probably should have made you roll the Acrobatics check and resolved that before you rolled the attack roll as that set an expectation that you had hit when in fact you ended up in a heap on the floor. Allowing the mob boss to hit you was adding insult to injury I'd probably have given you some fall damage and started the fight with you prone. Heck I might even have had you land on top of him and you both start prone.
"Look, what's happened has happened. I'm the DM and this is how I want the story to go. Let's play it out. Everything is going to be fine"
If something like that happened I'd just speak to the DM after the session, it was probably an off hand comment to difuse the argument but players do need some sense of being in control of the narrative rather than simply being driven by it.
The DM isn't way out of line, but there were things which could have been done better here.
The DM had obviously decided that this was a trap for the party, laid on by the mob boss, and then orchestrated it somewhat poorly.
One way which would have worked better would have been:
- perception checks called for when asking if they had noticed you, against a pre-rolled deception check DC from the group. A success o nthe check would see them perhaps pointfully not looking this way, or an occasional sideglance, implying they know you're there.
- The boss getting to react to your surprise attack, not just auto-succeed. Either a held action to dodge when you attacked (giving disadvantage), or a less RAW option to make a dex save against your attack roll as a DC, to try and dodge the attack.
- The boss getting an attack of opportunity on you, as part of their trap. The damage from this may include the 2d6 fall damage you would have taken, instead of just bludgeoning.
- You get a con save or something to prevent yourself falling prone. This may have been the acrobatics check.
The most important thing is the weirdly absent hit. You rolled high, you should hit them, even if their plan with the glaive is a success.
One thing that you may need to consider as well is Metagaming. Whilst I agree that this example seemed very, very railroady, you also mention that "The DM didn't roll any dice except damage". This is exactly the sort of thing which a DM may consider pre-rolling, or just pre-deciding a DC for the sake of the plot, in order to avoid the characters suddenly changing tack because the magical man in the sky rolled a math rock. The players think they are unseen, and so if every time you moved or stealthed, the DM rolled a dice behind the screen, you (the player) may cotton on to the fact that you're being watched, whilst you (the character) would be entirely unaware of it. Perhaps the DM has been on the recieving end of metagaming before, and has taken measures to avoid it.
I do think the DM could have handled this better, and it does sound like they are already set in how the game is going to go, which is bad for the player agency and potentially good for the story, but frankly player agency trumps story 99 times out of 100. Having the BBEG banished in one surprise round would be something for the DM to bypass to keep the story going, for a good result. A small ambush being turned around by savvy, sneaky characters should have been the story, not "you are ambushed, whatever happens".
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Right. That whole surprise mechanic was handled incorrectly. There is no mechanic for a free attack before initiative. Once you initiate a hostile action, everyone rolls initiative, and those that may be surprised have the surprised condition until their turn in combat passes during round one. If that mob boss was not surprised they would not have the condition but their actions still need to happen on their initiative count, including preparing the glaive move.
Generally, the approach up to the execution of the jump seem fine, even with the high stealth rolls; depending on the situation the mob boss could have seen the party at the moment of visual contact (or knowing they might show up) be putting on a performance to look preoccupied, he could have a magic item that allows for no surprise, etc.
The big issue here in this DMs opinion was the handling of your jump attack. 1) even if the mob boss wasn't surprised, initiative should have been rolled at the moment of the jump, so that proper ready/ reactions and actions could be used in order. 2) if the completion of your acrobatics check was crucial to the performance of the hit, it should have been resolved first. 3) in this situation, since the DM allowed the attack roll, your hit should have been taken into account, so that even if you suffered consequences of the check, your hit should have possibly damaged the boss. and 4) the boss move should have required an attack roll to pull off as well.
Ultimately, this seems like the DM had a specific outcome in mind and fudged the rules to make it happen. If this kind of behavior is common to them, that might be a problem, but if your experience has been good so far, just chalk it up to a poor execution and move on (but be on the lookout for other instances)
I've had this kind of issue before, and for me it's largely about feeling like the DM has lied to me; because technically they have. And while it is 100% a thing that DM's can/should/will lie to you in order to say, convey a NPC that is a liar and would lie, and thus they are succeeding at playing that character by lying - it's another thing for the DM in their DM role to tell you "They didn't see you," and for that to actually be false. That is a lie.
What the DM SHOULD have said was "It doesn't APPEAR as though anyone has seen you."
This basically says 'As far as your character knows, you can't tell that anyone has seen you.' - aka, it's not a lie if someone has seen you, but also it's entirely plausible that no one actually has seen you. It's proper information - it tells you, the player, that there is still a CHANCE that someone has seen you. it is not word from god that no one has seen you, which is what the DM said before and you took at face value, and then he slapped you with it.
This is a pretty standard social faux pas so I'm not saying hold it against him, but also I think you'd be entirely in your right to have a talk with him about semantics and how you feel in this situation. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be able to trust this DM again whenever he said anything - because how do I know it's true?
"The chest isn't a mimic." could just as easily turn into "it was actually a mimic and now you have no hands." so why would I ever believe anything he said again?
If you want to make paranoid players that insist on doing checks for everything because they can't tell if the DM is 'tricking' them or not, this is how you make that particular concoction. It's not fun though and I wouldn't recommend it.
Well, it's possible they did say something akin to that. The only direct quote in the above scenario is "they seem to be preoccupied with the fight they are engaged in". It's entirely possible that the DM said something like "nobody seemed to notice you".
Even if they had not phrased it that way, with the improper use of the concept of surprising someone and not taking initiative into account the boss could have readied an attack with the trigger being 'first character to come in range' once they saw them the first time (which should have required an attack roll to place the pole arm properly). That ends up looking railroad like but that's a result of messing around with things like attacks and aggressive actions that are allowed to happen prior to initiative being rolled.
To be honest it's been a few months since the encounter. I don't really remember his exact wording. It is entirely possible that every time he told us the result of our stealth he wordsmithed us into thinking we had succeeded without actually telling us we had succeeded. I would be fine if that was the case. We had rolled mediocre dice. I think it's more his ignoring high dice rolls, and applying low dice rolls to circumstances beyond the domain of the check. In my opinion acrobatics checks should have acrobatic consequences for failure, stealth checks should have stealth implications, and attack rolls should connect according to the mechanics of the game.
Yeah this kind of thing would happen a lot with this DM. Like we once encountered an evil wizard. He cast a pre-combat spell without allowing us to make a saving throw that caused cuffs of ice crystals to form around our wrists and ankles. Attempts to move or break free caused us damage. (Not sure if that is a real spell or just one he made up). I felt like my character wouldn't immediately submit, so even though my comrades just took damage for struggling I proceeded to break free with all my might and throw the axe that was in my hand. He had me roll a strength check to break free and I got a Nat 20. I was pretty stoked about the idea that this wizard that clearly was more powerful than us was about to get a hatchet stuck in him. Instead I took damage and remained restrained. I know not everyone subscribes to automatic Nat20s, but surely what I was trying to do wasn't impossible. My character had a 19 strength score and some reward for taking a chance seems reasonable.
Assuming the DM isn't just a new DM who's not good at improv yet so they railroad to avoid feeling like they don't know what to do.
DMs are people too with all the same faults of a player who also tries overly hard to protect their concept of their character.