The DM in the game was fine. I have no problems with the DM.
He was actually planning to run two adventures, "Tyranny in Phlan" followed by "Black Heart of Vengeance", each of which should normally take roughly 4 hours to run. So it would and should have been a 8 hour session.
Instead we only got the first quest done and it is largely due to one player who was playing a crazy dwarf named Hewitt who refused to wear armour, but insisted on charging into combat all the time.
Now he is not the worst player I have ever seen - I have seen worse. But he is definitely one of the worst.
- He deliberately undermined the goals of the quest.
- There was no point seeking to surprise the enemy.
- If you wanted to stealth, you were better off doing it far away from the dwarf.
- Constantly metagamed.
- Argued with the DM.
- Made up rules that did not exist.
- Every time it was his turn he would try to do many multiple actions, before eventually deciding on one action.
- Insisted on looking up rules in the PHB every chance he got to confirm the precise wording because he didn't trust the DM was telling the truth.
- He invariably picked actions that made no logical sense in terms of tactics.
- Chose actions which often slowed the combat down to a crawl.
- When we finally got around to dividing up loot he made a big fuss about wanting all of the loot, claiming that he did all of the work.
He was playing a dwarven fighter with lots of hit points, but basically charged into combat like he was a barbarian raging - in 5th Edition raging gives the barbarian resistance to combat damage from slashing, piercing and bludgeoning weapons... except he was not a barbarian, and he was not raging. And he didn't have any armour.
So basically he would run into combat and get hit constantly, and went unconscious so many times we should have just let him die.
The only reason he didn't die is because his character had a bandoleer full of healing potions. Now that part at least makes sense, but he eventually ran out of healing potions...
As combat evolved my ranger and someone else playing a halfling warlock/wizard named Pyrite basically had to change our tactics just to keep the stupid dwarf alive. We would basically shoot anything that was close to the dwarf so that we didn't have to waste any of our own healing on the stupid dwarf.
I flat out refused to give him any of my healing potions, or to heal his dumb dwarf. I also refused to use any of my ranger's Cure Wounds spells on him, because I knew he would just charge into combat again once I healed him.
The warlock/wizard PC did give him several healing potions, but ended up nearly dying themselves when they ran out.
Giving the dwarf healing potions was basically like saying "Here, go charge into combat again and get injured again."
At one point I offered to sell him a healing potion for 50 gp, but only if he agreed to wear armour that we had found. He refused. So I refused to sell him my potion.
The dwarf's proclivity for charging into combat did eventually become useful.
Closer to the end of the quest we have to rescue a military leader from a place that is being guarded by 26 guards. We needed a distraction in order for us to get in there...
The dwarf immediately volunteered and insisted on being the distraction.
A NPC and some knights also volunteered for this act of courage, but the crazy dwarf insisted he wanted to do it by himself.
So be it.
The dwarf distracted the guards, 18 of the guards chased after him... which means we had to fight the 8 remaining guards with the help of the NPC with the knights.
Later we are taking the military leader to the docks...
And we figure out there must be an ambush up ahead. So we do some scouting and...
The dwarf charges in.
And then the military commander guy charges in too!
What follows was a slaughter. The commander dies. We were supposed to keep him alive...
I shake my head in disgust.
The End Loot
After everything was finally done we had the following in loot to divide up.
- Spellbook (not magical, but valuable to any spellcaster)
- Scroll of Sending
- Two Potions of Healing
- Ioun Stone of Protection
Which would have meant my ranger got nothing, since the scroll/spellbook was clearly something Pyrite the halfling Warlock/Wizard would want and nobody else wanted.
Also Pyrite and myself were equally interested in the Ioun Stone, however it was pretty obvious that the dwarf who refuses to wear armour clearly needs it.
Fortunately there is lovely thing called voting. So my ranger got the potions of healing, the dwarf got the ioun stone (so he would shut up about it), and the warlock/wizard got the spellbook and the scroll.
But do you think the guy playing the crazy dwarf would be satisfied with just the Ioun Stone (the only permanent magical item in the mix)?
Nope. He complained loudly and often. Claimed the system was rigged against him. (He reminded me of Donald Trump spouting conspiracy theories.)
And I am pretty sure he secretly wrote down the two healing potions anyway on his character record after much grumbling, even though that is technically cheating.
After all of that the guy playing the dwarf was looking like he was going to ragequit because he didn't have any more healing potions (at least not any legitimate ones as the DM would have noticed if he suddenly got two new potions).
We could have started the 2nd adventure, but the DM and the rest of us were pretty tired. I wanted to go home and put this horrific event behind me.
In order to run the game we needed a minimum of 3 players plus a DM. So the basic consensus was "Hey, we should all go home. We don't have time to run the second quest today."
And I can guarantee I won't be trekking to Hamilton again to play with Hewitt the Crazy Dwarf.
So... if you run into a guy from Hamilton, Ontario playing a dwarf named Hewitt - run away. Do not waste your time playing with the prick. Just leave.
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