I like the astral construct "nerf"

[Ikeren]

Yeah, I keep rough track of my players HP for that reason. They don't die unless they repeatedly do stupid things. If I screw up and accidentally make an encounter too hard, I'm cheating my ass off.

[Littha]

I can generally balance my encounters as soon as i have seen the parties character sheets, as long as they don't do anything completely retarded they should win every fight.

If they don't they are going to be paying a lot in diamonds. Sometimes though if there is a specific tactic required to defeat an enemy and they don't get it first try I will re-run the encounter to educate them.

[Midnight_v]

.... so... why bother rolling dice at all?
I suppose if your outcomes are arbitrary, dm decisions,
unless you "do something stuipid" in his opinion... it really doesn't matter what game
system or variant your playing.
 I'm going to say "cheating" for or against me and the other players is one of the major
dm mistakes, gygaxian etc... blah blah blah.

  Primarily Dm'ing nowadays I do tell a lot of work balancing encounters and I mostly game with people who understand D&D pretty well. So while every character isn't optimized air tight, its typically a good enough team to avoid party wipes, and the permanent death of very many people. . . Still I do tell people your Chars might die, so build and play well, and honestly thier mostly cool with that. Also, I kinda wonder, do you play with friends or unknowns? I mean who seriously "Cheats" (aside from Dm's) in a non-competative storytelling game?

[Kajhera]

Someone who does not want to lose their character or another character they are protecting.

Someone who feels that the game system does not allow for them to fully craft their character concepts and tacks on extra skill points so they can grab craft(basketweaving).

Someone who forgot to decide beforehand whether heads was miss or tails was miss.

Someone who misread an ability or feat, build their character around it, and realizes that if they point this out their character will become worthless.

Epic-level spellcasters.

*Disclaimer: I am not condoning any of these things.

[Midnight_v]

Someone who does not want to lose their character or another character they are protecting.

Someone who feels that the game system does not allow for them to fully craft their character concepts and tacks on extra skill points so they can grab craft(basketweaving).

Someone who forgot to decide beforehand whether heads was miss or tails was miss.

Someone who misread an ability or feat, build their character around it, and realizes that if they point this out their character will become worthless.

Epic-level spellcasters.

*Disclaimer: I am not condoning any of these things.

Epic-level spellcasters. Made of win. I yeild the argument.

[archangel.arcanis]

.... so... why bother rolling dice at all?
I suppose if your outcomes are arbitrary, dm decisions,
unless you "do something stuipid" in his opinion... it really doesn't matter what game
system or variant your playing.
 I'm going to say "cheating" for or against me and the other players is one of the major
dm mistakes, gygaxian etc... blah blah blah.

  Primarily Dm'ing nowadays I do tell a lot of work balancing encounters and I mostly game with people who understand D&D pretty well. So while every character isn't optimized air tight, its typically a good enough team to avoid party wipes, and the permanent death of very many people. . . Still I do tell people your Chars might die, so build and play well, and honestly thier mostly cool with that. Also, I kinda wonder, do you play with friends or unknowns? I mean who seriously "Cheats" (aside from Dm's) in a non-competative storytelling game?

There are people who will cheat just because they can. The worst I ever played with probably only ever had 5-6 characters out of well over 100 i've seen them play that were not blatantly stolen from a video game or anime. It wouldn't be a problem if the character was inspired by something, but these were ripped right out of their fiction. Often bringing firearms into the game after the DM said no, lying about rolls because that character wouldn't have failed at that, etc... There were also several instances of lying about equipment (exponentially more value than everyone else), "accidentally" adding too much xp, claiming to crit monsters just because they didn't feel like having that fight, and intentionally missing monsters to get other characters killed.

I've seen all of this and more from players, most of which have had their hand at DMing as well. We won't even get into the obvious ignoring of rules and flat out making stuff up for their characters.

[Gods_Trick]

  I fudge when I play with Stormwind players, I play it straight versus optimizers. Everyone is happy (I think), and I have long ago decided white hairs from the extra work are the price a GM pays.

  My question is Samb, if you're protecting players, why not just let them run their AC's? Your own psions could choose to not summon multiple, or hell, homebrew a feat that makes it advantageous to have only one AC summoned.

[veekie]

The matter of cheating is relatively minor, honestly.
You need to have a grasp of the health of non-player items simply for expedience when narrating NPC vs NPC attacks and determining if it died.

Know HP:
*Rolls attack*
*Rolls damage*
"Your astral construct explodes into a cloud of shrapnel*

Unknown HP:
*Rolls attack*
*Rolls damage*
DM: "How much health did it have again? Take 25 damage"
Player: "It had 20hp left, I guess its dead"
DM: "Your astral construct explodes into a cloud of shrapnel*

Cheating...I game with friends, so whichever makes for better play. Just don't let the players get the idea you'd fudge regularly and you can account for mistakes like giving 3 high damage monsters get the jump on the party and wiping half of them out in the surprise round.

[LordBlades]

On DM fudging, I hate it tbh, but I see some valid reasons for it.

If players are very attatched to the narrrative, love their characters, and are oversensitive about failing, I'd see why the DM would want to fudge.

In my group however, we like fighting and often suceeding by a very small margin. Not being able to say for sure if it was our skills and luck that did it or DM intervention would put a serius dent in the enjoyment of the game for us.

For example, once we accidentally got into a fight with a great wyrm white dragon with class levels around lvl 12 or so, and we were trying to make a run for it. Wizard and psion DDoor-ed away, psywar was already dead, and me(druid) and the cleric decide to take off together (i was wildshaped in a Legendary Eagle carrying him). Dragon is following us, and realizing he flies faster, we have a qucik OOC chat and decide for the cleric to jump, and drink a potion of Gaseous Form right before he hits the ground. The ground is too faraway for the dragon to chase us both, so one of us will make it in any case. Dragon goes for cleric, and manages to charge him in the last round before he hits the ground. Since cleric has only about 20 hp left, and he hits him on a 2, we realise it's pretty much over for him. DM rolls...natural 1. Cleric gets away, cheering, celebrating etc.
Had that roll been made behind the screen, I think I would have labeled this story as 'lame DM fudge' as opposed to 'epic fun'.

[Kajhera]

These are the days my friend,
Let's hope they never end,
We'll sing and dance forever and a day,
These are the lives we choose
To fight and never lose
For we are young and sure to have our way ...

[archangel.arcanis]

The only time a DM should cheat to save PCs is if they (the DM) screwed up. A DM should never cheat to harm a PC. My players all know that my goal is to beat their characters within an inch of their life.

[Samb]

The only time a DM should cheat to save PCs is if they (the DM) screwed up. A DM should never cheat to harm a PC. My players all know that my goal is to beat their characters within an inch of their life.

If a DM "misrepresents" a roll or two to warn the player not to play dumb then what is the harm?  You never had a player die on a lucky crit from a mook?  I'm sure your players will love you enforcing the rules on that call.

The DM screen is there for a reason.  Use it.  "Cheating DM" is an oxymoron, such a phrase doesn't exist.  "Killer DM" certainly does...

[archangel.arcanis]

The only time a DM should cheat to save PCs is if they (the DM) screwed up. A DM should never cheat to harm a PC. My players all know that my goal is to beat their characters within an inch of their life.

If a DM "misrepresents" a roll or two to warn the player not to play dumb then what is the harm?  You never had a player die on a lucky crit from a mook?  I'm sure your players will love you enforcing the rules on that call.

The DM screen is there for a reason.  Use it.  "Cheating DM" is an oxymoron, such a phrase doesn't exist.  "Killer DM" certainly does...

My players get a warning if what they are doing is probably stupid. They know if the dice are reached for then the time for warnings has passed. We don't even have a screen so there is no fudging the roll, though I have adjusted the modifier before when I made an encounter too hard. My players know that if they died due to bad luck I'll do my best to get them back in the game asap. I have had 1 PC that died 8 times in a campaign, due to reincarnate he also had 5 different bodies  .

[Sunic_Flames]

If you don't lie to your players, their faith in you will remain intact.

If you do lie to your players, their faith in you will remain intact only until they realize you have deceived them.

I dunno about the rest of you, but I don't game with people I'd be inclined to lie to. Anyone I'd be inclined to lie to has already failed the 'suitable player' check. So it's a catch 22.

If that means some dumbass mook one shots someone... well it's either very low levels, where the game does not work anyways, or a sign the character being killed was also a mook. In other words, worse problems. And there's a reason why Heavy Fort is mandatory ASAP.

As for the original topic, one round casting time. And no Rapid Summoning variant. I'd be surprised if a Psion got one AC off, much less multiple (hint: attack the trainer, not the pokemon).

[Amechra]

So...

Can I see this spreadsheet, please?

[Bozwevial]

Provide ample warning for the players, but don't pull punches.

[Midnight_v]

If you don't lie to your players, their faith in you will remain intact.

If you do lie to your players, their faith in you will remain intact only until they realize you have deceived them.

I dunno about the rest of you, but I don't game with people I'd be inclined to lie to. Anyone I'd be inclined to lie to has already failed the 'suitable player' check. So it's a catch 22.If that means some dumbass mook one shots someone... well it's either very low levels, where the game does not work anyways, or a sign the character being killed was also a mook. In other words, worse problems. And there's a reason why Heavy Fort is mandatory ASAP.

This
and
This...

Provide ample warning for the players, but don't pull punches.