So interesting game tonight...
2 games in with this DM and group. Level 6 half-orc barbarian. Bear totem with a greataxe strength build.
At the end of session one we came across a berserker axe, my barbarian was happy with his greataxe and the party put it in his bag of holding since he's acting as party pack mule. We had no idea what it was at the time. No detect magic or identify.
DM rulled my barbarian attuned to it and felt compelled to use it over his normal weapon. (DM sent note it was straight up LOTR one ring level. Aka "my precious" curse.)
We were in the middle of a dungeon and no one had remove curse. Obviously combat happened and the Barbarian failed the DC 15 wisdom save. I then spent the next hour and a half being forced to kill the rest of the party. Killing a few characters who had been playing together for some time. I shredded the rogue, sorcerer and bard within short order and was able to outlast the fighter thanks to superior hit points and terrain.
Needless to say it sucked and drained all the fun out of the room. I admittedly disengaged and began web browsing between rounds. Kept polite but I probably had a disgruntled/frustrated tone after a bit.
After all was said and done, I had my barbarian in horror pull out a dagger and slit his own throat since he directly broke his code of honor killing his companions.
I'm not sure how to proceed with this DM, player agency IMO is rather important and while I get and fully support bad things can and should happen, this felt a little egregious to me. Felt really shitty for all the other players who spent a lot of time coming up with their characters and even a few who drew full blown portraits.
What was your DM like when this happened? My assumption is, that he was into it. Was that suicide your input and if so, how did he react? If it was his idea, how did he bring this up?
Either way, if this guy is new to DMing, that was a major fuckup and you should tell him so. Whether you give him another chance or not depends on how much fun you had before this. If you give him another shot, and if he does something like this again, don't be shy to just go "Fuck this shit and fuck you" and then leave the ongoing game. Don't do him the courtesy of wasting your time to watch him jack off as he railroads your group to death.
If he was an experienced DM, you should send him a box of fine chocolate, where you replaced every item with a chocolate-covered dog turd.
Strangely enough, my character (Fighter), too, has gotten a weapon, that makes him go murdercrazy on a failed wisdom save, that triggers after being hurt.
Thankfully, the DC is 10 (so I pass on a roll of 8 or higher) and it only makes me attack the source of what hit me.
Problem is, if there is no source, I think I attack whoever is closest to me, so that's a ticking time-bomb in itself.
If I try to climb a tree, fall down and sprain my ankle, I might go murdercrazy and attack other party members... but since the weapon's curse also gives me disadvantage when using another weapon, I was thinking maybe I should keep a wooden spoon on my belt, so when something like that does happen, I grab that wooden spoon and use it as a weapon. With disadvantage on the roll and without my profficiency bonus, it would be unlikely to hit anyone and even if it does, it would do 1d4 damage. Seems like an appropriately goofy way to handle this threat.
Maybe we can get rid of the curse, it affects ranged weapons, too, so I can't even use a crossbow propperly, even when the enemy is far away and unreachable by foot.
Recently, we had a major fight with an enemy that attacked me and then used some blink spell that makes her go to another plane when it's not her turn, making it virtually impossible for me to attack her. Meant that I spent most of that fight just standing there impotently, boiling with rage... not a good fight from my perspective.
There were a couple other issues with that fight, too. It was supposed to be a big Endboss-like fight, but other than being really drawn out and frustrating, there was hardly anything else. It mainly served to validate my opinion that DnD 5e makes high-level monsters/enemies more dangerous by giving them bullshit "roll a DC15 saving throw on your dumb-stat to not instantly be rendered useless for the fight" abilities that they throw out like candy during Halloween.
The only way the DM could have saved this was to have the axe steal the souls of the party and have the Barbarian quest to free them from it and restore them to life or march to the most powerful Cleric in the land and demand the Gods raise them.
I guess that would still have ruined the party. I mean, how would you feel if all your character amounted to was backstory for another player and then roll up another one?
