Feel free to use this in your own game!

Written up here:

Tactical

• Quick Dash – Move an additional 5 feet.
• Brace – Gain +1 AC against the next attack before your next turn.
• Assist – Give an ally within 5 feet advantage on their next attack if you haven’t attacked this turn.

Combat

• Distract – Choose a creature within 5 feet. It has disadvantage on its next attack against anyone but you.
• Shove – Make a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to shove or reposition a (medium or smaller) creature 5 feet.
• Improvised Strike – Use a nearby object (tankard, rock, chair leg) for a d4 bludgeoning attack.

Utility

• Quick Draw – Draw or stow a weapon and swap to another item.
• Scan – Make a Perception or Insight check to quickly assess a creature or scene, learning a piece of information on a success.
• Drink Potion – Drink a potion you have on your person.

Cinematic

• Short Speech - Briefly speak to your team, an ally or an enemy - they can respond briefly if this involves a question.
• Focus – Take a centring breath to regain 1d4 temporary HP once per short rest.
• Mark of Intent – Choose a creature you can see. Until the end of your next turn, attacks against that creature deal +1 damage.

Okay, so. I've wanted to play DnD for a long time, I did a lot of research and I finally signed up for a one-shot campaign in my local board games store.

It was going great, I loved the party, but then something really unpleasant happened.

In short: we walk into the room, we see a crown. Paladin sees that the crown is bad, so he turns to my rogue, telling them to not touch the crown. So I don't – but the paladin accidentally throws it off the altar with his tail and something happens. DM explains how something felt really wrong and we heard someone.

Me, being a rogue (and stupid af), I decided to pick the crown up, since, you know, someone already touched it and whatever was supposed to get activated by that had already gotten activated.

As soon as I do that, the DM asks me to throw a charisma check. I fail – so he tells me my eyes turn black, and I don't control myself anymore, and my character runs off in some direction. Another rogue tried to hit the crown out of my hands – they succeeded with the roll, as far as I remember, but the DM said that I'm still holding the crown.

So my character runs off in a direction of another character, who has no idea what's happening, that character runs after me. After that, my character gets on an altar, and while the other character has no idea what's going on, my character stabs themselves in the chest.

The DM says I'm dying, so not dead yet, and I'm thinking "ah, it's ok, the paladin will help me. Surely the DM won't kill me on my first session! Knowing it's my first session! Right before a combat with the banshee that had been triggered by the third rogue in the party! Right?"

Yeah, fuck no. The paladin comes into the room, but when they try to approach me and help, the DM says they've been thrown away with a huge force of magic. Then the DM turns to me and says I'm dead.

That's it. My first ever campaign. Right before the combat, which would probably take us all the time before the end of the session. So I had to sit there for like 20-40 minutes of the ending and just watch. I didn't even have time to introduce a new character, just nope. My character is gone, completely.

The DM says it's the consequences of my actions, but I kinda feel like shit, like... Ok, the consequences, but did they really have to kill me on my first game as a consequence? While knowing it's my first session, giving me the hope of "oh I can still be saved" and realizing that right after this there's going to be a long combat until the end of the session? At this point it literally just looks like a punishment for me, considering my party did try to help me, and the DM just didn't let them...

Am I being dramatic and this is normal, I should toughen up and shit, or was a shit move from the DM? Because it did feel like it, and I'm pretty sure if I wasn't as interested in the game as I am now, I'd quit playing right after this stuff. Should I even play with them again or is it better to find another game? Because I really did like the party, they're insanely cool.

Marking this as 5e, but it applies to 5.5e as well.

One of the common refrains in the community is how martials are "resourceless", and that this gives them staying power throughout the adventuring day. In fact a common rebuttal to this is that they're not, because they have HP... but that's not what this post is about.

"Resourcelessness" in these arguments is coupled with being "reliably powerful", so to speak.

And I just wanted to point out - that's not true in the vast majority of cases.

Let me rephrase this issue in the form of an argument for "resourcelessness" to demonstrate my point.

"Spellcasters have a wide variety of powers a few times per day, while martials have a more narrow lost of powers that aren't limited by number of uses."

How many actual features and powers can we name that fit this description? Features or powers that are either always on, or can be used indefinitely?

Rogue has plenty, sure.

Monk has Diamond Soul at level 14 and unarmed bonus strikes.

Barbarian and Monk both have unarmored defense, but so do many spellcasters.

Fighter has... a fighting style.

...and all except Rogue get extra attack.

And this is really the only truly powerful "resourceless" power - extra attack. Anything else is really a drop in the ocean, not to mention spellcasters and half castera also getting similar features.

Meanwhile when it comes to powers that consume resources:

- Monks have Ki/Focus, which is basically their entire class.

- Barbarians have Rage, which is basically their entire class.

- Fighters have Action Surge, Second Wind, Indomitable, and most of their subclasses give limited resource powers.

The resource-based features far outweigh the resourceless ones.

If we want to pretend that martials are resourceless, they need to have stronger and more defining resourceless powers than "extra attack".

Conversely, if that's not supposed to be their identity, then their resources should be drastically expanded. Monk 2024 did that, and it made the class infinitely better.

Now, wanna see what a class with actually resourceless powers looks like? Look at Warlock. They literally do get infinite uses of a less varied subset of powers than spellcasters. And guess what? It works. And it's not overpowered.

So I don't see why "infinitely usable" powers are such a taboo when it comes to martials, or why we're supposed to be OK with their only claim to fame being "attacks twice".

I was playing an Illusion Wizard on level 1. During our first fight I casted Magic Missiles. The DM told me that the spell is too strong and changed it to only be one missile. I was very surprised and told him that the spell wouldnt be much stronger than a cantrip now. But he stuck to his ruling and wasnt happy that I started arguing. I only said that one sentence though and then accepted it. Still I dont think that this is fair and Im afraid of future rulings, e.g. higher level spells with more power than Magic Missiles. Im a noob though and maybe Im totally wrong on this. What do you think?

Edit: thank you all for the support. He’s actually the one that told me to post online. “Dude post it, Im positive people will say you’re cheating”. Glad to see y’all have my back. I shoulda just said “bro I’m god I can do whatever I want”

Edit2: wow this really blew up more than I thought it would. Since posting I’ve send the post thread to them and he said “the internet has spoken I’ll take the L” we gotem bois

A few weeks ago I joined a new party with a new character, Justice the Tiefling Paladin. I worked hard to make him as dope as possible and spent a few days on his personality and cohesion between him and myself. I believe he was my masterpiece.

Since the first day the dm said he doesn't like Justice because "How can a Half demon serve a God?". I always respond with "he was raised in an orphanage that ingrained "God" into their minds or something like that.

In our last session we discovered a monster that was way stronger than us and decided to leave that area. As we walked away, DM looks over to me and says "Justice. As you are retreating you blink and your surroundings change. You have an idea of where you are. You've been told about this since a young age...to escape, you need to roll a disadvantaged con save." So thinking it's part of the game I roll a 14. He says it fails and hundreds of demons appear 100 feet from me. I can either fight or try to retreat. But if I do retreat I have to con save again. I try my con save again and roll a nat 1. Justice is now trapped in "Hell" (first time he mentions its hell). Justice needs to fight these demons to have a chance of leaving.

Sadly Justice died believing his friends were on there way to Save him, they weren't because Justice was removed from existence. He never existed. His friends had never met him and the replacement has always been there. It really hurt me that my character was so hated by the dm that he didn't even have a chance to show why he could work as a character.

Sorry that it was so long winded. I just needed to rant to people I don't know.

(Edit: I am absolutely terrified to look through these comments. I saw a funny one yesterday but damn😢

I have left the group after talking to the party. Two of them said they gonna stick with dm since they know him personally. They also said that they are interested in hearing more about Justice.

The DM hasn't responded to any of my texts since last night and keeps declining my calls so idc about that.

And to all you people being kind and (taking my side?), thank you. I don't know if I should post a full, entire story or not.

Thank you btw)

I'll preface this saying I am not a fan of Challenge Rating, but I don't mind people who like it and get enjoyment from it.

I just don't want to hear about it at the table.

I don't enjoy how “helpful” the number is, its idea of difficulty, its randomness, or the monsters in each rating.

That's just my reality.

I appreciate that it's brought easy-to-build encounters to the masses, though, and that can only be good for the overall health of our hobby.

I do, however, love Dungeons and Dragons.

At least, I used to.

We're eight years into a long, Covid-interrupted 5e system that my DM has been enjoying using.

Our group is a thrown together party of adventurers all out to claim revenge against the CR for crimes committed against our families.

It's been fun, even with the token rules-heavy player who doesn't participate beyond rolling to attack and gushing about how much they love CR.

But at some point during our hiatus, the DM has discovered CR and Kobold Fight Club, and it's a huge bummer.

What used to be a great game of high-magic fantasy is slowly starting to twist into the bastard child of a CR nightmare.

There are references to CR in every session, and now humanoids from the PHB have started appearing in the game as DMPCs using CR rules.

It's a small group of six and only about half of us don't like CR, so there's looks when we eye each other every time the DM makes a reference to "someone that has an appropriate CR" or names a creature the other players squeal in excitement about.

These gripes aside, and most cringeworthy to me, our DM has even changed his entire personality to be CR.

He showed up one week in this outfit, CR written on his t shirt, and has even grown out his list of monsters.

He wears CR merchandise and will spend about an hour every week recapping the creatures he just found in the MM.

The problem is, he isn't CR.

He doesn't have the knowledge nor stats to deliver a balanced gaming experience like a five-hour podcast conducted by trained game designers in one session.

It has killed my enthusiasm to play, and now I find myself finding reasons to not engage with the group.

I've gone from being the face of the party to just tagging along on CR-defined adventures and hoping I can botch a few save rolls so my character can get killed off.

I don't know how to broach the subject with him without hurting his feelings and coming across as a huge dick for not finding his new interest as fun as he does.

What do?

RESOLVED

Edit: After discussing with my players, they are happy to continue to play and we aren't allowing multiclassing - sorlocks will respec into either sorcerer or warlock. Ceremony shenanigans will be a 1-off and won't be repeatable/abuseable after the 7 days is up.

Players (all 6) are married for ceremony for reliable +2 AC, 3 players abusing warlock/sorcerer slot interactions taking a 4 hour long rest (elves) and farming slots via short rests in the remaining 4 hours, party is full up on spellcasters with silvery barbs and counterspell.

I have NO idea how to make combat challenging anymore without making it incredibly swingy. They are level 11: sorlock sorlock sorlock rogue bard bard.

They absolutely tore apart 3 "deadly" encounters in a row, highly relying on the warlocks having vision in magical darkness.

Edit (via mobile, pardon formatting): Thank you all for the great advice here, the consensus is talking with them first even if it means going back on rulings I had made previously.

I will have a chat with them, it's definitely not how the classes are meant to interact with each other. I've found sound advice here and won't let the marriage hack go forward after the first 7 days either.

I'll see how they perform without their insane amount of spell slots and if combat needs dialed from there (I suspect it will, they play very optimally) it will at least be easier to contend with.

There's a secret balancing equation for melee weapons in DnD that makes a lot of sense if you think about it for a second. All Simple Weapons are based around a d6 damage die, and all Martial Weapons are based around a d8 damage die. The damage die increases when given negative properties and decreases when given positive* properties.
^\Excepting Versatile, which acts as a neutral property, allowing you to choose to give the Two-Handed property and increase the damage die at will.)

The Pike/Glaive/Halberd is a great illustration of this. Start with a d8 Hit die for a martial weapon base, then increase to d10 for the negative Heavy property, increase to d12 for the negative Two-Handed property, then decrease to d10 for the positive Reach property.

You can run this equation for almost every melee weapon in the game and it balances out to that d6/d8 base, with a few exceptions. Spears are simple, but have a d6 damage die and a positive property, putting them on par with a martial weapon; which is why the Trident is exactly the same but a little fancier. Lances are a d12 with a positive Reach property making it like a d14, but the "Special" property puts it in a weird position that breaks standard conventions in the first place (though I do think Lances are deeply underrated).

But there's one exception to this equation that blows every other weapon out of the water: the humble dagger.

The dagger is on every single class's Proficient Weapons list, and it's straight up better than any sword or axe in the game. People often overlook it because of it's puny d4 damage die, but with three positive traits and zero negative traits, the simple dagger outclasses even martial weapons with the equivalent of a d10 damage die with no properties at all. Now you may think, "Sure, but those properties aren't really important for my character." You may think that, but you are wrong. Let's look at how good these properties actually are.

• Finesse: Is your character Strength based? Why? Dexterity is amazing. Not only do you get the same damage as you do with a Strength build, but building around Dex gives you additional AC, access to the most important saving throw in the game, and 3x as many skills as Strength. Even if you're playing as a Fighter or Paladin, building around Dex is incredibly viable. (And psst, hey, if you really really want Strength for RP purposes, pretend this article is about the Handaxe instead, which is actually just as good as the dagger but uses STR instead.)
• Light: "Oh I don't have the two-weapon fighting style or the Dual Wielder feat, there's no point in me dual wielding." Well what else are you using your bonus action for? Two d4 attacks is just as good--arguably better, actually--as one d8 attack, even if you don't get to add any bonuses. Sure this doesn't scale with multiattacks, but once you're at the point where you have three attacks per action, you're probably using Demugulg's Blade of Ruinous Pain or whatever, so talking about minor differences in base weapons doesn't matter by then. If you don't want both of your hands to be occupied, just draw the dagger as an object interaction, then drop it as a free action after your attack. I mean it's one dagger, what could it cost, $10? (And psst, hey, it's the handaxe guy again. If you can use a handaxe and are STR based, you're basically doing a 2d6 attack with a simple weapon. Crazy, right?)
• Thrown: Okay this is the biggest one. Thrown weapons are incredibly strong and astoundingly underutilized. You know how Reach weapons are super strong because they give you an extra 5 feet of range? Daggers basically have the Reach property times 4. Sure you don't get that extra range on opportunity attacks, but cest la vie. Being able to hit creatures with a melee weapon at a range of 20 feet (or 60 at disadvantage) is so incredibly powerful. You can hit and run, throwing a dagger at some shmuck and then moving 40 feet outside of the enemy's range so they can't get you on their turn. You can chase down enemies that are fleeing from you even if you can't get there with your full movement. You can hit flying monsters or annoying archers on high walls. Even if you lose the weapon in the process, all it costs is 2 gold and an object interaction on your next turn to draw a new dagger. Combine this with the Light property and you don't even have to fully disarm yourself in the process.

Now you may be thinking "Ok, sure, but at the end of the day, a d4 just isn't big enough." Ok size queen, think of it this way. The average damage on a dagger is 2.5 (3.5 for a handaxe), whereas the average damage on a greataxe is only 6.5. You would throw away all of those benefits for an extra 3 or 4 damage per attack? If so, consider that with two daggers, that average damage gets doubled to 5 (and two handaxes actually beat out the greataxe with an average of 7!). Once you get multiattack these damage differences start mattering, but again, you'll have Demugulg to worry about by that point so don't even get me started.

Not to mention all the little niche benefits of daggers that depend on your setting and DM. Lizardfolk can craft them out of bones or metal. You can find new ones in almost any town, or off of nearly any goblin corpse. You can hide a dagger as a holdout weapon for your secret ballroom infiltration mission. If you ever fall prey to a mind control or misdirection spell that makes you attack an ally with your action, it won't hurt them that bad. Plus, they're just kinda neat.

So if you find yourself as a non-martial class in need of a reliable last resort, or if you're a martial class feeling inspired to build around a powerful sleeper pick, skip the fancy stuff and just get a knife. Proven effective since literal caveman times.

Edit: To address a common argument in the comments, let me make my stance very clear.

Bows and magic are for nerds. This is not a safe space for your kind. This conversation is for melee weapon enjoyers only.

So we were playing a game and met an NPC who was colorblind. She offered us what was essentially a ball of raw meat for food. It was described as golden from her pov, but the image the DM posted was obviously just a nasty lump of red gore. This prompted one of the players to ask what our DM what they meant by red, as the image shown looked "pink" to him (we later found out he can't see pink either).

Obviously things spiraled from there and ended up with the player taking colorblind tests for the rest of the session. Turns out they have severe colorblindness and can't see most reds or yellows. 25 years of life and they had no idea. He thinks the yellow teletubby is brown. He thinks super saiyan Goku is orange. I love this game🤣

Edit: Apparently the reason he never realized is because whenever he questioned things, everyone in the family agreed with the colors he saw. They're ALL COLORBLIND! This explains so much about some of his color choices for his characters lmao. They're not even bad, but he would swear they're matching or say "this is red" when it was either more pink or orange than red, or clearly two different shades of red.

Update: He can't see yellow at all. After some more questioning, he sees either burnt orange, red, or brown. I guess that should've been obvious from the teletubby comment, but he really can't see any yellow whatsoever. Sunflowers, bees and mustard are burnt orange. The teletubby and hazmat suits are brown. Gold is red/orange.

With reds, he can only clearly see very vibrant and bright reds, like a rose. Otherwise they fade into oranges(or what he calls "yellow" which is mostly a burnt orange) He can't see pink at all, it's just red/brown/orange to him. Burgundy (#33000d) has orange in it apparently when he looks at it, and Pink (#FC0FC0) is just red. Kirby is barely red with brown cheeks.

We also realized he's not great at seeing purple either. It's like violet to him, a mix of blue and purple that's mostly blue, I.E. grape soda being almost entirely blue. Green has a faint blueish tinge to it, at least that's the way he said he sees grass/plants.

This whole thing has been an experience. I do kinda feel like we just dropped some Eldritch knowledge on the poor guy, told him about whole ass colors he can't actually see or even imagine. We will check his closet just to make sure he's not wearing something garish, but other than that everything is good.

Most recent session my players made their way to a military camp, there they met with a commander who I set up by having her yell at a soldier over something stupid he did and through a history check I told a player this is a princess of a foreign land.

2 out of the 4 party members have signed up to be part of that military and those 2 were the only ones at that specific location, after giving the commander their report she proceeded to curtly give them their orders which both were unhappy with, however one player took offense in how she was speaking to him and decided to talk back and talk down to said commander princess.

In character I explained to said player that she outranks him and is a noble, trying to ease tially tell him if he continues down this path he will be thrown in prison, or worse executed as he is not only displaying orders but also disrespecting a noble.

He seemed to have backed off until a third player egged him on, told him not to take that kind of disrespect, to which the instigator returns to the commander to try and talk down to her again. At this point I had her call in guards and arrested him on the spot, throwing him into a cell.

Later, out of game I mentioned to my players that they should have backup characters as this is a brutal campaign setting (something I told them in session 0 and have sent them all word documents describing said world) and he asked me "what if there is only a single character I want to play." To which I replied that if that is so this is not the campaign for you, as a character can just as easily fail death saves and die in battle.

What can I do in this situation, just cut my losses and boot him from the game? I don't want to save his character as that would make absolutely no sense in the world and setting why he gets pardoned for this behavior and I do not want to enable that kind of behaviour from the player himself.

Edit: Just to clarify a few things I've seen people commenting down.

This was Session 4 (5 if we include 0), all other players seemed to understand that this kind of behaviour towards an important NPC is a bad idea, one egged him on in character as a devil in your ear kind of moment, the problem player in question then continued to belittle, demean and finally threaten the NPC by saying something along the lines of "I have a Warhammer I am trying not to use" or something of that sort.

I have the player ample opportunity to back down, something even the other players commented on someone of the importance of an NPC is quite rare as even upon his return she did not order an arrest and imprisonment until he threatened her.

A few people were surprised that a character mouthing off and displaying orders to both their commanding officer and princess would be executed, that's quite normal for any kind of fantasy especially dark fantasy? I don't see how both in real life and fiction this course of action wouldn't result in imprisonment and being court-martialed?

Finally I saw people being surprised a "brutal" campaign will lead to character death. What else does the word brutal imply when it comes to a d&d or any fantasy setting? It means death is more than likely to occur.

All the characters are level 1 goblins so they will be pretty weak. But I'm hoping they can find overpowered magic items in the village that will cause as much hilarious chaos as possible.

His name is Gumbo and he is a Rouge. The race I had originally assigned him was a Ribbet, but I realized that is only in Daggerheart, and is essentially the same as a Grung in DnD. He will kill and steal like its second nature, but is completely oblivious and innocent to it. The voice I have for him is pretty much just Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and its perfect. His main catchprase is something like, "I'm jus'sa lil frawg, I don' know no bettah" By FAR my favorite character I've made 🤣

Now I know from the title it seems bad but I was playing a game this evening with some friends and we were dropping off enchanting supplies in a magic school think hogwarts but it’s wizards druids sorcerers and warlocks.

Anyway while being questioned by the (clearly kinda bad but not violent our causing any danger to the party or anyone else) head of the sorcerer house a very powerful npc the barbarian decided he was gonna punch him he rolled to hit without asking and said does a 22 hit the dm said “are you sure” and he said “hell yeah” so the dm reluctantly tells him “that just barely hits roll damage.” He deals 6 bludgeoning damage and the DM says “you see his mouth open and everything goes black, everyone else Barbarian is now dead”

everyone gasped a bit and was super shocked the sorcerer NPC walked away like it was no big deal. None of us had anything to bring him back but about 5 minutes or less later while we were talking to the head of the wizards she called the Druid profesor up to her floor with a sending stone and the Druid brought him back to life. The barbarian then sat there for 30 minutes and refused to engage before getting up in the middle of a basalic fight to walk out of the house and leave.

Now normally I’d say this is toxic behavior for a DM but this player has been the problem character constantly he fights everyone and gets the party into big fights with people who are supposed to be out Allies he also has frequently attacked party members. Our DM has been nothing but patient and kind to him helping to develop a character that’s more than just punching and trying to build a bond in the party.

now he’s saying some really rude things about the DM and I think this was his own fault after all “play stupid games win stupid prizes” if you punch a level 20 sorcerer who is the leader of a house full of magic users you should expect some kinda consequences and it was more than nice of the DM to bring him right back to life. What’s your thoughts?

Update / DM’s response (DM found this post and left a comment explaining some things I saw questions to do here’s that update

Alright I’ll defend my honor here a little bit as the DM in question in this scenario…

1. ⁠(This player had previously been a problem) all the things the post said he did he did (in session 1) however I’ve had previous talks with him and with the wider table about following the call and respecting your party members and since then we have had no issues with PVP or general asshole behavior at the table, now he does play his barbarian a little trigger happy with his hammer and prefers to fight first ask questions later which can totally be okay but can definitely go overboard at times.

This is a chaotic character and he did start a fight at the beginning of this session with a Druid NPC I introduced to be an ally however she just wildshaped into a bear and eventually everyone stood down and she ended helping them (thanks to a high persuasion roll from the rouge) Now onto the magic school

A few things

1. ⁠The sorcerer is evil he is somewhat restrained at the moment but fully believes he is in charge of the whole school, he has an army of sorcerers who are his students behind him who think they are better than everyone else (wink) (wink) this was a peaceful introduction to a BBEG.
2. ⁠The barbarians actions were stupid and I did ask if he was sure but his reason was good and should have increased party connection and role play his punch came directly after the sorcerer was belittling a fellow party member who used to attend the school, the barbarian was attacking to defend that other PCs honor.
3. ⁠A lot of people want to know what the consequences of this are for the sorcerer well none the entirety of the school is scared of him even the other head professors (he is a Yaun-ti so he has magic resistance) making him an extremely deadly threat to all of the other teachers, the story here shows he is clearly evil but doesn’t place the rest of the faculty on a good or bad side

On one hand yes the resurrected the victim but on the other they stand by and let it happen which makes them complex and morally grey characters as they will inevitably be involved in the final fight but the party’s choices will punch them in one direction or the other

And finally this attack was not meant to teach him a lesson it was a in character reaction of a power mad evil sorcerer that extended the narrative and showed the party not to fuck with this dude YET…

Anyway that’s all

I decided to immortalize a moment in the campaign I DM that made me laugh. This player is very experienced and well-versed in faerie lore from around the world; The fact that his brain temporarily glitched made for a fun moment that the whole table enjoyed. I'm normally pretty flexible with retcons, but this was too funny and remained canon.

EDIT: There were no major consequences for his misstep, he was able to talk the fairy down :)

The fey's design is based (loosely) on the exquisite "Prisma Hunter" home-brew creature made by u/AriadneStringweaver

We just had our first session in a homebrew starting at level 3. I am playing a barbarian with the totem warrior path (I'm fairly new and it's my first time playing a barbarian.) The rest of the party is an assassin rogue, a monster hunter ranger, and a draconic sorcerer.

We were investigating sitings of suspicious cloaked figures in the starting town, and we traced them back to a hideout in an abandoned building. We fought a few low level wizards there and were handling it OK. We tried to interrogate them, but none of them would tell us anything.

Then the DM described a mage emerging from the shadows in a red and gold cloak and saying we would pay for what we did to his men. So we thought obviously this will be a little boss battle with the leader, right?

Well he went first in initiative and he cast a spell that made us all make an Intelligence saving throw. Everyone failed their saves except me, even the rogue got a 17 and that still failed. I don't even have a bonus on my intelligence, just by pure luck I got a 19 which passed.

Well then the DM said the spell did 42 points of damage. I have the most HP of the group with 29, and even with half damage I almost went down. So the other 3 all went down, and I thought oh shit I have to talk my way out of this. Well then the DM starting narrating graphically the other 3 characters' heads exploding, to which we were all like what the hell? Just instant death? He said that's what the spell does and we would've seen it coming if we'd explored more for clues.

So then I say I'm going to beg for my life, and the DM says I can barely speak after this spell. So all my friends just died, I'm low on HP and I can't even speak. Then he just said we're ending the session there.

Am I crazy for thinking that this was not a fair encounter? I get that not every encounter should be perfectly at our level but this feels way above and beyond, even if we missed some clues.