Betrayers Rarely Work
So T was doing a one shot for her birthday and everyone was told to make level 20 characters. I made a fighter cleric that kicks butt, but mainly could heal and support. The rest of the party were a rogue, fighter, barbarian, and celestial sorcerer.
The set up was interesting. It was a civil war and the capital was under attack. We enter the royal garden to see the emperor about to be killed by the evil usurper.
We fight, I go last because I have rotten luck with initiative. The group takes some damage from the usurper and his minions. I go last and absolutely demolish the usurper's second in command with a wombo combo. Dealing over 140 damage with the use of holy weapon, action Surge, and my legendary dragon Wrath Glaive.
That was as good as it got for me the rest of the one shot, it was my turn 1. Immediately on the usurper's turn he casts time stop and flees on a dragon. The next round we finish off his minions, i get 1 more turn to attack. Then it's done. First combat ended in 2 rounds. Not the best but I actually got to pull off my combo so I was happy.
We find out the emperor is dying because of some ritual the usurper has started. We get a short rest and we teleport to where we think he is. We approach the shrine where we see the usurper meditating and a ancient dragon sleeping. I think, "thats it, no minions? No army?"
The Barbarian and the Rogue sneak up and we get a surprise round on the usurper and dragon. The rest of the party spends that time just getting to the fight becauselike 90% of the map is difficult terrain. The next round I decide to give the sorcerer true seeing so she can see through storm the usurper made around himself. I would regret that later. The rest of the party attacks, the dragon flies up out of the range of basically all of our attacks and becomes an annoying pest. The next round the dragon teleports and paralyzes me. I ask our sorcerer of the celestial subclass to use lesser restoration on me. She says she didn't bother with that spell because I'm the healer. Right now I'm pretty annoyed. Luckily the fighter, bless her, has a giant club that she can throw and the dragon got low enough for her to hit it. She smacks him 4 times and he looses concentration.
My turn finally comes around and I am desperately hurt. So I decide to cast mass Cure wound. It's immediately counter spelled. So I use my action Surge I was saving for my wombo combo instead to heal myself, the fighter, and the sorcerer. I would regret that later. Others people's turn go on and eventually the usurper goes and casts time stop.... again. How did he cast 2 level 9 spells in a day... your guess is as good as mine. The dm says the spell just works differently because he wants to do something different. So the usurper moves back to the shine and the sorcerer is somehow able to move too. She goes up and helps the usurper finish the ritual. The dragon then dies from the ritual.
And now the usurper becomes a sort of god. Because of BS I'm back at the end of the turn order. It's important to say the reason the dm decided to have a secret player betrayer is because the other players and I were talking about the one shot I ran where I asked if a player could switch sides if the fight was going poorly for the Tiamat.
But T just butchered the concept. So now everyone hard targets the sorcerer and the dm is pulling out every bullshit in the box to keep her alive. And the fighter and I are almost 1 shot before our turn even comes around. My turn finally comes around and I decide to try something desperate. Because I'm a fighter cleric I don't have a 100% chance of calling in help from my diety, but before the session the dm said my chance would be a lot higher because she wanted me to use it. So I try calling on my deity and nothing. So I'm pretty much checked out of the game by this point, I use my bonus action to heal what I can and back up.
More fighting happens and the Barbarian absolutely tears the sorcerer in 2 and she doesn't get death saves because his weapon takes her soul at 0 hp. My turn comes around and I'm basically forced to heal myself and the fighter because the usurper keeps hitting the both of us. The usurper's turn comes around and he tries casting wish to bring back the sorcerer... everyone is done with that at this point. The Rogue has been hanging onto counter spell he can cast with his mask. He casts it and barely succeeds in stopping the wish spell. But the dm says that there's a ledge there so the Rogue can't see him. A ledge that no one can see and has never came up before now. I've had enough and tell her if she just wants to kill us there are other ways. T eventually accepts the counter spell and we just have to fight the usurper.
Round after round I am going through my spells just to keep me and the fighter up because the usurper keeps targeting us both. 3 whole rounds of just me healing and eventually I can just barely get close enough to cast Toll the Dead on the usurper... he saves. More fighting happens and the Rogue who has had terrible luck gets a lucky critical and kills the usurper.
Overall my experience was a 3 out of 10. The first fight was fun with a bunch of different enemies but the final fight was just a bullet sponge with a bad guy that targets the same players, not to mention having a player switch sides less than half way through the fight. Leaving the sorcerer dead for over 2 and a half hours. I got to do basically nothing except pick up the slack left by the celestial sorcerer who was supposed to be our other healer because i am not a full healer, it sucked. I don't blame the sorcerer. It was the dm who told her to betray us that early in the fight. She told me after that she didn't know when it was going to happen. I delt 0 damage in that second fight. So much for a FIGHTER cleric.
I think what bothers me the most is the fact T is willing to break and bend rules for her monsters but not even fudge a roll for a player. I really wanted to try and use my divine Intervention and bring back the sorcerer on our side, or summon my god Dragon to bless us, or just give me and the fighter a little hp.
It feels rambley and might not be a big deal for some, especially compared to some of the real horror I see players go through but I felt supremely disappointed and has turned me off of any pvp in dnd.