I think it's also important to recognize that as a dungeon master, you wield virtually infinite power, and should therefore use it responsibly and take caution when employing tactics targeting specific characters. Perhaps it may be necessary in order to keep their power level relative to the party in check, but from the player's standpoint, nothing sucks more than consistently not being able to do the thing that your character is good at. If your game suffers from an OP player character, it's important to still allow them to have moments of epicness. And even when targeting their weaknesses to maintain game balance, alternate between different methods of doing so, in order to keep things fresh and fun.
I've heard that "munchkin" comes from the fact that the players who engage in this behavior were typically the younger siblings of more "serrious" players. They were literally shorter 🤷♂️
I've had to deal with that very situation. I was running a game where one player was very optimized and clearly ahead of the rest of the group on the power curve. Encounters were basically the rest of the party waiting until it was OP's turn, then trying not to get monster chunks on them when OP wiped them out. Eventually the player came to me and asked to make a new character. He knew he wasn't being challenged and the rest of the party wasn't really doing anything. I had explained that I could make encounters challenging for him, but it would put the rest of the party at risk. He decided to put his old character on the shelf and start anew.
At 8:31, I'm thinking "Aha, so find out which specialty is lacking and see what they do with a challenge there". No one knows Religion? Have them escape a cursed Basilica!"
This video was very thorough and easy to digest. I like the high-level visual approach you took to describing issues of balance and how to resolve them.
You mentioning how just because someone is amazing at something, it's still balanced reminded me that as a player, I made a Dhamphir Phantom Rogue that drove my DM mad. He said the campaign would start as a dungeon crawl that we can't just leave, we have to fight our way through the various floors. Using his rules for character creation and the Legacy Item he let us make, I made a Rogue that has fairly balanced stats (except 8 Strength) and Expertise in Perception and Sleight of Hand. I also chose the 1st level feature of the Legacy Item to be able to cast Goodberry once per day. Just like that, food was no longer a problem. First trap we came across, I noticed, and walked around. Next couple traps I saw were too big to walk around, but I noticed it and disabled it. After that, we found a trap that was massive, taking up the entire floor. And the way to disable it seemed to be a lever on the far end of the hallway. Being a Dhampir, I just walked along the walls and then pulled the lever. Eventually, we escaped the dungeon to frozen wasteland where weather would be very unforgiving, but for my 2nd Legacy Item feature at 5th level, I had taken the ability to cast Tiny Hut. My character through its design principal completely neutralized just about everything he threw at us. Now, I wasn't as effective in combat as I otherwise could be., but my Phantom subclass gave me more skill versatility. At a couple points, I had to simply shoot fire arrows from a distance barely touching the Flesh Golem since my primary damage couldn't touch it. Our Paladin did fairly well in that encounter. There have also been numerous times where I get dropped in a single hit because I'm just not built to take damage. I also took the Mobile feat so I could easily get in and out of combat and move fast when I needed to, which has come in handy on several occasions. Though I'm still not great at taking hits or dealing the most damage. I rely on the rest of the party for that. It's a fun character, and aside from the DM groaning about how I almost solely eliminated the intended threat of the first half of the campaign, it's not overpowered compared to anyone else. We each fill our niche well and have a good time doing it, even when we almost TPK...which happened 3 nights in a row... XD EDIT: Forgot to mention the very first room we stumbled into, I found a Cloak of Elvenkind with my loot roll, and thanks to the Starting Feat he granted us, I also had Expertise in Stealth from Skill Expert. I didn't design him to be OP, but he has certainly thrived in many circumstances.
Oh yeah, 5E has that interesting quirk where there's an ability that negates every aspect of classic dungeon crawling. It's like the system is giving players permission and a narratively consistent way to ignore some rules. (Rules that I'm happy ignore anyway, because I hate tracking rations and weight and a bunch of other stuff.)
if players wanna be able to superhero through specific kinds of task, let 'em shine, just figure out where the player wants their charming flaws. charming flaws are apparently worth inspiration points to wiggle things with.
Love the ideas, suggestions, and philosophy behind this video. Balance isn't a place you get. It's not a destination. It's an on-going process of micro-adjustment. It's true in dnd. It's true in life.
To me the perfect game of DnD is when your players are individually all wobbly red guy, but when they work together they become expert green guy. Its the "Avengers effect". Watching a bunch of very different heroes who stumble to find their place suddenly hit that stride where each one fills in the weak spots of the next.
if it's a player dream to be "crouching tiger hidden dragon" you should be describing their monk moves whenever they're awesome no matter what the pc levels are
Another solution the the ‘hold monster wand’ could be to challenge the party with undead type creatures, or buff the next baddie’s saving throw so it might have a better chance of beating a 17. Maybe your basilisk has advantage against paralysis because of a resistance. It may be too late for that basilisk, but who’s to say the next big bad doesn’t have a single legendary resistance. Not enough to be wildly difficult, but it could derail the use of that staff long enough for the encounter to run as it should. All great ideas in a great video by the way! I think DMs should remember they have lots and lots of options to help balance an encounter even when there is an OP PC. Reskinning and tweaking powers and stats of NPCs is just another option and often a very fun one when handled well. That Barbarian too tough? Maybe that gnoll leader has a few levels of barbarian too. Two gladiators slugging through the damage resistance becomes an epic mini battle while the party cleans up the gnoll mage and henchmen… it’s all very flexible!
Part of my issue with the wand was that it was pretty much a handgun, and when it came time for violence, the players would reach for it first (as they should), and it would usually work (as it should). It just wasn't very fun, and I'd rather tweak the handgun than give everyone bulletproof vests.
Munchkin is a card game that is D&D-esque about looting dungeons and basically everyone else at the table too, much as would be normal for competitive boardgames.
Great content Matt and awesome info to help us as DMs when trying to balance our games. I'm often torn between giving my players an easy battle or one that will end with a TPK. A happy middle ground where they just barely survive by the skin of their teeth is my desired outcome. Thanks for helping make this easier to accomplish! Perhaps the Munchkin saying comes from the Steve Jackson Games card/board game, Munchkin. The game motto is: "Kill the monsters! Steal the treasure! Stab your buddy!" Tons of fun and great for entry-level people trying to learn D&D.
Older gamer, Munchkin as some people guessed correctly, was a quasi term of endearment for younger games. Most players were happy playing their fantasy game but younger gamers who really wanted to play in the hobby wanted wildly overpowered characters well beyond the rules, think kids with their outlandish fantasy of an overpowered Hell Knight whose slain angels and escaped from the abyss and has 4 arms each wielding a Greatsword and one of the swords is a Voidsword, and also he can open Portals to other dimesnsions etc etc. Meanwhile the party is level 3 and tasked with clearing out a goblin warren. It was usually someone's younger brother, so picture the group of late teens and their 9 year old brother. 'Munchkin was almost another name for "Kid" "Come here you little munchkins" might be an expression you'd hear from uncles or whatever. The behavior got applied to the behavior, because of the desire to break all the rules and powergame well beyond the limits.
As a DM I struggle a lot with that balance, I'm running SKT and there are two barbarians in the party, during the battle at Triboar they felt they didn't have any chance since everyone else had ranged attacks except them. They were usefull taking down all the other critters but somehow felt they couldn't take a stance against the giants (one even mentioned that maybe he should switch classes). The barbarians feeling helpless is something I really did not expect from that battle hahaha.
Try adding alot of little guys for them to attack. I think they have goblin throwers at triboar .. some live and rush the archers , think about movie battle scenes
in a different game I'm in we had to fight a gold elemental and its ranged attack had to land on a trap's faceplates to melt them shut a bit. needed 4 of those to unlock the rest of the cavern 1. can't do it by one shotting the foe 2. need to make the foe move 3. need to not be dead while do this 4. ??? piles of gold too! 5. profit
I’ve never heard the term about anybody while gaming but I think Munchkin comes from the Steve Jackson card game of the same name. You play as a munchkin, of some class or creature, that get a bunch of cards that gives you a lot of crazy gear, abilities and powers, depending on the version. By the end, which usually is around 30 minutes, you can basically take on anything with all the crap you’ve accumulated.
a long term practice that makes combats less fascinating and the group less murder-hobo'y is for events that are defused combat get better rewards. like, useful boons later or something
I think the closest to "balanced" d&d got was 4e, please let me know if you think differently, where each class was limited to a set number of powers and those could be scaled by level. And it still wasn't "balanced". If you want balance then you'd most likely have to strip out a lot of player agency and build variety until you're essentially just playing the role rather than creating a character. Like Warhammer Quest and other boxed games of its ilk. That's fine, but it's not what I want from D&D. Perhaps these questions of how to challenge your players could be discussed in session zero's and with your group? As you say, slaughtering the enemy need not be the objective. Challenge the character with situations they are built to tackle to give them a chance to shine, or circumvent them to pray on their weaknesses. Ideally we could find a way to bring all the characters up to their level rather than knocking that one person down a peg
ive always thought the term munchkin comes from the card game munchkin, since that game is all about minmaxing your build to kill everything in your path
OP characters (IMO) are boring!!! More power equals less fun. I DM and I play as a PC (when others DM) and with Tasha, Xanathar, Volo, etc... The PCs are superheroes by like level 5! All these abilities, feats, etc take all the excitement and challenge out of the game. Because if the players becomes more powerful, so must the abilities of the foes! When I asked my players to just use the PHB only... Not only did they like it more, they realized that with being OP, you're just, (in moments of conflict or combat) not "doing" anything, and certified victory is boring. Now my players love to be challenged in moments of conflict, with basic 5e rules, giving the combat more meaning... rather than superfluous, boring combat, that never drives a story. More power= less fun! Less power = more fun! But play however you wish.
No? That isn’t how it works. OP is short for over powered, but min maxes are just people who try to get the most mechanical advantage, like the best build in the meta or something. Where as overpowered is when it just blows the idea of balance out the window. Min/maxes can be overpowered, but not always, nor do you need to be one to be OP. And munchkins are almost a synonym for murder hobos: they are there to get the loot, kill the thing, level up, and win D&D. Again, some overlap, but not synonymous. Also, historically DND is definitely not balanced, and 5E is one of the worst.
Nah I'm still doing them! Just didn't have the juice to make the video immediately after this week's episode. I'll film something and put it up today :)
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I think it's also important to recognize that as a dungeon master, you wield virtually infinite power, and should therefore use it responsibly and take caution when employing tactics targeting specific characters. Perhaps it may be necessary in order to keep their power level relative to the party in check, but from the player's standpoint, nothing sucks more than consistently not being able to do the thing that your character is good at. If your game suffers from an OP player character, it's important to still allow them to have moments of epicness. And even when targeting their weaknesses to maintain game balance, alternate between different methods of doing so, in order to keep things fresh and fun.
I've heard that "munchkin" comes from the fact that the players who engage in this behavior were typically the younger siblings of more "serrious" players. They were literally shorter 🤷♂️
It comes from the board game Munchkin, which is about making the most powerful characters possible with the options available.
@@lordbalthosadinferni4384 other way around, the game is named after the behavior. Game published in 2000s, term dates to the 80s
I've had to deal with that very situation. I was running a game where one player was very optimized and clearly ahead of the rest of the group on the power curve. Encounters were basically the rest of the party waiting until it was OP's turn, then trying not to get monster chunks on them when OP wiped them out. Eventually the player came to me and asked to make a new character. He knew he wasn't being challenged and the rest of the party wasn't really doing anything. I had explained that I could make encounters challenging for him, but it would put the rest of the party at risk. He decided to put his old character on the shelf and start anew.
At 8:31, I'm thinking "Aha, so find out which specialty is lacking and see what they do with a challenge there". No one knows Religion? Have them escape a cursed Basilica!"
I first came across munchkin in a dragon magazine article circa 1982ish, Shortly thereafter a SteveJackson game was created parodying the concept.
This video was very thorough and easy to digest. I like the high-level visual approach you took to describing issues of balance and how to resolve them.
This was a fantastic video with great pacing. Good to see you back in the saddle!
the term "munchkin" got popular in the US via Wizard of Oz, but the "high spirited & mostly happy with their lives" got taken into an idiom
You mentioning how just because someone is amazing at something, it's still balanced reminded me that as a player, I made a Dhamphir Phantom Rogue that drove my DM mad. He said the campaign would start as a dungeon crawl that we can't just leave, we have to fight our way through the various floors. Using his rules for character creation and the Legacy Item he let us make, I made a Rogue that has fairly balanced stats (except 8 Strength) and Expertise in Perception and Sleight of Hand. I also chose the 1st level feature of the Legacy Item to be able to cast Goodberry once per day. Just like that, food was no longer a problem. First trap we came across, I noticed, and walked around. Next couple traps I saw were too big to walk around, but I noticed it and disabled it. After that, we found a trap that was massive, taking up the entire floor. And the way to disable it seemed to be a lever on the far end of the hallway. Being a Dhampir, I just walked along the walls and then pulled the lever.
Eventually, we escaped the dungeon to frozen wasteland where weather would be very unforgiving, but for my 2nd Legacy Item feature at 5th level, I had taken the ability to cast Tiny Hut. My character through its design principal completely neutralized just about everything he threw at us. Now, I wasn't as effective in combat as I otherwise could be., but my Phantom subclass gave me more skill versatility. At a couple points, I had to simply shoot fire arrows from a distance barely touching the Flesh Golem since my primary damage couldn't touch it. Our Paladin did fairly well in that encounter. There have also been numerous times where I get dropped in a single hit because I'm just not built to take damage.
I also took the Mobile feat so I could easily get in and out of combat and move fast when I needed to, which has come in handy on several occasions. Though I'm still not great at taking hits or dealing the most damage. I rely on the rest of the party for that. It's a fun character, and aside from the DM groaning about how I almost solely eliminated the intended threat of the first half of the campaign, it's not overpowered compared to anyone else. We each fill our niche well and have a good time doing it, even when we almost TPK...which happened 3 nights in a row... XD
EDIT: Forgot to mention the very first room we stumbled into, I found a Cloak of Elvenkind with my loot roll, and thanks to the Starting Feat he granted us, I also had Expertise in Stealth from Skill Expert. I didn't design him to be OP, but he has certainly thrived in many circumstances.
Oh yeah, 5E has that interesting quirk where there's an ability that negates every aspect of classic dungeon crawling. It's like the system is giving players permission and a narratively consistent way to ignore some rules. (Rules that I'm happy ignore anyway, because I hate tracking rations and weight and a bunch of other stuff.)
if players wanna be able to superhero through specific kinds of task, let 'em shine, just figure out where the player wants their charming flaws.
charming flaws are apparently worth inspiration points to wiggle things with.
Love the ideas, suggestions, and philosophy behind this video.
Balance isn't a place you get. It's not a destination.
It's an on-going process of micro-adjustment.
It's true in dnd. It's true in life.
To me the perfect game of DnD is when your players are individually all wobbly red guy, but when they work together they become expert green guy. Its the "Avengers effect". Watching a bunch of very different heroes who stumble to find their place suddenly hit that stride where each one fills in the weak spots of the next.
if it's a player dream to be "crouching tiger hidden dragon" you should be describing their monk moves whenever they're awesome
no matter what the pc levels are
Another solution the the ‘hold monster wand’ could be to challenge the party with undead type creatures, or buff the next baddie’s saving throw so it might have a better chance of beating a 17. Maybe your basilisk has advantage against paralysis because of a resistance.
It may be too late for that basilisk, but who’s to say the next big bad doesn’t have a single legendary resistance. Not enough to be wildly difficult, but it could derail the use of that staff long enough for the encounter to run as it should.
All great ideas in a great video by the way! I think DMs should remember they have lots and lots of options to help balance an encounter even when there is an OP PC. Reskinning and tweaking powers and stats of NPCs is just another option and often a very fun one when handled well.
That Barbarian too tough? Maybe that gnoll leader has a few levels of barbarian too. Two gladiators slugging through the damage resistance becomes an epic mini battle while the party cleans up the gnoll mage and henchmen… it’s all very flexible!
Part of my issue with the wand was that it was pretty much a handgun, and when it came time for violence, the players would reach for it first (as they should), and it would usually work (as it should). It just wasn't very fun, and I'd rather tweak the handgun than give everyone bulletproof vests.
@@heyitsMattyP Stellar point.
Munchkin is a card game that is D&D-esque about looting dungeons and basically everyone else at the table too, much as would be normal for competitive boardgames.
Great content Matt and awesome info to help us as DMs when trying to balance our games. I'm often torn between giving my players an easy battle or one that will end with a TPK. A happy middle ground where they just barely survive by the skin of their teeth is my desired outcome. Thanks for helping make this easier to accomplish! Perhaps the Munchkin saying comes from the Steve Jackson Games card/board game, Munchkin. The game motto is: "Kill the monsters! Steal the treasure! Stab your buddy!" Tons of fun and great for entry-level people trying to learn D&D.
This was chock full of good advice. Thanks!
Older gamer, Munchkin as some people guessed correctly, was a quasi term of endearment for younger games. Most players were happy playing their fantasy game but younger gamers who really wanted to play in the hobby wanted wildly overpowered characters well beyond the rules, think kids with their outlandish fantasy of an overpowered Hell Knight whose slain angels and escaped from the abyss and has 4 arms each wielding a Greatsword and one of the swords is a Voidsword, and also he can open Portals to other dimesnsions etc etc. Meanwhile the party is level 3 and tasked with clearing out a goblin warren. It was usually someone's younger brother, so picture the group of late teens and their 9 year old brother. 'Munchkin was almost another name for "Kid" "Come here you little munchkins" might be an expression you'd hear from uncles or whatever. The behavior got applied to the behavior, because of the desire to break all the rules and powergame well beyond the limits.
Thank you! That's very helpful :)
Thanks I needed this video to help me and new players and dms I need this personally to realize what is the problem.
Glad to help!
As a DM I struggle a lot with that balance, I'm running SKT and there are two barbarians in the party, during the battle at Triboar they felt they didn't have any chance since everyone else had ranged attacks except them. They were usefull taking down all the other critters but somehow felt they couldn't take a stance against the giants (one even mentioned that maybe he should switch classes).
The barbarians feeling helpless is something I really did not expect from that battle hahaha.
Try adding alot of little guys for them to attack. I think they have goblin throwers at triboar .. some live and rush the archers , think about movie battle scenes
@@mikejednorog3383 next time I'll have more little dudes for them to battle haha
Very well made video! Thanks
in a different game I'm in we had to fight a gold elemental and its ranged attack had to land on a trap's faceplates to melt them shut a bit. needed 4 of those to unlock the rest of the cavern
1. can't do it by one shotting the foe
2. need to make the foe move
3. need to not be dead while do this
4. ??? piles of gold too!
5. profit
The forever gm is the last one up with +80 hp after 20+ rounds of combat
I’ve never heard the term about anybody while gaming but I think Munchkin comes from the Steve Jackson card game of the same name. You play as a munchkin, of some class or creature, that get a bunch of cards that gives you a lot of crazy gear, abilities and powers, depending on the version. By the end, which usually is around 30 minutes, you can basically take on anything with all the crap you’ve accumulated.
I think it might actually be the other way round! The Steve Jackson game is referencing the already-existing term Munchkin
a long term practice that makes combats less fascinating and the group less murder-hobo'y is for events that are defused combat get better rewards.
like, useful boons later or something
going to have to use this on my PC who's playing an overpowered stout halfling fighter with a +9 to hit for archery weapons at level 1.
I'm not sure how that would work! 20 DEX + Archery Fighting Style?
I think the closest to "balanced" d&d got was 4e, please let me know if you think differently, where each class was limited to a set number of powers and those could be scaled by level. And it still wasn't "balanced". If you want balance then you'd most likely have to strip out a lot of player agency and build variety until you're essentially just playing the role rather than creating a character. Like Warhammer Quest and other boxed games of its ilk. That's fine, but it's not what I want from D&D. Perhaps these questions of how to challenge your players could be discussed in session zero's and with your group? As you say, slaughtering the enemy need not be the objective. Challenge the character with situations they are built to tackle to give them a chance to shine, or circumvent them to pray on their weaknesses. Ideally we could find a way to bring all the characters up to their level rather than knocking that one person down a peg
Easy! Summon a legendary character like Dark Schneider, kenshiro or Sephiroth🤗
ive always thought the term munchkin comes from the card game munchkin, since that game is all about minmaxing your build to kill everything in your path
OP characters (IMO) are boring!!! More power equals less fun. I DM and I play as a PC (when others DM) and with Tasha, Xanathar, Volo, etc... The PCs are superheroes by like level 5! All these abilities, feats, etc take all the excitement and challenge out of the game. Because if the players becomes more powerful, so must the abilities of the foes!
When I asked my players to just use the PHB only... Not only did they like it more, they realized that with being OP, you're just, (in moments of conflict or combat) not "doing" anything, and certified victory is boring. Now my players love to be challenged in moments of conflict, with basic 5e rules, giving the combat more meaning... rather than superfluous, boring combat, that never drives a story.
More power= less fun!
Less power = more fun!
But play however you wish.
No? That isn’t how it works. OP is short for over powered, but min maxes are just people who try to get the most mechanical advantage, like the best build in the meta or something. Where as overpowered is when it just blows the idea of balance out the window. Min/maxes can be overpowered, but not always, nor do you need to be one to be OP.
And munchkins are almost a synonym for murder hobos: they are there to get the loot, kill the thing, level up, and win D&D. Again, some overlap, but not synonymous.
Also, historically DND is definitely not balanced, and 5E is one of the worst.
Was looking for Critical Role Recap for March 10th. Cant find it. Did you stop doing them?
Nah I'm still doing them! Just didn't have the juice to make the video immediately after this week's episode. I'll film something and put it up today :)
@@heyitsMattyP thank you sir. Your recap is the best by far, you are my go to when I miss Critical Role or I need clarifications. Please keep it up