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Hey Dm Lair, i belive your video helped me. I belive gave me a lot to reflect with, i started dming 2 years ago, i had a main group of 3 players, one of wich had played a game with a more experienced DM along with me, wich is our friend in mutual. Since i was a new dm, extroverted but also shy and with a little of anxiety i would just try to make a funny game for everyone, but this one player would constantly argu in his favor, try to in most ocasion's give a turn of event´s as he like (for ex: You see this queen who is asking our help? Lets kill her and take her kingdom) wich, since i was a new dm didnt handle as well as i should. For some time just ignoring this ideas and main plans since the rest of the group didnt agreed with him. With time i would try to talk to him but he would justify that he could do that since his caracter would and that, in a case like that, our mutual first dm, who wasnt playing, wouldnt do like that (a matt mercer kind of effect), and that would sting on me, i was trying to be a good dm and that, as I see, was a bully move to get what he wanted, even if wishing no harm. Since the othe players wouldnt intervin in his behavior or have my back when something like this would apperar, i wouldstart even more get annoyed with his behavior (he would metagame, forget about the game day making us wait for him for 40 min, be a murderhobo and even cheat on a "sneaky app" where he would keep rollin his virtual dice till a lot of bad rolls would follow so he could cheat the app to have more chances for a good number.). I started to present the problem of givin consequences in game for out of game things, wich i see now a day that was a toxic behavior generated for toxic behavior. A few days ago i had a conversation after session with some new dnd friends, compared to my fist group, and i once gain complained about this problem player, wich has become a bad habit, and one of the players, that has played since my first dm game, said that i would stay behind to punish him and for that he couldnt agree that much about the problem player behavior, wich nowadays i agree that wasnt the best. My point of this story is that in a game of dnd is up to improvement, but need's to have a chance of improvement, i belive i have improved, as i wich the problem player have, as well as the other players, who would not take notes, stay on their fones, and basicly complain about the problem player when they where the ones affected insted of saying something when it was against anyone. The harmony of the table is up to evryone and the dm is not the babysitter and not the only one responsible for the quality of the game.
One of my players once came up with a line worse than "It's what my character would do." It was "It's what my character would do when he's this drunk."
This advice doesn’t just apply to RPG games. It’s a little funny, but I work as a grade school teacher, and after watching several of your videos, and similar videos like it, I’ve started to think of my classes in DND terms, with the teacher as a dungeon master and the students as players. I remember once being tempted to punish a student, who was flippantly trying to derail the class with the kinds of silly comments and questions that usually mean, “I’m bored and don’t want to be here.” I thought of just giving him a bad grade for the assignment, but stopped, reminding myself that his performance on the assignment wasn’t what was at issue, it was the disrespect towards the other students and myself who had come to “play the game.” I chose to take the student aside and address my concerns directly while giving him another chance to complete the assignment. I’m happy to say that, instead of creating an adversarial Dungeon Master verses Player dynamic, we were able to come to an understanding and now my “games” run much more smoothly than before.
I've found that the best way to deal with a player who acts against other PCs is to simply stop the game when it happens, and address the player being acted against. "Are you OK with this? Is this something you can find fun in?" If they are OK with it, I then ask the original player, "And are you OK with them doing similar things to your character?" The action is only allowed if both are in agreement that it's OK and that they can treat it as in-character shenanigans with no personal animosity. That way, it's 100% buy-in on the part of the victim(s). Some people can have a good time going back and forth with little swipes at each other, and some can't.
I used to have a rules lawyer in my group. But not like you defined it. He was an actual lawyer and knew all the rules really well. I often consulted with him on how unfamiliar game mechanics worked because he could tell me faster than I could look it up. He moved away and it was definitely a hit to the group.
No joke, the last edition of warhammer had to be errata’d because people practically DEMANDED a definition for the terms ‘within an inch’ and ‘wholly within’
I mean there is a field of study called "metrology" which is literally the study of measuring things. Granted the goal is to ensure that we have standardized methods of measure for some rather insane accuracy and precision. Im sure they have "heated debates" on stuff but not for the purposes of what that player tried. DnD distance can be measured either as every tile border crossed = 5ft (basically the same as center to center) which isn't quite perfect for diagonal distances. Or you have a grid that is properly scaled to say 1in real world = 5ft game world and you can use a ruler to measure center to center if its perfectly in range. So the common 30ft range becomes 6in of gameboard in my example scale, probably most needed for flying enemies or otherwise targeting in 3 dimensions at once. The tile counting is usually the easiest for movement where as spells tend to get the true value with a ruler/tape measure.
I'm going to tell you I removed PVP for my games years ago and it is awesome. There has never been a time where we were like oh we miss PVP. But when PVP was allowed there were many times when we were like this sucks why is X person screwing over y person.
@@theDMLair I had a pvp incident at the beginning of a campaign I played in and honestly it ruined the entire campaign. Without that moment (a player tried to kill me after two unlucky wild magic rolls) there would have never been tension at the table.
In the game I've just started I've told the players no PVP unless it's preplanned and important to the story, sometimes it can be dramatic but all parties need to be down with it.
I actually really like the DM Lair’s style of DM’ing and his modules because it just goes to show that you don’t need an extremely detailed setting to have a fun campaign.
@@theDMLair There was a huge argument at my FLGS about what about the phrase "more than 9 inches away" that lasted for weeks. Some people bought an entire army because they wanted to abuse this rule. Then they sold that army when the FAQ came out and they couldn't be asshats about it anymore.
I love you mentioning the no homebrew rule and limiting some races. It's exhausting dealing with the bizzare garbage people have made online or is on D&D beyond and my players claiming "it's fine."
I've always loved turning around the "that's what my character would do." excuse to bite the Player in the butt. After repeated infractions, I took the other Players aside and asked them "If this were real, what would your PC do in response?" and the Players told me. I said "Ok, next time, do that." They said "Really?!" I said "Sure. Why not? Don't feel like you, as a Player, should have to put up with bad behavior In Game to keep the peace at the table. isn't worried and you shouldn't have to either." Next game stole from the party and got caught. Paladin "apprehended" them (read knocked them out and had them thrown in jail with the other party members as witness). When problem Player threw a fit, Paladin said "What? It's what she would do." I told them to roll a new PC because that one would be in jail for 1 month, problem player mysteriously rage quit and we had peaceful game play ever after. Sometimes it just takes giving the other Players permission to stand up for themselves. 😜👍
"Cheating can also be leaving stuff out of your spell or ability." Me with my terrible memory messing half of my abilities' notes : Heavy sweating. EDIT : I do take notes and try my best to keep track of spells, so it's more of a joke here. I promise i never messed with my abilities on purpose !
ThePikel I have a player who just REALLY hates taking notes in general. This is to their benefit sometimes, but also not. Says he just memorizes them because he has good memory, at one point I the GM volunteered to track his stuff for him instead but eventually gave up as I was already juggling enough as is. An example of forgetting something to his benefit is forgetting the amount of HP he has or the debuffs afflicting him. An example that is to his disbenefit is forgetting that he is already back to full health, that he should have had advantage or other because of a buff, the enemy had a debuff, etc. And don't get me started on his abilities and spells!
@@remixtheidiot5771 which is why i love d&d beyond and roll20 character sheets since they have an option of tracking all of that by simply clicking things up and down. No more "i will remember that, my paper is already ruined from being errased too many times"
I ask my players to try to know where to find the details of their abilities. Also, you can tell if someone is honestly forgetful or is conveniently leaving things out
If that is an issue I suggest you do what Yugioh does and announce what your spells/abilities do as you use them "I activate Pot of Greed which allows me to draw 2 new cards from my deck!"
@@remixtheidiot5771 player doesnt sant to put effort in to the game then speak to thrm about if. If they dont change then they seem like theyd be a hinderance to the campaign. You put in lots of time to DM and that person seems to be wasting peoples time by not even putting in a reasonable amt of effort
One good way I tamp down my own minmaxing tendencies is I always try to put my minmaxing through a character lens; "WHY would this druid take a level in barbarian", make a story out of it, make a lore reason to justify it. If I can't then I will save it for a different game/character. It really helps also to build with a specific thing in mind too. "I'm going to make a face" ok so I'm gonna minmax conversational skills but I'll leave my strength in the dust. Rather than minmax a whole character and try to cover every angle I make them really good at what they were designed for but at a loss for other areas.
For my problem player that would attack/steal from NPC's, just do anything to derail the story, I created a "prison crystal" in which if you cause to much of a problem you get trapped in a crystal the size of a golf ball that a guard captain would have. Can't move or cast magic, if the Crystal breaks, you die. It was basically a magical jail with no save.
I would definitely show it off as part of the world before using it on said problem player. Make a cutscene where they see a theif steal from an NPC and a town guard catches them with it as a sort of super handcuffs / pokeball with no save. This way they have fair warning that such a thing exists and maybe they should stop committing murder-robberies or they will definitely be captured accordingly. This helps avoid the problem of punishment ingame instead of talking to them as a mature adult because it refocuses it as "actions have consequences and you know the town guard can easily capture you". As a bonus the party may even aquire one of the time-out crystals as a reward for prolonged good behavior.
when confronting someone never say "YOU" did so and so, always explain the situation from yours or the others perspective. the other players were pissed because ** they were left to battle the monster alone and they needed you etc etc people arnt bad players on purpose. everyone wants to be accepted but also doesnt want to be wrong.
There are tiny percentage of players who are bad players on purpose. Those few are usually doing so out of a personal conflict with one or more others at the table. Way back in the 1990's I had one of those. He got a few months off from being included in gaming, came back a better player.
You seem to have found an elegant solution for the "Mr. Limelight" problem: just be all the players in your campaign. You always get to be in the limelight, no matter what character is taking actions!
Had a player back in 1st Edition try to insist that Treasure Type U, “1 of each magic excluding potions & scrolls” was literally, “one of EVERY magic item”. He then processed (between gaming sessions) to add up the EXP for every item in the DMG and calculated his “new level”
I think you have some excellent points here. I think the balance exists in remembering that usually, we are playing with friends, and we can appeal to that, too. And your point about friendships that can't handle being confronted not being good friendships makes sense to me. Great video, sir!
In my opinion standard 5e already is multi classed (eldritch knights, arcane tricksters, and bards etc) so I don’t see why I would allow additional multi classing. It’s already in there.
Hey Luke, I've been Dm'ing for almost a decade now and i've been watching your videos for tips story ideas and mostly the advice. Here's one from my DM. Before we even began playing, he showed us the "Rules". Rule #1 was don't split the party. This was duie to all of the encounters he had created were built for the party's overall level, including the NUMBER of enemies. He explained it this way: if you go OFP (Own F-ing Program - don't mind the swearing, we were all US Marines so it is pretty much a part of our regular speech) and run into an encounter as a solo, you will run into the PARTY's encounter as a solo... pretty dire warning, but it was there: the consequence. None of us ever split the party.
My formula is 7 fold. 1) Perceive a problem. 2) Talk to others in and out of the group to make sure it IS a problem (sometimes we perceive an issue where there is none) 3) Talk to the person causing the problem privately, identifying the problem, and your expectations for the future. 4) If problem continues, address it openly, with the same points. 5) If the problem persists, remove the problem. 6) After a time, if willing invite back, with the understanding that it is conditional on their conduct. 7) If problem happens again, removal and hard ban.
One of the main problems is that the source books tell you to kill players . Like there is a quote in tash’s “talk to your players if not there is allways cloudkill”
Some call it cheating, I call it having a sieve for a brain. I kept forgetting Cure Wounds was touch so I occasionally used it to heal someone from a distance in the heat of the moment. Then again... Most instances of me doing that I was the DM, so...
The shortest pencil is better than the longest memory. I encourage players to make index cards with their spells or feats on them or at least to make a pg. reference for them on their character sheets so we can have quick access to the descriptions if needed. Of course as the DM the rules are what you say they are, as long as they're consistent.
In regards to the "cheater" that leaves out or misrepresents powers. I've found that some players have used an ability incorrectly for the longest time and never realized it. Then when someone shows them their mistake they can become incredulous since it conflicts with how they and likely past DMs have done it.
See. The thing is this: we had a player do that “it’s what my character would do” once. The others players characters did what they would do if someone they trusted screwed them without reason, we killed them and looted the body. Never had a player do that since.... No DM intervention required! So what do you do when the dm nerfs base class abilities because they don’t think that’s fair. Case and point: our current DM doesn’t allow the rouge to sneak attack a flanked opponent. I’m tempted to go the LARP route and demonstrate the logic using padded weapons.
But the sneak attack is the rogue's means of keeping up with the likes of the fighter, barbarian, and paladin's damage output. It'd be like denying the paladin his divine smites. You could try asking them to try it for a combat-filled session or two to see if it's really as unfair as they fear. Do they let the rogue sneak attack in other situations that feature describes?
@@DetectiveBarricade Haven’t had a session with combat that would have those opportunities. And I agree, hence the padded weapons to highlight why his reasoning is flawed. That being that just having two opponents opposite you isn’t enough to distract your attention and allow a “sneak attack”.
Here is a solution for Min-Maxing- Setup a separate “mini-campaign” where every week, the players bring level 20 characters, often including the DM, any character builds within the WOTC sourcebooks (or even just the PHB, you’re choice), and have a bit of a friendly PvP tournament. If you are truly worried about overpowered characters even for something like this, you can roll for character races and classes to add some extra fun.
I’m actually struggling with the power gaming as a player, of course after 10 seconds of arguing I realize I’m doing it again and stop myself. I think if you are struggling with it yourself just try and be more aware of what you’re arguing on and stop yourself, because at the end of the day you want to have fun and arguing is no fun to any of the players around you
"But the problem player is a friend!" - Maybe they shouldn't be? - A common tell of the roll-fudger is a longer pause between the dice coming to rest and the declaration of the number. Another is they out-of-pattern stop saying "roll # plus skill #" and instead pause to do math and say "result of #" - I get the point of point-buy. We don't use it in our group, but we're pretty chill about min-maxing. As in we don't do it deliberately. Multi-classing in our group requires a solid roleplay reason and downtime for cross-training. I FULLY agree with limiting character builds to a specific book or books. We use only the PHB and Xanathar's, and Tasha's is "under review"
What are your thoughts on off-label uses for spells and abilities in games, such as: Using Ray of Frost to chill an object to make it more brittle? Collapsing a Pole of Collapsing, and re-extending it, wedging it into a cave wall, creating a stable climbing surface? Using Fire Bolt to light a hay stack, potentially starting a fire? Taking the Magic Initiate feat on a Way of Shadow monk to get a familiar, then teleporting that familiar on the other side of a wall so that you can Shadow Step to it. Personally, I find these kinds of creative applications of abilities and spells in D&D to be super fun. They make me think outside of the box. I would, however, never argue with the DM if they disagreed.
Sounds like your "power gamer" is just a combination of the other five. Some people do enjoy a "power gamer" style, trying to etch out every advantage within the rules. Example: choosing a more expensive tool set during character creation for the purpose of selling it; or as a more roleplay version creating a bond with an NPC that allows you to aquire goods at a reduced rate. Personally I don't see power gamers as a problem, more so a variation of the puzzle gamer, but instead of enjoying actual puzzles they see the game itself as the puzzle. Thank you for taking the time to read this if you do, I do enjoy your videos especially with the skits. You are probably my favorite d&d youtuber. Good luck with all your endeavors.
"but my chaotic evil character would absolutely bail on the party or backstab an ally!" "Then your character probably wouldn't be part of the party for very long. Bye bye."
One problem player I had made an entire anime guild hall with named characters as his backstory and would split the group and get his character killed often so that he can try out new builds. I didn't know that's what he was doing until later, and tried to have a resurrection arc before he asked for his old character to die again. Another played video games while we were in game, and we could hear it on his mic, but denied that he did. He partly payed attention, but told the party he was going back home to report the death of the previous player mentioned to the guild hall. Both are gone now, but they derailed the campaign hard enough that I'm ending it soon and just starting over with a new one.
...Im a dm and im watching this, but honestly those mit-maxing rules....I've never seen a reason to apply those rules, I just make them suffer with my mystery dice rolls! But, I totally agree on the frustrating part with the power gamer.
I didn't previously worry about the min-max on stats, but with 5e have come to realize that allowing players to roll instead of forcing point-buy/standard array leaves a large power-gap sometimes if one player rolls average and another rolls incredible...you end up with a character that often overshadows others even in their elements because all of their stats are high enough to make them as good or better than a character who was built to do certain tasks...Makes the game more level for the group as a whole.
@@assanilightbringer4244 Honestly, to me, sometimes if the players roll generally bad overall, I just let them reroll all of their stats once and will have to pick the new rolls.
@@assanilightbringer4244 when rolling just set the minimum to be 70 point total and let them reroll if they come under that. Even if they roll a few really dump stats with a 6 or a 7 they'll still come out if it with 16s, 17s, and 18s to put in their main stats.
I had a player who was playing a “pacifist” Cleric/Artificer who not only refused to kill enemies, but actively tried to stop the party from killing people. Like, to the point of even healing low-health enemies or fighting allies to stop the killing blow. The way I stopped it was basically just... straight up telling him no. I wouldn’t track any death saves for downed enemies and I wouldn’t allow him to try to throw himself in front of attacks or anything. Probably not the best method but it seemed to work on him, he recognized that it was causing a lot of conflict in the party. (Oh yeah and he was also a mix-maxer with base 27 AC. Lots of saving throws for him late-game)
reformed mr.limelight /min-maxer. I found the solution to focus on min-maxing support roles like an Enchanter or Bard Then make your "Limelight" to be that of a kingmaker or having a vested interest in letting the party over-achieve. That means that I have to adjust my playstyle to help PCs meet their goals and I HAVE to share the spotlight otherwise I'm not succeeding.
In regards to your specific example of a power gamer, I rule that center of square to center of square is 5 feet, because each square is supposed to be 5x5, so that logically makes sense to me, but if you've been playing with a different ruling for years and he's arguing with it at a moment when it would benefit him, that's definitely bad. You guys have agreed to the way that's ruled previously, so there shouldn't be any further discussion there.
I recently started a tabletop club at my school. I have 2 problem players and the entire group is a little loud and doesn't quite listen. This video is so helpful. Thank you.
On the min/max topic. I allow official release content with the caveat that there may be tweaks needed to "fit the campaign setting". I do allow homebrew content but only after I have had a good chance to review the content and approve, modify and offer, or deny the requested content. For those rule arguments, I have instituted a rule of what I say sticks for now if you want to talk about it after the game then that is the time for it not during the game.
We do pvp but we ask the player if it is ok for some one to thump there character upside the head. Most of the time we all think it is fun! But yay sometimes it irritating. All depends the day.
I’m a big fan and I love your content. I do have to disagree on one thing though. If a player is remaining within the rules and making their character as strong as they can make it in the rules, I think it’s fine. Break the rules and it isn’t fine anymore.
Yeah, just recently had to kick a family member out of the group. It was rough but needed. They were a cheater/spotlight stealer, and I was tolerant for too long because they were a family member. However, it was hindering my other players to the point where other people were starting to be more willing to skip and one voiced that it felt like an obligation to show up. Three weeks with them gone and the difference is felt and beneficial.
The easiest way to deal with problem players is forgetting to call them when next session is up and when asked 'oh our characters wouldn't adventure with you sorry"
Great video, definitely needed this one. Got a player that makes everything dark, as he thinks the world is dark, and can’t separate what he knows from what his character would know. It’s so hard to play with him. The the easiest/simplest way to explain without typing an essay haha
I recently had a problem player, or rather a problem with a player. His character wasn't interested in joining the rest of the party and would often ignore plot hooks. Literally the first session we played his character went "no thanks" and went off to drink at a bar while the rest of the party solved a murder mystery. This sort of behavior, while not as bad as it was the first session, persisted. He told me that he as a player was invested in the campaign, but that his character was not. We recently ended up taking about it, and it turns out the player and I have significantly different views on what a "character-driven" adventure is. To me, it means that the world reacts to the PCs actions and it requires the characters to interact with NPCs and the plot to move the story forward. To him, it meant that the PCs backstories should be in focus. He hadn't responded well to plot hooks because they had no connection to his backstory. So our troubles stemmed from a misunderstanding going aaaall the way back to session 0. I also got told to try and make my plot hooks more compelling for all players in the party, which I will take to heart. We scrapped that campaign and are going to start Rime of the Frostmaiden soon. This time I was clear from the start and told them "make characters that are interested in helping out the people around Ten-Towns, this adventure require you to be adventurers." We will start on saturday, I'm really pumped to DM for a party of characters who all WANT to interact with the adventure!
Geez, that seems like his character had issues from the get-go. If you make a character who is an adventurer (which, basically every character you make is an adventurer), then dont you think your character wants to go and make money solving the murder mystery for the town? Or gain fame by bringing a criminal to justice? Like, why become an adventurer if you dont want to solve problems? I suppose characters, like a monk or cleric, could take a journey for personal enlightenment. With that logic, the PLAYER could argue that the character wanted to do the adventure as a part of fate or as part of their trials of enlightenment. I just feel that some plot hooks need the players to argue the reason with their own characters and find a reason to follow through with the adventure.
@@ADudeWhoExperiences1393 exactly, a "meet me halfway" kind of thing. To me, that's part of roleplaying your character - finding what motivates your character to go on adventures. I'm getting paid. I want to protect the people in this town. I might learn something important. This quest is crucial to one of my friends. I'm eager to show my skills. I don't want to let my party deal with danger on their own. I'm itching for a fight. I'm curious! All of these are reasons to go on an adventure that may forward a character's development without being explicitly tied to their backstory.
@@PugsleyThePear Exactly! I'm lucky enough that my group usually does what we described and even if what is happening doesn't directly correlate to them, they will find a reason to try to do the adventure.
I am a player in a campaign where one player has completely lost track of what their character and who that character is. May send both parts of this to DM once the second part come out.
Problem players I've experienced: 1. A player that not only wants to be a spotlight hog, but also refuses to learn any mechanics and whom works actively against the interests of the party and themselves. In essence, regardless of what they play, their intent is to slow down and/or sabotage the actions of others. Yeah. That happened. Kicked. 2. A player that, like above, refuses to learn the game, is also a spotlight hog, and then will openly argue, throw dice, rant and such when their behaviours aren't the core. I had a table with TWO such players. I quit. 3. A player who would openly challenge you on every rule call and would ignore themes, player intents, etc, and would actively build a character that would act against whatever group they were in. Now imagine they're a former DM too and should know better. 4. What if you have a player that, a power gamer, min maxxer, challenges the DM on every call, acts like rules lawyer, and bullies other players when they don't get their war... yeah. Had that one too. 5. A player that intentionally creates a mechanically poor character, then demands that they not only be front and center of everything, but that the DM shower them with numerous magic items to make up for their poor choices. This character WAS built with the 27 point system, and they intentionally made it really, really poorly. When they didn't get what they wanted, they would shit talk the DM behind their back and try to pull other players away from the table. As a side not, this player is also a DM and they're truly crap at it. (He would monologue for 1.5 hours, and during the course of that, mutilated two player characters without content, saves, input or chances) 6. Consider a table where the wife of the DM and the son of a friend of the DM are the only two at a table of 7 allowed to speak, take treasure, and make choices. Everyone else is a goddamn audience member. And the DM is good with that. Yeah. See above. 7. I've been at a table where the DM facilitated another player's wish to have their character rape another PC. Ask me how quickly I quit after a loud rant. 8. A player that not only metagames about player knowledge, but also about what they think the DM will do at every turn, based on their opinions of that person as DM. Now imagine that the table is held captive in analysis paralysis while the player carries on like Vissinni from the Prince Bride ("I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you because Mike is the DM and he...") 9. Players 3 and 8 are the same person.
I appreciate the solutions part of the problem players that can arise. Definitely helps so you know what actions to take early on rather than ignoring the problem. The problems help me, as a new dm, to know what to watch out for
I really don't think min-maxxing is problematic, and I think the people who have a problem with it are either players who don't know how to build characters or DMs who don't know how to design encounters, combat or otherwise. The problem with min-maxxing comes when one or more of the following is fulfilled: -They keep using the same combo for every character (like a Hexadin, for example) -They start bargaining, ex: rolling for stats, actually getting shit stats, and then being like "Yeah, but can I reroll? I'm gonna reroll" or "Can I use point-buy instead?" I think this kinda overlaps with your definition of power gamer. -Looking online for builds. This is really a personal problem rather than a practical, because I think it defeats the point of min-maxxing if you're just gonna knick other people's ideas. -(Very bad) homebrew or UA stuff. I'm torn on this one, because with me liking to game design (and thinking WOTC is actually kinda terrible at it), I'd just modify it to be more inline with everything else. Possibly as we discover how broken it is. Now, if they throw a fit for getting nerfs down the line after we see how broken it is, that's a problem. Another problem might be if it's so broken no amount of modifying can fix it. And if you replace both the broom stick and brush, is it really the same homebrew class? Anything else, you can deal with as a DM. Keep using Polymorph to turn a party member into a T-Rex or something? Throw an encounter in a tight space or give the enemy Moonbeam. Gloom Stalker borderline permanent invisibility (okay, yeah, this one is really broken, but): Put tons of stuff that give off dim light all over the place, like bioluminescent mushrooms or something. Or as you already said, increase the raw difficulty. If they stop their bullshit combos or don't use their builds properly, they die. If they don't take it seriously, they die. I wouldn't normally just outright ban whole sets of resources, like books. Except maybe Tasha's, at least until I put together some changes to the old classes so they're buffed to be more inline with the subclasses in that book. Either that or remove all the new standard mechanics from Tasha's, like using a spell slot to gain an extra use of an ability, or using an ability a number of times equal to your PROF
Horde of the Dragonqueen. The run through Greenest, a character dies to the half-dragon, they recoup, and head out of town to the encampment. As they near the "ambush" site, one player decides he's not into it.......and says he heads back to town to find more quests.
I have a classic for you. In my first campaign as a DM, a D&D 3.5 homebrew campaign, I had a player who knew the supplementary books better than I did. There were two version of half-Celestial, and he managed to conflate them so he got the more powerful version, while only paying the ECLs for the less powerful version. As a result his character was significantly stronger than everyone else. It wasn't until around half-way through the game that someone else worked out what he'd done. Unfortunately it was a story heavy campaign, with high CR battles so they'd advance faster, and removing or nerfing the character wouldn't work. So I just gave the other characters extra shinies (either gear or abilities) or a second character, and then upped the CR of the challenges even further.
An interesting (imho) solution to the Shadowstep issue might be to allow the blind teleport, but have this as a consequence... DM: "As you materialize in the space, you go to move forward but feel an intense pain in your right hand. Make a CON saving roll, please." WBC (Would-Be Cheater):"Why? What happened?" DM: "Since you couldn't see where you were Shadowstepping to, you were a little off in your placement. Your hand is inside (terrain feature). Please make a CON saving roll to determine if you can act quickly enough to correct the error before you lose your hand. Succeed, and you keep your hand and finish your turn where you are. Fail, and you are immobilized until your next turn and can Shadowstep far enough away... minus your hand." It doesn't kill the player outright, but it teaches them a valuable lesson to RTFPHB.
My cousin is a DM and his response to "that's what my character would do" is a simple "but why would they do that" funny enough, nobody ever has an answer
No joke, but it's not a Lich but a Hag Coven that has been left alone to dabble with souls for a while now and that intro about sums up the interaction.
It's not all on the DM. Stealing from the party is an attack on the party, and they are justified in fighting back. "It's what my character would do" can be met with "Our characters don't want to adventure with your character anymore. Make a different one, that acts differently." No one likes to be the heavy, and wreck that one guy's fun, but if he's wrecking everyone else's fun, someone has to step up, and it doesn't have to be the DM every time.
Sad to say but I lost my friend over arguing over D&D. He was a power gamer, rules lawyer, minmaxer, and monopolisier all in one. We played for four years and I tried to work it out until finally, it became too much, and the D&D group split up. Sad to say we are not friends anymore! I honestly believe that some people are just not cut out for D&D, and it is better not to play at all.
One of the first things you mention, "Don't punish their character in-game..." I was thinking this is exactly the type of thing you would WANT to do, to show their actions are making consequences for themselves and the other characters as things respond to their actions. So the All-Powerful Litch may be over the top, but certainly, the additional Oger behind the door that gets a surprise round on the Thief seems completely legit to me.
I literally laughed out loud (probably too loud to be honest) in the middle of safeway at the lich bit. Oh my me. That was great! *tosses dead body of problem player on the altar of sacrifice for the altar* *laughs maniacally*
If you have a min-maxer try this, there is a monster or creature that is following them specifically. "My name is Inigo Montoy, you killed my father. Prepare to die." Only this creature doesn't want to kill the character, this creature is just min-maxed to perfectly cancel out that player's character.
I’ve been a DM for almost 15 years now and I’ve dealt with all kinds of problem players from rules lawyers to power gamers. My players know that I won’t tolerate certain behaviors (such as arguing over something stupid because it benefits them at that moment), but some of them still like to push their luck. I had one player who would always argue about the way a spell worked to make it benefit him at a certain moment. It got to the point where not only was it starting to piss off my players, but it was starting to piss me off too!! I pulled him aside after a session on more than one occasion to explain to him that he could not change the way the spells worked to benefit his character and he needed to stop because it wasn’t fair for the other players. Ultimately, I had to remove him from my table because he refused to stop. I have zero tolerance for power gamers. If you’re going to play at my table, there’s no horsecrap allowed. At the beginning of each session I remind my players of the consequences for problem behaviors just in case one of them is planning to do something they shouldn’t. You just don’t know what your players could be planning between sessions
The situation at the beginning of the video reminds me of a comic I saw in Dragon magazine like 15 years ago. The party is going to a lich's tomb with the thief adamant that there will be tons of content and loot for them to level up and gear up before encountering the lich. When the lich opens his front door personally and asks who is there, the rogue is the only one who thinks its a bluff and stays. It doesn't end well for him.
Honestly, I think the best thing is instead of rule 3 is carefully looking over what a homebrew race or third party race can do. Most players will likely stick to official ones. So for the most part, it should be easy to adjust the homebrew character types. I play DND partially for creating my character so I think this has a lot to do with knowing what your players want. If your players are role players primarily they might dislike having their creativity stifled because they don't understand the issues you are trying to prevent.
I agree with most of this, but I'll clarify. Minmaxers are players I constantly deal with in my games, and usually when he DMs, he picks really difficult modules or makes really difficult custom campaigns to force minmaxing among our group as much as possible, even going so far as to adjust module encounters upward in difficulty, simply because he said they weren't difficult enough (after he did that, he one-shot killed our barbarian, and almost one-shot killed another PC, and began doing stupid amounts of damage and having AC so high we can barely ever hit anything, even with great rolls and flanking). The way I deal with it is to raise the difficulty of encounters just a bit, like you said, and I also have found that in most cases this does not increase difficulty for the party (obviously over tuning it can lead to this however). I do feel, however, that restricting players to single-class builds strips some of their creative freedom away, just for the sake of a small headache once or twice later. I have found that players should run their characters by their DM first (In my games specifically I allow homebrew, so I include that as well to be examined) and see if the DM approves that this character would not push the game to worse spot for the others in the group. If you approve a character at the start, and then later they start using a combo they snuck past you, just tell them no, they can't blow up the Tarasque because it does X amount of flat damage, or whatever they do. If they have a problem, they should've been honest with their intentions in the first place when people were submitting their characters. As a DM, you have to foster trust and respect amongst your players, and sneaking things into the game with the sole purpose of breaking it, is not respectful to anyone in the group.
Tried to start a campaign with my brand new D20 Star Wars WotC book I got back in the day (played the West End Games D6 a lot before). A couple friends came over to play while I wanted to learn how to DM. We start with character creation and one guy says "I'm Darth Maul." "What? No, you can't be an epic high level main named cha-" "I'm Darth Maul." "You can't be Darth Maul but you can be a zabrak just like hi-" "I'm Darth Maul." "Darth Maul would have no reason to team up with any other people!" "I'm Darth Maul or I'm not playing." " *sigh* fine. You're Darth Maul." "You're damn right I am."
Ive found for rules lawyers or power gamers. If they want to bend the rules tell them sure, but that all the bad guys and BBEGs will get the same exception. When they realise how OP that will make the bad guys they back dow quick
I've got a player that is most of those types. Unfortunately it likely stems from him being the alternate DM for our group with his own campaign, and he's used to being in charge of everything, creating his own homebrew, and being in the spotlight. It just sucks because I offered to step in and DM in order to cut him a break from being a "forever DM"
I made a honest mistake up until only embarrassingly recently, Polymorph's limitation of only turning creatures into BEASTS. I, for the longest time, thought it was any creature into any creature of an equal or lower CR. But it's only beasts of an equal or lower CR. Doesn't help that True Polymorph has no such restriction and only has the CR of equal or lower, but it can be any creature type.
While I can see why MinMaxing is seen as a problem, there is a similar behaviour that I really enjoy, both as a player and seeing it in other players as a DM. Because I love looking through the rules, the abilities, races and what have you, looking not for the most powerful combination, but the most interesting one (they are still quite strong usually). Things like "How many fighting styles can I fit on a single character?", "How much crit damage can I deal by just increasing the number of bonus weapon dice?", "What is the lowest level that allows me to survive maximum fall damage with some HP still remaining?", "Can I make dual wielding pistols work?" There are so many fun possibilities to explore and 90% of my character ideas are based on those interactions rather than anything else.
Kindred spirits, you and I are. I tend to look for the same kind of interactions to take things to the extreme, and I often build those character prototypes just for fun, even if I didn't get to use most of them yet. As an example: right now I'm playing a brawler character. Okay damage, but incredible single target CC, with a grapple-tripping combo with Prodigy on Athletics and a level in Barbarian for Rage. Only caveat is he's borderline worthless against things that are immune to being grappled. Doesn't have to be strictly combat either, one idea I looked over with a friend is a character with proficiency in every skill, and experteise in a few more Sometimes I don't even go to the extreme and just think of a role concept like "I wanna make a melee Warlock, but NOT use Hexblade", or "A ranged support fighter", and go from there. Incidentally, I don't know about dual-wielding pistols, but hand crossbows: definitely. And you can deal upwards of 40 damage a turn like that at level 5 or 6.
My most recent character started out as me going "Tieflings get a bonus to intelligence and charisma, but from a mechanical optimisation perspective, why would I want a character with both high intelligence and high charisma?" My answer was to make a sorcerer/wizard multiclass, the first time I ever made a multiclass character. Also I actually worked out the answer to your fighting styles question. Assuming that both Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the blood hunter class are allowed, and that you can take the same feat multiple times unless otherwise specified, the answer is ten. 2 levels in paladin, ranger and blood hunter will get you one fighting style from each of those classes, then put the remaining 14 levels in fighter to get one fighting style and five ASIs. With each ASI, get the Fighting Initiate feat to get another fighting style. And then, for your tenth fighting style, you start out as a variant human. Guess what feat you're taking at 1st level. Heck, even if blood hunter isn't allowed, you just go to level 16 in fighter to get another ASI to pick up Fighting Initiate again and still have a total of ten fighting styles. That one isn't a character I am actually making by the way. It was more of a mental exercise than anything.
@@HairyHariyama Well, Blood Hunter is at the end of the day a homebrew class and the PHB states that "You can take each feat only once, unless the feat's description says otherwise.". So the number would actually be 6. 2 levels of Ranger and Paladin will give you a fighting style each, Champion fighter gets 2 fighting styles, plus another one from the Fighting Initiate, and finally one from the College of Swords Bard.
Man I misunderstood how the summon celestial options worked for paladins in tasha's when I first used it for awhile and was summoning it when I was wayyyy too low level and when my dm looked further into it and explained that I felt so bad. I have been gun shy so to speak, to even use the Tasha's extended rules without thorough review to avoid that.
Heads up btw, I'm sure you want to know this. I searched "Dungeons and Dragons" in the UA-cam search specifically trying to find your channel again because I really enjoy your content. I couldn't remember the name of your channel, just your face. You did not even show up in the list. I just began clicking other suggested searches until I finally saw your channel name and it looked familiar. I still wasn't positive until I saw your face. I suggest you put your face on your thumbnail photo. I think a cartoon portrait of the blue faced barbarian would be great and most identifiable to your audience. Anyway, keep up the good work. Subscribed 👍🥰
If you're dealing with one really powerful PC and want to increase difficulty without ruining things for the less powerful PCs, the simplest thing to do is increase the number of enemies. Even if a PC can one-shot most everything you are throwing at the party, they can only make so many attacks per turn, and if you throw four or five guys at them they can probably only kill one or two in a round, which means that the other players still have foes to fight, and it feels like they are contributing. I have also found that a second enemy wave, preferably coming from a different direction, can shake things up in an effective way. After all, the powerful PC still can't be in two places at once, so if enemies are coming from both sides, the powerful PC will need the rest of their party to handle the other half. Lastly, if you do need a big, powerful foe that you don't want the powerful PC to instantly wreck, but don't want it to squash the weak PCs, focus on its ability to survive hits (HP, health regeneration, attack-negating effects like concealment, displacement or Mirror Image) rather than it hitting super-hard or being impossible to scratch. The weak PCs won't get instantly splatted, and will still be able to hit it (or pop Mirror Images or the like to weaken it), but the powerful PC won't be able to drop it instantly either.
Can I just add about a power gamer I had. He had a 24 AC with a Displacer cloak. (Don’t ask, was not meant for him). When I spoke to him about it he agreed it was really OP and so he just got rip and I swapped it with another item. Often I find talking to them and saying “this is the problem, how can WE fix it”.
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Hey Dm Lair, i belive your video helped me.
I belive gave me a lot to reflect with, i started dming 2 years ago, i had a main group of 3 players, one of wich had played a game with a more experienced DM along with me, wich is our friend in mutual. Since i was a new dm, extroverted but also shy and with a little of anxiety i would just try to make a funny game for everyone, but this one player would constantly argu in his favor, try to in most ocasion's give a turn of event´s as he like (for ex: You see this queen who is asking our help? Lets kill her and take her kingdom) wich, since i was a new dm didnt handle as well as i should. For some time just ignoring this ideas and main plans since the rest of the group didnt agreed with him. With time i would try to talk to him but he would justify that he could do that since his caracter would and that, in a case like that, our mutual first dm, who wasnt playing, wouldnt do like that (a matt mercer kind of effect), and that would sting on me, i was trying to be a good dm and that, as I see, was a bully move to get what he wanted, even if wishing no harm. Since the othe players wouldnt intervin in his behavior or have my back when something like this would apperar, i wouldstart even more get annoyed with his behavior (he would metagame, forget about the game day making us wait for him for 40 min, be a murderhobo and even cheat on a "sneaky app" where he would keep rollin his virtual dice till a lot of bad rolls would follow so he could cheat the app to have more chances for a good number.). I started to present the problem of givin consequences in game for out of game things, wich i see now a day that was a toxic behavior generated for toxic behavior. A few days ago i had a conversation after session with some new dnd friends, compared to my fist group, and i once gain complained about this problem player, wich has become a bad habit, and one of the players, that has played since my first dm game, said that i would stay behind to punish him and for that he couldnt agree that much about the problem player behavior, wich nowadays i agree that wasnt the best. My point of this story is that in a game of dnd is up to improvement, but need's to have a chance of improvement, i belive i have improved, as i wich the problem player have, as well as the other players, who would not take notes, stay on their fones, and basicly complain about the problem player when they where the ones affected insted of saying something when it was against anyone. The harmony of the table is up to evryone and the dm is not the babysitter and not the only one responsible for the quality of the game.
I want to be a murderhobo where my character wants to be a good person but I force him into bad things. I accept all consequences.
One of my players once came up with a line worse than "It's what my character would do." It was "It's what my character would do when he's this drunk."
I know not if this man needs an award or not
Jail
I don't know if I should laugh or cry
@@Veran42 Why not both?
IC actions, IC consequences.
I'm keeping "because that's what a dungeon master would do" in my belt, lol!
Need to put this on a Thor "because that's what heroes do" meme
Luke needs to add that to his DM Lair shirt line. I would totally buy that one.
Same lol
Used the line against one of my problem players, never have i seen someone FLY into a rage so fast about dnd.
me too
"The odds of your DM seeing this video are pretty high."
Well, considering I AM the DM.
"That's what my character would do"
*Watches party members murder player as a spy for the enemy*
This advice doesn’t just apply to RPG games. It’s a little funny, but I work as a grade school teacher, and after watching several of your videos, and similar videos like it, I’ve started to think of my classes in DND terms, with the teacher as a dungeon master and the students as players. I remember once being tempted to punish a student, who was flippantly trying to derail the class with the kinds of silly comments and questions that usually mean, “I’m bored and don’t want to be here.” I thought of just giving him a bad grade for the assignment, but stopped, reminding myself that his performance on the assignment wasn’t what was at issue, it was the disrespect towards the other students and myself who had come to “play the game.” I chose to take the student aside and address my concerns directly while giving him another chance to complete the assignment. I’m happy to say that, instead of creating an adversarial Dungeon Master verses Player dynamic, we were able to come to an understanding and now my “games” run much more smoothly than before.
Man you gotta give a seminar on that philosophy :)
"Becuase that's what the dungonmaster would do!" Good comeback, barbarian.
If I had to say something, “I’m saying this is out of character but lol that was karma”
I've found that the best way to deal with a player who acts against other PCs is to simply stop the game when it happens, and address the player being acted against. "Are you OK with this? Is this something you can find fun in?"
If they are OK with it, I then ask the original player, "And are you OK with them doing similar things to your character?" The action is only allowed if both are in agreement that it's OK and that they can treat it as in-character shenanigans with no personal animosity.
That way, it's 100% buy-in on the part of the victim(s). Some people can have a good time going back and forth with little swipes at each other, and some can't.
I used to have a rules lawyer in my group. But not like you defined it. He was an actual lawyer and knew all the rules really well. I often consulted with him on how unfamiliar game mechanics worked because he could tell me faster than I could look it up. He moved away and it was definitely a hit to the group.
I see... so Fat Cat gets away with his cheating because your afraid of losing your friendship with the adorable little chonker.
"Who would argue over the definition of how to measure something?!"
Wargamers
Yeah, a lot of us do. Even me sometimes... I try to keep Madill to middle base distance for measuring unless the rules say otherwise
Me, a guy: *nervous sweating*
Shad of Shadiversity.
No joke, the last edition of warhammer had to be errata’d because people practically DEMANDED a definition for the terms ‘within an inch’ and ‘wholly within’
I mean there is a field of study called "metrology" which is literally the study of measuring things. Granted the goal is to ensure that we have standardized methods of measure for some rather insane accuracy and precision.
Im sure they have "heated debates" on stuff but not for the purposes of what that player tried. DnD distance can be measured either as every tile border crossed = 5ft (basically the same as center to center) which isn't quite perfect for diagonal distances. Or you have a grid that is properly scaled to say 1in real world = 5ft game world and you can use a ruler to measure center to center if its perfectly in range. So the common 30ft range becomes 6in of gameboard in my example scale, probably most needed for flying enemies or otherwise targeting in 3 dimensions at once.
The tile counting is usually the easiest for movement where as spells tend to get the true value with a ruler/tape measure.
I think my favorite thing you said was "I don't allow pvp" just completely removing the option seems like such a good way to improve the game.
There may be times when there is an in story explanation for why a character would do pvp e.g. to stop a character being controlled by another entity.
I'm going to tell you I removed PVP for my games years ago and it is awesome. There has never been a time where we were like oh we miss PVP. But when PVP was allowed there were many times when we were like this sucks why is X person screwing over y person.
@@theDMLair I had a pvp incident at the beginning of a campaign I played in and honestly it ruined the entire campaign. Without that moment (a player tried to kill me after two unlucky wild magic rolls) there would have never been tension at the table.
@@phoenixknight8837 I think that would be a clear exception that you could make very clear doesn't count as pvp.
In the game I've just started I've told the players no PVP unless it's preplanned and important to the story, sometimes it can be dramatic but all parties need to be down with it.
I actually really like the DM Lair’s style of DM’ing and his modules because it just goes to show that you don’t need an extremely detailed setting to have a fun campaign.
I love the reply to the rogue's why would you do that in the start skit
That's The way to do it 🤣
Barbarian was on point "cos that's what the dungeon master would do"
"Who would argue over the definition of how to measure something?"
I don't what you mean Luke? (Laughs in Warhammer)
LOL. I've never played Warhammer but I'm imagining this is a thing huh?
@@theDMLair There was a huge argument at my FLGS about what about the phrase "more than 9 inches away" that lasted for weeks. Some people bought an entire army because they wanted to abuse this rule. Then they sold that army when the FAQ came out and they couldn't be asshats about it anymore.
The first FAQ for 8th edition had to define the terms ‘within and inch’ and ‘wholly within’...
I love you mentioning the no homebrew rule and limiting some races. It's exhausting dealing with the bizzare garbage people have made online or is on D&D beyond and my players claiming "it's fine."
Solution for a problem player:
Stabby Stabby
Love your work!
His character, or the player himself?
@@nickdahl203 duh, both.
@@nickdahl203 that's what I was going to ask lol
Hey it worked, the player can’t show up to any more session l!
Another tip for the SBIR talk- use "and," not "but." "I appreciate your enthusiasm And I want to be sure other players get a chance in the spotlight"
I've always loved turning around the "that's what my character would do." excuse to bite the Player in the butt. After repeated infractions, I took the other Players aside and asked them "If this were real, what would your PC do in response?" and the Players told me.
I said "Ok, next time, do that."
They said "Really?!"
I said "Sure. Why not? Don't feel like you, as a Player, should have to put up with bad behavior In Game to keep the peace at the table. isn't worried and you shouldn't have to either."
Next game stole from the party and got caught. Paladin "apprehended" them (read knocked them out and had them thrown in jail with the other party members as witness).
When problem Player threw a fit, Paladin said "What? It's what she would do."
I told them to roll a new PC because that one would be in jail for 1 month, problem player mysteriously rage quit and we had peaceful game play ever after. Sometimes it just takes giving the other Players permission to stand up for themselves. 😜👍
"Cheating can also be leaving stuff out of your spell or ability."
Me with my terrible memory messing half of my abilities' notes : Heavy sweating.
EDIT : I do take notes and try my best to keep track of spells, so it's more of a joke here. I promise i never messed with my abilities on purpose !
ThePikel
I have a player who just REALLY hates taking notes in general.
This is to their benefit sometimes, but also not.
Says he just memorizes them because he has good memory, at one point I the GM volunteered to track his stuff for him instead but eventually gave up as I was already juggling enough as is.
An example of forgetting something to his benefit is forgetting the amount of HP he has or the debuffs afflicting him.
An example that is to his disbenefit is forgetting that he is already back to full health, that he should have had advantage or other because of a buff, the enemy had a debuff, etc.
And don't get me started on his abilities and spells!
@@remixtheidiot5771 which is why i love d&d beyond and roll20 character sheets since they have an option of tracking all of that by simply clicking things up and down. No more "i will remember that, my paper is already ruined from being errased too many times"
I ask my players to try to know where to find the details of their abilities. Also, you can tell if someone is honestly forgetful or is conveniently leaving things out
If that is an issue I suggest you do what Yugioh does and announce what your spells/abilities do as you use them
"I activate Pot of Greed which allows me to draw 2 new cards from my deck!"
@@remixtheidiot5771 player doesnt sant to put effort in to the game then speak to thrm about if. If they dont change then they seem like theyd be a hinderance to the campaign. You put in lots of time to DM and that person seems to be wasting peoples time by not even putting in a reasonable amt of effort
One good way I tamp down my own minmaxing tendencies is I always try to put my minmaxing through a character lens; "WHY would this druid take a level in barbarian", make a story out of it, make a lore reason to justify it. If I can't then I will save it for a different game/character.
It really helps also to build with a specific thing in mind too. "I'm going to make a face" ok so I'm gonna minmax conversational skills but I'll leave my strength in the dust. Rather than minmax a whole character and try to cover every angle I make them really good at what they were designed for but at a loss for other areas.
For my problem player that would attack/steal from NPC's, just do anything to derail the story, I created a "prison crystal" in which if you cause to much of a problem you get trapped in a crystal the size of a golf ball that a guard captain would have. Can't move or cast magic, if the Crystal breaks, you die. It was basically a magical jail with no save.
I would definitely show it off as part of the world before using it on said problem player. Make a cutscene where they see a theif steal from an NPC and a town guard catches them with it as a sort of super handcuffs / pokeball with no save. This way they have fair warning that such a thing exists and maybe they should stop committing murder-robberies or they will definitely be captured accordingly.
This helps avoid the problem of punishment ingame instead of talking to them as a mature adult because it refocuses it as "actions have consequences and you know the town guard can easily capture you".
As a bonus the party may even aquire one of the time-out crystals as a reward for prolonged good behavior.
"Because this is what the dungeon master would do"
Best line
Trademark that line.
when confronting someone never say "YOU" did so and so, always explain the situation from yours or the others perspective. the other players were pissed because ** they were left to battle the monster alone and they needed you etc etc
people arnt bad players on purpose. everyone wants to be accepted but also doesnt want to be wrong.
There are tiny percentage of players who are bad players on purpose. Those few are usually doing so out of a personal conflict with one or more others at the table. Way back in the 1990's I had one of those. He got a few months off from being included in gaming, came back a better player.
You seem to have found an elegant solution for the "Mr. Limelight" problem: just be all the players in your campaign. You always get to be in the limelight, no matter what character is taking actions!
Had a player back in 1st Edition try to insist that Treasure Type U, “1 of each magic excluding potions & scrolls” was literally, “one of EVERY magic item”. He then processed (between gaming sessions) to add up the EXP for every item in the DMG and calculated his “new level”
The worst thing you can get is a rules-lawyering, yet cheating, min-maxing powergamer who also likes annoying the other players.
I am a former worst thing \o/
Try adding in drunken player on top of all the other things . Not fun .
We've got one of those in our current star wars game and the worst part is that he's our normal DM 😒
Had that in my Dresden Files game, I chose to leave.
There seems to always be at least one in every group.
"Cause that's what the Dungeon Master would do." That line made me chuckle.
I think you have some excellent points here. I think the balance exists in remembering that usually, we are playing with friends, and we can appeal to that, too. And your point about friendships that can't handle being confronted not being good friendships makes sense to me. Great video, sir!
In my opinion standard 5e already is multi classed (eldritch knights, arcane tricksters, and bards etc) so I don’t see why I would allow additional multi classing. It’s already in there.
I don't know if everybody noticed. But this ist not only GM, but general life advice.
Hey Luke, I've been Dm'ing for almost a decade now and i've been watching your videos for tips story ideas and mostly the advice. Here's one from my DM. Before we even began playing, he showed us the "Rules". Rule #1 was don't split the party. This was duie to all of the encounters he had created were built for the party's overall level, including the NUMBER of enemies. He explained it this way: if you go OFP (Own F-ing Program - don't mind the swearing, we were all US Marines so it is pretty much a part of our regular speech) and run into an encounter as a solo, you will run into the PARTY's encounter as a solo... pretty dire warning, but it was there: the consequence. None of us ever split the party.
My formula is 7 fold.
1) Perceive a problem.
2) Talk to others in and out of the group to make sure it IS a problem (sometimes we perceive an issue where there is none)
3) Talk to the person causing the problem privately, identifying the problem, and your expectations for the future.
4) If problem continues, address it openly, with the same points.
5) If the problem persists, remove the problem.
6) After a time, if willing invite back, with the understanding that it is conditional on their conduct.
7) If problem happens again, removal and hard ban.
One of the main problems is that the source books tell you to kill players . Like there is a quote in tash’s “talk to your players if not there is allways cloudkill”
That's supposed to be a snarky joke on Tasha's part.
Some call it cheating, I call it having a sieve for a brain. I kept forgetting Cure Wounds was touch so I occasionally used it to heal someone from a distance in the heat of the moment. Then again... Most instances of me doing that I was the DM, so...
The shortest pencil is better than the longest memory. I encourage players to make index cards with their spells or feats on them or at least to make a pg. reference for them on their character sheets so we can have quick access to the descriptions if needed. Of course as the DM the rules are what you say they are, as long as they're consistent.
In regards to the "cheater" that leaves out or misrepresents powers. I've found that some players have used an ability incorrectly for the longest time and never realized it. Then when someone shows them their mistake they can become incredulous since it conflicts with how they and likely past DMs have done it.
Luck: The chance of your DM is watcing this is.....Verry high sorry
Me the DM: what no I'm not getting ideas
Yeah problem players everywhere AR trying to hide this video from there dungeon Master's.
I liked this video the moment I heard that one.
_You should too_
_I paused & scrolled right down here looking for this. Am I the only one_ ?
Hmmm, yes lady luck is hiding as Luke
See. The thing is this: we had a player do that “it’s what my character would do” once. The others players characters did what they would do if someone they trusted screwed them without reason, we killed them and looted the body. Never had a player do that since....
No DM intervention required!
So what do you do when the dm nerfs base class abilities because they don’t think that’s fair. Case and point: our current DM doesn’t allow the rouge to sneak attack a flanked opponent. I’m tempted to go the LARP route and demonstrate the logic using padded weapons.
But the sneak attack is the rogue's means of keeping up with the likes of the fighter, barbarian, and paladin's damage output. It'd be like denying the paladin his divine smites. You could try asking them to try it for a combat-filled session or two to see if it's really as unfair as they fear.
Do they let the rogue sneak attack in other situations that feature describes?
@@DetectiveBarricade Haven’t had a session with combat that would have those opportunities. And I agree, hence the padded weapons to highlight why his reasoning is flawed. That being that just having two opponents opposite you isn’t enough to distract your attention and allow a “sneak attack”.
It depends on if you are talking about 3rd ed. flanking or 5th ed. flanking and if facing is being used.
Here is a solution for Min-Maxing- Setup a separate “mini-campaign” where every week, the players bring level 20 characters, often including the DM, any character builds within the WOTC sourcebooks (or even just the PHB, you’re choice), and have a bit of a friendly PvP tournament. If you are truly worried about overpowered characters even for something like this, you can roll for character races and classes to add some extra fun.
I’m actually struggling with the power gaming as a player, of course after 10 seconds of arguing I realize I’m doing it again and stop myself. I think if you are struggling with it yourself just try and be more aware of what you’re arguing on and stop yourself, because at the end of the day you want to have fun and arguing is no fun to any of the players around you
"But the problem player is a friend!" - Maybe they shouldn't be?
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A common tell of the roll-fudger is a longer pause between the dice coming to rest and the declaration of the number. Another is they out-of-pattern stop saying "roll # plus skill #" and instead pause to do math and say "result of #"
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I get the point of point-buy. We don't use it in our group, but we're pretty chill about min-maxing. As in we don't do it deliberately.
Multi-classing in our group requires a solid roleplay reason and downtime for cross-training.
I FULLY agree with limiting character builds to a specific book or books. We use only the PHB and Xanathar's, and Tasha's is "under review"
Your description of “rules lawyers” is pretty much the definition of an actual lawyer.
What are your thoughts on off-label uses for spells and abilities in games, such as:
Using Ray of Frost to chill an object to make it more brittle?
Collapsing a Pole of Collapsing, and re-extending it, wedging it into a cave wall, creating a stable climbing surface?
Using Fire Bolt to light a hay stack, potentially starting a fire?
Taking the Magic Initiate feat on a Way of Shadow monk to get a familiar, then teleporting that familiar on the other side of a wall so that you can Shadow Step to it.
Personally, I find these kinds of creative applications of abilities and spells in D&D to be super fun. They make me think outside of the box. I would, however, never argue with the DM if they disagreed.
This is actually a very understanding video, this channel is pretty rad.
Thank you! :-)
Sounds like your "power gamer" is just a combination of the other five.
Some people do enjoy a "power gamer" style, trying to etch out every advantage within the rules.
Example: choosing a more expensive tool set during character creation for the purpose of selling it; or as a more roleplay version creating a bond with an NPC that allows you to aquire goods at a reduced rate.
Personally I don't see power gamers as a problem, more so a variation of the puzzle gamer, but instead of enjoying actual puzzles they see the game itself as the puzzle.
Thank you for taking the time to read this if you do, I do enjoy your videos especially with the skits. You are probably my favorite d&d youtuber. Good luck with all your endeavors.
"but my chaotic evil character would absolutely bail on the party or backstab an ally!"
"Then your character probably wouldn't be part of the party for very long. Bye bye."
One problem player I had made an entire anime guild hall with named characters as his backstory and would split the group and get his character killed often so that he can try out new builds. I didn't know that's what he was doing until later, and tried to have a resurrection arc before he asked for his old character to die again.
Another played video games while we were in game, and we could hear it on his mic, but denied that he did. He partly payed attention, but told the party he was going back home to report the death of the previous player mentioned to the guild hall.
Both are gone now, but they derailed the campaign hard enough that I'm ending it soon and just starting over with a new one.
"Because that's what the Dungeon Master would do." I need to remember this line.
...Im a dm and im watching this, but honestly those mit-maxing rules....I've never seen a reason to apply those rules, I just make them suffer with my mystery dice rolls!
But, I totally agree on the frustrating part with the power gamer.
I didn't previously worry about the min-max on stats, but with 5e have come to realize that allowing players to roll instead of forcing point-buy/standard array leaves a large power-gap sometimes if one player rolls average and another rolls incredible...you end up with a character that often overshadows others even in their elements because all of their stats are high enough to make them as good or better than a character who was built to do certain tasks...Makes the game more level for the group as a whole.
@@assanilightbringer4244 Honestly, to me, sometimes if the players roll generally bad overall, I just let them reroll all of their stats once and will have to pick the new rolls.
@@assanilightbringer4244 when rolling just set the minimum to be 70 point total and let them reroll if they come under that. Even if they roll a few really dump stats with a 6 or a 7 they'll still come out if it with 16s, 17s, and 18s to put in their main stats.
I had a player who was playing a “pacifist” Cleric/Artificer who not only refused to kill enemies, but actively tried to stop the party from killing people. Like, to the point of even healing low-health enemies or fighting allies to stop the killing blow. The way I stopped it was basically just... straight up telling him no. I wouldn’t track any death saves for downed enemies and I wouldn’t allow him to try to throw himself in front of attacks or anything. Probably not the best method but it seemed to work on him, he recognized that it was causing a lot of conflict in the party. (Oh yeah and he was also a mix-maxer with base 27 AC. Lots of saving throws for him late-game)
reformed mr.limelight /min-maxer. I found the solution to focus on min-maxing support roles like an Enchanter or Bard
Then make your "Limelight" to be that of a kingmaker or having a vested interest in letting the party over-achieve. That means that I have to adjust my playstyle to help PCs meet their goals and I HAVE to share the spotlight otherwise I'm not succeeding.
Luke is channeling the Angry GM lately, and that's great.
In regards to your specific example of a power gamer, I rule that center of square to center of square is 5 feet, because each square is supposed to be 5x5, so that logically makes sense to me, but if you've been playing with a different ruling for years and he's arguing with it at a moment when it would benefit him, that's definitely bad. You guys have agreed to the way that's ruled previously, so there shouldn't be any further discussion there.
I recently started a tabletop club at my school. I have 2 problem players and the entire group is a little loud and doesn't quite listen. This video is so helpful. Thank you.
On the min/max topic. I allow official release content with the caveat that there may be tweaks needed to "fit the campaign setting". I do allow homebrew content but only after I have had a good chance to review the content and approve, modify and offer, or deny the requested content. For those rule arguments, I have instituted a rule of what I say sticks for now if you want to talk about it after the game then that is the time for it not during the game.
We do pvp but we ask the player if it is ok for some one to thump there character upside the head. Most of the time we all think it is fun! But yay sometimes it irritating. All depends the day.
I’m a big fan and I love your content. I do have to disagree on one thing though. If a player is remaining within the rules and making their character as strong as they can make it in the rules, I think it’s fine. Break the rules and it isn’t fine anymore.
Talky talky stuff is indeed cool. That's how I play some parts of the DnD sessions!
Yeah, just recently had to kick a family member out of the group. It was rough but needed. They were a cheater/spotlight stealer, and I was tolerant for too long because they were a family member. However, it was hindering my other players to the point where other people were starting to be more willing to skip and one voiced that it felt like an obligation to show up. Three weeks with them gone and the difference is felt and beneficial.
Our party PVPs but it's for training or sparring scenarios during downtime and all the PCs involved consent.
The easiest way to deal with problem players is forgetting to call them when next session is up and when asked 'oh our characters wouldn't adventure with you sorry"
Very small thing, but I appreciate the custom closed captions!!
Great video, definitely needed this one. Got a player that makes everything dark, as he thinks the world is dark, and can’t separate what he knows from what his character would know. It’s so hard to play with him. The the easiest/simplest way to explain without typing an essay haha
I feel your pain. Recently dealing with a player who uses the "emotional blackmail" card ("...this makes me feel like not playing...")
I recently had a problem player, or rather a problem with a player. His character wasn't interested in joining the rest of the party and would often ignore plot hooks. Literally the first session we played his character went "no thanks" and went off to drink at a bar while the rest of the party solved a murder mystery. This sort of behavior, while not as bad as it was the first session, persisted. He told me that he as a player was invested in the campaign, but that his character was not.
We recently ended up taking about it, and it turns out the player and I have significantly different views on what a "character-driven" adventure is. To me, it means that the world reacts to the PCs actions and it requires the characters to interact with NPCs and the plot to move the story forward. To him, it meant that the PCs backstories should be in focus. He hadn't responded well to plot hooks because they had no connection to his backstory. So our troubles stemmed from a misunderstanding going aaaall the way back to session 0. I also got told to try and make my plot hooks more compelling for all players in the party, which I will take to heart.
We scrapped that campaign and are going to start Rime of the Frostmaiden soon. This time I was clear from the start and told them "make characters that are interested in helping out the people around Ten-Towns, this adventure require you to be adventurers." We will start on saturday, I'm really pumped to DM for a party of characters who all WANT to interact with the adventure!
Geez, that seems like his character had issues from the get-go. If you make a character who is an adventurer (which, basically every character you make is an adventurer), then dont you think your character wants to go and make money solving the murder mystery for the town? Or gain fame by bringing a criminal to justice? Like, why become an adventurer if you dont want to solve problems?
I suppose characters, like a monk or cleric, could take a journey for personal enlightenment. With that logic, the PLAYER could argue that the character wanted to do the adventure as a part of fate or as part of their trials of enlightenment. I just feel that some plot hooks need the players to argue the reason with their own characters and find a reason to follow through with the adventure.
@@ADudeWhoExperiences1393 exactly, a "meet me halfway" kind of thing. To me, that's part of roleplaying your character - finding what motivates your character to go on adventures.
I'm getting paid. I want to protect the people in this town. I might learn something important. This quest is crucial to one of my friends. I'm eager to show my skills. I don't want to let my party deal with danger on their own. I'm itching for a fight. I'm curious!
All of these are reasons to go on an adventure that may forward a character's development without being explicitly tied to their backstory.
@@PugsleyThePear Exactly! I'm lucky enough that my group usually does what we described and even if what is happening doesn't directly correlate to them, they will find a reason to try to do the adventure.
Great advice, I have been a DM for 45 years, this is all good stuff.
Best of Luck.
I am a player in a campaign where one player has completely lost track of what their character and who that character is. May send both parts of this to DM once the second part come out.
The instigator can be good as long as they aren’t creating pvp type scenarios.
Yeah I feel like it depends on how they do it.
Problem players I've experienced:
1. A player that not only wants to be a spotlight hog, but also refuses to learn any mechanics and whom works actively against the interests of the party and themselves. In essence, regardless of what they play, their intent is to slow down and/or sabotage the actions of others. Yeah. That happened. Kicked.
2. A player that, like above, refuses to learn the game, is also a spotlight hog, and then will openly argue, throw dice, rant and such when their behaviours aren't the core. I had a table with TWO such players. I quit.
3. A player who would openly challenge you on every rule call and would ignore themes, player intents, etc, and would actively build a character that would act against whatever group they were in. Now imagine they're a former DM too and should know better.
4. What if you have a player that, a power gamer, min maxxer, challenges the DM on every call, acts like rules lawyer, and bullies other players when they don't get their war... yeah. Had that one too.
5. A player that intentionally creates a mechanically poor character, then demands that they not only be front and center of everything, but that the DM shower them with numerous magic items to make up for their poor choices. This character WAS built with the 27 point system, and they intentionally made it really, really poorly. When they didn't get what they wanted, they would shit talk the DM behind their back and try to pull other players away from the table. As a side not, this player is also a DM and they're truly crap at it. (He would monologue for 1.5 hours, and during the course of that, mutilated two player characters without content, saves, input or chances)
6. Consider a table where the wife of the DM and the son of a friend of the DM are the only two at a table of 7 allowed to speak, take treasure, and make choices. Everyone else is a goddamn audience member. And the DM is good with that. Yeah. See above.
7. I've been at a table where the DM facilitated another player's wish to have their character rape another PC. Ask me how quickly I quit after a loud rant.
8. A player that not only metagames about player knowledge, but also about what they think the DM will do at every turn, based on their opinions of that person as DM. Now imagine that the table is held captive in analysis paralysis while the player carries on like Vissinni from the Prince Bride ("I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you because Mike is the DM and he...")
9. Players 3 and 8 are the same person.
Man number 6 that one is a is a real problem. Very bad
@@theDMLair Number 6 as DM is player 5 above.
I appreciate the solutions part of the problem players that can arise. Definitely helps so you know what actions to take early on rather than ignoring the problem. The problems help me, as a new dm, to know what to watch out for
This is the video I've been waiting for. Real value here.
Although... No multi-classing is quite Absurd. Have you ever had a player like Absurd?
I really don't think min-maxxing is problematic, and I think the people who have a problem with it are either players who don't know how to build characters or DMs who don't know how to design encounters, combat or otherwise. The problem with min-maxxing comes when one or more of the following is fulfilled:
-They keep using the same combo for every character (like a Hexadin, for example)
-They start bargaining, ex: rolling for stats, actually getting shit stats, and then being like "Yeah, but can I reroll? I'm gonna reroll" or "Can I use point-buy instead?" I think this kinda overlaps with your definition of power gamer.
-Looking online for builds. This is really a personal problem rather than a practical, because I think it defeats the point of min-maxxing if you're just gonna knick other people's ideas.
-(Very bad) homebrew or UA stuff. I'm torn on this one, because with me liking to game design (and thinking WOTC is actually kinda terrible at it), I'd just modify it to be more inline with everything else. Possibly as we discover how broken it is. Now, if they throw a fit for getting nerfs down the line after we see how broken it is, that's a problem. Another problem might be if it's so broken no amount of modifying can fix it. And if you replace both the broom stick and brush, is it really the same homebrew class?
Anything else, you can deal with as a DM. Keep using Polymorph to turn a party member into a T-Rex or something? Throw an encounter in a tight space or give the enemy Moonbeam. Gloom Stalker borderline permanent invisibility (okay, yeah, this one is really broken, but): Put tons of stuff that give off dim light all over the place, like bioluminescent mushrooms or something.
Or as you already said, increase the raw difficulty. If they stop their bullshit combos or don't use their builds properly, they die. If they don't take it seriously, they die.
I wouldn't normally just outright ban whole sets of resources, like books. Except maybe Tasha's, at least until I put together some changes to the old classes so they're buffed to be more inline with the subclasses in that book. Either that or remove all the new standard mechanics from Tasha's, like using a spell slot to gain an extra use of an ability, or using an ability a number of times equal to your PROF
I've been in a lot of games where how to measure something became pretty relevant. Simple reasoning, we weren't playing on a grid and using a VTT.
Horde of the Dragonqueen. The run through Greenest, a character dies to the half-dragon, they recoup, and head out of town to the encampment. As they near the "ambush" site, one player decides he's not into it.......and says he heads back to town to find more quests.
I have a classic for you. In my first campaign as a DM, a D&D 3.5 homebrew campaign, I had a player who knew the supplementary books better than I did. There were two version of half-Celestial, and he managed to conflate them so he got the more powerful version, while only paying the ECLs for the less powerful version. As a result his character was significantly stronger than everyone else. It wasn't until around half-way through the game that someone else worked out what he'd done.
Unfortunately it was a story heavy campaign, with high CR battles so they'd advance faster, and removing or nerfing the character wouldn't work. So I just gave the other characters extra shinies (either gear or abilities) or a second character, and then upped the CR of the challenges even further.
whats an ecl?
Should've knocked on the door and ask if anyone is home.
An interesting (imho) solution to the Shadowstep issue might be to allow the blind teleport, but have this as a consequence...
DM: "As you materialize in the space, you go to move forward but feel an intense pain in your right hand. Make a CON saving roll, please."
WBC (Would-Be Cheater):"Why? What happened?"
DM: "Since you couldn't see where you were Shadowstepping to, you were a little off in your placement. Your hand is inside (terrain feature). Please make a CON saving roll to determine if you can act quickly enough to correct the error before you lose your hand. Succeed, and you keep your hand and finish your turn where you are. Fail, and you are immobilized until your next turn and can Shadowstep far enough away... minus your hand."
It doesn't kill the player outright, but it teaches them a valuable lesson to RTFPHB.
My cousin is a DM and his response to "that's what my character would do" is a simple "but why would they do that" funny enough, nobody ever has an answer
Ah the followup to the "It's what my character would do" rant!
Haha great video as always!
No joke, but it's not a Lich but a Hag Coven that has been left alone to dabble with souls for a while now and that intro about sums up the interaction.
It's not all on the DM. Stealing from the party is an attack on the party, and they are justified in fighting back.
"It's what my character would do" can be met with "Our characters don't want to adventure with your character anymore. Make a different one, that acts differently." No one likes to be the heavy, and wreck that one guy's fun, but if he's wrecking everyone else's fun, someone has to step up, and it doesn't have to be the DM every time.
Sad to say but I lost my friend over arguing over D&D. He was a power gamer, rules lawyer, minmaxer, and monopolisier all in one. We played for four years and I tried to work it out until finally, it became too much, and the D&D group split up. Sad to say we are not friends anymore! I honestly believe that some people are just not cut out for D&D, and it is better not to play at all.
Dang that really stinks. Sorry to hear it came to that.
One of the first things you mention, "Don't punish their character in-game..." I was thinking this is exactly the type of thing you would WANT to do, to show their actions are making consequences for themselves and the other characters as things respond to their actions. So the All-Powerful Litch may be over the top, but certainly, the additional Oger behind the door that gets a surprise round on the Thief seems completely legit to me.
I literally laughed out loud (probably too loud to be honest) in the middle of safeway at the lich bit. Oh my me. That was great!
*tosses dead body of problem player on the altar of sacrifice for the altar*
*laughs maniacally*
If you have a min-maxer try this, there is a monster or creature that is following them specifically.
"My name is Inigo Montoy, you killed my father. Prepare to die."
Only this creature doesn't want to kill the character, this creature is just min-maxed to perfectly cancel out that player's character.
I’ve been a DM for almost 15 years now and I’ve dealt with all kinds of problem players from rules lawyers to power gamers. My players know that I won’t tolerate certain behaviors (such as arguing over something stupid because it benefits them at that moment), but some of them still like to push their luck. I had one player who would always argue about the way a spell worked to make it benefit him at a certain moment. It got to the point where not only was it starting to piss off my players, but it was starting to piss me off too!! I pulled him aside after a session on more than one occasion to explain to him that he could not change the way the spells worked to benefit his character and he needed to stop because it wasn’t fair for the other players. Ultimately, I had to remove him from my table because he refused to stop. I have zero tolerance for power gamers. If you’re going to play at my table, there’s no horsecrap allowed. At the beginning of each session I remind my players of the consequences for problem behaviors just in case one of them is planning to do something they shouldn’t. You just don’t know what your players could be planning between sessions
The situation at the beginning of the video reminds me of a comic I saw in Dragon magazine like 15 years ago. The party is going to a lich's tomb with the thief adamant that there will be tons of content and loot for them to level up and gear up before encountering the lich. When the lich opens his front door personally and asks who is there, the rogue is the only one who thinks its a bluff and stays.
It doesn't end well for him.
Honestly, I think the best thing is instead of rule 3 is carefully looking over what a homebrew race or third party race can do. Most players will likely stick to official ones. So for the most part, it should be easy to adjust the homebrew character types. I play DND partially for creating my character so I think this has a lot to do with knowing what your players want. If your players are role players primarily they might dislike having their creativity stifled because they don't understand the issues you are trying to prevent.
I agree with most of this, but I'll clarify. Minmaxers are players I constantly deal with in my games, and usually when he DMs, he picks really difficult modules or makes really difficult custom campaigns to force minmaxing among our group as much as possible, even going so far as to adjust module encounters upward in difficulty, simply because he said they weren't difficult enough (after he did that, he one-shot killed our barbarian, and almost one-shot killed another PC, and began doing stupid amounts of damage and having AC so high we can barely ever hit anything, even with great rolls and flanking). The way I deal with it is to raise the difficulty of encounters just a bit, like you said, and I also have found that in most cases this does not increase difficulty for the party (obviously over tuning it can lead to this however). I do feel, however, that restricting players to single-class builds strips some of their creative freedom away, just for the sake of a small headache once or twice later. I have found that players should run their characters by their DM first (In my games specifically I allow homebrew, so I include that as well to be examined) and see if the DM approves that this character would not push the game to worse spot for the others in the group. If you approve a character at the start, and then later they start using a combo they snuck past you, just tell them no, they can't blow up the Tarasque because it does X amount of flat damage, or whatever they do. If they have a problem, they should've been honest with their intentions in the first place when people were submitting their characters. As a DM, you have to foster trust and respect amongst your players, and sneaking things into the game with the sole purpose of breaking it, is not respectful to anyone in the group.
Tried to start a campaign with my brand new D20 Star Wars WotC book I got back in the day (played the West End Games D6 a lot before). A couple friends came over to play while I wanted to learn how to DM. We start with character creation and one guy says "I'm Darth Maul." "What? No, you can't be an epic high level main named cha-" "I'm Darth Maul." "You can't be Darth Maul but you can be a zabrak just like hi-" "I'm Darth Maul." "Darth Maul would have no reason to team up with any other people!" "I'm Darth Maul or I'm not playing." " *sigh* fine. You're Darth Maul." "You're damn right I am."
Ive found for rules lawyers or power gamers. If they want to bend the rules tell them sure, but that all the bad guys and BBEGs will get the same exception.
When they realise how OP that will make the bad guys they back dow quick
I've got a player that is most of those types. Unfortunately it likely stems from him being the alternate DM for our group with his own campaign, and he's used to being in charge of everything, creating his own homebrew, and being in the spotlight. It just sucks because I offered to step in and DM in order to cut him a break from being a "forever DM"
I made a honest mistake up until only embarrassingly recently, Polymorph's limitation of only turning creatures into BEASTS. I, for the longest time, thought it was any creature into any creature of an equal or lower CR. But it's only beasts of an equal or lower CR.
Doesn't help that True Polymorph has no such restriction and only has the CR of equal or lower, but it can be any creature type.
While I can see why MinMaxing is seen as a problem, there is a similar behaviour that I really enjoy, both as a player and seeing it in other players as a DM. Because I love looking through the rules, the abilities, races and what have you, looking not for the most powerful combination, but the most interesting one (they are still quite strong usually). Things like "How many fighting styles can I fit on a single character?", "How much crit damage can I deal by just increasing the number of bonus weapon dice?", "What is the lowest level that allows me to survive maximum fall damage with some HP still remaining?", "Can I make dual wielding pistols work?"
There are so many fun possibilities to explore and 90% of my character ideas are based on those interactions rather than anything else.
Kindred spirits, you and I are. I tend to look for the same kind of interactions to take things to the extreme, and I often build those character prototypes just for fun, even if I didn't get to use most of them yet.
As an example: right now I'm playing a brawler character. Okay damage, but incredible single target CC, with a grapple-tripping combo with Prodigy on Athletics and a level in Barbarian for Rage. Only caveat is he's borderline worthless against things that are immune to being grappled.
Doesn't have to be strictly combat either, one idea I looked over with a friend is a character with proficiency in every skill, and experteise in a few more
Sometimes I don't even go to the extreme and just think of a role concept like "I wanna make a melee Warlock, but NOT use Hexblade", or "A ranged support fighter", and go from there.
Incidentally, I don't know about dual-wielding pistols, but hand crossbows: definitely. And you can deal upwards of 40 damage a turn like that at level 5 or 6.
My most recent character started out as me going "Tieflings get a bonus to intelligence and charisma, but from a mechanical optimisation perspective, why would I want a character with both high intelligence and high charisma?" My answer was to make a sorcerer/wizard multiclass, the first time I ever made a multiclass character.
Also I actually worked out the answer to your fighting styles question. Assuming that both Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the blood hunter class are allowed, and that you can take the same feat multiple times unless otherwise specified, the answer is ten. 2 levels in paladin, ranger and blood hunter will get you one fighting style from each of those classes, then put the remaining 14 levels in fighter to get one fighting style and five ASIs. With each ASI, get the Fighting Initiate feat to get another fighting style. And then, for your tenth fighting style, you start out as a variant human. Guess what feat you're taking at 1st level. Heck, even if blood hunter isn't allowed, you just go to level 16 in fighter to get another ASI to pick up Fighting Initiate again and still have a total of ten fighting styles.
That one isn't a character I am actually making by the way. It was more of a mental exercise than anything.
@@HairyHariyama Well, Blood Hunter is at the end of the day a homebrew class and the PHB states that "You can take each feat only once, unless the feat's description says otherwise.". So the number would actually be 6. 2 levels of Ranger and Paladin will give you a fighting style each, Champion fighter gets 2 fighting styles, plus another one from the Fighting Initiate, and finally one from the College of Swords Bard.
Man I misunderstood how the summon celestial options worked for paladins in tasha's when I first used it for awhile and was summoning it when I was wayyyy too low level and when my dm looked further into it and explained that I felt so bad. I have been gun shy so to speak, to even use the Tasha's extended rules without thorough review to avoid that.
Heads up btw, I'm sure you want to know this.
I searched "Dungeons and Dragons" in the UA-cam search specifically trying to find your channel again because I really enjoy your content. I couldn't remember the name of your channel, just your face.
You did not even show up in the list.
I just began clicking other suggested searches until I finally saw your channel name and it looked familiar.
I still wasn't positive until I saw your face.
I suggest you put your face on your thumbnail photo. I think a cartoon portrait of the blue faced barbarian would be great and most identifiable to your audience.
Anyway, keep up the good work. Subscribed 👍🥰
17:05 the problem, when you do that, if that player goes down, now the other players are stuck with a deadly encounter instead of a simply hard one.
If you're dealing with one really powerful PC and want to increase difficulty without ruining things for the less powerful PCs, the simplest thing to do is increase the number of enemies. Even if a PC can one-shot most everything you are throwing at the party, they can only make so many attacks per turn, and if you throw four or five guys at them they can probably only kill one or two in a round, which means that the other players still have foes to fight, and it feels like they are contributing.
I have also found that a second enemy wave, preferably coming from a different direction, can shake things up in an effective way. After all, the powerful PC still can't be in two places at once, so if enemies are coming from both sides, the powerful PC will need the rest of their party to handle the other half.
Lastly, if you do need a big, powerful foe that you don't want the powerful PC to instantly wreck, but don't want it to squash the weak PCs, focus on its ability to survive hits (HP, health regeneration, attack-negating effects like concealment, displacement or Mirror Image) rather than it hitting super-hard or being impossible to scratch. The weak PCs won't get instantly splatted, and will still be able to hit it (or pop Mirror Images or the like to weaken it), but the powerful PC won't be able to drop it instantly either.
Can I just add about a power gamer I had. He had a 24 AC with a Displacer cloak. (Don’t ask, was not meant for him). When I spoke to him about it he agreed it was really OP and so he just got rip and I swapped it with another item. Often I find talking to them and saying “this is the problem, how can WE fix it”.
It's true, Luke is good at dancing. It's a sight for gods, men and little fishes. And it's enough to make a stone image laugh. :D