So I play in a campaign where we all used point buy to build our characters. We've been playing in it since level 1 and are now at 11 (we been going a while).
Our Monk's backstory has her as a failed experiment to engineer a perfect race, combining abilities from other races (A flavored version of Ravnica's Simic Hybrid Race). Part of the experiment had her brain jumbled making her intelligence and charisma low (backstory justification for low ability scores).
Recently in our campaign, we saved a nation and one of the cleric leaders offered us all a boon of a free ASI of our choice! When it came to Monk's turn to choose she said "instead of ASI, can I get you to fix my head? (in so many words)" cleric guy said "of course, don't even count this as your gift cause I can do it easily" and cast "regenerate" on her head fixing the scrambling. The DM made her 8's in CHA and INT into 12's saying it was "for a special circumstance"
Normally I don't question things at the table, but this didn't sit right cause she essentially just got a +8 to ability scores while the rest of the table got +2. We all used pointbuy for the SOLE PURPOSE of creating equal characters and with that free +8, she just has an objectively, "better character" now. I pretty much just said "Can I be a special circumstance too??" and DM just laughed it all off as a joke but the rest of the table all exchanged knowing looks.
This is absolutely not ok. Backstories are for plot hooks, not becoming more powerful. As an example here, the clerics helping to repair her jumbled brain could have been used as the in-game explanation for her INT or CHA going up to 10. Giving her 5 ASIs (those four plus she gets an extra) to everyone else's 1 is just DM favoritism.
Note that the monk is 100% in the clear, here. Asking for help with her messed up innards is completely in-character and it makes sense for her to ask for it. The problem is how the DM resolved the mechanics of the clerics agreeing to try, particularly since the result of their spellcasting didn't also "fix" the other issues that caused her to be a Simic Hybrid. Had the DM functionally had the clerics use Reincarnate on her to "fix" being a Simic Hybrid, that would have been far more reasonable, from both a balance perspective and an immersion perspective (either being a Hybrid is something the spell can fix or it can't - letting it only fix part of her is well beyond the scope of healing magic below level 9, since you're well into True Polymorph territory if you can permanently "fix" only the parts of someone's body you dislike).
The DM gave one PC something that was not offered or given to the other PCs. I agree with the above poster, a backstory is not there for you to become more powerful. I also don't think it's there for plot hooks, although the DM could use it for them if he/she wants. A background is there to explain why your character is participating in the adventures. Period. Anything else the player adds is optional, and up to the player, but it shouldn't be something that leads to the character gaining better stats compared to other PCs.
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Sounds like the DM made a bad call there. It sits kinda badly for me, regardless of the DM and the players OOC relationship.
How sneaky is your DM? It's possible that they have something planned here (hence laughing off your request) and it's not going to go well for the Monk. Maybe they've had something implanted in their mind, for example, which will drive the next series of plothooks?
It's also possible the monk player was complaining about bad scores and was contemplating leaving because of it. There are two sides to the "partner of the DM" argument - on one side, they might get favoritism, and on the other they might be playing so they get to spend the time with their hubby more than because they are really into the game. It doesn't stop them contributing, but they might have expressed their dismay at low scores and the DM, wrongly, said they could have it increased.
I also feel like it would have been far better if they had counted this as their gift, getting it for free is somewhat bleh.
In short; slim possibility it's a nefarious plot the DM is hatching, depending on how your DM rolls. Larger chance it was a poor decision by the DM, but possibly done for the greater good of keeping the party together. The best thing for this is probably to let it slide. 12's instead of 8's isn't going to break the game, and if a player gets a magic item that ups their strength to 20 or intelligence to 18 it'll make a larger impact. There's no tests that involve adding up the score modifiers, so going from below-average to above-average in two scores shouldn't cripple the game.
I can see how it makes things feel unbalanced, but it might have been done for the best reasons. Just don't let it slide a second time.
Definitely a bad call by the DM. The monk player used their backstory as an excuse to say "it's not my fault" for her having intentionally made her character have those low scores in order to raise other abilities to higher scores. That's no different than randomly rolling stats and putting a 6 in intelligence then saying it's because your character was dropped on their head as a baby and a greater restoration spell should "restore" their intelligence to the 18 that they "were born with."
Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, may be worth a private conversation with the dm.
it would probably bother me less if they got a push to 10 instead of 12 (fixing making you average). That said depending on how the stats were affecting gameplay, could they have been trying to solve a problem at the table?
As others have noted, 8-12 should have less impact than 12-16 would on balance since it doesn't step on the toes of high int or high Cha players.
This does feel bad. It is a massive bonus to one character in a situation billed as everyone being offered the same.
I do think this needs a discussion with the DM. If you read the other players at the table correctly, this will result in some resentment and bad feeling which needs addressing. It'll be a tough topic to raise, though.
Sounds like the DM made a bad call there. It sits kinda badly for me, regardless of the DM and the players OOC relationship.
How sneaky is your DM? It's possible that they have something planned here (hence laughing off your request) and it's not going to go well for the Monk. Maybe they've had something implanted in their mind, for example, which will drive the next series of plothooks?
It's also possible the monk player was complaining about bad scores and was contemplating leaving because of it. There are two sides to the "partner of the DM" argument - on one side, they might get favoritism, and on the other they might be playing so they get to spend the time with their hubby more than because they are really into the game. It doesn't stop them contributing, but they might have expressed their dismay at low scores and the DM, wrongly, said they could have it increased.
I also feel like it would have been far better if they had counted this as their gift, getting it for free is somewhat bleh.
In short; slim possibility it's a nefarious plot the DM is hatching, depending on how your DM rolls. Larger chance it was a poor decision by the DM, but possibly done for the greater good of keeping the party together. The best thing for this is probably to let it slide. 12's instead of 8's isn't going to break the game, and if a player gets a magic item that ups their strength to 20 or intelligence to 18 it'll make a larger impact. There's no tests that involve adding up the score modifiers, so going from below-average to above-average in two scores shouldn't cripple the game.
I can see how it makes things feel unbalanced, but it might have been done for the best reasons. Just don't let it slide a second time.
The DM has been my best friend for like ~15 years so I'm pretty confident on why he did this. The Monk(wife) REALLY HATES when things don't pan out her way and doesn't understand the idea of checks-and-balances when it comes to dnd. with point buy, she built her character min-max (3x 15's and 3x 8's) and I 100% believe the out-of-table conversation went along the lines of:
Monk: Yeah, I'm good at fighting, but I don't have good RP skills, its not fair that Bard/rogue and (CHA heavy) figher are always the ones persuading
DM: Well We'll give you this to make it more "fair"
COMPLETELY not understanding that not every character is going to be good at EVERYTHING. Bard/Rogue and Fighter are good at social interactions because we TRADED martial ability for it. She made the decision to max out her combat potential at the expense of social abilities/skills and I for one think she should have to play with that decision.
For my wizard in that same campaign, I wanted him to be a young prodigy, so I made him with +2 in WIS and CHA and +3 (now 4) in Int but i had to give up on str, dex and con. Would i like to have more than 47 HP at level 11? or more than 11 AC? absolutely, but I MADE the decision to do that. Is the DM gonna give me a magic +8 ASI to balance out my wizards frailty? I think not. Then again, I'm not married to him lol
Sounds like the DM made a bad call there. It sits kinda badly for me, regardless of the DM and the players OOC relationship.
How sneaky is your DM? It's possible that they have something planned here (hence laughing off your request) and it's not going to go well for the Monk. Maybe they've had something implanted in their mind, for example, which will drive the next series of plothooks?
It's also possible the monk player was complaining about bad scores and was contemplating leaving because of it. There are two sides to the "partner of the DM" argument - on one side, they might get favoritism, and on the other they might be playing so they get to spend the time with their hubby more than because they are really into the game. It doesn't stop them contributing, but they might have expressed their dismay at low scores and the DM, wrongly, said they could have it increased.
I also feel like it would have been far better if they had counted this as their gift, getting it for free is somewhat bleh.
In short; slim possibility it's a nefarious plot the DM is hatching, depending on how your DM rolls. Larger chance it was a poor decision by the DM, but possibly done for the greater good of keeping the party together. The best thing for this is probably to let it slide. 12's instead of 8's isn't going to break the game, and if a player gets a magic item that ups their strength to 20 or intelligence to 18 it'll make a larger impact. There's no tests that involve adding up the score modifiers, so going from below-average to above-average in two scores shouldn't cripple the game.
I can see how it makes things feel unbalanced, but it might have been done for the best reasons. Just don't let it slide a second time.
The DM has been my best friend for like ~15 years so I'm pretty confident on why he did this. The Monk(wife) REALLY HATES when things don't pan out her way and doesn't understand the idea of checks-and-balances when it comes to dnd. with point buy, she built her character min-max (3x 15's and 3x 8's) and I 100% believe the out-of-table conversation went along the lines of:
Monk: Yeah, I'm good at fighting, but I don't have good RP skills, its not fair that Bard/rogue and (CHA heavy) figher are always the ones persuading
DM: Well We'll give you this to make it more "fair"
COMPLETELY not understanding that not every character is going to be good at EVERYTHING. Bard/Rogue and Fighter are good at social interactions because we TRADED martial ability for it. She made the decision to max out her combat potential at the expense of social abilities/skills and I for one think she should have to play with that decision.
For my wizard in that same campaign, I wanted him to be a young prodigy, so I made him with +2 in WIS and CHA and +3 (now 4) in Int but i had to give up on str, dex and con. Would i like to have more than 47 HP at level 11? or more than 11 AC? absolutely, but I MADE the decision to do that. Is the DM gonna give me a magic +8 ASI to balance out my wizards frailty? I think not. Then again, I'm not married to him lol
If it already sits funny with you and you are already confident you know why the DM made their decision (and that it is wrong), why are you asking strangers on the internet about their opinions on it?
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OK, I missed the part where the Monk is the DM's wife. Sorry about that.
This is bad. The DM is playing favorites with his wife. That is not acceptable. Just like it would not be acceptable to show favorites to you as the best friend.
DM must be impartial. This DM is not being impartial. He's giving in to his wife who is whining about not getting her way.
It is possible the wife said, "either fix this or I'm not gonna play anymore." And maybe the DM is giving in to that. Depending on the relationship, maybe the wife would not let him play D&D if he didn't include her. I have seen things like this though not with D&D. Friend of mine once had a g/f who wouldn't let him do stuff like go to the movies without her, and managed to ruin a couple of movie nights by not wanting to go see movies the rest of us did... so it was like, "I must go with you if you go, and I won't go see that movie, so we have to see something else." When I saw this happening I just stopped going with them. They saw several movies I don't think he wanted to see at all... and I sure didn't. Luckily he broke up with her after 1 summer, but that summer was kind of vile, in our friendship history.
So maybe something like that is going on too.
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Sounds like the DM made a bad call there. It sits kinda badly for me, regardless of the DM and the players OOC relationship.
How sneaky is your DM? It's possible that they have something planned here (hence laughing off your request) and it's not going to go well for the Monk. Maybe they've had something implanted in their mind, for example, which will drive the next series of plothooks?
It's also possible the monk player was complaining about bad scores and was contemplating leaving because of it. There are two sides to the "partner of the DM" argument - on one side, they might get favoritism, and on the other they might be playing so they get to spend the time with their hubby more than because they are really into the game. It doesn't stop them contributing, but they might have expressed their dismay at low scores and the DM, wrongly, said they could have it increased.
I also feel like it would have been far better if they had counted this as their gift, getting it for free is somewhat bleh.
In short; slim possibility it's a nefarious plot the DM is hatching, depending on how your DM rolls. Larger chance it was a poor decision by the DM, but possibly done for the greater good of keeping the party together. The best thing for this is probably to let it slide. 12's instead of 8's isn't going to break the game, and if a player gets a magic item that ups their strength to 20 or intelligence to 18 it'll make a larger impact. There's no tests that involve adding up the score modifiers, so going from below-average to above-average in two scores shouldn't cripple the game.
I can see how it makes things feel unbalanced, but it might have been done for the best reasons. Just don't let it slide a second time.
The DM has been my best friend for like ~15 years so I'm pretty confident on why he did this. The Monk(wife) REALLY HATES when things don't pan out her way and doesn't understand the idea of checks-and-balances when it comes to dnd. with point buy, she built her character min-max (3x 15's and 3x 8's) and I 100% believe the out-of-table conversation went along the lines of:
Monk: Yeah, I'm good at fighting, but I don't have good RP skills, its not fair that Bard/rogue and (CHA heavy) figher are always the ones persuading
DM: Well We'll give you this to make it more "fair"
COMPLETELY not understanding that not every character is going to be good at EVERYTHING. Bard/Rogue and Fighter are good at social interactions because we TRADED martial ability for it. She made the decision to max out her combat potential at the expense of social abilities/skills and I for one think she should have to play with that decision.
For my wizard in that same campaign, I wanted him to be a young prodigy, so I made him with +2 in WIS and CHA and +3 (now 4) in Int but i had to give up on str, dex and con. Would i like to have more than 47 HP at level 11? or more than 11 AC? absolutely, but I MADE the decision to do that. Is the DM gonna give me a magic +8 ASI to balance out my wizards frailty? I think not. Then again, I'm not married to him lol
If it already sits funny with you and you are already confident you know why the DM made their decision (and that it is wrong), why are you asking strangers on the internet about their opinions on it?
Honestly? Venting. Looking for validation that even though there were "story reasons" for it, I wouldn't be alone thinking its wrong. This is "general discussion" so I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just a crowd to listen to me whine honestly lol
Sounds like the DM made a bad call there. It sits kinda badly for me, regardless of the DM and the players OOC relationship.
How sneaky is your DM? It's possible that they have something planned here (hence laughing off your request) and it's not going to go well for the Monk. Maybe they've had something implanted in their mind, for example, which will drive the next series of plothooks?
It's also possible the monk player was complaining about bad scores and was contemplating leaving because of it. There are two sides to the "partner of the DM" argument - on one side, they might get favoritism, and on the other they might be playing so they get to spend the time with their hubby more than because they are really into the game. It doesn't stop them contributing, but they might have expressed their dismay at low scores and the DM, wrongly, said they could have it increased.
I also feel like it would have been far better if they had counted this as their gift, getting it for free is somewhat bleh.
In short; slim possibility it's a nefarious plot the DM is hatching, depending on how your DM rolls. Larger chance it was a poor decision by the DM, but possibly done for the greater good of keeping the party together. The best thing for this is probably to let it slide. 12's instead of 8's isn't going to break the game, and if a player gets a magic item that ups their strength to 20 or intelligence to 18 it'll make a larger impact. There's no tests that involve adding up the score modifiers, so going from below-average to above-average in two scores shouldn't cripple the game.
I can see how it makes things feel unbalanced, but it might have been done for the best reasons. Just don't let it slide a second time.
The DM has been my best friend for like ~15 years so I'm pretty confident on why he did this. The Monk(wife) REALLY HATES when things don't pan out her way and doesn't understand the idea of checks-and-balances when it comes to dnd. with point buy, she built her character min-max (3x 15's and 3x 8's) and I 100% believe the out-of-table conversation went along the lines of:
Monk: Yeah, I'm good at fighting, but I don't have good RP skills, its not fair that Bard/rogue and (CHA heavy) figher are always the ones persuading
DM: Well We'll give you this to make it more "fair"
COMPLETELY not understanding that not every character is going to be good at EVERYTHING. Bard/Rogue and Fighter are good at social interactions because we TRADED martial ability for it. She made the decision to max out her combat potential at the expense of social abilities/skills and I for one think she should have to play with that decision.
For my wizard in that same campaign, I wanted him to be a young prodigy, so I made him with +2 in WIS and CHA and +3 (now 4) in Int but i had to give up on str, dex and con. Would i like to have more than 47 HP at level 11? or more than 11 AC? absolutely, but I MADE the decision to do that. Is the DM gonna give me a magic +8 ASI to balance out my wizards frailty? I think not. Then again, I'm not married to him lol
If it already sits funny with you and you are already confident you know why the DM made their decision (and that it is wrong), why are you asking strangers on the internet about their opinions on it?
Honestly? Venting. Looking for validation that even though there were "story reasons" for it, I wouldn't be alone thinking its wrong. This is "general discussion" so I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just a crowd to listen to me whine honestly lol
I respect your honesty, and can understand the desire to vent. Best of luck with your group. I hope these issues don't continue
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While I am aware that this will likely be an uncomfortable thing to do, I think my advice would be to talk to them. Of course, they are your best friend and you will have a better insight into how they are going to react, but a private discussion away from the table would be my approach with almost all of my good friends. How that discussion is handled would depend on the friend, but most of mine would react best to being told that you noticed players at the table looking irritated at the imbalance, and offering advice on how to "fix" it.
The way you explain it, I would pretty much expect a "I know, I'm really sorry, but she was making my life a misery at home, what else could I do?" or something similar.
Damn. Like... this would be egregious if the DM just balanced her out to a 10 on both stats, but to give her a +4 to both and still let her get an ASI on top of that? I can understand that this is probably a weird situation for the DM to be in, but this was just poorly handled.
The way you explain it, I would pretty much expect a "I know, I'm really sorry, but she was making my life a misery at home, what else could I do?" or something similar.
Yeeeeeah, She's our friend too, but she can get SUPER competitive even in a supposedly Co-op game. She wants to be the best at everything and the fact that she was so far behind (-1 to persuasion as opposed to the bard's +12) must have been KILLING her lol
Bad call by the DM. I know you said you just wanted to vent, but you should really consider emailing ( or otherwise contacting) the DM privately. Just really non-confrontationally, but let them know that you, and the rest of the party, is unhappy with the situation. It’s already done and would, at this point, be unfair to the monk to take it back, but ask that in the future, they don’t continue this kind of favoritism. You could even approach it giving the DM the benefit of the doubt, that they didn’t think through how much more they ended up giving this one character, and that it being their wife makes it look even worse.
As a friend of 15 years, you’re probably best positioned to be the one to say it.
"It doesn't matter how powerful it is as long as it doesn't hit you."
Yeah, it's probably player management, however, I would say, a "more powerful character" doesn't necessarily mean a more effective character. Humanity has been outsmarting more physically impressive creatures for millennia. It's about how cunning and canny you are a person more than it is the numbers attached to the character sheet.
It doesn't sound like she's the sharpest operator. You should be fine.
Yes it is a really bum move by the DM but she is his wife, and the reality is that she would probably make his life a misery otherwise. That is the downside when you have one partner playing and the other as DM.
Hmm... it might be worth having a group meeting and explaining the issue to the DM's wife, too. Not confrontationally, of course; just to (officially) find out from her whether she was frustrated with her character's low mental abilities in comparison to the specialists, then compare the characters. Look both at where her monk is weaker than the others, and where her monk is stronger than the others, and have the group explain the decisions that went into each character's point buy and how they impact relative strength. Make sure that she knows that everyone has the same pool to draw from, and that her monk excels where others falter because they falter where others excel. And if she's frustrated with her choices, then help her rebalance her character in a way that puts the weaknesses in places she doesn't actually mind being weak, maybe tuning her strengths down a teensy bit in the process. After all, storywise, her Monk's head being so messed up is likely affecting muscle inhibition, and undoing the damage would logically affect that, right?
Perhaps something like the Bard's player explaining, e.g., "My Bard is more persuasive than your Monk, yes, but they also can't take a hit nearly as well, and can't hit even half as hard, either. I made my Bard weak there so they could be more persuasive," would help her put her Monk in perspective, and understand the balance decisions at play here. Then, if she wants to, the group can help her rebalance her stats to be better in the mental sphere at minimal loss to her physical performance. (Assuming 8/15/15/8/15/8 point buy, standard Simic Hybrid stats (+2 Con, +1 floating), and two floating ASIs used for offense, we could easily drop Con and the other odd stat by 1 each to raise Int and Cha to 10 each with zero impact on physical capability, letting her put the free reward ASI into Cha to up her Persuasion bonus to +1.)
Apart from that, it might also be worth getting the DM to look into allowing the "Skills with Different Abilities" variant (PHB pg.175) for the group, as an alternative solution that requires less messing with stats. Assuming she's been treating her Monk as being wise/insightful/etc., it'd make sense for her (the Monk) to be able to read people and figure out what to say to get them to listen (as Wisdom (Persuasion) instead of the usual Charisma (Persuasion)), right?
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So I play in a campaign where we all used point buy to build our characters. We've been playing in it since level 1 and are now at 11 (we been going a while).
Our Monk's backstory has her as a failed experiment to engineer a perfect race, combining abilities from other races (A flavored version of Ravnica's Simic Hybrid Race). Part of the experiment had her brain jumbled making her intelligence and charisma low (backstory justification for low ability scores).
Recently in our campaign, we saved a nation and one of the cleric leaders offered us all a boon of a free ASI of our choice! When it came to Monk's turn to choose she said "instead of ASI, can I get you to fix my head? (in so many words)" cleric guy said "of course, don't even count this as your gift cause I can do it easily" and cast "regenerate" on her head fixing the scrambling. The DM made her 8's in CHA and INT into 12's saying it was "for a special circumstance"
Normally I don't question things at the table, but this didn't sit right cause she essentially just got a +8 to ability scores while the rest of the table got +2. We all used pointbuy for the SOLE PURPOSE of creating equal characters and with that free +8, she just has an objectively, "better character" now. I pretty much just said "Can I be a special circumstance too??" and DM just laughed it all off as a joke but the rest of the table all exchanged knowing looks.
And I should also mention... Monk is DM's wife.
This is absolutely not ok. Backstories are for plot hooks, not becoming more powerful. As an example here, the clerics helping to repair her jumbled brain could have been used as the in-game explanation for her INT or CHA going up to 10. Giving her 5 ASIs (those four plus she gets an extra) to everyone else's 1 is just DM favoritism.
Note that the monk is 100% in the clear, here. Asking for help with her messed up innards is completely in-character and it makes sense for her to ask for it. The problem is how the DM resolved the mechanics of the clerics agreeing to try, particularly since the result of their spellcasting didn't also "fix" the other issues that caused her to be a Simic Hybrid. Had the DM functionally had the clerics use Reincarnate on her to "fix" being a Simic Hybrid, that would have been far more reasonable, from both a balance perspective and an immersion perspective (either being a Hybrid is something the spell can fix or it can't - letting it only fix part of her is well beyond the scope of healing magic below level 9, since you're well into True Polymorph territory if you can permanently "fix" only the parts of someone's body you dislike).
Not cool.
The DM gave one PC something that was not offered or given to the other PCs. I agree with the above poster, a backstory is not there for you to become more powerful. I also don't think it's there for plot hooks, although the DM could use it for them if he/she wants. A background is there to explain why your character is participating in the adventures. Period. Anything else the player adds is optional, and up to the player, but it shouldn't be something that leads to the character gaining better stats compared to other PCs.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Sounds like the DM made a bad call there. It sits kinda badly for me, regardless of the DM and the players OOC relationship.
How sneaky is your DM? It's possible that they have something planned here (hence laughing off your request) and it's not going to go well for the Monk. Maybe they've had something implanted in their mind, for example, which will drive the next series of plothooks?
It's also possible the monk player was complaining about bad scores and was contemplating leaving because of it. There are two sides to the "partner of the DM" argument - on one side, they might get favoritism, and on the other they might be playing so they get to spend the time with their hubby more than because they are really into the game. It doesn't stop them contributing, but they might have expressed their dismay at low scores and the DM, wrongly, said they could have it increased.
I also feel like it would have been far better if they had counted this as their gift, getting it for free is somewhat bleh.
In short; slim possibility it's a nefarious plot the DM is hatching, depending on how your DM rolls. Larger chance it was a poor decision by the DM, but possibly done for the greater good of keeping the party together. The best thing for this is probably to let it slide. 12's instead of 8's isn't going to break the game, and if a player gets a magic item that ups their strength to 20 or intelligence to 18 it'll make a larger impact. There's no tests that involve adding up the score modifiers, so going from below-average to above-average in two scores shouldn't cripple the game.
I can see how it makes things feel unbalanced, but it might have been done for the best reasons. Just don't let it slide a second time.
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Definitely a bad call by the DM. The monk player used their backstory as an excuse to say "it's not my fault" for her having intentionally made her character have those low scores in order to raise other abilities to higher scores. That's no different than randomly rolling stats and putting a 6 in intelligence then saying it's because your character was dropped on their head as a baby and a greater restoration spell should "restore" their intelligence to the 18 that they "were born with."
Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, may be worth a private conversation with the dm.
it would probably bother me less if they got a push to 10 instead of 12 (fixing making you average). That said depending on how the stats were affecting gameplay, could they have been trying to solve a problem at the table?
As others have noted, 8-12 should have less impact than 12-16 would on balance since it doesn't step on the toes of high int or high Cha players.
This does feel bad. It is a massive bonus to one character in a situation billed as everyone being offered the same.
I do think this needs a discussion with the DM. If you read the other players at the table correctly, this will result in some resentment and bad feeling which needs addressing. It'll be a tough topic to raise, though.
I will state this in terms a tad stronger that everyone else.
Your DM is terrible, showing such massive favouritism to one player. I have lost it on the DM.
The DM has been my best friend for like ~15 years so I'm pretty confident on why he did this. The Monk(wife) REALLY HATES when things don't pan out her way and doesn't understand the idea of checks-and-balances when it comes to dnd. with point buy, she built her character min-max (3x 15's and 3x 8's) and I 100% believe the out-of-table conversation went along the lines of:
Monk: Yeah, I'm good at fighting, but I don't have good RP skills, its not fair that Bard/rogue and (CHA heavy) figher are always the ones persuading
DM: Well We'll give you this to make it more "fair"
COMPLETELY not understanding that not every character is going to be good at EVERYTHING. Bard/Rogue and Fighter are good at social interactions because we TRADED martial ability for it. She made the decision to max out her combat potential at the expense of social abilities/skills and I for one think she should have to play with that decision.
For my wizard in that same campaign, I wanted him to be a young prodigy, so I made him with +2 in WIS and CHA and +3 (now 4) in Int but i had to give up on str, dex and con. Would i like to have more than 47 HP at level 11? or more than 11 AC? absolutely, but I MADE the decision to do that. Is the DM gonna give me a magic +8 ASI to balance out my wizards frailty? I think not. Then again, I'm not married to him lol
If it already sits funny with you and you are already confident you know why the DM made their decision (and that it is wrong), why are you asking strangers on the internet about their opinions on it?
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OK, I missed the part where the Monk is the DM's wife. Sorry about that.
This is bad. The DM is playing favorites with his wife. That is not acceptable. Just like it would not be acceptable to show favorites to you as the best friend.
DM must be impartial. This DM is not being impartial. He's giving in to his wife who is whining about not getting her way.
It is possible the wife said, "either fix this or I'm not gonna play anymore." And maybe the DM is giving in to that. Depending on the relationship, maybe the wife would not let him play D&D if he didn't include her. I have seen things like this though not with D&D. Friend of mine once had a g/f who wouldn't let him do stuff like go to the movies without her, and managed to ruin a couple of movie nights by not wanting to go see movies the rest of us did... so it was like, "I must go with you if you go, and I won't go see that movie, so we have to see something else." When I saw this happening I just stopped going with them. They saw several movies I don't think he wanted to see at all... and I sure didn't. Luckily he broke up with her after 1 summer, but that summer was kind of vile, in our friendship history.
So maybe something like that is going on too.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Honestly? Venting. Looking for validation that even though there were "story reasons" for it, I wouldn't be alone thinking its wrong. This is "general discussion" so I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just a crowd to listen to me whine honestly lol
I respect your honesty, and can understand the desire to vent. Best of luck with your group. I hope these issues don't continue
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While I am aware that this will likely be an uncomfortable thing to do, I think my advice would be to talk to them. Of course, they are your best friend and you will have a better insight into how they are going to react, but a private discussion away from the table would be my approach with almost all of my good friends. How that discussion is handled would depend on the friend, but most of mine would react best to being told that you noticed players at the table looking irritated at the imbalance, and offering advice on how to "fix" it.
The way you explain it, I would pretty much expect a "I know, I'm really sorry, but she was making my life a misery at home, what else could I do?" or something similar.
Damn. Like... this would be egregious if the DM just balanced her out to a 10 on both stats, but to give her a +4 to both and still let her get an ASI on top of that? I can understand that this is probably a weird situation for the DM to be in, but this was just poorly handled.
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Yeeeeeah, She's our friend too, but she can get SUPER competitive even in a supposedly Co-op game. She wants to be the best at everything and the fact that she was so far behind (-1 to persuasion as opposed to the bard's +12) must have been KILLING her lol
Bad call by the DM.
I know you said you just wanted to vent, but you should really consider emailing ( or otherwise contacting) the DM privately. Just really non-confrontationally, but let them know that you, and the rest of the party, is unhappy with the situation. It’s already done and would, at this point, be unfair to the monk to take it back, but ask that in the future, they don’t continue this kind of favoritism. You could even approach it giving the DM the benefit of the doubt, that they didn’t think through how much more they ended up giving this one character, and that it being their wife makes it look even worse.
As a friend of 15 years, you’re probably best positioned to be the one to say it.
"It doesn't matter how powerful it is as long as it doesn't hit you."
Yeah, it's probably player management, however, I would say, a "more powerful character" doesn't necessarily mean a more effective character. Humanity has been outsmarting more physically impressive creatures for millennia. It's about how cunning and canny you are a person more than it is the numbers attached to the character sheet.
It doesn't sound like she's the sharpest operator. You should be fine.
Yes it is a really bum move by the DM but she is his wife, and the reality is that she would probably make his life a misery otherwise. That is the downside when you have one partner playing and the other as DM.
Hmm... it might be worth having a group meeting and explaining the issue to the DM's wife, too. Not confrontationally, of course; just to (officially) find out from her whether she was frustrated with her character's low mental abilities in comparison to the specialists, then compare the characters. Look both at where her monk is weaker than the others, and where her monk is stronger than the others, and have the group explain the decisions that went into each character's point buy and how they impact relative strength. Make sure that she knows that everyone has the same pool to draw from, and that her monk excels where others falter because they falter where others excel. And if she's frustrated with her choices, then help her rebalance her character in a way that puts the weaknesses in places she doesn't actually mind being weak, maybe tuning her strengths down a teensy bit in the process. After all, storywise, her Monk's head being so messed up is likely affecting muscle inhibition, and undoing the damage would logically affect that, right?
Perhaps something like the Bard's player explaining, e.g., "My Bard is more persuasive than your Monk, yes, but they also can't take a hit nearly as well, and can't hit even half as hard, either. I made my Bard weak there so they could be more persuasive," would help her put her Monk in perspective, and understand the balance decisions at play here. Then, if she wants to, the group can help her rebalance her stats to be better in the mental sphere at minimal loss to her physical performance. (Assuming 8/15/15/8/15/8 point buy, standard Simic Hybrid stats (+2 Con, +1 floating), and two floating ASIs used for offense, we could easily drop Con and the other odd stat by 1 each to raise Int and Cha to 10 each with zero impact on physical capability, letting her put the free reward ASI into Cha to up her Persuasion bonus to +1.)
Apart from that, it might also be worth getting the DM to look into allowing the "Skills with Different Abilities" variant (PHB pg.175) for the group, as an alternative solution that requires less messing with stats. Assuming she's been treating her Monk as being wise/insightful/etc., it'd make sense for her (the Monk) to be able to read people and figure out what to say to get them to listen (as Wisdom (Persuasion) instead of the usual Charisma (Persuasion)), right?