D&D PvP: How to balance one powerful vs two weaker players.

Quote from sabin76 >>

I light of the clarification from the OP, one thing you want to look for is nova mitigation. Casters tend to be one-shot-wonders with their highest spell slot doing the majority of the work, and then reliant on sub-par things for the rest of the battle (until high level, when a level 9 slot is world-ending potential, but levels 6-8 are no slouches either). This is in contrast to martials, for the most part, where they tend to be more consistent. 

One way to deal with this is simply adding HP to everyone. This will prolong the fight and make everyone use more resources to get the job done. It's not great, but this is honestly a very hard problem to solve because the handicaps you employ will depend a lot on the classes involved.

How much health would you add if I went with this idea?

Quote from Shalvael >>

Quote from sabin76 >>

I light of the clarification from the OP, one thing you want to look for is nova mitigation. Casters tend to be one-shot-wonders with their highest spell slot doing the majority of the work, and then reliant on sub-par things for the rest of the battle (until high level, when a level 9 slot is world-ending potential, but levels 6-8 are no slouches either). This is in contrast to martials, for the most part, where they tend to be more consistent. 

One way to deal with this is simply adding HP to everyone. This will prolong the fight and make everyone use more resources to get the job done. It's not great, but this is honestly a very hard problem to solve because the handicaps you employ will depend a lot on the classes involved.

 

How much health would you add if I went with this idea?

 

I'd start by doubling it. Beyond that, you are probably going to have to run a few scenarios yourself. Things like ADV on all saves might also help prolong the fight (and better combat control spells), but you'd have to see if any players are getting that natively and give them another boon to make up for everyone getting their shtick.

If you're interested, you can find the videos of the PvP battle royale on youtube for some ideas (called NPC Grudge Match). Off the top of my head, the battle map was set up as quadrants and there were environmental hazards in each one, chests with items and potions popped up randomly, and I think there was some kind of escalation mechanic.

While searching for the title of the video for you, it looks like Matt Mercer also ran a battle royale, though I'm not sure if it was DnD or how modified it was. Note that both of these are as much for entertaining viewers as they are for entertaining the players.

Quote from heydanseegil >>

This is exactly what I was saying. Only one of the potions becomes permanent, but after that it is a permanent effect. You are no longer mixing potions and you have that effect indefinitely because it was metabolized.

 After that it is a potion with permanent duration. Nothing in the rules says that it isn't still a potion, or that it now ignores the potion miscibility rules, and given that it's a rule originally from AD&D where it includes a comment about potential bad side effects, I would expect an AD&D DM to gleefully use it against the player.

Quote from Davyd >>

I'm aware of their situation as described and I stand by my advice. Find a different system or find an actual skirmish game.

You are right that D&D was not designed for PvP. This does not mean that doing something fun with a game is a terrible idea simply because it is less orderly and not the original intent. The 2v1 will inevitably not be a perfect system but is a fun concept people who love D&D want to try. I will not give up on a fun idea simply because it has some logistical problems. A lot of the funnest experiences people have in D&D are the chaotic and uniques scenes rather than the practical ones.

The point we're trying to get across that you seem to be missing is that while the idea might seem fun, the actual practice is going to be significantly less entertaining and you'd most likely have a lot more fun trying out some other game system that's actually built for PVP.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from heydanseegil >>

This is exactly what I was saying. Only one of the potions becomes permanent, but after that it is a permanent effect. You are no longer mixing potions and you have that effect indefinitely because it was metabolized.

 After that it is a potion with permanent duration. Nothing in the rules says that it isn't still a potion, or that it now ignores the potion miscibility rules, and given that it's a rule originally from AD&D where it includes a comment about potential bad side effects, I would expect an AD&D DM to gleefully use it against the player.

Talk about having terrible indigestion with a belly full of unabsorbed potion ready to cause a reaction if you roll a 00 on Miscibility. It also turns even beneficial Miscibility roll into a negative because now you cannot consume any other potion at the risk of possibly blowing up.

You are correct about the AD&D rules but no one is still factoring in armor rotting nor the time it takes to actually transcribe spells at level up. Plus, those negative effects said there still had to be liquid to directly interact with and not metabolized i.e. made permanent; but they also gave more plausible negative effects if you wanted to restrict it like transforming the mixture into poison.

With respect to you and the DMG I think all of it falls under DM discretion per the rule for dispelling the effects. If the DM feels it is game breaking okay. ...But let's be real here if you as a DM gave your Alchemist enough downtime to pull this off multiple times over then it is either something you know how to plan encounters around or bad DMing. I do allow my Players to try to break my game as a DM and I adapt around it. The last time I ran my adventure they actually were able to convince the captain to drop them off outside of New Fork rather than making port. Then the Ratkin (Ratish/Ratican.. haven't decided which yet) infiltrated their camp after realizing they weren't on the ship the next day and took them as slaves erasing their memories anyway. They had a good few days and nearly got massacred by a Giant Bald Eagle. It was hilarious the Monk climbed a tree to throw daggers at it as it snatched one of them up taking them high into the sky before dropping them. It was a solid encounter.