I still want to know how the char has an innate +11 to hit, at level 8. Something else is very wrong in this game.
Yeah, they seem to be pulling an extra +3 from somewhere. Str + prof = 5 + 3 = 8. Any chance they thought they could apply expertise to a weapon skill? Or fast talked the DM into allowing them to do so? That would be 5 + 3x2 = 5 + 6 = 11.
Clearly the interior of this blade's scabbard is enchanted to perpetually lubricate the sword with oil of sharpness. There's your +3.
In other threads today, I've sort of gone into this DM "if I were a player..." daydream reverie where I play this Hobgoblin War Mage Warcaster multiclassed with Barbarian (and maybe Warlock) who rides a War Tyrannosaurus Rex ... who adventures specifically to acquire examples and knowledge of magical weapons of mass destruction. I'm going to call it a night by declaring I want my weaponized dinosaur riding Hobgoblin Magic Rage Tank WMD seeker to fight this Minotaur and claim its weapon for his people. Defense is Hobgoblinkind's Birthrite and this Minotaur's subterfuge has presented an existential threat that must be contended with.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
So... I don't disagree with the idea that the sword needs to be taken away... But all these sugggestions that involves some random anti-weapon monster just showing up and killing the pc/takin the sword away seem rather short sighted and mean spirited tbh.
I think that fact that a player ends up a weapon like that (at lvl 7 no less) hints at a much larger problem with how the game is being played... First of all, the DM should take a step back and consider why they allowed this to happen.. Not only why they allowed such an OP weapon to be reachable by the players.. I'd be surprised if this was the only instance of the blanace of the game being thrown overboard if a weapon like this is allowed to exist.
Secondly however.. Why is the player okay with this? If I were to be offered a +5 weapon at lvl 7 as a player I would not accept it... I would ask me DM to reconsider what they're doing... Sure it's fun to be powerful, but this is like getting a cheatcode.
Everyone involved in the group should have seen massive redflags before the weapon was ever used, and the fact that noone apparnetly did means that the way you approach the game is probably much too easily abusable.
Instead of just ripping the weapon away from the player (Or even worse just killing the character).. Sit down with your group and have a talk about game balance and the fact that it's clearly gone way off the rails here... Then explain that you need to scale down the powerlevel of the weapon (and probably other things too).. Make it a +2 or something... I think it's important that the player understands and to some degree accepts the reasoning.. You don't want this to feel like an attack after all.
That is certainly a possiblity, which is kinda what I was trying to get at... If the reason the player is okay with this.. is that they basically manipulated the DM into letting them "cheat"... Then the problem goes way beyond an OP sword, and won't be solved just by taking the weapon away... Sounds like the dynamic of the group and the way they approach the game needs to readjusted.
The game shouldn't be a battle between the DM and the players after all... It should be a cooperative experience.
Going back to how to combat an insanely high Attack bonus: give the mobs high HP, resistance, immunity or side effects or simply flying speed to put them out of reach.
Have a look at slimes and flame skulls for ideas how that works with low lvl mobs.
Kobolds... Sure he might one-shot them... But that does very little to the fact that they are legion... Death by a thousand cuts. That or zombies... maybe drawn to the power of the sword to explain why they focus on him.
But yes... talking first is generally a good idea. If that does not work.. retcon... if that does not work... PK the living heck out of the person. You can always review them if needed.. Just one sword less in the inventory.
My DM was throwing literal armies and demon lords at my overpowered party every single day in a recent campaign. That almost caused several TPKs. Just do that and make him fight armies.
So... I don't disagree with the idea that the sword needs to be taken away... But all these sugggestions that involves some random anti-weapon monster just showing up and killing the pc/takin the sword away seem rather short sighted and mean spirited tbh.
I agree.
Which is why I said, step 1 is to explain to the player that as a newbie DM, I have mistakenly allowed you to have an item that is overpowered. I cop to this mistake, and I shouldn't have done it, but it is worse to let it continue, because it is breaking the game. An honest and fair-minded player will have seen already that this is the case. A less observant player might not have noticed or realized (or maybe the DM has been able to cover in a frantic mad dash each battle so far). The DM explains that this isn't working, and the sword needs to be retconned or nerfed or whatever you want to say. I would like to reduce the bonus to +2. Since the PCs don't, in character, know how much "+" a sword is, just that it is a "powerful magical weapon", we don't even need to RP about it. Just have the "powerful magic sword" translate to +2 now, instead of +5. As a compensation I might be willing to let the PC get some (not most, but some) of the cash back that was spent to have it made. Explain we don't normally do retcons like this, but a retcon in this case is preferable to continuing to have a broken campaign.
Only if the player stubbornly disagrees with this and refuses to accept it gracefully, complaining, whining, objecting, insisting, demanding, etc., to be allowed to keep the +5 sword -- only if the player demonstrates to not being honest and fair-minded, but rather, wanting to be overpowered and run roughshod of the campaign -- would I resort to in-character consequences as a response. My suggestion of things like, giving the NPCs the same +16 to hit that he has, only more attacks with it, was to demonstrate to an uncooperative player why what he has is broken.
I did this once with my Champions game. There was a skill (now a "Talent") called "Find Weakness." When you took the skill you could name any attack that it worked with, and you could spend half a phase (turn in combat) "Finding the weakness" of your enemy. It was about a 55% chance (11 on 3d6 base) to succeed. If you did, the enemy's defense was halved. Also at the same time, Martial Arts allowed you to do double HTH damage with a kick, with a slight minus to hit, or 1.5x HTH damage with a punch, with no penalty to hit. This guy had 7d6 HTH damage, so his kick was 14D6 (which was cap for the campaign), punch was 11D6.
The normal thing to do at the time was for Martial Artists to use Find Weakness with punch. This made the punch an effective ability, which it would not have been without that -- but this player decided his character, Assaulter, would have FW on the kick instead. He then just always kicked and never punched in battle. The FW was insanely powerful, and I grumbled about it a little but, and suggested he change it. He was fair-minded but didn't see how much damage it was doing because I was the one behind the GM screen. So finally, I had them fight this villain named Executioner, and gave him a 14D6 kick with Find Weakness. He also had this psychological limitation that he had to prove himself a better HTH combatant than anyone on the field so when he saw Assaulter doing martial arts, he made a beeline to him to have a duel. Assaulter was game for this, so with the battle raging around them, they kind of started a Jet Li vs. Jackie Chan martial arts duel. First thing Executioner, who went first, did, was find Assaulter's weakness, cut his defense in half, and do a 14D6 attack vs. halved defense. I rolled a little high, and that one kick broke bones (it did BODY damage), and Stunned Assaulter (who as a martial artist did not have very high physical defenses).
Assaulter's player said something like, "Holy cow, that was some attack." I responded, "That was a 14D6 Find-Weakness kick, same as you."
The player thought for a second and said, "You mean that is what my kick has been doing all this time?" "Yes," I said. He then said, "OK, I think I need to move the Find Weakness to punch instead, after this adventure is over -- that's just nuts."
This is why I say - reason first, but if they won't see reason, then maybe show them WHY this is insane. Even if for some reason the +16 attacks don't fell the minotaur, if he sees the party around him dropping like flies because of these hyper-powered attacks, maybe, just maybe, he will see reason and realize this is not appropriate at this level. And if HE doesn't see reason, the other players sure will, and peer pressure might do the job for ya.
Talk first, always. But if players won't see reason about things, then sometimes you have to bring it in game. One way or another, overpowered attacks have to be taken out of the game.
And yes, the DM could just say "your sword is +2 now, like it or not," but I think it's necessary here to have player buy-in. Best case, buy-in happens from a talk and reasonable behavior. Worst case, buy-in happens after you demonstrate what will occur if it doesn't.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
To give a +5 weapon to a level 8 player is gross incompetence by the DM. Sit down, read the loot tables and the DM needs to ask oneself how come there are no +4 or +5 weapons in 5th edition, how come the random loot tables by CR don't give +2 weapons for level 8's let alone +5 weapons and lastly the DM needs to look up Monty Haul Campaign because that is exactly what the DM is running.
The DM made a mistake. Tell the player, "I MADE A MISTAKE." Then tell the player to down grade the weapon to a +1 or +2. IF the Player says "no YOU GAVE IT TO ME. And I not giving it up. You can't make me." Instead of taking it away from the player in game, go directly to "YOU are not allow at my table." Why do I say this? Because I have given OP weapons to players. It was easier to ban the player until they compile than getting rid of the OP thing in game. Some problems can be corrected in games. Some problems must be corrected out of game.
I don't think we should dwell to much on the "how" the weapon arrived, since that's not entirely clear from the OP. Maybe the DM nodded along approving the construction of this weapon. Maybe the player showed up with a character they've claimed to play before and got the weapon in another game ... and the DM may be new enough to not review the sheet.
As for what to do, all the in game solutions strike a bit too much of "DM's Revenge." Since we're talking about something that shouldn't have happened, handling it in a game where such a weapon shouldn't exist actually harms the game (and puts the rest of the party through the grinder too or burns their game time on the sidelines). I think an out of game correction and rework of the weapon should be done, agreeing with Mamastoast.
Early in game, it's common especially with new players or new groups to review the character between sessions and many DMs allow or sometime encourage some stat swapping. For example a character who wanted their character to be street smart and clever dumping WIS and/or CHR in favor of INT, where if we look at the relevant proficiencies is INT is the space of books smart and the WIS/CHR is more the space for wit and savoir faire. While I don't know if 7th or 8th level is the right time for a game to start playing with crafting their own magic items, I do think when a group enters the space where they have acquired the power to craft magic ... a similar review period might be useful for both player and DM.
All that said, I still want to fight this Minotaur with a Hobgoblin Wizard Barbarian riding a T-Rex.
Just tacking this on to the existing conversation:
A +5 Magic Weapon might cost as much as 5,000,000gp, if we extrapolate from the rarity table.
At 8 hours per 25gp, it should take 200,000 8hr days to produce...
Even if we assume that the four craftsmen can simply divide the work, and have some talent that let's them cut the crafting time in half, that is still 25,000 work days... or 68.5 years...
Having any magic item custom made is no joke, but it's pretty nonsensical for _any_ character to have a +5 weapon made, even if they were given nearly infinite wealth.
Near immortal minotaur who made some very sound investments prior to taking up a life of adventuring.
To tack onto Memnosyne's tacking of costs and time ... I just reviewed the materials required to forge an artifact based around a Vorpal sword. I could see a whole campaign involved in just getting the basic materials and locating the talent to forge it, side quests involving protecting the raw materials. I'm having trouble finding the table, but if we presume the cost is labor + materials maybe it's only 34.25 years...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
At this point I think we need the OP to come in here and give us some additional details, since some of our recommendations may or may not be possible (example: telling your husband "you are not welcome at my table any more", that kind of thing).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I have a player in my campaign that is hitting for +16 to hit. I'm not exaggerating.
He is a minotaur fighter with 20 STR, holding a +5 to hit magical greatsword he had made for him. He hired three master dwarven smiths and a legendary enchanter to do it.
At level 8, there should be no way for him to do that.
Is it even possible?!
Help! He is breaking me, the DM. There is literally NOTHING he cannot hit, and if I tailor any monsters to combat this, they will destroy the rest of the party.
Note: there were two instances where he nearly fell to inferior opponents: a green hag that put him.in a magical headlock and AOE nearly one hit KO. The other was when a T-rex got him grappled in its jaws and nearly shook him to death. Only two times. He got the sword at level 7.
So wait..
You: I gave my friend a stick. I told him, "see if you can do damage with it. Hit anything. I dare you. See if you can hit me in fact!"
Your friend:'hits you with the stick'. He follows you around and seemingly at random, 'hits you with a stick'.
You: "I'm not sure what to do. The stick is causing damage. Something must change!"
Me:
Best option - "You aren't my friend anymore. You're abusing my generosity. Either stop or I'll have to remove you or myself, from the situation"
Second best option - Take the stick away or let him keep it and tell him to stop hitting things with the stick. If he doesn't, take the stick away. If that doesn't work, see best option (above).
Worst option - He keeps the stick. Reread entire post from top to bottom.
Have him fight things that don't give a shit about AC. Things that don't care much about what your +to hit is. Like a bridge over a 400ft. chasm. Acrobatics checks. Improper climbing gear. Less than 'dexterous' - you're either up shits creek or you simply can't overcome this obstacle.
Flying monsters that he can't reach that cause Intelligence saves or your mind explodes. You mention other players being stomped by over-powered things - well your wizard might be fine with flying + int saves.
Stop thinking in terms of "how do I overcome a +16 to hit." Don't have hitting something be a requirement for success. What if the thing is invulnerable until the rest of the group solves a puzzle? In the meantime, tell your friend, "don't even bother rolling. You cant hurt this thing until you figure out meh."
Incorporeal. Things that are neither here nor there. Things that roam the 1/2 way place of the world. Your +16 to hit isn't even affecting something that doesn't have a true AC. If it does, its AC 44 - seeing as it's 'hard to hit because it's not all here.'
Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Ever feel like a TV dinner? The fight takes place in a 2.5 x 2.5 foot tunnel. Gnomes, halflings, and the shapeshifting badger druid are fine. Greatsword attacks..not so much.
Fight a creature that has immunity to slashing damage. Bludgeoning, piercing, and magical attacks from non-slashing are fine. This makes other characters shine but your mighty greatsword guy - useless.
I've got nothin' for ya if:
You made your bed now you don't want to sleep in it.
You can't think outside the box as it relates to combat, obstacles, and challenges. If you can only think in terms of hit points, hit ratios, and armor class, you're doing it wrong. And I never like to say anyone is doing it wrong in D&D. Combat and challenging gameplay is so much more than that.
Honestly OP, I would just find a way to wrap up the campaign. If your mino-munchkin has a +5 weapon that's more likely indicative of a severely unbalanced game than a player who's simply taking advantage of a newbie DM -- although I'm sure both are the case. Introduce a BBEG in the next session and have them fight it, giving the group some closure, and then start completely fresh on a new campaign. This happens all the time and if you're a new DM it's to be expected, you're still learning. Letting this campaign continue, however, will likely alienate your core players and make then not want to return for the next session.
Also, before you start your next campaign you need to go over the PHB and DMG with a fine toothed comb. You're the DM, you're expected to be the best at the rules. If a player walks all over you and somehow acquires a +5 weapon you only have yourself to blame. And when dealing with those pesky players always remember rule 0: what the DM says goes. If they continue to argue give them the boot. Chances are your other players will agree with you.
One more thing: avoid magic items almost entirely. The game is balanced enough without them. As a rule of thumb I dont introduce magic items into my campaign until at least level 5. Even then it's only one or two items spread across the entire party.
Simple solution: sic 8ish Rust Monsters on the party.
LOL... that is funny, but mean...
I mean, having a +5 sword at level 8 makes them kind of deserve it.
I think a player that bullied themselves into getting a +5 weapon isn't going to give a crap about ingame methods like rust monsters. They're going to keep bullying to ensure they stay as powerful as possible.
The only viable solution is to end this campaign and start fresh.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Clearly the interior of this blade's scabbard is enchanted to perpetually lubricate the sword with oil of sharpness. There's your +3.
In other threads today, I've sort of gone into this DM "if I were a player..." daydream reverie where I play this Hobgoblin War Mage Warcaster multiclassed with Barbarian (and maybe Warlock) who rides a War Tyrannosaurus Rex ... who adventures specifically to acquire examples and knowledge of magical weapons of mass destruction. I'm going to call it a night by declaring I want my weaponized dinosaur riding Hobgoblin Magic Rage Tank WMD seeker to fight this Minotaur and claim its weapon for his people. Defense is Hobgoblinkind's Birthrite and this Minotaur's subterfuge has presented an existential threat that must be contended with.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
So... I don't disagree with the idea that the sword needs to be taken away... But all these sugggestions that involves some random anti-weapon monster just showing up and killing the pc/takin the sword away seem rather short sighted and mean spirited tbh.
I think that fact that a player ends up a weapon like that (at lvl 7 no less) hints at a much larger problem with how the game is being played... First of all, the DM should take a step back and consider why they allowed this to happen.. Not only why they allowed such an OP weapon to be reachable by the players.. I'd be surprised if this was the only instance of the blanace of the game being thrown overboard if a weapon like this is allowed to exist.
Secondly however.. Why is the player okay with this? If I were to be offered a +5 weapon at lvl 7 as a player I would not accept it... I would ask me DM to reconsider what they're doing... Sure it's fun to be powerful, but this is like getting a cheatcode.
Everyone involved in the group should have seen massive redflags before the weapon was ever used, and the fact that noone apparnetly did means that the way you approach the game is probably much too easily abusable.
Instead of just ripping the weapon away from the player (Or even worse just killing the character).. Sit down with your group and have a talk about game balance and the fact that it's clearly gone way off the rails here... Then explain that you need to scale down the powerlevel of the weapon (and probably other things too).. Make it a +2 or something... I think it's important that the player understands and to some degree accepts the reasoning.. You don't want this to feel like an attack after all.
That is certainly a possiblity, which is kinda what I was trying to get at... If the reason the player is okay with this.. is that they basically manipulated the DM into letting them "cheat"... Then the problem goes way beyond an OP sword, and won't be solved just by taking the weapon away... Sounds like the dynamic of the group and the way they approach the game needs to readjusted.
The game shouldn't be a battle between the DM and the players after all... It should be a cooperative experience.
Going back to how to combat an insanely high Attack bonus: give the mobs high HP, resistance, immunity or side effects or simply flying speed to put them out of reach.
Have a look at slimes and flame skulls for ideas how that works with low lvl mobs.
Or if death is actually the only way out...
Kobolds... Sure he might one-shot them... But that does very little to the fact that they are legion... Death by a thousand cuts. That or zombies... maybe drawn to the power of the sword to explain why they focus on him.
But yes... talking first is generally a good idea. If that does not work.. retcon... if that does not work... PK the living heck out of the person. You can always review them if needed.. Just one sword less in the inventory.
My DM was throwing literal armies and demon lords at my overpowered party every single day in a recent campaign. That almost caused several TPKs. Just do that and make him fight armies.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Use existing items/spells as a guideline for crafted ones.
Tier 1: lvl 1 to 5 : no better then uncommon
Tier 2: lvl 6 to 10: no better then rare
Tier 3: lvl 11 to 15: no better then very rare
Tier 4: lvl 16 to 20: no better then legendary
And even those grades should be the exceptions and not the norm.
I agree.
Which is why I said, step 1 is to explain to the player that as a newbie DM, I have mistakenly allowed you to have an item that is overpowered. I cop to this mistake, and I shouldn't have done it, but it is worse to let it continue, because it is breaking the game. An honest and fair-minded player will have seen already that this is the case. A less observant player might not have noticed or realized (or maybe the DM has been able to cover in a frantic mad dash each battle so far). The DM explains that this isn't working, and the sword needs to be retconned or nerfed or whatever you want to say. I would like to reduce the bonus to +2. Since the PCs don't, in character, know how much "+" a sword is, just that it is a "powerful magical weapon", we don't even need to RP about it. Just have the "powerful magic sword" translate to +2 now, instead of +5. As a compensation I might be willing to let the PC get some (not most, but some) of the cash back that was spent to have it made. Explain we don't normally do retcons like this, but a retcon in this case is preferable to continuing to have a broken campaign.
Only if the player stubbornly disagrees with this and refuses to accept it gracefully, complaining, whining, objecting, insisting, demanding, etc., to be allowed to keep the +5 sword -- only if the player demonstrates to not being honest and fair-minded, but rather, wanting to be overpowered and run roughshod of the campaign -- would I resort to in-character consequences as a response. My suggestion of things like, giving the NPCs the same +16 to hit that he has, only more attacks with it, was to demonstrate to an uncooperative player why what he has is broken.
I did this once with my Champions game. There was a skill (now a "Talent") called "Find Weakness." When you took the skill you could name any attack that it worked with, and you could spend half a phase (turn in combat) "Finding the weakness" of your enemy. It was about a 55% chance (11 on 3d6 base) to succeed. If you did, the enemy's defense was halved. Also at the same time, Martial Arts allowed you to do double HTH damage with a kick, with a slight minus to hit, or 1.5x HTH damage with a punch, with no penalty to hit. This guy had 7d6 HTH damage, so his kick was 14D6 (which was cap for the campaign), punch was 11D6.
The normal thing to do at the time was for Martial Artists to use Find Weakness with punch. This made the punch an effective ability, which it would not have been without that -- but this player decided his character, Assaulter, would have FW on the kick instead. He then just always kicked and never punched in battle. The FW was insanely powerful, and I grumbled about it a little but, and suggested he change it. He was fair-minded but didn't see how much damage it was doing because I was the one behind the GM screen. So finally, I had them fight this villain named Executioner, and gave him a 14D6 kick with Find Weakness. He also had this psychological limitation that he had to prove himself a better HTH combatant than anyone on the field so when he saw Assaulter doing martial arts, he made a beeline to him to have a duel. Assaulter was game for this, so with the battle raging around them, they kind of started a Jet Li vs. Jackie Chan martial arts duel. First thing Executioner, who went first, did, was find Assaulter's weakness, cut his defense in half, and do a 14D6 attack vs. halved defense. I rolled a little high, and that one kick broke bones (it did BODY damage), and Stunned Assaulter (who as a martial artist did not have very high physical defenses).
Assaulter's player said something like, "Holy cow, that was some attack." I responded, "That was a 14D6 Find-Weakness kick, same as you."
The player thought for a second and said, "You mean that is what my kick has been doing all this time?" "Yes," I said. He then said, "OK, I think I need to move the Find Weakness to punch instead, after this adventure is over -- that's just nuts."
This is why I say - reason first, but if they won't see reason, then maybe show them WHY this is insane. Even if for some reason the +16 attacks don't fell the minotaur, if he sees the party around him dropping like flies because of these hyper-powered attacks, maybe, just maybe, he will see reason and realize this is not appropriate at this level. And if HE doesn't see reason, the other players sure will, and peer pressure might do the job for ya.
Talk first, always. But if players won't see reason about things, then sometimes you have to bring it in game. One way or another, overpowered attacks have to be taken out of the game.
And yes, the DM could just say "your sword is +2 now, like it or not," but I think it's necessary here to have player buy-in. Best case, buy-in happens from a talk and reasonable behavior. Worst case, buy-in happens after you demonstrate what will occur if it doesn't.
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.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
To give a +5 weapon to a level 8 player is gross incompetence by the DM. Sit down, read the loot tables and the DM needs to ask oneself how come there are no +4 or +5 weapons in 5th edition, how come the random loot tables by CR don't give +2 weapons for level 8's let alone +5 weapons and lastly the DM needs to look up Monty Haul Campaign because that is exactly what the DM is running.
The DM made a mistake. Tell the player, "I MADE A MISTAKE." Then tell the player to down grade the weapon to a +1 or +2. IF the Player says "no YOU GAVE IT TO ME. And I not giving it up. You can't make me." Instead of taking it away from the player in game, go directly to "YOU are not allow at my table." Why do I say this? Because I have given OP weapons to players. It was easier to ban the player until they compile than getting rid of the OP thing in game. Some problems can be corrected in games. Some problems must be corrected out of game.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
I don't think we should dwell to much on the "how" the weapon arrived, since that's not entirely clear from the OP. Maybe the DM nodded along approving the construction of this weapon. Maybe the player showed up with a character they've claimed to play before and got the weapon in another game ... and the DM may be new enough to not review the sheet.
As for what to do, all the in game solutions strike a bit too much of "DM's Revenge." Since we're talking about something that shouldn't have happened, handling it in a game where such a weapon shouldn't exist actually harms the game (and puts the rest of the party through the grinder too or burns their game time on the sidelines). I think an out of game correction and rework of the weapon should be done, agreeing with Mamastoast.
Early in game, it's common especially with new players or new groups to review the character between sessions and many DMs allow or sometime encourage some stat swapping. For example a character who wanted their character to be street smart and clever dumping WIS and/or CHR in favor of INT, where if we look at the relevant proficiencies is INT is the space of books smart and the WIS/CHR is more the space for wit and savoir faire. While I don't know if 7th or 8th level is the right time for a game to start playing with crafting their own magic items, I do think when a group enters the space where they have acquired the power to craft magic ... a similar review period might be useful for both player and DM.
All that said, I still want to fight this Minotaur with a Hobgoblin Wizard Barbarian riding a T-Rex.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Just tacking this on to the existing conversation:
A +5 Magic Weapon might cost as much as 5,000,000gp, if we extrapolate from the rarity table.
At 8 hours per 25gp, it should take 200,000 8hr days to produce...
Even if we assume that the four craftsmen can simply divide the work, and have some talent that let's them cut the crafting time in half, that is still 25,000 work days... or 68.5 years...
Having any magic item custom made is no joke, but it's pretty nonsensical for _any_ character to have a +5 weapon made, even if they were given nearly infinite wealth.
Near immortal minotaur who made some very sound investments prior to taking up a life of adventuring.
To tack onto Memnosyne's tacking of costs and time ... I just reviewed the materials required to forge an artifact based around a Vorpal sword. I could see a whole campaign involved in just getting the basic materials and locating the talent to forge it, side quests involving protecting the raw materials. I'm having trouble finding the table, but if we presume the cost is labor + materials maybe it's only 34.25 years...
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
At this point I think we need the OP to come in here and give us some additional details, since some of our recommendations may or may not be possible (example: telling your husband "you are not welcome at my table any more", that kind of thing).
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.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
So wait..
You: I gave my friend a stick. I told him, "see if you can do damage with it. Hit anything. I dare you. See if you can hit me in fact!"
Your friend: 'hits you with the stick'. He follows you around and seemingly at random, 'hits you with a stick'.
You: "I'm not sure what to do. The stick is causing damage. Something must change!"
Me:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, to offer some D&D specific solutions:
I've got nothin' for ya if:
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Honestly OP, I would just find a way to wrap up the campaign. If your mino-munchkin has a +5 weapon that's more likely indicative of a severely unbalanced game than a player who's simply taking advantage of a newbie DM -- although I'm sure both are the case. Introduce a BBEG in the next session and have them fight it, giving the group some closure, and then start completely fresh on a new campaign. This happens all the time and if you're a new DM it's to be expected, you're still learning. Letting this campaign continue, however, will likely alienate your core players and make then not want to return for the next session.
Also, before you start your next campaign you need to go over the PHB and DMG with a fine toothed comb. You're the DM, you're expected to be the best at the rules. If a player walks all over you and somehow acquires a +5 weapon you only have yourself to blame. And when dealing with those pesky players always remember rule 0: what the DM says goes. If they continue to argue give them the boot. Chances are your other players will agree with you.
One more thing: avoid magic items almost entirely. The game is balanced enough without them. As a rule of thumb I dont introduce magic items into my campaign until at least level 5. Even then it's only one or two items spread across the entire party.
Simple solution: sic 8ish Rust Monsters on the party.
LOL... that is funny, but mean...
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.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I mean, having a +5 sword at level 8 makes them kind of deserve it.
I think a player that bullied themselves into getting a +5 weapon isn't going to give a crap about ingame methods like rust monsters. They're going to keep bullying to ensure they stay as powerful as possible.
The only viable solution is to end this campaign and start fresh.