I have a player in my current campaign, now going through Call of the Netherdeep. He is a level 7 Barbarian/Level 3 fighter, HP is 124, AC is 21 and hits everything. I try to have faith that he is doing the right thing and not fudging his rolls, but his character just seems too perfect in stats and he hits every time, I think in last night's session, he missed 1 attack role in 4hrs, made every charisma and wisdom save.
I have 3 players who reached out to complain about how they feel useless and stated they feel he is taking away from their gameplay. I've DMed for 2 other groups that were amateur's so I didn't have many problems, but I'm not sure how to approach the situation or look into his character to determine if he made the OP character by lying on his rolls or what. I'm a novice DM with little experience as this is only my 3rd campaign and the other 2 only lasted about 10 sessions each.
Cheating on dice rolls happens a lot, especially in new players. My young players tend to cheat from time to time, for the most part it isnt a big deal and I ignore it. My adult players have all been playing for decades so if it happens its so rare i haven't noticed it. In your case you need to deal with it cause it's causing issues.
A easy fix is to get yourself a dice tower and tell all the players you want them all to roll using it. You could also use a box and say everyone needs to roll in it. Make it sound positive don't mention the player you think he is cheating.
The game is online through discord. Some players use real dice and others use dndbeyond. Published content, running through Call of the Netherdeep at the moment. Right now they are underwater, but don't have the halved movement in water due to the effect of the Jewel quest of the campaign.
Well, the first thing I notice is he can't use a greatsword and a shield at the same time, as the greatsword requires two hands.
It seems like he has an extra feat in there. There should be one for being vhuman, then one each at barb 4 and fighter 4. But he's got two feats and two asi, so, one more than he should.
He's got four items equipped that require attunement, when the limit is three. Although it seems like he's not actually getting the benefit from the boots, so I guess that's OK, But it does beg the question of why he's wearing them instead of sharing them with a different party member who might actually get use from them. Though that seems like a separate issue. (As an aside, you are being quite generous with the magic items if the whole party is as decked out as he is)
Other folks might turn up more, but yeah, there's some mistakes. I don't know him well enough to say he's cheating rather than just made some honest mistakes, but I'd at least ask him about those things.
Also, something to pay attention to in the future. Right now he's barb 6/fighter 4. If he goes to fighter 5, the extra attack features from fighter and barb do NOT stack. He'll still only get 2 attacks on his turn (except for action surge). The only way to get a third attack is to get to fighter 11.
And, as others said, find a way to make him roll in the open. I'd suggest having everyone roll in the open (except you, because sometimes DMs need to fudge things), so it's not like you're picking on him.
Well, the first thing I notice is he can't use a greatsword and a shield at the same time, as the greatsword requires two hands.
It seems like he has an extra feat in there. There should be one for being vhuman, then one each at barb 4 and fighter 4. But he's got two feats and two asi, so, one more than he should.
He's got four items equipped that require attunement, when the limit is three. Although it seems like he's not actually getting the benefit from the boots, so I guess that's OK, But it does beg the question of why he's wearing them instead of sharing them with a different party member who might actually get use from them. Though that seems like a separate issue. (As an aside, you are being quite generous with the magic items if the whole party is as decked out as he is)
Other folks might turn up more, but yeah, there's some mistakes. I don't know him well enough to say he's cheating rather than just made some honest mistakes, but I'd at least ask him about those things.
Also, something to pay attention to in the future. Right now he's barb 6/fighter 4. If he goes to fighter 5, the extra attack features from fighter and barb do NOT stack. He'll still only get 2 attacks on his turn (except for action surge). The only way to get a third attack is to get to fighter 11.
And, as others said, find a way to make him roll in the open. I'd suggest having everyone roll in the open (except you, because sometimes DMs need to fudge things), so it's not like you're picking on him.
No, his feats/ASIs look alright, 1 feat from V Human, one feat from one ASI, and then another ASI (+1 Dex & Con). The only thing I see wrong is the Greatsword & Shield you already called out.
He's one of the more experienced players in the group and it's all through discord, so I might have to make him roll through the app instead.
I think the main issue is his character build at this point since the dice fudging can be resolved through online rolling.
Sounds like a good solution, but be sure if you require online rolling for one player just make sure you require it for everyone rather than singling one person out. Other advantages of rolling through an app include that it shows up on the screen so you never have to worry about mishearing someone or asking them to repeat if someone talks over them and it usually keeps a record for you, so it's easier as a DM to go back and check something. These might make it an easier sell, if some players are reluctant to give up their shiny-clackity-math-rocks.
Well, the first thing I notice is he can't use a greatsword and a shield at the same time, as the greatsword requires two hands.
It seems like he has an extra feat in there. There should be one for being vhuman, then one each at barb 4 and fighter 4. But he's got two feats and two asi, so, one more than he should.
He's got four items equipped that require attunement, when the limit is three. Although it seems like he's not actually getting the benefit from the boots, so I guess that's OK, But it does beg the question of why he's wearing them instead of sharing them with a different party member who might actually get use from them. Though that seems like a separate issue. (As an aside, you are being quite generous with the magic items if the whole party is as decked out as he is)
Other folks might turn up more, but yeah, there's some mistakes. I don't know him well enough to say he's cheating rather than just made some honest mistakes, but I'd at least ask him about those things.
Also, something to pay attention to in the future. Right now he's barb 6/fighter 4. If he goes to fighter 5, the extra attack features from fighter and barb do NOT stack. He'll still only get 2 attacks on his turn (except for action surge). The only way to get a third attack is to get to fighter 11.
And, as others said, find a way to make him roll in the open. I'd suggest having everyone roll in the open (except you, because sometimes DMs need to fudge things), so it's not like you're picking on him.
No, his feats/ASIs look alright, 1 feat from V Human, one feat from one ASI, and then another ASI (+1 Dex & Con). The only thing I see wrong is the Greatsword & Shield you already called out.
You are right. I mis-read the racial asi as coming from fighter.
The game is online through discord. Some players use real dice and others use dndbeyond. Published content, running through Call of the Netherdeep at the moment. Right now they are underwater, but don't have the halved movement in water due to the effect of the Jewel quest of the campaign.
The first and most important thing for all of your players is that they use a dice rolling bot that everyone can see. Even when I trust everyone in the group, I still get folks to roll in the open whether it is at the table or online. (there are several good bots on Discord and if you use D&D Beyond you can use the Avrae bot, link it to your D&D Beyond campaign, give the bot access to the character (the player does this) and from then on they can roll on D&D Beyond and the roll shows up in your Discord chat. If the players don't use D&D Beyond, the player can just type in the Discord chat what they want rolled and the bot takes care of it. This will solve all the issues about "fairness" regarding dice rolling. Don't single out the player, just introduce the idea of using the bot for die rolling as something that will make play easier and give you an automatic record of the die rolls in case you need to refer to it.
As far as the rest goes - it looks like you rolled for stats. The character has GWM, Sentinel and one ASI to assign. This means that the starting stats were 19, 17, 19, 6 , 11, 13 (ASI at level 4 barb boosted dex and con). Taking out the two +1's from variant human (boosting str and con) and this becomes 18, 17, 18, 6, 11, 13 as the starting numbers. That is exceptionally lucky and I hope you were watching the die rolls when the character was created (what mechanism did you use to roll stats?).
I suspect that some of the sheet has been modified since the original post, you mention that he was a level 7 barbarian/3 fighter but the character sheet is a 6 barbarian/4 fighter (which is needed to get the 2 feats and an ASI that are listed). The character sheet lists advantage on atheletics but I think they only get that when raging due to advantage on strength checks and saves.
In terms of magic items, they have four in their inventory requiring attunement but only the cursed sword is listed as attuned. The cursed sword is also interesting since they will fail the DC 15 wisdom save about 3/4 of the time with their +0 modifier. Without attuning the items they receive no benefit from them and it takes an hour to attune each of them so it isn't something that can be turned on and off.
You also didn't mention whether you are rolling for hit points or taking the average - so hard to check that.
If they use reckless attack on every attack then remember that every creature has advantage to hit them as well which will help whittle down their hit points. If they aren't using reckless then their chances to hit are far less (only +9 with the +1 weapon).
Is the player actually RPing a 6 Int? This should be a MAJOR disadvantage to the character all the time. Remembering which direction the party came from, NPCs taking advantage of the PC, the PC remembering weaknesses of an enemy, remembering to use his own items, etc. Even the character remembering the plan the party agreed to.
You can also disadvantage the party anytime the character offers a suggestion as the PC is so unintelligent, they set back the conversation.
I think having them roll on dnd beyond or use dice maiden or something and as long as they don't have a pet that will jump on the keyboard like my cat that would solve roll problem . Why do other players feel useless their are things that barbarian/fighter can'tdo that other classes can?
Aside from combat, is the guy a good player? Does he have any toxic behaviors?
The character is for sure optimized and his base stats are very high (rolling 2 18's and a 17), but nothing that would make him a problem player.
Rolling in the open helps to make everyone more comfortable, but I would really ask myself is this is the only problem. In my experience people rarely turn to complain about their buddies just because they seem too lucky in combat.
I have a player in my current campaign, now going through Call of the Netherdeep. He is a level 7 Barbarian/Level 3 fighter, HP is 124, AC is 21 and hits everything. I try to have faith that he is doing the right thing and not fudging his rolls, but his character just seems too perfect in stats and he hits every time, I think in last night's session, he missed 1 attack role in 4hrs, made every charisma and wisdom save.
I have 3 players who reached out to complain about how they feel useless and stated they feel he is taking away from their gameplay. I've DMed for 2 other groups that were amateur's so I didn't have many problems, but I'm not sure how to approach the situation or look into his character to determine if he made the OP character by lying on his rolls or what. I'm a novice DM with little experience as this is only my 3rd campaign and the other 2 only lasted about 10 sessions each.
Any guidance and help is greatly appreciated.
-McLovin
I have run into this exact problem with three players in the last year. Here is how I've dealt with it.
At the start of the campaign anyone can roll die however they wish. I start from a place of trust.
If I begin to get complaints from other players, I raise it publicly without mentioning the individual players. I just want to remind everyone that we are dice rolling based on trust. Sadly, there have been complaints about players' dice rolls. If I continue getting suspicions or complaints I will insist on rolling in a different way. It is not my trust that is important, it is the trust of your fellow players. If you lose that you may even lose your seat at the table.
If the player/players in question roll without question thereafter the entire party may keep rolling however they wish. If they continue rolling questionably they are required to roll using a bot, our Owlbear Rodeo dice roller, or D&D Beyond where everyone can see the results.
If any further behaviour thereafter raises complaints about a player, they lose their seat at the table. End of story.
Frankly, I don't always follow this procedure to the letter, if I have seen any examples of power-gaming, meta gaming, or min-maxing I will usually at point two simply remove the player from the game. My games are always billed as a collaborative storytelling experience and as such I don't have the time to deal with that player who only wants to become the strongest they can become. Sadly, my experience is that a player who cheats their teammates around the table is likely toxic in other ways too. More often than not these players have been forced to leave the table.
Having looked at the character in question I do have a note: are you letting his Barbarian rage apply to his fighter abilities? This is think lies with each individual table and DM, but I've always felt that a fighter is a skilled class and rage negates the skill and thought it takes to utilise the fighter abilities. It seems like the character is spec'd in such a way as to deal out the most damage as quickly as possible. I would certainly not allow fighter abilities to interact with Barbarian rage. That I fear would break things too much. Much like iirc spellcasting not being possible during rage, using a different class' abilities should not be possible.
My gut says that you probably allowed this interaction with the two classes because at the time you didn't see an issue. To me it would be a warning that something's up especially after the feats taken.
Having now also seen the CHA and WIS scores of the character, yeah it's unlikely they will be passing all of those checks. To discourage such behaviour in future, simply don't tell players what DC they are aiming at in advance. This makes it much more difficult to just lie about the number rolled.
I have a player in my current campaign, now going through Call of the Netherdeep. He is a level 7 Barbarian/Level 3 fighter, HP is 124, AC is 21 and hits everything. I try to have faith that he is doing the right thing and not fudging his rolls, but his character just seems too perfect in stats and he hits every time, I think in last night's session, he missed 1 attack role in 4hrs, made every charisma and wisdom save.
I have 3 players who reached out to complain about how they feel useless and stated they feel he is taking away from their gameplay. I've DMed for 2 other groups that were amateur's so I didn't have many problems, but I'm not sure how to approach the situation or look into his character to determine if he made the OP character by lying on his rolls or what. I'm a novice DM with little experience as this is only my 3rd campaign and the other 2 only lasted about 10 sessions each.
Any guidance and help is greatly appreciated.
-McLovin
Can you link to the character sheet? That will help us see if there's anything fishy.
A couple of questions for you:
I am on discord quite a bit, I am happy to talk through the situation. Feel free to friend me there.
"Find your next great gaming experience"
Discord: DmOz
Cheating on dice rolls happens a lot, especially in new players. My young players tend to cheat from time to time, for the most part it isnt a big deal and I ignore it. My adult players have all been playing for decades so if it happens its so rare i haven't noticed it. In your case you need to deal with it cause it's causing issues.
A easy fix is to get yourself a dice tower and tell all the players you want them all to roll using it. You could also use a box and say everyone needs to roll in it. Make it sound positive don't mention the player you think he is cheating.
Thank you!
https://ddb.ac/characters/81907233/EiOD2P
The game is online through discord. Some players use real dice and others use dndbeyond. Published content, running through Call of the Netherdeep at the moment. Right now they are underwater, but don't have the halved movement in water due to the effect of the Jewel quest of the campaign.
He's one of the more experienced players in the group and it's all through discord, so I might have to make him roll through the app instead.
I think the main issue is his character build at this point since the dice fudging can be resolved through online rolling.
Well, the first thing I notice is he can't use a greatsword and a shield at the same time, as the greatsword requires two hands.
It seems like he has an extra feat in there. There should be one for being vhuman, then one each at barb 4 and fighter 4. But he's got two feats and two asi, so, one more than he should.He's got four items equipped that require attunement, when the limit is three. Although it seems like he's not actually getting the benefit from the boots, so I guess that's OK, But it does beg the question of why he's wearing them instead of sharing them with a different party member who might actually get use from them. Though that seems like a separate issue. (As an aside, you are being quite generous with the magic items if the whole party is as decked out as he is)
Other folks might turn up more, but yeah, there's some mistakes. I don't know him well enough to say he's cheating rather than just made some honest mistakes, but I'd at least ask him about those things.
Also, something to pay attention to in the future. Right now he's barb 6/fighter 4. If he goes to fighter 5, the extra attack features from fighter and barb do NOT stack. He'll still only get 2 attacks on his turn (except for action surge). The only way to get a third attack is to get to fighter 11.
And, as others said, find a way to make him roll in the open. I'd suggest having everyone roll in the open (except you, because sometimes DMs need to fudge things), so it's not like you're picking on him.
No, his feats/ASIs look alright, 1 feat from V Human, one feat from one ASI, and then another ASI (+1 Dex & Con). The only thing I see wrong is the Greatsword & Shield you already called out.
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Sounds like a good solution, but be sure if you require online rolling for one player just make sure you require it for everyone rather than singling one person out.
Other advantages of rolling through an app include that it shows up on the screen so you never have to worry about mishearing someone or asking them to repeat if someone talks over them and it usually keeps a record for you, so it's easier as a DM to go back and check something. These might make it an easier sell, if some players are reluctant to give up their shiny-clackity-math-rocks.
You are right. I mis-read the racial asi as coming from fighter.
The first and most important thing for all of your players is that they use a dice rolling bot that everyone can see. Even when I trust everyone in the group, I still get folks to roll in the open whether it is at the table or online. (there are several good bots on Discord and if you use D&D Beyond you can use the Avrae bot, link it to your D&D Beyond campaign, give the bot access to the character (the player does this) and from then on they can roll on D&D Beyond and the roll shows up in your Discord chat. If the players don't use D&D Beyond, the player can just type in the Discord chat what they want rolled and the bot takes care of it. This will solve all the issues about "fairness" regarding dice rolling. Don't single out the player, just introduce the idea of using the bot for die rolling as something that will make play easier and give you an automatic record of the die rolls in case you need to refer to it.
As far as the rest goes - it looks like you rolled for stats. The character has GWM, Sentinel and one ASI to assign. This means that the starting stats were 19, 17, 19, 6 , 11, 13 (ASI at level 4 barb boosted dex and con). Taking out the two +1's from variant human (boosting str and con) and this becomes 18, 17, 18, 6, 11, 13 as the starting numbers. That is exceptionally lucky and I hope you were watching the die rolls when the character was created (what mechanism did you use to roll stats?).
I suspect that some of the sheet has been modified since the original post, you mention that he was a level 7 barbarian/3 fighter but the character sheet is a 6 barbarian/4 fighter (which is needed to get the 2 feats and an ASI that are listed). The character sheet lists advantage on atheletics but I think they only get that when raging due to advantage on strength checks and saves.
In terms of magic items, they have four in their inventory requiring attunement but only the cursed sword is listed as attuned. The cursed sword is also interesting since they will fail the DC 15 wisdom save about 3/4 of the time with their +0 modifier. Without attuning the items they receive no benefit from them and it takes an hour to attune each of them so it isn't something that can be turned on and off.
You also didn't mention whether you are rolling for hit points or taking the average - so hard to check that.
If they use reckless attack on every attack then remember that every creature has advantage to hit them as well which will help whittle down their hit points. If they aren't using reckless then their chances to hit are far less (only +9 with the +1 weapon).
Is the player actually RPing a 6 Int? This should be a MAJOR disadvantage to the character all the time. Remembering which direction the party came from, NPCs taking advantage of the PC, the PC remembering weaknesses of an enemy, remembering to use his own items, etc. Even the character remembering the plan the party agreed to.
You can also disadvantage the party anytime the character offers a suggestion as the PC is so unintelligent, they set back the conversation.
"Find your next great gaming experience"
Discord: DmOz
I think having them roll on dnd beyond or use dice maiden or something and as long as they don't have a pet that will jump on the keyboard like my cat that would solve roll problem . Why do other players feel useless their are things that barbarian/fighter can'tdo that other classes can?
Aside from combat, is the guy a good player? Does he have any toxic behaviors?
The character is for sure optimized and his base stats are very high (rolling 2 18's and a 17), but nothing that would make him a problem player.
Rolling in the open helps to make everyone more comfortable, but I would really ask myself is this is the only problem. In my experience people rarely turn to complain about their buddies just because they seem too lucky in combat.
I have run into this exact problem with three players in the last year. Here is how I've dealt with it.
I just want to remind everyone that we are dice rolling based on trust. Sadly, there have been complaints about players' dice rolls. If I continue getting suspicions or complaints I will insist on rolling in a different way. It is not my trust that is important, it is the trust of your fellow players. If you lose that you may even lose your seat at the table.
Frankly, I don't always follow this procedure to the letter, if I have seen any examples of power-gaming, meta gaming, or min-maxing I will usually at point two simply remove the player from the game. My games are always billed as a collaborative storytelling experience and as such I don't have the time to deal with that player who only wants to become the strongest they can become. Sadly, my experience is that a player who cheats their teammates around the table is likely toxic in other ways too. More often than not these players have been forced to leave the table.
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Having looked at the character in question I do have a note: are you letting his Barbarian rage apply to his fighter abilities? This is think lies with each individual table and DM, but I've always felt that a fighter is a skilled class and rage negates the skill and thought it takes to utilise the fighter abilities. It seems like the character is spec'd in such a way as to deal out the most damage as quickly as possible. I would certainly not allow fighter abilities to interact with Barbarian rage. That I fear would break things too much. Much like iirc spellcasting not being possible during rage, using a different class' abilities should not be possible.
My gut says that you probably allowed this interaction with the two classes because at the time you didn't see an issue. To me it would be a warning that something's up especially after the feats taken.
Having now also seen the CHA and WIS scores of the character, yeah it's unlikely they will be passing all of those checks. To discourage such behaviour in future, simply don't tell players what DC they are aiming at in advance. This makes it much more difficult to just lie about the number rolled.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.