So I’m doing Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, there is a segment where the players are suppose to enter Gralhund Villa, and with the remix, go on a chase to get the stone of Galorr.
My player, a circle of moon Druid, turned into an ant, passed all stealth, and entered the villa, without the first check.
How do I combat this? It doesn’t make sense to do perception checks on the NPC’s, because it’s an ant, she turned into a human, took what she needed, and turned back to an ant and made it out.
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
You'll get a lot of situations like this in D&D where you think you have a taxing series of things to do, and the players surprise you by coming up with a class ability usage you never thought that they would, or a strategy that ruins the trap you've laid out, or they ruin your scary two-giant encounter by Banishing one of the giants and then easily mopping them up one by one.
In my most recent game, I had a complex system written out. A battle with 3 airships dropping off troops into a town, a gunship firing on civilians, and simultaneous combat happening in 4 areas, A, B, C and D. The players would only have time to go and try to help in 3 of the 4 areas. Each time they resolved one area, the other three would advance in consequence to what had or hadn't happened in the other 3 areas (e.g. They first went to C. They didn't stop the hydras in area A, so in area B the hydras have now arrived in B, and the guards in B are all dead). I had a big old complicated spreadsheet worked out for what happened depending on where they went in any order.
What did they do? The moment they saw the airships, they used flying items to fly directly up to it and took on the entire crew and the BBEG (an encounter that mathematically would be 4 x beyond Deadly) and then used a barrel of gunpowder they'd picked up about 3 months ago to blow up the enemy flagship. They didn't do any of the areas that I'd constructed, and I sure hadn't expected them to do that. But that is the beauty of D&D! The players get to mess your plans up completely and have a good time. I'm glad I prepped as much as I did - I was ready if I needed it. I'm even more glad my players ruined my plans.
Yeah, that's a classic player move. They're creative little buggers who sometimes nullify all the work you do.
While this player got around the stealth checks, they had to expend a heck of a lot of resources to do it. All choices have consequences. If the NPCs decide to check on the item, find it missing, and sound the alarm before the party can short rest, suddenly everyone might have to run or hide. Druid doesn't have their wild shapes because they blew them all during the theft. Now the challenge becomes fighting or getting away cleanly without that resource.
I think she still has to pass a Stealth check to see if she's seen. The enemies might see her and think nothing of it, or they might think, "Uh-oh, an ant. If it gets back to the colony it'll lead all the other ants to the kitchen. Better stomp it." Or maybe they know about the existence of druids and wild shape. Unarmed strike, 1hp of damage, and your druid is in humanoid form again. Maybe make her survive a couple rounds of combat alone before the rest of the party can get to her, assuming she can even get a signal to them that things went badly.
Also, doors. Maybe you ruled that there was always a crack an ant could get through. But you could have ruled it was a well-constructed door with weatherstripping you can't get by.
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
Because it replaces a fun adventure session for everyone with cheese by one player. And it seems like that can just be repeated as nauseum any time the objective is to obtain a guarded item.
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
Because it replaces a fun adventure session for everyone with cheese by one player. And it seems like that can just be repeated as nauseum any time the objective is to obtain a guarded item.
An ant is quite slow, compared to a human. An ant have a very bad perspective to see from compared to a human. An ant can't carry the guarded item (unless it is a very small item). An ant can't communicate with the rest of the party. Do I need to continue?
Like Sanvael mentioned, the druid made proper use of their class abilities to avoid a single stealth check, and this is something you complain about? Why wasn't there anyone guarding the stuff who would notice a human appearing all of the sudden? Why, like have already been mentioned weren't there any people or creatures noticing the ant?
Is the issue that your player made the stealth check, or turned into an ant? I'm not aware of tiny creatures being more stealthy than small or medium creatures. Did you give advantage to the roll? If so, that's on you. If a player makes a stealth roll to hide or move silently that's not unheard of. If a rogue had scaled the outside of the building, made the stealth checks and stolen the item, in principle it's the same. Player made a creative choice, good one.
I don't recommend use of things like schrodinger's weather strip. If it wasn't there before Daisy Druid went ant-ics, it shouldn't be there during the attempt to walk in. Attempting to foil class abilities to prevent PC solutions can become adversarial. Replacing PC-cheese with DM-cheese doesn't solve anything.
If PC fails the stealth check, I might ask them to roll a d6, 1-3 the nearest mob stomps them. 4-6 they notice and pay no mind. Something to make failure tense. If they are spotted again, singed with a torch.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
Because it replaces a fun adventure session for everyone with cheese by one player. And it seems like that can just be repeated as nauseum any time the objective is to obtain a guarded item.
An ant is quite slow, compared to a human. An ant have a very bad perspective to see from compared to a human. An ant can't carry the guarded item (unless it is a very small item). An ant can't communicate with the rest of the party. Do I need to continue?
Like Sanvael mentioned, the druid made proper use of their class abilities to avoid a single stealth check, and this is something you complain about? Why wasn't there anyone guarding the stuff who would notice a human appearing all of the sudden? Why, like have already been mentioned weren't there any people or creatures noticing the ant?
The druid can end being an ant, pick up the item, then turn back into an ant and it transforms with her though :P
Putting a human guard in the room with the item is a good way to avoid this if you really hate it. Another would be to have it carried by an individual - not much likelihood of getting hold of that.
I love the suggestions about turning it into a mini-game where the ant has to avoid spiders, or maybe you have a child with a magnifying glass come along and start trying to cook the ant. There are loads of creative ways that you could do this so that the story becomes even more exciting because the player did something clever with their class ability, rather than trying to shut it down because it skipped over content you'd expected them to do.
If you're not open to players coming up with creative or alternative ways to solve problems, then what you're saying is that this stealth run was a part of the game that you felt had to happen, which means you want to railroad the party into doing it. That's not a good call! Embrace what your player is doing, and find ways to make the game even more fun because they are doing it.
If you're worried that future "stealth in and steal the item" game events are going to be handled exactly the same way, then the game isn't very well designed (I haven't read the module, I will add). What's fun about repeatedly breaking in and stealing an item if there aren't any defences that work this way? The problem is not that the player has done something clever or that they're breaking the game. This is what players are supposed to do: use their special abilities to make difficult tasks easier. You could as easily blame a wizard for casting fireball to wipe out a bunch of low health enemies and complain that they spoiled the combat for other players.
If the module is designed around repeated (dull) stealth missions like this, then off the top of my head in 2 minutes, here are ways to circumvent your ant problem:
The item is held by an NPC
There are guards in the room
The room is locked up airtight
There is a trap with a very high DC to spot (the investigating rogue might make it, the druid unlikely) that fills the room with poison gas if you try to leave with the item. It only needs to deal 1hp damage to turn the druid back into her normal form, with no wildshape remaining.
Put spiders in the house, avoid the webs
Put in a dog that roams the house licking up ants, stealth past that
The house has an antimagic field
The house has a curse/charm that prevents shapeshifting
Moving the item releases a magical guardian
The item is held in a standard safe. Once the druid gets there, can she open it?
Unseen Servants go around the house sweeping it. The ant will get swept up and put out with the trash
That should give you some things to go off, from "it's just a daily hazard of being an ant" to "this house is magically warded."
Don't employ these too much. Players should be able to use their cool stuff. My players have a cube of force that causes all kinds of problems and occasionally I throw in a reason why it won't work in a specific situation (e.g. it's a null magic zone) but you need to let them use their stuff. They're the heroes, they get to decide how they solve problems.
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
Because it replaces a fun adventure session for everyone with cheese by one player. And it seems like that can just be repeated as nauseum any time the objective is to obtain a guarded item.
Wild Shape is a limited resource that the druid is choosing to spend to assist in gameplay. That's what resources are for. The trade-off is that the druid now has one less wild shape to use in combat, should it arrive. There's plenty of examples in the game of situations where a player can choose to spend resources to bypass a skill roll.
And I wouldn't say it replaces the whole session with cheese either, since it's not like the whole party turns into ants. Also, stealth encounters shouldn't take all session, really all they've done is sped things up a little to get to the exciting parts.
Wild Shape allows two uses per short rest, it's not exactly a major resource expenditure. It's also a level 2 ability, so not a super-exotic thing that adversaries should have never encountered, so it's fair to have it countered. I would consider either putting a lower size limit on wild shape, or introducing bugzappers.
Wild Shape allows two uses per short rest, it's not exactly a major resource expenditure. It's also a level 2 ability, so not a super-exotic thing that adversaries should have never encountered, so it's fair to have it countered. I would consider either putting a lower size limit on wild shape, or introducing bugzappers.
It would be very bad DM'ing to make a house rule that changes what wildshape can do after a character has chosen druid as their class. DM's shouldn't reduce the effectiveness of player abilities just because the abilities are really useful.
Wild Shape allows two uses per short rest, it's not exactly a major resource expenditure. It's also a level 2 ability, so not a super-exotic thing that adversaries should have never encountered, so it's fair to have it countered. I would consider either putting a lower size limit on wild shape, or introducing bugzappers.
It would be very bad DM'ing to make a house rule that changes what wildshape can do after a character has chosen druid as their class. DM's shouldn't reduce the effectiveness of player abilities just because the abilities are really useful.
Is it better to instantly kill the character when their bug form gets zapped by something in a space too small for their druid form to fit?
If they have to traverse a long distance as a small animal I make them make survival checks or get lost and then have opposing percpetion check for all the other very real small critters around the PC. In a house, there are like at least 4-5 spiders(over estimating to prove a point) within 5 feet of you at all times.Its all fun an games till that players 1 hp ant runs into a 3 hp large hungry spider or worse, what if they have to charisma check as a ant to a swarm of opposing ants who also live down there....dun dun dun!!
Think of the movie Honey I shrunk the Kids...there are loads of tiny DM threats to throw at her.
Edit: I don't suggest thwarting their attempt at creativity or down right killing them. Just that you make it more interesting than "i wild shape into a bug and get whats needed then WildShape out." i say throw it back at them and run creatively...now go DM a Bugs Life!
You don't have to ruin their tactic of turning into an ant, the balancing factor is already there: The lumbering pack of mis-fits that constitutes the adventuring party they travel with. Plus, another rule for DMs is that you don't have to include all of your content. Player agency is arguably more important than intended plot.
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
Because it replaces a fun adventure session for everyone with cheese by one player. And it seems like that can just be repeated as nauseum any time the objective is to obtain a guarded item.
Wild Shape is a limited resource that the druid is choosing to spend to assist in gameplay. That's what resources are for. The trade-off is that the druid now has one less wild shape to use in combat, should it arrive. There's plenty of examples in the game of situations where a player can choose to spend resources to bypass a skill roll.
And I wouldn't say it replaces the whole session with cheese either, since it's not like the whole party turns into ants. Also, stealth encounters shouldn't take all session, really all they've done is sped things up a little to get to the exciting parts.
My impression was that it was not a mission that was designed to be stealthed at all. A possible chase was mentioned, and my guess is there would likely have been some combat.
If it was just an objective that could be achieved by any rogue with a good stealth roll, then fine.
Wild Shape allows two uses per short rest, it's not exactly a major resource expenditure. It's also a level 2 ability, so not a super-exotic thing that adversaries should have never encountered, so it's fair to have it countered. I would consider either putting a lower size limit on wild shape, or introducing bugzappers.
It would be very bad DM'ing to make a house rule that changes what wildshape can do after a character has chosen druid as their class. DM's shouldn't reduce the effectiveness of player abilities just because the abilities are really useful.
Is it better to instantly kill the character when their bug form gets zapped by something in a space too small for their druid form to fit?
Yes, it would be terrible DM'ing. The DM's only role is to give the players a good game.
There's no actual rule that says that the character dies in that situation under the rules for Wild Shape, so that would be a DM call. Technically, unless you're in a vacuum, you're surrounded by something all the time. We're fine with a creature growing moving a liquid or a gas I assume, so given that we're discussing someone magically transforming into an ant, why are we assuming other laws of physics?
If you wanted a rules precedent, then you could look to Enlarge/Reduce which states: If there isn't enough room for the target to double its size, the creature or object attains the maximum possible size in the space available. So you could create an interesting scenario whereby the druid can only revert to be big enough to fit in the space that the ant was occupying, leaving them as a little tiny druid.
Yes, it would be terrible DM'ing. The DM's only role is to give the players a good game.
And sometimes that means you nerf things.
Players absolutely hate when they come up with a fun, creative solution that guarantees success, and you snatch it away from them because it was *too* good an idea. That's not fun for anyone and you shouldn't put a ceiling on how successful the players can be. It's just kind of a mean thing to do.
Players absolutely hate when they come up with a fun, creative solution that guarantees success, and you snatch it away from them because it was *too* good an idea. That's not fun for anyone and you shouldn't put a ceiling on how successful the players can be. It's just kind of a mean thing to do.
(a) it's not a 'fun, creative solution', it's a boring and obvious solution that every druid comes up with instantly.
(b) adventures that don't have challenges aren't actually what player want. You should get a chance to use wild shape to sneak around and do interesting things, but it shouldn't be automatic success.
I would consider either putting a lower size limit on wild shape, or introducing bugzappers.
Funny, I have a homebrew druid circle (concept only so far, since the party hasn't had reason to run into any of them) in my homebrew world who specialize in spying and tiny bug forms
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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So I’m doing Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, there is a segment where the players are suppose to enter Gralhund Villa, and with the remix, go on a chase to get the stone of Galorr.
My player, a circle of moon Druid, turned into an ant, passed all stealth, and entered the villa, without the first check.
How do I combat this? It doesn’t make sense to do perception checks on the NPC’s, because it’s an ant, she turned into a human, took what she needed, and turned back to an ant and made it out.
Why would you want to combat this? The player used a class ability to achieve the heist. She did exactly what I'd expect someone to do if they had that ability!
You'll get a lot of situations like this in D&D where you think you have a taxing series of things to do, and the players surprise you by coming up with a class ability usage you never thought that they would, or a strategy that ruins the trap you've laid out, or they ruin your scary two-giant encounter by Banishing one of the giants and then easily mopping them up one by one.
In my most recent game, I had a complex system written out. A battle with 3 airships dropping off troops into a town, a gunship firing on civilians, and simultaneous combat happening in 4 areas, A, B, C and D. The players would only have time to go and try to help in 3 of the 4 areas. Each time they resolved one area, the other three would advance in consequence to what had or hadn't happened in the other 3 areas (e.g. They first went to C. They didn't stop the hydras in area A, so in area B the hydras have now arrived in B, and the guards in B are all dead). I had a big old complicated spreadsheet worked out for what happened depending on where they went in any order.
What did they do? The moment they saw the airships, they used flying items to fly directly up to it and took on the entire crew and the BBEG (an encounter that mathematically would be 4 x beyond Deadly) and then used a barrel of gunpowder they'd picked up about 3 months ago to blow up the enemy flagship. They didn't do any of the areas that I'd constructed, and I sure hadn't expected them to do that. But that is the beauty of D&D! The players get to mess your plans up completely and have a good time. I'm glad I prepped as much as I did - I was ready if I needed it. I'm even more glad my players ruined my plans.
Yeah, that's a classic player move. They're creative little buggers who sometimes nullify all the work you do.
While this player got around the stealth checks, they had to expend a heck of a lot of resources to do it. All choices have consequences. If the NPCs decide to check on the item, find it missing, and sound the alarm before the party can short rest, suddenly everyone might have to run or hide. Druid doesn't have their wild shapes because they blew them all during the theft. Now the challenge becomes fighting or getting away cleanly without that resource.
I think she still has to pass a Stealth check to see if she's seen. The enemies might see her and think nothing of it, or they might think, "Uh-oh, an ant. If it gets back to the colony it'll lead all the other ants to the kitchen. Better stomp it." Or maybe they know about the existence of druids and wild shape. Unarmed strike, 1hp of damage, and your druid is in humanoid form again. Maybe make her survive a couple rounds of combat alone before the rest of the party can get to her, assuming she can even get a signal to them that things went badly.
Also, doors. Maybe you ruled that there was always a crack an ant could get through. But you could have ruled it was a well-constructed door with weatherstripping you can't get by.
Because it replaces a fun adventure session for everyone with cheese by one player. And it seems like that can just be repeated as nauseum any time the objective is to obtain a guarded item.
An ant is quite slow, compared to a human. An ant have a very bad perspective to see from compared to a human. An ant can't carry the guarded item (unless it is a very small item). An ant can't communicate with the rest of the party. Do I need to continue?
Like Sanvael mentioned, the druid made proper use of their class abilities to avoid a single stealth check, and this is something you complain about? Why wasn't there anyone guarding the stuff who would notice a human appearing all of the sudden? Why, like have already been mentioned weren't there any people or creatures noticing the ant?
Ya don't!
Is the issue that your player made the stealth check, or turned into an ant? I'm not aware of tiny creatures being more stealthy than small or medium creatures. Did you give advantage to the roll? If so, that's on you. If a player makes a stealth roll to hide or move silently that's not unheard of. If a rogue had scaled the outside of the building, made the stealth checks and stolen the item, in principle it's the same. Player made a creative choice, good one.
I don't recommend use of things like schrodinger's weather strip. If it wasn't there before Daisy Druid went ant-ics, it shouldn't be there during the attempt to walk in. Attempting to foil class abilities to prevent PC solutions can become adversarial. Replacing PC-cheese with DM-cheese doesn't solve anything.
If PC fails the stealth check, I might ask them to roll a d6, 1-3 the nearest mob stomps them. 4-6 they notice and pay no mind. Something to make failure tense. If they are spotted again, singed with a torch.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The druid can end being an ant, pick up the item, then turn back into an ant and it transforms with her though :P
Putting a human guard in the room with the item is a good way to avoid this if you really hate it. Another would be to have it carried by an individual - not much likelihood of getting hold of that.
I love the suggestions about turning it into a mini-game where the ant has to avoid spiders, or maybe you have a child with a magnifying glass come along and start trying to cook the ant. There are loads of creative ways that you could do this so that the story becomes even more exciting because the player did something clever with their class ability, rather than trying to shut it down because it skipped over content you'd expected them to do.
If you're not open to players coming up with creative or alternative ways to solve problems, then what you're saying is that this stealth run was a part of the game that you felt had to happen, which means you want to railroad the party into doing it. That's not a good call! Embrace what your player is doing, and find ways to make the game even more fun because they are doing it.
If you're worried that future "stealth in and steal the item" game events are going to be handled exactly the same way, then the game isn't very well designed (I haven't read the module, I will add). What's fun about repeatedly breaking in and stealing an item if there aren't any defences that work this way? The problem is not that the player has done something clever or that they're breaking the game. This is what players are supposed to do: use their special abilities to make difficult tasks easier. You could as easily blame a wizard for casting fireball to wipe out a bunch of low health enemies and complain that they spoiled the combat for other players.
If the module is designed around repeated (dull) stealth missions like this, then off the top of my head in 2 minutes, here are ways to circumvent your ant problem:
That should give you some things to go off, from "it's just a daily hazard of being an ant" to "this house is magically warded."
Don't employ these too much. Players should be able to use their cool stuff. My players have a cube of force that causes all kinds of problems and occasionally I throw in a reason why it won't work in a specific situation (e.g. it's a null magic zone) but you need to let them use their stuff. They're the heroes, they get to decide how they solve problems.
Wild Shape is a limited resource that the druid is choosing to spend to assist in gameplay. That's what resources are for. The trade-off is that the druid now has one less wild shape to use in combat, should it arrive. There's plenty of examples in the game of situations where a player can choose to spend resources to bypass a skill roll.
And I wouldn't say it replaces the whole session with cheese either, since it's not like the whole party turns into ants. Also, stealth encounters shouldn't take all session, really all they've done is sped things up a little to get to the exciting parts.
Wild Shape allows two uses per short rest, it's not exactly a major resource expenditure. It's also a level 2 ability, so not a super-exotic thing that adversaries should have never encountered, so it's fair to have it countered. I would consider either putting a lower size limit on wild shape, or introducing bugzappers.
It would be very bad DM'ing to make a house rule that changes what wildshape can do after a character has chosen druid as their class. DM's shouldn't reduce the effectiveness of player abilities just because the abilities are really useful.
Is it better to instantly kill the character when their bug form gets zapped by something in a space too small for their druid form to fit?
If they have to traverse a long distance as a small animal I make them make survival checks or get lost and then have opposing percpetion check for all the other very real small critters around the PC. In a house, there are like at least 4-5 spiders(over estimating to prove a point) within 5 feet of you at all times.Its all fun an games till that players 1 hp ant runs into a 3 hp large hungry spider or worse, what if they have to charisma check as a ant to a swarm of opposing ants who also live down there....dun dun dun!!
Think of the movie Honey I shrunk the Kids...there are loads of tiny DM threats to throw at her.
Edit: I don't suggest thwarting their attempt at creativity or down right killing them. Just that you make it more interesting than "i wild shape into a bug and get whats needed then WildShape out." i say throw it back at them and run creatively...now go DM a Bugs Life!
You don't have to ruin their tactic of turning into an ant, the balancing factor is already there: The lumbering pack of mis-fits that constitutes the adventuring party they travel with. Plus, another rule for DMs is that you don't have to include all of your content. Player agency is arguably more important than intended plot.
My impression was that it was not a mission that was designed to be stealthed at all. A possible chase was mentioned, and my guess is there would likely have been some combat.
If it was just an objective that could be achieved by any rogue with a good stealth roll, then fine.
Yes, it would be terrible DM'ing. The DM's only role is to give the players a good game.
There's no actual rule that says that the character dies in that situation under the rules for Wild Shape, so that would be a DM call. Technically, unless you're in a vacuum, you're surrounded by something all the time. We're fine with a creature growing moving a liquid or a gas I assume, so given that we're discussing someone magically transforming into an ant, why are we assuming other laws of physics?
If you wanted a rules precedent, then you could look to Enlarge/Reduce which states: If there isn't enough room for the target to double its size, the creature or object attains the maximum possible size in the space available. So you could create an interesting scenario whereby the druid can only revert to be big enough to fit in the space that the ant was occupying, leaving them as a little tiny druid.
And sometimes that means you nerf things.
Players absolutely hate when they come up with a fun, creative solution that guarantees success, and you snatch it away from them because it was *too* good an idea. That's not fun for anyone and you shouldn't put a ceiling on how successful the players can be. It's just kind of a mean thing to do.
(a) it's not a 'fun, creative solution', it's a boring and obvious solution that every druid comes up with instantly.
(b) adventures that don't have challenges aren't actually what player want. You should get a chance to use wild shape to sneak around and do interesting things, but it shouldn't be automatic success.
Funny, I have a homebrew druid circle (concept only so far, since the party hasn't had reason to run into any of them) in my homebrew world who specialize in spying and tiny bug forms
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)