So in my campaigns I mostly just run them with friends but i've got one friend who is 1. leaving his teammates in the dust and 2. Obliterating any monster I throw at him. He plays wizards and min maxes HARD. I like to make my players manually roll their stats but i just don't know when he has four 20s and 6 charisma and 8 strength. I use a system called 2 for 1 to let them modify their stats, as the name suggests you take two from one stat to add 1 to another. Please help
What level is he to get four 20's in his stats even? That's just ridiculous, also were these stats rolled in the Open? I would assume he has higher str and cha before doing your house rule to upgrade his stats, but at a 2-1 cost that's a bit ridiculous still. Also enemies could target him specifically as he is the greatest threat.
Just use simple measures, Silence would shut him down hard as he has to be within the area, could be restrained by a melee fighter as well who charges him while he's in it. If your using monsters instead of humanoids, could go on a more savage direction of it, grapple/slams on the ground, simple restrains, breaking some bones.
He's level 15 necromancer wizard which is terrifying he's got a spell save of like 20 and he seems to all ways be able to do something with his reactions like opportunity attacks and is a total rules lawyer when it comes to every rule apart from the ones he uses and no I didn't see his original rolls thanks for the suggestion of silence and grapples but he does tend to throw up a tantrum if you start "targeting" him thanks for the advice!
at level 14 he was killing cr 16 monsters like marilith and even a cr 17 goristo all by himself and I'm trying to hold back the urge to throw a tarrasque at him or something
Broken characters yield broken campaigns. There's no way to sugar-coat the blatant OP he holds over the other characters. This should have been addressed when he proposed (4) stats at 20.
In the meantime, hit this guy with a powerful curse to nerf him down and throw some RP in the campaign to have him search out an equally powerful mystic to remove it. It'll add some RP back to your game, set some plot course, and perhaps you can throw in some stat point sacrifice with the removal.
I mostly let my players do the 2 for 1 because most of them are more rp focused and prefer to have like low wisdom for rp purposes less destruction of the game's balance based so yeah my mistake I suppose
My first question is, Is he making the game less fun for the rest of the table, if so you will probably need to talk to him/ adjust your house rules for char creation going forward (something like only 2 stats can be above 16 as an example that still allows super powered heroes).
he is making it less fun for the table as he has 20 dex so almost always goes first and destroys the threat turn 1 and he does have 20 con so a lot more hit points than one might assume a wizard would have. The rest of the party is a fighter a warlock and a bard so they are not excelling when it comes to killing things and whenever they want to engage in role-play the op player just obliterates the person they are trying to talk too he is difficult to target with things because of the fact he throws a small tantrum if he thinks you are "targeting" him but thanks noksa!
Powerful characters are going to make powerful enemies especially if they just kill everyone they meet. That isn’t “targeting” him, that is the consequences of his actions. Powerful enemies will find out everything they can about him and find his weaknesses. They will send teams to test him, lure him into situations that will use up his spells and when he is vulnerable, they will try to finish him off. At 15th level, he isn’t below the notice of the gods so he either needs to learn how to control himself or he won’t last long.
As a DM, this is your world and the world should react to the characters’ actions in an appropriate way.
Have some spies try to turn the other party members against him. Hopefully they won’t actually betray each other, but it will give the other members of the party good role playing opportunities.
In all seriousness this sounds like some out of game discussion will be required. Also if the rest of the players enjoy the role play aspect you could set up a situation that requires it, need kingdom's buy in to cast a major ritual to something something plot, If you piss off the King guess your wizard will have to 1v1 Azmodeus (If he wins guess who just retired their char).
Good characters will tend to be supported by good NPCs, creatures and gods.
Evil characters will tend to be seen as rivals by evil NPCs, creatures and gods. They may try to use them to further their own agendas but they will cut them loose when push comes to shove and will turn on them in the end.
A idea I might play with is to hit the group hard with hordes of bad guys, and don't let up. Maybe they steal a silver sword from githyanki, and are being hunted. Group after group of githyanki attack them. He will have to burn out his spells, and don't give them time for long rests. The fighter and other characters might shine more in a drawn out series of battles, then a nuke happy wizard. Especialy if the first fight has something he can go nuke happy right off the bat. Teach him to conserve his spells.
If your game revolves around one climatic battle between long rests then yes full casters unleashing the enchanted kitchen sink are going to do more. If your running 6 to 8 enounters over the same day then everyone has to think about when to use the big stuff and make accurate threat assements.
Consider - after the encounter where the larger spells are used when the party attempts to rest a 'simple' problem solving pair of invisible stalkers are sent to specifically target the most effective party member before they interfere with the boss villain anymore than normal. The opening volley will maul people unless superb sleep safety precautions were taken and after one mutilation round the stalkers can slip away. The long rest is ruined. Keep this up for long enough returning if rest is resumed and no one gets to sleep. No sleep no spells.
Inside tunnels and structures the constricted lines of sight will often lower the potential of a spellslinger but it also allows you to arrange flanking from the rear with secondary groups. Distributing targets into separate areas with the party between them will hopefully restrict the potential AoE to half the enemies and might cause a vulnerable caster to stack defensive spells first rather than start blazing away.
Lastly I recommend Yuanti. every last one is magic resistant and has a surprisingly large amount of hitpoints for a base fodder unit. They also fire arrows with poison and what better target practice than the cloth wearing training dummy?
Altering your play style as a DM - e.g. throwing particular monsters, or particular kinds of encounters at the entire party - isn't a fair solution IMHO, as it punishes the entire party, or it doesn't punish the entire party as the bad guys are targeting the problem character - which itself is unfair and usually blatantly obvious.
Trying to turn Party members against them will fracture your party, and again - and rightfully so! - make the Player feel they are being targeted.
Punishing the Player in game, by targeting them in game, will make them feel persecuted, and cause them to dig in and refuse to change because they think they're in the right and you're being unfair.
And they'd be right - you are being unfair in that case. You are targeting them. That is you adapting ( very badly ) to the problem.
You need the problem to adapt to you - or at the very least, finding a compromise middle ground.
Talk to the Player. Make it clear that this is a problem. Make it clear that it's wrecking everyone else's fun. Point out that if no one else is having fun, then the group will probably fail, and they won't get to play their character then either - so there's really no scenario where they get to play this character, unchanged, moving forward. Ask your problem Player to propose solutions. They may surprise you with something you haven't considered before, and they are much more likely to adhere to solutions that they proposed ( gotta love Human psychology ).
And if you can't come to an agreement with them, and the Party can't accept their behavior - ease them out of the group.
But trying to use the game world to beat down a Character to show them they're not all powerful after all, or drive a Player away from the group, is passive-aggressive bull which will put the Player on the defensive, and give them zero incentive to change.
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So in my campaigns I mostly just run them with friends but i've got one friend who is 1. leaving his teammates in the dust and 2. Obliterating any monster I throw at him. He plays wizards and min maxes HARD. I like to make my players manually roll their stats but i just don't know when he has four 20s and 6 charisma and 8 strength. I use a system called 2 for 1 to let them modify their stats, as the name suggests you take two from one stat to add 1 to another. Please help
oh and he loves to kill everything and negotiate with no-one
What level is he to get four 20's in his stats even? That's just ridiculous, also were these stats rolled in the Open? I would assume he has higher str and cha before doing your house rule to upgrade his stats, but at a 2-1 cost that's a bit ridiculous still. Also enemies could target him specifically as he is the greatest threat.
Just use simple measures, Silence would shut him down hard as he has to be within the area, could be restrained by a melee fighter as well who charges him while he's in it. If your using monsters instead of humanoids, could go on a more savage direction of it, grapple/slams on the ground, simple restrains, breaking some bones.
He's level 15 necromancer wizard which is terrifying he's got a spell save of like 20 and he seems to all ways be able to do something with his reactions like opportunity attacks and is a total rules lawyer when it comes to every rule apart from the ones he uses and no I didn't see his original rolls thanks for the suggestion of silence and grapples but he does tend to throw up a tantrum if you start "targeting" him thanks for the advice!
at level 14 he was killing cr 16 monsters like marilith and even a cr 17 goristo all by himself and I'm trying to hold back the urge to throw a tarrasque at him or something
Broken characters yield broken campaigns. There's no way to sugar-coat the blatant OP he holds over the other characters. This should have been addressed when he proposed (4) stats at 20.
In the meantime, hit this guy with a powerful curse to nerf him down and throw some RP in the campaign to have him search out an equally powerful mystic to remove it. It'll add some RP back to your game, set some plot course, and perhaps you can throw in some stat point sacrifice with the removal.
Just my 2¢!
I mostly let my players do the 2 for 1 because most of them are more rp focused and prefer to have like low wisdom for rp purposes less destruction of the game's balance based so yeah my mistake I suppose
thank you sedge i will most definitely try but my other players are already getting a bit annoyed that he seems like the main character all the time
My first question is, Is he making the game less fun for the rest of the table, if so you will probably need to talk to him/ adjust your house rules for char creation going forward (something like only 2 stats can be above 16 as an example that still allows super powered heroes).
If its not ruining peoples fun and you are just looking for a way to challenge the player. Find abilities and spells that target his str and cha saves would be a good starting point. https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-class=0&filter-search=&filter-save-required=1&filter-save-required=6&filter-verbal=&filter-somatic=&filter-material=&filter-concentration=&filter-ritual=&filter-sub-class=&sort=level . If you don't want to curb stomp him you could still use something like a carefully targeted sleep(assuming you can aim it so he is the lowest hp in the area of effect) to knock him out of combat for a bit and allow the rest of the party to shine. If he is just straight up kill happy he will probably gain enough of a reputation that the guard would come after him with high end casters as backup.
he is making it less fun for the table as he has 20 dex so almost always goes first and destroys the threat turn 1 and he does have 20 con so a lot more hit points than one might assume a wizard would have. The rest of the party is a fighter a warlock and a bard so they are not excelling when it comes to killing things and whenever they want to engage in role-play the op player just obliterates the person they are trying to talk too he is difficult to target with things because of the fact he throws a small tantrum if he thinks you are "targeting" him but thanks noksa!
Powerful characters are going to make powerful enemies especially if they just kill everyone they meet. That isn’t “targeting” him, that is the consequences of his actions. Powerful enemies will find out everything they can about him and find his weaknesses. They will send teams to test him, lure him into situations that will use up his spells and when he is vulnerable, they will try to finish him off. At 15th level, he isn’t below the notice of the gods so he either needs to learn how to control himself or he won’t last long.
As a DM, this is your world and the world should react to the characters’ actions in an appropriate way.
thanks I will most certainly give him the attention of gods and demon lords
Have some spies try to turn the other party members against him. Hopefully they won’t actually betray each other, but it will give the other members of the party good role playing opportunities.
thank you so much I will try to do this
I feel like this may be relevant... https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/03/29
In all seriousness this sounds like some out of game discussion will be required. Also if the rest of the players enjoy the role play aspect you could set up a situation that requires it, need kingdom's buy in to cast a major ritual to something something plot, If you piss off the King guess your wizard will have to 1v1 Azmodeus (If he wins guess who just retired their char).
Good characters will tend to be supported by good NPCs, creatures and gods.
Evil characters will tend to be seen as rivals by evil NPCs, creatures and gods. They may try to use them to further their own agendas but they will cut them loose when push comes to shove and will turn on them in the end.
A idea I might play with is to hit the group hard with hordes of bad guys, and don't let up. Maybe they steal a silver sword from githyanki, and are being hunted. Group after group of githyanki attack them. He will have to burn out his spells, and don't give them time for long rests. The fighter and other characters might shine more in a drawn out series of battles, then a nuke happy wizard. Especialy if the first fight has something he can go nuke happy right off the bat. Teach him to conserve his spells.
thank you!
If your game revolves around one climatic battle between long rests then yes full casters unleashing the enchanted kitchen sink are going to do more. If your running 6 to 8 enounters over the same day then everyone has to think about when to use the big stuff and make accurate threat assements.
Consider - after the encounter where the larger spells are used when the party attempts to rest a 'simple' problem solving pair of invisible stalkers are sent to specifically target the most effective party member before they interfere with the boss villain anymore than normal. The opening volley will maul people unless superb sleep safety precautions were taken and after one mutilation round the stalkers can slip away. The long rest is ruined. Keep this up for long enough returning if rest is resumed and no one gets to sleep. No sleep no spells.
Inside tunnels and structures the constricted lines of sight will often lower the potential of a spellslinger but it also allows you to arrange flanking from the rear with secondary groups. Distributing targets into separate areas with the party between them will hopefully restrict the potential AoE to half the enemies and might cause a vulnerable caster to stack defensive spells first rather than start blazing away.
Lastly I recommend Yuanti. every last one is magic resistant and has a surprisingly large amount of hitpoints for a base fodder unit. They also fire arrows with poison and what better target practice than the cloth wearing training dummy?
Good luck :)
Altering your play style as a DM - e.g. throwing particular monsters, or particular kinds of encounters at the entire party - isn't a fair solution IMHO, as it punishes the entire party, or it doesn't punish the entire party as the bad guys are targeting the problem character - which itself is unfair and usually blatantly obvious.
Trying to turn Party members against them will fracture your party, and again - and rightfully so! - make the Player feel they are being targeted.
Punishing the Player in game, by targeting them in game, will make them feel persecuted, and cause them to dig in and refuse to change because they think they're in the right and you're being unfair.
And they'd be right - you are being unfair in that case. You are targeting them. That is you adapting ( very badly ) to the problem.
You need the problem to adapt to you - or at the very least, finding a compromise middle ground.
Talk to the Player. Make it clear that this is a problem. Make it clear that it's wrecking everyone else's fun. Point out that if no one else is having fun, then the group will probably fail, and they won't get to play their character then either - so there's really no scenario where they get to play this character, unchanged, moving forward. Ask your problem Player to propose solutions. They may surprise you with something you haven't considered before, and they are much more likely to adhere to solutions that they proposed ( gotta love Human psychology ).
And if you can't come to an agreement with them, and the Party can't accept their behavior - ease them out of the group.
But trying to use the game world to beat down a Character to show them they're not all powerful after all, or drive a Player away from the group, is passive-aggressive bull which will put the Player on the defensive, and give them zero incentive to change.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.