I want to preface this by saying this player is a friend of mine and my dm for the game I play on another day.
In my homebrew campaign the players just took down an ancient undead deep dragon but it was used as a distraction by the bbeg to get a head start to kill another ancient dragon. The player in question used spells in that fight then used two 4th level spells to get the party to catch up the the bbeg before he could do anything with his day headstart and what he did worked. They caught up to him before he could kill this dragon and started to defend it. Unfortunately the fight was in the middle of the ocean and he was flying on top of another player he polymorphed into a giant eagle. After the session he was complaining that he could not do anything in the fight and felt like he was sitting there for 3 hours doing nothing (he is currently playing a homebrew class called the witch). He has a bunch of concentration spells and save or suck spells and has at least 1 level 7 spell slot (level 13 characters). Unfortunately in this fight the bbeg is there and saves against all his spells. He is getting frustrated and says he can't do anything.
My question is did I do something wrong in making back to back battles? Making them both against enemies that have legendary resistance? If I'm being honest if he didn't get the party there when he did they wouldn't be having this fight because the dragon would have been dead already. So did I mess up somewhere to cause my player not to have fun? It seemed like everyone else was enjoying the fight but they are mostly all melee characters. I know legendary resistances can put a damper on magic users due to resistance, but idk what else I can do...
I would immediately look to the homebrew class. Homebrew is a difficult thing to pull off well and when we're talking about a whole class, it's even more difficult.
Frankly, there are a couple of issues at play. Immediately, the player didn't need to use those two level four spells. Doing so weakened him. That's their choice not yours. This is a great lesson potentially in teaching players that they aren't able to do everything. There are limits.
On the face of it, the immediate impression I get from your description puts homebrew together with moaning they can't do everything and concludes that they are being petulant. It's main character syndrome. The player wants to be the lead character in the story. Being honest, someone who DMs should know better. It feels from your description like they might be trying to gain as many edges as they can. It sounds mostly like the result was a consequence of their own actions.
I'd be having an honest conversation with the player in question. Did it occur to them that all characters have limitations? Why did they feel it necessary to catch up to the BBEG? Could this frustration be due to using a poorly balanced homebrew class? What would they have done differently if they were DM?
Does the player need to swap out some cantrips? In a world where green-flame blade and sword burst exist as cantrips there's a good chance that the player in question hasn't chosen their spells well. Though, again this may be due to the homebrew, depending on how well it's been thought through.
The best answer is to have a conversation with the player. No blame needed but explore with them what could have been done differently. Why their actions led to the situation, and if there's any way to rework the character's spell list that could have resulted in different outcomes.
Yea, I understand what you are saying. I am just worried what will happen as the story moves forward. There are plenty of other creatures that they will be facing that have legendary resistances and strong saving throws and I'm just worried that I will be having this conversation again with them.
Lots of assumptions here. Yes, I know what that means.
Assuming that your HB class has normal spell progression and slots, much like a full caster(wizard/sorc), and a spell list to choose from. Not knowing what that spell list is, I can only assume that the player-in-question (also a DM) knows and understands how all of the spells on that list work and made an informed choice about which spells to add/prepare. They also knew that there would be a limit to the number of spells they could cast per long rest, and from your retelling of it, had an idea that there would be the potential for an altercation at said destination. I'm also going with the understanding that the player was able to view/vet the HB class before choosing it, and I would guess that there might be some room for editing along the way. I'm given to the understanding that everything that happened was clearly described, forewarned and projected so as to allow for fully informed decisions by the party.
Long story shorter - your player knew what was happening when they made their choices. I wouldn't suggest that you follow this as a "Poor Me" scenario from the player. They are frustrated, and failure is a real possible outcome. There are still things that they can do, though they aren't what they want to do. This doesn't specifically require that you do anything but empathize and encourage them to do something.... even something that they think might not work. The important thing is that they try. We miss 100% of the shots we don't take.
Maybe look at the BBE and assess the save DCs vs BBE's saves. If BBE is a bit too strong in the saving throw department, consider reeling that in a touch. Is the aforementioned dragon not fighting back? I would think that an ancient dragon would have something in their knapsack that would cause a saving throw to be failed, and subsequent Legendary Resist to be used.
Overall, I might agree that you have a player that wants to save the day, and in a sense has provided a great deal towards that goal, and now must be relegated to supporting cast, not main character. Give them credit for the work they have done, and try to provide them the perspective that the party wouldn't be able to try to save the target, without their efforts. They litterally got them to the point where they could succeed, and now it's the rest of the team's job to finish this. Consider how the player could use the Help action from their perch atop an eagle.
“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
Yea, I understand what you are saying. I am just worried what will happen as the story moves forward. There are plenty of other creatures that they will be facing that have legendary resistances and strong saving throws and I'm just worried that I will be having this conversation again with them.
If they're a new player, I'd try talking to them about the kinds of spells they picked, specifically the potential pitfalls of choosing mostly saving throw based spells rather than a diverse set of different spells that let you prepare for numerous situations. If they didn't understand this before, maybe give them an opportunity to pick new spells.
DnD should be difficult at level 13. Combats get harder and one of the ways the rules ensure that is making monsters more resistant to spell saves. Without that, ancient dragons would be Banished or Polymorphed into tortoises left and right and there would be very little challenge left. Maybe explain that for every legendary resistance you force the monster to spend, that's another one down until you can use your big spell on them, that making them use their legendary resistance isn't a failure, it's a little victory.
If they're a veteran player and they're still raising such a huff about legendary resistances then I have to agree with the above, they seem to be acting a bit petulant. They should know all this already and know that potential for failure is what makes winning feel earned. I'm always slightly baffled when veteran players get upset when not everything goes their way, and I'm naturally mistrustful of people for whom ttrpg's are more of a power fantasy than a game.
Long story shorter - your player knew what was happening when they made their choices. I wouldn't suggest that you follow this as a "Poor Me" scenario from the player. They are frustrated, and failure is a real possible outcome. There are still things that they can do, though they aren't what they want to do. This doesn't specifically require that you do anything but empathize and encourage them to do something.... even something that they think might not work. The important thing is that they try. We miss 100% of the shots we don't take.
Maybe look at the BBE and assess the save DCs vs BBE's saves. If BBE is a bit too strong in the saving throw department, consider reeling that in a touch. Is the aforementioned dragon not fighting back? I would think that an ancient dragon would have something in their knapsack that would cause a saving throw to be failed, and subsequent Legendary Resist to be used.
The dragon is fighting back and have already burned a legendary action from the bbeg. But there are other creatures there to. The bbeg has an aquatic neolithid as a pet along with a team of simic hybrid blood hunters of lycanthropy. Plus this is an ocean battle so the fight is under water mostly. This player in question is up in the air on another polymorophed player.
A little background the bbeg is an ancient aboleth who has enslaved crafters to make it magical armor that allows it to have ray attacks like a beholder on top of giving him resistance to all slashing, piecing and bludgeoning damage. His goal is to kill off all the guardian dragons (ancient dragons using their life force to keep a gate closed). Once he accomplishes his goal he plans on summoning a greatwyrm dragon and fuse with it (using old magic) to go after the gods and mortals that banished him in the first place. Some of the tactics he employed to far are convincing one of the dragons to become an ancient dracolich to break the seal on him. Another was cursing another dragon to be a werecreature forcing the party to end its suffering because they had no way to remove it. So his tactics are sneaky and not without thought.
I want to support the player but like you said he made the decisions he made and now has to figure out a way to support without trying to focus on saving throw spells. I just still feel like it is part my fault I just don't know how to help or fix things.
As you homebrew your campaign, you need to adapt all the monsters to the party they're facing. I've had this issue a bunch recently.
Let's say you have one Level 13 caster, and for ease of argument, 3 Level 13 Barbarians.
The barbarians don't really have any abilities that will cause the BBEG to even make a saving throw, they just whack away; this means that for your 'Save or Suck' caster to be able to do anything meaningful, the BBEG needs to firstly fail a saving throw (no guarantee) and then when they do, a Legendary Resistance sorts it out. This means that the BBEG is basically invulnerable to the Save or Suck caster until about 10 turns into the fight, which they won't reach.
Now, imagine instead that we have a party of 4 x level 13 Bards, all packing Otto's Irresistible Dance. Those bards can potentially perma-stun lock the BBEG unless it's packing a ton of LR's.
Now if we had a party of Battlemaster, Wizard, Sorcerer and Cleric, then we might think each of them would be forcing a saving throw each turn. Maybe we assume the BBEG will fail 1 save in 4 - in which case they burn a LR per turn. On turn 4, they're probably all out! Yay, we got through them! But this only works when there are players forcing the BBEG to make saves. The barbarian-heavy party won't do that.
So overall - make sure that your BBEG has the right number of LR's for the party. I'd say that against a party where only a single PC forces saving throws, they get ONE LR and that's it. Tell the player that they used their only LR too - that way the player will feel "Yes, I burned their resources! Now we strike!"
Long story shorter - your player knew what was happening when they made their choices. I wouldn't suggest that you follow this as a "Poor Me" scenario from the player. They are frustrated, and failure is a real possible outcome. There are still things that they can do, though they aren't what they want to do. This doesn't specifically require that you do anything but empathize and encourage them to do something.... even something that they think might not work. The important thing is that they try. We miss 100% of the shots we don't take.
Maybe look at the BBE and assess the save DCs vs BBE's saves. If BBE is a bit too strong in the saving throw department, consider reeling that in a touch. Is the aforementioned dragon not fighting back? I would think that an ancient dragon would have something in their knapsack that would cause a saving throw to be failed, and subsequent Legendary Resist to be used.
The dragon is fighting back and have already burned a legendary action from the bbeg. But there are other creatures there to. The bbeg has an aquatic neolithid as a pet along with a team of simic hybrid blood hunters of lycanthropy. Plus this is an ocean battle so the fight is under water mostly. This player in question is up in the air on another polymorophed player.
A little background the bbeg is an ancient aboleth who has enslaved crafters to make it magical armor that allows it to have ray attacks like a beholder on top of giving him resistance to all slashing, piecing and bludgeoning damage. His goal is to kill off all the guardian dragons (ancient dragons using their life force to keep a gate closed). Once he accomplishes his goal he plans on summoning a greatwyrm dragon and fuse with it (using old magic) to go after the gods and mortals that banished him in the first place. Some of the tactics he employed to far are convincing one of the dragons to become an ancient dracolich to break the seal on him. Another was cursing another dragon to be a werecreature forcing the party to end its suffering because they had no way to remove it. So his tactics are sneaky and not without thought.
I want to support the player but like you said he made the decisions he made and now has to figure out a way to support without trying to focus on saving throw spells. I just still feel like it is part my fault I just don't know how to help or fix things.
It's not your fault, it's just how the player choices laid out.
Can I ask, does the player in question consult with the rest of the party on strategy? Like was it their idea to burn their spell slots, or did the party ask them to?
Long story shorter - your player knew what was happening when they made their choices. I wouldn't suggest that you follow this as a "Poor Me" scenario from the player. They are frustrated, and failure is a real possible outcome. There are still things that they can do, though they aren't what they want to do. This doesn't specifically require that you do anything but empathize and encourage them to do something.... even something that they think might not work. The important thing is that they try. We miss 100% of the shots we don't take.
Maybe look at the BBE and assess the save DCs vs BBE's saves. If BBE is a bit too strong in the saving throw department, consider reeling that in a touch. Is the aforementioned dragon not fighting back? I would think that an ancient dragon would have something in their knapsack that would cause a saving throw to be failed, and subsequent Legendary Resist to be used.
The dragon is fighting back and have already burned a legendary action from the bbeg. But there are other creatures there to. The bbeg has an aquatic neolithid as a pet along with a team of simic hybrid blood hunters of lycanthropy. Plus this is an ocean battle so the fight is under water mostly. This player in question is up in the air on another polymorophed player.
A little background the bbeg is an ancient aboleth who has enslaved crafters to make it magical armor that allows it to have ray attacks like a beholder on top of giving him resistance to all slashing, piecing and bludgeoning damage. His goal is to kill off all the guardian dragons (ancient dragons using their life force to keep a gate closed). Once he accomplishes his goal he plans on summoning a greatwyrm dragon and fuse with it (using old magic) to go after the gods and mortals that banished him in the first place. Some of the tactics he employed to far are convincing one of the dragons to become an ancient dracolich to break the seal on him. Another was cursing another dragon to be a werecreature forcing the party to end its suffering because they had no way to remove it. So his tactics are sneaky and not without thought.
I want to support the player but like you said he made the decisions he made and now has to figure out a way to support without trying to focus on saving throw spells. I just still feel like it is part my fault I just don't know how to help or fix things.
It's not your fault, it's just how the player choices laid out.
Can I ask, does the player in question consult with the rest of the party on strategy? Like was it their idea to burn their spell slots, or did the party ask them to?
It was something he mentioned and the party agreed to go with it.
As you homebrew your campaign, you need to adapt all the monsters to the party they're facing. I've had this issue a bunch recently.
Let's say you have one Level 13 caster, and for ease of argument, 3 Level 13 Barbarians.
The barbarians don't really have any abilities that will cause the BBEG to even make a saving throw, they just whack away; this means that for your 'Save or Suck' caster to be able to do anything meaningful, the BBEG needs to firstly fail a saving throw (no guarantee) and then when they do, a Legendary Resistance sorts it out. This means that the BBEG is basically invulnerable to the Save or Suck caster until about 10 turns into the fight, which they won't reach.
Now, imagine instead that we have a party of 4 x level 13 Bards, all packing Otto's Irresistible Dance. Those bards can potentially perma-stun lock the BBEG unless it's packing a ton of LR's.
Now if we had a party of Battlemaster, Wizard, Sorcerer and Cleric, then we might think each of them would be forcing a saving throw each turn. Maybe we assume the BBEG will fail 1 save in 4 - in which case they burn a LR per turn. On turn 4, they're probably all out! Yay, we got through them! But this only works when there are players forcing the BBEG to make saves. The barbarian-heavy party won't do that.
So overall - make sure that your BBEG has the right number of LR's for the party. I'd say that against a party where only a single PC forces saving throws, they get ONE LR and that's it. Tell the player that they used their only LR too - that way the player will feel "Yes, I burned their resources! Now we strike!"
In this party they have a paladin, blood hunters, barbarian, witch (the player we are referring to), sorcerer, and a monk. Currently in this fight they are teaming up with an ancient bronze dragon (paladin like with Smites, auras, and spells). They are vs 4 simic hybrid monstrosities, a lycanthrop blood hunter (part of a players backstory), an aquatic neolithid, and the abolith in magic armor (bbeg).
In the future it can depend on how you play it and what you say. Sometimes I'll say "Oh he burns a legendary save against that spell" letting the players know that a finite resource is being expended. Or "OK, I rolled a 10..plus 12 is 22!" Letting the party know the creature has a +12 to its saves. These statements give the party a hint at what they are facing in a way they can understand rather than "Oh yeah, he made his save" with no explanation.
Another thing you can consider is giving the witch alternative targets. If there are a bunch of minions, the witch can feel successful wiping them out instead of attacking the boss.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
In the future it can depend on how you play it and what you say. Sometimes I'll say "Oh he burns a legendary save against that spell" letting the players know that a finite resource is being expended. Or "OK, I rolled a 10..plus 12 is 22!" Letting the party know the creature has a +12 to its saves. These statements give the party a hint at what they are facing in a way they can understand rather than "Oh yeah, he made his save" with no explanation.
Another thing you can consider is giving the witch alternative targets. If there are a bunch of minions, the witch can feel successful wiping them out instead of attacking the boss.
I already do all of these things that you had mentioned. And in this fight there are 6 other enemies other than the bbeg without legendary actions or resistances
I want to support the player but like you said he made the decisions he made and now has to figure out a way to support without trying to focus on saving throw spells. I just still feel like it is part my fault I just don't know how to help or fix things.
It's not your fault, it's just how the player choices laid out.
Can I ask, does the player in question consult with the rest of the party on strategy? Like was it their idea to burn their spell slots, or did the party ask them to?
It was something he mentioned and the party agreed to go with it.
If the crux of this discussion is about you, the DM, fixing things, you don't. DMs that provide solutions to their own situations aren't allowing for the game to proceed organically to the conclusion that was driven by the players' choices. When we apply a Deus Ex style save at the last moment to prevent the untimely demise of a group of characters that we enjoy, we are removing their reliance on their own choices and inserting our own, because that's how we want it to happen. That may coincide with what the party wants at the moment, but understand this is the DM to meta changing the game, altering how entities behave in that game, to suit their purposes. It's like the DM giving Guy sunglasses, and now he acts differently, but somehow everyone's oblivious to it. Like an elephant in the room.
I'm a full advocate of allowing the players to choose their destiny. Sometimes the decisions that are made don't work, sometimes they are lethal. I might warn the players about the hazard of an encounter before they set out, but if they respond with "we're going to do Thing-X", then that's what they do. Even if it means we start a new adventure with new PCs next week.
The task that you are left with is to assess your encounter balance, composition and layout, and decide if you made an encounter, or series of encounters, that can be beaten in "only one way" or one that could be beaten by "any reasonable way". (There is a gulf of difference between the two.) If you are confident that you built something that was level appropriate, and winnable by any reasonable means, start trying to create ledgends about the party that might meet it's untimely end in the ocean, fighting the good fight.
P.S. If the fight is below water, why can't the dragon fly away? Like the PCs delay BBE and the dragon bolts outta there. They are supposed to prevent the dragon from death right?
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“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
I think you have player who's a witch and you don't give them the broom of flying your doing them a disservice the fact they had to polymorph themselves instead of flying on a borm like a witch just seems odd to me. I once let a player have a teddy bear that talked to the party cause they wanted to play that . You should add spells to his list that are not save or suck like a cleric if he's not picking them you made this hombrew class you can add stuff to it.I still think the witch needs a flying broom to but a domain spells feature would solve the problem they have no excuse that they can't do anything if they automatically had fireball , blight, cone of cold , wall of force and stuff like that prepared for them everyday.I would talk to the player first about it to make sure they were OK with a domain spells feature if they reject the idea than at that point you did everything you could and they made the choice to live with what they have.
P.S. If the fight is below water, why can't the dragon fly away? Like the PCs delay BBE and the dragon bolts outta there. They are supposed to prevent the dragon from death right?
So that is a story element these powerful dragons are using their own life for to keep a greatwrym dragon locked behind a gate. Because of this the link ties them to their lairs in a small radius around it. So unfortunately it can not get away.
I think you have player who's a witch and you don't give them the broom of flying your doing them a disservice the fact they had to polymorph themselves instead of flying on a borm like a witch just seems odd to me. I once let a player have a teddy bear that talked to the party cause they wanted to play that . You should add spells to his list that are not save or suck like a cleric if he's not picking them you made this hombrew class you can add stuff to it.I still think the witch needs a flying broom to but a domain spells feature would solve the problem they have no excuse that they can't do anything if they automatically had fireball , blight, cone of cold , wall of force and stuff like that prepared for them everyday.I would talk to the player first about it to make sure they were OK with a domain spells feature if they reject the idea than at that point you did everything you could and they made the choice to live with what they have.
I never said I made the class. The player found the class themselves. They also were allowed to choose their items (2 rarest and uncommons).
I think you have player who's a witch and you don't give them the broom of flying your doing them a disservice the fact they had to polymorph themselves instead of flying on a borm like a witch just seems odd to me. I once let a player have a teddy bear that talked to the party cause they wanted to play that . You should add spells to his list that are not save or suck like a cleric if he's not picking them you made this hombrew class you can add stuff to it.I still think the witch needs a flying broom to but a domain spells feature would solve the problem they have no excuse that they can't do anything if they automatically had fireball , blight, cone of cold , wall of force and stuff like that prepared for them everyday.I would talk to the player first about it to make sure they were OK with a domain spells feature if they reject the idea than at that point you did everything you could and they made the choice to live with what they have.
I never said I made the class. The player found the class themselves. They also were allowed to choose their items (2 rarest and uncommons).
Yeah, see, this is where I feel the problem is now after reading everything.
15 years or so of GMing different ttrpgs has taught me plain and simple, homebrew classes are more trouble than they are worth. I mean there's absolutely no reason they can't create a witch through multiclassing. Unless you've got massive levels of experience don't allow a homebrew class in your game. It's not like there's a shortage of choice in D&D 5e. I think often there's a failure of imagination on the part of players. They get hung up on a class being called certain things rather than asking if the mechanics of those classes will allow them to do what they are trying to do.
I would also make the offer to the player 'do you want to write out the character?'
We sometimes forget that this is an option. If the player isn't gelling with their character respec or a new character is an option. In this case if they've chosen something that doesn't work you could offer them a new character by writing out their existing character.
I never said I made the class. The player found the class themselves. They also were allowed to choose their items (2 rarest and uncommons).
Ah, when I saw homebrew I thought you were the one who made the class. Thinking that you could tweak to suit the needs of the player. If it is something from another source you really should not allow it in your game without a thorough examination.
Like Aquilain said, you can suggest a different character if they want. Most of the point of playing is to keep all the players (including you - you are a player too) having a good time.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I never said I made the class. The player found the class themselves. They also were allowed to choose their items (2 rarest and uncommons).
Ah, when I saw homebrew I thought you were the one who made the class. Thinking that you could tweak to suit the needs of the player. If it is something from another source you really should not allow it in your game without a thorough examination.
Like Aquilain said, you can suggest a different character if they want. Most of the point of playing is to keep all the players (including you - you are a player too) having a good time.
I ready through the source book (it was a kickstarter) and it was very well made and def has balance to it. I just think he is not playing it to its potential and focusing on the wrong enemies.
If something has legendary resistances, then casters could always use their ranged spell attack spells instead of their saving throw spells. They could also be buffing their party, or otherwise doing battle field control rather than directly damaging enemies.
If there are several other minions around the creature with legendary resistances, then these minions could also be targeted - I wouldn't really expect them to also have legendary resistances.
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I want to preface this by saying this player is a friend of mine and my dm for the game I play on another day.
In my homebrew campaign the players just took down an ancient undead deep dragon but it was used as a distraction by the bbeg to get a head start to kill another ancient dragon. The player in question used spells in that fight then used two 4th level spells to get the party to catch up the the bbeg before he could do anything with his day headstart and what he did worked. They caught up to him before he could kill this dragon and started to defend it. Unfortunately the fight was in the middle of the ocean and he was flying on top of another player he polymorphed into a giant eagle. After the session he was complaining that he could not do anything in the fight and felt like he was sitting there for 3 hours doing nothing (he is currently playing a homebrew class called the witch). He has a bunch of concentration spells and save or suck spells and has at least 1 level 7 spell slot (level 13 characters). Unfortunately in this fight the bbeg is there and saves against all his spells. He is getting frustrated and says he can't do anything.
My question is did I do something wrong in making back to back battles? Making them both against enemies that have legendary resistance? If I'm being honest if he didn't get the party there when he did they wouldn't be having this fight because the dragon would have been dead already. So did I mess up somewhere to cause my player not to have fun? It seemed like everyone else was enjoying the fight but they are mostly all melee characters. I know legendary resistances can put a damper on magic users due to resistance, but idk what else I can do...
I would immediately look to the homebrew class. Homebrew is a difficult thing to pull off well and when we're talking about a whole class, it's even more difficult.
Frankly, there are a couple of issues at play. Immediately, the player didn't need to use those two level four spells. Doing so weakened him. That's their choice not yours. This is a great lesson potentially in teaching players that they aren't able to do everything. There are limits.
On the face of it, the immediate impression I get from your description puts homebrew together with moaning they can't do everything and concludes that they are being petulant. It's main character syndrome. The player wants to be the lead character in the story. Being honest, someone who DMs should know better. It feels from your description like they might be trying to gain as many edges as they can. It sounds mostly like the result was a consequence of their own actions.
I'd be having an honest conversation with the player in question. Did it occur to them that all characters have limitations? Why did they feel it necessary to catch up to the BBEG? Could this frustration be due to using a poorly balanced homebrew class? What would they have done differently if they were DM?
Does the player need to swap out some cantrips? In a world where green-flame blade and sword burst exist as cantrips there's a good chance that the player in question hasn't chosen their spells well. Though, again this may be due to the homebrew, depending on how well it's been thought through.
The best answer is to have a conversation with the player. No blame needed but explore with them what could have been done differently. Why their actions led to the situation, and if there's any way to rework the character's spell list that could have resulted in different outcomes.
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Yea, I understand what you are saying. I am just worried what will happen as the story moves forward. There are plenty of other creatures that they will be facing that have legendary resistances and strong saving throws and I'm just worried that I will be having this conversation again with them.
Lots of assumptions here. Yes, I know what that means.
Assuming that your HB class has normal spell progression and slots, much like a full caster(wizard/sorc), and a spell list to choose from. Not knowing what that spell list is, I can only assume that the player-in-question (also a DM) knows and understands how all of the spells on that list work and made an informed choice about which spells to add/prepare. They also knew that there would be a limit to the number of spells they could cast per long rest, and from your retelling of it, had an idea that there would be the potential for an altercation at said destination. I'm also going with the understanding that the player was able to view/vet the HB class before choosing it, and I would guess that there might be some room for editing along the way. I'm given to the understanding that everything that happened was clearly described, forewarned and projected so as to allow for fully informed decisions by the party.
Long story shorter - your player knew what was happening when they made their choices. I wouldn't suggest that you follow this as a "Poor Me" scenario from the player. They are frustrated, and failure is a real possible outcome. There are still things that they can do, though they aren't what they want to do. This doesn't specifically require that you do anything but empathize and encourage them to do something.... even something that they think might not work. The important thing is that they try. We miss 100% of the shots we don't take.
Maybe look at the BBE and assess the save DCs vs BBE's saves. If BBE is a bit too strong in the saving throw department, consider reeling that in a touch. Is the aforementioned dragon not fighting back? I would think that an ancient dragon would have something in their knapsack that would cause a saving throw to be failed, and subsequent Legendary Resist to be used.
Overall, I might agree that you have a player that wants to save the day, and in a sense has provided a great deal towards that goal, and now must be relegated to supporting cast, not main character. Give them credit for the work they have done, and try to provide them the perspective that the party wouldn't be able to try to save the target, without their efforts. They litterally got them to the point where they could succeed, and now it's the rest of the team's job to finish this. Consider how the player could use the Help action from their perch atop an eagle.
“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
If they're a new player, I'd try talking to them about the kinds of spells they picked, specifically the potential pitfalls of choosing mostly saving throw based spells rather than a diverse set of different spells that let you prepare for numerous situations. If they didn't understand this before, maybe give them an opportunity to pick new spells.
DnD should be difficult at level 13. Combats get harder and one of the ways the rules ensure that is making monsters more resistant to spell saves. Without that, ancient dragons would be Banished or Polymorphed into tortoises left and right and there would be very little challenge left. Maybe explain that for every legendary resistance you force the monster to spend, that's another one down until you can use your big spell on them, that making them use their legendary resistance isn't a failure, it's a little victory.
If they're a veteran player and they're still raising such a huff about legendary resistances then I have to agree with the above, they seem to be acting a bit petulant. They should know all this already and know that potential for failure is what makes winning feel earned. I'm always slightly baffled when veteran players get upset when not everything goes their way, and I'm naturally mistrustful of people for whom ttrpg's are more of a power fantasy than a game.
The dragon is fighting back and have already burned a legendary action from the bbeg. But there are other creatures there to. The bbeg has an aquatic neolithid as a pet along with a team of simic hybrid blood hunters of lycanthropy. Plus this is an ocean battle so the fight is under water mostly. This player in question is up in the air on another polymorophed player.
A little background the bbeg is an ancient aboleth who has enslaved crafters to make it magical armor that allows it to have ray attacks like a beholder on top of giving him resistance to all slashing, piecing and bludgeoning damage. His goal is to kill off all the guardian dragons (ancient dragons using their life force to keep a gate closed). Once he accomplishes his goal he plans on summoning a greatwyrm dragon and fuse with it (using old magic) to go after the gods and mortals that banished him in the first place. Some of the tactics he employed to far are convincing one of the dragons to become an ancient dracolich to break the seal on him. Another was cursing another dragon to be a werecreature forcing the party to end its suffering because they had no way to remove it. So his tactics are sneaky and not without thought.
I want to support the player but like you said he made the decisions he made and now has to figure out a way to support without trying to focus on saving throw spells. I just still feel like it is part my fault I just don't know how to help or fix things.
As you homebrew your campaign, you need to adapt all the monsters to the party they're facing. I've had this issue a bunch recently.
Let's say you have one Level 13 caster, and for ease of argument, 3 Level 13 Barbarians.
The barbarians don't really have any abilities that will cause the BBEG to even make a saving throw, they just whack away; this means that for your 'Save or Suck' caster to be able to do anything meaningful, the BBEG needs to firstly fail a saving throw (no guarantee) and then when they do, a Legendary Resistance sorts it out. This means that the BBEG is basically invulnerable to the Save or Suck caster until about 10 turns into the fight, which they won't reach.
Now, imagine instead that we have a party of 4 x level 13 Bards, all packing Otto's Irresistible Dance. Those bards can potentially perma-stun lock the BBEG unless it's packing a ton of LR's.
Now if we had a party of Battlemaster, Wizard, Sorcerer and Cleric, then we might think each of them would be forcing a saving throw each turn. Maybe we assume the BBEG will fail 1 save in 4 - in which case they burn a LR per turn. On turn 4, they're probably all out! Yay, we got through them! But this only works when there are players forcing the BBEG to make saves. The barbarian-heavy party won't do that.
So overall - make sure that your BBEG has the right number of LR's for the party. I'd say that against a party where only a single PC forces saving throws, they get ONE LR and that's it. Tell the player that they used their only LR too - that way the player will feel "Yes, I burned their resources! Now we strike!"
It's not your fault, it's just how the player choices laid out.
Can I ask, does the player in question consult with the rest of the party on strategy? Like was it their idea to burn their spell slots, or did the party ask them to?
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?
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It was something he mentioned and the party agreed to go with it.
In this party they have a paladin, blood hunters, barbarian, witch (the player we are referring to), sorcerer, and a monk. Currently in this fight they are teaming up with an ancient bronze dragon (paladin like with Smites, auras, and spells). They are vs 4 simic hybrid monstrosities, a lycanthrop blood hunter (part of a players backstory), an aquatic neolithid, and the abolith in magic armor (bbeg).
In the future it can depend on how you play it and what you say. Sometimes I'll say "Oh he burns a legendary save against that spell" letting the players know that a finite resource is being expended. Or "OK, I rolled a 10..plus 12 is 22!" Letting the party know the creature has a +12 to its saves. These statements give the party a hint at what they are facing in a way they can understand rather than "Oh yeah, he made his save" with no explanation.
Another thing you can consider is giving the witch alternative targets. If there are a bunch of minions, the witch can feel successful wiping them out instead of attacking the boss.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I already do all of these things that you had mentioned. And in this fight there are 6 other enemies other than the bbeg without legendary actions or resistances
If the crux of this discussion is about you, the DM, fixing things, you don't. DMs that provide solutions to their own situations aren't allowing for the game to proceed organically to the conclusion that was driven by the players' choices. When we apply a Deus Ex style save at the last moment to prevent the untimely demise of a group of characters that we enjoy, we are removing their reliance on their own choices and inserting our own, because that's how we want it to happen. That may coincide with what the party wants at the moment, but understand this is the DM to meta changing the game, altering how entities behave in that game, to suit their purposes. It's like the DM giving Guy sunglasses, and now he acts differently, but somehow everyone's oblivious to it. Like an elephant in the room.
I'm a full advocate of allowing the players to choose their destiny. Sometimes the decisions that are made don't work, sometimes they are lethal. I might warn the players about the hazard of an encounter before they set out, but if they respond with "we're going to do Thing-X", then that's what they do. Even if it means we start a new adventure with new PCs next week.
The task that you are left with is to assess your encounter balance, composition and layout, and decide if you made an encounter, or series of encounters, that can be beaten in "only one way" or one that could be beaten by "any reasonable way". (There is a gulf of difference between the two.) If you are confident that you built something that was level appropriate, and winnable by any reasonable means, start trying to create ledgends about the party that might meet it's untimely end in the ocean, fighting the good fight.
P.S. If the fight is below water, why can't the dragon fly away? Like the PCs delay BBE and the dragon bolts outta there. They are supposed to prevent the dragon from death right?
“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
I think you have player who's a witch and you don't give them the broom of flying your doing them a disservice the fact they had to polymorph themselves instead of flying on a borm like a witch just seems odd to me. I once let a player have a teddy bear that talked to the party cause they wanted to play that . You should add spells to his list that are not save or suck like a cleric if he's not picking them you made this hombrew class you can add stuff to it.I still think the witch needs a flying broom to but a domain spells feature would solve the problem they have no excuse that they can't do anything if they automatically had fireball , blight, cone of cold , wall of force and stuff like that prepared for them everyday.I would talk to the player first about it to make sure they were OK with a domain spells feature if they reject the idea than at that point you did everything you could and they made the choice to live with what they have.
So that is a story element these powerful dragons are using their own life for to keep a greatwrym dragon locked behind a gate. Because of this the link ties them to their lairs in a small radius around it. So unfortunately it can not get away.
I never said I made the class. The player found the class themselves. They also were allowed to choose their items (2 rarest and uncommons).
Yeah, see, this is where I feel the problem is now after reading everything.
15 years or so of GMing different ttrpgs has taught me plain and simple, homebrew classes are more trouble than they are worth. I mean there's absolutely no reason they can't create a witch through multiclassing. Unless you've got massive levels of experience don't allow a homebrew class in your game. It's not like there's a shortage of choice in D&D 5e. I think often there's a failure of imagination on the part of players. They get hung up on a class being called certain things rather than asking if the mechanics of those classes will allow them to do what they are trying to do.
I would also make the offer to the player 'do you want to write out the character?'
We sometimes forget that this is an option. If the player isn't gelling with their character respec or a new character is an option. In this case if they've chosen something that doesn't work you could offer them a new character by writing out their existing character.
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.
Ah, when I saw homebrew I thought you were the one who made the class. Thinking that you could tweak to suit the needs of the player. If it is something from another source you really should not allow it in your game without a thorough examination.
Like Aquilain said, you can suggest a different character if they want. Most of the point of playing is to keep all the players (including you - you are a player too) having a good time.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I ready through the source book (it was a kickstarter) and it was very well made and def has balance to it. I just think he is not playing it to its potential and focusing on the wrong enemies.
If something has legendary resistances, then casters could always use their ranged spell attack spells instead of their saving throw spells. They could also be buffing their party, or otherwise doing battle field control rather than directly damaging enemies.
If there are several other minions around the creature with legendary resistances, then these minions could also be targeted - I wouldn't really expect them to also have legendary resistances.