1. As mentioned, cast-off armor doesn't give an AC bonus beyond the base type of armor, meaning 18 AC max.
2. Where did he get cast-off armor if you didn't give it to him in-game?
3. How does he have shield? It's not a cleric spell, so unless he took magic initiate at level 4... Clerics get shield of faith, which is only +2 AC, takes a bonus action to cast (NOT a reaction, so he can't just spam it in-combat), and requires concentration.
4. His blessing of the forge applies to only one item at a time. He can't buff both his armor AND a shield. He also can't buff items that are already magical (such as cast-off armor).
AT MOST he should be able to make it to 24 AC *if* he casts shield of faith on himself, *if* he remembers to use blessing of the forge after every long rest, and *if* he can keep concentration up. It also means he can't cast any other concentration spell and maintain shield of faith.
There are a few fundamentals going on that you and new DMs seem to have problems with. One, all players should submit completed player characters to you the DM for review PRIOR to the game. You have red-line veto power over anything the player writes down on his character sheet, 95% of players don't need this, but a few will try crap like including homebrew crap or books you previously declared out-of-bounds in pre-session or Session Zero.
To me the issue is the misunderstanding of what Player Agency is. Player Agency is expressed as the idea that only the Player can determine what a Player Character feels, thinks, or what actions they take BARRING outside SUPERNATURAL influences. Player Agency is NOT affected by reduction of race, class, subclass, spell, equipment, or especially optional rule inclusion or exclusion. Yes, that does mean that for instance there are no Dragonborn Hexblade Warlocks casting Booming Blade in some games I run. All of those choices were crossed off as valid options before Session Zero started.
I say this because you, the DM, are the limiting factor in this scenario. You are the one that puts in 99% of the work. You get to decide the rules of the road. If a player doesn't like your rules or your style they can leave. Put their dice bags and character sheets to the left, another Player will be along in a minute to replace them. I have never actually seen a real survey but I, with my 35+ years of TTRPG experience, can attest to there being around 1 DM/GM/ST or what have you to 20-30 players. You can pick and choose!
You are not a shitty DM for either having ideas or standards that you want to enforce. If the players want to "attack" every problem like a video game, you have every tool in your considerable arsenal to make that visibly a poor idea. Get another buddy to join the game to help you manage monsters if needed and TPK them with well-oiled machine tactics. Have an Old Red Dragon sniff out their bulging pockets of gold and illicit treasures swoop down crush the Forge Cleric and demand EVERYTHING in exchange for their pitiful lives. This is not GM as adversary, this is DM allowing the world to inflict logical consequences to player character actions.
At the risk of repeating other’s comments, the issue here is a conflict of expectations between you and the players and no amount of game knowledge or power-play machinations is going to solve that.
If you didn’t run a session 0 with this group it could be worth putting the game on hold for half a session and having a conversation about why everyone is playing and what they want out of the game. Use the three pillars as a framework for the discussion. Either the group will be able to find some common ground, and the game proceeds, or you won’t, and you may have to just say that you don’t want to run the kind of game they want to play.
However, you can still run very mechanically driven combat focused games that have a story - if you assume that the players are going to solve every problem with over-powered, possibly cheating, combat - then make scenarios that depend on the player’s choice of who to kill. A king offers them a lot of gold to wipe out rebels in the forest... then send the army after them to tie up loose ends. Eventually they become public enemy number one, or become the tyrants of a small kingdom and enemy nations seek to wipe them out with intrigue and assassination. Things a non-social character will have a hard time defending against.
I agree...I learned a lot when I finally played a character and one of my group members stepped up to DM-mine was for health reasons but the point is the same...we all learned by having new roles and now we seem a more cohesive group.
On our first ever FtF DnD for 5 E, everyone except me were playing DnD for thr first time. The group started with computer game like moves and logics (like our moon druid becoming a tiger and pounce in a jelatinious cube, because he played wow and thinks that "pounce" will "stun" the jelly, or our rogue instead of eve thinking of pickpocketing a session 1 item, jumped in through a window, dying on the spot). First, we learned about the consequences of thinking like a pc. Then, after being singleshotted by some strong NPCs (because we missed the logical hints ofc), we slowly learned not to do it:)
Some encounter advices additional to the ones which came earlier as i don't want to repeat. (Also non encounter ones were really good as well, i like my players learn by experience)
1. Rust Monsters, they literally eat armor ans weapons. It will eat them away and make other players have the spotlight
2. Elite Kingsman, with enchanters and illusionists among them. He cant have max on all stats, and it will make him twice next time he wants to break the law. You can even use a divination wizard caption for that elite group to check out on them and track them, so they can't hide or be on the run forever.
3. Illitithids, his armor will simply won't work and will make then tremble even after hearing them being mentioned after a few good encounters
I'm afraid I can't help you if these are your friends. The advice I would give you could end your friendship.
I would be tempted to illustrate their screwed up idea of how to approach D&D by sending something obviously overpowering at them and the first guy that rolls an attack kills it in one stroke. Five minutes later, I'd do the same thing again. And five minutes after that, I'd do the same thing. Eventually they are going to say "What is going on?" And you can reply, "You said you wanted to play D&D and do anything you want. I know you want to kill overpowering monsters. So I'm helping you realize your goal."
MAYBE a light would come on in their head and they would realize the game is MORE FUN if they have to overcome a challenge at the table not just min-max their character during creation.
If a light doesn't come on, then they get to level 20 in about three sessions and have all the loot they could want and run out of ideas on how to spend it.
I think this is my favorite answer. haha thanks :)
I'm afraid I can't help you if these are your friends. The advice I would give you could end your friendship.
I would be tempted to illustrate their screwed up idea of how to approach D&D by sending something obviously overpowering at them and the first guy that rolls an attack kills it in one stroke. Five minutes later, I'd do the same thing again. And five minutes after that, I'd do the same thing. Eventually they are going to say "What is going on?" And you can reply, "You said you wanted to play D&D and do anything you want. I know you want to kill overpowering monsters. So I'm helping you realize your goal."
MAYBE a light would come on in their head and they would realize the game is MORE FUN if they have to overcome a challenge at the table not just min-max their character during creation.
If a light doesn't come on, then they get to level 20 in about three sessions and have all the loot they could want and run out of ideas on how to spend it.
I think this is my favorite answer. haha thanks :)
Just don't underestimate how think people in general can be if they're getting it through subtlety
I had a friend who played like that. He said life is hard and he just wanted to bash things. I had to personalize the enemy, make them do.something that would make him (the player) mad.
Talk to your players and see if there is some middle ground. If you're not having fun, what's the point?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1. As mentioned, cast-off armor doesn't give an AC bonus beyond the base type of armor, meaning 18 AC max.
2. Where did he get cast-off armor if you didn't give it to him in-game?
3. How does he have shield? It's not a cleric spell, so unless he took magic initiate at level 4... Clerics get shield of faith, which is only +2 AC, takes a bonus action to cast (NOT a reaction, so he can't just spam it in-combat), and requires concentration.
4. His blessing of the forge applies to only one item at a time. He can't buff both his armor AND a shield. He also can't buff items that are already magical (such as cast-off armor).
AT MOST he should be able to make it to 24 AC *if* he casts shield of faith on himself, *if* he remembers to use blessing of the forge after every long rest, and *if* he can keep concentration up. It also means he can't cast any other concentration spell and maintain shield of faith.
There are a few fundamentals going on that you and new DMs seem to have problems with. One, all players should submit completed player characters to you the DM for review PRIOR to the game. You have red-line veto power over anything the player writes down on his character sheet, 95% of players don't need this, but a few will try crap like including homebrew crap or books you previously declared out-of-bounds in pre-session or Session Zero.
To me the issue is the misunderstanding of what Player Agency is. Player Agency is expressed as the idea that only the Player can determine what a Player Character feels, thinks, or what actions they take BARRING outside SUPERNATURAL influences. Player Agency is NOT affected by reduction of race, class, subclass, spell, equipment, or especially optional rule inclusion or exclusion. Yes, that does mean that for instance there are no Dragonborn Hexblade Warlocks casting Booming Blade in some games I run. All of those choices were crossed off as valid options before Session Zero started.
I say this because you, the DM, are the limiting factor in this scenario. You are the one that puts in 99% of the work. You get to decide the rules of the road. If a player doesn't like your rules or your style they can leave. Put their dice bags and character sheets to the left, another Player will be along in a minute to replace them. I have never actually seen a real survey but I, with my 35+ years of TTRPG experience, can attest to there being around 1 DM/GM/ST or what have you to 20-30 players. You can pick and choose!
You are not a shitty DM for either having ideas or standards that you want to enforce. If the players want to "attack" every problem like a video game, you have every tool in your considerable arsenal to make that visibly a poor idea. Get another buddy to join the game to help you manage monsters if needed and TPK them with well-oiled machine tactics. Have an Old Red Dragon sniff out their bulging pockets of gold and illicit treasures swoop down crush the Forge Cleric and demand EVERYTHING in exchange for their pitiful lives. This is not GM as adversary, this is DM allowing the world to inflict logical consequences to player character actions.
I looked over my files and your right i dont know where he got it from.
At the risk of repeating other’s comments, the issue here is a conflict of expectations between you and the players and no amount of game knowledge or power-play machinations is going to solve that.
If you didn’t run a session 0 with this group it could be worth putting the game on hold for half a session and having a conversation about why everyone is playing and what they want out of the game. Use the three pillars as a framework for the discussion. Either the group will be able to find some common ground, and the game proceeds, or you won’t, and you may have to just say that you don’t want to run the kind of game they want to play.
However, you can still run very mechanically driven combat focused games that have a story - if you assume that the players are going to solve every problem with over-powered, possibly cheating, combat - then make scenarios that depend on the player’s choice of who to kill. A king offers them a lot of gold to wipe out rebels in the forest... then send the army after them to tie up loose ends. Eventually they become public enemy number one, or become the tyrants of a small kingdom and enemy nations seek to wipe them out with intrigue and assassination. Things a non-social character will have a hard time defending against.
I agree...I learned a lot when I finally played a character and one of my group members stepped up to DM-mine was for health reasons but the point is the same...we all learned by having new roles and now we seem a more cohesive group.
Lori L
On our first ever FtF DnD for 5 E, everyone except me were playing DnD for thr first time. The group started with computer game like moves and logics (like our moon druid becoming a tiger and pounce in a jelatinious cube, because he played wow and thinks that "pounce" will "stun" the jelly, or our rogue instead of eve thinking of pickpocketing a session 1 item, jumped in through a window, dying on the spot). First, we learned about the consequences of thinking like a pc. Then, after being singleshotted by some strong NPCs (because we missed the logical hints ofc), we slowly learned not to do it:)
Some encounter advices additional to the ones which came earlier as i don't want to repeat. (Also non encounter ones were really good as well, i like my players learn by experience)
1. Rust Monsters, they literally eat armor ans weapons. It will eat them away and make other players have the spotlight
2. Elite Kingsman, with enchanters and illusionists among them. He cant have max on all stats, and it will make him twice next time he wants to break the law. You can even use a divination wizard caption for that elite group to check out on them and track them, so they can't hide or be on the run forever.
3. Illitithids, his armor will simply won't work and will make then tremble even after hearing them being mentioned after a few good encounters
Hope this helps:)
I think this is my favorite answer. haha thanks :)
Just don't underestimate how think people in general can be if they're getting it through subtlety
I had a friend who played like that. He said life is hard and he just wanted to bash things. I had to personalize the enemy, make them do.something that would make him (the player) mad.
Talk to your players and see if there is some middle ground. If you're not having fun, what's the point?