DMs in general have to balance things from time to time for the sake of balance. What have you had to ban, nerf, or change in other ways to make something more balanced?
For example: One of my players' characters, a Life Cleric, made some other players feel useless by doing too much damage with Inflict Wounds. So, I changed it to 3d8 instead of 3d10 damage.
That sounds more like an 'only one fight per day' problem than a problem with Inflict Wounds. The nerf I've used is to have a normal long rest only restore resources to half their maximum value (and full rests occur less often, generally only at waypoints).
I'm very cautious about nerfing things, except once: the sentinel feat. The benefits of dropping an enemy's speed to 0 if you hit an opportunity attack alone is worth a feat, but also having it extend to enemies who disengage or don't attack the PC is really imbalanced for just a single feat. Players pick 2 of the benefits, but have to take the feat again if they want all three benefits. The second time they take the feat, they get a +1 to strength.
A bog standard spell like Inflict Wounds should not need nerfing. I wonder why you are not doing enough damage to the party that the cleric thinks it might be more important to save those spell slots for curing wounds rather than burning them to inflict. Try putting in more monsters or tougher monsters and doing some more HP to the party, and it will sort itself out. I would not nerf a spell like Cure/Inflict Wounds.
I have had to nerf or ban other things. For example, it is actually not a nerf, but I use the Xanathar rule about how to identify spells, requiring a reaction, which is a sort-of nerf to Counterspell, if you've been expecting to be able to counter after the ID of the spell was announced. I have "eased the pain" a little by using, I think it's Pantagruel's rule, that IF you choose to use your reaction to ID a spell, you can then choose, as part of the reaction, after IDing it, to cast counterspell. But there is a DC associated and there is no guarantee. No one has tried to use CS yet so we'll see what happens if they do.
The other spell I basically banned at least for players learning it is Wish. That's because I have special plans for Wish and I don't want it being cast by any old spellcatser as a garden-variety high level spell. Wish is the purview of the gods.
I've also banned all Psionic subclasses and basically all of what current 5E calls "psionics" in favor of my own system. I won't write any more about it here because some of my players read this forum and I don't want to give away spoilers. I've told them the 5E "psychic" spells are allowed, but feats like Telepathy and Telekinesis are banned, and any class defined as "Psionic" or with "Psionic" abilities is banned.
I also banned that idiotic new spell that lets you dream yourself into another world. There ARE no other worlds in my universe, just mine... and anyway I think that sort of thing should be GM Fiat, not a spec'ed out power.
I did nerf Goodberry a little -- it consumes the mistletoe so you can't just have one mistletoe and gain access to infinite food. I mostly did that so if for some reason there needs to be a "survival" situation, one character can't negate the entire game play with a level 1 spell. I don't expect this to actually ever come into play though.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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I'm very cautious about nerfing things, except once: the sentinel feat. The benefits of dropping an enemy's speed to 0 if you hit an opportunity attack alone is worth a feat, but also having it extend to enemies who disengage or don't attack the PC is really imbalanced for just a single feat. Players pick 2 of the benefits, but have to take the feat again if they want all three benefits. The second time they take the feat, they get a +1 to strength.
An enemy that wants to "disengage" can still do so fairly safely by taking the Dodge action and accepting the risk. My bigger problem with the feat is that it lets a small or medium character stop a huge creature in its tracks by just whacking it, which is pretty silly. A better fix in my opinion is to either add a strength saving throw to the speed reduction or change it from speed reduced to 0 to having their speed halved.
I also banned that idiotic new spell that lets you dream yourself into another world. There ARE no other worlds in my universe, just mine... and anyway I think that sort of thing should be GM Fiat, not a spec'ed out power.
It's already based on DM fiat, just like Plane Shift. You either need a magic item created on that world or a friend that was born there. The DM controls the magic items and has the final say on character creation.
I did nerf Goodberry a little -- it consumes the mistletoe so you can't just have one mistletoe and gain access to infinite food. I mostly did that so if for some reason there needs to be a "survival" situation, one character can't negate the entire game play with a level 1 spell. I don't expect this to actually ever come into play though.
I'd hope if you're running a wilderness survival situation there's more things to worry about than just finding food; any character with proficiency in Survival ought to be able to find enough food to survive anyways, unless you're dropping them off in a barren wasteland.
As for my own nerfs:
Grappling and shoving are downright broken if any player min/maxes it even a little. Monsters rarely get Athletics or Acrobatics proficiencies while players have a ton of pretty accessible low-level ways of stacking ability check bonuses (Bardic Inspiration, Bless, Expertise, Rage, Enlarge/Reduce, Prodigy, Skill Expert) and on top of that have ways to improve their action economy (e.g. martials can shove as a bonus action through Shield Master, monks can grapple as a bonus action through Tavern Brawler). It also doesn't interact properly with most conditions (you can grapple an invisible target as easily as one you can see) and Legendary Resistance can't help against it.
My fix: grappling and shoving use an unarmed strike against 10 + the target's DEX save modifier (the number on their character sheet or stat block.) On a hit, the attack deals no damage and the target makes a Strength saving throw against 15 + the attacker's STR modifier. I know it's an unconventional save DC but it needs to start higher than 8 + PB + Mod since the grappler also needs to also succeed on the attack roll, and adding the proficiency bonus would result in DCs as high as 26 which can be impossible for creatures with strength save proficiency to escape. This keeps it in the 15 to 20 range, which is medium to hard. Escaping uses a strength check against the same DC.
Shield is another iconic game element that's turned out to be problematic. It works fairly well in the player's hands at low levels. But at higher levels it becomes a no-brainer get-out-of-jail-free card since by the time your cantrips get their second damage die they rival 1st level spells in power, so now you have a bunch of 1st level spell slots that make you near-invulnerable to melee attacks and aren't good for much else. And then there's Hexblade warlocks, which feel like they're wasting a precious spell slot if they decide to use it since it has no scaling effect at higher levels. On the flip side it's plain unfun when used against players since half the players just want to hit the target and now they can't. It's also pretty wonky that you can trigger it against an attack you neither saw nor heard, so there's no smart counterplay possible.
My fix: I took a page from the spell's original 1e/2e incarnation. Instead of a 360-degree force field it creates a literal floating shield in front of you that needs to be directed. The spell only provides its AC bonus against attacks you can see or hear, and only from the enemy that triggered the reaction. For every level above the first, the caster can redirect the shield to protect against another creature (no action required). In exchange for the nerf, the spell behaves like 3/4 cover and also provides a +5 bonus to Dexterity saves against effects originating from the opposite side of the shield (and that don't go around corners like Fireball, obviously.)
Counterspell. This one also tends to become a no-brainer because giving up your reaction to waste an enemy's potentially very damaging turn is almost always a winning move. This also suffers from asymmetry in that monsters rarely ever have it prepared (because it's unfun for players) and even if they do, if the players have more counterspellers than the monsters they pretty much still win by default.
My fix: Counterspell only works against spells cast as an action. Narratively, bonus action and reaction spells too fast to counter. Mechanically, there's very few of these spells and a lot of them are non-area spells for martial characters, so I'm fine letting them through. More importantly this puts a stop to counterspell chains and action economy mind games (e.g. bait a counterspell with a cantrip to then cast a bonus action) that might slow the game down. Finally, counterspell can't be used if there's an enemy within 5 feet of you that can see you and isn't incapacitated. This lets monsters play around counterspell by keeping the wizard in check.
Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter: These two feats combine to produce outrageous results if the character ever has advantage, especially on Arcane Archers or Rangers with Hunter's Mark. Sharpshooter's damage bonus only works on the Attack action (not the bonus action from CE) and Crossbow Expert's bonus action attack doesn't include your dexterity modifier in the damage roll (similar to TWF.) Also, Sharpshooter only allows you to ignore cover if you can see the obstruction, so it doesn't help against my variation of the Shield spell or if the shooter is blinded or there's an invisible object or creature in the way.
Unseen attackers: You only have advantage against a target that can't see you if you can see it. This causes attacks against a target you can't see to always be made with disadvantage and stops situations where you negate your own disadvantage (from being prone or grappled or whatever) by blinding both yourself and your target.
I have a world setting that is a prison demiplane that has been abandonded for so long the original prisoners have long since died off and a whole new society has risen. Of course, they dont know that they are in a prison, they jus think that they are living in the world.
Anyway, within this realm teleportation spells, especially planer teleportation spells, don't function at all, and spells that summon things from other planes also don't work. There has been, of course, some reflavoring of the spells so conjuration wizards can still exist, but that is all a setting dependent thing. As far as out right banning or nerfing stuff I haven't done that with any official content to date especially if the player can give a good narrative reason why they could/should have the ability within the scope of the world and are willing to accept potential consequences of "being the first one that the psionic powers have manifested in"
Grappling, Jumping, Falling Damage, Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Normal Hit Point Recovery, Restrained Condition, Carrying Capacities, Barding Costs, Magic Item Costs (up by a factor of 10). My guys got an 11 page file in Session 0, with changes that made the game far more realistic.
There is zero chance a 40 pound Halfling with a Str of 8 is going to be walking around with 120 pounds of stuff.
I've been writing up an adventure and I've had to make sure I feature a means to un-petrify people so the adventure doesn't risk TPK. It's low level, but features a Gorgon, so I don't want players to end up petrified permanently if they roll poorly. I've added a cactus which, if it pricks you, will turn you to stone, or if it pricks someone who's petrified, it'll turn them back. It takes 1 minute to work, so it's not going to help them in the combat (though combat may not be necessary...)
Just for a data point on the other side ... I haven't found it necessary to nerf anything at all. Feats, shield spell, multiclassing, all the spells in the book up to tier 3. The only things I DO rule out in games I am running are Coffeelocks and abuse of the Simulacrum spell.
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In the OPs example, I can only assume that the players and DM are fairly new to this if they felt it necessary to nerf a spell that does 16.5 average damage down to one that does 13.5 damage. Changing the average damage by 3 points doesn't do much except make the character using one of their few 1st level spell slots to cast a spell doing a bit less damage feel worse about themselves. Besides which, a life cleric will often need to use some of their spell slots for healing in the longer term so burning them on an attack spell should usually be a last ditch effort ... unless they just don't have enough encounters in one day to be challenging.
As for the rest of the examples given - SS+XBE or GWM+PAM can be particularly powerful combinations but don't really get going until level 8 or so except for variant human. I've DMed campaigns with characters with both of these as well as played with people who took them and they ARE more effective but not that big a deal.
(I played a tier 3 game with two barbarian/fighter characters both of which had GWM+PAM but they were so one-dimensional that there was nothing they could do when confronted with a dragon. They didn't even have an effective ranged attack. They could do massive amounts of damage when they hit with GWM+PAM+expanded crit range from champion fighter but without the bard character I was playing being able to cast Wall of Force to contain the dragon - the rest of the party would have likely TPKed.)
Grappling and shoving can be very effective against certain targets. A moon druid in a campaign I was playing in used it extremely effectively against Acerak at the end of the Tomb of Annihilation campaign - we had more trouble with the Atropal but we were quite beat up after dealing with the Atropal and the Soul Monger and found it to be a good end to the climactic fight. Acerak still cast cloud kill and some other nasty things and it was a fun fight even with the moon druid keeping him pinned.
However, having one character use their attacks to CC one other target doesn't in general work very well against multiple attacker so I haven't found it to be that big an issue. Being grappled just reduces the target's movement to zero - which can be a good way to keep them down if you shove them prone - but it doesn't impose the restrained condition. I have used NPCs to grapple/shove a PC when they are tactically blocking access but it usually take the NPC a few rounds to figure out that it might be a good idea.
Other popular nerf targets, especially for newer DMs or ones new to 5e are rogue sneak attack, moon druid bear wild shapes at level 2-4, paladin divine smite. Some of these features make these characters particularly effective at a certain level or at certain tasks (level 3 rogue adding 2d6 damage to their attacks at level 3 feels powerful compared to a plain fighter with one attack doing d8+3.
Anyway, I haven't found any of these to be so unbalancing as to need nerfing ...
On the subject of grapple and shove -- while it's true that PCs who decide to specialize will almost always succeed at their checks (unless you give creatures proficiency; I often give critters skills that aren't in their official stat blocks), it doesn't actually matter that much because the actual effect of a success is pretty modest.
(I played a tier 3 game with two barbarian/fighter characters both of which had GWM+PAM but they were so one-dimensional that there was nothing they could do when confronted with a dragon. They didn't even have an effective ranged attack. They could do massive amounts of damage when they hit with GWM+PAM+expanded crit range from champion fighter but without the bard character I was playing being able to cast Wall of Force to contain the dragon - the rest of the party would have likely TPKed.)
This is why I called out CE+SS specifically. GWM still requires being able to reach your opponent and putting yourself at risk. CE+SS does the same thing from a distance while removing the main drawbacks of ranged attacks. It actually makes the game less tactically interesting and since the combo obviously works best with hand crossbows, also reduces variety in player builds.
On the subject of grapple and shove -- while it's true that PCs who decide to specialize will almost always succeed at their checks (unless you give creatures proficiency; I often give critters skills that aren't in their official stat blocks), it doesn't actually matter that much because the actual effect of a success is pretty modest.
Shoving prone is a super easy way to give other melee characters advantage and combined with a grapple can completely neutralize monsters that lack spellcasting, auras or save-based powers.
Sharpshooter feels overtuned to me, tbh. I have less of an issue with GWM/PAM (though both are still very good) because both of them require a Strength-based build to be particularly effective, and Strength builds otherwise sort of underperform relative to Dex builds (though I don't expect to need to change SS for my CoS game, due to there being zero magic arrows or bows and lots of resistant or immune to normal weapons foes...).
K so realism is cool and all and i'm all for a harder game, i've been apart of my fair share of Hardcore DND games, but...Dispel Magic isn't imbalanced in anyway it only gets rid of magic level 3 and lower and Counterspell is MEANT to be strong its magic made to counter magic...its in the name...Grappling isn't OP and if anything needs a buff. Magic Items - I NEVER EVER include them with a price UNLESS it's Avernus, TOA or in some sort of auction. All magic items are made, earned ,found or stolen. And a +1 sword isn't worth 1000 gold, like ...what? Yeah its a magical sword thats +1, but at BEST it's maybe 300-500 (and for what an average blacksmith makes thats like 30 years worth of gold). Players are in the tippy top percent of money earnings, don't balance an item around gold. I would always play an Artificer in your campaign and make magic items just to spite this rule. Then put 1-2 levels in forge cleric just to do it again.
K so realism is cool and all and i'm all for a harder game, i've been apart of my fair share of Hardcore DND games, but...Dispel Magic isn't imbalanced in anyway it only gets rid of magic level 3 and lower and Counterspell is MEANT to be strong its magic made to counter magic...its in the name...Grappling isn't OP and if anything needs a buff. Magic Items - I NEVER EVER include them with a price UNLESS it's Avernus, TOA or in some sort of auction. All magic items are made, earned ,found or stolen. And a +1 sword isn't worth 1000 gold, like ...what? Yeah its a magical sword thats +1, but at BEST it's maybe 300-500 (and for what an average blacksmith makes thats like 30 years worth of gold). Players are in the tippy top percent of money earnings, don't balance an item around gold. I would always play an Artificer in your campaign and make magic items just to spite this rule. Then put 1-2 levels in forge cleric just to do it again.
I won't address everything you have said, but here are my Dispel Magic/Counterspell rules, and Grapple rules from my session 0. I especially hate the existing Grappling rules, because they are ludicrous. The Dispel Magic/ Counterspell rules take into account in a larger way the differences between the level a spell was cast at and the level of spell used to Counter/ Dispel it.
Dispel Magic and CounterSpell DC's.
The calculation for the DC of the spell to be Countered or Dispelled is now 15 + (Spell Slot Level the targeted spell was cast at - Spell Slot Level CounterSpell/Dispel Magic is cast at), instead of the traditional 10 + spell slot level targeted spell was cast at. The traditional rule of matching the spell-slot level of the target spell was cast to automatically be successful remains unchanged, except for "permanent spells" as described below. An attempt to Dispel Magic on a "permanent magical effect" (eg. Glyph of Warding, Hallow, Teleportation Circle with a year's worth of casting) has an additional +5 added to the DC. Bottom line, it will be slightly tougher to Dispel or Counter Magic, but upcasting Dispel Magic or Counterspell against a spell has a significant impact. In some cases, depending on the situation, a player may be able to suppress or weaken a "permanent effect", up to the DM Fiat.
Grappling:
All these modifiers are subject to varying conditions, such as wet conditions, slime, whatever comes up.......
Grappling is a special Melee attack, and 1 Grapple attempt = The Entire Attack Action. Grappling a creature one size larger is at Disadvantage. You also need two hands free to attempt the Grapple on a creature one size larger than you. When you have Grappled a target, you can attack the target the following turns with a Single (does not matter if you have multiple attacks in a turn, Monks being a special case) One-Armed Unarmed Attack or any weapon having the LIght Weapon Property, assuming it is still Grappled. (in this subcondition an Unarmed Attack would include the hilt of a sword, or the butt of some other weapon.) Monks: Because at least one of your arms and/or legs involved in Grappling, your Unarmed Attacks available is cut in half. Moving a Grappled Creature: You use your strength check (ie. Strength 18 = +4 on the roll) against the DC to see if you are successful. Two sizes smaller than you = DC 4 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer. One size smaller than you = DC 8 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer. Same size as you = DC 12 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer. One size larger than you = DC 18 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer. (see below for movement if the Grappled creature tries to move YOU).
The Grappled Creature may choose to drag/ carry you at half its speed on its movement, if it is at least one size larger than you. 50% of the time a Creature is Grappled, it is Restrained, unless at least one size larger than the Grappler. You cannot Restrain a creature larger than you. This Condition is re-rolled every turn. Grappling, then Dragging/Carrying a willing creature negates any Readied Action that turn for the willing grappled creature.
Restrained Condition: A restrained creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed. 50% of the time the creature is restrained the creature can not Attack with a weapon nor perform somatic functions for a spell, nor reach for material components. (An Arcane Focus in hand, even if Restrained, functions normally.) Every turn this 50% sub-condition is re-rolled. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage. The creature has disadvantage on Dexterity Saving Throws.
DMs in general have to balance things from time to time for the sake of balance. What have you had to ban, nerf, or change in other ways to make something more balanced?
For example: One of my players' characters, a Life Cleric, made some other players feel useless by doing too much damage with Inflict Wounds. So, I changed it to 3d8 instead of 3d10 damage.
I'm very interested to hear about your stories!
That's only a difference of 3 damage on average. Is it really worth that to make the player feel picked on?
Just for a data point on the other side ... I haven't found it necessary to nerf anything at all. Feats, shield spell, multiclassing, all the spells in the book up to tier 3. The only things I DO rule out in games I am running are Coffeelocks and abuse of the Simulacrum spell.
This is about where I am. There's one other thing my group has voted no on: Illusionist's Bracers.
I don't know what you guys have experienced to decide grapple needs to be nerfed/complicated, but I don't think it's necessary. As written it's already a pretty poor choice 95% of the time unless you're a high level fighter. There's a reason the powergamers have never produced an effective grapple-centric build, and certainly not for lack of trying.
Yes, grapple + shove seems strong, but only for a melee-heavy party against a large-or-smaller creature - it's actually detrimental to ranged PCs. And by the time PC athletics begin to really outpace monsters, most will have other tools to deal with it. And no matter what, a grappled creature has a target within reach so it is never truly neutralized, only disadvantaged.
If grapple were any worse, I'd never use it at all.
Hello there,
DMs in general have to balance things from time to time for the sake of balance. What have you had to ban, nerf, or change in other ways to make something more balanced?
For example: One of my players' characters, a Life Cleric, made some other players feel useless by doing too much damage with Inflict Wounds. So, I changed it to 3d8 instead of 3d10 damage.
I'm very interested to hear about your stories!
That sounds more like an 'only one fight per day' problem than a problem with Inflict Wounds. The nerf I've used is to have a normal long rest only restore resources to half their maximum value (and full rests occur less often, generally only at waypoints).
I'm very cautious about nerfing things, except once: the sentinel feat. The benefits of dropping an enemy's speed to 0 if you hit an opportunity attack alone is worth a feat, but also having it extend to enemies who disengage or don't attack the PC is really imbalanced for just a single feat. Players pick 2 of the benefits, but have to take the feat again if they want all three benefits. The second time they take the feat, they get a +1 to strength.
A bog standard spell like Inflict Wounds should not need nerfing. I wonder why you are not doing enough damage to the party that the cleric thinks it might be more important to save those spell slots for curing wounds rather than burning them to inflict. Try putting in more monsters or tougher monsters and doing some more HP to the party, and it will sort itself out. I would not nerf a spell like Cure/Inflict Wounds.
I have had to nerf or ban other things. For example, it is actually not a nerf, but I use the Xanathar rule about how to identify spells, requiring a reaction, which is a sort-of nerf to Counterspell, if you've been expecting to be able to counter after the ID of the spell was announced. I have "eased the pain" a little by using, I think it's Pantagruel's rule, that IF you choose to use your reaction to ID a spell, you can then choose, as part of the reaction, after IDing it, to cast counterspell. But there is a DC associated and there is no guarantee. No one has tried to use CS yet so we'll see what happens if they do.
The other spell I basically banned at least for players learning it is Wish. That's because I have special plans for Wish and I don't want it being cast by any old spellcatser as a garden-variety high level spell. Wish is the purview of the gods.
I've also banned all Psionic subclasses and basically all of what current 5E calls "psionics" in favor of my own system. I won't write any more about it here because some of my players read this forum and I don't want to give away spoilers. I've told them the 5E "psychic" spells are allowed, but feats like Telepathy and Telekinesis are banned, and any class defined as "Psionic" or with "Psionic" abilities is banned.
I also banned that idiotic new spell that lets you dream yourself into another world. There ARE no other worlds in my universe, just mine... and anyway I think that sort of thing should be GM Fiat, not a spec'ed out power.
I did nerf Goodberry a little -- it consumes the mistletoe so you can't just have one mistletoe and gain access to infinite food. I mostly did that so if for some reason there needs to be a "survival" situation, one character can't negate the entire game play with a level 1 spell. I don't expect this to actually ever come into play though.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
An enemy that wants to "disengage" can still do so fairly safely by taking the Dodge action and accepting the risk. My bigger problem with the feat is that it lets a small or medium character stop a huge creature in its tracks by just whacking it, which is pretty silly. A better fix in my opinion is to either add a strength saving throw to the speed reduction or change it from speed reduced to 0 to having their speed halved.
It's already based on DM fiat, just like Plane Shift. You either need a magic item created on that world or a friend that was born there. The DM controls the magic items and has the final say on character creation.
I'd hope if you're running a wilderness survival situation there's more things to worry about than just finding food; any character with proficiency in Survival ought to be able to find enough food to survive anyways, unless you're dropping them off in a barren wasteland.
As for my own nerfs:
Grappling and shoving are downright broken if any player min/maxes it even a little. Monsters rarely get Athletics or Acrobatics proficiencies while players have a ton of pretty accessible low-level ways of stacking ability check bonuses (Bardic Inspiration, Bless, Expertise, Rage, Enlarge/Reduce, Prodigy, Skill Expert) and on top of that have ways to improve their action economy (e.g. martials can shove as a bonus action through Shield Master, monks can grapple as a bonus action through Tavern Brawler). It also doesn't interact properly with most conditions (you can grapple an invisible target as easily as one you can see) and Legendary Resistance can't help against it.
My fix: grappling and shoving use an unarmed strike against 10 + the target's DEX save modifier (the number on their character sheet or stat block.) On a hit, the attack deals no damage and the target makes a Strength saving throw against 15 + the attacker's STR modifier. I know it's an unconventional save DC but it needs to start higher than 8 + PB + Mod since the grappler also needs to also succeed on the attack roll, and adding the proficiency bonus would result in DCs as high as 26 which can be impossible for creatures with strength save proficiency to escape. This keeps it in the 15 to 20 range, which is medium to hard. Escaping uses a strength check against the same DC.
Shield is another iconic game element that's turned out to be problematic. It works fairly well in the player's hands at low levels. But at higher levels it becomes a no-brainer get-out-of-jail-free card since by the time your cantrips get their second damage die they rival 1st level spells in power, so now you have a bunch of 1st level spell slots that make you near-invulnerable to melee attacks and aren't good for much else. And then there's Hexblade warlocks, which feel like they're wasting a precious spell slot if they decide to use it since it has no scaling effect at higher levels. On the flip side it's plain unfun when used against players since half the players just want to hit the target and now they can't. It's also pretty wonky that you can trigger it against an attack you neither saw nor heard, so there's no smart counterplay possible.
My fix: I took a page from the spell's original 1e/2e incarnation. Instead of a 360-degree force field it creates a literal floating shield in front of you that needs to be directed. The spell only provides its AC bonus against attacks you can see or hear, and only from the enemy that triggered the reaction. For every level above the first, the caster can redirect the shield to protect against another creature (no action required). In exchange for the nerf, the spell behaves like 3/4 cover and also provides a +5 bonus to Dexterity saves against effects originating from the opposite side of the shield (and that don't go around corners like Fireball, obviously.)
Counterspell. This one also tends to become a no-brainer because giving up your reaction to waste an enemy's potentially very damaging turn is almost always a winning move. This also suffers from asymmetry in that monsters rarely ever have it prepared (because it's unfun for players) and even if they do, if the players have more counterspellers than the monsters they pretty much still win by default.
My fix: Counterspell only works against spells cast as an action. Narratively, bonus action and reaction spells too fast to counter. Mechanically, there's very few of these spells and a lot of them are non-area spells for martial characters, so I'm fine letting them through. More importantly this puts a stop to counterspell chains and action economy mind games (e.g. bait a counterspell with a cantrip to then cast a bonus action) that might slow the game down. Finally, counterspell can't be used if there's an enemy within 5 feet of you that can see you and isn't incapacitated. This lets monsters play around counterspell by keeping the wizard in check.
Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter: These two feats combine to produce outrageous results if the character ever has advantage, especially on Arcane Archers or Rangers with Hunter's Mark. Sharpshooter's damage bonus only works on the Attack action (not the bonus action from CE) and Crossbow Expert's bonus action attack doesn't include your dexterity modifier in the damage roll (similar to TWF.) Also, Sharpshooter only allows you to ignore cover if you can see the obstruction, so it doesn't help against my variation of the Shield spell or if the shooter is blinded or there's an invisible object or creature in the way.
Unseen attackers: You only have advantage against a target that can't see you if you can see it. This causes attacks against a target you can't see to always be made with disadvantage and stops situations where you negate your own disadvantage (from being prone or grappled or whatever) by blinding both yourself and your target.
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I have a world setting that is a prison demiplane that has been abandonded for so long the original prisoners have long since died off and a whole new society has risen. Of course, they dont know that they are in a prison, they jus think that they are living in the world.
Anyway, within this realm teleportation spells, especially planer teleportation spells, don't function at all, and spells that summon things from other planes also don't work. There has been, of course, some reflavoring of the spells so conjuration wizards can still exist, but that is all a setting dependent thing. As far as out right banning or nerfing stuff I haven't done that with any official content to date especially if the player can give a good narrative reason why they could/should have the ability within the scope of the world and are willing to accept potential consequences of "being the first one that the psionic powers have manifested in"
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
I nerfed a ton of stuff.
Grappling, Jumping, Falling Damage, Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Normal Hit Point Recovery, Restrained Condition, Carrying Capacities, Barding Costs, Magic Item Costs (up by a factor of 10). My guys got an 11 page file in Session 0, with changes that made the game far more realistic.
There is zero chance a 40 pound Halfling with a Str of 8 is going to be walking around with 120 pounds of stuff.
I've been writing up an adventure and I've had to make sure I feature a means to un-petrify people so the adventure doesn't risk TPK. It's low level, but features a Gorgon, so I don't want players to end up petrified permanently if they roll poorly. I've added a cactus which, if it pricks you, will turn you to stone, or if it pricks someone who's petrified, it'll turn them back. It takes 1 minute to work, so it's not going to help them in the combat (though combat may not be necessary...)
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Just for a data point on the other side ... I haven't found it necessary to nerf anything at all. Feats, shield spell, multiclassing, all the spells in the book up to tier 3. The only things I DO rule out in games I am running are Coffeelocks and abuse of the Simulacrum spell.
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In the OPs example, I can only assume that the players and DM are fairly new to this if they felt it necessary to nerf a spell that does 16.5 average damage down to one that does 13.5 damage. Changing the average damage by 3 points doesn't do much except make the character using one of their few 1st level spell slots to cast a spell doing a bit less damage feel worse about themselves. Besides which, a life cleric will often need to use some of their spell slots for healing in the longer term so burning them on an attack spell should usually be a last ditch effort ... unless they just don't have enough encounters in one day to be challenging.
As for the rest of the examples given - SS+XBE or GWM+PAM can be particularly powerful combinations but don't really get going until level 8 or so except for variant human. I've DMed campaigns with characters with both of these as well as played with people who took them and they ARE more effective but not that big a deal.
(I played a tier 3 game with two barbarian/fighter characters both of which had GWM+PAM but they were so one-dimensional that there was nothing they could do when confronted with a dragon. They didn't even have an effective ranged attack. They could do massive amounts of damage when they hit with GWM+PAM+expanded crit range from champion fighter but without the bard character I was playing being able to cast Wall of Force to contain the dragon - the rest of the party would have likely TPKed.)
Grappling and shoving can be very effective against certain targets. A moon druid in a campaign I was playing in used it extremely effectively against Acerak at the end of the Tomb of Annihilation campaign - we had more trouble with the Atropal but we were quite beat up after dealing with the Atropal and the Soul Monger and found it to be a good end to the climactic fight. Acerak still cast cloud kill and some other nasty things and it was a fun fight even with the moon druid keeping him pinned.
However, having one character use their attacks to CC one other target doesn't in general work very well against multiple attacker so I haven't found it to be that big an issue. Being grappled just reduces the target's movement to zero - which can be a good way to keep them down if you shove them prone - but it doesn't impose the restrained condition. I have used NPCs to grapple/shove a PC when they are tactically blocking access but it usually take the NPC a few rounds to figure out that it might be a good idea.
Other popular nerf targets, especially for newer DMs or ones new to 5e are rogue sneak attack, moon druid bear wild shapes at level 2-4, paladin divine smite. Some of these features make these characters particularly effective at a certain level or at certain tasks (level 3 rogue adding 2d6 damage to their attacks at level 3 feels powerful compared to a plain fighter with one attack doing d8+3.
Anyway, I haven't found any of these to be so unbalancing as to need nerfing ...
On the subject of grapple and shove -- while it's true that PCs who decide to specialize will almost always succeed at their checks (unless you give creatures proficiency; I often give critters skills that aren't in their official stat blocks), it doesn't actually matter that much because the actual effect of a success is pretty modest.
This is why I called out CE+SS specifically. GWM still requires being able to reach your opponent and putting yourself at risk. CE+SS does the same thing from a distance while removing the main drawbacks of ranged attacks. It actually makes the game less tactically interesting and since the combo obviously works best with hand crossbows, also reduces variety in player builds.
Shoving prone is a super easy way to give other melee characters advantage and combined with a grapple can completely neutralize monsters that lack spellcasting, auras or save-based powers.
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Sharpshooter feels overtuned to me, tbh. I have less of an issue with GWM/PAM (though both are still very good) because both of them require a Strength-based build to be particularly effective, and Strength builds otherwise sort of underperform relative to Dex builds (though I don't expect to need to change SS for my CoS game, due to there being zero magic arrows or bows and lots of resistant or immune to normal weapons foes...).
K so realism is cool and all and i'm all for a harder game, i've been apart of my fair share of Hardcore DND games, but...Dispel Magic isn't imbalanced in anyway it only gets rid of magic level 3 and lower and Counterspell is MEANT to be strong its magic made to counter magic...its in the name...Grappling isn't OP and if anything needs a buff. Magic Items - I NEVER EVER include them with a price UNLESS it's Avernus, TOA or in some sort of auction. All magic items are made, earned ,found or stolen. And a +1 sword isn't worth 1000 gold, like ...what? Yeah its a magical sword thats +1, but at BEST it's maybe 300-500 (and for what an average blacksmith makes thats like 30 years worth of gold). Players are in the tippy top percent of money earnings, don't balance an item around gold. I would always play an Artificer in your campaign and make magic items just to spite this rule. Then put 1-2 levels in forge cleric just to do it again.
I won't address everything you have said, but here are my Dispel Magic/Counterspell rules, and Grapple rules from my session 0. I especially hate the existing Grappling rules, because they are ludicrous. The Dispel Magic/ Counterspell rules take into account in a larger way the differences between the level a spell was cast at and the level of spell used to Counter/ Dispel it.
Dispel Magic and CounterSpell DC's.
The calculation for the DC of the spell to be Countered or Dispelled is now 15 + (Spell Slot Level the targeted spell was cast at - Spell Slot Level CounterSpell/Dispel Magic is cast at), instead of the traditional 10 + spell slot level targeted spell was cast at.
The traditional rule of matching the spell-slot level of the target spell was cast to automatically be successful remains unchanged, except for "permanent spells" as described below.
An attempt to Dispel Magic on a "permanent magical effect" (eg. Glyph of Warding, Hallow, Teleportation Circle with a year's worth of casting) has an additional +5 added to the DC.
Bottom line, it will be slightly tougher to Dispel or Counter Magic, but upcasting Dispel Magic or Counterspell against a spell has a significant impact. In some cases, depending on the situation, a player may be able to suppress or weaken a "permanent effect", up to the DM Fiat.
Grappling:
All these modifiers are subject to varying conditions, such as wet conditions, slime, whatever comes up.......
Grappling is a special Melee attack, and 1 Grapple attempt = The Entire Attack Action.
Grappling a creature one size larger is at Disadvantage. You also need two hands free to attempt the Grapple on a creature one size larger than you.
When you have Grappled a target, you can attack the target the following turns with a Single (does not matter if you have multiple attacks in a turn, Monks being a special case) One-Armed Unarmed Attack or any weapon having the LIght Weapon Property, assuming it is still Grappled. (in this subcondition an Unarmed Attack would include the hilt of a sword, or the butt of some other weapon.)
Monks: Because at least one of your arms and/or legs involved in Grappling, your Unarmed Attacks available is cut in half.
Moving a Grappled Creature:
You use your strength check (ie. Strength 18 = +4 on the roll) against the DC to see if you are successful.
Two sizes smaller than you = DC 4 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer.
One size smaller than you = DC 8 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer.
Same size as you = DC 12 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer.
One size larger than you = DC 18 +/- the target's own strength/dexterity modifer.
(see below for movement if the Grappled creature tries to move YOU).
The Grappled Creature may choose to drag/ carry you at half its speed on its movement, if it is at least one size larger than you.
50% of the time a Creature is Grappled, it is Restrained, unless at least one size larger than the Grappler. You cannot Restrain a creature larger than you. This Condition is re-rolled every turn.
Grappling, then Dragging/Carrying a willing creature negates any Readied Action that turn for the willing grappled creature.
Restrained Condition:
A restrained creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.
50% of the time the creature is restrained the creature can not Attack with a weapon nor perform somatic functions for a spell, nor reach for material components. (An Arcane Focus in hand, even if Restrained, functions normally.) Every turn this 50% sub-condition is re-rolled.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage.
The creature has disadvantage on Dexterity Saving Throws.
That's only a difference of 3 damage on average. Is it really worth that to make the player feel picked on?
This is about where I am. There's one other thing my group has voted no on: Illusionist's Bracers.
I don't know what you guys have experienced to decide grapple needs to be nerfed/complicated, but I don't think it's necessary. As written it's already a pretty poor choice 95% of the time unless you're a high level fighter. There's a reason the powergamers have never produced an effective grapple-centric build, and certainly not for lack of trying.
Yes, grapple + shove seems strong, but only for a melee-heavy party against a large-or-smaller creature - it's actually detrimental to ranged PCs. And by the time PC athletics begin to really outpace monsters, most will have other tools to deal with it. And no matter what, a grappled creature has a target within reach so it is never truly neutralized, only disadvantaged.
If grapple were any worse, I'd never use it at all.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm