In the last session the party of 2 went after a bandit group attacking merchants on a road. The bandits ambushed the party. Levels 6-7. The first bandit that attacked could do a recharge ability in which he fired a billy of arrows in a cone that dealt extra force damage. This removed 50% HP from one party member.
(He only used it once btw, he was under the cleric's crown of madness spell for most of the fight)
The player in question was like WTF??? "There too powerful"
Now in my campaign, I'm arming the players up like tactical warheads, brand new bombs, poisons etc.
The player, who is a cleric, is quite powerful and is no stranger to doing massive healing and occasionally massive spell damage.
Later in the fight, he attempted to use his most powerful 5th level spell at the time "blight" on a bandit mage. The mage successfully used counter spell.
He was then Immediately like "F You! F you!"
Granted I took his moment away from him sure, but understand that can happen in d&d.
The other player, who almost died, having 1hp by the end of the fight, is a ranger buffed up with an animal companion that is a drake, that upgrades with the players levels.
He used the breath attack (which can be upgraded later) to insta-kill 3 bandits.
They also had an ally NPC who was a tank, that the bandits were also attacking, so it took stress off them.
The mage spell save DC was also low, and they kept beating it btw.
I even downgraded the bandits HP during the fight to compensate for there high damage. Long story short they survived the encounter. But my worry is, whenever I provide a challenge to the players, who I KNOW are more powerful than they should be, this particular player gets all aggressive. I'm going to take a stance next time it happens and tell him to stop as I don't appreciate his attitude.
What would you do? Sorry if this post is long, just providing context.
This advice comes in 2 parts. Let the player know that you won't tolerate abusive behavior, getting worked up a little can be pretty normal. The people I play with(and myself) have gotten carried away on several occasions, luckily we are good friends despite this. We've had several instances of intentional character vs character PKs as well as plain old rowdy disagreements. Try to get back on track and make apologies if you're feeling guilty.
As a DM, you have to consider game balance quite a bit when you decide to Homebrew. You might create abilities that are stronger than you expected for the PCs to face(taking 50% of a PC's HP in 1 hit). When you allow PCs to have abilities to boost their power level(giving the Cleric Crown of Madness), you up the NPCs output to try to provide a challenge.One of the biggest problems we've had as a gaming group is flukey, accidental deaths. The best advice here is nibble the party down with more predictable damage or enemies. Since you only have 2 PCs, doing massive attacks has much greater significance than if 1 of 5 characters took a major shot, keep that in mind. As far as the Counterspell goes, did the Bandit Mage make the necessary rolls to shut down the Blight? It's not a guaranteed outcome as Blight is greater than 3rd level. Also, don't feel compelled to create NPC's that are hard counters to the PCs and their abilities, almost everyone hates this.
Oh played counter spell right. The mage needed 15 to stop it, he rolled 16. That said, he was getting super excited, and I realized the mage had it, a the last second.
He is a seasoned D&D player, and he is aware of the high stakes high power. I just don't appreciate being insulted tbh.
I play Cleric and I wouldn't consider upcasting Blight at 5th lvl for another d8, a real veteran move but, that's just my opinion. This goes back to what I said about thinking the characters are powerful. If the player doesn't maximize the character strengths, you may easily overmatch them with your NPC's.
I don’t really see where you were insulted. The player may be emoting a little excessively but seems to be reacting to game circumstances organically and, dare I say, appropriately. Expressing dismay that the enemies are too powerful upon witnessing a character get smacked for half their HP pool in one shot when there’s another half dozen on deck seems reasonable to me. And what were you expecting, a “Well played, sir” and a golf clap, when you counterspelled his Blight? Obviously dude’s not going to be pleased with that turn of events.
Did he actually accuse you of cheating? Did he actually insult you as a person? I don’t see that in your story. As a player, it’s pretty rare that I’m outwardly delighted about getting my ass handed to me in battle. I’m far more likely to react with a “**** you” than with a “please sir, may I have another” after being hit hard or otherwise confounded but that doesn’t mean I’m not having a good time or that I think the DM is a bad person. What “attitude” don’t you appreciate? How would you like him to behave instead?
I'd agree with the above. I see no insult directed toward the DM, just players, scared of losing their characters, responding to things. As said above, when you throw something at players that either almost kills them, debilitates the character, or snuffs their big moment, don't sit back and expect high praise and glory. Expect the players to be upset and if they are verbally relating that shock/fear, realize you're doing it right, by putting some actual stake in the game.
The response of "F you F you" you are taking as a personal attack on you, as a person. Was it perhaps more directed to the mage who counterspelled? As the force behind the NPC's attacking and sometimes killing the characters, you need to be thick skinned and ready for outrage or serious sadness when the characters are getting whupped. To take it personally and say the players are being abusive isn't always true.
I deal with "over excited players" as you put it by pushing them farther every time. If they are truly upset and emotionally charged by the events, it's a sign your story has drawn them in and they are engaged. Not a negative thing at all.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
He is a seasoned D&D player, and he is aware of the high stakes high power. I just don't appreciate being insulted tbh.
I play Cleric and I wouldn't consider upcasting Blight at 5th lvl for another d8, a real veteran move but, that's just my opinion.
Considering I see lvl 6-7 mentioned, I assume Marlin meant 4th level since that's the highest lvl spell slot a lvl 7 cleric has.
On topic, the phrase "I'm arming the players up like tactical warheads, brand new bombs, poisons etc." makes me wary. Glass cannons can be a couple of bad rolls from dying (and a couple more from death). Major damage alone doesn't make characters resilient, and as Kotath explained PCs only have the one life while dead NPCs/monsters just get replaced over and over again for each subsequent encounter. PCs are meant to survive (not as an absolute rule, but they are meant to survive more than one encounter at least), their enemies are meant to not survive even one encounter.
I don't know the details of the fight either, but the cleric concentrating and spending actions on Crown of Madness to keep a single (presumably ranged) enemy out of the fight seems odd. Useful bonus actions that don't also require concentration aren't that common for clerics.
As for what I'd do, I'd call for a break after the combat encounter ended (tempers were clearly running high, always good to diffuse that sort of thing) and have a friendly talk with the player about what they're expecting of me and what I'm expecting of them. Clear the air and move on.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
That's an immature reaction. One shouldn't expect everything to succeed, and some nights you're just going to have bad rolls. As long as he succeeds sometimes, he should be satisfied.
If he's willing to admit he might not be right about everything, and is willing to try to be better, you might be able to teach him to improve.
However, frequently people with immature attitudes don't respond well to being told they're wrong, so you might have to either eject him from the game or tolerate the occasional outburst.
Do make sure you're following the rules of Counterspell, though. If the NPC cast it at 3rd or 4th level, they would have to roll a DC 15 spellcasting check to counter a 5th level Blight. If you denied this check, I wouldn't be surprised if a player is upset (though his outburst is bad sportsmanship). Even if the NPC used metagame knowledge that he was casting a 5th level spell, I could see a complaint, though you would be reasonable to rule that the NPC has enough arcane knowledge to recognize what spell is being cast.
Was the player saying F-you to the enemy, or to you? What was the tone? Was it just incredulity, or was the player angry with you?
If the player was angry and directing it at you, that is definitely not cool. They need to understand, that as the DM, you are an impartial facilitator and rules applier. An enemy mage casting Counterspell is exactly what an enemy mage would do. There is nothing wrong with that at all. The player's response, if directed at you, indicates that they have taken this personally as something you have done to them, not an NPC in game vs their character. I would definitely point this out to the whole group in the next session, and ask that everyone remember that you are not personally trying to hurt anyone's feelings. That sometimes, the enemy will win a round, and that sometimes thier characters will fail, but hey, this is just a game and it's one that in which the DM is not your enemy.
I would definitely cut ties with a player like this if it continued.
If they were simply outgasing frustration at the situation, or at the enemy mage's success, that's different. In that case, it's just showing that they are engaged with the game.
It's up to you to determine the intent, I guess. But it definitely seems pretty whiny either way.
Even if the NPC used metagame knowledge that he was casting a 5th level spell, I could see a complaint, though you would be reasonable to rule that the NPC has enough arcane knowledge to recognize what spell is being cast.
I feel like what makes a player getting their spell countered feel extra cheap is the metagame knowledge the DM automatically has because the player has to announce what spell they're casting, whereas the DM can give a vague description when they have an NPC cast a spell, making it potentially a gamble for the player if the spell is worth countering. Even if the DM has the NPC pretend to not initially know it's Blight being cast, there's already a bias because the DM already knows it's a spell worth countering.
It certainly doesn't help that Xanathar's Guide optional ruling on identifying a spell seems to be more counterproductive than anything. The player has to use their reaction to identify the spell, but then doesn't have a reaction left to actually cast the Counterspell!
One, while I've been told to **** off and told my DM to **** off, the context of that wasn't in an accusatory tone. Counterspell is a legit game mechanic, and having a 5th level slot get blown away by it sucks. You answered your own question at the end, aggression toward you as an individual isn't welcome. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is definitely the context here, and sometimes the rules don't work in your favor.
I wouldn't wait until it happens again, I'd address it before it happens. Addressing it in the heat of the moment while the player feels personally attacked/targetted is going to amplify the emotion. Addressing it prior to a game where "Hey, I've been thinking about it and I don't appreciate this level of hostility. Losing sucks, but I never put a challenge you guys can't win, and as you guys go up in power, so will the challenges. There are going to be points where you fail a check or lose something, but I never design something that is unwinnable. The goal is always for you guys to triumph over what I build. I feel I should tell you that, that way next time when this happens, you don't come at ME, because I stop having fun when you start getting aggressive toward me, and I want all of us to have fun together."
If he flips shit after that? Well, time to cut loose. Better to know what you're getting into and be able to make a calm rational decision than have to act/react in the heat of the moment and do something you might end up regretting or something escalating beyond your personal comfort zone.
Talk to them and ask them what they expect out of an encounter? How hard you can throws fists in their faces. If they want an all out, everything goes brawl? Where death is real and every plan can instantly go into the shitter?
Or maybe something more relaxed? Maybe more focused on gameplay?
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Nugz - Kobold Level 4 Bloodhunter/Order of the Mutant - Out there looking for snacks and evil monsters.
Ultrix Schwarzdorn - Human Level 6 Artificer/Armorer - Retired and works in his new shop.
Quercus Espenkiel - Gnome Level 9 Wizard/Order of Scribes - Turned into a book and sits on a shelf.
Artin - Fairy Level 4 Sorcerer/Wild Magic - Busy with annoying the townsfolk. Again.
Jabor - Fire Genasi - Level 4 Wizard/School of Evocation - The First Flame, The Last Chaos. Probably in jail, again.
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Ok, so I'm running a homebrew campaign.
In the last session the party of 2 went after a bandit group attacking merchants on a road. The bandits ambushed the party. Levels 6-7. The first bandit that attacked could do a recharge ability in which he fired a billy of arrows in a cone that dealt extra force damage. This removed 50% HP from one party member.
(He only used it once btw, he was under the cleric's crown of madness spell for most of the fight)
The player in question was like WTF??? "There too powerful"
Now in my campaign, I'm arming the players up like tactical warheads, brand new bombs, poisons etc.
The player, who is a cleric, is quite powerful and is no stranger to doing massive healing and occasionally massive spell damage.
Later in the fight, he attempted to use his most powerful 5th level spell at the time "blight" on a bandit mage. The mage successfully used counter spell.
He was then Immediately like "F You! F you!"
Granted I took his moment away from him sure, but understand that can happen in d&d.
The other player, who almost died, having 1hp by the end of the fight, is a ranger buffed up with an animal companion that is a drake, that upgrades with the players levels.
He used the breath attack (which can be upgraded later) to insta-kill 3 bandits.
They also had an ally NPC who was a tank, that the bandits were also attacking, so it took stress off them.
The mage spell save DC was also low, and they kept beating it btw.
I even downgraded the bandits HP during the fight to compensate for there high damage. Long story short they survived the encounter. But my worry is, whenever I provide a challenge to the players, who I KNOW are more powerful than they should be, this particular player gets all aggressive. I'm going to take a stance next time it happens and tell him to stop as I don't appreciate his attitude.
What would you do? Sorry if this post is long, just providing context.
He is a seasoned D&D player, and he is aware of the high stakes high power. I just don't appreciate being insulted tbh.
This advice comes in 2 parts. Let the player know that you won't tolerate abusive behavior, getting worked up a little can be pretty normal. The people I play with(and myself) have gotten carried away on several occasions, luckily we are good friends despite this. We've had several instances of intentional character vs character PKs as well as plain old rowdy disagreements. Try to get back on track and make apologies if you're feeling guilty.
As a DM, you have to consider game balance quite a bit when you decide to Homebrew. You might create abilities that are stronger than you expected for the PCs to face(taking 50% of a PC's HP in 1 hit). When you allow PCs to have abilities to boost their power level(giving the Cleric Crown of Madness), you up the NPCs output to try to provide a challenge.One of the biggest problems we've had as a gaming group is flukey, accidental deaths. The best advice here is nibble the party down with more predictable damage or enemies. Since you only have 2 PCs, doing massive attacks has much greater significance than if 1 of 5 characters took a major shot, keep that in mind. As far as the Counterspell goes, did the Bandit Mage make the necessary rolls to shut down the Blight? It's not a guaranteed outcome as Blight is greater than 3rd level. Also, don't feel compelled to create NPC's that are hard counters to the PCs and their abilities, almost everyone hates this.
Oh played counter spell right. The mage needed 15 to stop it, he rolled 16. That said, he was getting super excited, and I realized the mage had it, a the last second.
I play Cleric and I wouldn't consider upcasting Blight at 5th lvl for another d8, a real veteran move but, that's just my opinion. This goes back to what I said about thinking the characters are powerful. If the player doesn't maximize the character strengths, you may easily overmatch them with your NPC's.
I don’t really see where you were insulted. The player may be emoting a little excessively but seems to be reacting to game circumstances organically and, dare I say, appropriately. Expressing dismay that the enemies are too powerful upon witnessing a character get smacked for half their HP pool in one shot when there’s another half dozen on deck seems reasonable to me. And what were you expecting, a “Well played, sir” and a golf clap, when you counterspelled his Blight? Obviously dude’s not going to be pleased with that turn of events.
Did he actually accuse you of cheating? Did he actually insult you as a person? I don’t see that in your story. As a player, it’s pretty rare that I’m outwardly delighted about getting my ass handed to me in battle. I’m far more likely to react with a “**** you” than with a “please sir, may I have another” after being hit hard or otherwise confounded but that doesn’t mean I’m not having a good time or that I think the DM is a bad person. What “attitude” don’t you appreciate? How would you like him to behave instead?
I'd agree with the above. I see no insult directed toward the DM, just players, scared of losing their characters, responding to things. As said above, when you throw something at players that either almost kills them, debilitates the character, or snuffs their big moment, don't sit back and expect high praise and glory. Expect the players to be upset and if they are verbally relating that shock/fear, realize you're doing it right, by putting some actual stake in the game.
The response of "F you F you" you are taking as a personal attack on you, as a person. Was it perhaps more directed to the mage who counterspelled? As the force behind the NPC's attacking and sometimes killing the characters, you need to be thick skinned and ready for outrage or serious sadness when the characters are getting whupped. To take it personally and say the players are being abusive isn't always true.
I deal with "over excited players" as you put it by pushing them farther every time. If they are truly upset and emotionally charged by the events, it's a sign your story has drawn them in and they are engaged. Not a negative thing at all.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Considering I see lvl 6-7 mentioned, I assume Marlin meant 4th level since that's the highest lvl spell slot a lvl 7 cleric has.
On topic, the phrase "I'm arming the players up like tactical warheads, brand new bombs, poisons etc." makes me wary. Glass cannons can be a couple of bad rolls from dying (and a couple more from death). Major damage alone doesn't make characters resilient, and as Kotath explained PCs only have the one life while dead NPCs/monsters just get replaced over and over again for each subsequent encounter. PCs are meant to survive (not as an absolute rule, but they are meant to survive more than one encounter at least), their enemies are meant to not survive even one encounter.
I don't know the details of the fight either, but the cleric concentrating and spending actions on Crown of Madness to keep a single (presumably ranged) enemy out of the fight seems odd. Useful bonus actions that don't also require concentration aren't that common for clerics.
As for what I'd do, I'd call for a break after the combat encounter ended (tempers were clearly running high, always good to diffuse that sort of thing) and have a friendly talk with the player about what they're expecting of me and what I'm expecting of them. Clear the air and move on.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
That's an immature reaction. One shouldn't expect everything to succeed, and some nights you're just going to have bad rolls. As long as he succeeds sometimes, he should be satisfied.
If he's willing to admit he might not be right about everything, and is willing to try to be better, you might be able to teach him to improve.
However, frequently people with immature attitudes don't respond well to being told they're wrong, so you might have to either eject him from the game or tolerate the occasional outburst.
Do make sure you're following the rules of Counterspell, though. If the NPC cast it at 3rd or 4th level, they would have to roll a DC 15 spellcasting check to counter a 5th level Blight. If you denied this check, I wouldn't be surprised if a player is upset (though his outburst is bad sportsmanship). Even if the NPC used metagame knowledge that he was casting a 5th level spell, I could see a complaint, though you would be reasonable to rule that the NPC has enough arcane knowledge to recognize what spell is being cast.
Was the player saying F-you to the enemy, or to you? What was the tone? Was it just incredulity, or was the player angry with you?
If the player was angry and directing it at you, that is definitely not cool. They need to understand, that as the DM, you are an impartial facilitator and rules applier. An enemy mage casting Counterspell is exactly what an enemy mage would do. There is nothing wrong with that at all. The player's response, if directed at you, indicates that they have taken this personally as something you have done to them, not an NPC in game vs their character. I would definitely point this out to the whole group in the next session, and ask that everyone remember that you are not personally trying to hurt anyone's feelings. That sometimes, the enemy will win a round, and that sometimes thier characters will fail, but hey, this is just a game and it's one that in which the DM is not your enemy.
I would definitely cut ties with a player like this if it continued.
If they were simply outgasing frustration at the situation, or at the enemy mage's success, that's different. In that case, it's just showing that they are engaged with the game.
It's up to you to determine the intent, I guess. But it definitely seems pretty whiny either way.
Another factor might be that the player believes you are targeting him preferentially in combats and being more strict with him on creative rule use.
I feel like what makes a player getting their spell countered feel extra cheap is the metagame knowledge the DM automatically has because the player has to announce what spell they're casting, whereas the DM can give a vague description when they have an NPC cast a spell, making it potentially a gamble for the player if the spell is worth countering. Even if the DM has the NPC pretend to not initially know it's Blight being cast, there's already a bias because the DM already knows it's a spell worth countering.
It certainly doesn't help that Xanathar's Guide optional ruling on identifying a spell seems to be more counterproductive than anything. The player has to use their reaction to identify the spell, but then doesn't have a reaction left to actually cast the Counterspell!
At the end of the day, Counterspell is just an annoying spell slot war(not the only one either). It could fluster any player or DM.
So theres a lot to take in here.
One, while I've been told to **** off and told my DM to **** off, the context of that wasn't in an accusatory tone. Counterspell is a legit game mechanic, and having a 5th level slot get blown away by it sucks. You answered your own question at the end, aggression toward you as an individual isn't welcome. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is definitely the context here, and sometimes the rules don't work in your favor.
I wouldn't wait until it happens again, I'd address it before it happens. Addressing it in the heat of the moment while the player feels personally attacked/targetted is going to amplify the emotion. Addressing it prior to a game where "Hey, I've been thinking about it and I don't appreciate this level of hostility. Losing sucks, but I never put a challenge you guys can't win, and as you guys go up in power, so will the challenges. There are going to be points where you fail a check or lose something, but I never design something that is unwinnable. The goal is always for you guys to triumph over what I build. I feel I should tell you that, that way next time when this happens, you don't come at ME, because I stop having fun when you start getting aggressive toward me, and I want all of us to have fun together."
If he flips shit after that? Well, time to cut loose. Better to know what you're getting into and be able to make a calm rational decision than have to act/react in the heat of the moment and do something you might end up regretting or something escalating beyond your personal comfort zone.
Talk to them and ask them what they expect out of an encounter? How hard you can throws fists in their faces. If they want an all out, everything goes brawl? Where death is real and every plan can instantly go into the shitter?
Or maybe something more relaxed? Maybe more focused on gameplay?
Nugz - Kobold Level 4 Bloodhunter/Order of the Mutant - Out there looking for snacks and evil monsters.
Ultrix Schwarzdorn - Human Level 6 Artificer/Armorer - Retired and works in his new shop.
Quercus Espenkiel - Gnome Level 9 Wizard/Order of Scribes - Turned into a book and sits on a shelf.
Artin - Fairy Level 4 Sorcerer/Wild Magic - Busy with annoying the townsfolk. Again.
Jabor - Fire Genasi - Level 4 Wizard/School of Evocation - The First Flame, The Last Chaos. Probably in jail, again.