Overpowered PC

Hi all,

I'm new to D&D, been playing for about a year, and have just started running a campaign as a DM.

We're playing The Lost Mines of Phandelver, and it's going really well. Apart from one of my players is far more powerful than the others. They're already level 5 from doing a quick homebrew beforehand, so I've upscaled the encounters in Phandelver, but while the other characters are dealing around 8 or 10 damage, maybe up to 20 if they cast a powerful spell, our Rogue Assassin is dealing way above that due to sneak attacks, advantage and second attacks. In the Cragmaw Cave, against Klarg, I upped his HP to 80 and the Rogue killed him with one attack, dealing something like 60 damage with his rapier because of his insane bonuses, then another 20 or so with his hand crossbow. We've all reviewed his character and it's all kosher, all legit.

Basically I'm just after some advice on how to combat this. It's making my job really hard because an encounter that's challenging for the others is a one hit kill for him, and an enemy on par with him will destroy the other characters. And what's worse is, the more enemies he kills, the more XP he gets, and the stronger he gets.

I saw on Critical Role, Vax got cursed which gave him disadvantage on all ability checks, I was wondering if this would be an option?

Please Help!

I'd need to know more about the Assassin but basically if Dex is maxed, you can do a max of 57 points of damage using a Rapier with Sneak Attack at level 5 with maxed Dex and assuming an automatic Crit from Assassinate IF the creature is surprised. A Hand Crossbow is only going to do 1d6+5 unless you are also adding 3d6 for Sneak Attack but Assassinate can only be used if a the target creature has not yet taken a turn in combat.

So, yeah, Assassins can do massive damage IF they are able to Sneak Attack and IF they attack with Surprise against a creature that has yet to take a turn in combat. As a DM, if you can neutralize these two things so they don't occur so often that they become a nuisance then that Assassin won't seem so overpowered. I'm not saying nerf his abilities entirely. A Rogue's got to be able to do what a Rogue does but find ways to make it more difficult for that Assassin to max out damage in the 1st round.

Also, LMoP is already made to start characters from scratch. I would not recommend they start in a Homebrew before starting this adventure especially if they will gain a level or more in it. When I ran this campaign, the four PCs had not yet reached Level 5 when they completed it though they were one minor skirmish away. Having them at Level 5 before they even reach the Mine only makes your job harder for making the campaign challenging.

I feel your pain – I’m an experienced DM and I’ve been there! There’s always just telling the player that their character is unbalancing the game, politely try to explain the trouble it's causing you, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion they’ll not see your side of things (though I certainly won’t pretend to know this player, and could be entirely wrong).

There are a couple of approaches…you could use more monsters that have resistance or even immunity to nonmagical attacks. Assuming the Rogue in question doesn’t already have a magical weapon, I’d slowly dole out ones to the PCs that don’t have spells, while making sure that none of them are finesse weapons! That way, he ends up being the only one affected by the resistance/immunity. It won’t work for every encounter, but it would help.

Another, perhaps simpler technique is to just half or quarter all of his character’s damage versus major foes without telling them. Still act it out like the PC is landing powerful blows, but change the math behind the screen. The player never needs to know – they still get to roll lots of dice to make them happy, and your game is kept in balance.

There are other things you can do once in a while – contrive to separate the Rogue from the rest of the party in combat, throwing one encounter designed for the rogue’s power level, and the other for the rest of the group. Put ranged combatants in inaccessible to melee areas. Use traps (spiked pits and whatnot) that do damage and keep the PC from closing with the big bad. But these are things you can’t do all the time.

The problem with a curse is that not all players will take kindly to the that. And even if they do, they’ll want to try to get the curse lifted ASAP. Unless it’s got two sides, with something good to temper the bad. For example, “Steel will be your enemy, but gold your friend” so that gold seems to multiply in their hands, but they get disadvantage on attack rolls with weapons.

Awesome feedback, cheers guys.

CydKnight; you're probably right about my choice of campaign due to characters already being L5, hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially for a rookie DM. Guess I'll see what happens and maybe come back here screaming for help when it all blows up in my face lol. I'm loving the campaign though and the potential for characters to join certain guilds.

Ralif; good shout, I'll defo start by introducing Merle resistance as he's the only one who deals exclusively in melee, all other characters are spell users. And I think the separation of characters is good too, I did have the thought of having one big enemy for him to face while the others face smaller ones in the same encounter. And if all else fails, I'll fudge the rolls, as a last resort. I did tell him his character is way out of balance to the others and it's causing difficulties, but understandably he wasn't too bothered, I wouldn't want to dull down my character if I built him to be awesome. I just need to avoid surprise attacks.

There are plenty of situations where the DM can say that there’s no chance of stealth working, and you can say “it’s not possible to effectively sneak through here.” Stealth isn’t invisibility. Stage important fights in wide open, well-lit areas. Use hard marble floors where every step echoes for ages, or a forest with lots of dry leaves that crunch underfoot, or if you’re still in the Mines, gravel that has the same effect. That should also help reduce surprise situations when you really need to.

Since he’s the only melee character, flying monsters would also be great.

Yeah, I imagine if a DM asked me to change my character, I’m not sure I’d want to either. I’d like to think that as a DM myself, I’d see their side of the situation and respect their wishes, considering how much work goes into running the game.

Glomb175 said:

I just need to avoid surprise attacks.

Click to expand...

You are doing something wrong. A 5th Level Rogue shouldn't do 80 Damage in one attack. Check again. That is most certainly NOT legit

I feel with you, but as my players are roughly the same level of "overpowered", I just scale up the numbers a LOT without changing CR.

As a small side rant, in my opinion the mechanic of sneak/death attack has never been the most balanced one. It had been highly situational in the past, leading to "spikey" one-trick characters. Then there was the time when everyone and their mom was immune to it, leaving a rogue with either OP or miniscule damage, depending on the opponent. Then there are the group composition requirements: Try having a rogue in your party when everyone else plays ranged. Then there is the whole problem that is 1) multiple attacks 2) improved invisibility and 3) dual wield in both 3.x and Pathfinder. So yeah, I... just don't like sneak attack

He had sneak attack which is 2d6, rapier d8+5, hand crossbow as a second attack d6+5, and assassinate on everything which double all rolls and gave advantage. Mass total 62, not 80, my bad. Please tell me if I've done this wrong, as I said, I'm a rookie DM

I'd recommend a different approach then a mechanical fix - I'd talk to the player. Tell them exactly what you said here - you are having problems challenging the player because that makes the other characters irrelevant.

Ask them if they would de-tune their character.

Also, I'm still not seeing how they do 62 damage even with surprise and going first.

Assuming 20 dex and no magic weapons:

rapier d8+5+2d6SA on crit is 2d8+4d6+5 = max 35
hand xbow d6+5 on crit is 2d6+5 = max 17
total max = 52.

Remember, you only apply sneak attack once per turn. So if you apply it with the rapier you are not applying it with the hand crossbow.

Also it looks like the rogue has the crossbow expert feat, which makes having a 20 dex unlikely unless you rolled for ability scores - high ability scores can cause a big difference between characters.

So,
A: make sure you've got his numbers right.(even if they're off a bit it probably won't make much difference)
B: IMX rogues do silly amounts of damage in comparison to others at early levels but might balance out somewhat later.

In my game The rogue charactwr(who rolled really good stats) was kinda the toughest of the bunch. That stopped being the case by level 5-6, though he's still very nasty.


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