D&D 5E My powergamer players wants to be a bard.

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

Lol don't apologize - exploiting loopholes IS cheating - just because the atm "accidentally" gave you an extra $20 doesn't mean keeping it isn't theft.

BS... that is an unfair comparison... is it theft if over the course of 3 months I exchange my US money for Canadian money, then the Canadian money to Mexican money, then into Russian money, then back to the US money and I end up with 22% more money then I started with? Lets say I did it with $10,000. Did I steal $2,200, just because I found a way that anyone else could do, but I found it and did it when others didn't?

 

[Weave]

Hey OP, one loophole/powerful class ability I would watch out for is your player using the Magical Secrets ability to pick up some powerful Paladin or Ranger spells before your campaign may be balanced for them. For instance, the Aura of Vitality spell is not available to Paladins until 9th level, but a lore bard may obtain it at six. It wont break the game, but the spell seems very powerful for a 6th level character. Paladins Banishing Smite spell, received by Paladins at 17 and bards at 10, was also on my power gamer watch list.

 

[Mistwell]

BS... that is an unfair comparison... is it theft if over the course of 3 months I exchange my US money for Canadian money, then the Canadian money to Mexican money, then into Russian money, then back to the US money and I end up with 22% more money then I started with? Lets say I did it with $10,000. Did I steal $2,200, just because I found a way that anyone else could do, but I found it and did it when others didn't?

No that's called currency futures trading. But it's a known, intentional part of the monetary system, not a loophole. And it involves the normal kind of risk involved with all futures trading. He's referencing using actual loopholes which have a clearly unintended result - like an ATM spitting out an extra $20 by accident. Or insider information on futures trading. Or a bag of rats allowing for someone to use cleave more times. Or a candle of invocation allowing you to obtain infinite wishes.

 

[Mistwell]

My powergamer player wants to be a bard. Half-elf bard, specifically. This player has a history of trying to find rules loopholes, and I know he spends a lot of time in the darker corners of the D&D internet looking for exploits: r/dnd and /tg/. These days I avoid CharOp conversations for the sake of my sanity, but I'm curious: what sorts of shenanigans should I be on the lookout for?

One thing to keep in mind with Lore Bards - their AC is likely the lowest in the game. If you find his PC is obviously altering encounters to be much easier, that's a sign that creatures in that world probably know that the guy with the musical instrument on his back is trouble with a capital T. They would therefore tend to go after that guy more often than others.

In this version of the game, front line fighters have some trouble stopping a horde of creatures from getting to the back line magic users (they only each get one reaction, and that's often spent in other ways, so opportunity attacks are not as much an issue).

So if the bard seems to throw off the balance of encounters a lot, I think it's fair game to say creatures will figure this out and respond accordingly (because they don't want to die) by attacking the bard and his low AC on a more regular basis, with both ranged attacks and even melee attacks. They will make that bard pay for all that bad-mojo he's casting at them.

Oh, and since the bard is almost certainly using a material component pouch to cast his spells, remember 3rd level thieves can run up to them, steal that bag of components as a bonus action using Fast Hands, and run away with it. Now all of a sudden you're playing a lute in battle to cast your spells...which can be easily broken with a swift chop of the axe if the bard doesn't knock off the overpowered stuff

 

[Grimstaff]

BS... that is an unfair comparison... is it theft if over the course of 3 months I exchange my US money for Canadian money, then the Canadian money to Mexican money, then into Russian money, then back to the US money and I end up with 22% more money then I started with? Lets say I did it with $10,000. Did I steal $2,200, just because I found a way that anyone else could do, but I found it and did it when others didn't?

>>backs away slowly...<<

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

No that's called currency futures trading. But it's a known, intentional part of the monetary system,

and it's called character optimization... it is also a known part of the game.

not a loophole. And it involves the normal kind of risk involved with all futures trading.

so does character op... very few of them are push button x and win, most require you give something up (that is called min/maxing) some require you do siriten things, others require a large investment... by the way the same way anyone can char op anyone can trade in futures...

He's referencing using actual loopholes which have a clearly unintended result - like an ATM spitting out an extra $20 by accident.

so how do you 'build' to that? and how do you do so in the rules? because char op build to power using the rules, stealing money does neaither...

or insider information on futures trading

that is almost closer, but it is a skill not a cheat... it isn't knowing the inside info it's being able to figure out what comes next...

Or a bag of rats allowing for someone to use cleave more times. Or a candle of invocation allowing you to obtain infinite wishes.[/QUOT
both of those are excellent examples of risk... the bag of rats requires you to know your DM, I've never meet one that would go for it... and the candle trick requires wishes, aka the most dangerus spell in the game

 

[drjones]

To the OP: My powergame-iest player wanted to do a Half Elf lore bard also. So far it has been powerful, but mostly as a buffer for the fighter. The only issue I ran into was at level 3 with Cutting Words he then wanted to be told the value of every roll the I made before resolution so he could then decide if he wanted to interrupt it. Which is in line with a generous interpretation of the the power but not how I wanted to run a game because it slows things way down.

An OP character is super easy for a DM to fix: generate harder encounters and focus fire on the OP guy. Min/Maxing in D&D is not a moral failing, it's just a waste of time. This isn't a CRPG that can be broken, the ref is right there and can adjust the difficulty on the fly if they feel like it.

But a character with a tedious power that causes trouble for other players at the table by slowing the game down or overshadowing what they can do completely is a genuine concern because it damages the real heart of the game: the comradery of the players at the table. Without that, you are just sitting alone in the dark being amazed at how big the numbers on your character sheet are.

One unrelated problem I ran into was the really tactical min/max players are chafing against the Theater of the Mind play. They feel that if they were using a grid and minis then they would place every attack perfectly and optimize every tactical decision so things like 'your sleep can hit half the kobolds or can hit all of them but will also possibly hit your allies in mele' is somehow cheating them. Our DMs and the other players love it though we get through so much more game and many of the tactical decisions are just time wasters that have no effect on outcomes.

 

[Thaumaturge]

It takes a bit, but the crowd becomes a lot less tough once you know who to ignore.

I'm. right. here.

But I guess you can't see this can you?

All this Bard talk really makes me want to dust off my old 80286 PC and throw those Bards Tale disks in there.

Oh, boy. Have I got good news for you. It's on Steam for Windows, OsX, and Linux here. It's in the iOS App store here. And it's in the Android google play store here. All with various updates and improvements. No version costs more than $10.

See you in a couple of weeks. Enjoy the bad puns.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Agamon]

I'm. right. here.

But I guess you can't see this can you?

Did someone just respond to my post?

Eh, maybe it's just the wind.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Did someone just respond to my post?

Eh, maybe it's just the wind.

Well, now I've ignored you back so there. You can tell by how I'm not talking to you.



Thaumaturge.