Help with balancing my party

[Glomb175]

I've checked the maths several times. Not recently so maybe my numbers above are incorrect but it's all above board. I'll look it up this evening and upload the stats to the thread.

You mentioned an amulet that negates stealth. I already did this, I gave them all enchanted yet cursed items. Also at their latest area I advised that the dry leaves and rubble mean he is unable to stealth. He's not happy about these things because he feels I'm punishing him and he can't use his character's strengths.

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[Hillsy7]

I've checked the maths several times. Not recently so maybe my numbers above are incorrect but it's all above board. I'll look it up this evening and upload the stats to the thread.

You mentioned an amulet that negates stealth. I already did this, I gave them all enchanted yet cursed items. Also at their latest area I advised that the dry leaves and rubble mean he is unable to stealth. He's not happy about these things because he feels I'm punishing him and he can't use his character's strengths.

By my numbers, awesome equipment or clever multi-classing aside, the max he should be doing with a crossbow and assassinate is 8d6+4, or 52 and that's if he rolled 8 6's. The 'average' should be about half that, and an average non-crit should be about a quarter.

I meant give the bad guy something that stops him being surprised (therefore stops autocrit), it feels more like a resourceful enemy, and less like you nerfing the party. See also, Alarm spells. A big boss might have bought a number of alarm items he hangs above the doors in his hideout. Detect Trap, nope. Can you sneak through? Nope. Don't do this all the time, but yeah it's perfectly reasonable to nerf them every now and then. Assassin's exist - smart people take precautions.

Now, if this is the first time you've nerfed him and he's complaining - I'd start having a conversation about what kind of game he wants to play. Does he want to play whack-a-mole, where all you have is a hammer that you use all the time, or does he want to play something more complex where he's being challenged to find different approaches? Either is fine, but the game needs tailoring to that. Some people just really love one-shotting stuff, that's fine, or repeating the same complex tactic over and over. Again, brilliant. But the game needs to be built to reflect that, and his party-mates need to be on board too.

Question, does he get involved a lot in the non-combat stuff too??

 

[Charles Rampant]

I think that if my party started complaining, "Hey, this guy's not dead yet?" I'd say, "Well, yeah. It'd be boring if you killed everything instantly, right?"

Assassin is a troublesome subclass, because players tend to read it quickly and assume they always get the cool rules, whereas it's actually extremely specific and requires them to basically work solo to get the benefit. If you're wanting evidence from the book for why you are nerfing him, then just read the class carefully and in combination with the Surprise rules.

Otherwise, it sounds a bit like your party is happy to blow through stuff, but want to all get a chance to shine. One way of doing that is just to fudge a lot, so that the enemies always last at least until the Cleric's turn. It's not 'fair' or 'balanced', but if the players go home happy - and you can live with the lack of danger that they'll face, in return for less complaining - then it might be the simplest solution.

 

[delphonso]

There's a lot of great advice in here, and definitely some things I haven't thought of. I'd advise the following:

One way to handle single boss enemies (although it might be hard to do with 6 players) is to give it a turn after every player's turn. It has the same health bar, but just gets more attacks out - hopefully spread out over the whole party. A lot of the 5E boss creatures have 1/day attacks and their regular attacks are actually pretty weak. Mostly it's just to stop it from eating 6 hits before swinging once and then taking 6 more.

Another option is to give him some of his own medicine. Mirror matches are a great way to challenge a party. Borrow your player's character sheet and have them fight an enemy that is the exact same.
I played a 3.5 game where a druid had a Badger companion. This badger did more damage than the rest of the party combined and basically couldn't be hit. When they fought it, the only way they defeated it was by grappling it, tying it up, and throwing it off a cliff.

Again - this last one might not work with 6 players - but splitting people up into different combat sections is another option. Either with pit traps or a room full of rafters and catwalks, separate the party and send them against opponents just for them. You can run combat in the normal initiative, but not every enemy is in reach of every player. On the top floor, this player can lay into a big soak enemy, while everyone else has to handle their own challenge or have goals they need to achieve.

I have a similar problem with my party that's totally my own fault. It's actually not a problem because we spend at least 50% of the time on interactions, negotiations, investigations and the like before we even start moving toward a dungeon or area to explore. However, when we reach the main combat, the party's monk usually takes off a third of the boss's health. I've handled this a few different ways;
Many times, I don't even keep track of HP and just have the boss die when a player gets a nice hit in, or a really good roll, or does something with the environment. Otherwise, if the monk throws out a ton of damage right away, the boss is going to use all its attacks on him. I've dropped him to 0 in the last 3 fights. It gives the rest of the party something to do, and they've started encouraging some restraint with him, since it keeps happening.
The last one I've been planning to do but haven't done it yet since I don't want to kill off this character, but give your boss an amulet which reflects the first attack on it back to the attacker. It's not nice, and not fair, but will put that player down and out for the combat.

 

[BoldItalic]

Monsters that arrive on their turn will solve some of the problems.

Place a large group of weak monsters to trigger combat. The party starts mopping them up. Low down in the initiative order, the heavies arrive. They get to attack immediately because it's their turn right now. Effectively, the initiative order has been rotated so that the heavies are at the top from then on. Assassinate doesn't get a look-in.

But only do it sometimes.

 

[Hillsy7]

But only do it sometimes.

^------This. Lot's of this.

It applies to so much when building encounters. Giving people an opportunity to shine is not an equal thing. You should sometimes lob undead at your cleric, and other times have anti-healing zones. Phys resistant monsters allow spell casters to shine. Areas with lots of pillars and LoS blockers are a pain for ranged attackers, but brilliant for melee. Fighting in darkness against spiders allows certain races a bonus.

No encounter, except maybe big set piece fights, should be equally balanced across all your players. See Critical Role for how many times Grog the Barbarian has to try and fight Flying stuff. Do LOTS of different things. Sometimes

 

[Miladoon]

Guessing you are in late Tier 1, I would promote the group to level 8. The outdamage will not look so lopsided and the other guys in the party will have a bunch of new things to play around with and won't care that much. Instead of goblins, trolls. You get the idea.

 

[Glomb175]

By my numbers, awesome equipment or clever multi-classing aside, the max he should be doing with a crossbow and assassinate is 8d6+4, or 52 and that's if he rolled 8 6's. The 'average' should be about half that, and an average non-crit should be about a quarter.

I meant give the bad guy something that stops him being surprised (therefore stops autocrit), it feels more like a resourceful enemy, and less like you nerfing the party. See also, Alarm spells. A big boss might have bought a number of alarm items he hangs above the doors in his hideout. Detect Trap, nope. Can you sneak through? Nope. Don't do this all the time, but yeah it's perfectly reasonable to nerf them every now and then. Assassin's exist - smart people take precautions.

Now, if this is the first time you've nerfed him and he's complaining - I'd start having a conversation about what kind of game he wants to play. Does he want to play whack-a-mole, where all you have is a hammer that you use all the time, or does he want to play something more complex where he's being challenged to find different approaches? Either is fine, but the game needs tailoring to that. Some people just really love one-shotting stuff, that's fine, or repeating the same complex tactic over and over. Again, brilliant. But the game needs to be built to reflect that, and his party-mates need to be on board too.

Question, does he get involved a lot in the non-combat stuff too??

I'll have a word with him. He does get involved outside of combat, probably more than anyone else in the group but that's not saying much because no one really gets involved. One of our characters actually role plays with a voice and adhering to his bonds/ideals etc. But the others aren't bothered, we've only been playing a year or so.

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[Hillsy7]

I'll have a word with him. He does get involved outside of combat, probably more than anyone else in the group but that's not saying much because no one really gets involved. One of our characters actually role plays with a voice and adhering to his bonds/ideals etc. But the others aren't bothered, we've only been playing a year or so.

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OK - I was asking because if he shuts down during non-combat, and other's take up the slack, then OP-ing Combat is just where he engages with the game.

Sounds like the majority of your guys are in it for the Combat, which is fine. In which case nudging them towards some optimization to keep up with your rogue, mixed with announcing to them you're going to make combat a bit tougher, might start to balance the game a bit better for everyone....

Mixed with changing up the types of encounters to benefit different characters (the 'Why can't I sneak, it's not fair' line holds a bit less weight when the cleric is nuke-bombing 20 skeletons at a time - he doesn't get to do this often).

 

[Horwath]

5E does a lot right, but it was a huge step backwards from 4E in terms of monster design. Basically if you want a "boss", it needs to have enough HP to stand up to the focus fire. I give mine at least 50 bonus hp per party level and a few action points to take extra turns/reroll. And that's assuming the boss has allies. If it's an actual solo encounter you need to beef it up even more.

The game by default is on easy mode with most fights just being a 2 round speedbumps at best. As near as I can tell the baseline is set for a party of 5 Champions with straight 12's for stats, hide armor, and a few daggers.

But why?

It is good design.

Anyone caught out in the open, alone, unprepared should fall in Alpha strike from a mob of 5/6 trained killers.

That is why bosses have tons of mooks to be cannon fodder so the boss can take action agains the party when HE/SHE wants it.