D&D 5E New DM Help

[Harzel]

So I have tried multiple outlets to communicate with my players. We are all very strongly opinionated.

I kind of expected these two things to be related to problems you were about to explain, but you never seemed mention them again. Did you leave something out or am I missing something or ?

I have been gaming for about 15+ years or so now. First started around 8 and played in games with friends and family for a longtime. A friend introduced me to my current gaming group who after alot of bad expeiences handed the reins over and now I am DMing our game.

Good on you for taking on the challenge. Welcome to EnWorld!

The current issue I am facing is challenging my players. I am trying to avoid the player versus DM mentality. We ran into that sometimes when I was playing in a game more so then most of us are willing to admit. Here is were we are currently.

Its a home brew game. Long Intro Short, I have a war ravaged world that has been assaulted by the Titans. They have killed a large portion of the gods. My players were coming in as survivors who have banded together and are trying to build up their power base. The game right now is in an explore and acquire stage. Now for the problem. I aksed my players to setup a team that would work together. When they asked me about allowable material, I pretty much said anything was game just run it by me first. As long as we and the group can agree we will give it a shot.
We are using alignments but only because it we don't one player acts like a complete smuck.

We are on game 11 about 4 months in and while my player are not complaining. I myself have some serious problems. Here is the party. They are all 8th level.

Mystic Avatar . Which honestly at times feel like it is way to OP but then other times it just falls super flat.
Barbarian Bear Totem Weilding a Great Axe. - Super Resistant and Deals a Metric Arse ton of damage.
Diviner Wizard/Warlock - Says she is sword pact but spends most of her time at range annihilating things with Eldritch Blast and has an annoying power that allows her to swap rolls.

As others mentioned - make sure you understand how this is supposed to work. She gets to roll two d20s at the end of a long rest and then she can use each of those values once to essentially pre-empt one d20 roll (using the prerolled value instead of rolling) by her, or an ally or opponent that she can see. At the end of the next long rest, unused pre-rolls go away and she rolls two more. So that's just two uses per long rest and they don't accumulate.

Multi-class Paladin/Cleric/Druid - Weird Healing/ Buffing/Burst damage Build.- Honestly she is the one I Hate the most. I didn't realize how broken it would be until now.
Rogue Assassin - I actually have no problem with this one Although I feel sorry for him at times.

So the problem.

The Rogue, Warlock and Barbarian I can handle.
The Mystic class is a real head spinner. and combined with this Divine Trio. I'm just not sure how to deal with it.

They annihilated a Cr 14 Black Dragon and 12 of his Kobald Guards. They then fought their way out of the lair. They were supposed to RP through the encounter and go on a fetch quest in exchange for an item the Dragon had in his horde. The Mystic for the most part acts kinda like the warlord from 4E but in this fight he pulled off an insane combo and after 3 rounds Killed my dragon with a crit for almost 30 Dice. To be fair the diviner helped with her roll swap power and after this fight he only had 4 points left and was reduced to hanging out in the background debating if he should buff our 3 melee combatants. And was relatively inactive for the remaining fights out of the dungeon. But the Divine trio is the one who really irks me.

How many levels does she have in each class, and what is her Cleric Domain, Druid Circle (if any), and Paladin Oath (if any)?

She was pissed at the mystic because he picked up the healing power when we started at level 5. After some talk he swapped it out. which honestly I could care less about his healing, because hers is way worse. At the end of the adventurering day she blows her entire spell slot load to create almost 300- 400 HP worth of healing. Its absolutely ridiculous. it lasts for 24 hours. I checked though and the power is legit.

Yeah, like others, I don't understand exactly what is going on here. How many spell slots does she think she has and what 'power' are you referring to?

I cringe for anyone else who has run into someone playing this. Now she spends the following days only using cantrips and basic attacks, but when she is feeling frisky she will nova 3 abilities to smash a target for 50+ points of damage. And its just rinse repeat for her.

Even with a 4th level Divine Smite + Hunter's Mark + weapon damage, I have a hard time getting to 50 without a crit. Maybe I am missing a synergy effect. In any case, it seems like she would have to be burning spell slots to do this, so she couldn't repeat indefinitely.

I just dont know how to manage. I swear between her and the mystic they could solo entire dungeons.



My players all seem to be having fun and none of them have complained to me but im at a loss.

I don't want to kill their fun, but it feels as if I am not challenging them. They seem bored.

Any words of advice?

Well, keep in mind that you can TPK the party any time you want to, and with a little effort you can make it look legitimate. So somewhere between there and where you are, there's probably a satisfactory spot. I don't know how you are estimating encounter difficulty, but however you are doing it, if the party trashes an encounter you thought would be hard, congratulate them and make the next one 50% harder. Repeat. Exponentiation is a wonderful thing; you will have them fleeing in no time.

Other points, some of which have already been mentioned:

• If a creature is legendary, make sure it uses its legendary saves and legendary actions. If in its lair, make sure to use lair actions.
• Legendary or not, solo creatures will always underperform. In fact, any time there are fewer opponents than PCs, their performance will be a bit lackluster compared to what you might expect.
• 12 kobolds are not even a speed bump for an 8th level party, even if they come with a dragon, unless there is something that makes them much harder to kill such as if they could spread out and harry the party from cover. Even then, you'd probably need more.
• For an 8th level party, you probably need opponents that are CR 5-ish if they are going to more or less go toe-to-toe with the PCs, and you don't want to have to have excessive numbers of them. 12 trolls (+ dragon) might have been a little much if you expected the PCs to have a chance in combat, but it might have made them think twice about attacking.
• You can have optional reserve waves of monsters that you bring in during a battle if it you think the PCs are not being challenged sufficiently as a dynamic adjustment. Personally, I do not like doing this, preferring to set up the encounter and then let the chips fall where they may, but others seem to use this and get along just fine.
• If you have just one substantial fight a day it's going to be hard to balance. Easy combats don't really help much because the PCs will need to burn few if any expendable resources. You really need several hard (or, in DMG terms, 'deadly') fights a day to get sort of controlled attrition.

 

[Imaculata]

The trick to creating challenging encounters, is not CR, but multiple encounter-goals. Especially when there are more goals than they can handle, this creates tension and excitement.

A fight with a dragon shouldn't just be about just killing the dragon, there should be multiple things at stake simultaneously.

 

[jasper]

Ok assuming the players builds are totally correct. Talk with your players. "Hey Jasper that there Mystic Machine Gun Joker Build is totally over powered. I would like to band it from the table."
If you are not happy, and the group is not willing to power down to something you can handle; walk away. NO GAMING IS BETTER THAN BAD GAMING.

 

[Imaculata]

Ok assuming the players builds are totally correct. Talk with your players. "Hey Jasper that there Mystic Machine Gun Joker Build is totally over powered. I would like to band it from the table."
If you are not happy, and the group is not willing to power down to something you can handle; walk away. NO GAMING IS BETTER THAN BAD GAMING.

The first step I think, would be to balance perceived power differences between the players. Rather than powering some players down, how about powering the weaker players up a bit?

Then adjust your approach to challenges. Raise the difficulty and complexity of encounters. Not just by throwing more and stronger monsters at them, but by actually creating dilemma's. The players can't be everywhere at the same time.

 

[DragonKnight88]

Ok WoW lots a feedback.. Thank you everyone. I will try to answer questions and clarify as best as I can.

So in this particular case the group had gone through a 2 "skill challenges" navigating a set of old ruins to locate the Dragons Lair, which was part of an abandoned city connected to a lake. They took on a couple easy fights. They faced off a band of roving Hobogoblins that I modified with some levels of fighter/rogue/druid who were led by an Oni. They had taken a short rest and I would say they had probably 75% of their resources left. This Dragon was going to be an Ally for them. Once they made the decision to fight the Dragon to take Its gear, i told them it could kill the party. But they didnt really worry to much. I'm thinking of having its Mate/Spawn came after the party and become a thorn in their sides.

Yes I did use the legendary resistance, which is why the Dragon didn't die a round earlier. So the diviner and the mystic tag teamed the dragon. My diviner, asked the mystic, Hey wanna Auto-Crit the Dragon. She had a Natural 20 saved up from her Portent ability and replaced his attack roll. He novas his abilities to add 12 Dice to his attack. So after everything was said and done he Crit the dragon for 14d10+12d6+6. I had forgotten she had the Nat 20. Over 100+ points and bam dead Dragon on Round 3.

I did bloody the Barb and the Cleric but honestly the fight felt so Anticlimactic.


Now for the Build of the Divine trio

2nd Level Paladin, 3rd Level Cleric/ Life Domain, 3rd Level Druid/ Spell Caster build. She recovers 2 spell slots once per day on a short rest. Can Heal 10 Hp through the lay on hands. And always has regular cures available.

Walks around in Half Plate and a shield. Uses a club and casts shillelagh to attack things if she doesnt want to cast cantrips at them. But the problem. Is this Cleric of life power. Whenever she casts a spell that heals, Druid Goodberry, they restore Hitpoints equal to 1 + spell level. So she casts it at level 1 and gets 10 berries that restore 3HP each.
4 1st level Slots 30 HP per casting
3 2nd Level Slots 40 HP per casting
3 3rd Level 50 HP per Casting
1 4th Level 60 HP per casting

She mostly uses her 1st and 2nd level spells for goodberries.

She uses the Smite abilities of the paladin to smite for 1d8+ 2d8 per spell lvl + casting the actual smite powers like wrathful.
She hit the Dragon for 1d8 + 8d8 + 3d6 + 5 she only ever spends her high level slots on damage powers. Or if she didnt need to use a bunch of powers she creates the goodberries which last for 24 hours before losing their potency.

Which is it? I'm confused. If they're bored, then they can't be having much fun, even if they're not complaining yet.

I shall add my voice to the growing chorus asking for more details.

To answer about my players seeming bored. They only seem to get excited when it comes time to fight. We used to have some moral dilemmas but we have discovered that those will bring the game to a screeching halt and turn into drag out arguments that result in out of game unhappiness.

As for difficulty of a normal adventuring day. I have been slowly ramping the challenge ratings up/ adding non combat challenges But i think I will start using more things like diseases/ Traps/Exhaustion/Chases/ Timed events. Making them choose and facing consequences for their choices. I will also work on what everyone is suggesting about making tweaks to the monsters stats/ abilities and even requiring multiple goals to be able to achieve victory.

Thanks everyone. This helps alot!

 

[Mort]

Yes I did use the legendary resistance, which is why the Dragon didn't die a round earlier. So the diviner and the mystic tag teamed the dragon. My diviner, asked the mystic, Hey wanna Auto-Crit the Dragon. She had a Natural 20 saved up from her Portent ability and replaced his attack roll. He novas his abilities to add 12 Dice to his attack. So after everything was said and done he Crit the dragon for 14d10+12d6+6. I had forgotten she had the Nat 20. Over 100+ points and bam dead Dragon on Round 3.

The nova capability combined with the Natural 20 is just nasty. How did he get both 14d10 AND 12d6? looks like it's one or the other not both, I don't think you can combine disciplines into one attack! And if by UA you can - well this is playtest material and consider it playtested and needing a nerf! The 7d10 critable and 7d6 critable is enough!

Now for the Build of the Divine trio

2nd Level Paladin, 3rd Level Cleric/ Life Domain, 3rd Level Druid/ Spell Caster build. She recovers 2 spell slots once per day on a short rest. Can Heal 10 Hp through the lay on hands. And always has regular cures available.

Walks around in Half Plate and a shield. Uses a club and casts shillelagh to attack things if she doesnt want to cast cantrips at them. But the problem. Is this Cleric of life power. Whenever she casts a spell that heals, Druid Goodberry, they restore Hitpoints equal to 1 + spell level. So she casts it at level 1 and gets 10 berries that restore 3HP each.
4 1st level Slots 30 HP per casting
3 2nd Level Slots 40 HP per casting
3 3rd Level 50 HP per Casting
1 4th Level 60 HP per casting

She mostly uses her 1st and 2nd level spells for goodberries.

She has non-metal half-plate? minor point - but still.

As for the goodberries: Cute, but this is a massive and incorrect abuse of the spell.

Disciple of life reads: Also starting at 1st level, your Healing Spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.

1. Really She is not casting a healing spell, she is summoning goodberries that also happen to restore one hit point;
2. Assuming you want to be generous and not go by #1, each goodberry is NOT an individual spell, it is one spell. Either one of the goodberries restores extra HPs OR the spell summons a few extra goodberries (2+spell level). No way is she getting a heal spell as a 4th level slot.

She uses the Smite abilities of the paladin to smite for 1d8+ 2d8 per spell lvl + casting the actual smite powers like wrathful.
She hit the Dragon for 1d8 + 8d8 + 3d6 + 5 she only ever spends her high level slots on damage powers. Or if she didnt need to use a bunch of powers she creates the goodberries which last for 24 hours before losing their potency.

This seems a good use of the multi class rules, though she pays for it with lower level spells, only one attack per round etc. Can be handled by more encounters.

You have 2 people in the group that have huge nova capability - this needs to be accounted for!

To answer about my players seeming bored. They only seem to get excited when it comes time to fight. We used to have some moral dilemmas but we have discovered that those will bring the game to a screeching halt and turn into drag out arguments that result in out of game unhappiness.

As for difficulty of a normal adventuring day. I have been slowly ramping the challenge ratings up/ adding non combat challenges But i think I will start using more things like diseases/ Traps/Exhaustion/Chases/ Timed events. Making them choose and facing consequences for their choices. I will also work on what everyone is suggesting about making tweaks to the monsters stats/ abilities and even requiring multiple goals to be able to achieve victory.

Thanks everyone. This helps alot!

Looks like your getting a handle on this part, and frankly it's the most important aspect - Adapt to the players play style to provide a more challenging and more fun experience.

 

[BluejayJunior]

I figured they were abusing Goodberries. One will provide sustenance for an entire day, so you could limit the amount that a person can consume in a day. Also, it is an action to eat ONE berry. So they can eat 50 berries to recover 50 hp, but they'll be standing there for 5 minutes doing it. (assuming you continue the one action per round outside of combat). So there are some ways to cut back on that if you feel they are abusing the system.
I'm not familiar with the Mystic, so I'm not sure of their abilities too much. I did skim the UA and noticed that the amount of psi points they can use at a time are limited, so I would look into that. It seems like way too much damage for level 8.
And a druid, even if mulitclassed with something else, still can't wear metal armor. So they generally can't wear halfplate unless they have found/purchased armor made from some other material. She is also doing the smite damage incorrectly. It is 2d8 + 1d8 per spell slot over level 1 and maxes out at 5d8. +1d8 against fiends.
I would take a good look at everyone's abilities and make sure you know how they work to determine if they are using them correctly.

 

[BluejayJunior]

As for the goodberries: Cute, but this is a massive and incorrect abuse of the spell.

Disciple of life reads: Also starting at 1st level, your Healing Spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.

1. Really She is not casting a healing spell, she is summoning goodberries that also happen to restore one hit point;
2. Assuming you want to be generous and not go by #1, each goodberry is NOT an individual spell, it is one spell. Either one of the goodberries restores extra HPs OR the spell summons a few extra goodberries (2+spell level). No way is she getting a heal spell as a 4th level slot.

According to Sage Advice, each goodberry does get the bonus. So for a level 1 spell, each berry cures 4 hp. At level 2, each would heal 5 hp. But, I woudn't necessarily disagree with your ruling to prevent this kind of abuse.

 

[Mort]

According to Sage Advice, each goodberry does get the bonus. So for a level 1 spell, each berry cures 4 hp. At level 2, each would heal 5 hp. But, I woudn't necessarily disagree with your ruling to prevent this kind of abuse.

Wow, the answer seemed so obvious I didn't even bother looking up sage advice. It's 1 spell not 10 spells, the plain wording/meaning of the spell is completely unambiguous! Forgetting that, how could crawford have thought that 40 HP of healing from a 1st level spell (!?!) is in anyway a intended/ a good idea?

Well, If I get a druid in my game, I know know how I'll interpret it!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Wow, the answer seemed so obvious I didn't even bother looking up sage advice. It's 1 spell not 10 spells, the plain wording/meaning of the spell is completely unambiguous! Forgetting that, how could crawford have thought that 40 HP of healing from a 1st level spell (!?!) is in anyway a intended/ a good idea?

Well, If I get a druid in my game, I know know how I'll interpret it!

How would you rule the Life domain ability works with Mass Cure Wounds? Does only one recipient get the bonus or do all of them?

The key here is in the 'restore hitpoints to a creature'. I'm using the goodberry spell to restore hitpoints to a character - therefore, they get the bonus healing. You could argue that it only happens once per creature per spell, but then you're keeping track of goodberry lots and who's had one from which. Yuck.

But, RAW aside, yes, it's a big loophole, but it's also out of combat healing. While continued pressure won't prevent effective healing, it will still strain short rest ability recovery, and that's usually a bigger factor. If you assume that your players will be at full hitpoints for every fight, you can plan and work with that fairly easily.