D&D 5E How do you feel about PC abilities being nerfed by the DM?

[doctorbadwolf]

So that wasn’t the point. The point was would that second level brown bear Druid feel overshadowed if a fighter of the same level had three attacks per action, wizard spells and around 65 hp.

I’m not going to be drawn into a debate about whether the moon Druid overshadows or not. If you don’t believe it does then we’re gonna disagree in a thread about nerfing.

The hypothetical has no point if it doesn’t model the same circumstance at what is being discussed.

There is literally 1 level at which the fighter could reasonably think the bear outmatches them.

You’ve also calibrated the hypothetical incorrectly. The fighter should have at least 20 HP, so the bear does not have twice as much. The bear also lacks actions surge and a fighting style, and can’t cast spells while a bear so the Spellcasting isn’t really relevant, so again it’s one level away from the fighter handily winning a combat front-liner competition.

But to answer your question, no. The Druid would still have all of its cool things.

 

[ersatzphil]

…they should mistrust the players too.

Given how often I review my players sheets and find “…a bank error in your favor!” type mistakes, I’m getting there.
The most recent: noticing that the player playing a small race with a halberd should have been making every attack with disadvantage for the last five weeks. I really don’t like having to police my players - I want to trust them such that when they tell me, “I can do XYZ!”, I can believe them.

 

[TheSword]

The hypothetical has no point if it doesn’t model the same circumstance at what is being discussed.

There is literally 1 level at which the fighter could reasonably think the bear outmatches them.

You’ve also calibrated the hypothetical incorrectly. The fighter should have at least 20 HP, so the bear does not have twice as much. The bear also lacks actions surge and a fighting style, and can’t cast spells while a bear so the Spellcasting isn’t really relevant, so again it’s one level away from the fighter handily winning a combat front-liner competition.

But to answer your question, no. The Druid would still have all of its cool

It doesn’t need to be precise to make the point. It just needs to have substantially more than the Druid to make them feel overshadowed, adjust the hypothetical until it works for you. You may not agree with the point but

Nevertheless you have to insist on forcing the argument.

The reason the moon Druid causes the fighter to feel overshadowed (and it is just the moon subclass). Is that as a bonus action the Druid can instantly transform, gain 34 hp, fight better than a standard 4th level fighter, heal as a bonus action. Lose those hit points, then do the exact same thing in the same encounter. Short rest and do that over and over again in a single day. While still enjoying all the spellcasting benefits of a Druid etc. So the bear actually has bark skin up.

Now if you don’t think that’s excessive, that’s fine. But the fact of the matter is my players have said in my Kingmaker game that it annoys them. in response I have the right to nerf or ban a class or subclass.

The more interesting question to me is not whether Druid of the moon is OP (I firmly believe it absolutely can be and not for 1 level more like at least 3, and after that it’s merely very good up to about level 10, at which point it drops). But rather if a Druid is played more moderately (like in my Tomb of Annihilation game, transforming every so often, rather than multiple times in every combat ) should they be allowed to play it. (That’s a question to the wider audience as I know you would let them play it anyway)

In other words is self control a better solution to overshadowing players than nerfing/banning. Why punish the twilight cleric who shows restraint and only invoked their radiance when in desperate need?

 

[Hussar]

Given how often I review my players sheets and find “…a bank error in your favor!” type mistakes, I’m getting there.
The most recent: noticing that the player playing a small race with a halberd should have been making every attack with disadvantage for the last five weeks. I really don’t like having to police my players - I want to trust them such that when they tell me, “I can do XYZ!”, I can believe them.

Heh. yeah, certainly been there. I'M SOOOO glad I don7t have to do that anymore. My current group and my last group both were pretty scrupulous about that.

Worst thing is, since i play so rarely, when I actually do get to make a PC and play, I have so little idea what I'm doing that I often make tons of mistakes on my character sheet, making me the "a bank error in your favor" player.

But, honest, it really is just a mistake!

 

[amethal]

What should the DM do if a player character's ability is turning almost all encounters into a cakewalk and everybody (or everybody else, anyway) is getting bored and / or upstaged?

1. Nothing

2. Nerf the ability

3. Rewrite every encounter to either

3a Add more foes; or

3b Mysteriously always include things that take advantage of the overpowered character's weaknesses

With groups I've played with, option 1 will eventually kill the campaign (and, in my experience, lead to one or more players blaming the DM for it), option 3a seems like a lot of work (and risks killing the non-overpowered characters) and option 3b seems unfair and also destroys realism.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

What should the DM do if a player character's ability is turning almost all encounters into a cakewalk and everybody (or everybody else, anyway) is getting bored and / or upstaged?

1. Nothing

2. Nerf the ability

3. Rewrite every encounter to either

3a Add more foes; or

3b Mysteriously always include things that take advantage of the overpowered character's weaknesses

With groups I've played with, option 1 will eventually kill the campaign (and, in my experience, lead to one or more players blaming the DM for it), option 3a seems like a lot of work (and risks killing the non-overpowered characters) and option 3b seems unfair and also destroys realism.

You could try talking to them.

 

[amethal]

You could try talking to them.

For the purpose of this discussion I assumed that had already happened (in life, let alone on gaming, I usually start by asking someone nicely to do something before deciding whether I need to insist, since that's basic politeness) and the player saw no reason to change.

I guess I should have mentioned that part, given that this thread has plenty of DM distrust in it.

So yes, assume the asking part has come and gone. Presumably everybody is just fine with player abilities being nerfed by the player themself.

 

[Fanaelialae]

What should the DM do if a player character's ability is turning almost all encounters into a cakewalk and everybody (or everybody else, anyway) is getting bored and / or upstaged?

1. Nothing

2. Nerf the ability

3. Rewrite every encounter to either

3a Add more foes; or

3b Mysteriously always include things that take advantage of the overpowered character's weaknesses

With groups I've played with, option 1 will eventually kill the campaign (and, in my experience, lead to one or more players blaming the DM for it), option 3a seems like a lot of work (and risks killing the non-overpowered characters) and option 3b seems unfair and also destroys realism.

3c Provide a variety of challenges, such that the ability is sometimes amazing and sometimes, not so much. Which is work, admittedly, but it's what the DM ought to be doing anyway to keep their encounters fresh and interesting.

If the ability is sometimes OP, then that's fine. It's only when it's always OP that there's a problem. However, that's often more an issue with repetitive encounter design than with the ability itself. If you mostly use tightly grouped mobs, fireball is king. If you exclusively use undead, then turn undead is brokenly good. Fireball and Turn Undead aren't actually broken though, and work fine in plenty of campaigns without alteration.

Also, I think you've overlooked that heavy handed use of nerfing can wreck a campaign just as easily, if not moreso, as doing nothing. And in those cases, it really is the DMs fault (as the one presumably wielding the nerf bat).

That said, I think that if everyone at the table is having less fun, that is a valid reason to make adjustments. In that case you should have buy in from the group, and it should be able to be resolved with a quick discussion: "Hey Tom, I think we all agree that Turn Undead is ruining this zombie campaign. If you're down, I'll let you swap it out for a different Channel Divinity of your choice. Cool?"

 

[UngainlyTitan]

For the purpose of this discussion I assumed that had already happened (in life, let alone on gaming, I usually start by asking someone nicely to do something before deciding whether I need to insist, since that's basic politeness) and the player saw no reason to change.

I guess I should have mentioned that part, given that this thread has plenty of DM distrust in it.

So yes, assume the asking part has come and gone. Presumably everybody is just fine with player abilities being nerfed by the player themself.

Ok then then the next big question is why is that player doing a lot better than the other. For me that would be a key component in what I do next.
For instance: The player is simply more tactically astute in combat. In that case I would do stuff like add more creatures to encounters and tailor monsters to counter that player. Note: I would not do this for every encounter. There seems to be a belief around here, that every encounter has to be challenging or deadly.

There is nothing wrong with the player getting to strut their stuff occasionally.

Now, if the pc was simply better from items or feats, I would discuss nerfing the feat or item in question for something lesser and/or ban that from the game.

On the other hand, if the issue was a particular power or feature, then a discussion would be about what is the best approach to this. It would probably end in a nerf but it really depends on what the group thinks.

This gets back to the "Not trust the DM thing". One thing to remember is that most of us here are DMs and most are old. We have heard and often witnessed some of the horror stories and while there may have been uncommon they linger in the mind. Also in my experience, here on these boards, people have come in to discussions with an issue and talking about nerfing or banning this and that and have often never taken the obvious step of talking about it to the group.

Some times the fact that one player dominates in combat does not bother the other players and that is not their focus in the game. Some times it only bothers the player and the DM and sometimes it only bothers the DM. In the latter case the DM often feels they are not challenging the player enough only to find that in conversation that the players are fine with the way things are going.

One thing I will note, (and this references the fudging issue) is that so far in 5e I have not really felt the need to ban or nerf anything and no need to fudge.

I will note, however, that in my experience there is an increasing disparity between what the designers think is an ok encounter and what the party is capable of. Though that may very well vary a lot depending on group and playstyle.

 

[James Gasik]

I know what most enemies would do, upon seeing a guy turn into a bear and start mauling people. Focus fire the bear or run away to get reinforcements.