How do I deal with a cheating player?

[Aaron L]

Actually, Monk is one of the worst choices for munchkiny powergaming I can think of...

But as for the rest, when he says he rolls a 40, say point blank "OK, how the HELL did you get a 40?" When its blatant like that all you can do is call BS.

 

[sydbar]

In the group i'm in, if the dm thinks that a number may be out of whack, he will ask how they arrived at the number, and most of the time it adds up, and if it doesn't its usually an easily correctable mistake.

 

[Harmon]

Box is trying to keep this non confrontational. Calling him out- "your numbers are BS!" won't work with that.

Booting him does not seem a desired result. Everyone at the table should know or realize the guy is cheating, its not about having the guts to stand up against the cheater either (or so it appears to me), its a matter of continuing a relationship (like a cheating spouse).

We would each handle it in our own way, Box wants a certain end result, and he has made that clear, we should try to help in finding that result.

 

[Balgus]

I would run a couple sessions of RPing and little to no rolling. That would let him know that RP is just as inportant as the numbers on the sheet.

Maybe make a session where they have to go through the city without causing any trouble. If they do, they get thropwn in jail. And they have to gather a bunch of info, and charm their way into circles of societies that they discovered while adventuring.

Basically take his stats away from him, and see what else he can do.
edit- or how far he would go

 

[Bront]

Kill him, take his stuff.

 

[delericho]

The first thing you want to go is get copies of all the character sheets, and preferably the master copy. You can do this in a couple of ways:

You probably have a player who either sometimes forgets his sheet, or sometimes can't make it to the game. Express some frustration at not having the sheet available all the time. Then suggest that you should keep the sheets between games, since if you forget your notes there's no game anyway. If people protest, you can 'back off' to a position where they have to at least give you up-to-date copies of the sheets each time they make a significant change (at least once a level).

Or, my personal favourite: Offer to produce fancy electronic versions of the character sheets, using the Mad Irishman forms or equivalent. That way, everyone has fully filled-in sheets, everyone uses a standard format, they don't need to worry about adding everything up, and they get a new shiny sheet at every level. The added advantage of this is that you have the master copy on your hard disk.

Once you have the sheets, go through them all with a fine-toothed comb. Find every mistake, omission, and the like, and ask everyone at the table to put them right. This at least brings all the characters into the realm of possibility (and works better if you use point-buy and fixed-hp, since the less randomness there is in character management the closer you get to the 'truth'). Note: don't do this the first week you have the sheets; wait at least until the next time the party levels-up. Otherwise the players will rightly call foul, and demand their sheets back.

The key thus far is that all the players are affected equally. People make mistakes in assigning skill points (in particular) all the time, so it's not unreasonable to point out some "unfortunate mistakes".

All this basically takes care of any stat inflation. It's much harder to casually add modifiers and such like when the DM can check all the characters at every level.

Dealing with a dice rolling cheat is somewhat harder to do in a tactful manner. The first suggestion is the tyr to get everyone in the group using 'standard' polyhedral dice, and using dice with brightly contrasting colours/numbers. That way, ambiguity in the rolls is reduced.

Secondly, keep an eye out for impossible rolls. If a character has a +19 on a roll, he can't get more than 39. When an impossible roll occurs, ask the player to check his math, because "you think he might have miscounted".

This still leaves characters who have an improbable run of luck (no dice roll under 15 for an entire session, or something of that sort). Unfortunately, there's no tactful way to deal with this without requiring that all rolls be verified before they are allowed to stand. Even then, there are ways to throw a die to get a fixed result. However, hopefully, these suggestions will cut out some of the worst instances of cheating.

 

[cthulhu_duck]

In the group i'm in, if the dm thinks that a number may be out of whack, he will ask how they arrived at the number
...

I do it anytime a number comes out that sounds questionable, whether I'm DM or not.

There's been several times I've questioned "Wow - how'd you get that high?" "How's that rule/skill/feat/spell work?" "Uh oh (looking in book) it says here that you should only have a +2 bonus/that only works if you're not wearing armour/you're limited to a single attack action..." and the player whose caused me to query the result has discovered the rules aren't in their favour as much as they wanted to believe (or mislead the group, but I'd sooner ascribe ignorance).

I never accuse anyone of cheating. I just query the result, and either get to complement them on their character build (when the results are because of a craftily constructed character) or illuminate their misinterpretation of the rules/correct their mistakes.

Quite often I encounter players who read the first line or two of a spell, feat or skill... and don't read the whole description - learning only of the drawback in their plan when I point out the second to last line of the description or something similar.

It can help to check characters outside the game - as a DM, at the start and end of a campaign and at every level up during, I ask for a copy of the characters that players have. Since I run a "GM approval required of non core elements" game, this is my way to vet those non core elements, but I also use it to get an idea of what the characters can do, check the equipment levels, and to keep an eye that no one has miscalculated anything. I do this via email, and if there's anything I note that doesn't add up, I email back the player with questions about it, asking them to check their maths, etc.

 

[Mr Jack]

I run and play in an open-invite game, we have a player who I've suspected of cheating. I didn't want to accuse him 'cos he's the sensitive type and there'd have been a scene. What I did was look over everyone's character sheets at the start of the session and ask people about how they got stuff that didn't add up or I wasn't familiar with. That way I could query his stuff without appearing to single him out.

As it happens, it turned out he hadn't been cheating after all.

 

[Aus_Snow]

What Bront. . . Jim Hague said.

As DM, it's your prerogative (responsibility?) to know the details of your player's characters, including their character sheets.

 

[The_Gneech]

How do I deal with a cheatin' player?
How do I deal with a cheatin' player?
How do I deal with a cheatin' player?
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'?

Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

Glue ev'ry third page of his PHB together!
Glue ev'ry third page of his PHB together!
Glue ev'ry third page of his PHB together!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

Smack 'im with a dice bag 'til he's honest!
Smack 'im with a dice bag 'til he's honest!
Smack i'm with a dice bag 'til he's honest!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

Give him a girdle that swaps his gender!
Give him a girdle that swaps his gender!
Give him a girdle that swaps his gender!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Hooray! It's TPK time!
Ear-lie in tha' mornin'!

I would just ask him to explain his results each time one comes up that you don't understand. There's no need to be a jerk about it, just say--"Whoa, 40? How does a 4th-level spellthief get a 40 on a Hide check? Can you break down the numbers for me?"

Also, it's your right as DM to be familiar with what a character is capable of doing, so ask to take a look at his character sheet before the next game. If it turns out that he is cheating, you should address it forthrightly. "Hey, man, I've looked at your sheet and I noticed that you have a 22 Dex, but your character is a 4th-level human with no magic items. What's the deal?"

Actually, this is what I meant to say. Well put!

-The Gneech