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

[Thunder Brother]

I've only ever nerfed one ability, and that was the Twilight Cleric's Twilight Sanctuary. I was very upfront about it with the player before he decided his domain. He still picked Twilight as his domain and has felt strong despite the change.

I've never felt the need to nerf anything else.

 

[TheSword]

I try not to nerf character classes for balance reasons because to be honest, once you start where do you stop!?

That said, it has been suggested that nerfing is done to make things easier for the Dm or less fun for the player. To be honest if I ban/nerf something it’s almost always because it either shuts down an element of the game that could be fun (alertness, lucky, rope trick) or because it annoys other players (moon Druid).

It may be great fun for the Moon Druid to transform into the most optimal creature for its level - bear for instance. But I have personally dealt with the complaints from other PCs who feel overshadowed and superfluous because of how OP it is at that level. I’ve found that telling players it gets better in 5 levels provides very little consolation.

I’ve seen some Moon Druids use their ability sparingly though and not have this effect. I’ve seen others where it is their go to tactic and it becomes a problem. I’d say the same about the Twilight cleric.

The question is not does it make the DMs game more fun, but does it raise the overall fun of the table (of which the DM is a component)

 

[Zardnaar]

I've only ever nerfed one ability, and that was the Twilight Cleric's Twilight Sanctuary. I was very upfront about it with the player before he decided his domain. He still picked Twilight as his domain and has felt strong despite the change.

I've never felt the need to nerf anything else.

Twilight domain is very OP in actual play.

Not a fan of Tasha's in general very high power curve.

 

[beancounter]

Based on some of the responses below, I guess two question are:

(1) how much time and effort did you put into rolling up the druid, and how detailed was the background you had for it?

(2) had there been a session 0 before you rolled it up / had the DM asked you to roll it up yet?

1. Very little time. We thought it would be a one shot, but now it's become a regular campaign.
2. No formal session 0. He just emailed me a few days before the session after I sent him the character sheet.

I was bummed about it for a little while, but I just rolled with it, and I was curious what other people thought.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I try not to nerf character classes for balance reasons because to be honest, once you start where do you stop!?

That said, it has been suggested that nerfing is done to make things easier for the Dm or less fun for the player. To be honest if I ban/nerf something it’s almost always because it either shuts down an element of the game that could be fun (alertness, lucky, rope trick) or because it annoys other players (moon Druid).

It may be great fun for the Moon Druid to transform into the most optimal creature for its level - bear for instance. But I have personally dealt with the complaints from other PCs who feel overshadowed and superfluous because of how OP it is at that level. I’ve found that telling players it gets better in 5 levels provides very little consolation.

I’ve seen some Moon Druids use their ability sparingly though and not have this effect. I’ve seen others where it is their go to tactic and it becomes a problem. I’d say the same about the Twilight cleric.

The question is not does it make the DMs game more fun, but does it raise the overall fun of the table (of which the DM is a component)

I haven't felt the need to nerf Moon Druid (I agree it's OP, but for such a narrow range of levels that I think it's negligible). That said, I think that if I did I would try to do it in a way that makes Moon Druids more interesting.

Maybe instead of merely having seen an animal, the druid must visit a shrine dedicated to the spirit of that animal, in order to pay homage. Only then can the druid use that form for wild shape. Give them a few forms to start from a curated list that you don't consider OP. The rest they need to track down in game. In order to make it not a straight nerf, I might add a bonus to it. Maybe each shrine gives you the ability to communicate with that animal type, or every few shrines allow you to obtain a beast trait (like enhanced sense of smell, vision, or even something like spider climb).

I'd much rather see things "nerfed" in a way that adds back to the game, rather than only subtracting.

 

[TheSword]

1. Very little time. We thought it would be a one shot, but now it's become a regular campaign.
2. No formal session 0. He just emailed me a few days before the session after I sent him the character sheet.

I was bummed about it for a little while, but I just rolled with it, and I was curious what other people thought.

Imagine your moon Druid could turn into a brown bear, but a fighter character had twice as many hp as you, could make three attacks per round as a single action and could also cast wizard spells. How would that make you feel and would you want the character reduced in power?

 

[Fanaelialae]

Imagine your moon Druid could turn into a brown bear, but a fighter character had twice as many hp as you, could make three attacks per round as a single action and could also cast wizard spells. How would that make you feel and would you want the character reduced in power?

I agree that the number of attacks is an issue at 2nd level (though not so much by 5th level when the fighter can make 2-3 attacks). However, the hit points are somewhat misleading. Yeah, the bear has 34 HP which is a lot at 2nd level (but again, not really that much by 5th level). However, the bear's AC is a paltry 11 (compared to the fighter, whose AC is likely to be approaching 20), so "twice as many hp" isn't exactly the whole picture. Also, the druid spell list isn't as potent as the wizard spell list, and you can very easily end up burning a lot of those spell slots to maintain your form (because IME the player probably picked a moon druid so that they could shape shift and beat things up, not so that they could stand around casting spells, for which there are better circles).

Personally, I wouldn't be bothered about a power disparity that goes by in 3 short levels, but that's just me.

 

[Jer]

As a DM I don't nerf anything outright anymore. I've never found a need to nerf anything in 5e and the last time I felt the need to nerf something was probably when I was running original flavor Torg (where the power curve on certain elements kind of exploded and a few of the options for character creation were just a bit too good).

If something seems too good in game I'll put on my game design hat an try to figure out why it's too good. I no longer trust theorycrafting of character options - especially for 5e - because I've yet to see something that is too good on paper turn out to be too good in practice (though I've never had a character with the Twilight domain, so it's not like I've seen every combination of everything).

I haven't had a Moon Druid but I suspect that the problem is actually an artifact of an overall problem that I have with 5e - levels 1-4 are not designed so much as tacked on due to demand for zero-to-hero play. Eyeballing it the Moon Druid's powers only seem out of whack compared to everyone else until the party hits level 5, after which they're good but not nearly as good.

(As a player -which I can now have opinions about because we started a new game this weekend where I get to play instead of DM - I'd prefer a DM work with me if they think something is too powerful rather than nerf it outright. Figure out what the concerns are and see if we can downplay them).

 

[James Gasik]

As a DM I don't nerf anything outright anymore. I've never found a need to nerf anything in 5e and the last time I felt the need to nerf something was probably when I was running original flavor Torg (where the power curve on certain elements kind of exploded and a few of the options for character creation were just a bit too good).

If something seems too good in game I'll put on my game design hat an try to figure out why it's too good. I no longer trust theorycrafting of character options - especially for 5e - because I've yet to see something that is too good on paper turn out to be too good in practice (though I've never had a character with the Twilight domain, so it's not like I've seen every combination of everything).

I haven't had a Moon Druid but I suspect that the problem is actually an artifact of an overall problem that I have with 5e - levels 1-4 are not designed so much as tacked on due to demand for zero-to-hero play. Eyeballing it the Moon Druid's powers only seem out of whack compared to everyone else until the party hits level 5, after which they're good but not nearly as good.

(As a player -which I can now have opinions about because we started a new game this weekend where I get to play instead of DM - I'd prefer a DM work with me if they think something is too powerful rather than nerf it outright. Figure out what the concerns are and see if we can downplay them).

Mmm...Torg...now that was an ambitious game!

 

[Mort]

I haven't nerfed anything in 5e yet.

Agree with those saying the primary concern is power level between the party vs. power level vs. the campaign.

The moon druid's spikes in power are certainly beefy at low levels - but even there it's not really enough to nerf IMO - and I DMd for a aarakocra moon druid at low level - which, if anything is a bit over the top - that's it!

Twilight clerics are interesting. I'll certainly agree that twilight sanctuary is better than any other 2nd level cleric power. BUT it also passively helps the entire party equally without the cleric actually doing anything (other than triggering it, which costs an action)- so it actually plays really well in a group. Every time I've seen it used, the rest of the group is quite happy because it gives each and every person a boost every round.