hammymchamham
First Post
scruffy looking nerf herders
Nerfing?
- Thread starter demon_jr
- Start date
dkilgo
First Post
I jus ttry to talk to my players to find out whay problems they might have with my rulings. Most of the time my players don't have a problem with my rulings because we sit back and discuss them like adults.
I try not to nerf anything because I do not want to limit my players from doing anything. I actually incurage my players to come up with nifty tricks to stump me. That is one of the many ways I have come to understand the whole process of learning the system. I award the player that challenges me in wit. Becaus emost of my players are destined to die in my battle scenarios because my tactics are too mean, but they do have thier moments of making me stop and recaculate.
In my opinion nerfing is bad because it limits the players, and that causes the players to eventually not have fun.
I try not to nerf anything because I do not want to limit my players from doing anything. I actually incurage my players to come up with nifty tricks to stump me. That is one of the many ways I have come to understand the whole process of learning the system. I award the player that challenges me in wit. Becaus emost of my players are destined to die in my battle scenarios because my tactics are too mean, but they do have thier moments of making me stop and recaculate.
In my opinion nerfing is bad because it limits the players, and that causes the players to eventually not have fun.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
dkilgo said:
How do you deal with the examples I gave above, in which I as a player and my own players all agree that nerfing increases our fun if done judicously?
Nerfing should never be used to increase the DM's power relative to the PC's power. It should only be done, IMHO, to eliminate "magic bullet" tactics.
Daniel
dkilgo
First Post
Pielorinho said:
Personally the magic bullet concept really doesn't make its way to our game table. Atleast I don't recall seeing in action.
I would have to agree with you that, if handled in a responsible manner, nerfing could be a good tool eliminate problems within a group of players that are having troubles with certain aspects of the game. Possibly the players and DM are just not meshing well with a particular idea. In that case, I would have to say nerfing I possibly your best route. I just don't really condone it if it can be avoided.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
dkilgo said:
I've seen it rarely, but it occasionally happens -- and when it happens, it's nasty. It's not a fault of the players; on the contrary, it's a case of players who understand the rules really well and who find a weird tactic in the rules that they really ought to use in every single battle. Having the same tactic for every battle is boring. So we remove that tactic's appeal, and everyone is happy again.
Daniel
Darkness
Hand and Eye of Piratecat [Moderator]
reapersaurus & Daniel: I agree that informing players of changes/limitations - and the DM of "smacks" - beforehand is optimal.
Further, yes, no DM can, especially without some practical experience with the game system, know all possible "tricks" that could be too much for their campaign. Being a regular in a place like EN World helps here, of course.
If he persists, suggest to him (still IC, of course) that he should leave the party for a while to hone his skills (not to mention his self-confidence) to a useful level.
As a DM, I'd have little problems with that guy.
First of all, the more ruthless of my players' characters would probably kill such a character very soon anyway, given that he's not only a spotlight hog but apparently also an arrogant crybaby.
That aside, he's really a one-trick pony (although possibly slightly more flexible than most, given that at least one of these archer PrCls enables you to shoot your bow in close combat without incurring AoOs). And one-trick ponies only shine under optimal circumstances.
Most campaigns shouldn't constantly feature these conditions, though; put that William Tell wannabe against skeletons (who only take 1/2 damage from piercing weapons), bandit archers (or Evoker pyromaniacs
) with cover, mirror images, invisible foes, suboptimal lighting and air conditions (e.g., darkness and medium winds, respectively), grapple attacks, creatures with Deflect Arrow, dispel magic on his bow and/or arrows, or any of a hundred other situations/enemies that are less-than-optimal for archery, and he won't shine quite as brightly.
Of course, constantly sending him in battle against skeleton (i.e., bone creature) Evokers with cover, mirror images, the Deflect Arrows feat, who dispel the GMW on his bow and arrows, and their invisible buddies who grapple the archer, at night and in a strong wind, is suboptimal DMing!
(BTW, some campaigns certainly do almost always feature optimal conditions for some one-trick pony types; these can be a bit more problematic. Also, depending on his exact PrCl and level in it, he can deal with some situations more easily. For example, a dwarven archer doesn't have as great problems with darkness.)
Anyway - apart from situations in which his strengths aren't as useful, there are also situations where his weaknesses are targeted by his opponents - and one-trick ponies usually have some weak points, especially given how min/maxed they tend to be.
For example, Will saves probably aren't his strong point - so spells and other attacks that require them are particularly dangerous to him. Another weakness of mr. uber-archer is that, when deprived of his bow (or even just his ammunition - which doesn't tend to be infinite), he can't do very much at all, compared to a less specialized fighter-type, given that many (if not most) of his feats and class abilities probably aren't very useful in melee combat. (Also, in a game system with damage to specific locations, having a hurt hand or arm is very detrimental to one's archery skills; certain medieval rulers had very strong reasons for cutting off a few fingers when they released captured bowmen... Anyway, this mostly isn't applicable in D&D, of course.)
Important side note: I'm very much a "status quo" GM - i.e., I don't tend to tailor encounters to specific PC qualities, whether these qualities are positive (e.g., one PC is the greatest archer ever) or negative (e.g., no cleric or paladin in the party).
Thus, I certainly do not advocate constantly using the situations I outlined above for the sole reason of "nerfing" the super-archer.
Instead, I want to illustrate that problems with such characters only occur when the conditions under which they fight are optimal for their tactics. That is, when the encounters the party faces don't vary enough to make such specialization impractical.
Trust me, in campaigns where fights against skeletons are very common (especially if they also caused fear), such uber-archers won't thrive. Likewise in a picaresque campaign whose encounters vary wildly in style.
There are three reasons for combat conditions not varying too much: GM laziness; setting requirements; and GMs tailoring encounters to enable archer-boy to shine (*shrug* it happens; I've seen it more than once).
Still, if the one-trick pony becomes real a problem, the GM has to either "nerf" him or put him in less optimal combat conditions more often - whether that just means not being as lazy (e.g., always considering weather conditions rather than just glossing over them - which can make quite a difference for an archer) or even consciously creating adventures which include more challenging situations.
Of course, if the archer constantly wins, that ought to have negative consequences of its own...
See, success makes you renowned. Therefore, success at adventuring makes you a renowned adventurer. But constantly slaughtering your opponents with superhuman archery tricks makes you a renowned archer.
And if you're known as the world's greatest archer, your enemies will take steps to protect themselves against you (providing they know - or even just suspect - that they might run into you). Further, pre-emptive attacks will rise in frequency as well; if you're up to no good and know (from his reputation) that that mega-archer probably will sooner or later interfere with your nice plans of bringing the demon-lord Baphomet into this world, you're well-advised of taking care of that troublesome meddler first. And, if you're smart, you'll do it in a way that a) can't be traced back to you (e.g., cast change self and hire an assassin who you tell nothing about your plans - or even lies that will make the do-gooder attack your other enemies, if he interrogates the would-be killer) and b) negates your enemy's obvious strengths and targets his obvious weaknesses (or even the less obvious strengths and weaknesses, providing you know them - which the GM should adjudicate fairly). Or maybe murder some of your other enemies in a way that suggests that archer boy, rather than you, was the culprit. This is especially nasty if you can sicc an organization that he won't want to fight on him (e.g., a good-aligned organization, for most PCs).
Example for a good assassination attempt on archer boy:
Have someone pay drinks for everyone at his favorite tavern that evening. That way, two things are accomplished: a) distraction (many people are around, it's noisy, etc.) and b) chances are good that he or his allies won't be in the best fighting condition that night. (Note: The person who pays the drinks shouldn't know anything about the assassination plot, so provide some plausible lie as explanation both for them and for everyone else - e.g., a celebration because of some religios holiday, or a birthday, a business success, a childbirth, or whatever. Further, this person should not, under any circumstances, enable your enemies to find out that you ordered this. Further, don't poison the drinks in any way; it isn't worth the risk.)
Then, have your hired assassin break into the place where your enemy sleeps.
An interesting way to commit the murder: Equip the assassin with a bag of holding (or like item) containing reduced skeletons and some item of dispel magic (to dispel the reduce effect) that he can use (Silent Spell on the dispel magic is especially handy, BTW).
Then, if possible, the hired murderer grabs your enemy's bow and has the sleeping (and hopefully drunk), armor-less archer be grappled and strangled to death by the skeletons. He can also help the skeletons if necessary - and if he can't grab the bow, the skeletons still aren't too easy to hurt. Silence and (improved) invisibility are nice to have, too.
(Note: This works best if you're a cleric or at least have one handy, of course; otherwise, the skeletons can be hard to come by. You also need a Wizard or Sorcerer for the reduce. Still, substitute the skeletons with something else - or just a plain old murderer who CDGs the sleeping enemy - and it still works like a charm. Of course, against enemies who sleep in places you can't reach - which is unlikely if you can get dimension door or similar effects -, all this won't help much.)
Whew! That was long...
I hope it gives you some inspiration, though.
PS - Sometimes, you have to "nerf" a class, feat, spell, or whatever, of course - even if only because a certain campaign requires it (e.g., magically creating water is harder in Dark Sun because it's a desert world and water is hard to come by).
Further, yes, no DM can, especially without some practical experience with the game system, know all possible "tricks" that could be too much for their campaign. Being a regular in a place like EN World helps here, of course.
In-character, you could ask him whether he's so insecure about his archery skills (or such a bad shot) that he needs GMW to succeed.ConcreteBuddha said:
If he persists, suggest to him (still IC, of course) that he should leave the party for a while to hone his skills (not to mention his self-confidence) to a useful level.
As a DM, I'd have little problems with that guy.
First of all, the more ruthless of my players' characters would probably kill such a character very soon anyway, given that he's not only a spotlight hog but apparently also an arrogant crybaby.
That aside, he's really a one-trick pony (although possibly slightly more flexible than most, given that at least one of these archer PrCls enables you to shoot your bow in close combat without incurring AoOs). And one-trick ponies only shine under optimal circumstances.
Most campaigns shouldn't constantly feature these conditions, though; put that William Tell wannabe against skeletons (who only take 1/2 damage from piercing weapons), bandit archers (or Evoker pyromaniacs
) with cover, mirror images, invisible foes, suboptimal lighting and air conditions (e.g., darkness and medium winds, respectively), grapple attacks, creatures with Deflect Arrow, dispel magic on his bow and/or arrows, or any of a hundred other situations/enemies that are less-than-optimal for archery, and he won't shine quite as brightly.Of course, constantly sending him in battle against skeleton (i.e., bone creature) Evokers with cover, mirror images, the Deflect Arrows feat, who dispel the GMW on his bow and arrows, and their invisible buddies who grapple the archer, at night and in a strong wind, is suboptimal DMing!
(BTW, some campaigns certainly do almost always feature optimal conditions for some one-trick pony types; these can be a bit more problematic. Also, depending on his exact PrCl and level in it, he can deal with some situations more easily. For example, a dwarven archer doesn't have as great problems with darkness.)
Anyway - apart from situations in which his strengths aren't as useful, there are also situations where his weaknesses are targeted by his opponents - and one-trick ponies usually have some weak points, especially given how min/maxed they tend to be.
For example, Will saves probably aren't his strong point - so spells and other attacks that require them are particularly dangerous to him. Another weakness of mr. uber-archer is that, when deprived of his bow (or even just his ammunition - which doesn't tend to be infinite), he can't do very much at all, compared to a less specialized fighter-type, given that many (if not most) of his feats and class abilities probably aren't very useful in melee combat. (Also, in a game system with damage to specific locations, having a hurt hand or arm is very detrimental to one's archery skills; certain medieval rulers had very strong reasons for cutting off a few fingers when they released captured bowmen... Anyway, this mostly isn't applicable in D&D, of course.)
Important side note: I'm very much a "status quo" GM - i.e., I don't tend to tailor encounters to specific PC qualities, whether these qualities are positive (e.g., one PC is the greatest archer ever) or negative (e.g., no cleric or paladin in the party).
Thus, I certainly do not advocate constantly using the situations I outlined above for the sole reason of "nerfing" the super-archer.
Instead, I want to illustrate that problems with such characters only occur when the conditions under which they fight are optimal for their tactics. That is, when the encounters the party faces don't vary enough to make such specialization impractical.
Trust me, in campaigns where fights against skeletons are very common (especially if they also caused fear), such uber-archers won't thrive. Likewise in a picaresque campaign whose encounters vary wildly in style.
There are three reasons for combat conditions not varying too much: GM laziness; setting requirements; and GMs tailoring encounters to enable archer-boy to shine (*shrug* it happens; I've seen it more than once).
Still, if the one-trick pony becomes real a problem, the GM has to either "nerf" him or put him in less optimal combat conditions more often - whether that just means not being as lazy (e.g., always considering weather conditions rather than just glossing over them - which can make quite a difference for an archer) or even consciously creating adventures which include more challenging situations.
Of course, if the archer constantly wins, that ought to have negative consequences of its own...
See, success makes you renowned. Therefore, success at adventuring makes you a renowned adventurer. But constantly slaughtering your opponents with superhuman archery tricks makes you a renowned archer.
And if you're known as the world's greatest archer, your enemies will take steps to protect themselves against you (providing they know - or even just suspect - that they might run into you). Further, pre-emptive attacks will rise in frequency as well; if you're up to no good and know (from his reputation) that that mega-archer probably will sooner or later interfere with your nice plans of bringing the demon-lord Baphomet into this world, you're well-advised of taking care of that troublesome meddler first. And, if you're smart, you'll do it in a way that a) can't be traced back to you (e.g., cast change self and hire an assassin who you tell nothing about your plans - or even lies that will make the do-gooder attack your other enemies, if he interrogates the would-be killer) and b) negates your enemy's obvious strengths and targets his obvious weaknesses (or even the less obvious strengths and weaknesses, providing you know them - which the GM should adjudicate fairly). Or maybe murder some of your other enemies in a way that suggests that archer boy, rather than you, was the culprit. This is especially nasty if you can sicc an organization that he won't want to fight on him (e.g., a good-aligned organization, for most PCs).
Example for a good assassination attempt on archer boy:
Have someone pay drinks for everyone at his favorite tavern that evening. That way, two things are accomplished: a) distraction (many people are around, it's noisy, etc.) and b) chances are good that he or his allies won't be in the best fighting condition that night. (Note: The person who pays the drinks shouldn't know anything about the assassination plot, so provide some plausible lie as explanation both for them and for everyone else - e.g., a celebration because of some religios holiday, or a birthday, a business success, a childbirth, or whatever. Further, this person should not, under any circumstances, enable your enemies to find out that you ordered this. Further, don't poison the drinks in any way; it isn't worth the risk.)
Then, have your hired assassin break into the place where your enemy sleeps.
An interesting way to commit the murder: Equip the assassin with a bag of holding (or like item) containing reduced skeletons and some item of dispel magic (to dispel the reduce effect) that he can use (Silent Spell on the dispel magic is especially handy, BTW).
Then, if possible, the hired murderer grabs your enemy's bow and has the sleeping (and hopefully drunk), armor-less archer be grappled and strangled to death by the skeletons. He can also help the skeletons if necessary - and if he can't grab the bow, the skeletons still aren't too easy to hurt. Silence and (improved) invisibility are nice to have, too.
(Note: This works best if you're a cleric or at least have one handy, of course; otherwise, the skeletons can be hard to come by. You also need a Wizard or Sorcerer for the reduce. Still, substitute the skeletons with something else - or just a plain old murderer who CDGs the sleeping enemy - and it still works like a charm. Of course, against enemies who sleep in places you can't reach - which is unlikely if you can get dimension door or similar effects -, all this won't help much.)
Whew! That was long...
I hope it gives you some inspiration, though.
PS - Sometimes, you have to "nerf" a class, feat, spell, or whatever, of course - even if only because a certain campaign requires it (e.g., magically creating water is harder in Dark Sun because it's a desert world and water is hard to come by).
Last edited:
Glyfair
Explorer
Destil said:
I never "nerf" something in a session, but might do so later. The reason, many times the players took their current actions knowing what an ability like Mass Heal does. Suddenly making it not work could cause the entire party to die. All because I wasn't properly prepared (whether its every possible to be properly prepared is another story).
Glyfair of Glamis
Last edited:
da chicken
First Post
Darkness said:In-character, you could ask him whether he's so insecure about his archery skills (or such a bad shot) that he needs GMW to succeed.
If he persists, suggest to him (still IC, of course) that he should leave the party for a while to hone his skills (not to mention his self-confidence) to a useful level.
Archer: "The same reason you need that magic sword and magic armor, Mr. Fighter. The same reason you need those flashy spells, Mr. Wizard (no relation to the scientist). The same reason you stick people in the kidneys Mr. Rogue. I use it because it keeps me alive by making me more powerful. When you learn to defeat your enemies without your crutches, I will happily discard mine."
Of course, this kind of IC response would require the player to roleplay reasonably well, which doesn't sound like a possibility.
Not that I'm condoning this player's horrid behavior. It is just that your argument that "magic means you have no skill" kinda works both ways.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
I never nerf anything. If a pc uses a tactic that seems too powerful, let it ride. Then slap him with it next week. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Darkness
Hand and Eye of Piratecat [Moderator]
Spellcaster: "Yours?! Behold, o deities, this man's arrogance. You are insisting that my so-called "crutches" - the spells that you constantly want to deprive me of - are yours, now? They are mine - and I can often put them to a better use than always lending them to you."da chicken said:
Please read it again; that's not what I said.da chicken said:
Anyway - this guy claims not to be able to function without others constantly helping him even if they could do something objectively more useful with their spells.
Hence, he's a liability to the party.
Of course do you use buff spells on your comrades when it's useful to do so - but if somebody is too cowardly to function without them at all (and thus, also limiting the party's available options by constantly tying up limited resources), adventurer is probably not the right vocation for him.
