what to do if you gave too much power?

[Humanaut]

I once used a Greyhawk adventure that included whacky artifact like objects that could do 10-100 hp damage in a 10' wide path, 100' long... on a sucessful save...otherwise disintegrated!

The party was mid-level, ugh.

So i added a saving throw (2nd ed i can't remember what) and a vague description of Chthulu-like evil probeing their brain... i think i also made the description of the object include the feeling like it was Alive! ... They couldn't get rid of that thing faster! Ha ha!

I have also just told players outright i made a mistake, and told them i wanted the offending object gone, why i did, then we had an in-game event to handle it. They might wine a little, but they too want to have fun in the long term and understand in the end what has to be done.

My players also loose the occasional item via nat 1 saves vs fireballs and such, so it's not unheard of....

Once i had a player with a PC fighter (2nd ed), that had a vorpal sword and ring of vampiric regeneration... that was a mistake i didn't see coming in one high level game... i just let it roll and soon enough the sword melted with a failed save vs a lightning bolt.

All those ideas everyone has are good used here and there. Mix and match!

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

Agreed on the posts about being up front about it and owning up to a lapse in judgement.

I would talk to the player outside of the game, let him/her know the problem. He/she probably recognizes it too. Offer them a trade. Perhaps give up the unbalancing quality for another more balanced of his/her choice within reason. You could brainstorm with the player so he/she feels like their actually contributing to the overall development of the campaign. Maybe the next time the vorpal aspect of the sword functions something happens that transforms the powers of the sword into something else, like it gains sentience (intelligent item), but its the enemy's soul inside the sword. At first it's a rat bastard, but eventually it begins to cooperate with the player and has some minor powers that aren't unbalancing to the game, like some skills, detect magic/evil/law/chaos/good at will, or a minor spell-like ability.

Or maybe the character learns that with every creature decapitated, something alien and vile trapped within the sword gains 1 more step towards freedom so that the player thinks twice about hacking heads off.

Perhaps, it's a charged item. So, the player can have his/her fun for a while, but after X amount of vorpal uses, it is just a plus X sword. Maybe someone who owned it previously recognizes it while passing them in a crowd, stops, and exclaims, "Hey! It's my old sword! How's she working for you? Have you used up all of the vorpal charges yet? It was pretty low when I sold it. Yeah, that's why I sold it and upgraded. Well, nice talking to you."

Basically, the gist is to not screw the player over. In all of these situations, you want the player to be involved in thinking up a way for the two of you to balance the weapon out and fix the problem.

That's just my 2 cents. Good luck.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

- The sword houses a powerful demon who will be freed after you reach X amount of kills. Make X medium low-ish to reach, lets say 18 more kills to reach 10 000 or some such thing. Let the player know, and then he gets to calculate the risk of releaseing the demon

wow, nice one!


thanks all for the advice!

Ha! Just saw this. We're thinking along the same lines.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

If any of the players complain too loudly about any of this, offer to let them take over DMing if they think they can do it so much better...

I would recommend NOT using this approach if you really enjoying DMing since someone might just take you up on the offer

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Send in the assassins

An overpowered weapon much like an artefact will attract unwanted attention. Soon the BBEGs, kings, and emperors will want the weapon for themselves. If they cannot buy it, they will hire someone to steal it. If that fails they will hire an assassin to kill the character and then still it. If that fails, then they PC will get cursed, magic jarred, imprisoned, wished, etc. or just have demons sent after him.

Remember the One Ring from the Lord of the Rings? Kind of like that.

And it can make for a fun campaign as well! Instead of the PC blowing his way through the monsters, the party gets continually harassed. Fellow party members get kidnapped, tortured, or killed. Henchmen turn traitor. Even the kindly LG NPC cleric who raises the dead party members might decide that it is better for the Greater Good™ if the weapon cum artefact is given to an NPC paladin, hidden away, or destroyed.

 

[Treebore]

Sunder, high level thieves, when the party member goes unconcious an enemy grabs it and runs, failed saves, etc...

 

[Valiant]

Unless its really idiotic (and ruining the game) I let the player keep it and just let the situation play out, they usually get cocky and end up dead first (initially throw in some more challanging encounters to keep the game fun and let the guy use his mega magic for a while). Part of the fun of the game is for the players to know that incredible things can happen, if they do once in a while, I don't see the harm, it just proves your nuetral.

Now, if its taking away from the game (things are getting boring, or it overshadows everyone else), I just make something happen to it (gets stolen in the night, the player finds out powerful forces are after it and closing in etc.). I think thats in the spirit of the game anyhow (the DMs parogative), espl. when its making the session a downer).

I remember once a PC tried to take off with Black Razor in WPM, he ended up being charmed by a powerful wizard who took the sword and replaced it with a lollypop (then sent him on his way). I have never out of game explained to the player the problem (though that seems valid), I think players usually realize the problem on their own and accept what happens.

 

[Treebore]

Unless its really idiotic (and ruining the game) I let the player keep it and just let the situation play out, they usually get cocky and end up dead first (initially throw in some more challanging encounters to keep the game fun and let the guy use his mega magic for a while). Part of the fun of the game is for the players to know that incredible things can happen, if they do once in a while, I don't see the harm, it just proves your nuetral.

Now, if its taking away from the game (things are getting boring, or it overshadows everyone else), I just make something happen to it (gets stolen in the night, the player finds out powerful forces are after it and closing in etc.). I think thats in the spirit of the game anyhow (the DMs parogative), espl. when its making the session a downer).

I remember once a PC tried to take off with Black Razor in WPM, he ended up being charmed by a powerful wizard who took the sword and replaced it with a lollypop (then sent him on his way). I have never out of game explained to the player the problem (though that seems valid), I think players usually realize the problem on their own and accept what happens.

Recently on player in my game ended up with both the Hammer of Thunderbolts and Ring of Regeneration in my C&C game. That character was too powerful and ruining my enjoyment of running the game. So one time when he was "killed" (not true since the ring regenerates him back to life), I had a Cleric of Unklar run off with his hammer.

He went after it like a rabid dog, with the party at his back. He later "died" again, and this time the rest of the party was forced to retreat. His body was stripped this time, and was raised from the dead. Actually reincarnated, as an elf.

So dealing with these problems can turn into some very intense game plots, is what I am getting at.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Give 'em responsibility. That'll learn 'em.

 

[TessarrianDM]

The current party in my campaign had gotten so out-of-whack from an item standpoint that I recently paralyzed the entire party with a Blasphemy spell from a mature adult half-demon white dragon. His allies captured the party and took all of their gear. The party later escaped and made their way back to town, where the local city council outfitted them with level-appropriate gear in return for a long-term contractual obligation to work for the city. It fixed my problem and introduced several NPC's that the group will be facing at higher levels, along with a couple of sub-plots.