I’m a newbie DM, so maybe some more experienced DM’s/players can help me out here I’ll make you the most delicious cookies in all of creation.
I’ve played DnD since I was about 16 years old and always with my father’s group. They’re not very munchie, preferring to make characters that are interesting and have depth instead of one that can take on an army by itself at low levels. We’ve always emphasized teamwork and group harmony, all that hippy crap that doesn’t happen in the real world so much. I then meet a new group and start to play with them, where it’s a huge group of players (8, on average, and sometimes as many as 15) so getting any attention from the DM is always a battle. Granted, they usually play WOD but I don’t think that’s an excuse. I started STAP in January and invited two players from the other group to join.
Now I have a problem. The guy, let’s call him Jimmy, is an uber munchkin. He’s playing a whisper gnome (on a side note, does anyone know if Races of Stone has official errata? I haven’t been able to find any. The whisper gnome has no lvl adjustment and should, imo) rogue that can stand alone as a tank, pretty much. I let him role up his character at home and according to the way we role for stats (4d6, reroll one’s, add the three highest rolls and a roll of all 6’s or 1’s is a 20) he says that he rolled TWO 20’s. That’s a 1 in 1300 chance. Now he’s got a 22 dex, 22 intelligence and nothing under a 15. I was okay with that, I figured that it would balance out in the end. It hasn’t. Now, at 5th level, he’s able to bust into a room and take out most things before the party even shows up.
I don’t know what to do. My first thought is to kill him when raising him isn’t an option. But, then my conscience kicks in and I start thinking about how it’s not me vs. the player. I am just a facilitator who tells them what happens when they do things. Then again, it’s making all the other players upset (my original group) which makes me want to smack him down even more. The god’s have enforced a level adjustment by killing him, so how do I control the rest of his outrageous stats and abilities?
If the other players are upset about it talk to him, ask him if he would please reroll his stats in front of you. If he makes an issue out of it kill his character or ask him to leave, protecting one munchkins happiness over that of 7-14 other players is absurd.
If you do not want a direct confrontation use spells, poisons, an monsters to drain away those pesky abilities. A permanent drain from some magical curse could not only balance out gameplay but create an interesting story arc as the charcter quests to regain his "lost" skills.
side note: the all 1s or all 6s seems high powered. if you want a high powered campaign take the 5d6 aproach and drop the lowest 2.
Talk to him outside the game. Tell him you like him (which you presumabely do, having invited him to your game), but his playstyle just isn't working with the other players. Either he lets you downgrade his character in one or two ways (or ten), or he can bow out of the group.
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You guys are too nice....
This bastard blatently and flat-out cheated. You displayed an ounce of trust by allowing him to roll up stats at home on the honor system and he said "F*&k you, idiot! I am gonna throw whatever stats together that I want to and you are gonna need to confront me about it and risk calling me a cheater to do anything about it!"
If you don't boot this a-hole you will regret it in the not-too-distant future.
You will never be able to trust him and he IS a cheater, although he will probably never admit to it.
Lose the POS.
FH
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You guys are too nice....
This bastard blatently and flat-out cheated. You displayed an ounce of trust by allowing him to roll up stats at home on the honor system and he said "F*&k you, idiot! I am gonna throw whatever stats together that I want to and you are gonna need to confront me about it and risk calling me a cheater to do anything about it!"
If you don't boot this a-hole you will regret it in the not-too-distant future.
You will never be able to trust him and he IS a cheater, although he will probably never admit to it.
Lose the POS.
FH
FH, I want to be your willing disciple. Amen to everything you said.
Thanks, all of you. What you all have said backs up what everyone else I've asked has said, so I'll see what I can do.
You know what works for me? Disdain. Not anger or threats. Just disdain. Have really great roleplays with the characters who are rich and deep. Focus on awesome stories that center around them. Give him the scraps. Put him in fights he's not meant to walk away from, and when he kills them all just give him a lukewarm meh. When another character takes out the named kobald who killed his son, make him a hero's feast. That'd be my recommendation. I would say your father is the kind of gamer I would love to know. If you take those principles and make awesome stories about the good characters you have then the players won't mind Mr. Shrimpy Sluggerboy so much. Mr. Shrimpy, on the other hand, will start to learn that stats don't mean nothin' to you--that what warms your heart is character and complexity. When you get there--then life will be good.
I would say your father is the kind of gamer I would love to know.
Thanks, I really appreciate it. In fact, I'll pass it on to him later. It's always nice to hear things like that.
I've got an idea floating around in my head and we'll see what becomes of it.
I must disagree with some of the advice given here.
What we have here is an out-of-game problem (the player is a munchkin and almost certainly a cheat). This demands an out-of-game solution. Any in-game solution, such as killing his character, won't fix the problem.
The solution I suggest is two-fold: the immediate solution and the long-term fix to make sure this doesn't happen again.
In the short term, I recommend talking to the player, and explaining to him that the rest of the group prefers a non-min-maxed game, and that his character is simply too well optimised to really fit, and is reducing the fun of everyone involved in the game. Absolutely do not call him a 'cheat' - you can't prove he didn't actually roll those stats, no matter how small the odds are.
Ask him, therefore, to rebuild his character to be more in line with the rest of the group. I suggest you have a specific list of actions drawn up ahead of time, and I further suggest you work out a point-buy equivalent for the rest of the PCs, take the average, add a bit, and have him use that. Likewise, I suggest he switch his Whisper Gnome for a regular Gnome. Those two should probably cover your problems.
In the longer term, it's important to figure out where you went wrong, and resolve not to make the same mistakes again. Here, I see two mistakes.
Firstly, you allowed him to 'roll' his stats in private. This is a disaster waiting to happen - it is likely that someone is going to cheat, and you're going to be forced to take action... and yet you will never have proof of wrongdoing. Either switch to point buy, or require stats be rolled in front of you.
If the player declines to rebuild his character, you have two options. The first is to simply live with it. Do _not_ go out of your way to kill or penalise the character. Just proceed as normal. When you start a new campaign, or the character must be replaced due to a 'normal' death later, apply stricter restrictions.
The other option, if this problem bothers you too much to simply let go, is to tell the player that your playstles are just too different, and that therefore he is no longer welcome at your game. Note that once you've said this, the player is likely to offer to redo his character; I advise against allowing this as the player is likely to be a problem further down the line, but it is of course your choice. Be aware also that booting the player from the game in this manner is very likely to end any friendship you have with this guy.
Secondly, you allowed apparently unrestricted access to source materials without proper review. This opens the door for a player to use that 'killer combo' he's found, and destroy the game... all rules-legal and seemingly 'fun'. Here, I recommend you take a much stricter view of such things. I _strongly_ recommend you disallow access to any book you don't personally own. In addition, I strongly suggest all expanded materials be checked with you first, and that you review everything before it is used.
This might seem overly restrictive, but the truth is you're better off having this battle with your players early on, and heading off any major arguments later, than you are being lax at the start, and then having a constant stream of arguments when you find problems with X, Y and Z.
I would also recommend to talk with the player and explain him that he is ruining _all_ the others fun, including the DM. Then try to work out how to make the character more in line with the others characters (review those first). Absolutely give him the alternatives: rework the character, make a new character, or leave the game. Otherwise, your other players may leave - all of them. Don´t let him get away with a character that ruins your game and your fun.
For the future, I would also recommend that you review any splat books your players may want to use - there is a power curve in the supplements, and it points upward. You could either allow the options, disallow them or allow them on probation - depending on your gut feeling. For the most part, I only allow the PHB, with some options from the PHBII, and it is enough.
On, and the stats: my players either roll in front of me, or they use point buy. I trust my players to be honest, but I still want to be able to take a hand. If one of my players would roll all 1s (I usually use the 3 out of four method), he gets a 19 stat - all 1s and 6s giving a 20 is too much IHMO, and all 6s gives an 18, thats good enough in itself.
Stefan
If one of my players would roll all 1s (I usually use the 3 out of four method), he gets a 19 stat - all 1s and 6s giving a 20 is too much IHMO, and all 6s gives an 18, thats good enough in itself.
Stefan
I know, I just suck at the whole typing thing. I meant to say 18, but I didn't. Granted, I was at work and not quite awake yet.
I've talked it over with my father again and he thinks that Jimmy is getting the message. I think the next character he rolls up to play with us will be much better and I am going to talk to him about his current.
Again, thanks to everyone who's posted advice. I'm positive this will work out. <3
After seeing the problem and what everyone else has said, I'll just pop in with, "Have no mercy."
At 50 years of age and after having played for 30 years, I can say that if you let it go now, you'll have nothing but trouble with it from here on out. Reputation will preceed you. Put the clamps on early, staunch the flow before bleed-out, etc., etc.
I've seen all kinds of players and DM's. Among the worst players were the inveterate cheaters. Among the worst DM's were the cowards who couldn't take a stand. Don't be either one, it's not pretty. Do whatever you have to to get this guy straightened out or gone. Nothing else is a viable option for your future enjoyment of the games.
sallah, and sine die.
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I'm having a similar problem with a game I just started, though I managed to correct half of it. I knew that one player was a powergamer beforehand, so I told him he could build anything he wanted, figuring that the other, far less experienced players would counterbalance him.
So the following week, I returned to find that he had essentially built three (of five) characters for their players, including his own, and two of them were severely twinked out (built using the Book of Nine Swords). They had also all rolled their own stats, and while not nearly as bad as the ones described above in this thread, they were all well above average.
Not wanting to mess with them too much, I let them keep the characters and classes, but told them that I had decided on 28 point buy and made them downgrade their stats accordingly.
After having played one session, the two BoNS characters are a bit alarming. I'm running "Life's Bazaar," and I don't think those two could go through it by themselves (the traps and lack of healing would get them), but they're making mincemeat of everything in their path thus far.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
I agree more with Delericho.
I would avoid calling anyone a cheater unless you catch them cheating. At the same time if other players are upset and you are bothered something must change.
My suggestion would be to use a high point buy system. Since your players are accustom to good ability scores. A monk with 16s and 18s can outshine the fighter with 14s.
Generally I don't like using books w/o errata. I will but a player must get approval from me before making his character. Then I only need to read a page or two rather than a whole book. For some reason there has been a trend in books to create more powerful classes and feats. I am not sure why! I will warn you about the Book of Nine Swords.
Many players do not understand what is and is not balanced the way a DM might. Some think if WotC printed it then it must be good. lol Even the writers for WotC make mistakes like everyone else, they usually just make less.
A good set of house rules help avoid many problems.
Pulp,
What is the problem? At first level a lot of encounters tend to be very one sided. This happenes when it only takes on hit to take a character out.
When my group went through life's bazaar, they likewise demolished everything. But in that case, the biggest contributor was the SCOUT. At low levels 2d6 wielded 2 handed is deadly for most encounters. I think my players barely came close to diesing in the entire 1st Chapter of the SCAP.
The BoNS is NOT a problem. Sure, it give the melee classes a bit more power (especially at low levels), but once they get to about the low teens, you will be glad you don't have a party full of Clerics, Druids and Wizards.
Huh, well, it sounds to me like the OP hasn't yet established the kinds of encounters that will challenge this PC (and the player as well). There is another solution to the problem that doesn't require any kind of personal confrontations or killing off of characters because the GM doesn't like the character. It is also a simple solution: CHALLENGE THE PLAYER.
Personality conflicts are one thing between and among players, however, it is disturbing to see the number of folks here who are advising courses of action that can potentially alienate a player because they dislike a character. Just doesn't make any sense at all to me.
Carry on.
As ever,
ACE
yes but if he is a cheater/munchkin challenging him will make him work even more to max out his already impressive build. I say talk with him about it in terms of game balance and "stealing the spotlight from other players". If that fails have something permanently drain his uber-stats in a way that seems non-biased.
well, I am thinking your problem has more to do with CR; if this guys is say 5th level but has the attack power and characteristics due to his stats and uber abilities of say +4 CR then you need to make your adventures for this guy with a higher CR rating. I really dont care what a guys stats are; really, you can just write numbers on a piece of paper for all I care in my game; rolling is only to make it fair to the other players. As a GM you should be able to cope with this my other means.
Traps and traplike creatures can push uber characters who run off back into teamwork. If this guy runs into a trapper, cloaker, gelatanous cube or some such creature alone; well; he is in big trouble. I am not recommending you use this a lot; but a couple times over the course of a few adventures is appropriate.
Some monsters also work with these mobs to help lure adventures into such dangers; goblins especially tend to den with powerful monsters and add other mundane traps and whatnot ambushes and generally pester adventurers to lure them into danger; will o wisps do this too, they are fond of luring peeps into quicksand or maybe next to a wereboar lair or whatnot. Uber characters tend to think they are invincible and often seek supposed advantage by going it alone; this can and should be acceptable and be a win at times, but not be the norm and sometimes be downright foolish.
Also, you can make a monster now and again that will be able to overcome that pc's particular advantages; while mabye being more vulnerable to a different pc. Take a look at, I think it is called, the grappler class; this is a guy who moves in on you and squeezes you until your unconcious; I might have this guy hired by someone that the pcs have offended, meet up with this rouge and render him unconcious and capture him; then sell him back to the party; but not for much; discounted as it were as he isn't worth much...this could lead back into a whole plot, but you need to have a powerful person or group that has the ability to keep tabs on the party - this is more a big fish little fish slap.
What is really important here for fair play is that you don't spontaneously make this stuff up on the fly; these need to be scripted out with people made up in advance and all worked out; a challenge for the pc to overcome with the rewards of doing so and the penalties for not doing so. A whole adventure can be a trap; the best trap is one that doesnt look like one and one that does look like a trap but is really the safe thing.; keep your players guessing; have fun.
I agree with ace; challenge players; perhaps your adventures need to be less combat oriented for a while to take the emphasis off combat; there are many ways to challenge people; thugs and straight combat scenarios are the lowest rung on this proverbial ladder.
One more thing to add; powerful and heroic people stand out. They gain prestige and notoriety for their deeds. There is ALWAYS somebody who wants to make a name for themselves by taking out these individuals; hehe the theme of many, many Westerns. Also, once you reach a certain power level, various other dangerous entities begin to take notice. Demons, Devil; Outsiders in general that dwell in the affairs of mortals; various vampire lords and liches might want to use these individual for nefarious plans; some innocuous retrieve this item type stuff, the bad guy might test the worthyness of the pcs to serve them, test the limits of how much evil they will do and use the powers of darkness and corruption to invite them into more power and avarice; the other side will try to engender peace; love; reflection; tranquility, but neither side really has a lot of tolerance and both sides have some uber thugs.
For those of you with the uber munchkins in your game, how do you think the player or players would respond if this pc got killed (I dont mean murdered by the gm, I mean all things being even, they just got killed due to bad rolls or misplaying a scenario).
Is your world really so scarey or percieved to be so that the players think they have to make these kinds of characters to survive or do they just follow the CE alignment of individual power to lord over all the see. I have found that individuals that play the uber type mentality have very little resistance to being silver spoon fed a lethal dinner (uh; this is a metaphor). These people are amazingly easy to sucker. I actually have had characters like this in my game full and well knowing take and bond themselves to <insert bad stuff>.
Other plays just shake their heads like dude, what are you thinking. Really makes a funny list for gms to chat about behind the scenes and snicker. The hehe look what I got a player to do this week talks. I have had characters hug tentacles of cthulhu - for just a little extra spell power mind you, lol; willingly and with complete forknowlege take a viking sword of doom - sure, it is a very powerful artifact that makes sure you get killed; ie; doom; sell npcs into slavery; give other npcs to known vampires; give up their firstborn to evil gods, eat demon flesh, have adult relations with succubii, defend the bad guys as being the good guys in public in front of everyone and to the death; lots of party betrayals on every scale imaginable; once even one player tried very hard and almost succeeded merging the planes of ice and shadow; hehe and really thought it was a good idea at the time.
hehe sheesh and these are the good guys; yes; they also do pious, heroic and selfless things; but sometimes...
The problem isn't the AP. It's just hard enough for a party of 4 PC's and since there are 6 PC's, I've been bumping up the encounters as neccesary. And that's been fine. On several occasions, the party has had a hard time of making it through the battle with everyone alive. The rogue has been put into challenging situations where his munchkin abilities haven't helped him. You can't backstab undead, for example, or one hit a boss who has you charmed into running errands for her. And it doesn't help when your patron thinks your extremely creepy (she' honestly prefers the sweet, silly cannibalistic halfling who can cook one hell of a meal to the rogue) and just helps you out becuase of a sense of duty.
The problem also isn't the fact I don't like the character/player. As a friend, Jimmy is absolutely fantastic and fun to be around. It's the munchkinism that's bothering us. The character would be perfect if he hadn't of gotten the ridiculous stats.
I should have reviewed the whisper gnome much more throughly before allowing him to play it since I do own the book. But, after skimming through it once or twice, I figured it was okay. After realizing that this gnome sub-race is more powerful than a drow and still has no level adjustment, I've decided to retroactively enforce one for game balance.
I'm auditing character sheets tonight. I'm going to tell him that since he claims to have rolled all 6's on one of his stats, mathematically he has an 18 and must then change one of his 22's to an 18 maximum. That's still a great score.
Again, I really appreciate the feedback I've recieved on this. Someone who takes advantage of a DM should be smacked down and I'm going to do this the best way I know how to.
Point-Buy is your friend - in this case, I think it would have saved you lots of grief. But this guys stats aren't the only problem. Just try to balance things out by throwing harder challenges his way.
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Pulp,
What is the problem? At first level a lot of encounters tend to be very one sided. This happenes when it only takes on hit to take a character out.
When my group went through life's bazaar, they likewise demolished everything. But in that case, the biggest contributor was the SCOUT. At low levels 2d6 wielded 2 handed is deadly for most encounters. I think my players barely came close to diesing in the entire 1st Chapter of the SCAP.
The BoNS is NOT a problem. Sure, it give the melee classes a bit more power (especially at low levels), but once they get to about the low teens, you will be glad you don't have a party full of Clerics, Druids and Wizards.
That's good to hear - part of it may come down to the fact that this is the first serious 3.5 campaign I've had the chance to run. I'm not planning on nerfing their characters or anything; if I feel it's necessary (like if they wipe the floor with Kazmojen), I'll probably beef up some of the later encounters to compensate.
BTW, sorry to everyone for threadjacking.
FH, I want to be your willing disciple. Amen to everything you said.You guys are too nice....
This bastard blatently and flat-out cheated. You displayed an ounce of trust by allowing him to roll up stats at home on the honor system and he said "F*&k you, idiot! I am gonna throw whatever stats together that I want to and you are gonna need to confront me about it and risk calling me a cheater to do anything about it!"
If you don't boot this a-hole you will regret it in the not-too-distant future.
You will never be able to trust him and he IS a cheater, although he will probably never admit to it.
Lose the POS.
FH
I shall be a willing disciple as well. Your wisdom is unbound.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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You guys are too nice....
This bastard blatently and flat-out cheated. You displayed an ounce of trust by allowing him to roll up stats at home on the honor system and he said "F*&k you, idiot! I am gonna throw whatever stats together that I want to and you are gonna need to confront me about it and risk calling me a cheater to do anything about it!"
If you don't boot this a-hole you will regret it in the not-too-distant future.
You will never be able to trust him and he IS a cheater, although he will probably never admit to it.
Lose the POS.
FH
While I'm all about vitriol and spewing hatred, there is the remote, tiny, insignificant, and ultimately unlikely possibility that he really DID roll that well. Since you allow two conditions to award a score of 20 (all 1s or all 6s), it's not totally inconceivable that it happened, particularly since you allow a single die to be rerolled.
However, I would still do everything that Fakey said because I'm a jerk and a mean DM who hates his players.
and if you ever do run a powergaming campaign, you've always got his number.
:P
Actually, I have know an entire group of people who are all about it. The first time I ever played, Jimmy was the one who invited me. He knew that I've played for a while and when I asked what the specifics of character creation were, he said that I could have all 18's plus whatever racial modifiers.It was ridiculous. I almost left that same night in disgust becuase of the way they played.
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he said that I could have all 18's plus whatever racial modifiers.It was ridiculous. I almost left that same night in disgust becuase of the way they played.
Geez. I think I would have walked away at the point where he said that.
I once had a rather unpleasant (and brief) experience of DMing for a group who had played like that under their last DM. They claimed they wanted a more "roleplaying" focused games, but then couldnt understand why I wouldn't accept characters with no ability score below 16, and wasn't handing out free magical weapons at first level.
Actually the game I'm in now has a player like this. Always hits, always does max damage, Blah Blah blah. Our DM figured out what was going on and set traps for the guy. Traps that take away life levels, strenth points, anti magi zones which destroy all of his magic items, treasure that is cursed etc. These things can knock a player down to managable size in no time at all.
Munchkinry isn't necessarily all bad, since that's part of what players enjoy. However, you don't have to make it easy for them. General advice for handling munchkin players:
- Don't let players roll at home. Even the most honest of players will be tempted to exaggerate their ability scores if nobody's watching. In your case, he has almost certainly done this - according to my math fairies, the odds of rolling two or more of your twenties are approximately one in 28,109.
- Check his character sheet. Any player might make mistakes in their own favour, but when a munchkin does it you don't want to let them have any more power than they've already got.
- Since he's already quite powerful, don't feel you need to pull any punches with that character.
- Don't make the mistake of assuming that weak companions balance out an overly strong main character. If one PC is considerably more powerful than all the rest then he'll end up taking the spotlight while the other players are relegated to sidekicks - that's not everyone's idea of fun.
- In future, you might like to prohibit players from starting with magic items hand-picked from non-core sources, to help handle certain beardy combinations. My thinking on items like this is that if he wants them that badly, he can quest for them like we had to in the old days!
- One possibility you might undertake if cheating on chargen is a problem is to roll twenty sets of ability scores in advance and number them one to twenty. Have players roll a single d20 at chargen to determine which line from your list you give them - that way they still get to roll for it, they still get ability scores that have been rolled. You may consider giving them a minor bonus ability, in-character benefit or piece of equipment if they have statistics that fall below the heroic average.