Dealing with an overpowered PC

[Souju]

Due a lapse in judgement (it's my first time DMing ;_;) I allowed a player in my group to play a minotaur cleric/bard/Dragon Disciple.
First mistake was, well, allowing a minotaur in my first campaign. Second mistake was abolishing languages for the campaign (and thus all need to learn languages as pre-requisites).
I did do a few things unique to the setting, such as making spells items that can be stolen, but this obvious doesn't affect a raging bull man whose attack roll modifiers are so high he needs to roll a natural 1 to miss almost everything in the monster manual that isn't grossly out of his league.
I need to deal with this and still keep it fun for the rest of the party, who are all playing reasonable characters. Worse, he plays Jerkass Neutral to the point I'm about to force an alignment shift on him.
So basically, how can I introduce challenge to the party (they're level 8) without either making it too easy for the minotaur or too hard for the entire party? The only remotely challenging encounter I came up with ended up killing all but one of them (not the minotaur...death works a little different in this setting)
I've considered diplomacy situations but...well, they managed to incur a bounty on their heads within 10 minutes in the only town in the campaign. It involved a con-artist, a blindness spell, a grapple check, severe headbutting and a confusion effect.
tl;dr: How do I propose a challenge that can't be answered with simply "I'm a minotaur"?

[Shadowknight12]

A minotaur has 6 HD and a +2 LA. If the party is level 8, then where did he get the extra levels to take cleric, bard and Dragon Disciple? Your mistake was not allowing a minotaur in your campaign, monsters are usually underpowered when the racial HD and LA take the place of actual class levels. A minotaur is, by itself, the equivalent of a level 8 character. If you allow them to take levels in cleric, bard and whatever else, you should raise the levels of the rest of the party accordingly (and throw greater challenges at them).

The solution is simple. Tell him that there was an oversight and that all of his class levels are gone. Now he's the equivalent of the rest of the party. Then tell him that he can earn those levels back, at the same rate the rest of the party continues to advance.

[Sucrose]

Assuming that you've waived the level adjustment (or are just letting him start as an effectively higher-levelled character), and done something similar with the racial hit dice, I'd say that you should probably work on the one thing that he's probably pretty poor at: skills. Introduce more problems that are most easily solved via Knowledge skills, or sneaking around, or something else that the other party members are good at, but the brute isn't so fantastic about.

That said, this is really a stopgap measure, and if you rely on it too much, it'll start to seem a little contrived. I think that you may want to consider just admitting that you made a mistake, and ask the Minotaur's player to retire him, and write up something closer to the rest of the party's strength.

[NNescio]

Due a lapse in judgement (it's my first time DMing ;_;) I allowed a player in my group to play a minotaur cleric/bard/Dragon Disciple.
First mistake was, well, allowing a minotaur in my first campaign. Second mistake was abolishing languages for the campaign (and thus all need to learn languages as pre-requisites).
I did do a few things unique to the setting, such as making spells items that can be stolen, but this obvious doesn't affect a raging bull man whose attack roll modifiers are so high he needs to roll a natural 1 to miss almost everything in the monster manual that isn't grossly out of his league.
I need to deal with this and still keep it fun for the rest of the party, who are all playing reasonable characters. Worse, he plays Jerkass Neutral to the point I'm about to force an alignment shift on him.
So basically, how can I introduce challenge to the party (they're level 8) without either making it too easy for the minotaur or too hard for the entire party? The only remotely challenging encounter I came up with ended up killing all but one of them (not the minotaur...death works a little different in this setting)
I've considered diplomacy situations but...well, they managed to incur a bounty on their heads within 10 minutes in the only town in the campaign. It involved a con-artist, a blindness spell, a grapple check, severe headbutting and a confusion effect.
tl;dr: How do I propose a challenge that can't be answered with simply "I'm a minotaur"?

What's so good about the minotaur character? He has LA +2 and 6 RHD, so he should effectively have 8 less class levels than your other players. Dragon Disciple is also a crappy PrC.

He shouldn't have any class levels at ECL 8. Did you ignore LA and/or RHD for some reason?

[PollyOliver]

Hm...well, I think you have two problems. One is that your problem character/player is a jerkass (or at least behaves like one IC), which is bound to make party balance difficult, and the second is that you appear to be allowing a minotaur without racial or level adjustment.

A minotaur has six racial hit dice and a +2 level adjustment--that means a level 1 minotaur cleric is effectively a level 9 character. This guy has class levels (I'm assuming he's the level of the rest of the party, since he's a cleric/bard/dragon disciple), making him basically a level 16 character in a level 8 party. That's your problem. He shouldn't even have class levels yet, just his level adjustment and 6 levels of monstrous humanoid.

For your other questions--can you not have there be a second town? Or, if you can't, why not make them face the consequences of their actions. Send powerful bounty-hunters after them with orders to take them alive, keep the minotaur knocked out until they're back in town, and them make them face what they've done. Surely there can be a way to diplomacy that--maybe they can talk their way into a less serious punishment in exchange for providing some service?

Also, why not try giving the party a puzzle (with clues given on knowledge checks if they have trouble), or have them face traps, or give them terrain that is not conducive to standing there and attacking things? Or give them an enemy that they cannot beat in a straight fight, but can negotiate with or bribe or ferret out its weakness?

Edit: whoops, swordsaged on the first half :smallredface:

[Greenish]

Due a lapse in judgement (it's my first time DMing ;_;) I allowed a player in my group to play a minotaur cleric/bard/Dragon Disciple.That looks like an exceedingly poor character. :smallamused:

[sonofzeal]

In order of decreasing preferability...


1) Talk to the player in question. Discuss your issues with him, and ask him out of game if he'd be willing to tone things down for the sake of the game.

2) Split challenges. A Wartroll and a pack of regular trolls, for example - the Minotaur fights the Wartroll while the rest of the party handles the others.

3) Non-brute fights. Stealth checks in a forest with plenty of cover and attackers using hit-and-run. Victory depends on pinning them down, which is not something the Minotaur is good at by himself. Remember, Scent only works well within 30 feet. Or, flying magic-users, like Cloakers. Check Dungeonscape for a series of excellent encounter templates that are more than just beatstick smackdowns.

4) Steal nerfs. Hit him with long-duration debuffs like poisons and negative levels, curses, etc. Constantly give him circumstance penalties related to his size and weight - his feet sink into the sand, his movement is obstructed by branches in the forest and balconies in the cities, enemies equipped and trained to handle powerful Monstrous Humanoids seek him out as prey.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Even if we assume that's Half Minotaur, which is much more palatable than Minotaur, Cleric/Bard/DD is just... confusing, and almost assuredly less powerful than straight cleric. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but I tend to notice that the worst type of powergamers... aren't really that good at powergaming.

[Souju]

Waaaaait, ok I didn't know this rule about racial hit dice.
So he's basically been level FOURTEEN the entire time, and the reason the CR 14 stuff I throw at them keeps dying so fast is because it's an even challenge for him alone...
Thanks guys, this certainly explains why he was coming across as so overpowered.

And yeah I'm currently working on the actual dungeon they'll be facing (they've spent, I'm not kidding here, a full month's worth of sessions trying to FIND the dungeon. The place they needed to ask was literally down the hill from where they started and they still went the complete opposite direction. For two weeks. Oh well, I actually expected that LOL) with plenty of traps and puzzles...mostly the wandering around was to get a gauge on what the party could handle before I threw them into the dungeon, also let me try out different gimmicks and seeing how diplomatic I could get them to be. One confusion song and a couple whacked out rolls later they've pissed someone off enough to put a bounty on their heads. And I made it clear all they had to do was find the person who put the bounty on them and either apologize or expose that she did not, in fact, possess the amount of money she was offering. And yes I've sent bounty hunters after them.
Here's what I'm working with:
1 Decapodian (homebrew race nabbed from the internet) Fighter with a magic trident of plot advancement (cancels illusion spells on a crit)
1 Decapodian Barbarian
1 Aasimar Sorcerer
1 Human Monk
1 Kappa (basically used gnome as a template and added some quirks, mostly story type silliness involving buckets and cucumbers) druid
1 Minotaur Cleric/Bard/Dragon Disciple (he took the DrD for the extra natural attacks...)

But yeah now that i know he's basically been playing 6 levels higher than the rest of the party for the entire game, maybe I'll be able to figure something out.
I WAS going to have an extremely high level wizard come along and inscribe a symbol of slumber onto his forehead that goes off whenever he makes a charge attack (i go for amusement factor before practicality) but maybe stripping his class levels would be a more effective solution...

[Divide by Zero]

If you are going to do anything like that, be sure to talk to the player beforehand, seeing as it was your fault and most players probably don't like major retcons that they can't control.

[Souju]

In order of decreasing preferability...


1) Talk to the player in question. Discuss your issues with him, and ask him out of game if he'd be willing to tone things down for the sake of the game.

2) Split challenges. A Wartroll and a pack of regular trolls, for example - the Minotaur fights the Wartroll while the rest of the party handles the others.

3) Non-brute fights. Stealth checks in a forest with plenty of cover and attackers using hit-and-run. Victory depends on pinning them down, which is not something the Minotaur is good at by himself. Remember, Scent only works well within 30 feet. Or, flying magic-users, like Cloakers. Check Dungeonscape for a series of excellent encounter templates that are more than just beatstick smackdowns.

4) Steal nerfs. Hit him with long-duration debuffs like poisons and negative levels, curses, etc. Constantly give him circumstance penalties related to his size and weight - his feet sink into the sand, his movement is obstructed by branches in the forest and balconies in the cities, enemies equipped and trained to handle powerful Monstrous Humanoids seek him out as prey.

1) Yeah gonna talk to him, give him a few options. Mostly, either lose his class levels, lose his minotaur levels, change race, or something else.

2) That's how most of the fights have worked so far. I'd typically have a boss type monster or person and constantly "respawning" lackies (although one time I did it the other way around) and it seems to work fairly well. I may split the party when they enter the dungeon they've been searching for for over a month now.

3) Given the setting I'm using, I'm actually restricted to what types of monsters I can and cannot use. Flying types seem to work well, but only three players can hit a flying target with non-improvised weapons and one of them happens to be the one I'd be designed the encounter to be hard for.

4) I've actually been looking into this, unfortunately (naturally since he had the stats of someone 6 levels higher than he should be) he kept saving against any odd effects I'd try to hit him with (which is how the whole bounty thing started). Unfortunately the "prepared for minotaurs" thing doesn't fly as they're effectively outsiders in this setting, things that have never been seen before (though I have been hinting that their encounter rate is something UNUSUAL for where they are, i.e. those will o' wisps shouldn't have been attacking them in the first place...which is, btw, how I found out Mr. Minotaur is weak to Touch attacks)

[Hirax]

If you can get access to the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book, it has a minotaur in it that's designed to be used by PCs, it has no level adjustment or racial hit dice.

[Flame of Anor]

Here's what I'm working with:
1 Decapodian (homebrew race nabbed from the internet) Fighter...

Wait, Decapodian like Futurama?

[Souju]

Wait, Decapodian like Futurama?

yes. We saw them on one of the lists of homebrew races and...well, in this case it works.

[Sucrose]

1) Yeah gonna talk to him, give him a few options. Mostly, either lose his class levels, lose his minotaur levels, change race, or something else.

2) That's how most of the fights have worked so far. I'd typically have a boss type monster or person and constantly "respawning" lackies (although one time I did it the other way around) and it seems to work fairly well. I may split the party when they enter the dungeon they've been searching for for over a month now.

3) Given the setting I'm using, I'm actually restricted to what types of monsters I can and cannot use. Flying types seem to work well, but only three players can hit a flying target with non-improvised weapons and one of them happens to be the one I'd be designed the encounter to be hard for.

4) I've actually been looking into this, unfortunately (naturally since he had the stats of someone 6 levels higher than he should be) he kept saving against any odd effects I'd try to hit him with (which is how the whole bounty thing started). Unfortunately the "prepared for minotaurs" thing doesn't fly as they're effectively outsiders in this setting, things that have never been seen before (though I have been hinting that their encounter rate is something UNUSUAL for where they are, i.e. those will o' wisps shouldn't have been attacking them in the first place...which is, btw, how I found out Mr. Minotaur is weak to Touch attacks)

For 1), I'd recommend against the 'lose the Minotaur levels' bit, unless you also make him lose racial stat and size benefits until he's about comparable with, say, a Half-Orc. Otherwise, you're pretty much letting him start with massive stat benefits, and he'll still be a bit stronger than his class levels should let him be. Racial Hit Dice are pretty much universally weaker than their equivalent in class levels.

I'd summarize it as: lose your race or lose your classes, down to the same level as the rest of the party.

[gomipile]

For 1), I'd recommend against the 'lose the Minotaur levels' bit, unless you also make him lose racial stat and size benefits until he's about comparable with, say, a Half-Orc. Otherwise, you're pretty much letting him start with massive stat benefits, and he'll still be a bit stronger than his class levels should let him be. Racial Hit Dice are pretty much universally weaker than their equivalent in class levels.

I'd summarize it as: lose your race or lose your classes, down to the same level as the rest of the party.

Also, as a friend of mine put it, for creatures with racial hit dice, the racial hit dice *are* the creature.

[Eldariel]

Easiest way would probably be allowing him to play a Half-Minotaur instead:
+4 Strength, +2 Con, -2 Int, +2 Wis, +2 Natural Armor (though could frankly be left out without much worry), Track, Scent, Darkvision 60', +2 Spot/Search/Listen, +4 against Maze, Gore-attack.

Level Adjustment +1, no racial hit dice. Perfectly respectable character and pretty indistinguishable from Minotaur on the surface (just lower numbers).

[Souju]

i suppose making him a half-minotaur would be easier to explain in-story too.
If he complains too much I can make him female too :)

[MammonAzrael]

Waaaaait, ok I didn't know this rule about racial hit dice.
So he's basically been level FOURTEEN the entire time, and the reason the CR 14 stuff I throw at them keeps dying so fast is because it's an even challenge for him alone...
Thanks guys, this certainly explains why he was coming across as so overpowered.

Don't forget the +2 leve adjustment the minotaur has. If he has 8 class levels, then he has been a leve 16 character this whole time.

Also, I would caution against the half-minotaur template, as it is very strong, and sounds like it'd be much more powerful than your groups standard level of play.

If he complains You need to have a mature OoC conversation, not a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity. He is your friend (I assume), so you should both be able to be mature about it. Or you could just give the other players 8 levels.

[Eldariel]

Also, I would caution against the half-minotaur template, as it is very strong, and sounds like it'd be much more powerful than your groups standard level of play.

It's not overwhelmingly powerful unless you include the size increase stats (which, obviously, is RAW but also inane). I mean, you can cut the Natural Armor if you want to further bring it down to low OP levels, but meh.

[Urpriest]

Don't forget the +2 leve adjustment the minotaur has. If he has 8 class levels, then he has been a leve 16 character this whole time.

Also, I would caution against the half-minotaur template, as it is very strong, and sounds like it'd be much more powerful than your groups standard level of play.

If he complains You need to have a mature OoC conversation, not a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity. He is your friend (I assume), so you should both be able to be mature about it. Or you could just give the other players 8 levels.

Half-Minotaur is only really that overpowered when people use the "your ability scores change as if you had increased in size" stuff. Houseruling that out of existence (as the poster who made the suggestion suggested) makes it a fairly reasonable LA +1, though a bit better than the already good Goliath.

Also, I think the OP was using the LA +2, but just not taking into account the RHD, so 14 is correct.

[PollyOliver]

Assuming you're talking the dacapodian that can be found on D&D wiki, yeah, he's a ton more powerful than the rest of the PCs, who are using a LA +0, an altered LA +0, and a weak for LA +1 race. You're going to have to work something out with him.

It does suck to have your toys taken away because of an error, but hopefully you can explain to him that though it was your mistake, he's still twice the level of the rest of the party and he's making the game very difficult for you and less fun for the others. Hopefully he is mature enough that you can amicably work something out, such as the dragonlance minotaur, or half-minotaur, or a loss of class levels. Or even statting him up as a half-orc or goliath or half-giant and calling him a minotaur, and having him look like one.

[Obrysii]

The Decapodian should be LA +1, too.

[Eldariel]

Oh, and challenges? Use class leveled monsters, even of humanoid types. Giving the monsters access to abilities, especially spells (especially stuff that doesn't kill but impedes like simple low-level Grease/Glitterdust/Web/etc. and higher up Sleet Storm/Stinking Cloud/Solid Fog/etc.), really gives you the ability to challenge a big beatstick since while one isn't mortally threatened by the spells, the spells do make the beatstick less efficient meaning he's more vulnerable to being beat up and doing less beating up himself thus reducing his overwhelming domination of the encounters.

This, of course, is probably unnecessary once you fix the "he's 6-8 levels higher"-part, but still a part of good encounter design to mix it up a bit with more than just fighting challenges. Kiting enemies, disabling enemies, controlling enemies, the works should help.

[Yuki Akuma]

I say keep him where he is and give everyone else tons more xp so they catch up. Then suddenly he turns out to have a very poorly optimised character and everybody wins!

Although you have a Monk...

[Souju]

The Decapodian should be LA +1, too.

actually the entry i read was conflicting...on one hand it was filed under LA+1 but the entry said it was LA 0. I decided since they basically wouldn't be using weapons anyway thanks to the penalty (other than the trident, which is really just a ranged weapon. No I don't know what was going through his head.) and the campaign is tailored to where natural weapons aren't as beneficial as normal (almost everything they've fought has Damage Reduction) I decided to make it LA 0 due to the absurd number of penalties for not having actual hands.
and yeah working something out is going to be rough...better get the pencil with the good eraser.

[Flickerdart]

Setting a few succubi or wights loose on him should even the odds. If he gets mad, tell him that his character is also supposed to have Level Adjustment, but to make it more fair you're going to let him get rid of it, and keep only the Racial Hit Dice. Monsters are almost never worth their LA, so this won't make him any more broken. Also remind him that since he can use the RHD to qualify for Dragon Disciple, he doesn't need to take the Cleric levels. Minotaur 6/Bard 1/ Dragon Disciple 1 lets him stick with his PrC even after being cast down.

[Souju]

I say keep him where he is and give everyone else tons more xp so they catch up. Then suddenly he turns out to have a very poorly optimised character and everybody wins!

Although you have a Monk...

I thought of that, but in the interests of time (he and I are the only ones that can draw up a new character in less than an hour. That's not an exaggeration) it would take an ENTIRE session to give everyone 6 levels, and I'd have to retool EVERY encounter. It's much simpler to fix what's broken than to give out free levels to compensate.
Although I'm definitely going to have more enemies with touch attacks now that I know he's weak to them. The image of a big strong minotaur running like a little girl from a tiny fairy trying to touch/hug him is also endlessly amusing.
or maybe make him play pattycake with a Wight...how many could he get through before he loses his minotaur levels?

[Souju]

Setting a few succubi or wights loose on him should even the odds. If he gets mad, tell him that his character is also supposed to have Level Adjustment, but to make it more fair you're going to let him get rid of it, and keep only the Racial Hit Dice. Monsters are almost never worth their LA, so this won't make him any more broken. Also remind him that since he can use the RHD to qualify for Dragon Disciple, he doesn't need to take the Cleric levels. Minotaur 6/Bard 1/ Dragon Disciple 1 lets him stick with his PrC even after being cast down.

Thing is he took the cleric levels with something else in mind, then changed his mind. ADD as applied to game mechanics and multi-classing.
And I DO have a succubus encounter planned, but it wasn't going to be until much later...a wight, though...

[Flickerdart]

Right, so spin that as a positive thing - if he changed his mind, now he doesn't have to be saddled with those levels. Basically dress it up a little instead of saying "enjoy your nerf".

[PollyOliver]

Yeah, sweeten the rebuild a little by letting him rebuild his class levels as well. Getting access to spells higher than level 2 might make him a little more amenable.

[Souju]

well, we came to a solution...he's now playing a troglodyte and the minotaur was unambiguously disposed of: I decided to throw all of my limiters on him at once since he had agreed to make another character: while resting both his party members rolled critical failures on their fort saves, so they thrashed in their sleep and knocked him into negative hitpoints, (the monk and the druid) then the thief who cast the spell stole the party's equipment and the minotaur himself, stabilized him, but then an unusual feature I haven't explained to the party attracted a bunch of wights to the thief, who was suffering from massive encumbrance from carrying the minotaur, so she tried to jam him into his Bag of Infinite Fruit (think bag of tricks, but fruity) but he didn't fit, so she left him on the ground where the wights turned him. By the time the party shows up, the thief is surrounded by about 35 wights (which took a while...only ONE of the players managed to get hit at all. I'm just glad we had so many different kinds of heroclix available...), one of which was the minotaur. Of course since none of us really cared at this point, it was just a thorough bit of bridge dropping :)
So now i'm free to pose reasonable challenges :)

[Sucrose]

Heh; glad that you could come to an amicable understanding.

[Lateral]

Remember, troglodytes are LA +2 and have 2 racial hit dice.

[Souju]

Remember, troglodytes are LA +2 and have 2 racial hit dice.

believe me i know...we had a long, LONG discussion about how it would work. Suffice to say Trogs being much tamer than minotaurs and the fact he'd be playing a class that would lose its class features if he so much as sneezed on the wrong person at the wrong time for the wrong reason sorta won me over.