DM with Min-maxing Group

[Connmi08]

Hello all, I have been DMing for about a year now. I have had a lot of fun with my group, but have currently run into a lot of problems, and min-maxing is one of the biggest. A bunch of my players are munchkins, and it leaves me in the DM seat needing to do more and more work, trying to balance the game out for everyone.

One of my issues has been with Archer type characters. I have had a campaign where one of my player's characters was a ranger who would hit every time, and do massive amounts of damage. He spends hours researching feat trees and tricks to make his characters as powerful as possible. The other players felt like they were living in this players shadow, and I felt like I needed to cheat in order to actually create a challenge that wouldn't end up killing all the other characters.

I have heard that many DMs have created house rules around archery in order to make it more balanced within the game. Has anyone done so that wishes to share their ways of making archer type characters less OP.

[Vamphyr]

I wasn't aware archery was unbalanced.

Now, is the issue that just this archer is a min-maxer and the rest of your party is low op?

Wind Wall is always a go to spell for stopping archers with non force based arrows. What level is your party? Have you tried placing them in tight quarters where archery isn't as much of a benefit?

You could introduce a band of assassins/mercenaries who have been hired by the BBEG or some organization that they've crossed to kill them. Throw in an archer who specializes in long range sniping;distances far beyond what your player is optimized for. This allows you to use intelligent tactics without it feeling like your targeting him/her. (Of course the sniper will target the archer first, that way they can't engage at range)

[watchwood]

If one of your p[layers is a lot more powerful then the rest of them, then that also makes him the main target. Especially if the enemy has any intelligence about the party.

Ambush them in their sleep, and have an assassin try to cut his throat. :P

[NightbringerGGZ]

Have you tried just talking to the player? If he's been playing for any amount of time then he should be perfectly aware that a single high-op character can really outshine an low-op party in combat. If he has any GMing experience then he'll know that it can cause headaches for you too.

I tend to like high-op, but most the guys I play with go for more moderate to low-op with the character builds. Knowing that this can be problematic, I work with my GMs to make sure I'm not getting too crazy. This way the game stays fun for everybody. If you talk with your player about the issue he should be willing to work things out with you. If he isn't, then you probably won't be playing with him for too much longer.

[Kane0]

Try out some nonstandard enemies. Creatures that rely on numerical advantages (primarily swarms and splitting oozes), with special immunities (undead, constructs) or with a high level of intelligence and prep time (humanoids, dragons, outsiders, etc) all present different challenges that require different responses.

Slowly tailor recurring enemies to become more resistant to common party tactics as well. If one player likes to use entangling attacks in each fight have your enemies begin to be equipped to counter that, at least occasionally, where it makes sense.

Also ensure that there are challenges that appeal to each character's strengths. The archer will exceed in open combat but make sure there are chances for other characters to strut their stuff, even if its not in a fight.

The better one performs, the more attention he attracts as well. If he isnt careful, all kinds of things could happen.

[Story]

I tend to like high-op, but most the guys I play with go for more moderate to low-op with the character builds. Knowing that this can be problematic, I work with my GMs to make sure I'm not getting too crazy. This way the game stays fun for everybody. If you talk with your player about the issue he should be willing to work things out with you. If he isn't, then you probably won't be playing with him for too much longer.

Indeed. The problem here is not one person being high op, but one person being high op and everyone else being low op. Assuming he's not just doing it because he wants to ruin everyone's fun, he should be amenable to either toning it down or helping everyone else.

But having everyone be high op also works. In my current game, we're playing a difficult 14th level adventure at level 11. And the ultimate goal of the campaign is to kill a god.

[Captnq]

Dude. Windwall. or...


WSAs Agility and Deflection. You can put WSAs in a shield that can bash.
Deflection is a +1 bonus. Superior Agility is only 18,000 gp for a +6 to your reflex saves.

The singham of focus extrapolates out to 1,000 gp WSA for a +2 to deflect arrows.

Now, as for the shield, Arrow catching so nobody else gets hit with arrows but the one with the shield +1 ASA.

And strangely enough Arrow deflection in a shield is a +2 bonus ASA. But techincally, you CAN buy it twice, so you can deflect two arrows a round with a reflex save.

Ta-dah! Give it to a rogue with a good dex and the rogue is negating two arrows a round.

But who cares when wind wall shuts him down.

Oh, wait. You didn't allow him to use my handbook, did you? Seriously, I put warnings in there to DMs. Really think about allowing hank's bow. That totally negates windwall.

[eggynack]

I would actually go with one of the non-wind wall, yet wind based solutions. Anything that produces windstorm speed winds will stop archery in its tracks, and if you pump that up to tornado speeds, you stop siege weapons too. One of the best spells for this is control winds, but there're other options if you're interested. The reason why you'd want to go with a higher level option that produces a similar effect is that spells like control winds have a bunch of purposes that aren't directly related to stopping archery, while wind wall is rather limited in scope beyond that goal. That way, you can completely shut down the archer, yet not appear to be directly tailoring your enemies to stop his character.

Alternatively, you could always present challenges that you can't solve with archery. You can't disarm a trap with a bow, or scale a mountain, or negotiate with a king. Archery is also going to have a marginal impact on an army type situation. However, the best solution is probably using your word based superpowers. In other words, talking to the fellow.

[fluke1993]

I am just going to pitch in here and say that most mid-high op parties will be able to take down targets well above their CR without to much difficulty. Don't be afraid to send stronger monsters after a high-op party. Please note that it sounds like you do not have a high op party, just a player who is better at optimization than the rest of the party.

Next: in 3.5 archery is actually quite under powered. And even IF an archer is capable of putting out good damage, that's usually all they can do. As pointed out wind wall pretty much shuts down any sort of archery that doesn't involve force effects so be careful with how much you use it. Instead, throw a few non-combat challenges your party's way OR make archery more difficult by fighting in close quarters or things with like cover, protection from arrows and the like. Keep in mind that any character has to have Line of Sight to attack something.

Finally: as I mentioned previously the problem here isn't that this guy is optimizing, it's that he's optimizing better than the rest of the party. This isn't a good or bad thing, it just is and is best handled OOC. Talk to the player alone and tell him that while his character is good, it is overshadowing the rest of the party. Ask the player to tone it down or see if he can help the other players build mechanically stronger characters. If he refuses, it may be necessary to ask him politely to leave.

If you or your players are interested in learning more about 3.x mechanics, just about anyone on this board would be willing to help.

[Angelalex242]

You don't need a windwall. Just send the party into a dungeon. (It is called DUNGEONS and dragons, after all...)

Then, put some encounters in narrow corridors that go no further then 10 or 15 feet before taking a 90 degree turn. Archers depend on range. No range to be had in that scenario.

[Thiyr]

Alternatively, you could always present challenges that you can't solve with archery. You can't disarm a trap with a bow, or scale a mountain, or negotiate with a king. Archery is also going to have a marginal impact on an army type situation. However, the best solution is probably using your word based superpowers. In other words, talking to the fellow.

I disagree with these examples! Swinging blades? Shoot the gears! Pit trap? shoot an arrow across with a rope! Poisoned pin on the doorknob? Shoot the doorknob off!

Can't climb the mountain? Shoot yourself up some handholds, now with 100% more arrow!

King being difficult, won't play ball? Use that bow and arrow, shoot his toes off. Make sure he doesn't die, but make sure he understands that arrows are YOUR friend, not his. He has guards? MORE ARROWS!


To actually help the OP rather than be silly, though, I agree with nightbringer, talking it out tends to be a good solution. Some people just plain don't notice this sorta thing when they're doing it. See if he'd be willing to tone it down, or if everyone is up for it, have him see if he can boost the rest of the party up a bit. That's probably a bit much work, though, and it'd be easier if he toned himself down.

If the player won't tone it down, and you're looking for other ways to mess up archery, afaik it's always been about launching so many arrows there's no room left for organs in your target, and/or having specialty arrows for every situation. DR can be a good way to deal with that, provided he's not changed his name to Hank recently. Mixed enemy types (if he's using bane arrows), and quantity over quality may be the options to look for.

And I believe there is also a shield crystal in the MIC that gives a bonus to AC against ranged attacks, if you feel like stacking that onto a bigger guy, as well.

[Sir Chuckles]

You say they're all munchkins, but are being outclassed by a single Ranger. I'm willing to bet that you haven't done much book reading yourself.
I've only had powerful archers at particularly low levels, where 1d8 is dangerous to those Goblins.

I've had similar problems with a munchkin, but Minimus Maximus doesn't necessarily mean a munchkin.

Throw some harsh winds at them. That can give penalties.
A low level Wizard can cast Protection from Arrows and Windwall.
A low level Fighter can get Deflect Arrows (Hell, a lv1 Fighter can get Deflect Arrows. A lv1 Human Fighter can get Snatch Arrows.)
Slap on an Arrow Catching shield.

Or, you can be more mundane and put a wall in his way. Or a door. Or a waist-high wall. Or a bush.

If you want to be mean, Ray of Clumsiness (http://dndtools.eu/spells/spell-compendium--86/ray-clumsiness--4061/) is a 1st level spell (1d6+ 1 per 2 Caster Levels Dexterity Damage).

[Mnemnosyne]

While I agree with everyone else's comments about talking to the player, keep in mind he is using archery, one of the easiest forms of attack to completely shut down in D&D.

Archery is somewhat underpowered in D&D because there are spells that just flat out say 'no' to ranged attacks no matter what. Look into wind wall, and if you want to get exceptionally nasty, friendly fire. That last one, found on page 27 of Exemplars of Evil, can be cast as a full-round action to give total immunity to targeted ranged attacks for 1 round/level. Additionally, it allows the subject to redirect attacks to a different target within 30 ft, so if he tries shooting at someone thus protected, and he's within 30 ft, he could wind up shooting himself. Furthermore, it's personal range which makes it a candidate for persisting. Anyone capable of casting it (it's a level 4 druid and sorcerer/wizard spell) would be wise to keep at least one copy memorized at all times, and anyone who is expecting to face an archer would undoubtedly plan ahead, so if you've got a villain who knows who he's going to be facing this guy, the villain could very logically have either persisted this spell on himself or have several scrolls of it handy.

This allows you to create a situation where he simply cannot shoot at that one guy. If you then put some other guys in the encounter intended for him to handle - perhaps other archers, for him to have a shootout with - the other players can deal with the protected individual while he focuses on the others.

Granted, having someone cast friendly fire in every single encounter will probably get ridiculous, but for any enemy that is actually expecting to fight an archer it makes complete sense.

[SciChronic]

Hello all, I have been DMing for about a year now. I have had a lot of fun with my group, but have currently run into a lot of problems, and min-maxing is one of the biggest. A bunch of my players are munchkins, and it leaves me in the DM seat needing to do more and more work, trying to balance the game out for everyone.

One of my issues has been with Archer type characters. I have had a campaign where one of my player's characters was a ranger who would hit every time, and do massive amounts of damage. He spends hours researching feat trees and tricks to make his characters as powerful as possible. The other players felt like they were living in this players shadow, and I felt like I needed to cheat in order to actually create a challenge that wouldn't end up killing all the other characters.

I have heard that many DMs have created house rules around archery in order to make it more balanced within the game. Has anyone done so that wishes to share their ways of making archer type characters less OP.
To start, archery isnt that broken, iirc, the power chain goes Magic>Psionics>2H Melee>bow/xbow>TWF>Sword&Board>thrown with twf and and bow/xbow swapping based on build.

As a DM you need to proofread and make sure everything in these builds comes up to snuff, and the player isnt doing something that depends on your consent such as giving a psicrystal feats.

Its also up to you as a DM to talk to your players when these kinds of things happen. Clearly lay out ground rules i.e.: "Tier 1 and 2 classes are banned, you may come across opponents or NPC who have these classes, but you cannot take levels in it, i promise not to cheese you guys when this happens"

If there's a particular player who is outshining your group, move them aside and talk to them. tell them to tone it down a bit because they are making it less fun for the rest of the people at the table.

When something broken happens, address it with the group i.e.: "due to last sessions abuse of polymorph i'm going to remove the spell and all other spells that are 'as alter self' from the game. I wont take away experience from any of you or anything like that. Those who have the spells that are now removed can replace them at no cost now."

[Raezeman]

Send creatures that have damage reduction that works against the archer but not against the others. If the rest of the team only uses weapons with slashing, send a creature that has damage reduction /slashing. Zombies are first to come to mind. Of course, this is assuming he is using normal arrows that deal piercing damage...

[Artillery]

A good archery will carry the variant types of arrows too. Serpentine arrows from races of the wild do slashing and piercing. Grappling arrows, specific bane arrows if a campaign is heavy on certain things.

Archery builds without carrier damage don't have much dmg per hit.

Assuming the person isn't using a +1 Aptitude Keen Splitting Great-Crossbow with Hand-crossbow focus and lightning maces while in Blood in the Water Stance. That is an actual effective archery build but doesn't come online till other characters would have options other than hit it till it dies.

Is the Archer using things like Knowledge Devotion to crank up their to hits and get extra dmg. What level is the party this is all taking place in?

[nedz]

Can you post an outline of his build ?
There is a chance that some rule may be being misinterpreted.

Could you also give us an outline of the rest of the party (Class, level etc.) ?
It might help us make more sense of this: the archer doesn't usually find themselves in this position.

[some guy]

It has already been said that windstorms make ranged attacks impossible, I'd like to add that rain (and other precipitation) and severe windforce impose a -4 penalty on ranged attacks, strong windforce a -2 penalty.
And entropic shield is a lvl 1 cleric spell that grants a 20% miss chance for ranged attacks.

[Sir Chuckles]

Can you post an outline of his build ?
There is a chance that some rule may be being misinterpreted.

Could you also give us an outline of the rest of the party (Class, level etc.) ?
It might help us make more sense of this: the archer doesn't usually find themselves in this position.

We definitely need this.

If the party is the Ranger, Healer, and a TWP Fighter, then it could be a bit of a problem there.

But at the same time, a well-built Commoner easily outshines a poorly built Factorum (Maaaaaybe bad spell choice Sorcerers. Maybe. I don't wanna stretch that statement too much).

[Brookshw]

and I felt like I needed to cheat

Do it. No seriously, go ahead and cheat. Players time investment in optimizing a single character is always going to be trivial to what a DM has to invest to create appropriate challenges. Granted this depends on the level, I run high levels and no way in heck am I investing 15+ hours a week to sit down and plan out every creature. So I'll gladly through an extra 100 hp on a creature, toss on a few extra points of ac, whatever. If I sat down and looked through the books all of this could easily be done by RAW, but it's not worth the time investment.


I wasn't aware archery was unbalanced.

It's not that bad at all but I will say the scout in my current game was pushing out a consistent 200+ damage a round at level 10. Not bad in and of itself but it did allow him to outshine the other players at the table at that time which I find issue with, but that's a general D&D issue, nothing specific to him.

[TheDarkSaint]

When faced with high optimizers in a group of low op people, this is my goto stance.

"Can I get you to create someone who can buff the others? Like a bard?"

The challenge for them then becomes "How awesome can I make my friends" which helps out your low op people and leaves the high op person feeling satisfied. (hopefully)

[SciChronic]

When faced with high optimizers in a group of low op people, this is my goto stance.

"Can I get you to create someone who can buff the others? Like a bard?"

The challenge for them then becomes "How awesome can I make my friends" which helps out your low op people and leaves the high op person feeling satisfied. (hopefully)

another great option is asking them to perform a non-combat role i.e.: scouting/skillmonkeying/face, which is what i typically do because i'm the biggest optimizer of my group, willing to spend a few days on a character design once the idea pops into my head. I have i think 8 characters written up for if my current one dies simply because a build theme sounded a ppealing

[Anxe]

You could also go for a system change. Just a thought I had. Most people won't be as good as optimizing in a new system. It's a lot of work and money to do so though. You could look at some demo versions of stuff first.

[Vanitas]

I'm sorry, but I think everyone posting here is completely missing the point.
From my understanding, the OP does not want to deal with extra DM work. High optimization gives more work to the DM, else the game becames a cakewalk. Therefore, high optimization for everyone else can not be the answer.
The optimization level needs to go down. It's the only possible answer that does not put a burden on the DM.

[TiaC]

I'm sorry, but I think everyone posting here is completely missing the point.
From my understanding, the OP does not want to deal with extra DM work. High optimization gives more work to the DM, else the game becames a cakewalk. Therefore, high optimization for everyone else can not be the answer.
The optimization level needs to go down. It's the only possible answer that does not put a burden on the DM.

If everyone is on the same page you can just jack up enemy CR without worrying about the weaker players.

[Cryov]

Do some stat adjustments, min-max the enemies your group fights.
Also assume max hp for their HD so your monsters don't get melted right away.
Don't be afraid to add some templates to the monsters either.

I have a DM who encourages us to min/max so he can add templates to monsters. Plus it seems to add more flavor to generic monsters.

[Vanitas]

If everyone is on the same page you can just jack up enemy CR without worrying about the weaker players.
But why should he? :smallconfused:
One guy wants to optimize a lot. Why should everyone change the way they are playing because of one guy?


Do some stat adjustments, min-max the enemies your group fights.
Also assume max hp for their HD so your monsters don't get melted right away.
Don't be afraid to add some templates to the monsters either.

I have a DM who encourages us to min/max so he can add templates to monsters. Plus it seems to add more flavor to generic monsters.
Considering the reason the OP is even starting this thread is that he does not want to have to put more work into DMing, I'm not sure if this was helpful.

[TiaC]

But why should he? :smallconfused:
One guy wants to optimize a lot. Why should everyone change the way they are playing because of one guy?
They shouldn't. I agree that the DM should talk to this player about toning it down.


However, what you said was a blanket statement that "High optimization gives more work to the DM, else the game becames a cakewalk." I disagree, if the players are on the same page you can just grab something out of the MM at CR party level +2 and do just fine. If all players are playing high-op and the DM is giving them unmodified equal CR encounters, then the DM is that "one guy" who is playing differently from the group and he should either change his playstyle or find a new group.

[Yukitsu]

From my perspective, go ask what kind of challenge they want. If they don't strictly speaking care about tension, or drama in combat, then you probably don't really need to do anything to change the way combat is going.

Me personally, tension and the illusion of agency in unoptomized, unplanned combat went out the window when I figured out it all came down to random chance, and not actual competency. Because of this, I'd rather the difficulty in encounters come from RP, come from strategy to best one shot the encounter, and to optimize the group. Doing all of that is still a challenge, it simply results in a challenge that doesn't have as much luck involved. Hell, arguably, die rolling with an unoptimized group using 0 strategy is easier because it requires no effort, it just happens to fail more.

[Phaederkiel]

first, we need more intel on the archer and his group.
What exactly is he doing? perhaps there are ruling errors with what he does.

Somehow, as someone already mentioned, this smells like knowledge devotion.

Check what knowledges he does not have, and use monsters of those types.

elsewhise, the two best solutions by the previous posters are (in my opinion):


Arching hallways, which makes it impossible to use range. (also: combat in cities, etc)

Lots of mooks. Swarm the party with 20 lvl 1 guys. Everyone oneshots everything, he gets to look damn good, but so does the rest.


I think a fight in a city is another good bet: for example in a panic on a market place. Make sure your party cannot simply kill citizens, and make sure to use the mob rules so the panicking crowd can hurt both parties in the fight. use the mob additionally as cover and as difficult terrain. let the players make strength or tuble checks. see if he invested in those :)

[Con_Brio1993]

Archery of all things is breaking for campaign? Your entire group is full of min maxers and Archery is the most broken thing you are dealing with?

What the heck is the party composition and their builds?

[Vortenger]

Agreed with many others that archery is not a top notch form of combat. Any greatsword wielding barbarian can crush any archers dpr numbers. And they care less about the ambient environment. That said, a well optimized archer can do hundreds of damage per round... It takes a lot of tricks to pull off successfully, and you as the DM can rule 0 any of them. Is he using the Energy Bow? Sunder it (But have a shiny new bow you made ready to go for fear of player tears and anguish.). Is he using Raptor Arrows? They're the relic of a goddess. Take away her favor for mis-use of her beloved arrows for a time. You're the DM, find what you need to restore balance, then find a flavor reason in the story to do it. You have the technology.

Gotta be honest, hearing a ranger being a 'damage monster' doesn't seem very likely to me. Cleric DMM persisting Divine Agility and the like? Sure. A ranger gets bad boni to hit and damage to 'some' bad guys. Are the other players just not optimizing the same way? Rather than take the ranger down a notch, perhaps you and the player can help tweak the other characters in the party to be more of a match, then raise the difficulty of the encounters to match their newfound power. That would be a boon to everyone at the table, right?