Players are researching "Natural Enhancement" to combat stat stacking issues

[Kyutaru]

My player group is part way through Rise of Tiamat and I've had the doctor/ranger/alchemist/weirdo/lawyer become a bit dismayed about the lack of stat buffs in the game and the inability to reach stupidly high roll bonuses. As such, he has begun researching in game and is planning to provide the party with combat stims, i.e. drugs that boost your abilities. Since he would be making them himself, they're effectively non-magical and potentially easily purchased ingredients in a major city.

Should I smack down the banhammer here? What's your thought on players using steroids?

[MaxWilson]

My player group is part way through Rise of Tiamat and I've had the doctor/ranger/alchemist/weirdo/lawyer become a bit dismayed about the lack of stat buffs in the game and the inability to reach stupidly high roll bonuses. As such, he has begun researching in game and is planning to provide the party with combat stims, i.e. drugs that boost your abilities. Since he would be making them himself, they're effectively non-magical and potentially easily purchased ingredients in a major city.

Should I smack down the banhammer here? What's your thought on players using steroids?

Success in research is never guaranteed. Sounds like a good opportunity to make up a research table, which you can keep secret. Something like this:

00-10: A fluid which tastes like dishwater and does nothing.
11-25: Mild poison when ingested. DC 12 Con check or take 2d6 poison damage.
26-40: You are stimulated! You have no need to sleep tonight, but are also unable to benefit from a long rest tonight.
41-42: Performance enhancer. +4 to ST and CN for 6 hours.
43-60: Take 2d20 acid damage.
70-98: Stimulant! +1 to Perception checks for 8 hours.
99: Grow to Large size for 10 minutes.

Much like George's Marvelous Medicine, you can never quite manage to duplicate a previous recipe. Note that research using this table is intentionally pretty useless (unless you get super lucky), but it's more fun than just saying, "No, that doesn't work." The player should at least know though that the odds of success are slim.

[Eslin]

My player group is part way through Rise of Tiamat and I've had the doctor/ranger/alchemist/weirdo/lawyer become a bit dismayed about the lack of stat buffs in the game and the inability to reach stupidly high roll bonuses. As such, he has begun researching in game and is planning to provide the party with combat stims, i.e. drugs that boost your abilities. Since he would be making them himself, they're effectively non-magical and potentially easily purchased ingredients in a major city.

Should I smack down the banhammer here? What's your thought on players using steroids?

Definitely not. You can have interesting effects if you want, but never make any of them +stats - this isn't 3.5, 5e is based around bounded accuracy and a maximum of 20 in any one stat.

You can choose to reward the whole drug invention thing if you want, but I would strongly advise against making that reward a stat boost.

[Celcey]

Success in research is never guaranteed. Sounds like a good opportunity to make up a research table, which you can keep secret. Something like this:

00-10: A fluid which tastes like dishwater and does nothing.
11-25: Mild poison when ingested. DC 12 Con check or take 2d6 poison damage.
26-40: You are stimulated! You have no need to sleep tonight, but are also unable to benefit from a long rest tonight.
41-42: Performance enhancer. +4 to ST and CN for 6 hours.
43-60: Take 2d20 acid damage.
70-98: Stimulant! +1 to Perception checks for 8 hours.
99: Grow to Large size for 10 minutes.

Much like George's Marvelous Medicine, you can never quite manage to duplicate a previous recipe. Note that research using this table is intentionally pretty useless (unless you get super lucky), but it's more fun than just saying, "No, that doesn't work." The player should at least know though that the odds of success are slim.

I think this is an excellent idea, but I would add that every time he tries something different, you should switch up the effects. Alternatively, he doesn't necessarily need to know what effect he got- maybe leave him to figure it out himself- after all, he's just mixing random drugs. Or you could do both- change the possibilities and not tell him. I wouldn't give him a perfect-fix potion, but I'd say there are funner ways to deal with it than with a banhammer (unless you absolutely have to).

[Kyutaru]

Yay, I love the Deck of Many Things idea. That's the plan then! Predicting that after the seventh case of "food poisoning" they'll stop trying to harvest genomes from orcs.

[Giant2005]

Yay, I love the Deck of Many Things idea. That's the plan then! Predicting that after the seventh case of "food poisoning" they'll stop trying to harvest genomes from orcs.

Keep in mind that even if you let him be successful, the drugs shouldn't be enhancing attributes directly. Have them give the same bonuses as the "Enhance Ability" spell on PHB page 237. That is basically what he is trying to do anyway...

[Thrudd]

My player group is part way through Rise of Tiamat and I've had the doctor/ranger/alchemist/weirdo/lawyer become a bit dismayed about the lack of stat buffs in the game and the inability to reach stupidly high roll bonuses. As such, he has begun researching in game and is planning to provide the party with combat stims, i.e. drugs that boost your abilities. Since he would be making them himself, they're effectively non-magical and potentially easily purchased ingredients in a major city.

Should I smack down the banhammer here? What's your thought on players using steroids?

If you're the DM, you can rule whatever you want on this. I would say there are no natural/mundane concoctions which can boost any ability for any amount of time. Magic potions might do this sort of thing, with very rare/difficult to harvest ingredients and a caster of the appropriate level. His research should lead him to this conclusion. The best you can get with mundane ingredients and brewing/manufacturing is something which maybe helps you stay awake longer, cause intoxication or hallucinations, boost you immune system to recover from sickness more quickly (covered in herbal kit proficiency I would think), that sort of thing. Nothing that significantly affects adventuring.

[Pex]

Or, instead of egging the player on thinking he'll be successful but secretly he's screwed and will fail no matter what he does, just tell the player this is not going to work and talk with him about what's bugging him about the rules of 5E. He's looking for an in game solution for an out of game problem. The problem should be handled out of game.

Metaphorically speaking he has become addicted to ability score enhancement items of previous editions and is going through withdrawal symptoms of 5E not having them, instead giving flat scores of 19. He's probably grown accustomed to big numbers and not appreciating that 1d8 + 5 damage is a big deal. Even +1d4 means something.

Talking about "bounded accuracy" may not help because that's game philosophy. He's interested in the math crunch. Talk about some of the classes with him. Show him barbarians raging only get +2 damage. Show him monks get a bonus attack of 1d4 damage. Show him some monsters in the monster manual. Let him see their low AC, compared to previous editions. Show how the lower numbers still make the character a bada$$ and being effective. Then you can explain the philosophy of bounded accuracy as to why the lower numbers compared to previous editions are used.

[Maxilian]

Well... allow him to create things, but give those things interesting effect, have in mind what he used to create the item and give it a random fun ability...

Also... as a researcher he should have 2 things:

1- Not everything go as planned when trying new things (Fun and random effects)

2- Tell him to be a good researcher and make notes of what he used to make X things so he can replicate it (that way he could use those effects in the future in his favor)

Note: That will give him more flavor to his character and at the same time it will give him what he wants (in a way -don't give him stats to make sure the game is still balanced-) and tell him, that his best friend is creativity (use those special objects in a creative way)

[McBars]

If these players are going to pursue that avenue there are a couple things that you can do as a DM if you're going to take their pursuit seriously. If they are going to pursue a scientific solution, then you as a DM ought to enforce the scientific barriers that confront them:

1. They lack the technology to synthesize or isolate the drugs in question

2. Products they do synthesize/isolate will contain a massive amount of impurities, and who knows what deleterious effects those have?

3. "Steroids(androgens)" are only beneficial when you're using them as part of a training regimen, and even then the only way they help is to reduce your recovery time. Prolonged use has a number of nasty side effects and almost as soon as you cease use the benefits you've derived from them quickly fade (1-2 wks).

[MaxWilson]

2- Tell him to be a good researcher and make notes of what he used to make X things so he can replicate it (that way he could use those effects in the future in his favor)

I would strongly recommend against allowing any of his experiments to be replicable. (Hence the reference to George's Marvelous Medicine.) This is supposed to be a fun and entertaining way to say "No, that's infeasible in this campaign," not an invitation to invent bio-warfare. The player will be aware of the minimal chance of success because you'll tell him; the PC will be aware of the minimal chance of success because his first 10 experiments will experience varying degrees of failure or success, none of which really satisfy his desires.

[Maxilian]

I would strongly recommend against allowing any of his experiments to be replicable. (Hence the reference to George's Marvelous Medicine.) This is supposed to be a fun and entertaining way to say "No, that's infeasible in this campaign," not an invitation to invent bio-warfare. The player will be aware of the minimal chance of success because you'll tell him; the PC will be aware of the minimal chance of success because his first 10 experiments will experience varying degrees of failure or success, none of which really satisfy his desires.

But is mainly because it doesn't make sense if he can't replicate what he already did if he know what the recipe is, maybe give him a chance to fail but still...

Note: I agree that these may make the game unbalanced but that depends on what you let the player create also... is not like he will find all he need to make X thing all the time

[MaxWilson]

But is mainly because it doesn't make sense if he can't replicate what he already did if he know what the recipe is, maybe give him a chance to fail but still...

But he doesn't know what he already did. He may keep track of some of what he did (ingredients used?), but if it turns out that exact quantities, temperature, time of day, magical emanations, state of mind, or some other component of fantasy alchemy is different, the things he keeps track of won't be enough to replicate it. Again, I recommend telling the player about this up-front, but the PC won't know it.

[Slipperychicken]

You could just use existing buffs instead for the effects. Like after many sessions of experimentation, successful Intelligence rolls, and faulty potions, he figures out how to make a potion that replicates the effects of self-buff spells like:

Enhance Ability.
Enlarge/Reduce.
Expeditious Retreat.
False Life.
Guidance.
Heroism
Detect Magic
True Strike


And the "unfinished" versions might have some appropriate drawback like:

Can't cast spells while active.
Take a level of exhaustion immediately, or once it wears off.
Take Xd6 poison damage at the beginning or the end of the duration.
Disadvantage on checks and saves made with [insert ability score here].
Attackers have advantage on attack rolls because of your clumsy and reckless behavior.
Make a con save each minute or fall unconscious.
Make a wisdom save or fall into a screaming blood frenzy for 1d6 minutes.
Make a charisma save or take SAN damage.
Make a wisdom save against addiction.
Hallucinate for the duration, and make an intelligence save to realize they aren't real.


These potions wouldn't be free, of course. They would certainly take some expensive components to craft, or even some which can't be bought in a store.

Potion ingredients are an excellent opportunity for plot hooks. Like if the PC wants to make a particularly-awesome potion, he might have to quest for some reagents. A plant, mineral, or creature with the desired properties might only be known to grow in the royal garden, or deep inside some ruined temple, or at the bottom of a deadly cave, or in the heart of a great desert, or in another plane of existence. It might also require defeating a problematic creature; the heart of a freshly-slain dragon might be needed for a particularly powerful potion, or the distilled essence of a powerful elemental might be needed. It could also require something crazy like an angel's scalp, or the crushed bones of a long-dead dwarf princess, or the skulls of 20 heroes; things which are certainly not for sale, and would probably be quite dangerous to acquire.

[SliceandDiceKid]

Yeah, entertaining this beyond an extremely creative "no" seems like a really bad idea. Out of game convo for the win.