Taking the Players Down a Notch (or six)

[McNinja]

I'm currently DMing a high-fantasy Epic campaign set in an amalgam of my homebrew world and Forgotten Realms. My players are currently hella powerful and after last session the players are substantially more powerful than they really should be at this point, thanks to a Deck of Many Things I should never have given them and a series of absurdly good draws. Like, declare 5 draw throne, knight, sun, comet, and key. No joke.

How powerful, you ask? They took down an Ancient Red Dragon in four rounds. At 11th level. You can facepalm now or later, your pick.

The ARD was a bit of a measure for the current power of the group, and their power level is waaaay over 9000 when it should be just barely above 8000. My plan to ruin their day make them at least slightly worried about dying is this:

- One of the players got the Flames card - Gargauth, the Tenth Lord of Nine, is his foe. Gargauth will appear to them as Helm (who they've met before), and Gargauth will say something about how they're ****ing everything up and curse them, giving them a -4 to all of their stats and taking their Deck of Many Things
- Combined, we have 5 Rogue Cards - Just enough emnity to have all of their artifacts stolen.
- Due to a few good Moon Cards, the group has a combined total of 15 available Wish spells, and even worse, they have 3 Fates cards at their disposal. Those I'm not sure how to get rid of without making it obvious that I am trying to take their power down. I could simply have the group's Bag of Holding be taken as well, since everything they have is in there.

Thoughts?

[Slipperychicken]

There's a reason we caution against Decks of Many Things.

[RickAllison]

I'm currently DMing a high-fantasy Epic campaign set in an amalgam of my homebrew world and Forgotten Realms. My players are currently hella powerful and after last session the players are substantially more powerful than they really should be at this point, thanks to a Deck of Many Things I should never have given them and a series of absurdly good draws. Like, declare 5 draw throne, knight, sun, comet, and key. No joke.

How powerful, you ask? They took down an Ancient Red Dragon in four rounds. At 11th level. You can facepalm now or later, your pick.

The ARD was a bit of a measure for the current power of the group, and their power level is waaaay over 9000 when it should be just barely above 8000. My plan to ruin their day make them at least slightly worried about dying is this:

- One of the players got the Flames card - Gargauth, the Tenth Lord of Nine, is his foe. Gargauth will appear to them as Helm (who they've met before), and Gargauth will say something about how they're ****ing everything up and curse them, giving them a -4 to all of their stats and taking their Deck of Many Things
- Combined, we have 5 Rogue Cards - Just enough emnity to have all of their artifacts stolen.
- Due to a few good Moon Cards, the group has a combined total of 15 available Wish spells, and even worse, they have 3 Fates cards at their disposal. Those I'm not sure how to get rid of without making it obvious that I am trying to take their power down. I could simply have the group's Bag of Holding be taken as well, since everything they have is in there.

Thoughts?

Place them through 15 Hells, enough to make them use every wish. Let them use their power, but keep up the pressure until they are crushed or they finally use all of their resources. Let the opposing forces be aligned with deities who would oppose unraveling the fabric of the realms.

[McNinja]

There's a reason we caution against Decks of Many Things.


Place them through 15 Hells, enough to make them use every wish. Let them use their power, but keep up the pressure until they are crushed or they finally use all of their resources. Let the opposing forces be aligned with deities who would oppose unraveling the fabric of the realms.Very interesting idea... That might be part of it. I'll insert gargauth in there as well like I originally wanted to but this will be the final thing I do to them.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

So a player took a huge risk, that you let them take, and got a huge reward from it.

And you want to punish them?

If you don't want players being that powerful don't let them get to that point. You shouldn't punish them after the fact.

[McNinja]

So a player took a huge risk, that you let them take, and got a huge reward from it.

And you want to punish them?

If you don't want players being that powerful don't let them get to that point. You shouldn't punish them after the fact.Trust me, it was not as big a risk as you think. Once one of the players got a Fate card, the rest went ape**** and declared multiple draws each, using the fates card as an insurance policy against the Void or Donjon card. Even the skull card (which should be waaaaay more powerful, right now it is pathetically easy to defeat) was no more than a nuisance.

Did they take a risk? Of course, but they essentially won the lottery multiple times, and not the silly little $10,000, I mean the $1.5 billion lottery. And I won't take away their stuff permanently, they'll just have to go get it :)

[Temperjoke]

Just make sure they have one wish for the inevitable "I wish this never happened."

You know, going after them directly like that could lead to hard feelings. What you might want to consider is something such as pulling a Samurai Jack on them: bad guy is almost defeated, but kicks them into the future, which the bad guy has conquered and twisted against them. It'd explain why everything is suddenly more powerful against them, the bad guy has had decades to prepare and build up strength.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Trust me, it was not as big a risk as you think. Once one of the players got a Fate card, the rest went ape**** and declared multiple draws each, using the fates card as an insurance policy against the Void or Donjon card. Even the skull card (which should be waaaaay more powerful, right now it is pathetically easy to defeat) was no more than a nuisance.

Did they take a risk? Of course, but they essentially won the lottery multiple times, and not the silly little $10,000, I mean the $1.5 billion lottery. And I won't take away their stuff permanently, they'll just have to go get it :)

You still put them in that situation, you have only yourself to blame and yet you are punishing players for playing the game.

[McNinja]

You still put them in that situation, you have only yourself to blame and yet you are punishing players for playing the game.Yeah, it's definitely my fault for introducing the deck into the game, not gonna argue that lol. Punishing? Nah. Making them work for it? Yup. They haven't had a good challenge in a while anyway.

[JNAProductions]

Talk to them OOC, and explain your feelings. I think that's the best solution.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Yeah, it's definitely my fault for introducing the deck into the game, not gonna argue that lol. Punishing? Nah. Making them work for it? Yup. They haven't had a good challenge in a while anyway.


No. You are specifically planning on making their choice to go along with your game hurt over and above what one would normally do.

You aren't just talking about being challenging, but actively making it where the players get taken down a peg or two for playing your game.

That is completely messed up. It would be like if I asked you if you wanted a cookie and then called you a piggy for eating said cookie.

[McNinja]

No. You are specifically planning on making their choice to go along with your game hurt over and above what one would normally do.

You aren't just talking about being challenging, but actively making it where the players get taken down a peg or two for playing your game.

That is completely messed up. It would be like if I asked you if you wanted a cookie and then called you a piggy for eating said cookie.
In my defense, the players did draw the Flames and 5 Rogue cards, so they have a lot of enemies. A demigod is more than capable of severely messing with them.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

In my defense, the players did draw the Flames and 5 Rogue cards, so they have a lot of enemies. A demigod is more than capable of severely messing with them.

It's different if you want to challenge them than if you want to put them in their place.

The later attitude is pure toxic.

[McNinja]

It's different if you want to challenge them than if you want to put them in their place.

The later attitude is pure toxic.Of course.

I'm not taking them down a notch because **** them, I'm doing it because they have yet to encounter a decently hard challenge where they actually had a fear of dying... they've just kind of facerolled everything. It's entirely my fault, but now I have an opportunity to properly challenge them and make them think and use their class abilities to the fullest.

[MaxWilson]

You said they steamrolled an Ancient Red Dragon... try an Ancient Red Shadow Dragon who is also a Dragon Sorcerer 19.

The reason is that the dragon chassis is strong, but without spells it's basically just a big sack of HP. If you add in options like Quickened Hold Person V, Quickened Dimension Door, Shield, Counterspell, Blink, Darkness (they already have blindsight) or Greater Invisibility, Mass Suggestion, Meteor Swarm, and Forcecage, they synergize with the strong base chassis and the dragon gets exponentially scarier: it's better at countering the things the players want to do to it, and better at surprising the players, and better at escaping when they surprise it. You do need to play the dragon with tactical cunning as well: for example, a dragon on its home territory (or with the help of Sending spells to its minions) can scry-and-die extremely effectively. First pre-cast Greater Invisibility, and then Quickened Dimension Door in (almost certainly attaining surprise against any non-Alert characters), breath fire on the party, use legendary actions on tail attacks, then on your normal round grapple the healer and claw/bite him a bit with your other attacks* while Quickened Meteor Swarming the party and flying away, and then kill the healer on his own.

Then take a short rest to regain HP and come back to finish off the rest of the party from stealth + invisibility.

Use Counterspell or Shield as appropriate.

Once you've persuaded yourself that the dragon can stomp the party in a straight-up fight, then you can work out ways to use him as something other than a campaign-ender. The ultimate goal is for the players to have a good time and a chance at victory.

-Max


* Yes, this is technically a modification to the base Red Dragon abilities since its Multiattack sequence doesn't allow grappling. So what? Make that modification standard, just like spellcasting. Dragon-snatching has an old and storied history in 5E.

[Cybren]

Talk to them OOC, and explain your feelings. I think that's the best solution.

This is the best option. Just straight up say "so, you guys are absurdly powerful. What kind of challenges do you think you would face at this point?" Metagame it out.

[Randomthom]

Only a few questions really need to be answered here;
1. Did the players have fun drawing their cards?
2. Will they find it fun being made to fight for what they have won?
3. Will they accept it graciously (and even enjoy it) when/if some of their cool stuff gets taken away?

I'd suggest following up on the idea that powerful beings (perhaps deities) have noted their exceptional lucky streak and are concerned for their own position as a result. Perhaps have an avatar of a deity with the luck domain in their portfolio (Mask or Tymora would probably fit this best, look up Drasek Riven (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Drasek_Riven)) contact them and let them know that it was they who gifted the heroes their lucky streak but they got a little carried away and now other gods are perturbed. You can then use this as a front for all kinds of crazy stuff to happen.

[Mith]

I thought only the Fool and Skull and one other card went back into the Deck, and there are only 23 cards. As such you should only have 1 of any card in operation at one time. 6 players shouldn't be able to go through 5 cards each.

Or have I misread the rules?

Not saying "you did bad wrong" just that, from my recollection, that is not the design behind the deck.

As for what to do now. Perhaps talk to them OOC, and then have a caster PC have a dream of bad things coming their way. Perhaps the ARSD wants some of their items as part of it's hoard.

[busterswd]

I thought only the Fool and Skull and one other card went back into the Deck, and there are only 23 cards. As such you should only have 1 of any card in operation at one time. 6 players shouldn't be able to go through 5 cards each.

Or have I misread the rules?

Not saying "you did bad wrong" just that, from my recollection, that is not the design behind the deck.

As for what to do now. Perhaps talk to them OOC, and then have a caster PC have a dream of bad things coming their way. Perhaps the ARSD wants some of their items as part of it's hoard.

^ This. You can't stack the good cards.

If you want to continue without undoing this stuff in your game, build up to a tough encounter with humanoids. Make a party of 3 NPCs. One Wizard, one druid, and one lore bard. Call them the Card Hunters; they've had the Deck in the past and have lost it. Go for scry and steal tactics; the Fates cards are their primary goal. Then once they get them, have them wish they had never lost the deck.

[Shaofoo]

The moral that I got from this story is that the Deck of Many things screws you over no matter what. Draw bad and the cards is the one doing you in, draw good and it is the DM that does you in. Basically if you ever find a Deck of Many Things, slowly walk away and never look back cause you will always lose regardless what the cards say.

Truly the only winning move is not to play draw cards.

But yes I think going out of the game and talking to the players is the best thing you can do cause trying to remove their stuff might seem mean spirited. Basically would you have stepped in if the players drew horrible after horrible cards instead?

[McNinja]

I thought only the Fool and Skull and one other card went back into the Deck, and there are only 23 cards. As such you should only have 1 of any card in operation at one time. 6 players shouldn't be able to go through 5 cards each.

Or have I misread the rules?

Not saying "you did bad wrong" just that, from my recollection, that is not the design behind the deck.

As for what to do now. Perhaps talk to them OOC, and then have a caster PC have a dream of bad things coming their way. Perhaps the ARSD wants some of their items as part of it's hoard.The DMG says


Once a card is drawn, it fades from existence. Unless
the card is the Fool or the jester, the card reappears
in the deck, making it possible to draw the same
card twice.

That looks to me like the Fool and Jester cards are the only two that never reappear in the deck, especially since it mentions drawing the same card twice. Except for those two.

[Mith]

Huh, I thought it was the other way around, since they both allow for more cards to be drawn, so they escalate any conservative draw.

[McNinja]

The moral that I got from this story is that the Deck of Many things screws you over no matter what. Draw bad and the cards is the one doing you in, draw good and it is the DM that does you in. Basically if you ever find a Deck of Many Things, slowly walk away and never look back cause you will always lose regardless what the cards say.

Truly the only winning move is not to play draw cards.

But yes I think going out of the game and talking to the players is the best thing you can do cause trying to remove their stuff might seem mean spirited. Basically would you have stepped in if the players drew horrible after horrible cards instead?If they had only drawn horrible cards, I probably would have done something.

But I can't take ALL of their stuff away - the entire group gained 4 levels, and I'll never take away levels from the players :P

[McNinja]

Huh, I thought it was the other way around, since they both allow for more cards to be drawn, so they escalate any conservative draw.That might be why they disappear, because they have a good chance of screwing the player over!

[darkrose50]

I once had a similar situation in a long-running fantasy LARP. My insane kleptomaniac sorcerer rogue, who talked to rocks and fell in love with a ruby by the by, drew a card that gave him 3-more life, but made him weak (he did 1-less damage with a physical attack, and such). In game terms he went from 5 potential wounds to 8. He was quite the roach.

This was significant gain, as swords do 2-points (more if the character was strong, or the sword magical), and basically if you do damage equal to the remaining life points then the opponent goes down, else they take 1-damage.

So . . .
8 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . .
7 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . .
6 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . .
5 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . .
4 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . .
3 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . .
2 life . . . stabbed for 2 . . . unconscious

This was also a significant gain because (1) all his attacks were via being a sorcerer, and (2) he had a ring of strength that negated the weak effect (the character was built to earn lots of gold, evidently had an income of ~100 gold, where the base was 10, and he did a lot of trading).

[MaxWilson]

Huh, I thought it was the other way around, since they both allow for more cards to be drawn, so they escalate any conservative draw.

I've never understood the point of those "can draw more cards" cards. Would make more sense if the Deck evaporated after one person finished drawing.


The moral that I got from this story is that the Deck of Many things screws you over no matter what. Draw bad and the cards is the one doing you in, draw good and it is the DM that does you in. Basically if you ever find a Deck of Many Things, slowly walk away and never look back cause you will always lose regardless what the cards say.

Truly the only winning move is not to play draw cards.

You could say the exact same thing about earning XP.

That is why DMs must be very careful not to be adversarial or build a treadmill. One advantage of a sandbox is that this problem cannot happen. The players can choose to up the difficulty, using their new abilities, but they can hang out protecting peasants from occasional orc raids for as long as they want to. (The DM may lose his mind if it goes on too long. Level grinding is really boring to run.)

[McNinja]

I've never understood the point of those "can draw more cards" cards. Would make more sense if the Deck evaporated after one person finished drawing.

The point of the Deck, I think, is to screw with the player characters, which is why there are more bad cards than good.

[LaserFace]

Ultimately, I think you should do whatever you think will create the most fun, interesting and challenging experience for your players. If they have special resources (Wish spells or otherwise), find ways for them to expend them.

I generally think it's poor form to "punish" your players - maybe don't force them into a situation where they need to expend literally all 15 to escape certain doom - but give them substantial challenges that they are genuinely tempted to use them, and try use that tension to create a cool narrative the players will enjoy.

For example, Gargauth doesn't necessarily have to just show up, curse the PCs, and high-tail it out of there. You could make an entire plot around a powerful antagonist like this really trying to ruin them, and perhaps leading to a climax where they have direct confrontation. Wishes might be necessary to not just escape enemies, but also build alliances, gather resources, and other junk to help them prepare for the fight.

[Shaofoo]

You could say the exact same thing about earning XP.

That is why DMs must be very careful not to be adversarial or build a treadmill. One advantage of a sandbox is that this problem cannot happen. The players can choose to up the difficulty, using their new abilities, but they can hang out protecting peasants from occasional orc raids for as long as they want to. (The DM may lose his mind if it goes on too long. Level grinding is really boring to run.)

It seems that the Sandbox is the best way to exacerbate this problem.

A sandbox is supposed to have everything available at once if you can get to it. A player might be able to bypass any DM acts to lock away certain content from the players or even able to defeat encounters they weren't supposed to. Basically the players have the agency to sequence break the game if they can figure it out.

But at least earning XP you have 100% control over and you can adjust it on the fly depending on what the party is composed of. If you give too much XP then you are the only one responsible for this problem, it isn't the player's fault that you can't keep track of something that only you have control over. If the party starts to grind levels with orc encampments you can make the XP gains be negligible or even nonexistent and say that you have eventually dealt with these particular orcs so many times that there is nothing you can learn from them.

[Vogonjeltz]

Trust me, it was not as big a risk as you think. Once one of the players got a Fate card, the rest went ape**** and declared multiple draws each, using the fates card as an insurance policy against the Void or Donjon card. Even the skull card (which should be waaaaay more powerful, right now it is pathetically easy to defeat) was no more than a nuisance.

Did they take a risk? Of course, but they essentially won the lottery multiple times, and not the silly little $10,000, I mean the $1.5 billion lottery. And I won't take away their stuff permanently, they'll just have to go get it :)

Yes, but that's basically the yin to the yang of being perma-dead, which could also have occurred.

I've taken 15 draws on a deck of many cards before, and happened to luck out. Sometimes you win in a gamble, sometimes you lose, but that's why it's gambling.

I'd strongly advise you against the course of action wherein you try eliminate the advantages they gambled for and gained. Invariably they will use those abilities to get themselves out of hairy situations. There's nothing wrong with that, but it will be blatantly obvious if you introduce absurdly dangerous events just for the sake of whittling down the resources they risked much for, and I don't know anyone I've ever met who would not react badly to such a tactic.