Help, Party is too OP need suggestions 5e homebrew campaign.

[ZakAttakk]

I need some suggestions on nerfing the party or even killing off some players, I have several players who's max potential AC is a range 27-30. The last session there was 7 players with a potential of 8 next session, I have utterly no idea how to notch em down without completely removing magic items. I've thought maybe using doppelgangers to try and confuse them all but one of the guys has true seeing so he could see through all of it so bit of an issue.
Any suggestions on monsters and encounters that could be a potential party wipe, that will reduce magic item use and also allow me to actually take them down to make them not be overly confident like they are.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Arkhios]

Have them encounter a horde of Rust Monsters. That should destroy at least a few of their equipment, assuming their AC relies on being heavily armored and/or shielded.

I just had to buy a completely new armor for my character because of this (and it was fun game nevertheless!)
...As far as I know, rust monsters are capable of rusting even magical equipment.

[Quoxis]

A Tarrasque is always a possibility.

Jokes aside, how do they get up to those ridiculous ACs? Only magic items or also spells, because the latter could be dealt with by making the next ancient temple dungeon have a massive antimagic field in it, maybe even cancelling out their magic items (no idea how RAW see that).
Another possibility would be having them lose (parts of) their equipment, possibly to a superior thief stealing it at night (assuming they don't sleep in their armor) or a nightly attack by a crowd of small mobs some of which steal their stuff while the rest gets fireballed.
Maybe make sure to tell them the reason why the nerf was needed, otherwise they might be pissed.

[Angelmaker]

This thread begs so many auestions.

Why do you have so many players? How do you handle it without getting a nervous breakdown? Why did you hand out magic items like candy? What are th classes that have the high AC and how do they do it? Which level is the party?

Now, some general answers:
1) if you have trouble finding challenges for the party, because of the long ongoing campaign where the party collected lots of magic sutff, it might be time to start a new campaig.
2) assuming the party does have lots of legendary (+3 ) magic items, have them being approached by a proxy of a god/devil and ask them to hand over all their magic equipment, for a war on a far away plane that decides over the fate of the mortal plane as well.
3) you should realize that as a GM the players CANNOT win an arms race against you. Players that powerful are bound to have powerful enemies - and if those decide to take care of the players, they might face down entire armies. So what exactly do you need help with? Building appropriate encounters we need to know more about the pc composition, otherwise you can just homebrew monsters as you see fit.

[Arkhios]

...I too have my suspicions about how do they accomplish such heights of AC, especially in 5th edition? More importantly, how do they do it consistently? Before someone chimes in and tells about the obscure calculations to get as high as AC 70+ or something: Yes, I'm aware of that discussion earlier. However, that discussion assumes a vacuum and a lot of maximum results with variables. I'm more interested in how do the players accomplish their AC in-game, and as I said, consistently.

[Blue Lantern]

No offence, but if your first response to an optimised party is trying to go for a TPK you should seriously consider if you really want to DM in the first place.

I may be old school, but I would try to have a talk with the party and try to reach a compromise out of game, otherwise I see all this going south very quickly.

[. Shadowblade .]

You can always use AoE attacks and spells which usually pass AC (like fireball).
The other way is to send monsters with acid attacks and blood able to melt even the best armors or weapons.

Killing heroes is bad idea and best way to make players hate you.

[Gawayne]

You're the DM, you're the one who controls how challenging the game is. If they mop the floor with level appropriate encounters simply throw stronger monsters at them, pretty simple.

Also, don't forget that you can change ANYTHING from a monsters table. You can come up with completely new monsters, so do it. The way I see it, players being OP is just a serious problem when it's just one or two players who are leagues ahead of the rest of the party. If everyone is OP then no one is OP.

[jaappleton]

Ways to remove magic items:

Rust Monsters
Nilbogs

Nilbogs just take your stuff and walk away. NO SAVING THROW. It just happens.

[JellyPooga]

Before I get into this, I want to reiterate what others have said; as a GM you should almost never be aiming for a TPK and certainly not "because the party is too OP". Yes, TPKs happen and yes, character death happens (and should happen), but outside of plot and epic/tragic scenes you shouldn't be trying to make them happen. That said, here's some suggestions;

1) Party Size : You know the old adage "never split the party"? Well...ignore it. Split this party. Eight people is a managable number, but only barely; both from a logistics point of view, actually running the game and in gameplay. It's also a convenient number that you can split into two groups of four (or one of five and one of three). With those two parties, you have a couple of options;
- A) Have two game nights a week. This may not be possible, depending on your time constraints. On the other hand; two game nights a week! YAY!
- B) Recruit a Co-GM. Maybe two if you think the number of players is going to continue to grow. Are any of your players interested in sitting in the GMs chair? Perhaps even someone that isn't currently playing? Get someone else to help you run the two parties simultaneously. If you're playing down a club or store, this shouldn't be too difficult; grab yourself a separate table and get going. If you're playing at someones house, make sure their mum/wife/significant other/housemates/whoever else lives there is ok with you occupying another room, first! If you have eight players already though, this logistical conundrum may already be solved. Not only does having a co-GM help keep the gameplay short and punchy, but you can also collaborate on plot ploints, encounters and such during the week, helping you with the legwork involved in GMing, as well as allowing you to give more spotlight time to each indvidual player. The nice thing about having a Co-GM is that you can set up parallel story-lines for the two parties, incorporating events from one table at the other and on occasion have "cross-over" games, where a player might switch tables for a session or even have a massive team-up against the BBEG that feels totally epic instead of just the usual chaos of an eight-player game.

2) Magic Items : When magic items become a problem, the soution can be found on the front cover of your Monster Manual. Beholders. Yep, the glorious, one-eyed, floating sacks of teeth and terror were practically designed for your problem. That great big Anti-Magic Field stuck to their faces pulls the plug on all the shiny gear your PCs are toting. "Oh, but they'll just get out of the AoE" you cry...oh no, I'm not talking about one Beholder, I said Beholders. Plan an entire campaign around it if you want. Invent some Beholderkin whilst you're at it; maybe some mini-Beholder dudes that your BBEG keeps in cages just for the AMF they project. Throw them in the pit and force them to fight their way to freedom through several miles of Beholder-infested tunnels. They'll soon come to learn not to rely on their precious magical gear.

Alternatively, invent some kind of magic-item sniffing magic-hound and make the PCs the prey in some kind of demonic Wild Hunt (or, you know, the regular Fey kind). They'll either work out that it's their christmas-tree-effect drawing the hunt to them and ditch it all or die trying to fight the King of Winter (or whoever).

Perhaps offer them the opportunity to do a "Deathtrap Dungeon"; a big prize for completing a staged dungeon...but no magic items allowed (it interferes with the scrying for the viewing public).

3) AC : If hitting PC's is a problem, target a different defence. Throw some Save spell/effects at them instead of trying to hit them with sticks. Poison, disease, environmental hazards, traps, social scenarios and other encounters are just as viable as any combat and can all be just as lethal. Confronting them with something that is clearly out of their league to fight (just take a look at the highest CR stuff in the MM; Ancient Dragon, Balor, Pit Fiend, Solar...use multiples if you think it's necessary) and forcing them to talk their way out of it makes all that AC completely worthless. If they decide to fight whatever it is anyway, more fool them and you get your TPK. Maybe next time they'll realise that fighting isn't the only option.

[Spiritchaser]

As long as all party members are kind of similar in power, or have strong niche skills that come up often enough, or at least have strong deductive, strategic or RP skills that keep them involved and interested, the AC isn't a problem at all. Almost no level of absolute power is. Give the players an opportunity to use their strength to shape the world or worlds. There are always challenges, debuffs, intelligent foes who can do much the same as they. Make one or two of your arch villains as PCs with the same skills.

Don't ever seek to kill the players...

Of course that's easy to say for me... I have a small group. The real problem I see is 8 players... Yikes! I wouldn't want that many...

[Sir cryosin]

So magic is your friend here spell that require save to take full or have, spells like Phantasm Force you made of love That armor that you're wearing but all the sudden that armor actually turns out to be a mimic trying to eat you you're going to spend your turn trying to get that f****** armor off, dispelled magic, anti-magic field. You can have monsters or npcs spend a action to disarm and take weapons shield and lose magic items, or just beef up your monsters.

[Specter]

Yep. Basically, you want to:

- Get rid of magic items
- Find ways to hurt players other than straight attacks
- Increase the challenge difficulty of encounters
- Split the party for 2 encounters at the same time

But NOT straight up kill the dudes.

[NNescio]

...2) Magic Items : When magic items become a problem, the soution can be found on the front cover of your Monster Manual. Beholders. Yep, the glorious, one-eyed, floating sacks of teeth and terror were practically designed for your problem. That great big Anti-Magic Field stuck to their faces pulls the plug on all the shiny gear your PCs are toting. "Oh, but they'll just get out of the AoE" you cry...oh no, I'm not talking about one Beholder, I said Beholders. Plan an entire campaign around it if you want. Invent some Beholderkin whilst you're at it; maybe some mini-Beholder dudes that your BBEG keeps in cages just for the AMF they project. Throw them in the pit and force them to fight their way to freedom through several miles of Beholder-infested tunnels. They'll soon come to learn not to rely on their precious magical gear.

Or their class features, either. Unless they happen to be one of the very few classes who don't even use an ounce of magic in 5e.

AMF encounters are okay in moderation, but an entire session or campaign filled with it is just plain ANTIFUN. Wizards (sans Bladesingers), Clerics, Druids, etc. can't do ANYTHING except whack ineffectually with their weapons without Extra Attack. 1/2 and 1/3 casters also lose a decent chunk of their class features. Heck, Monks also get severely crippled (anything that spends Ki is by definition magic, see PHB p.76).

I guess it's a good way to make players drop out of the campaign though.

[JellyPooga]

Or their class features, either. Unless they happen to be one of the very few classes who don't even use an ounce of magic in 5e.

AMF encounters are okay in moderation, but an entire session or campaign filled with it is just plain ANTIFUN. Wizards (sans Bladesingers), Clerics, Druids, etc. can't do ANYTHING except whack ineffectually with their weapons without Extra Attack. 1/2 and 1/3 casters also lose a decent chunk of their class features. Heck, Monks also get severely crippled (anything that spends Ki is by definition magic, see PHB p.76).

I guess it's a good way to make players drop out of the campaign though.

Depends on your players I guess. If they're the sort to throw out the proverbial with the bathwater, sure, you might lose players. If they enjoy the challenge of working around the limitations imposed by the scenario, on the other hand, you're in for a creative and exciting few sessions of pitting your mind against your players'.

Just because a game is focused around a creature that has a native AMF, doesn't mean that's the only creature you'll face, either; there's beholder cultists, random encounters, side-quests, Beholder Magi, Beholder-kin that don't have an AMF and more, not to mention any part of the campaign that doesn't involve murderhobo-ing your way through a dungeon. I'm not saying the entire campaign has to be in an AMF; just some of it and Beholders are an easy go-to creature to provide regular exposure to that particularly insidious form of radiation.