What to do when someone comes with a OP build

[Bannan_mantis]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

[yellowrocket]

This is an issue ive had with fellow players book diving. Looking up this combo that does this thing really well. Well that tends to limit what they can do in the bigger sense. And its worse when they try to add homebrew stuff to it. Ive pointed out how they break the math. I tend to stick with the PHB plus one. Just for simplicity sake of keeping stuff straight.

This game is really hard to break if you present players with a variety of challenges. Because that barbarian probably doesnt deal well with people. That magic user using divinations all the time has a limited ability to help against a swarm of enemies or against something they cant change the rolls for. That warlock that has a 2 mile eldritch blast, well thats about all he gets. Let them use it periodically. But in a dungeon or other cluttered environment line of sight matters unless you rule it can turn corners.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

Talk to players beforehand and figure out what kind of game they're looking for. From a recent questionnaire thread to figure out player needs:

• There are those that prefer combat vs. those that prefer roleplaying.
• There are those that want to always feel like heroes and those that like a gritty challenge.
• There are those who want complexity and those that want their games to be relaxing.
• There are those who want to do crazy stuff and those who want to keep things down-to-earth.
• There are those with experience (and like higher level stuff) and there are those without.
• There are those who are strongly attached to their characters and those that are comfortable rolling new ones.
• There are those who feel that drama and infighting adds to the experience, and those that only have fun when it's a non-issue.

Try to figure out where your table disagrees at, and set an expectation. If only one player is not making an overpowered build, try to spend a little extra attention on what he's trying to get out of the game so that he still gets the chance to stand out. If only one player is making an overpowered build, consider talking to them about making some minor changes so that you don't have to create any balance issues within the team.

Just make sure to replace Power with Versatility, so that they get something instead of feeling like less.

For example, say you have a crit-fishing Vengeance+Hexblade+Elven Accuracy Paladin, rocking a 27% crit chance at level 5. You COULD reduce the number of Short Rests the players can take in a day (so that they can only use their Hexblade Feature and Channel Divinity feature once a day), but that also punishes everyone else who might be Short Rest dependent (like, say, if you have a full warlock in the party). Or you could just completely remove his Divine Smite feature, but that'd rip a huge part of the Paladin's playstyle, considering how expensive the Spell Smite versions are.
So instead, replace his Divine Smite feature with a feature that says that the Paladin automatically knows all of the Paladin Smite Spells for the appropriate level without them counting against the Paladin's number of known spells. Sure, he lost Divine Smite and its guaranteed crit chance, but now he can cast Wrathful Smite and still have his chosen Paladin Spells. It also can't be combo'd effectively with the problematic features, because all 3 of them use Bonus Actions.


Balance against the DM isn't necessarily a big concern, but balance amidst the team is. If one player is really good, do you make the game really easy for one player, or do you make the game hard for everyone else? It's best to address this as early on as possible.

[jaappleton]

As someone that's had a few of those OP builds....

There's always a weakness. By making it OP in one area, there's flaws in others.

Yup, I can make stuff that gets 30AC no problem. But I can do exactly... jack freakin' cheese when I need to make a Wisdom saving throw to avoid Hold Person.

And sure, I can make builds that devastate entire hordes of enemies with big spells that I've jacked up to beyond oblivion.... but that's a finite resource. And the fun part about hordes? They come in waves. Make me burn through my resources.

And I can make stuff that has +19 Stealth at lv5. Cool. Yeah I'm gonna get a cool sneak attack off for devastating damage... Against one enemy. What then? I'm just a normal character, I did my cool ability. That's all I got goin' for me.

[stoutstien]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.
Party/ table balance is more important than game balance. If you have a whole table of well tuned PCs adjust accordingly and carry on. It's when you have a single player who is building for optimized efficiency while the rest are taking a more casual route that problems arise. Good communication is key.
A good thing also is damage is the easiest thing to counter as a DM.

Side note, barbarians and fighters are supposed to hit hard. It's what they do. Just toss in a few encounters that can't be solved by rolling attacks.

[Man_Over_Game]

As someone that's had a few of those OP builds....

There's always a weakness. By making it OP in one area, there's flaws in others.

Yup, I can make stuff that gets 30AC no problem. But I can do exactly... jack freakin' cheese when I need to make a Wisdom saving throw to avoid Hold Person.

And sure, I can make builds that devastate entire hordes of enemies with big spells that I've jacked up to beyond oblivion.... but that's a finite resource. And the fun part about hordes? They come in waves. Make me burn through my resources.

And I can make stuff that has +19 Stealth at lv5. Cool. Yeah I'm gonna get a cool sneak attack off for devastating damage... Against one enemy. What then? I'm just a normal character, I did my cool ability. That's all I got goin' for me.

There are a few examples where that's less true.

For example, Eldritch Knight + Abjuration Wizard deals slightly less damage than, say, a Champion Fighter, but it's so much tankier and is capable of doing so many things.

Similarly, a Paladin + Sorcerer is a very optimized choice, being able to Quicken two attacks at once, spend spell slots for smites, and there are a lot of build options you can go.

A Battlemaster with 1 level of Rogue is capable of doing so much more than that one level of Fighter would have gotten you.

There are examples of highly efficient builds that AREN'T specialized. In those cases...what then? Many times, in the worst case scenario, you're just....normal. As good as you would have been.

[Spiritchaser]

I would say that power isn’t a problem, it is relative power disparity within the party that makes things tricky, so as long as the rest of the party are also fairly strong, play will be just fine.

I would say that in 5e, the power ceiling is really not all THAT much higher than average. I’m very much inclined to let people do their best with their builds if that’s what they enjoy.

I would say that optimal builds are generally less of a problem than sub optimal builds, that is, a highly optimized build might perform meaningfully better than something average, but a sub optimal build can perform disastrously worse and can be unnecessarily tough to fix. I’m picking on sorcerer in particular here which is not weak, but which, based on my limited data, does seem to be disproportionately easy to mess up by a newer player. That said I’m sure there are examples of this from any class.

[Digimike]

I tend to enjoy when my players powergame. That's when I tend to get to flex some DM muscle and broaden my portfolio of punishment that I subject the table to.

Poison, environmental effects, exhaustion levels, crowd control, silence, disease, traps, are just a few things you can pull out if players are massively out pacing the level appropriate CR of monsters.

Conditions can wreck havoc on even the most nasty builds players can come up with.

[Callak_Remier]

I let them get a few sessions in of Being OP until everyone at the table see's the Problem. Then Plane shift the Character to the lower planes. Makes for a good way to establish an evil spell caster.

Then i role play a session with the Broken character in the Lower planes ( schedule this before the next main session)

With the outcomes being: Death, Eternal servitude,Soul reduction or their Metamorphosis into a Demon.

Plan B kill the character and reroll

[KorvinStarmast]

I tend to enjoy when my players powergame.
That's when I tend to get to flex some DM muscle and broaden my portfolio of punishment that I subject the table to.
Or challenge, rather than punishment. :smallcool:

Poison, environmental effects, exhaustion levels, crowd control, silence, disease, traps, are just a few things you can pull out if players are massively out pacing the level appropriate CR of monsters. Terrain and tactically astute monster leaders. Those are all I need to modify, but I agree with your other points.
Conditions can wreck havoc on even the most nasty builds players can come up with.
Wreak havoc, but yeah, that swamp, that raging storm ... that blizzard ...

[Demonslayer666]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

I point to my session 0 guidelines where I stated that it is not necessary, because the challenge is not set in stone. Over optimization is just met with more challenging stuff if it makes everything a cake-walk.

[deljzc]

There are ways a good DM can kind of even out the playing field of a party with one extraordinary character.

Sometimes you change the magic items available to conveniently be only for his compatriots and he can't find good ones that match his setup. Sometimes you just target him more often in combat. Or he/she happens to be the trap victim.

I'm not saying cheat or make it obvious (that can leave a very bad taste in a players mouth) but there are minor things you can do to balance out the party with one another.

[suplee215]

Multiple ways. The most direct is to target saves. Builds that can kill a dragon usually have bad Wisdom saves for the example given. Also a barbarian has trouble reaching the dragon as one of them lack wings. Ultimately though a lot of OP builds arent as OP as you think. They can do something impressive but they can't doeverything. Build encounters around that can help balance. Also in general knowing what type of players you have is the key to dming.

[Yakmala]

For my homebrew runs this isn't really a problem. I design my campaign sessions around the player character's backgrounds and mechanics to make certain what ever challenges they face are well suited to them.

For the public AL games I run however, this has been and continues to be a recurring issue. Not all AL players are power gamers, but the ones who are take it to the extreme and often have their characters ridiculously outfitted in magical items due to cherry picking which modules to play and using DM rewards. This is further compounded by the rules of AL, which allow a wide spread levels to be seated at the same table. So, you can have a bunch of level 5's who just got their first low level uncommon magic item seated next to optimized level 10's running around with multiple rare to legendary items.

I have a number of ways to deal with this, depending on how extreme the situation is.

1: Simply ask the players to hold back for the sake of the party. A number of players are cool with this. Sometimes we'll agree to certain things in advance, such as not using certain spells or magic items unless the party is likely to wipe without it, at which point I'll give the player a knowing nod and they are free to cut loose.

2: Ask to look over the character sheet and take note of their weaknesses. Everyone's got one. Optimized characters usually have dump stats that can be exploited. The Bladesinger with the 28 AC, a cloak of displacement and mirror images might only have an 8 Charisma. Guess who's getting banished first?

3: I've only had to do this a few times, and usually only for characters I've already seen disrupt a session, but sometimes you just have to ask the player to use a different character. What I'll usually tell the players in such cases is that, unfortunately, nothing in the adventure I was planning to run was designed to be remotely challenging to a character of their power level, and were I to scale the encounters to a point where it would be challenging to them, the rest of the characters in the party would likely be one hit KO'd by the bad guys. Most reasonable players will understand this. It's not like they are oblivious to the power level of their character. If they continue to demand a seat at the table then you politely refuse and quietly be thankful that you dodged a bullet.

[Man_Over_Game]

For my homebrew runs this isn't really a problem. I design my campaign sessions around the player character's backgrounds and mechanics to make certain what ever challenges they face are well suited to them.

For the public AL games I run however, this has been and continues to be a recurring issue. Not all AL players are power gamers, but the ones who are take it to the extreme and often have their characters ridiculously outfitted in magical items due to cherry picking which modules to play and using DM rewards. This is further compounded by the rules of AL, which allow a wide spread levels to be seated at the same table. So, you can have a bunch of level 5's who just got their first low level uncommon magic item seated next to optimized level 10's running around with multiple rare to legendary items.

I have a number of ways to deal with this, depending on how extreme the situation is.

1: Simply ask the players to hold back for the sake of the party. A number of players are cool with this. Sometimes we'll agree to certain things in advance, such as not using certain spells or magic items unless the party is likely to wipe without it, at which point I'll give the player a knowing nod and they are free to cut loose.

2: Ask to look over the character sheet and take note of their weaknesses. Everyone's got one. Optimized characters usually have dump stats that can be exploited. The Bladesinger with the 28 AC, a cloak of displacement and mirror images might only have an 8 Charisma. Guess who's getting banished first?

3: I've only had to do this a few times, and usually only for characters I've already seen disrupt a session, but sometimes you just have to ask the player to use a different character. What I'll usually tell the players in such cases is that, unfortunately, nothing in the adventure I was planning to run was designed to be remotely challenging to a character of their power level, and were I to scale the encounters to a point where it would be challenging to them, the rest of the characters in the party would likely be one hit KO'd by the bad guys. Most reasonable players will understand this. It's not like they are oblivious to the power level of their character. If they continue to demand a seat at the table then you politely refuse and quietly be thankful that you dodged a bullet.

What would you say the level brackets should be?

My estimation is:

1-4, 5-8, 9-13, 14-17, 18-20, with a side rule that states you can be 1 level higher than the recommendation, but only if you have progress in the module in question.

[Yakmala]

What would you say the level brackets should be?

My estimation is:

1-4, 5-8, 9-13, 14-17, 18-20, with a side rule that states you can be 1 level higher than the recommendation, but only if you have progress in the module in question.

Those are a good range of numbers. In many cases, it comes down to when certain classes get certain features. For example. 5th level is huge for casters because they get their first 3rd level spells. So a tier gap between 4th and 5th makes perfect sense. Having five tiers would go a long way towards reducing the disparities in character level, but I understand why this is never going to happen in AL. It would mean having to have five tiers of modules instead of four (as well as re-jiggering the tier range for older modules) and also would require more dedicated DM's per game shop to cover all the tiers of participants.

With one-shot AL modules, I usually just roll with it.


Where it gets trickier is with hardcover campaigns. In AL, a character can exceed the recommended level maximum for the hardcover if they are a recurring character in that hardcover. If all the characters in the hardcover campaign were leveling up together, this wouldn't be an issue. But AL allows characters in hardcover campaigns to participate in other one shot modules outside of the campaign which can lead to some of your regulars out-leveling the others by a considerable margin. And since it's a hardcover, they are not automatically kicked up to the next tier when they pass certain thresholds.

The "house rule" I've used at my table is that characters can be no more than two levels higher than the average player level of the rest of the party. This discourages regulars from out-leveling the rest of the party and also gives me a consistent and fair way to turn away high level drop-ins [Example: AL might state a particular Hardcover is for character levels 1-10, but if you just started running a public AL campaign and most of your regular players are levels 2-3 but you have an empty seat one particular evening, you don't want a drop-in that's a well geared level 10].

[Keravath]

Honestly, the DM is in charge of the game so there really isn't such a thing as an "OP character".

There are specialized characters, there are ones that have been built to be very good at one thing, typically doing damage ... the best example I know being a tier 3 GWM/PAM barbarian. With reckless attack, a magical weapon to help break bounded accuracy, maybe a companion casting haste or bless (or both) ... they will dish out huge amounts of melee damage.

Their contribution to ranged combat pretty much sucks.

I played a bard 10/warlock 2 in a party of 2 GWM barbarians (level 15 and level 13), a monk, and a druid. The encounter involved a number of creatures in difficult terrain and a dragon who took full advantage of their breath weapon and ability to fly. The combat opened with only the dragon on the field and it was hilarious to watch the barbarians pull out bows and try to hit the dragon with +2 dex mods. Then the dragon breathed on them. Then the other creatures in the swamp had their initiative and popped up out of the stagnant water. Then the bard cast wall of force to trap the dragon and the barbarians started slowing moving through the swamp trying to get in range of the creatures on the ground. When they did get in range the damage was great but honestly, without the bard in the party to lock down the dragon, the barbarians would have been TPKd.

Over specialization means that characters are incapable of dealing with certain threats. This means that eventually the character will die off unless there are some party members who can shore up their weaknesses. So although the barbarians were certainly powerful at some things they really weren't "OP" since there are LOTS of things that they weren't good at (I don't think I need to mention that their social skills were atrocious too ... ). There was only one thing that they could do well - melee damage - and if a DM has a campaign which can be destroyed by a character being particularly good at melee damage then they need to rethink the campaign a bit.

On the other hand, my bard was good at a lot of things except they were terrible at doing melee damage :).

-----------------

Finally, the only problem I see with optimization has nothing to do with the character the player brings or the DM. It has to do with other players, particularly newer ones, who are either learning the game or want to play a less optimized character for role playing reasons. In this case, the player with the optimized character can make the less experience player feel bad for not doing as much damage. This is the only reason I can see for getting a player to modify a build - making the game fun for everyone - and usually all this takes is helping out the less experienced player and a bit of tact from the optimizer.

[GlenSmash!]

The best way I can handle it is to make sure I have scenarios that don't only rely on one side reducing the other side to 0 hp.

[Man_Over_Game]

Those are a good range of numbers. In many cases, it comes down to when certain classes get certain features. For example. 5th level is huge for casters because they get their first 3rd level spells. So a tier gap between 4th and 5th makes perfect sense. Having five tiers would go a long way towards reducing the disparities in character level, but I understand why this is never going to happen in AL. It would mean having to have five tiers of modules instead of four (as well as re-jiggering the tier range for older modules) and also would require more dedicated DM's per game shop to cover all the tiers of participants.

With one-shot AL modules, I usually just roll with it.


Where it gets trickier is with hardcover campaigns. In AL, a character can exceed the recommended level maximum for the hardcover if they are a recurring character in that hardcover. If all the characters in the hardcover campaign were leveling up together, this wouldn't be an issue. But AL allows characters in hardcover campaigns to participate in other one shot modules outside of the campaign which can lead to some of your regulars out-leveling the others by a considerable margin. And since it's a hardcover, they are not automatically kicked up to the next tier when they pass certain thresholds.

The "house rule" I've used at my table is that characters can be no more than two levels higher than the average player level of the rest of the party. This discourages regulars from out-leveling the rest of the party and also gives me a consistent and fair way to turn away high level drop-ins [Example: AL might state a particular Hardcover is for character levels 1-10, but if you just started running a public AL campaign and most of your regular players are levels 2-3 but you have an empty seat one particular evening, you don't want a drop-in that's a well geared level 10].

Hmm...

1-4
5-9
10-15
16-20

Basically just shrink Tier 1 (where the power difference is huge), expand Tier 3 (where the power difference is small), and keep Tiers 2 and 4 roughly the same. You want to expand the higher level tiers when you can, so that more players can randomly join in. You'll always have new groups that are easy to fill, but you'll have a lack of mid-high level groups with enough players to run a module with. By shifting Tier 2 to level 5, they'll be more consistently filled, and Tier 3 will be more easily filled just by expanding the level range (when there's a distinct lack of game-changing abilities between levels 10-15). Tier 4 will always be something you have to especially organize, either as a special event or with a group of friends, and expanding it any more than 5 levels will create a massive power disparity at the table.

[Waterdeep Merch]

So long as your sessions have enough variety to them, it really shouldn't be a problem. If that tricked out barbarian can one-shot the red dragon, good for him- let him. Of course, I'm guessing they didn't also build to deal with all of the traps and minions that led up to it, or the wilderness survival elements that harassed them on the way to the lair, or the RP encounters that got them the quest in the first place.

So they get to really shine for the one thing they built for, but then they're dead weight busy building a dice stack and loudly sighing whenever the other 70% of the game is occurring. Even wizards with their much-vaunted flexibility can only be but so OP at everything.

[Quietus]

Hmm...

1-4
5-9
10-15
16-20

Basically just shrink Tier 1 (where the power difference is huge), expand Tier 3 (where the power difference is small), and keep Tiers 2 and 4 roughly the same. You want to expand the higher level tiers when you can, so that more players can randomly join in. You'll always have new groups that are easy to fill, but you'll have a lack of mid-high level groups with enough players to run a module with. By shifting Tier 2 to level 5, they'll be more consistently filled, and Tier 3 will be more easily filled just by expanding the level range (when there's a distinct lack of game-changing abilities between levels 10-15). Tier 4 will always be something you have to especially organize, either as a special event or with a group of friends, and expanding it any more than 5 levels will create a massive power disparity at the table.

Adventurer's League tiers are very close to that.

1-4
5-10
11-16
17-20

What you've done makes sense, pulling tier 2 one level shorter and pushing that extra space up to tier 4. I have no idea how many tier 4 tables are out there, but I imagine opening them to level 16 characters would be fine. Might have to re-do some of the treasure points and such though.

As to what I do when someone shows up with an OP build - I explain to them why it isn't fitting, and ask them to bring something else. I did this in a 3.5 game when I was intending to use a lot of giants and other things, which all had low or middling Wisdom. The players had no idea about this of course, but one of them showed up with a Fear-based character with crazy high DCs. They were specced to do one thing, and do it extremely well, but it would have made every encounter either "I use fear and win", or "These are immune to me" for this character. I explained that to them, and they came back with something else equally optimized, but not quite so hardcore one trick pony. No hard feelings, just an honest playerDM-to-player conversation of "Hey, your character completely negates 90% of everything. It's really cool and all, but could you try something different?"

[Damon_Tor]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

It's okay if there's a PC that feels like Superman. Everyone should get to feel like what they want to feel like. The Barbarian wants to feel like a one-man army tearing through the opposition, that's fine. What do the other guys want to feel like? If they ALL want to feel like they can solo an army, well then I guess you've got to provide each of them an army to fight.

[Keravath]

Adventurer's League tiers are very close to that.

1-4
5-10
11-16
17-20

What you've done makes sense, pulling tier 2 one level shorter and pushing that extra space up to tier 4. I have no idea how many tier 4 tables are out there, but I imagine opening them to level 16 characters would be fine. Might have to re-do some of the treasure points and such though.

As to what I do when someone shows up with an OP build - I explain to them why it isn't fitting, and ask them to bring something else. I did this in a 3.5 game when I was intending to use a lot of giants and other things, which all had low or middling Wisdom. The players had no idea about this of course, but one of them showed up with a Fear-based character with crazy high DCs. They were specced to do one thing, and do it extremely well, but it would have made every encounter either "I use fear and win", or "These are immune to me" for this character. I explained that to them, and they came back with something else equally optimized, but not quite so hardcore one trick pony. No hard feelings, just an honest playerDM-to-player conversation of "Hey, your character completely negates 90% of everything. It's really cool and all, but could you try something different?"

17th level corresponds to the power bump associated with 9th level spells, cantrips scaling up to 4 times damage, 5th level spells for rangers and paladins, increase of proficiency to +6, and other similar boosts for most classes (monk martial arts die to d10, monk quivering palm, two action surges for fighters, indomitable 3 uses). So, no, level 16 is actually a fair bit different from level 17 and a fair bit weaker. There are distinct power bumps at 5, 11, and 17 which is why the tier splits are put at these levels.

[Sigreid]

I've not had it be a problem provided everyone in the party has their thing that they can do better than anyone else and they get the chance to do their thing regularly enough.

Fortunately, the group I play with usually talks a bit about their characters before making them so everyone works out together how to make sure everyone gets their thing. Current high level party we have an Arcane Archer, his thing is ranged single target damage. and he's awesome at it. We have a Kensi Monk/Ranger, he's actually a heck of a tank and single target melee damage. We have a life cleric who keeps everyone in one piece while also being an outstanding part of the wall. Finally, we have a evoker wizard who does an excellent job of ensuring the other three only need concern themselves with the main target. And that's just in combat. There's also very little skill and motivational overlap so everyone gets to be The Guy several times per session. It doesn't matter that they can't keep up with each other in each other's specialties since they all have areas where the others can't keep up with them.

[Pex]

Devil's advocate.

Maybe the character isn't overpowered but rather the other characters are too weak in comparison and need a better build to get what was intended.

Maybe the character isn't overpowered but rather stronger than the DM's tolerance level of how powerful a PC should be or not realizing the power the character has is the whole point feature of how the game works.

[Kane0]

I let them have their fun, assuming it isn't impacting the others at the table. They've found something that I wasn't aware of, and I make a note to address it next time.

If we're talking about that next time, I provide a challenge that doesn't fall within their specialty and adjust problem rules as necessary between games.

I try not to get bothered by PCs dealing 'too much damage' or having 'too much health'. Those are just numbers and they can be adjusted later.

[Mercurias]

When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

Some of it depends a bit on the situation.

My friend is starting up a story/roleplay focused campaign at level 9 with myself and some other friends of hers. There isn’t anyone I know of playing a character that can heal or tank in the group so far, and I want everyone to live long enough to really get into the story and characters, so I rolled up a melee Arcana Cleric using a build of LudicSavant’s (4th build in the first post of the build thread in his sig).

I let the DM know ahead of time that I was playing a pretty strong character, why I was playing it, and that I plan on making sure everybody shares the spotlight and has a chance to contribute both in and out of combat. She told me that it was completely fine, so long as I understood that balance was important to her. If my Cleric ends up being TOO powerful, he may end up with a shortage of magical items to compensate.

[Wizard_Lizard]

give them puzzles.

[Porcupinata]

I don't play in AL - which seems to be powergamer playground.

My group don't use multiclassing or variant humans, and we use standard array rather than point buy. Those in themselves cut out around 90% of "OP builds" and keep everyone reasonably balanced with each other.

Sure, there are a few weird rule combos or spell interpretations that can still be silly, but we're generally happy to house-rule or house-interpret them. I should point out that this is something we agree on as a group, not something I hand down from on high as the DM.

So if someone new did join the group and wanted to exploit one of those combos or loose interpretations, the rest of the group would probably agree that it's something that doesn't work like that in our campaign. I'd hope that the new player would then be reasonable about it, but if they felt aggrieved and kicked up a fuss then we'd probably stop playing with them.

[Mitsu]

Multiple ways. The most direct is to target saves. Builds that can kill a dragon usually have bad Wisdom saves for the example given.

Depends. Optimized Sword n Shield Vengeace Divine Soul Sorcadin has high saves, high spell DC, super high nova, high sustain dmg when needed in fight, AOE damage, single target damage, range damage, high AC, +2d4 to save, damage mitigation, advantage on demand, teleports, high charisma skill checks, counter spell etc.

Same is with optimized GWM Devotion Paladin build. High sustain damage, high accuracy, high saves. He lacks range option, but nothing that 3 levels of Hexblade won't solve, giving him also SAD, advantage on demand and he is immune to charm spells.

Some powerbuilds like Elven Samurai/Gloom Stalker with Long Bow are hard to counter cause they can snipe enemies beyond most spells/effects range and have high initiatives + have free prof in WIS saves. Powerbuilds like Battlemaster Fighter with Crossbow Expert takes RES (WIS) at some point and has no penalty in melee range. Both have high stealth rolls and can dip 1 Rogue to get double prof.

Optimized Moon Druids are so hard to kill that you will more likely TPK everyone before you burn through all their HP + Healing in combat. Plus they spam conjure animals when needed, giving them action economy advantage + more extra HP on battlefield.

There are a lot of builds that can barely have any weakness or have ways to counter this weaknesses.

The problem is not to challange those builds, it can be done, but challange them and not killing other party memebers at the same time. If rest of the party is "casual" and one is hardcore powerbuilder- that is the real problem.

[Laserlight]

Generally the player who brings an OP build likes the "character construction" game and has other ideas on tap. Suggest he roll a support character. Nobody ever said "Bob, your character is OP, you make the rest of us look too awesome, knock it off."

[deljzc]

Talk to players beforehand and figure out what kind of game they're looking for. From a recent questionnaire thread to figure out player needs:

• There are those that prefer combat vs. those that prefer roleplaying.
• There are those that want to always feel like heroes and those that like a gritty challenge.
• There are those who want complexity and those that want their games to be relaxing.
• There are those who want to do crazy stuff and those who want to keep things down-to-earth.
• There are those with experience (and like higher level stuff) and there are those without.
• There are those who are strongly attached to their characters and those that are comfortable rolling new ones.
• There are those who feel that drama and infighting adds to the experience, and those that only have fun when it's a non-issue.

Try to figure out where your table disagrees at, and set an expectation. If only one player is not making an overpowered build, try to spend a little extra attention on what he's trying to get out of the game so that he still gets the chance to stand out. If only one player is making an overpowered build, consider talking to them about making some minor changes so that you don't have to create any balance issues within the team.

Just make sure to replace Power with Versatility, so that they get something instead of feeling like less.

For example, say you have a crit-fishing Vengeance+Hexblade+Elven Accuracy Paladin, rocking a 27% crit chance at level 5. You COULD reduce the number of Short Rests the players can take in a day (so that they can only use their Hexblade Feature and Channel Divinity feature once a day), but that also punishes everyone else who might be Short Rest dependent (like, say, if you have a full warlock in the party). Or you could just completely remove his Divine Smite feature, but that'd rip a huge part of the Paladin's playstyle, considering how expensive the Spell Smite versions are.
So instead, replace his Divine Smite feature with a feature that says that the Paladin automatically knows all of the Paladin Smite Spells for the appropriate level without them counting against the Paladin's number of known spells. Sure, he lost Divine Smite and its guaranteed crit chance, but now he can cast Wrathful Smite and still have his chosen Paladin Spells. It also can't be combo'd effectively with the problematic features, because all 3 of them use Bonus Actions.


Balance against the DM isn't necessarily a big concern, but balance amidst the team is. If one player is really good, do you make the game really easy for one player, or do you make the game hard for everyone else? It's best to address this as early on as possible.

I'm a big believer that before any DM starts a campaign with players that he hand out a "blind survey" of questions just like above to hash out and get feedback on what the players want/expect. I've even added questions like how much silliness is acceptable (i.e. Monty Python humor is what I call it). You'd be surprised how wide a range (I have them all give a range of 1 to 10 on my questions) I get on that question and how silliness at the table can really piss some players off.

It's just so smart to get feedback early so you can see if there is any potential for conflict and misinterpretation. Once you get the questions done, it literally takes 5-10 minutes to fill it out by the players but is invaluable to how you run the table.

[Pex]

The problem is not to challange those builds, it can be done, but challange them and not killing other party memebers at the same time. If rest of the party is "casual" and one is hardcore powerbuilder- that is the real problem.

Ok, but the problem is the existence of the disparity not that the hardcore powerbuilder exists. I can acknowledge it's possible the problem is the powerbuilder for a particular campaign. I'd only object to any assumption it must be and only is his fault always.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ok, but the problem is the existence of the disparity not that the hardcore powerbuilder exists. I can acknowledge it's possible the problem is the powerbuilder for a particular campaign. I'd only object to any assumption it must be and only is his fault always.

It might not be intentional, he might have all the right intentions trying to be strong to support the team, but that doesn't make it less of a problem.

As long as the focus is "team balance" rather than "punishment", I don't think there's too many wrong answers. Even if it means changing a feature to be more in-line with the other players. I would just suggest making it as little of a "punishment" as possible. Like maybe he loses one key damage feature, but instead gets several ritual-esc abilities, some skills, or a defensive trait to compensate.

Or, you can do it how Exalted does it: The more you suck, the more experience you get. So the power gamer might be strong, but doesn't get any stronger for a while (because he has no reason to). Once his teammates start to outshine him (because of their 2+ levels over his), he starts to gain ground back. A self balancing system that slows down the selfish and supports the supportive.

[Sparky McDibben]

That's an interesting point, MoG - what about XP for failing? Like, you get extra experience for dropping to zero, or for failing a key save, or for really leaning into the RP of a charmed condition. That would help provide mechanical support for the Exalted-style idea. Plus, you've incentivized the other players to take more risks, understanding that there are rewards aside from looking like a jackass.

[Man_Over_Game]

That's an interesting point, MoG - what about XP for failing? Like, you get extra experience for dropping to zero, or for failing a key save, or for really leaning into the RP of a charmed condition. That would help provide mechanical support for the Exalted-style idea. Plus, you've incentivized the other players to take more risks, understanding that there are rewards aside from looking like a jackass.

The problem with strict, mechanical justifications is that things like "death" aren't always representative of the associated player's failure.

For example, the Wizard died. Maybe it was the Wizard's fault, but more likely it's because the Fighter decided to focus on killing the flying enemy and let all the Kobolds with Pack Tactics focus on the Wizard. Or now you get Leeroy Jenkins players who go and kill themselves at the expense of the team in order to "earn" bonus experience.

I'd honestly just do it exactly how Exalted does it:

You earn up to 90% more experience for the session depending on:

How negative or dramatic your narrative was, and how it kept you from succeeding.
How much you helped others succeed instead of yourself.


How I'd do it is just keep track of a tally for each character behind my screen, jotting down a few notes as to why each chunk of 10% EXP is being rewarded.

"Grog, you punched the merchant for being cheeky, and everyone yelled at you for it. You also threw your table at the wizard despite the fact that it was granting you cover. Your recklessness is creating conflict of its own, so you get 20% more experience. Ahlsa, you did an excellent job of trying to keep Grog out of trouble, so you get 30%. Everyone else, great job for killing that Wizard!"

This way, you can have showoffs who are strong, and the highest level people on the team are the ones not stealing the spotlight. It's always within the DM's control, and the focus is either on helping the team, or using your narrative in a dramatic way. Not "I want bonus experience, better go be stupid again".

[Daithi]

I have had an OP character or two, and my DMs favorite method of dealing with the situation was to kill me. :smallmad:

[Kyutaru]

DM: That's a very lovely optimized character you got there.

Player: Thanks! I worked on it all year long, trying every possible combo, hunting every piece of cheese from all across the internet.

DM: Yeah it shows. Hey, what do you think of my lovely optimized monster?

[Zuras]

Hmm...

1-4
5-9
10-15
16-20

Basically just shrink Tier 1 (where the power difference is huge), expand Tier 3 (where the power difference is small), and keep Tiers 2 and 4 roughly the same. You want to expand the higher level tiers when you can, so that more players can randomly join in. You'll always have new groups that are easy to fill, but you'll have a lack of mid-high level groups with enough players to run a module with. By shifting Tier 2 to level 5, they'll be more consistently filled, and Tier 3 will be more easily filled just by expanding the level range (when there's a distinct lack of game-changing abilities between levels 10-15). Tier 4 will always be something you have to especially organize, either as a special event or with a group of friends, and expanding it any more than 5 levels will create a massive power disparity at the table.

In practice, the biggest issue is when you have a 1st level PC in with an APL (average party level) of 3-4, or 5th level PCs in a tier 2 group at 8th or higher.

First level PCs are so fragile you almost have to avoid attacking them if you want them to stay conscious when you are running threats appropriate for 4th level characters. Works OK with an archer, but the 1st level Barbarian is either going to play out of character or die.

Tier 2 is slightly less problematic, but you still have major issues with AoEs. One of my first Tier 2 AL experiences was as a 5th level Cleric in an APL 8 party. I spent several fights unconscious after being KOed by a single cone of cold. So many Mages in those modules!

[Pex]

It might not be intentional, he might have all the right intentions trying to be strong to support the team, but that doesn't make it less of a problem.

As long as the focus is "team balance" rather than "punishment", I don't think there's too many wrong answers. Even if it means changing a feature to be more in-line with the other players. I would just suggest making it as little of a "punishment" as possible. Like maybe he loses one key damage feature, but instead gets several ritual-esc abilities, some skills, or a defensive trait to compensate.

Or, you can do it how Exalted does it: The more you suck, the more experience you get. So the power gamer might be strong, but doesn't get any stronger for a while (because he has no reason to). Once his teammates start to outshine him (because of their 2+ levels over his), he starts to gain ground back. A self balancing system that slows down the selfish and supports the supportive.

That's where your own bias comes in. Why is the player "selfish" for making a strong character? The game choosing to use XP awards to balance disparity is fine. The weaker characters get stronger until such time the stronger character is weaker, so it's his turn to get more XP until stronger and the cycle repeats. Labeling him "selfish" for being strong in the first place connotates a wrongness how dare he he does not deserve.

[2D8HP]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century...


No, I can't say that I have.

If I um..

...wanted to avoid making such an awesome inappropriate build (that's the ticket!) build, what specifically should I not do?


-asking for a friend

[Mortis_Elrod]

There's nothing wrong with powerful characters inherently. Many people enjoy that power fantasy feeling, others don't. Usually this should be addressed before anybody makes a character.

But on the off hand it isn't, the DM's job is not to be the Nerf Modulus Regulator™©® (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EFpsOWw8px8/maxresdefault.jpg)

DM's job is to find out if its actually an issue or if he's now allowed to step his game up. I've yet to see a build that is playable from level 1 and up that is so overpowered it requires a DM to do anything more than:

add more encounters
add puzzles
add time crunch
add objectives that can't be solved with damage
add objectives that need to be resolved via decent roleplay
or read the rules.

[Skylivedk]

I barely ever nerf anything.

My few exceptions include:
- Restrict extra attack for druids to level five (and compensate by making wild shape better for moon druids between 6 and 11).
- looking into changing Hexblade to make level 1 a less powerful dip (probably removing it and making a lot of it pact of blade features/invocations)

Instead I buff what I and my group perceive to be weak. Dual wield for Extra Attack classes ie

[SanguisAevum]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

I let them play the character, and use it as a way to improve my ability to DM from the experience of it.
It's a game... everyone should be having fun.
Plus... i trust the designers.. i have yet to really come across anything in the official rules that i thought needed changing.
(For reference, i've been DMing DnD for 30 years, and have seen my fair share of "OP" builds)

[Willie the Duck]

I think we've all seen those builds, the ones where a barbarian can single handedly deal enough damage to kill a red dragon or one where a fighter does the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in damage while using a weapon from the 12th century. Overall there's quite a few ways to make OP and powerful builds in 5e which I have often had to step in for as a DM which had me thinking. When it comes to players coming in with the most OP and optimised character in the world what do you do? I'm wondering just to see what people's feelings are on these cases.

It's always going to be context dependent, and the primary goal is to let everyone have fun. There's no right or wrong way to play a friggin' elfgame, except where it makes others not have fun. If I say, 'everyone make an __th level character, and give them a +1 weapon or armor of your choice,' and one person makes a halfling barbarian named 'Belkar Jr.' who dual wields knives (clear flavor character), another picks a fairly reasonable battlemaster fighter with even Str and Dex and defensive fighting style (generalist, not weak in any way but certainly not what an optimizer would probably do), and the third makes a one-handed quarterstaff with shield, PAM, and dueling fighting style half elven hexblade-dipping sorcadin (or other similar thing), they are the odd one out, and yes I'm going to ask them to play an alternate character ('you did bring an alternate character, right?'). If everyone wants to play optimization bingo, I have no problem with that, either. Honestly, the party playing Belkar II and the generalist probably will have a better time of it, because...


I would say that power isn’t a problem, it is relative power disparity within the party that makes things tricky, so as long as the rest of the party are also fairly strong, play will be just fine.

I point to my session 0 guidelines where I stated that it is not necessary, because the challenge is not set in stone. Over optimization is just met with more challenging stuff if it makes everything a cake-walk.

While overall, I agree, more powerful party plus more powerful challenge doesn't play quite the same as less powerful party plus less powerful challenge. The stakes are higher, and any given mistake (and there will always be a mistake) or bad roll can have greater consequence. I've seen significantly more character deaths (and definitely more TPKs) in high-powered play that low-powered, to a pretty hefty margin (like two and a half times as many, or something like that).

[Man_Over_Game]

No, I can't say that I have.

If I um..

...wanted to avoid making such an awesome inappropriate build (that's the ticket!) build, what specifically should I not do?


-asking for a friend

Maybe 1 Hexblade, Zealot Barbarian X build?

Cast AoA and Hexblade's Curse the target on turn one, then Rage and start Reckless Attacking with something like Polearm Master. With an enhanced crit range (5% to 10%), and the fact that Advantage nearly doubles your crit chance (10% to 19%), you have a 1/5 chance of critting with your weapon damage, adding your Barbarian critical, and doubling your dice Zealot damage.

[MaXenzie]

My ruling's pretty simple. If you go out of your way to make a character that isn't optimized, you have no right to complain when someone else does. If you wanted to deal a lot of damage, make a build that does that, and don't be angry when someone scores higher numbers than you.

[stoutstien]

My ruling's pretty simple. If you go out of your way to make a character that isn't optimized, you have no right to complain when someone else does. If you wanted to deal a lot of damage, make a build that does that, and don't be angry when someone scores higher numbers than you.

*DM only hands out one magical pole arm and laughs maniacally*

[Guy Lombard-O]

Generally the player who brings an OP build likes the "character construction" game and has other ideas on tap. Suggest he roll a support character. Nobody ever said "Bob, your character is OP, you make the rest of us look too awesome, knock it off."

Agreed. Just because your build might be stronger than some, it's really how you play it. I have an ancients paladin/hexblade I run in a campaign. He's certainly tough (high Res-Con, high Cha) and can take a hit pretty well. But he's usually running a Bless and focusing on protecting the group's casters. Meanwhile, the Bless-buffed Zealot GWM barbarian is trashing our foes, while the casters do BC, heals and debuffs.

The DM commented that my PC is hard to hurt (or break his spell concentration). But my damage output doesn't hold a candle to the barbarian, and nobody else in the group is complaining about my presence adding 6-9 to their concentration checks while they shelter under my umbrella, or when I use LoH. Played differently, I'm sure I could annoy the other players with the build, but even my "cheesy" build is clearly outclassed by another player's straight barb build.

My DM can easily adjust the challenges to deal with my (and I guess the barb player's) builds and the overall party strength. But targeting the PCs that are "strong" (primarily, just in combat) will undoubtedly feel like exactly that to the players who run them. I could easily see that approach creating a much more toxic atmosphere in a group than simply having stronger or weaker PCs (especially as these things vary level to level where multiclass builds are involved).

[Man_Over_Game]

That's where your own bias comes in. Why is the player "selfish" for making a strong character? The game choosing to use XP awards to balance disparity is fine. The weaker characters get stronger until such time the stronger character is weaker, so it's his turn to get more XP until stronger and the cycle repeats. Labeling him "selfish" for being strong in the first place connotates a wrongness how dare he he does not deserve.

Note that the mechanics that were being implied didn't really have anything to do with character strength (and when they did, I didn't support them), but rather they focused on how negatively your RP impacted yourself OR how you supported your team.

For example, consider the Cleric. They have Medium-Heavy armor, often have martial proficiencies. Have a full casting spell list. Have multiple features that are often relevant for each combat. Have some of the most powerful spells in the entire game (Bless, Spiritual Weapon, Guardian Spirits), have a 1d8 HP (highest amongst the Full Casters), have support for both spellcasting AND weapon attacking. For most characters, this would be WAAYYY too much.

So...what makes them balanced? It's that the majority of their spell list is focused around aiding allies instead of themselves. They are terrible at dealing direct damage and stealing the spotlight with the exception of very few spells. As a result, they actually help OTHERS succeed, despite having a plethora of tools to do it themselves. They ARE overpowered, but they shed that overpowered-ness to the rest of the team.

It has nothing to do with how powerful you are. It has everything to do with how powerful you are compared to the rest of your team. So a Cleric might be OP, and the Vengeance Paladin might be OP, but the difference is, the Paladin is more likely to be considered "selfish" (because of the lack of methods to support a team, focusing the majority of its playstyle on itself).

When I mean "Selfish", I mean "Only planning on making yourself succeed".

[Pex]

Note that the mechanics that were being implied didn't really have anything to do with character strength (and when they did, I didn't support them), but rather they focused on how negatively your RP impacted yourself OR how you supported your team.

For example, consider the Cleric. They have Medium-Heavy armor, often have martial proficiencies. Have a full casting spell list. Have multiple features that are often relevant for each combat. Have some of the most powerful spells in the entire game (Bless, Spiritual Weapon, Guardian Spirits), have a 1d8 HP (highest amongst the Full Casters), have support for both spellcasting AND weapon attacking. For most characters, this would be WAAYYY too much.

So...what makes them balanced? It's that the majority of their spell list is focused around aiding allies instead of themselves. They are terrible at dealing direct damage and stealing the spotlight with the exception of very few spells. As a result, they actually help OTHERS succeed, despite having a plethora of tools to do it themselves. They ARE overpowered, but they shed that overpowered-ness to the rest of the team.

It has nothing to do with how powerful you are. It has everything to do with how powerful you are compared to the rest of your team. So a Cleric might be OP, and the Vengeance Paladin might be OP, but the difference is, the Paladin is more likely to be considered "selfish" (because of the lack of methods to support a team, focusing the majority of its playstyle on itself).

When I mean "Selfish", I mean "Only planning on making yourself succeed".

Then you're condemning the Striker character to coin a 4E term. You condemn the Eldritch Blast happy warlock, the Great Weapon Master barbarian, the smiting paladin, the blaster Sorcerer, etc. Game mechanics is not team play. Some game mechanics of some classes help in that regard, but that's not the Superior Way to play. Team play is about the players, not the characters. I'm just as happy for the paladin to go smite crazy on the demon while I do my own thing as I am the bard who gives me Inspiration when I need to make an important ability check.

[NatureKing]

Play the game your players want to play. If the players are wanting to run powerful builds, let them run powerful builds. Give them opportunities to use powerful builds.

If there is anyone who is an exception to the demographic of the game as a whole (be that one player who over optimises, one player who under optimises, players wanting to do stuff that none of the other players are interested in, or a DM wanting to the players to listen to a political trade agreement story, rather than slaughter their way through a monster filled dungeon, or Dm's adding 'morally grey' edgey stuff into a relaxing game dedicated to blowing people up in a myriad of gore explosions), they need to either get on board or find a new game.

If you were playing video games, sometimes you want the Witcher, Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Diablo, Darksiders, or Borderlands. Sometimes you want the Council of Elrond, other times, want the Mine's of Moria. If you want to play one and and not the other. You'd turn off the game you didn't want to play. Why should dnd be different?

[Innocent_bystan]

I used to DM a lot for power gamers in the 3.5 era, which had the uber-build of the week problem.

The solution I used was rather simple: don't increase the difficulty per enemy, rather increase the amount of enemies. And assign a disproportionate amount of enemies to the uber-build. After all, the blender of death draws a lot of attention. They will get slaughtered. That's their job. Be sure to be dramatic about it.

In 5e this problem still exists, more or less, but the problem is less pronounced. The DPR difference is a factor 2 instead of factor 10. And a lot of problems disappear when you ruthlessly enforce the standard adventuring day: 6-8 encounters, 2 short rests per long rest. This because a lot of the OP builds rely on limited resources. A sorcadin without spells is just a crappy fighter.

[belfastbiker]

Trust the designers. Going around removing, changing or restricting abilities in the game is lazy.

Every build has a weakness. People have described some of these already here. If one player is killing it in some way, find ways to let the others shine, or even have a look at the other guys character sheets and talk about optimising them a bit more. Some people delve into the books, some don't. I do, and as such have helped a couple of the other players change **** around for a new level 10 upcoming campaign. (I weep to see bonus action ability go unused...)

Oh god my Yuan-ti Pureblood Shadow Sorcerer / Circle of the Shepherd Druid / War Magic Wizard / Hexblade Warlock is going to be great craic... Limited in some ways due to the multiclassing extremes, but fun. :) Isn't that what it's all about?

It's up to a good DM to find the limited chinks in my armor.