DM's, what are the most difficult PC abilities for you to deal with?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

For me its Divine Intervention. I am not the most familiar with Cleric Spells and feel like either I shoot high or low when a Cleric in a party I DM asks his deity for help.

What bothers or gives you the most trouble and why?

[Brookshw]

Flight & teleport come to mind. Not because they're bad, but because it makes planning adventures/encounters more difficult. Simply put, in general the party will encounter less, be it locations, npcs, monsters or traps. Subsequently you have less to work with. Though there are ways to work around the issue, I find it annoying at times.

[8wGremlin]

Anything that circumvents a good plot:

Food/water shortages: Good berry, create water, create food and drink etc...
Diseases: cure disease, Lay on hands etc..
Epic journeys: fly, teleport etc.

[Zeikin]

Anything that circumvents a good plot:

Food/water shortages: Good berry, create water, create food and drink etc...
Diseases: cure disease, Lay on hands etc..
Epic journeys: fly, teleport etc.

I second this.

[HappyDaze]

Arcane Eye can spoil huge chunks of a dungeon.

Rope Trick can make getting ambushed while resting very unlikely.

[CTurbo]

Paladins! They just have too many ways to screw over a DM lol

[Dr. Cliché]

The most obnoxious ability I've ever had to deal with is the Revised Ranger's Primeval Awareness.

Quite frankly, I don't want to have to try and work out exactly how many creatures of a given type are going to be within five miles of the ranger, let alone their direction and distance.

[Misterwhisper]

Illusion spells used by people who expect far too much from them.

[Laserlight]

Well, their most notable ability is Utterly Ignore Common Sense. But I can usually deal with that.
The most difficult to deal with is Ignore Plot Hooks.
Both of these combine, of course.
"So, instead of going to this village and monastery, you're going to row a small open boat across two hundred miles of open ocean, without provisions of any sort?"

Oh, you mean printed-in-the-book stuff? Fly. I've had fun, challenging encounters, such as a James Bond style ski slope chase, until I realized "I shouldn't bother to do all the design work on this, because they'll just Fly over it all."

[Feddlefew]

I have a player who Will. Not. Stop. using alchemy tools to craft improvised explosives.

The kicker is, this makes her characters less effective, since her characters' class abilities either deal far more damage and have riding effects (monk) or are encounter breaking (bard).

Edit: To be clear, I don't enjoy dealing with abilities which lead to players consistently wasting their turns or Not Doing Their Job in combat, since that messes up the game for the rest of the party.

[Willie the Duck]

Flight is definitely up there. The number of levels where 'can you get to _____' is a serious challenge are entirely too small an number of levels out of the total. Yes, spells per day are a real issue, and I am not the kind of DM who let's the 15-minute workday just happen, but if it is important they will make it happen, and sometimes you really want your players to have to be clever rather than just check a spell slot off the list of expended resources.

[KorvinStarmast]

For me its Divine Intervention. I am not the most familiar with Cleric Spells and feel like either I shoot high or low when a Cleric in a party I DM asks his deity for help. Easily solved. Become more familiar with Clerical spells. :smallsmile:

[Demonslayer666]

I don't think I have found any particularly difficult to handle.

I've been surprised many times by how well they handle situations, and occasionally by how poorly they handle some situations.

But I've never had an adventure derailed because of a player ability.

[stoutstien]

Ranger's favorite terrain. It's either an auto pass on great world building encounters and scenarios or it does nothing.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm scared ****less of anyone who can fly, ride a horse or use GWM effectively :/

It's not that its OP or anything. It would just me much easier if EVERYONE were mounted or EVERYONE could fly. Having a just a single player with one of these abilities makes everything just so much harder :/

It's like. Make an adventure for a group of Space Marines; no problem. Make an adventure where there is one Space Marine and the rest are just Scavy. Not as easy to engage the players anymore, and really hard to manage the spotlight.

The ability that has given my most trouble are Minor Illusion Prestidigitation combos. Once the players have decided something works its really hard to argue sometimes. Most of the time its hilarious, but sometimes it isn't...


Illusion spells used by people who expect far too much from them.

[Endal]

Shadowstep. It's a fairly low level ability for monks that let them teleport 60' through shadows as a bonus action. VERY overpowered.