Bullshit players

Veeky Forums how do you run a challenging campaign when all your players are bullshit?

LEVELS OF BULLSHIT
MEGA BULLSHIT TIER
dancing prancing wizard rouge with 20ac, sheild, and evasion, and just about every damn level 1 wizard spell
minmaxed paladin/warlock with +cha to fire and radiant and short rest spell slots
PRETTY BULLSHIT TIER
le three sharpshooter shots per turn
minmaxed fighter with shield bash
SOMEWHAT BULLSHIT TIER
fuck the dice, ive got lucky and warding flare
I do guaranteed damage by being mad and existing

Tomb of Horrors.

Use intelligent enemies.

I would prompt the "Have you tried not playing D&D" record to play, but it seems terribly worn out.

Aside from this, fabricate monsters with unbeatable stats and destroy them. It'll be funny because in the end, their character optimization fetish means nothing if you can just decide they lose.

You step up your game as a GM and run a session zero before the campaign.

You establish not only setting, premise and tone, but expected level of optimisation, allowed character options and any other guidelines to help group cohesion.

If you don't practice basic common sense or have the balls to talk to your players and ask them to tone it down if you don't feel prepared to oppose that highly optimised characters (and an extreme range, too, since I doubt the optimised fighter is anywhere near as powerful as the casters) you deserve everything that's coming to you.

Holy shit, we need a thread of shit like this. As a new DM, I absolutely need to steal insanity like this

Go ahead and start a thread if you want but it really boils down to "stop running your encounters like a video game" real creatures don't run on code.
most creatures aren't going to fight to the death against obviously over whelming odds and will cut and run, animals fleeing from fire or from most fights in general and things like that.
An intelligent enemy is far more dangerous than any kind of dragon or lich. Just look at what the players can accomplish by merely being not retarded.

>You establish not only setting, premise and tone, but expected level of optimisation, allowed character options and any other guidelines to help group cohesion.
>If you don't practice basic common sense or have the balls to talk to your players and ask them to tone it down if you don't feel prepared to oppose that highly optimised characters (and an extreme range, too, since I doubt the optimised fighter is anywhere near as powerful as the casters) you deserve everything that's coming to you.

Well said user.

Keep in mind this only applies to a certain kind of game.

If your players are all expecting goofy pulp fantasy yet every monster mob acts like a SWAT team, you're players might be rightfully offput like that. Occasionally undermining their expectations can be interesting and provide variety, but entirely changing something like that without talking to them is shitty.

Also this. But if your players are expecting ham from your game then go whole-fucking-hog.
Make the enemies just as over the top as the party, just as zany and interesting to fight. Orc warriors wearing goblin blood mages as a breast plate, Ogre's strapping abandoned armor or even dead knights to their bodies for protection.

Character building is cancer, play games where the interesting development happens through play and not just picking shit from huge lists on levelups.

>I'll assert a moronic false dichotomy and feel smug about it!

so on one hand, yeah. I've only had one session so far but I've had things like:

>party attempts to surprise goblins with an illusion of a dragon which they promptly ignore because they aren't stupid enough to think a dragon snuck up on them
>wild wolves surround and separate the party from the NPC's wounded that the party is trying to retrieve and attempt to bring the wounded wolf into the pack and have him join their attack on the party
>rats that die in 2 hits but are covered in a mold that jumps into the air when that rat is struck, requiring a CON saving throw

I felt like I was doing ok at creating some encounters that were more interesting than "we rolled to hit, and then won" but that pdf was some crazy shit

>I'll greentext and feel smug about it!

It's rare that people describe what they're doing in the act of doing it.

no its not people explain what they are doing all the time m8

>hey Veeky Forums, I allow literally anything players bring to the table and can't handle it
If you are going to allow UA Warlock patrons multiclassing with Paladins that then claim they get +CHA on their smites then that's your own damn fault.

You have the tools to drain their resources and present a challenge, so drain their long rest resources and keep them on their heels. It's more fun for everyone, but requires homebrew as DM to adjust to allowing multiclassing and feats.

This is when you run Jackie Chan kobolds instead of SWAT kobolds.

They still retreat, hide, gang-up, and use the environment to their advantage. But they also use tactics to pull off wacky hijinks. They spring elaborate traps that tar and feather the victim. They roll barrels of flaming garbage down a sloped hallway. They don't just throw molotovs, they throw random potions brewed by their half-crazed alchemist that might polymorph you into a crab or turn your skin permanently blue.

Now that sounds amazingly fun. I might have to try it some time.

Practice practice practice.
And acknowledge that no one is truly unmanageable unless you ALLOWED the bullshit in.
I've got a Cavalier in my party that can singlehandedly round 1 pretty much any corporeal enemy his CR and most in his CR range on a low roll charge and without activating all of his abilities. The obvious solution is throw incorporeal, but that's a tiny fraction of the real answer. Maybe one boss is behind a door too small for his mount. Maybe there's an encounter in difficult terrain or water where he can't charge or has to carefully set up his ride-by. Maybe the enemy has an aura which forces melee to back off, take damage, or get creative. Target his mount's worst save. If all else fails and he's still hogging the show fudge the hp so someone else gets the killing blow for once. Environmental effects. Terrain features. Steal some Lair or Legendary actions or if your system doesn't have cool stuff like that make it up.
Of course not every combat has to be this intensive for you to make and them to play. Chances are if they're making bullshit it's because they want the game to suck their dick during combat. That's fine, give them the by-the-book encounters and easy modes in between the cool ones, it'll give you a break. Also Challenge Rating is bullshit in and of itself. Good to understand bad to stand by.

>I let players do bullshit

not since the early 90`s because im not a faggot new chad who merely got into min maxing because its trendy or whatever atm. fucking posers.

whats wrong with selectively min maxing with actual big boys? when i go to a table and the guy at the head got into GM'ing from the Yogscast i fucking leave right there from the one shot. ive literally hit game masters`s who thought they knew shit about gaming trying to tell me how to play fucking FATAL. i dont play that shit.

Doesn't sound so bad. I'd like to point out that, no matter the level, the wizard may have every 1st level spell *written* in their spell book, but can never *prepare* more than a handful on any given day. If the GM is just letting the wizard cast whatever he wants, and not having him stick to a prepared spell list, then they are enabling the cheese.

What edition is this anyway? It sounds like 4e or 5e, but I can't really tell which.

People usually believe in what they see so I don't get why you think a bunch of goblins wouldn't.

>Y'know the best way to counter min-maxing? Cheat!
Yeah, great fucking advice sempai. That's certainly not going to cause a DM vs. Player outlook and lead to the game going into a downward spiral anytime soon. No, this is OBVIOUSLY the best fucking advice ever.

Tuckers Kobolds is DM masturbatory bullshit that only works on a high level part that lets them work, and this is especially true in 5e compared to AD&D, where everyone has access to magic.

This post alone makes me wish I'll never play in one of your campaigns.

Tuckers kobolds didn't work on my group.
They tore through the walls and proceeded to steamroll and genocide the entire place.
They also knew how to throw fucking fireballs and shit properly around corners to hit the little shitters, and they came prepared to teleport out when it became necessary.

That being said they got cocky and tried to raid an orc citadel and got fucking annihilated by high level spellcasting mooks on the inner sanctum.

Haha, you fucking animal. You're the greasy neckbeard loser dm who can't stand "losing" that everyone makes fun of.

Small enemies can move at full speed through tunnels where normal-sized characters have to move at half speed. Also, kobolds have 30 ft movement speed. This alone is enough to give kobolds a decent advantage on their home turf against statically more powerful enemies. Add in the fact that kobolds love digging and trapmaking, and you can easily come up with some shit like kobolds with longspears stabbing through a hole in the wall while the party is slowly, one-by-one forced down a narrow corridor where others in the distance throw rocks at them, ready to make a dash for the next chokepoint at full speed once one of them comes close to the end of the tunnel.

Another thing to exploit that DMs often forget (because admittedly, it's tedious) is height advantage. If you're attacking from high ground you can overcome a lot of cover, and melee characters will have a hard time getting to you if they need to climb. Climbing characters lose their Dex bonus, so giving sneak attack to any of the ranged attackers on the high ground is especially nasty.

This is a great take on this problem

Probably 5e

Because you followed the rules. Tucker kobolds requires fiat to work in many instances. For example, fiat the kobolds escaped before the pcs reach them, no matter their actions, and fiat them in a new advantageous place.

That sounds like a dick move

Legendary actions are also bullshit so that could work

Throw piss easy shit at them.
They have 20 AC? Give them enemies that could only hit them with an automatic success, and even then
They deal 999 damage per turn and have +20 to hit? Give them enemies with 10 health and 5 AC.
They have a comprehensive list of spells for nearly every occasion? Give them situations that are instantly solved by one of their spells, and don't let them run out of spell slots even if they try.

If they're playing to WIN, let them win. Let them win until they realize that they're essentially just bringing a rocket launcher to a pillow fight, and that "winning" isn't the point in the slightest.

Slowly start filling in homebrew challenges/creatures/enemies. Make them difficult. I could help you create some if you want, I do have a few good ideas

Oh come on
Making the game less fun for players isnt a good strategy

Just give enemies every advantage to the point where it seems like you're making shit up. Trust me. Players love this stuff. For example:

>Long narrow tunnel
>Rounded door with artifact shaped lock at end of tunnel.
>Put artifact in hole
>Giant boulder falls and rolls down tunnel
>Door wasn't a door. It was just a carving.

Bam! Instantly kill all your players and make them feel shitty. How were they supposed to get out? What kind of trap allows for an escape?

>plebs should be pandered to

KYS

for most people its "friends" not "plebs" that they play with.

Not that you would know

The best way around bullshit stats is to make encounters that require players to think and figure out what's happening. Don't even let their stats come into play.

Alternatively, look at their strengths and then look at their weaknesses. Create something that is powerful against their strengths and exploits their weaknesses. Then attack them intelligently, prey on their psyches, scare them, separate them, turn them on each other.

Alternatively part 2: Give them the plague.

The problem with tucker's kobolds is its basically just spamming a low level enemy with good consumables and preset ambushes. There's nothing really clever about it.

play OSR

>party attempts to surprise goblins with an illusion of a dragon which they promptly ignore because they aren't stupid enough to think a dragon snuck up on them
Eh. Have mixed feelings but with illusions it all depends upon execution and description. If they just had a dragon pop out of nowhere, sure. But throwing in a a loud draconic roar while having an illusion of one flying overhead, and if the dragon's out of range, just shrinking it to give the perspective of being far overheard but coming towards them and circling while growing in size, then fuck it, give it to them. Goblins would more than likely run than put up a fight. With illusions it all comes down to descriptions and unfortunately uncreativity is easily punished when using it.
One of my proudest moments while playing as an illusionist character was saving our party from certain death from a wyvern in the mountains at night during my watch by casting an illusion of rumbling earth and a giant wurm bursting forth to surround us, using readied actions to react to whatever attempts the wyvern made to come near us or throwing tail spikes at the wurm and describing how they plinked of it's chitin as part of the illusion. GM was impressed and gave our party full experience as if we had won the fight after it fled in anger at being denied a meal.

You sound like lots of fun.

>dragons and lichs
>not intelligent
The fuck outta here

Dragons are big dumb flying fire lizards

The players chose the path of GM vs. players when they tried their best to make characters that could defeat anything the GM threw at them.

They chose optimization and so should the GM

>running a dragon like a video game boss
>running a pack of intelligent enemies
players can chump dragons pretty easily m8.

"optimization" and "you lose lol everything proof armour" are not exactly equivalent, and there's a difference between trying to challenge strong characters and trying to kill them with DM fiat.

Its funny how you say that now and nit when they did it to the GM.

Suppose its his job to give them a handy if they are too tired to jerk off in his face too right?

You can't use intelligent enemies if you're not intelligent yourself.

You're full of shit. If you break the rules in order to force the players to lose, you're a shit DM. No excuse. You might as well start your session with "you lose lol end of story" and give up on DMing entirely.

bump the CR level of their encounters accordingly. Throw a standard fight at them just to test the waters, then up the stakes accordingly.

Your players will appreciate the challenge and will advance much more quickly.

>how do you run a challenging campaigns when all your players are all bullshit

Most stories of intelligent enemies like
is just DM fiat in disguise.

Throwing maxlevel archliches and dragons at them is equivalent to
rocks fall you die.

So what do you? You throw at them an evil NPC party, at similar party level

Scale up the challenge of each fight but lower their frequency. Turn it into a more social game.