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
Jacob Turner
Tomb of Horrors.
Juan Bennett
Use intelligent enemies.
Ryder Cook
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.
Cooper Lopez
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.
Ian Bennett
Holy shit, we need a thread of shit like this. As a new DM, I absolutely need to steal insanity like this
Jose Cooper
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.
Chase Reed
>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.
Nicholas Jenkins
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.
David Howard
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.
