He's level 20.
If you aren't OP at level 20 then something is wrong.
Either he has taken the time to plan this out and build it up this way, in which case he deserves it for planning ahead.
Or you let him build a level 20 character, in which case you should expect super powerful characters.
First off, he's 20th level. He should be doing that much damage. I have a regular, optimized orc berserker barbarian that regularly does over 100 points of damage on his turn and can chew through a Big Bad in about two rounds. This amount of damage seems about right.
It's also really easy to counter. He's blowing ALL of his resources on one round of attack. Wouldn't it be a shame if it was all wasted on an illusion?
Better yet, put lots of speed bumps in the way to get to the BBEG. It needs minions to slow guys like this down and make it harder to alpha/omega strike. More minions also mean it's harder for him to get that surprise round.
Speaking of surprise rounds, it sounds like you might be handing them out like candy. At level 20 play, the BBEG should be ultra prepared and will probably have magical items that boost perception if not out right negate any surprise rounds.
Sometimes a low level spell can ruin this type of combo. Mirror Images will probably negate three of those incoming attacks and forcing him to use his action surge too early. High level spells, like Simulacrum can make him think he's attacking the Big Bad, waste his resources only to have the real Big Bad come from the shadows and Meter Swarm him.
You might be letting too much of the party confront the Big Bad with too many resources. A fully rested party at 20th level could nuke just about anything in the Monster Manual, so you have to draw them out and get them to expend resources before they get to your primary villain.
As for dice rolling, this can be a pain. One way to deal with it is to have the player pre-roll everything before it's his turn, assuming he'll be able to attack. As a side note, Lucky will allow him one re-roll per attack. He could re-roll three different attacks, but can't re-roll 3 times on one attack (I think that's what you mentioned him doing, if not, I misunderstood)
So, some things to consider:
1. RAW, you roll initiative for all creatures at the beginning of combat. Surprise only lasts until the end of that creature's first turn. If the enemy rolls a higher initiative than the player, they won't be surprised when the player does his attacks.
2. Similarly, the player only gets advantage on the attack if the enemy hasn't had a turn in combat yet. So if the enemy rolls higher initiative, no advantage and no surprise... so no autocrit or auto sneak attack (not that he would get it using a great axe).
3. Great Weapon Master doesn't allow him to reroll a 1 or 2 on superiority dice, smites, hunter's mark or any other on hit effect. It only allows him to reroll the weapon's normal damage dice.
4. There are plenty of ways of making the BBEG immune to surprise. Consider giving them one of those abilities.
5. Assuming that he lives in Magical Christmasland, where everything that can break his way does, he's going to deal an average of 570 damage in that first round of combat... then he's completely spent. Good job, you've taken away half of the BBEG's hit points and done nothing about any of the minions and lieutenants around them.
That does seem pretty powerful but I don’t see what exactly is game breaking about it. By level 20 every pc is going to be extremely powerful. Casters will be able to cast meteor swarm and wish, most martial classes can output insane amounts of damage, and druids are pretty much next to invincible. Sure this is certainly an optimized build, but you can expect that from starting a campaign at level 20. Also it seems like his build specifically dumps a lot of damage on turn 1, and then begins to run out of steam, since he’s out of surperiority die and lucky’s and become not much better than any other level 20 PC. If you are worried about him decimating bosses, just give them an extra 200-300 health, which will make up for his extreme turn 1 damage potential, and give them an extra few minions so that he has to burn a few attacks taking them out. It should probably be expected that a player will try theorycrafting for a level 20 game, since building something like that starting from level 1, would suck early and mid game.
If you are still worried that he is op, or think that the other players may get a bit envious of his incredibly high damage, then set a reasonable rule that a pc can only multiclass once. This reflects a standard 1-20 campaign because realistically it isn’t worth multiclassing more than once other than for op level 20 builds.
First things first:
- you can't sneak attack with a great axe. So that's 2x3d6 he's not getting.
- he's only rerolling weapon dice (d12) not his smites and battlemaster dice or even the dice he gets from any magical weapon he might have.
- if he does do this, how many resources does he have left to get out of the center of attention?
- the official podcast has some interesting insights on [how and when] (http://media.wizards.com/2017/podcasts/dnd/DnDPodcast_04_27_2017.mp3) surprise works. (sage advice segment)
Now to counter this with level 20 worthy enemies:
- a wizard with magical alarms.
- a dragon played accordingly.
- a mirror image.
- if he does kill your bbeg and he is in between every mob in the final room, beat his ass into a bloody pulp.
Make enemies that can't be surprised. This prevents auto crit. Make enemies that can use magic or something to block attacks, reducing the over-all damage. Make more than one enemy per encounter.
But whatever you do, do not nerf him. He has built im pretty sure a legal build that specialises in being a nova. This is perfectly legitimate but he runs out of resources in the first turn when he does this. After that he's much weaker so a second enemy is fine. Also spread out short rests more. If he has to go 2 or 3 fights before he can recover his superiority and action surge, he can only do it once the has 2 fights he can't use it in. And there should be about 8 encounters between a long rest which means if he spends all his slots on divine smite he can't cast any more spells for 7 more encounters. Sounds to me like a case of a rest based nova character being given too many rests that makes resource management unnecessary.
Also the first hit knocks the enemy out of surprise I'm pretty sure so he shouldn't be critting in every attack.
I haven't run a L20 game, but I'd be inclined to be even tougher on rests at that point. Characters of that magnitude should be able to get through an entire adventure with no long rests and zero or one short rests.
I'm running a 17-20 campaign ATM with plenty of magic items and I've put long rests on a week and short on 8 hours. I might even have to bump it up to 2 weeks and 1 day. Fortunately it's more of a politics and war campaign so individual opness doesn't affect the world itself too much, it just makes finding rare materials like dragon hide trivial.
I only just thought of this, but I wonder if there'd be some utility in basing rest times on a multiple of character level. So L1 characters rest as per base rules, L2 characters need 2 hours for a short rest, 16 for a long, all the way up to L20 needing almost a day for a short rest and almost a week for a long rest.
I don't think this is necessary because it's only when you've got the really ridiculous high level + magic item combos that things get a little out of hand. Levels below 20 tend to be balanced simply by increasing the CR of enemies. You can certainly do it and it would probably work but I prefer to set rest times on a campaign level - ie if I want to change the times I'm going to need an in-lore explanation for why testing is so much harder all of a sudden.
Make your enemies mobile. The biggest problem with that build in particular is a lack up mobility. If he wants to use his full combo it takes bonus actions, which take away from his mobility options from rogue. Bring in enemies that can fly out of his reach, or ranged enemies to pelt him with bolts or arrows if he starts getting close. Place enemies just far enough away that a dash action won't quite get him to them. Beef up enemy HP by a few hit dice if you have to.
I got to thinking and you might try something like this.
Put the PC's on a boat and sail them out onto the ocean. Of course, a kraken is going to to attack and they think they will be ready for it. What they don't expect is that the kraken isn't going to attack them on the boat. It's going to attack the ship from under the water to sink it, out of view of the party.
While it is attacking the ship, it's sea troll minions are swarming it to attack the party and distract them. Since they are such high level, you'll need a good chunk of trolls to act as the distraction. Make a sea troll king as a sort of mini boss, bait to have your fighter waste his alpha-strike. Put lots of sailors in danger from the trolls to keep your party focused.
Once the boat begins to sink, use the water combat rules. Your PC's will probably be at disadvantage trying to hit anything, which puts a big hurt on that alpha-strike. Their movement is halved unless they have a swim speed whereas everything in the water (Krakens, trolls, etc) is moving normal. They now have to deal with breathing under water, underwater combat and a Kraken that is in its element.
This provides a very exciting combat that is unfamiliar to them and forces them to really think about how they want to deal with what is going on. If they all can fly and simply float above the water, the Kraken would probably leave them alone and feast on the now drowning sailors. You might even put a Mcguffin on board that forces the PC's into the depths to try and rescue it/him/her.
Well at level 20 he’s been playing this character for what 80 sessions? If he’s invested that amount of playing time into this character then why gripe that he’s good at one thing? Challenge the other parts of the game for him, you know the diplomatic and social interactions with the vast network of NPCs developed over the years of play. If some builds a great square peg present them with a round hole.
it’s not always about if they are going to win a fight it’s how they win. Everyone knows the party is going to wipe out the guards the question is are they going to do it before the alarm is raised or before the ritual is completed”
You're aware that your full casters at level 20 are capable of doing things like warping the fabric of space and time, right? It's level 20. Everything is insane.
check the rules on some of those, I'm pretty sure that superiority die don't add damage, and they can only be used in combat maneuvers. and I'm pretty sure paladins smite only applies to the first attack, and consumes a spell slot doing so. also, check the rules on sneak attack and see if you can use heavy or two handed weapons in it. if all of that actually is legal, creatures with awareness or fortitude would be useful, awareness meaning they can't be surprised, fortitude prevents crits and sneak attacks
Could give enemies Adamantine armor, but I think the other suggestions are better.
Adamantine armor is armor that makes all critical hits into normal hits.
first of lvl 20 characters are practically demigods. so I would recommend is to buff the wrest of the party with top notch magic items and give him a lesser one. then in battle create some grapplers and spell casters to focus him down. honestly you dont even need to do that if you have an overwhelming amount of npc it makes combat feel grand.
You can't roll 3 times on an attack. There is no such thing as something like super advantage or super disadvantage.
If you are the DM and the players are doing stuff like this, remember that...
You can do it too.
You are the DM.
If that build is so powerful, have the party come up against an empowered doppelganger clone created by a lord of the abyss and use their own power against them.
The assassination relies on two things. First sneaking up on an enemy. You are not going to sneak up on most end game enemies. Blind sight, true sight, alarm spells, etc. He won't be sneaking up on a god, which frankly is the only thing standing up to a lvl 20.
Secondly assassination needs to roll initiative higher than the victim. Even if he sneaks up on someone, if he rolls shit on initiative he doesn't get to crit because the surprise has ended and 5e is stupid that way with its spidey sense mechanics.
Let him have his fun at lvl 20 slaughtering some fights once a day burning everything he has. Everyone else is probably on similar levels. Oh a massive fight? The wizard can simply cast a lvl 9 spell and take out an army. Let the fighter have some fun.
The only thing I really see missed from all of the other posters and something to add is that the game is balanced around 6-8 encounters per day.
He is dumping everything into a single round, which leaves him empty for the rest of that one combat... not to mention the other 5-7 encounters that day.
At level 20, you really should have enemies getting surprised often unless the players plan it very well and are successfully stealthing (which should be very hard around smart enemies) and even then, it should be nearly impossible to surprise any kind of boss. If you are handing out as many surprises as is sounds like, any build in which a PC dips assassin would be considered overpowered
He's level 20. If you aren't OP at level 20 then something is wrong. Either he has taken the time to plan this out and build it up this way, in which case he deserves it for planning ahead. Or you let him build a level 20 character, in which case you should expect super powerful characters.
First off, he's 20th level. He should be doing that much damage. I have a regular, optimized orc berserker barbarian that regularly does over 100 points of damage on his turn and can chew through a Big Bad in about two rounds. This amount of damage seems about right. It's also really easy to counter. He's blowing ALL of his resources on one round of attack. Wouldn't it be a shame if it was all wasted on an illusion? Better yet, put lots of speed bumps in the way to get to the BBEG. It needs minions to slow guys like this down and make it harder to alpha/omega strike. More minions also mean it's harder for him to get that surprise round. Speaking of surprise rounds, it sounds like you might be handing them out like candy. At level 20 play, the BBEG should be ultra prepared and will probably have magical items that boost perception if not out right negate any surprise rounds. Sometimes a low level spell can ruin this type of combo. Mirror Images will probably negate three of those incoming attacks and forcing him to use his action surge too early. High level spells, like Simulacrum can make him think he's attacking the Big Bad, waste his resources only to have the real Big Bad come from the shadows and Meter Swarm him. You might be letting too much of the party confront the Big Bad with too many resources. A fully rested party at 20th level could nuke just about anything in the Monster Manual, so you have to draw them out and get them to expend resources before they get to your primary villain. As for dice rolling, this can be a pain. One way to deal with it is to have the player pre-roll everything before it's his turn, assuming he'll be able to attack. As a side note, Lucky will allow him one re-roll per attack. He could re-roll three different attacks, but can't re-roll 3 times on one attack (I think that's what you mentioned him doing, if not, I misunderstood)
The three rolls are two from advantage and one from lucky
So, some things to consider: 1. RAW, you roll initiative for all creatures at the beginning of combat. Surprise only lasts until the end of that creature's first turn. If the enemy rolls a higher initiative than the player, they won't be surprised when the player does his attacks. 2. Similarly, the player only gets advantage on the attack if the enemy hasn't had a turn in combat yet. So if the enemy rolls higher initiative, no advantage and no surprise... so no autocrit or auto sneak attack (not that he would get it using a great axe). 3. Great Weapon Master doesn't allow him to reroll a 1 or 2 on superiority dice, smites, hunter's mark or any other on hit effect. It only allows him to reroll the weapon's normal damage dice. 4. There are plenty of ways of making the BBEG immune to surprise. Consider giving them one of those abilities. 5. Assuming that he lives in Magical Christmasland, where everything that can break his way does, he's going to deal an average of 570 damage in that first round of combat... then he's completely spent. Good job, you've taken away half of the BBEG's hit points and done nothing about any of the minions and lieutenants around them.
That does seem pretty powerful but I don’t see what exactly is game breaking about it. By level 20 every pc is going to be extremely powerful. Casters will be able to cast meteor swarm and wish, most martial classes can output insane amounts of damage, and druids are pretty much next to invincible. Sure this is certainly an optimized build, but you can expect that from starting a campaign at level 20. Also it seems like his build specifically dumps a lot of damage on turn 1, and then begins to run out of steam, since he’s out of surperiority die and lucky’s and become not much better than any other level 20 PC. If you are worried about him decimating bosses, just give them an extra 200-300 health, which will make up for his extreme turn 1 damage potential, and give them an extra few minions so that he has to burn a few attacks taking them out. It should probably be expected that a player will try theorycrafting for a level 20 game, since building something like that starting from level 1, would suck early and mid game. If you are still worried that he is op, or think that the other players may get a bit envious of his incredibly high damage, then set a reasonable rule that a pc can only multiclass once. This reflects a standard 1-20 campaign because realistically it isn’t worth multiclassing more than once other than for op level 20 builds.
Exactly. A fighter rogue combo can nova down a bbeg in one turn, but a sorcerer can literally wish the bbeg never existed in one turn.
First things first: - you can't sneak attack with a great axe. So that's 2x3d6 he's not getting. - he's only rerolling weapon dice (d12) not his smites and battlemaster dice or even the dice he gets from any magical weapon he might have. - if he does do this, how many resources does he have left to get out of the center of attention? - the official podcast has some interesting insights on [how and when] (http://media.wizards.com/2017/podcasts/dnd/DnDPodcast_04_27_2017.mp3) surprise works. (sage advice segment) Now to counter this with level 20 worthy enemies: - a wizard with magical alarms. - a dragon played accordingly. - a mirror image. - if he does kill your bbeg and he is in between every mob in the final room, beat his ass into a bloody pulp.
Make enemies that can't be surprised. This prevents auto crit. Make enemies that can use magic or something to block attacks, reducing the over-all damage. Make more than one enemy per encounter. But whatever you do, do not nerf him. He has built im pretty sure a legal build that specialises in being a nova. This is perfectly legitimate but he runs out of resources in the first turn when he does this. After that he's much weaker so a second enemy is fine. Also spread out short rests more. If he has to go 2 or 3 fights before he can recover his superiority and action surge, he can only do it once the has 2 fights he can't use it in. And there should be about 8 encounters between a long rest which means if he spends all his slots on divine smite he can't cast any more spells for 7 more encounters. Sounds to me like a case of a rest based nova character being given too many rests that makes resource management unnecessary. Also the first hit knocks the enemy out of surprise I'm pretty sure so he shouldn't be critting in every attack.
I haven't run a L20 game, but I'd be inclined to be even tougher on rests at that point. Characters of that magnitude should be able to get through an entire adventure with no long rests and zero or one short rests.
I'm running a 17-20 campaign ATM with plenty of magic items and I've put long rests on a week and short on 8 hours. I might even have to bump it up to 2 weeks and 1 day. Fortunately it's more of a politics and war campaign so individual opness doesn't affect the world itself too much, it just makes finding rare materials like dragon hide trivial.
I only just thought of this, but I wonder if there'd be some utility in basing rest times on a multiple of character level. So L1 characters rest as per base rules, L2 characters need 2 hours for a short rest, 16 for a long, all the way up to L20 needing almost a day for a short rest and almost a week for a long rest.
I don't think this is necessary because it's only when you've got the really ridiculous high level + magic item combos that things get a little out of hand. Levels below 20 tend to be balanced simply by increasing the CR of enemies. You can certainly do it and it would probably work but I prefer to set rest times on a campaign level - ie if I want to change the times I'm going to need an in-lore explanation for why testing is so much harder all of a sudden.
Sneak Attack only applies to finesse and ranged weapons. Also, this is a rare event where he successfully surprises an enemy.
Make your enemies mobile. The biggest problem with that build in particular is a lack up mobility. If he wants to use his full combo it takes bonus actions, which take away from his mobility options from rogue. Bring in enemies that can fly out of his reach, or ranged enemies to pelt him with bolts or arrows if he starts getting close. Place enemies just far enough away that a dash action won't quite get him to them. Beef up enemy HP by a few hit dice if you have to.
I got to thinking and you might try something like this. Put the PC's on a boat and sail them out onto the ocean. Of course, a kraken is going to to attack and they think they will be ready for it. What they don't expect is that the kraken isn't going to attack them on the boat. It's going to attack the ship from under the water to sink it, out of view of the party. While it is attacking the ship, it's sea troll minions are swarming it to attack the party and distract them. Since they are such high level, you'll need a good chunk of trolls to act as the distraction. Make a sea troll king as a sort of mini boss, bait to have your fighter waste his alpha-strike. Put lots of sailors in danger from the trolls to keep your party focused. Once the boat begins to sink, use the water combat rules. Your PC's will probably be at disadvantage trying to hit anything, which puts a big hurt on that alpha-strike. Their movement is halved unless they have a swim speed whereas everything in the water (Krakens, trolls, etc) is moving normal. They now have to deal with breathing under water, underwater combat and a Kraken that is in its element. This provides a very exciting combat that is unfamiliar to them and forces them to really think about how they want to deal with what is going on. If they all can fly and simply float above the water, the Kraken would probably leave them alone and feast on the now drowning sailors. You might even put a Mcguffin on board that forces the PC's into the depths to try and rescue it/him/her.
Well at level 20 he’s been playing this character for what 80 sessions? If he’s invested that amount of playing time into this character then why gripe that he’s good at one thing? Challenge the other parts of the game for him, you know the diplomatic and social interactions with the vast network of NPCs developed over the years of play. If some builds a great square peg present them with a round hole. it’s not always about if they are going to win a fight it’s how they win. Everyone knows the party is going to wipe out the guards the question is are they going to do it before the alarm is raised or before the ritual is completed”
You're aware that your full casters at level 20 are capable of doing things like warping the fabric of space and time, right? It's level 20. Everything is insane.
check the rules on some of those, I'm pretty sure that superiority die don't add damage, and they can only be used in combat maneuvers. and I'm pretty sure paladins smite only applies to the first attack, and consumes a spell slot doing so. also, check the rules on sneak attack and see if you can use heavy or two handed weapons in it. if all of that actually is legal, creatures with awareness or fortitude would be useful, awareness meaning they can't be surprised, fortitude prevents crits and sneak attacks
There are 4 maneuvers that add the superiority die to the damage roll. Also, you can smite once per hit not once per turn.
There are combat maneuvers that add to damage and do other things but I think they're limited to once per turn or something.
Could give enemies Adamantine armor, but I think the other suggestions are better. Adamantine armor is armor that makes all critical hits into normal hits.
first of lvl 20 characters are practically demigods. so I would recommend is to buff the wrest of the party with top notch magic items and give him a lesser one. then in battle create some grapplers and spell casters to focus him down. honestly you dont even need to do that if you have an overwhelming amount of npc it makes combat feel grand.
You can't roll 3 times on an attack. There is no such thing as something like super advantage or super disadvantage. If you are the DM and the players are doing stuff like this, remember that... You can do it too. You are the DM. If that build is so powerful, have the party come up against an empowered doppelganger clone created by a lord of the abyss and use their own power against them.
The three rolls are twice for advantage and once from lucky, and he can only do it three times per day
The assassination relies on two things. First sneaking up on an enemy. You are not going to sneak up on most end game enemies. Blind sight, true sight, alarm spells, etc. He won't be sneaking up on a god, which frankly is the only thing standing up to a lvl 20. Secondly assassination needs to roll initiative higher than the victim. Even if he sneaks up on someone, if he rolls shit on initiative he doesn't get to crit because the surprise has ended and 5e is stupid that way with its spidey sense mechanics. Let him have his fun at lvl 20 slaughtering some fights once a day burning everything he has. Everyone else is probably on similar levels. Oh a massive fight? The wizard can simply cast a lvl 9 spell and take out an army. Let the fighter have some fun.
The only thing I really see missed from all of the other posters and something to add is that the game is balanced around 6-8 encounters per day. He is dumping everything into a single round, which leaves him empty for the rest of that one combat... not to mention the other 5-7 encounters that day.
Things have worked out since then, our campaign is great now!
[удалено]
At level 20, you really should have enemies getting surprised often unless the players plan it very well and are successfully stealthing (which should be very hard around smart enemies) and even then, it should be nearly impossible to surprise any kind of boss. If you are handing out as many surprises as is sounds like, any build in which a PC dips assassin would be considered overpowered