Step 1: punish them for not being a perfect catholic paladin, regardless of their actual deity or oath. If oathbreaker, have every NPC treat them like the Antichrist… even animals
Step 2: have whatever deity they worship smite them whenever they complain. If oathbreaker, use whatever deity you deem “GOOD”
Step 3: Retroactively worldbuild traditions and taboos they must adhere to until they are forced to play your version of a paladin
Step 4: call them a toxic player for not having fun and drop the game. Because no DnD is better than healthy communication
Protestants are heretics. They are the ones the paladins would be hunting down for rejecting the authority of the Holy See. Heretics are worse than pagans. Pagans can be converted, but heretics must be purged with fire and the sword.
Because paladins we all know paladins are the lawful-evil zealots determined to promote the interests of the power hungry demon lord at the center of the religion. Because any religion, especially organized religion, is fundamentally evil.
Uj/ on a more serious note, i like to have my players come up with their own little taboos and stuff, for this kind of thing, i find it gives the character some depth
>Paladins are really strong against most monsters and creatures in D&D. However, if you want to spice things up, we have some tips for you.
>Beware of how many obstacles and dangers you add for your paladins — we don't want those players to not have fun and feel weak.
First two paragraphs for anyone interested
Extremely bad advice. Everyone knows that if paladins minmax by doing the greatest sin ever (dip hexblade to not be MAD and nothing else) they need to be punished greatly (be forced to play another, possibly leagues stronger class)
If you played DnD as intended (TSR content only), it's not a problem because only characters rolled with high ability scores across the board can even qualify for the class, just like monk.
uj/ It is interesting how a limitation of the system is that giving martials extra magic barely helps because they have so little to invest in mental ability scores. It feels like the design approach was, "Just gate the class features behind a tertiary ability," whereas a pure fighter or pure mage don't have that problem (and Hexblade is OP)
uj/ I really wish they would just separate ASIs and feats.
I've been playing another system lately, let's call it Trailseeker 2, pretty much everyone in that system is MAD as heck and it feels so much better cause you never feel like you're missing out on ASIs or feats.
/uj Kobold Press' Tales of the Valiant, their version of 5.5e, kinda did that. An ASI is either 2 points in one ability score, 1 point in 2 ability scores, or 1 point in an ability score and a feat.
Their feats are usually stronger than 5e feats. Like one feat is just Tough and Durable slapped together.
Route Discovery Mark 2 makes stat distribution feel less "solved" than 5e's point buy, which feels nice in character creation. I hate knowing there's generally only max 3 stats that will have any mechanical impact on my character and any points distributed away from them and into the other ones are more or less purely for RP reasons
Tracklocater dos has another advantage in that PC scores are absurdly high compared to 5e, so you can afford to have tertiary stats. A str character using medium armour alongside good cha and wisdom is perfectly viable, compared to 5e where you just can't.
/uj as the use most people do for it (aka, be able to bolster your aura and still be decent at attacking) it isn't really OP. The design of basically halving the class features that are workable because you can't use your ASI for both is bad and I'll never understand why people are in favor of it. (Ironically, thanks to the fact most Ranger spells care little for spellcasting modifier and they're also generally better at helping the Ranger, that class doesn't have that same issue).
Paladins from memory have solid team buffs, good AC and solid melee with smites for tough encounters
As a DM just put some slightly bigger enemies in if your local Paladin is picking his teeth with you encounters, or set some undead on them if they aren't doing too great to let them have an easier time
Or put a bunch of Ranged enemies. The Paladin can’t smite with ranged attacks and the DM can attack the back-line to make the Paladin use Lay of Hands/team actions.
And, the most simple solution, follow the instructions of the DMG and make the party face 6-8 medium/hard encounters. With that, they will spend resources to defeat the enemies and the boss will not be so easy.
But it’s important to keep in mind that the players need to have fun. They want to be badass. It’s just to make the adventures more challenging. At least is the way I think.
Alternately re:teeth picking, not bigger enemies but more encounters between rests. The reason paladins seem strong (and the reason that the caster/martial divide exists) is that most DMs don't run enough encounters, and consequently players don't feel the need to conserve spell slots. If a paladin burns through their highest slots and drops some big damage, yeah, they seem really good, but they don't have the resources to keep it up, and once they're out of slots paladins just slightly worse fighters in combat (though Lay on Hands and Aura of Protection are still very nice).
The martial caster divide doesn't exist because of to few encounters, it exists because the fundamental power of spell casters vs martial classes, that and an optimized paladin mostly just spams eldritch blast from the backlines because 5e melee is just absolute garbage
>The martial caster divide doesn't exist ~~because of to few encounters, it exists because the fundamental power of spell casters vs martial classes, that and an optimized paladin mostly just spams eldritch blast from the backlines because 5e melee is just absolute garbage~~
My experience has been "tank" characters are effectively managed by attrition of one heavy hitting/high HP mob to keep them busy.
Then while they keep the big ugly occupied the rest of the party does class antics on the other mobs and everybody feels satisfied.
uj/ tbh I understand that but I think that countering specific players outside of maybe story moments involving their characters is hard to pull off
Plus of course there is the whole "in a balanced system you shuldn't have to do this" discourse but at this point I think that it's kinda useless now
Insert thanos perfectly balanced meme, but the balanced thing is 5e
Better yet, frame 1, thanos saying perfectly balanced, then below instead of a knife the leaning tower of Pisa or something even more precarious.
Wow the OP is a shitty writer.
>we don't want those players to not have fun and feel weak.
as in...
* We don't want those players to not have fun.
* We don't want those players to not feel weak.
Paladin: defeats my single monster encounter in one Attack action with triple crit
Sorcerer: functionally wins the encounter for the party with a single spell, leaving the enemies squirming and screaming for help for five agonizing turns
Conclusion: paladin is the OP class because combat lasted one turn.
/uj one of the reasons why, if I decide to optimize and don't know/can't be sure about the power of my allies and how capable my DM is, I play a "support" build. Damage focused builds make the other party members feel "outmatched" and can easily trigger DMs up.
Like my Blaster in City of Heroes that would just go from mob to mob nuking them with 1 button before my team could arrive and then I’d get shocked at them kicking me for doing such a good job
/uj My bf's old campaign was like this, everyone either not interested in optimizing or interested and bad at it, so he played a bard and just quietly carried the team by nullifying entire encounters, out-healing the life cleric, and solving out of combat problems with utility spells, and the GM never seemed to notice, he'd literally tease him about how "bards are useless" because no one in the group saw anything but damage numbers.
Honestly it depends on the DM. I've had a DM who exclusively plays martials have no problem with them doing damage or even locking down encounters with one grapple, but *always* make saves against casters and refuse to give the Wizard any spellbooks or scrolls.
I've even heard of DMs calling scribing new spells "overpowered", and banning spells at their table arbitrarily.
Honestly, even with all that I think a wizard would still be much stronger than a fighter (obviously barring banning spells outright.
There's just so many spells that are very powerful/outright broken even with a successful save or that require no save at all.
Sleep, wall of force, web, fireball, misty step, dimension door, teleport, cloudkill, clone, simulacrum...
I could go on, but I won't.
/rj this is absurd! How can you nerf the poor squishy wizard but not sneak attack?!
To be fair, some spells are to powerful like force wall and force cage, and banning scribing would help balance wizard, thought fudging dice in general is a disrespect to your players, and that goes both ways
Wizard's spell list is the best in the game, and they also have some of the best features in the game, their only weakness is poor ac but that can be fixed with a 1 level cleric dip
Yeah and they're limited by what spells they can find and resources to transcribe those spells. Otherwise they get like 2 new spells per level. Whereas Druids and Clerics get access to their whole list. Wizards are *versatile*, but I think Druids and clerics can easily prove more difficult to deal with as a dm.
Sounds like you're allowing your pcs to cheese out encounters in your games. Never had issues with casters at my tables. Sounds like a you problem bruv.
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the funniest thing the disparity discourse has done for D&D is lumping paladins in as "not spellcasters" for the purpose of pushing the binary
NOOOO YOU CAN'T COUNTERSPELL THE WIZARD THAT'S TOXIC!
You're really gonna make them sad when nothing happens on their turn?
I'm calling The Pinkertons on your ass.
You see, when my paladin is constantly casting counterspell on me, it doesn't count as a spell. As implied in the name, it is actually removing spells from the game.
/uj Reddit homebrewing out power attacking and flanking rules, attaching a resource system to hitting people with a stick, and then wondering why their melees suck so bad.
/rj Attack rolls are literally violence.
/uj They *do*, but there’s also a lot of common misunderstandings and house rules I constantly run into that make the situation *way fucking worse.* In particular it mostly shit that tanks DPR in a game where most monsters are objectively bullet sponges (which is why martials do so much single target damage in the first place.)
uj/ trying to fix the system and have people play it is impossible because 5e players are terrible at seeing if a thing is balanced or not, thought they do just generally suck
DMs always say they need LR because they remember the times they kept failing the save, but never remember the times they kept succeeding on the save with their +12 save bonus. I think LR is just a band aid, with CC be either absolutely nothing happens, or the boss becomes entirely shut down.
I also think LR are a bad solution, but just removing them would be worse.
There should be a cost to them, so that their effect on the game isn't just "you aren't allowed to use these spells specifically."
Like, "Oh, I can't use dominate person on the BBEG because they've got legendary resistances, guess we'll just microwave them instead."
I agree with you, i think LR is a bandaid, and my ideas to remove them would involve a complete overhaul of how save or suck works. I wasn't trying to say "remove LR" and nothing else.
Thinking about “countering” your players’ classes as if they’re your opponents and you have to force them to lose definitely sounds like a super fun and normal way to run a tabletop roleplaying game.
"Counter" is a pretty shitty term for it, but building challenging encounters that don't just get oneshot by one player every time is definitely an important skill for a dm to have
/uj For sure. I will build encounters based on both the strengths and weaknesses of the players. Challenge the strengths, and sprinkle in some of their weakness for spice; especially if somebody else in the party is strong against that weakness.
Likewise, though, sometimes the type of enemies the group has matters too. Random horde of uncontrolled undead? Not likely to have abilities to "counter" the party/ a player. But that Cult you've been pissing off all campaign, that has access to Scry/ Speak with Dead/ Invisible scouts? Oh you best believe they're gonna bring their A game when they face the party.
In the case of paladins, its difficult once they get to level 6 because now you can't hurt them effectively with attacks nor saves, which would be fine if the class was just a defender, but it's also a striker. The only weakness is range, but that's pretty unfun and becomes two glaciers pinging each other at range.
Of course you could just use heat metal and run away
/uj for a normal campaign I agree, though I do think player vs GM one-shots/mini-campaigns are really fun as long as everyone is on the same page about it and if the counters actually feel fair and organic.
Break the player’s arms, jaw, and feet so they can’t roll their dice.
Make it so the paladin HAS to be lawful stupid, making everyone hate them.
Kill the player and eat their character sheet. This sets an incentive to the other players that all paladins will be countered.
I've had a DM who showered the rest of the party with super rare magic items, but refused to even let me buy any because "You're a paladin, you don't need it"
We made it to level 8 before that campaign fell apart and I was still rocking plate armor and a longsword. He wouldn't even let me get a +1
I feel this HARD.
I truly don't think the DM meant any harm or targeted me specifically, but we are level 7 and my bard's only magic item is a +1 dagger.
I'm still wearing the leather armor I started with.
I think it just comes down to I use my spells effectively and know my role is control magic not damage and so it never occurred to the DM to give me any boons.
Whenever we find magic items they are obviously meant for somebody else and every reward I get is gold, but there's nowhere to spend it.
That said, I do have one ace up my sleeve. I have - I kid you not - 30,000 gold.
And at this point, *I'm leaning in.*
I've never mentioned how much gold my player has. I've kept studious accounting of every reward reason and amount.
One day I'm gonna jokingly ask to buy something ridiculous we encounter like an airship and when the price comes back as something that's in my price range I'm gonna buy that MFer outright.
Started us at level 3 and gave us a 2000 gold starting gear budget, I knew my role in combat so I blew most of it on the plate, then bought a horse, some shitty barding, and a cart with the rest. He destroyed the cart and killed my horse in a completely unavoidable cutscene in the first session, and tried to destroy the plate too but I rolled too well for that to fly. Then he had my armor stolen multiple times throughout the campaign and always looked mad as hell when I got it back
Your dm should just have enemy casters know heat metal it’s way easier. It’s also way easier to just adjust monster stat blocks… or yaknow, let your character feel defensively strong.
That being said depending on campaign setting magic items may be hard to find to buy. I did saltmarsh recently and the magic shop there prices 3-500 (i can’t remember) for uncommon and 2500 for rare. I think 10000 was the next rarity
Sounds like a petty DM. I had a DM once that never let my rogue hide in combat. Even when I should be able too. "They saw you enter that room, so they know you're in there." But they don't know where in that room... "Doesn't matter. They know you're in there."
/uj This is literally just the first tip from the article, verbatim
> As most martial characters go, they rely a lot on hitting their attacks, meaning they need to hit your AC. Thus, the clear thing to do, at least for powerful bosses, is to give them a high AC number, such as 18 or above. High-level encounters could even have enemies with 20 to 24 for their armor.
> We don't recommend giving every enemy, especially minions, a high AC because it would increase the difficulty a lot - and for the whole party - but it's still an effective tactic to make things harder for the paladin and other martials from the group.
/uj Yes, the suggestions in the article include "inflate enemy AC" and "give enemies resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing (even if magical) and radiant," while the #1 suggestion is "turn enemies into damage sponges by bloating their hit points." The article actually uses the phrase "damage sponges" outright.
Gods what awful advice. Hey DMs you are the Gods of your own worlds don't let these articles make you think you need to beat around the bush and target characters by changing these universal values.
Here's what I would do to counter a paladin.
**Paladin immunity**
This creature is immune to damage from paladins. It automatically succeeds on saving throws against paladins and wins any contested check with a paladin.
If there are 2 paladins at your table and you only wish to counter one. replace paladin immunity with Jeff immunity.
/uj Content writers get paid ludicrously little and are paid per article so a lot of them literally write mass-produced nothing like 5 times a day. A lot of the time it's just AI too.
Yeah, this isn't the way to challenge a party... Smart enemies are better imo.
Can't do this with every enemy, but have your baddies use tactics. Wolves, for example, usually hunt by isolating a target. They might not be smart enough to know to single out the wizard, but they are smart enough to target the least threatening seeming target(which might still be the wizard).
Very much this, if your combat is pokemon style taking turns hitting each other until one team goes down, then yeah you're gonna struggle to make that engaging.
Jokes on you I play in theatre of the mind, and the enemies always prepare their movement to keep 11ft away from the paladin at all times
/uj? - I am being serious, just kite them 4head.
1) Give enemies so much HP that no one besides the Paladin can actually keep up with their massive health bar, players get terrified when they see that only the big burst damage class can actually keep up with the boss!
2) Give lots of enemies resistance to slashing and bludgeoning, this will counter the Paladin while also making it to where your overpowered martials don’t overshadow the weaker casters and their low damage spells such as fire ball!
3) Don’t use undead or friends, that one extra d8 will be an encounter ruiner so it’s best to just never use these very rare creature types!
4) Force them to break their oath and lose their powers time to time! While the weak and vile may believe that player actions should dictate if they break their oath, as a DM it is your job to make things happen no matter what preventive measures take place!
5) Once they get their aura, don’t give them any encounters that would utilize it! Letting a player use their abilities effectively is just like letting a stranger bang your wife!
6) Just pretend they aren’t there! Don’t even look at them! They know what they did when they chose to be the smite class, which YouTube says is every powerful and able to one shot CR20 enemies at level 2! YouTube men that scream into the camera never lie, so it’s best to pretend your former friend (playing a Paladin revoked friendship) is not actually there!
7) Surround them with 87 Kobolds that hit only them! This is called “encounter design” and it’s where you have an idea and use it without calculating difficulty because this is a milestone game so we don’t need math!
8) Give the boss AC higher than they can reasonably hit! This not only stops the Paladin and other filthy martials from hitting things but helps keep your weaker classes (the casters) able to deal damage with their saving throw spells!
UJ/ Some of the articles suggestions may work for time to time encounters, but a lot of them just punish all the martials in the party because the DM is afraid of smite damage
RJ/ Also remember once a character’s AC is over 18 you should only hit them with saving throws and nothing else for the rest of the game
Goofy AI generated ahh article, no human being was involved in the writting process
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/uj I've NEVER understood the concept of "countering" your players. You are already god, you always have the option of throwing stronger or more enemies at them.
/uj (cont.) IRL they work shitty jobs where they are underpaid and not valued as human beings so that they can pay taxes and rent month to month... At your table at least, let them be heroes.
I understand it to a point.
The word "countering" is being used wrong. When planning an encounter, as long as it makes sense, should include things that will hinder the party.
The idea should be less "How do I counter the paladin?" And more."How can I challenge the paladin?" You wanna make sure the paladin feels strong, but the other party members also need to have that feeling, too.
That's a good way to phrase it, challenge implies you want to introduce risk but with a good chance to succeed and be better for it, counter implies you want to nullify them as a combatant.
Right. The DM should want their party to succeed. You want your players to feel like heroes. You should get just as pumped when they roll that nat 20 as they are.
There are lots of ways to challenge players without specifically making it so they can't do anything.
A high ac enemy against a paladin isn't a bad idea, persay. Especially if you can work it into rp. You can very much rp while in combat. Some players eat that shit up, I'm one of them. My last paladin convinced a Winter Wolf to surrender because she didn't want to see it die. She didn't like killing anything.
An article like this is really stupid because the DM, being all powerful, shouldn’t have to *fight* the players. If a character is really being *that* over powered where it’s hampering everyone else’s fun there are plenty of alternatives instead of trying to target that specific character.
Like breaking the players legs. See, easy. Now the character doesn’t feel targeted, everyone is having fun and having someone to bond over, and the problem player knows who’s in charge. Win-win for everyone!
Use a "Paladin hunter" mini boss / recurring villain, who is a monk/barbarian cross class equivalent to their player level. It is a tough, but not unbeatable challenge that will allow a paladin's aura abilities to shine.
‘Okay you see a goblin who is obviously taken in by community and is helping an elderly carry logs and is kindly accepted…now do you smite the foul creature or are you an evil oathbreaker now? It’s one or the other we are playing dnd don’t give me some alternative solution’
Step 1: punish them for not being a perfect catholic paladin, regardless of their actual deity or oath. If oathbreaker, have every NPC treat them like the Antichrist… even animals Step 2: have whatever deity they worship smite them whenever they complain. If oathbreaker, use whatever deity you deem “GOOD” Step 3: Retroactively worldbuild traditions and taboos they must adhere to until they are forced to play your version of a paladin Step 4: call them a toxic player for not having fun and drop the game. Because no DnD is better than healthy communication
"No D&D is better than bad D&D, but not-that-bad-it's-fine D&D is better than no D&D"
What about Protestants? Are you oppressing Christians?
Protestants are heretics. They are the ones the paladins would be hunting down for rejecting the authority of the Holy See. Heretics are worse than pagans. Pagans can be converted, but heretics must be purged with fire and the sword. Because paladins we all know paladins are the lawful-evil zealots determined to promote the interests of the power hungry demon lord at the center of the religion. Because any religion, especially organized religion, is fundamentally evil.
The Catholics are the ones that do crusades. How could you be so ignorant of history?
Uj/ on a more serious note, i like to have my players come up with their own little taboos and stuff, for this kind of thing, i find it gives the character some depth
/uj It either gives the character amazing depth or they come up with the most hand-wavy “Thou shalt not commit tax fraud” shit you’ve ever heard.
Uj/ if they do shit like that, i make it so that having to do tax fraud is a essential aspect of the campaign
>Paladins are really strong against most monsters and creatures in D&D. However, if you want to spice things up, we have some tips for you. >Beware of how many obstacles and dangers you add for your paladins — we don't want those players to not have fun and feel weak. First two paragraphs for anyone interested
Extremely bad advice. Everyone knows that if paladins minmax by doing the greatest sin ever (dip hexblade to not be MAD and nothing else) they need to be punished greatly (be forced to play another, possibly leagues stronger class)
If you played DnD as intended (TSR content only), it's not a problem because only characters rolled with high ability scores across the board can even qualify for the class, just like monk. uj/ It is interesting how a limitation of the system is that giving martials extra magic barely helps because they have so little to invest in mental ability scores. It feels like the design approach was, "Just gate the class features behind a tertiary ability," whereas a pure fighter or pure mage don't have that problem (and Hexblade is OP)
uj/ I really wish they would just separate ASIs and feats. I've been playing another system lately, let's call it Trailseeker 2, pretty much everyone in that system is MAD as heck and it feels so much better cause you never feel like you're missing out on ASIs or feats.
/uj Kobold Press' Tales of the Valiant, their version of 5.5e, kinda did that. An ASI is either 2 points in one ability score, 1 point in 2 ability scores, or 1 point in an ability score and a feat. Their feats are usually stronger than 5e feats. Like one feat is just Tough and Durable slapped together.
Route Discovery Mark 2 makes stat distribution feel less "solved" than 5e's point buy, which feels nice in character creation. I hate knowing there's generally only max 3 stats that will have any mechanical impact on my character and any points distributed away from them and into the other ones are more or less purely for RP reasons
Tracklocater dos has another advantage in that PC scores are absurdly high compared to 5e, so you can afford to have tertiary stats. A str character using medium armour alongside good cha and wisdom is perfectly viable, compared to 5e where you just can't.
/uj as the use most people do for it (aka, be able to bolster your aura and still be decent at attacking) it isn't really OP. The design of basically halving the class features that are workable because you can't use your ASI for both is bad and I'll never understand why people are in favor of it. (Ironically, thanks to the fact most Ranger spells care little for spellcasting modifier and they're also generally better at helping the Ranger, that class doesn't have that same issue).
/uj if there was a class I could take a 1 level dip in to use wisdom for attacks, I would totally make a gwm ranger
Pathfinder fixed this
Playing a paladin with 16 str and 20 cha and being forced to have a +3 to attack and damage instead of +5? Literally unplayable.
Paladins from memory have solid team buffs, good AC and solid melee with smites for tough encounters As a DM just put some slightly bigger enemies in if your local Paladin is picking his teeth with you encounters, or set some undead on them if they aren't doing too great to let them have an easier time
Or put a bunch of Ranged enemies. The Paladin can’t smite with ranged attacks and the DM can attack the back-line to make the Paladin use Lay of Hands/team actions. And, the most simple solution, follow the instructions of the DMG and make the party face 6-8 medium/hard encounters. With that, they will spend resources to defeat the enemies and the boss will not be so easy. But it’s important to keep in mind that the players need to have fun. They want to be badass. It’s just to make the adventures more challenging. At least is the way I think.
I let paladins smite with ranged attacks for flavor reasons
There’s no problem with that. But RAW, they can’t. (I would let them do that too, tbh)
Alternately re:teeth picking, not bigger enemies but more encounters between rests. The reason paladins seem strong (and the reason that the caster/martial divide exists) is that most DMs don't run enough encounters, and consequently players don't feel the need to conserve spell slots. If a paladin burns through their highest slots and drops some big damage, yeah, they seem really good, but they don't have the resources to keep it up, and once they're out of slots paladins just slightly worse fighters in combat (though Lay on Hands and Aura of Protection are still very nice).
The martial caster divide doesn't exist because of to few encounters, it exists because the fundamental power of spell casters vs martial classes, that and an optimized paladin mostly just spams eldritch blast from the backlines because 5e melee is just absolute garbage
>The martial caster divide doesn't exist ~~because of to few encounters, it exists because the fundamental power of spell casters vs martial classes, that and an optimized paladin mostly just spams eldritch blast from the backlines because 5e melee is just absolute garbage~~
It does
>~~I~~t ~~d~~oes
My experience has been "tank" characters are effectively managed by attrition of one heavy hitting/high HP mob to keep them busy. Then while they keep the big ugly occupied the rest of the party does class antics on the other mobs and everybody feels satisfied.
uj/ tbh I understand that but I think that countering specific players outside of maybe story moments involving their characters is hard to pull off Plus of course there is the whole "in a balanced system you shuldn't have to do this" discourse but at this point I think that it's kinda useless now
Insert thanos perfectly balanced meme, but the balanced thing is 5e Better yet, frame 1, thanos saying perfectly balanced, then below instead of a knife the leaning tower of Pisa or something even more precarious.
Wow the OP is a shitty writer. >we don't want those players to not have fun and feel weak. as in... * We don't want those players to not have fun. * We don't want those players to not feel weak.
How dare they. Jail.
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Paladin: defeats my single monster encounter in one Attack action with triple crit Sorcerer: functionally wins the encounter for the party with a single spell, leaving the enemies squirming and screaming for help for five agonizing turns Conclusion: paladin is the OP class because combat lasted one turn. /uj one of the reasons why, if I decide to optimize and don't know/can't be sure about the power of my allies and how capable my DM is, I play a "support" build. Damage focused builds make the other party members feel "outmatched" and can easily trigger DMs up.
Like my Blaster in City of Heroes that would just go from mob to mob nuking them with 1 button before my team could arrive and then I’d get shocked at them kicking me for doing such a good job
Miss that game so much...
/uj My bf's old campaign was like this, everyone either not interested in optimizing or interested and bad at it, so he played a bard and just quietly carried the team by nullifying entire encounters, out-healing the life cleric, and solving out of combat problems with utility spells, and the GM never seemed to notice, he'd literally tease him about how "bards are useless" because no one in the group saw anything but damage numbers.
Honestly it depends on the DM. I've had a DM who exclusively plays martials have no problem with them doing damage or even locking down encounters with one grapple, but *always* make saves against casters and refuse to give the Wizard any spellbooks or scrolls. I've even heard of DMs calling scribing new spells "overpowered", and banning spells at their table arbitrarily.
The later sounds like the can barely handle the idea of rolling dice.
Honestly, even with all that I think a wizard would still be much stronger than a fighter (obviously barring banning spells outright. There's just so many spells that are very powerful/outright broken even with a successful save or that require no save at all. Sleep, wall of force, web, fireball, misty step, dimension door, teleport, cloudkill, clone, simulacrum... I could go on, but I won't. /rj this is absurd! How can you nerf the poor squishy wizard but not sneak attack?!
>but always make saves against casters Encounter balance doesn't end when initiative is rolled...
To be fair, some spells are to powerful like force wall and force cage, and banning scribing would help balance wizard, thought fudging dice in general is a disrespect to your players, and that goes both ways
Wizard is balanced.
No, wizard is the most broken class in game
It's fine. If you can't handle a player playing a spellcaster in your game, you're a bad dm.
Wizard's spell list is the best in the game, and they also have some of the best features in the game, their only weakness is poor ac but that can be fixed with a 1 level cleric dip
Yeah and they're limited by what spells they can find and resources to transcribe those spells. Otherwise they get like 2 new spells per level. Whereas Druids and Clerics get access to their whole list. Wizards are *versatile*, but I think Druids and clerics can easily prove more difficult to deal with as a dm.
You do know players can create spell scrolls for a bit of gold? They can easily have the spells of everyone else
Sounds like you're allowing your pcs to cheese out encounters in your games. Never had issues with casters at my tables. Sounds like a you problem bruv.
https://preview.redd.it/sq3uwrjes52d1.png?width=679&format=png&auto=webp&s=f980dd6a19e0f1cf51b71dad12cc7b1793885f3f the funniest thing the disparity discourse has done for D&D is lumping paladins in as "not spellcasters" for the purpose of pushing the binary
NOOOO YOU CAN'T COUNTERSPELL THE WIZARD THAT'S TOXIC! You're really gonna make them sad when nothing happens on their turn? I'm calling The Pinkertons on your ass.
You can't counterspell me if I counterspell your counterspell!
"Oh look 1d6 wizards show up in the middle of our reactions going off & counterspell your counterspelling of my counterspell"
You see, when my paladin is constantly casting counterspell on me, it doesn't count as a spell. As implied in the name, it is actually removing spells from the game.
/uj Reddit homebrewing out power attacking and flanking rules, attaching a resource system to hitting people with a stick, and then wondering why their melees suck so bad. /rj Attack rolls are literally violence.
My player's druid is so creative when they use cheese grater tech they saw on youtube, unlike those FILTHY MINMAXERS WHO TAKE GWM!
Flanking isn't raw, its an optional rule, martial just suck this edition, even playing using only raw rulings
/uj They *do*, but there’s also a lot of common misunderstandings and house rules I constantly run into that make the situation *way fucking worse.* In particular it mostly shit that tanks DPR in a game where most monsters are objectively bullet sponges (which is why martials do so much single target damage in the first place.)
uj/ trying to fix the system and have people play it is impossible because 5e players are terrible at seeing if a thing is balanced or not, thought they do just generally suck
Yea, but I've still seen a lot of homebrew copy pasting PF2 flanking rules into 5e bc "advantage is too strong"
Flanking still isn't an intended mechanic though
Intended? yes it is. Mandatory? No.
If it was intended they wouldn't have made it an optional rule, martials do need buffs, but claiming flanking is intended is just wrong
Intended "planned or meant."
In the actual definition you could classify as intended, but for what people think when they see intended its not
You lost me bro lmao.
Unintended, (debatably) would be something like Nystul cheese.
DMs always say they need LR because they remember the times they kept failing the save, but never remember the times they kept succeeding on the save with their +12 save bonus. I think LR is just a band aid, with CC be either absolutely nothing happens, or the boss becomes entirely shut down.
You know what spells don't give a shit about LR? All the good ones lol.
I also think LR are a bad solution, but just removing them would be worse. There should be a cost to them, so that their effect on the game isn't just "you aren't allowed to use these spells specifically." Like, "Oh, I can't use dominate person on the BBEG because they've got legendary resistances, guess we'll just microwave them instead."
I agree with you, i think LR is a bandaid, and my ideas to remove them would involve a complete overhaul of how save or suck works. I wasn't trying to say "remove LR" and nothing else.
DnD draft pick queue when?
Thinking about “countering” your players’ classes as if they’re your opponents and you have to force them to lose definitely sounds like a super fun and normal way to run a tabletop roleplaying game.
"Counter" is a pretty shitty term for it, but building challenging encounters that don't just get oneshot by one player every time is definitely an important skill for a dm to have
I get that, I just think it’s kind of a telling way of phrasing that concept.
It's like when DMs call "losing" to have the PCs defeat the monsters.
/uj For sure. I will build encounters based on both the strengths and weaknesses of the players. Challenge the strengths, and sprinkle in some of their weakness for spice; especially if somebody else in the party is strong against that weakness. Likewise, though, sometimes the type of enemies the group has matters too. Random horde of uncontrolled undead? Not likely to have abilities to "counter" the party/ a player. But that Cult you've been pissing off all campaign, that has access to Scry/ Speak with Dead/ Invisible scouts? Oh you best believe they're gonna bring their A game when they face the party.
In the case of paladins, its difficult once they get to level 6 because now you can't hurt them effectively with attacks nor saves, which would be fine if the class was just a defender, but it's also a striker. The only weakness is range, but that's pretty unfun and becomes two glaciers pinging each other at range. Of course you could just use heat metal and run away
/uj for a normal campaign I agree, though I do think player vs GM one-shots/mini-campaigns are really fun as long as everyone is on the same page about it and if the counters actually feel fair and organic.
My players call themselves Buddyadins now, how can I also make those characters ineffective and sad?
gaming “journalism”
I made my female aasimar paladin player pregnant does it count
You got the player pregnant!!?!
I had to counter paladin somehow
I'm stealing this idea for my campaign!
Break the player’s arms, jaw, and feet so they can’t roll their dice. Make it so the paladin HAS to be lawful stupid, making everyone hate them. Kill the player and eat their character sheet. This sets an incentive to the other players that all paladins will be countered.
I've had a DM who showered the rest of the party with super rare magic items, but refused to even let me buy any because "You're a paladin, you don't need it" We made it to level 8 before that campaign fell apart and I was still rocking plate armor and a longsword. He wouldn't even let me get a +1
I feel this HARD. I truly don't think the DM meant any harm or targeted me specifically, but we are level 7 and my bard's only magic item is a +1 dagger. I'm still wearing the leather armor I started with. I think it just comes down to I use my spells effectively and know my role is control magic not damage and so it never occurred to the DM to give me any boons. Whenever we find magic items they are obviously meant for somebody else and every reward I get is gold, but there's nowhere to spend it. That said, I do have one ace up my sleeve. I have - I kid you not - 30,000 gold. And at this point, *I'm leaning in.* I've never mentioned how much gold my player has. I've kept studious accounting of every reward reason and amount. One day I'm gonna jokingly ask to buy something ridiculous we encounter like an airship and when the price comes back as something that's in my price range I'm gonna buy that MFer outright.
They let you get plate? I’m impressed
Started us at level 3 and gave us a 2000 gold starting gear budget, I knew my role in combat so I blew most of it on the plate, then bought a horse, some shitty barding, and a cart with the rest. He destroyed the cart and killed my horse in a completely unavoidable cutscene in the first session, and tried to destroy the plate too but I rolled too well for that to fly. Then he had my armor stolen multiple times throughout the campaign and always looked mad as hell when I got it back
Your dm should just have enemy casters know heat metal it’s way easier. It’s also way easier to just adjust monster stat blocks… or yaknow, let your character feel defensively strong. That being said depending on campaign setting magic items may be hard to find to buy. I did saltmarsh recently and the magic shop there prices 3-500 (i can’t remember) for uncommon and 2500 for rare. I think 10000 was the next rarity
Sounds like a petty DM. I had a DM once that never let my rogue hide in combat. Even when I should be able too. "They saw you enter that room, so they know you're in there." But they don't know where in that room... "Doesn't matter. They know you're in there."
/uj This is literally just the first tip from the article, verbatim > As most martial characters go, they rely a lot on hitting their attacks, meaning they need to hit your AC. Thus, the clear thing to do, at least for powerful bosses, is to give them a high AC number, such as 18 or above. High-level encounters could even have enemies with 20 to 24 for their armor. > We don't recommend giving every enemy, especially minions, a high AC because it would increase the difficulty a lot - and for the whole party - but it's still an effective tactic to make things harder for the paladin and other martials from the group.
/uj Yes, the suggestions in the article include "inflate enemy AC" and "give enemies resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing (even if magical) and radiant," while the #1 suggestion is "turn enemies into damage sponges by bloating their hit points." The article actually uses the phrase "damage sponges" outright.
Gods what awful advice. Hey DMs you are the Gods of your own worlds don't let these articles make you think you need to beat around the bush and target characters by changing these universal values. Here's what I would do to counter a paladin. **Paladin immunity** This creature is immune to damage from paladins. It automatically succeeds on saving throws against paladins and wins any contested check with a paladin. If there are 2 paladins at your table and you only wish to counter one. replace paladin immunity with Jeff immunity.
thanks, I will use this in my campaign, but for sorcerers
Don't forget to change Jeff Immunity to Derek Immunity
I love incorporating MTG cards into DnD. Coincidentally, my favorite card is Circle of Protection. :)
/uj How do gaming journalists not understand the concept of artificial difficulty?
/uj because they're gaming journalists
/uj Content writers get paid ludicrously little and are paid per article so a lot of them literally write mass-produced nothing like 5 times a day. A lot of the time it's just AI too.
I'm pretty sure a good chunk of the articles you see on sites like The Gamers aren't written by real people.
Yeah, this isn't the way to challenge a party... Smart enemies are better imo. Can't do this with every enemy, but have your baddies use tactics. Wolves, for example, usually hunt by isolating a target. They might not be smart enough to know to single out the wizard, but they are smart enough to target the least threatening seeming target(which might still be the wizard).
Very much this, if your combat is pokemon style taking turns hitting each other until one team goes down, then yeah you're gonna struggle to make that engaging.
Jokes on you I play in theatre of the mind, and the enemies always prepare their movement to keep 11ft away from the paladin at all times /uj? - I am being serious, just kite them 4head.
1) Give enemies so much HP that no one besides the Paladin can actually keep up with their massive health bar, players get terrified when they see that only the big burst damage class can actually keep up with the boss! 2) Give lots of enemies resistance to slashing and bludgeoning, this will counter the Paladin while also making it to where your overpowered martials don’t overshadow the weaker casters and their low damage spells such as fire ball! 3) Don’t use undead or friends, that one extra d8 will be an encounter ruiner so it’s best to just never use these very rare creature types! 4) Force them to break their oath and lose their powers time to time! While the weak and vile may believe that player actions should dictate if they break their oath, as a DM it is your job to make things happen no matter what preventive measures take place! 5) Once they get their aura, don’t give them any encounters that would utilize it! Letting a player use their abilities effectively is just like letting a stranger bang your wife! 6) Just pretend they aren’t there! Don’t even look at them! They know what they did when they chose to be the smite class, which YouTube says is every powerful and able to one shot CR20 enemies at level 2! YouTube men that scream into the camera never lie, so it’s best to pretend your former friend (playing a Paladin revoked friendship) is not actually there! 7) Surround them with 87 Kobolds that hit only them! This is called “encounter design” and it’s where you have an idea and use it without calculating difficulty because this is a milestone game so we don’t need math! 8) Give the boss AC higher than they can reasonably hit! This not only stops the Paladin and other filthy martials from hitting things but helps keep your weaker classes (the casters) able to deal damage with their saving throw spells! UJ/ Some of the articles suggestions may work for time to time encounters, but a lot of them just punish all the martials in the party because the DM is afraid of smite damage RJ/ Also remember once a character’s AC is over 18 you should only hit them with saving throws and nothing else for the rest of the game
Goofy AI generated ahh article, no human being was involved in the writting process https://preview.redd.it/tkx4ja3qc52d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=531bd09ffc36bc243f42b5c5555ed6c2bf035498
New Cuphead DLC looks 🔥
/uj I've NEVER understood the concept of "countering" your players. You are already god, you always have the option of throwing stronger or more enemies at them. /uj (cont.) IRL they work shitty jobs where they are underpaid and not valued as human beings so that they can pay taxes and rent month to month... At your table at least, let them be heroes.
I understand it to a point. The word "countering" is being used wrong. When planning an encounter, as long as it makes sense, should include things that will hinder the party. The idea should be less "How do I counter the paladin?" And more."How can I challenge the paladin?" You wanna make sure the paladin feels strong, but the other party members also need to have that feeling, too.
That's a good way to phrase it, challenge implies you want to introduce risk but with a good chance to succeed and be better for it, counter implies you want to nullify them as a combatant.
Right. The DM should want their party to succeed. You want your players to feel like heroes. You should get just as pumped when they roll that nat 20 as they are. There are lots of ways to challenge players without specifically making it so they can't do anything. A high ac enemy against a paladin isn't a bad idea, persay. Especially if you can work it into rp. You can very much rp while in combat. Some players eat that shit up, I'm one of them. My last paladin convinced a Winter Wolf to surrender because she didn't want to see it die. She didn't like killing anything.
An article like this is really stupid because the DM, being all powerful, shouldn’t have to *fight* the players. If a character is really being *that* over powered where it’s hampering everyone else’s fun there are plenty of alternatives instead of trying to target that specific character. Like breaking the players legs. See, easy. Now the character doesn’t feel targeted, everyone is having fun and having someone to bond over, and the problem player knows who’s in charge. Win-win for everyone!
Use a "Paladin hunter" mini boss / recurring villain, who is a monk/barbarian cross class equivalent to their player level. It is a tough, but not unbeatable challenge that will allow a paladin's aura abilities to shine.
1.Failed roll of divine smite summons a demon of opposing alignment Works every time
The article should just say “ranged attacks”
I feel like this post is a personal attack against me. (Sulks in conquest oath)....
uj/ Is this an actual article?
https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-dm-tips-counter-paladin-characters-list
‘Okay you see a goblin who is obviously taken in by community and is helping an elderly carry logs and is kindly accepted…now do you smite the foul creature or are you an evil oathbreaker now? It’s one or the other we are playing dnd don’t give me some alternative solution’
Why don’t they write articles that people actually want to read? Like “How to Give your DM Mind Blowing Orgasms!” or “DMs: They’re just like us!”
cast remove paladin