One of the players has an AC six or seven points higher than the rest of the party. (Meat Shield, with Mounted Rider so he can protect is mount) Any ideas on how to tackle him off his mount and stay within the rules as currently written. His mount is a tame axe-beak (we're calling them Chocobo's). The rest of the party really can't survive anything that has a reasonable chance to hit him. I think I want a group of monsters to tackle and pin him.
Monsters like wolves and kobolds that have Pack Tactics.... they get advantage on their attacks. (Not sure how the wolves Prone ability works with mounted targets)
Any creature can 'help' someone attack, and thus give them advantage on the attack.
What level? Not sure how to get that big of an AC difference....
Lure the group into pursuing "defeated" enemies at high speed. A rope tied between two trees, about 6 feet off the ground, will take him off his mount but not bother the ground-pounders.
(Think: Ewoks vs Speedster Troopers)
If you want to do him damage, use spells that require saving throws, not things (like weapons) that go vs AC.
Or jump him in his sleep, so he's not wearing that armor.
Spells vs Dex, Wis, and/or Con or a bunch of social or stealth encounters. No character can be good at everything.
Honestly though I wouldn't try to make encounters to defeat this player. I would look at the character, talk to the player about making adjustments to the character so it best fits the rest of the table and campaign. It's a team game having one overpowered character can really ruin a campaign for everyone and if he/she isn't willing to be a team player maybe it's not the right game for them.
Yeah. More details required. How the heck is he 6-7 AC higher than the rest of the party? Seems fishy. The rest of the PCs would have to be trying really hard to keep their ACs down that low.
Ball bearings or calltrops. Or a pitfall. Try dragging your horse out of one...
Also, according to almost all westerns, horses are afraid of small snakes. You can use a classic: Kobolds or goblins with 4ft sticks and at the end a small snake. Goblin/kobolt comes foreward, horse throws his/her rider off (With an animal handling DC20 or DC25 maybe?)
A nice cave, with doors, does wonders in forcing a PC off his high-horse! As do the Push, Prone, and Grab options (which ANY creature can use). If they can't grab his horse, they can likely grab him and drag him off. And, as someone else said, my favorite tactic since 3.x has ALWAYS been the "Help" command for hordes of goblins, especially since it gives Advantage now!
Also, spells that require saves are the (stereotypical) bane of anyone with high AC. Target his INT or WIS and laugh as he flees from something that isn't there...
That being said, don't be afraid to have his character do exactly what he's already doing every now-and-then. Sure it grows old for you, and maybe the rest of the party, but like how you throw the Social Bard fun encounters, or allow a Ranger to stalk his Favored Enemy in his Favored Terrain, you should allow the high AC guy to use it in combat sometimes. Not ALL the time, because that's spotlight hogging that you are (accidentally) creating.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
We are talking about 5e, are we? Because if so, being mounted does not increase the rider's AC, Conversely, pulling the PC off his mount will not reduce his AC.
Is the player somehow claiming that his AC is boosted by riding his mount? If so, that's what's wrong.
BoldItalic wrote:
Timborama wrote:
Timborama wrote:
Noctaem wrote:
Nevvur wrote:
Have mean NPCs and monsters proficient in Athletics (which is actually pretty rare in MM stat blocks) make Shove attacks against them.
They get knocked prone and other attacks from 5' have advantage until the character stands up on their turn.
SHOVING A CREATURE
Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target of your shove must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. You make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.
PRONE
A prone creature’s only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition.
The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls.
An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
BEING PRONE
Combatants often find themselves lying on the ground, either because they are knocked down or because they throw themselves down. In the game, they are prone, a condition described in appendix A.
You can drop prone without using any of your speed. Standing up takes more effort; doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. For example, if your speed is 30 feet, you must spend 15 feet of movement to stand up. You can’t stand up if you don’t have enough movement left or if your speed is 0.
To move while prone, you must crawl or use magic such as teleportation. Every foot of movement while crawling costs 1 extra foot. Crawling 1 foot in difficult terrain, therefore, costs 3 feet of movement
I keep thinking maybe this guy is the main tank - that's the idea. The ones who can't stand at the front have someone to do it for them.
Isn't this just undermining the idea of party cooperation?
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
No matter how high the AC, as a DM I always let my players know that they can't walk around in armor 24/7. When it's really cold at night, and you are trying to sleep, you take your armor off first. Donning armor takes time, so that is the moment to throw in a random encounter.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Nevvur wrote:
Easy: Don't attack his AC. Spells that attack DEX or WIS are your best bet. Or you can attack his mount directly and take that out of commission, bringing him down to the rest of the group's level. Also, like Coredump00 said, use pack creatures that can overwhelm him with shear numbers and advantage. One of them is bound to get a shove attack off.
"Any ideas on how to tackle him off his mount and stay within the rules as currently written."
(Section deleted: error in understanding how "Grapple" attacks are resolved. Thanks to illithidbix for the corrrection!)
You need to think outside that box for challenges to that one character that won't also wipe the floor with the rest of the party...
- Ball bearings/Burning oil//Caltrops spread with a readied action if the mount moves adjacent
- Enemy clerics casting Bless, only on the monsters attacking that one character, and nets (the ones not under Bless use the Help action)
- Magic Missiles or Charm against the rider
- Sleep against the mount
- Stairs!
- A nemesis with the exact same gear and feats as him
- Attack everybody else first
DemoMonkey wrote:
You are correct Illithidbix. I have removed the erroneous section of my post.
I figured what's nagging me about this post - all the posters joining in on what is metagaming. It's the same as when players don't care how the game world works, they just want to use mechanics to get effect X. Here it's getting at that guy on his mount. Side note : For those who have no problems with player metagaming in your games, then this observation doesn't matter in your case.
The fact that the OP hasn't been back to his own thread in a few days, makes me reconsider the veracity of his statements.
I dunno. Just sayin' my feels.
Or just throw a buch of wizards at a high AC target. Firball is great!
Quicker? Wha...? I started off posting a genuine query. Which, like the rest of our posts, fell on deaf ears.
Yes. I wondered aloud how serious (or accurate) his post was. So I feel he may have been more hyperbolic, or even a pot stirrer, to your belief he was just an inconsiderate mouse. Your point being?
Your hypocrisy should be making you cringe right now. Making such wild assumptions of the OP like you just did...
I'm not surprised the OP didn't come back. Even I didn't come back.
oops 
Sorry, having a busy week. Thanks for all the replies.
The party is 4 members all 4th level
Eladrin thief (assassin) AC15 (leather armor + dex and a lot of running around)
Drow cleric AC 16 (leather + dex + shield; dead now because inadequate protection)
Human Fighter AC 22 (+2 Plate and Shield, yes this is my fault, I'm bad at treasure)
And Dragonborn Ranger AC 17 (worst handwriting,)
MarcCCTx wrote:
Sorry edited my post while you were replying.
Basically, I give out good treasure only rarely so if the player asks for something specific, they usually can find it in an upcoming adventure, unfortunately the monster is using it or eating the previous owner.
My group is very laid back, and usually don't optimise their characters all the way around. (Specialists, not generalists)
In the current 5E campaign this is ok, cause I'm going all-out odd. Sigil has been destoryed and someone (thing, group) is trying to replace its function. They have (seemingly) stolen stolen a chunk out of every world and dimension and place them in a seperate universe/dimension. As the players explore they can meet people/and things from anywhere. If one of them dies, they create a new character from whatever area they are in.
Each piece is a hex approximately 1 days travel across (30miles) unfortunately whoever did this was in a hurry and did not pay much attention to what they were doing. So they place the chunk from the elemental plane of water about 5 feet higher that the player's homehex and they had to handle the flooding first, luckily one of the neighbors is a portion of one of the great gears and the modrons helped end the chaos caused by the waters. Some of the other hexes include an old west/final fantasy type world, a chunk of the underdark, half of a minotaurs den in the great forest, etc. With the release of the Unearthed Arcana, a section of Eberron must be nearby.
Anyway the players are former mountain guides turned explorers and random friends made in their exploring. (The morning after the great storm their mountain was missing.) They just found a hex with a broken chunk of the city of Sigil, so far it's the only hex that doesn't seem top have a population.
MarcCCTx wrote:
I had forgotten that oozes and rust monsters don't affect magic armor. You could always come up with your own spells, or perhaps offer an interesting deal for the PC in-game to deal with the armor if it's such a problem.
OTOH, +2 Plate is like walking around with the Hope DIamond as a necklace. Its may attact a lot of the wrong attention. Any part of lvl8-15 would likely be interested in taking it. (Assuming they would be okay taking it....)
Ok so basically the one character has magical +2 plate armor and seems to have grabbed every option to boost AC. In that case, your options are more limited. What I would recommend is using abilities on the character which don't target AC. So reflex, wis, cha, con save stuff instead. It's quite simple, if you see a character in full shining magical plate armor, with shield and so on you don't try to attack him with your sword, you toss a spell at him instead. Try to modify your tactics during combat. Even a monster with the command spell can cause issues for this guy so it's really not too complicated. I think though that you should really avoid focusing on this guy and instead talk to your players:
Explain that you've created a situation by mistake which is causing you problems when trying to create challenging encounters. Because he's a walking fortress of AC while everyone else isn't, if you wanted to create an encounter that would be challenging for a 22 AC fighter, everyone else would be at a serious disadvantage. Suggest that instead of a +2 plate armor, that perhaps it would be best if you replaced that armor with 2 other +1 magical items for the party. That way magical gear is spread around a bit more and you don't end up with a 22 AC character. Appologize for the mistake but at least this way it can be more fun for everyone involved. Talking to your players is probably the best solution.
Okay, so it's the +2 Plate Mail that's the problem.
Let's think under what circumstances Plate Mail is such a hindrance that the PC will want to spend 5 minutes taking it off.
-- needing to swim a long way without sinking
-- getting past a very big magnet
-- needing to be stealthy
-- crossing a zone of ultra-high gravity where the encumbrance limit is only 1xStrength
-- needing to fly somewhere by Giant Eagle, and excess baggage is a problem
-- ...
Alternatively, consider making the armour sentient in an inconvenient but amusing way. Suppose that, unbeknownst to the player, it's been dormant all this time but is going to be awoken by some unusual event. Perhaps the next time a monster hits it with a natural 20, it suddenly goes "Ouch! Be careful, can't you?" and wakes up and starts talking to its wearer, Complaining that he's not spending enough time oiling and polishing it, Making unreasonable demands. There are all sorts of ideas in the DMG (pp214-216). Roll up its Int, Wis and Cha scores and find occasions for opposed checks against the wearer. Not often enough to be unfunny, but enough to make the player feel that he's got more than he bargained for, when he said he wanted some +2 plate.
Give the armour 100 "charges" of +2. After being attacked 100 times (just guess how many have been used to date), the armour drops to +1. After another 100, it drops +0. And maybe after another 100, it disintegrates completely.
Also, change "100" to whatever number suits the timetable of your campaign.
This way, you don't have to retcon anything, but you aren't permanently saddled with your (self-admitted) miscalculation.
Can the armour be recharged? Heck if I know. Quest time to find out!
+2 is really only 10% more damage reduction.
The rest of the party can survive what will hit him. Or as someone else said, as they level monsters will soon catch up.
Noon wrote:
As others have said... +2 Plate Armor is the issue.
In my main D&D group, only recently at 6th level was ONE player actually able to purchase plate armor. Granted, I did throw in a damaged plate armor worn by a boss villain so he had to pay half. The characters are now able to start purchasing magic gear (I'm allowing for it, most costing at minimum 500g). Plate as treasure was huge for the group, and I think they appreciated it as most are AC18-20 (Dwarves with heavy armor + Shield or just heavy armor). I have drastically slowed down the availability of magical AC items, almost considering those items rare...like +1 Armor, +1 Shield, etc. even though by the DMG they are Uncommon items. Despite the characters investing money and time into finding magical armor and shields, I'll slowly start making them available as they reach a higher level tier when they face tougher monsters and such and such.
As for your group, I say let the tank be the tank. I had let slip the Staff of Defense from the Lost Mines of Phandelver module, and now one of the main tanks is using it (Fighter/Eldritch Knight - with Shield Spell galore). Once he reaches 7th, with Blade Ward, he'll become even more tanky as ever especially when the Paladin often covers him with Protection (and vice versa). I'll let him draw enemies to himself when possible, and I think he's actually feels fulfilled as the tank.
As others also have stated, you can use other "attack forms" to start pelting down the enemies. I've been using low level mages tossing Magic Missiles at the players (to the point where the Paladin ran after a group of them just because they were so annoying). Sacred Flame, and other Save type attacks have been annoying the players. Also swarming them with minions have helped as once in a while, a hit gets through slowly depleting the hitpoints of the tanks. but ultimately, the tank is there to tank damage away from other players, and whenever he loses focus, the other characters suffer (although when 80+% of the characters are tough dwarves wrapped in medium or heavy armor with shields, they are a solid ball of defense). I don't set up encounters to take out the tank or even TPK, but rather, try to create encounters where all players feel useful in battle. I don't need to take out the tank to give him a challenge, I have mobs try take out the less armored characters, or the Cleric hidden dead center in the ball of armor and shield.
+2 Plate at 4th level.
Well, don't make that mistake again, obviously...
... but having made it, there are some options for you.
1. Have high level NPCs take it from the PC. This would be entirely understandable from an RP point of view, but your players might be upset by it. Best to discuss your mistake with them first and that you want to take the mistake out of the game because it's unfair to other players.
2. See above and have the Plate disenchanted somehow.
3. Have the player discover the Plate has an associated curse which makes it's use a mixed blessing.
4. Have an NPC make a large cash and/or favours offer for it and thus allow the unbalanced benefit of such a powerful item to subsequently be shared amongst the entire group. Perhaps it could be recognised as an heirloom of a powerful Clan or Noble Family and they want it back. Perhaps it belonged to a hero who needs it to defeat an enemy of the kingdom the PCs are not yet high enough level to tackle themselves. This option potentially let's you make the player feel good about handing the item over, so may be a good option for you.
At the end of the day you have given an OP magic item to one player and now the game is suffering. Not only that, you are kind of punishing the other players if they don't get something similar and that might cause some understandable upset.
The only way to let this stand it to come up with convoluted ways to take the ubertank down with non-AC based attacks and tactics, and too much of those, sidestepping their impressive conventional defence will soon become noticeable as DM bias against the player.
So one way or the other - keep the lines of communication open with the player, admit you made a mistake and come up with an acceptable way to remove or downgrade the item which works ok with your group.
That's how I would handle it.
Coredump00 wrote:
Kill one of the other party members and the cost of resurrection is so great he'll have to sell the platemail.
Archon007 wrote:
Noon wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
Noon wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
In my opinion DMs designing encounters around players is as bad as players reading the DMs notes on an encounter and then planning tactics based off that. Why work to making your character powerful or specialized if the DM just moves the goalpost every time you do it so you're right back where you began? He's clearly focused on AC to avoid hits(Versus say a Barbarian ignoring AC and relying on resistance and a huge HP pool). If you just put mobs in the game that disable his AC or have +hit high enough to negate it then his whole character concept is ruined.
AC doesn't protect from spells or abilities that require a DC check. Just build a variety of encounters. Spellcasters that prefer DC check spells, mindless creatures that won't necessarily focus him no matter how well thought out the groups tactics are, extremely intelligent creatures that won't focus him because they keep missing, Spell casters and creatures that use lots of AoE effects. Encounters that force the group to be split. Puzzles you can't bash over the head with an axe.
But when you throw creatures at him that use roll attacks, let him be amazing.
slumgum wrote: