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Question

I have a player who in the span of 3 sessions has gone through 5 characters (& made even more, some of which I told them not to play because the stats were too high), because they want "great" stats (as in at least 3x 16's or 2x 17+ stats, before racial bonuses) - this is causing some headaches for me as the DM due to several reasons:

Balance - this player is already by far the most experienced of the group & is min-maxing all the characters

Extra work for me - I need to read up on the class they just created (i.e. runeblade) in order to be familiar with the rules (otherwise they would exploit me not fully understanding the restrictions of their class)

Story continuity - it's hard to keep incorporating different backgrounds / reasons for the character to appear there / etc. into the game

More background info:

I have tried talking to the player, specifically asking if they could be a level lower than the others (4 instead of 5 right now, I am not dealing with EXP but just leveling up the party when they achieve a milestone) but they want to be the "strongest" player, even though they could do that without the extra stats due to their knowledge

The others in the game like having this player with them, as they are experienced in DnD & greatly help the party overcome obstacles, but they also manage to "convince" the other players that they should be rewarded the most loot / best items, which is only aggravating the problem - I haven't decided to create items that are restricted to a specific player/class yet, but I am tempted to do so

So my question is how should I handle a player who keeps "suiciding" their character in order to get the stats they want?

I could kill their character even once they do get their "dream" stats, but this is already consuming a larger portion of time & effort than what I want to deal with, and I don't think it would change anything other than making the player upset with me

Most related was really this answer (which answers a different question) & the comments on it that confirm it as an issue for others as well:
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/48294/16187

Is there a reason that the answer/comments that you posted were not an acceptable answer for your question? Or rather, what more information are you hoping to get? — 53 mins ago
@Daniel I am soliciting suggestions from others, because by no means have I thought of everything already with just that summary, unless you mean the link which is to a different question — 51 mins ago
Any reason you are having Players roll? Have you considered changing generation methods? — 51 mins ago
What's ironic is that if he took point buy and human he could have 3 stats at 16. — 45 mins ago

Slagmoth 15k13888 · Answer 1 · 2018-10-01 19:51:55Z

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

Simply put an end to that.

The issues with rolling stats is that you take on the risk of getting subpar ability scores with the desired reward of getting super awesome stats. Other issues are that players will feel the imbalance between them.

Yes, the first option for a DM to employ for generating ability scores is rolling. But the variant provided immediately thereafter is also enforcable. Session 0 should/would have resolved this entirely. As a DM I noticed large disparity in rolled stats for more than 3 decades. I finally had enough and everyone is on a level playing field now with pointbuy. There were some disagreements and concerns (because players like to roll dice) but no one is feeling outclassed now.

Another option that I have used for slightly higher powered campaigns is that each player rolls a set of 4d6 and the DM writes it down. If you have 6 players you are done, if not divide up the rest of the rolls till you get a total of six stats. Each player gets an array based on those stats. Everyone is even and everyone can place them where they please.

I have also used 4d6 (reroll 1s), if you roll 13 add the 4th die and four natural 6s is a 19. This bumps up the average of the overall stats and combined with the above example, again keeps everyone relatively if not exactly even.

This is a symptom

This is a symptom of previous games/editions where stats meant a whole lot more than they do now in 5E. This was a hard paradigm for my table to break when we made the switch from 3.X/PF.

Bottom line is that you are the DM, therefore you decide which method to use, not the book and certainly not an individual player. Technically, you would be well within bounds of the rules to feed 4 dice to a dog and wait for them to pass to find out what stats your players would get (a bit extreme though). And especially if this is slowing play and causing issues with other players it needs to end immediately. Put your foot down at your next reiteration of Session 0.

"This is a symptom of previous games/editions where stats meant a whole lot more than they do now in 5E" - I would argue that with 5e's bounded accuracy and much more limited magical items, a character's core attributes are even more important than they were in previous systems, not less. A 2 point difference is way more mechanically meaningful in 5e than 3.5e. — 9 mins ago

Ghiojo 805420 · Answer 2 · 2018-10-01 19:50:24Z

At the end of the day, you are the DM

Look, if someone's being a problem to you, and after speaking to them they just don't stop, there's a point when you have to start putting the foot down. If this is actually interfering with your fun with the game, then it's a problem to talk about. The idea of D&D is that everyone should be having fun here, and thus, you are included in it.

I would sit down with the player and discuss it politely once more, but leave with a fair warning that you are not going to stand by the whole suiciding characters because they want to be the best. D&D is a team-based game, and there should not be any spotlight being stolen from the group as a whole.

One thing is to just have terrible stats and wishing to re-roll because you legitimately have had a very bad streak (Which is something that actually happened to me in a game, and I talked it politely and was allowed to re-roll, and I am more than happy with my character now). But re-rolling, because they want to achieve the mythical 6 18s, is just dumb, and if the player doesn't listen, there has to be a point where you should remove the player off the table if they just won't play the game and just expect to min-max everything. There's a table for everything and, if you're not going for that, then players have to understand your expectations as well as much as they have to understand other players' expectations

On the topic of personal items

I honestly feel personal items are good, they allow players to feel that you thought of them when doing those items, that you have them in mind, appreciate them and overall, like to see them develop. You should drop items every now and then that tie into one of them only, be it from backstory or simple coincidence with classes.

Disclaimer

I am not advocating that removing a player is always the best strategy, I only feel it's necessary when all other possible resources have been exhausted and they are legitimately affecting the table in a negative manner. Please don't think that I am saying "Remove them" as the first or second or fourth option.

score 1 · Answer 3 · 2018-10-01 20:12:52Z

You Don't Have to Allow This

In DnD, party balance is an important aspect. Naturally, the goal isn't that everyone is equally good at everything: characters in particular classes or of particular races will have specialized roles or advantages, which other characters cannot achieve. But overall, the goal is that everyone will have certain advantages and disadvantages which balance each other out. Your player is trying to violate this tenant left and right: explicitly trying to make their character the "strongest" one in the party.

An explicit attempt to unbalance the game is something you don't have to put up with. And nothing in the game requires you to do so. There are no explicit rules in the general rulebooks stating that when a character dies, their player gets to make a new character of the same level, or that they get to reroll the Abilities of their characters. In fact, in the Adventurer's League, the rules on character death (page 7) either require you to raise the character from the dead somehow, or to have the player create a new Level 1 character.

If you are not playing in the Adventurer's League, there are a few methods you could use to curtail this.

Restrict to point buy

This would work particularly well if the other players created their characters through point buy. If they didn't you could work out the point buy value of the characters in your game so far, and allow the problem player to create a character with the point buy value of the highest current character. For example, if one of the other characters Ability scores (before racial bonuses) were 15, 15, 15, 15, 10, 8, you could give the problem player 9+9+9+9+2+0=38 points to create their new character, ensuring that they create a character that is balanced with existing characters in the party.

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

You are well within your rights to restrict the problem player to Ability Rolls they've already made. If you are allowed to roll repeatedly, it basically invalidates the point of rolling at all: why would anyone stop at anything less than 18s in their attack stats at level 1 if they could just keep rerolling until that's what they got? You could warn this player that the next time they create a new character, whatever Ability scores they roll will be the ones they have to use for all subsequent characters.

You could explain this as a balance issue, or you could point out what you've told us: that the constant changes of character are difficult to plan around, both tactically and in terms of the story: that you really need to have some sense of where this player's character is headed to plan ahead yourself.

Raise the Dead

You could, through the players' actions or through the actions of NPCs, raise the player's previous character from the dead. Granted, if they committed suicide before, they're likely to do so again. But you could make it clear that their character getting raised is the only way they can return to the game.

Change their minds, or...

This is by far the most difficult plan, but may be the only viable one.

Your problem player is not only trying to create a character that is strong enough to take on any dangers from monsters, but is explicitly trying to make a character that is stronger than the others in the party. They may be helpful to the party's goals, but they are dangerous to its cohesion and atmosphere.

DnD is inherently a social game. There's no need for our characters to all get along: they may compete, and try to get the better of each other, or even become outright antagonistic. But while this is fine between characters (and could even be a great boon to the story), it is not at all fine between players.

You want your players to work together towards a common goal: that goal is fun. If the players start seeing each other as opponents, then you're no longer creating a story, you're managing group/couples therapy. And while that's an admirable goal, it's not what you signed up for.

This player is abusing a system set up to be balanced, in a way that benefits only themselves. This is apparent not only in their out-of-character decisions to make new characters, but in their in-character arguments that they should get more than their share of the treasure to make themselves even stronger. If you can talk them out of this mindset, then I urge you to do so: but it may not be possible, or it may not be worth the trouble.

I'll give you advice that I hope you'll seriously consider passing along to this player: you want to be the strongest one in your group? There's an easy way to do that. Stay home.

Slagmoth 15k13888 · Answer 4 · 2018-10-01 19:51:55Z

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

Simply put an end to that.

The issues with rolling stats is that you take on the risk of getting subpar ability scores with the desired reward of getting super awesome stats. Other issues are that players will feel the imbalance between them.

Yes, the first option for a DM to employ for generating ability scores is rolling. But the variant provided immediately thereafter is also enforcable. Session 0 should/would have resolved this entirely. As a DM I noticed large disparity in rolled stats for more than 3 decades. I finally had enough and everyone is on a level playing field now with pointbuy. There were some disagreements and concerns (because players like to roll dice) but no one is feeling outclassed now.

Another option that I have used for slightly higher powered campaigns is that each player rolls a set of 4d6 and the DM writes it down. If you have 6 players you are done, if not divide up the rest of the rolls till you get a total of six stats. Each player gets an array based on those stats. Everyone is even and everyone can place them where they please.

I have also used 4d6 (reroll 1s), if you roll 13 add the 4th die and four natural 6s is a 19. This bumps up the average of the overall stats and combined with the above example, again keeps everyone relatively if not exactly even.

This is a symptom

This is a symptom of previous games/editions where stats meant a whole lot more than they do now in 5E. This was a hard paradigm for my table to break when we made the switch from 3.X/PF.

Bottom line is that you are the DM, therefore you decide which method to use, not the book and certainly not an individual player. Technically, you would be well within bounds of the rules to feed 4 dice to a dog and wait for them to pass to find out what stats your players would get (a bit extreme though). And especially if this is slowing play and causing issues with other players it needs to end immediately. Put your foot down at your next reiteration of Session 0.

"This is a symptom of previous games/editions where stats meant a whole lot more than they do now in 5E" - I would argue that with 5e's bounded accuracy and much more limited magical items, a character's core attributes are even more important than they were in previous systems, not less. A 2 point difference is way more mechanically meaningful in 5e than 3.5e. — 9 mins ago

Ghiojo 805420 · Answer 5 · 2018-10-01 19:50:24Z

At the end of the day, you are the DM

Look, if someone's being a problem to you, and after speaking to them they just don't stop, there's a point when you have to start putting the foot down. If this is actually interfering with your fun with the game, then it's a problem to talk about. The idea of D&D is that everyone should be having fun here, and thus, you are included in it.

I would sit down with the player and discuss it politely once more, but leave with a fair warning that you are not going to stand by the whole suiciding characters because they want to be the best. D&D is a team-based game, and there should not be any spotlight being stolen from the group as a whole.

One thing is to just have terrible stats and wishing to re-roll because you legitimately have had a very bad streak (Which is something that actually happened to me in a game, and I talked it politely and was allowed to re-roll, and I am more than happy with my character now). But re-rolling, because they want to achieve the mythical 6 18s, is just dumb, and if the player doesn't listen, there has to be a point where you should remove the player off the table if they just won't play the game and just expect to min-max everything. There's a table for everything and, if you're not going for that, then players have to understand your expectations as well as much as they have to understand other players' expectations

On the topic of personal items

I honestly feel personal items are good, they allow players to feel that you thought of them when doing those items, that you have them in mind, appreciate them and overall, like to see them develop. You should drop items every now and then that tie into one of them only, be it from backstory or simple coincidence with classes.

Disclaimer

I am not advocating that removing a player is always the best strategy, I only feel it's necessary when all other possible resources have been exhausted and they are legitimately affecting the table in a negative manner. Please don't think that I am saying "Remove them" as the first or second or fourth option.

score 1 · Answer 6 · 2018-10-01 20:12:52Z

You Don't Have to Allow This

In DnD, party balance is an important aspect. Naturally, the goal isn't that everyone is equally good at everything: characters in particular classes or of particular races will have specialized roles or advantages, which other characters cannot achieve. But overall, the goal is that everyone will have certain advantages and disadvantages which balance each other out. Your player is trying to violate this tenant left and right: explicitly trying to make their character the "strongest" one in the party.

An explicit attempt to unbalance the game is something you don't have to put up with. And nothing in the game requires you to do so. There are no explicit rules in the general rulebooks stating that when a character dies, their player gets to make a new character of the same level, or that they get to reroll the Abilities of their characters. In fact, in the Adventurer's League, the rules on character death (page 7) either require you to raise the character from the dead somehow, or to have the player create a new Level 1 character.

If you are not playing in the Adventurer's League, there are a few methods you could use to curtail this.

Restrict to point buy

This would work particularly well if the other players created their characters through point buy. If they didn't you could work out the point buy value of the characters in your game so far, and allow the problem player to create a character with the point buy value of the highest current character. For example, if one of the other characters Ability scores (before racial bonuses) were 15, 15, 15, 15, 10, 8, you could give the problem player 9+9+9+9+2+0=38 points to create their new character, ensuring that they create a character that is balanced with existing characters in the party.

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

You are well within your rights to restrict the problem player to Ability Rolls they've already made. If you are allowed to roll repeatedly, it basically invalidates the point of rolling at all: why would anyone stop at anything less than 18s in their attack stats at level 1 if they could just keep rerolling until that's what they got? You could warn this player that the next time they create a new character, whatever Ability scores they roll will be the ones they have to use for all subsequent characters.

You could explain this as a balance issue, or you could point out what you've told us: that the constant changes of character are difficult to plan around, both tactically and in terms of the story: that you really need to have some sense of where this player's character is headed to plan ahead yourself.

Raise the Dead

You could, through the players' actions or through the actions of NPCs, raise the player's previous character from the dead. Granted, if they committed suicide before, they're likely to do so again. But you could make it clear that their character getting raised is the only way they can return to the game.

Change their minds, or...

This is by far the most difficult plan, but may be the only viable one.

Your problem player is not only trying to create a character that is strong enough to take on any dangers from monsters, but is explicitly trying to make a character that is stronger than the others in the party. They may be helpful to the party's goals, but they are dangerous to its cohesion and atmosphere.

DnD is inherently a social game. There's no need for our characters to all get along: they may compete, and try to get the better of each other, or even become outright antagonistic. But while this is fine between characters (and could even be a great boon to the story), it is not at all fine between players.

You want your players to work together towards a common goal: that goal is fun. If the players start seeing each other as opponents, then you're no longer creating a story, you're managing group/couples therapy. And while that's an admirable goal, it's not what you signed up for.

This player is abusing a system set up to be balanced, in a way that benefits only themselves. This is apparent not only in their out-of-character decisions to make new characters, but in their in-character arguments that they should get more than their share of the treasure to make themselves even stronger. If you can talk them out of this mindset, then I urge you to do so: but it may not be possible, or it may not be worth the trouble.

I'll give you advice that I hope you'll seriously consider passing along to this player: you want to be the strongest one in your group? There's an easy way to do that. Stay home.

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What to do about PC rerolling for great stats?

3 Answers 3

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

At the end of the day, you are the DM

On the topic of personal items

Disclaimer

You Don't Have to Allow This

Restrict to point buy

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

Raise the Dead

Change their minds, or...

Your Answer

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3 Answers 3

3 Answers 3

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

Your player is trying to game you, the system and the other players at the table.

At the end of the day, you are the DM

On the topic of personal items

Disclaimer

At the end of the day, you are the DM

On the topic of personal items

Disclaimer

At the end of the day, you are the DM

On the topic of personal items

Disclaimer

At the end of the day, you are the DM

On the topic of personal items

Disclaimer

You Don't Have to Allow This

Restrict to point buy

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

Raise the Dead

Change their minds, or...

You Don't Have to Allow This

Restrict to point buy

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

Raise the Dead

Change their minds, or...

You Don't Have to Allow This

Restrict to point buy

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

Raise the Dead

Change their minds, or...

You Don't Have to Allow This

Restrict to point buy

Restrict to previous rolls (or make the next roll final)

Raise the Dead

Change their minds, or...

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Post as a guest

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