What about
> Hey guys. I've learned a lot in the last couple of years as a DM, and I'm having fun and the game and characters are amazing. But I'm also starting to see some errors that I made, and the higher we go in level, the more apparent those are becoming.
> Here's the deal. The magic items I gave you guys are ridiculously OP. And that means that I have to spend 10 times as long creating equally ridiculous OP enemies to make combat last longer than two rounds. That part is *not* fun.
> I'd like to see if we can retcon some of the gear to keep it reasonable for the sake of game balance and my sanity. I want you guys to keep doing what you do and having fun, but in a way that fits better with the intended balance of the game.
or something?
OP, this is the better solution.
Doing it in game withholds the context from your players.
That context is " the dm ain't having fun".
These discussions are a big part of the game too.
Make sure you do right by you as a DM - don't get bullied, stick to your guns, keep your cool and you'll be fine.
Yes, the DM is a player too and deserves to have fun. DMs already have the lion's share of prep/"homework" to do for game sessions, so it should be 100% okay to "hotfix" a game once in a while(and honestly, inevitable in longggg, multi-year games) if they are finding the prep outweighs the at-the-table fun.
You don't have to remove the gear, just hotfix them and adjust their bonuses/effects to bring them in line with similar items of that level. If your players are reasonable, they will understand. Some will be butthurt about it cause people love being OP in games, but tough shit, it's a game for fun for everyone at the table.
> inevitable in longggg, multi-year games)
I ran two 7+ year games and modest retcons/fixes absolutely happen. One of my games involved 100% custom-made dragon savage progressions and we had to make a few somewhat annoying but hard fixes with some of the dragons due to balance issues that looked fine on paper but made themselves known in gameplay.
The other, being my first campaign and done in early high school to early college, involved the players being the Chosen Ones and not only having powerful artifacts but managed to get me to approve a flying ship that was virtually invulnerable. It lead to some fun scenes (like when a colossal centipede grappled the *entire ship* by grasping at the hanger bay) but it also led to a lot of "and we fly over this." So in the end we agreed it had to go, and in part because it was actually taking away the player desire for agency.
First was youthful energy that came from high school; the second was that the game was a dragons-only campaign where the PC characters started as eggs sent backward 1,000 years in time to avert a huge world-breaking calamity. It was fun to build out a gigantic play space for baby dragons to fight, conquer, and most fun - be humbled. The physically strongest got the shit kicked out of him by a herd of elephants.
I think we ended the game around level 27 when real-life meant even infrequent gaming was becoming a tough call.
>(and honestly, inevitable in longggg, multi-year games)
\*looks left, then right, then at his untested homebrew undergoing a trial-by-fire with a probable rules lawyer in two weeks...\*
This is the best answer- if they are your friends then they should understand that you were very liberal with items early on and that was a rookie mistake
Or Halastar can show up with an Time Stop trap, casually walk through and take items from them as he has been watching the entire time.
Both work
If you're worried about how they'll take it, tell them they don't have to decide right now, but you'll be running tonight's session at the unaltered levels.
They won't be having nearly as much fun when they litterally steamroll through a session, one shot killing everything.
I'll echo this; I'd place the offer on the table to redesign each of their character as if it was from scratch at that level; reset everything they have. Feats equipment ect.
Then give them each the gold for their level, a single legendary magic item (barring the broken ones like The Deck, or Ring of3w, or anything like that) then give them a single epic boon of their choosing.
This way they lose their OP stuff, get a chance to rebuild their character, and get rewarded for it via epic boon. Now they are WAY more balanced and feel like they weren't completely nerfed.
It can even be a evil wizard who casts a elaborate ritual that teleports them to an alternate world and during the transfer stripped them of their items and jumbled the skills around. When they get to the new world the items they pick are in the jail they have to break out of to retrieve.
You can do this but I find just having an out of game conversation and making out of game mechanical decisions and then picking up the story is less intrusive and feels less bad it just feels like "Hey we're giving our dm this concession for whatever reason"
Yes but once they have this talk, that can be the story used to explain the changes and give them the option of finding a few of the item that may have made it to the new world too. And a new bbeg to fight. Make him a level 20 wizard of some kind. And he has to build back up his strength while they make their way back to him
Now this previous comment? That's one well thought out and well constructed request. That's the way to do it, for sure...
*However*
... should that NOT work out;
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17001-rust-monster
Just gonna leave that there...
RAW it is not magical and would still work in an antimagic field. It doesn't have the keywords "magic" or "spell", so It's mundane, just like gorgon's breath, the splitting ability of an ooze, or an ettercap's web attack.
Interestingly, a basilisk's gaze is magical, but a medusa's isn't.
Considering that in 3.5e a Medusa's Petrifying Gaze is tagged as a Supernatural ability, and Supernatural abilities are unaffected by Anti-Magic, it's likely that the 5e Medusa's gaze working under anti-magic is an intentional design choice.
I sort of agree, but not on the wording technicality — if a Medusa's Petrifying Gaze ability was meant to be magical, it would be fixed in the errata.
If you're really nitpicky with it, a Medusa's whole existence is magical, and unless their curse was bestowed by a deity (one of four possible avenues for being a Medusa, the other two being draconic, archmage, or fiend patrons) then all of the magic would cease functioning in the AntiMagic Field, including their curse and their gaze.
But if that's true then you can also beat a Medusa by casting a 3rd level Remove Curse and turning them back into a normal human (ideally a commoner with 4 HP).
I think you’re giving the D&D team too much credit. They’ll only errata things they notice, and 5e is not a particularly well-templated game like Pathfinder 2e or Magic: The Gathering are. How many times has “Medusa in an anti-Magic field” come up?
What, you've never heard of the dee-emneedsabreak variant? The one which was magically altered to exude a very short half-life magical dispelling ooze from their feelers? It allows them to bypass magical protection and dissolve the metals they're made of. They were one of several species that were modified into freaks of nature. All done by the same jackass wizard who thought owls and bears should be able to procreate, so they magically slapped them together.
.... New magic item... Bag of Coding
Can contain One Item in addition to up to two other Bags of Coding.
Bag can be attuned to a crystal (or multiple) that, when placed inside another Bag of Coding, is treated as if it were the original.
The worst variant I’ve seen of this came from Dungeons of Dredmore, and IIRC it didn’t damage the weapon itself. Instead it altered the magical buff to an equally powerful debuff/curse.
What’s that? Your blade of misty step as a reaction just got corrupted into a blade of ‘relocate randomly every time you deal damage??
Oh no. How dreadful.
Agreed, it would be really bad to say out loud that the rust dragon is literally statted in the Draconomicon for 3.5- section for Planar Dragons. Like REEEAL bad.
Nevermind tact and sensitivity and sharing your feelings blah blah blah... THIS is the way to do it OP!
There's a reason that the DND universe is filled with tons of lost civilizations. Magic fails every now and again as evil triumphs.
This is exactly how I'd handle it. I'd also offer to the group "Rather than retcon, give me some ideas on how you'd be willing to see these items and powers be 'in-game' toned down to a normal level."
I really like this. As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed if I were just singled out one day and stripped of all my cool stuff. Having it "hotfixed" to have an intended +22 AC instead of 30 (as an example) would feel fair. Having it explained would feel much better than just being robbed and losing all of the cool stuff that I've been working with.
I've retconned items before and noticed it annoyed my players because i nerfed the weapons/armor at the time too much. Perhaps I should ask the former DM in the group to help me retconn them without ruining the fun of the group's favorite weapons/armor? Its definitely a challenging concept given just how many items they have. They turned the tree tower in Level 5 into a base and store all the stuff they dont want to use at the moment there. So if I nerfed the current items they had i have no doubt they'd just swap them out with others.
After the last time i did it i decided to try to avoid doing it again which led me to the idea of using curses to limit the potential of the items. And cursing my paladin actually worked rather well. He was annoyed at first but ended up admitting the side quest to remove the curse was fun so it was worth it in the long run. But i cant just keep cursing them over and over again. Well i could the paladin (he never stops just blindly trusting all items he finds) but the rest of the party is much smarter and are actually pretty good at avoiding things like that.
A lot of it is about agency, talk to your players, tell them you don't want to take their items away but the power level is causing problems for you and you would appreciate it if they would compromise with you on dialling back the power to a more manageable level.
Give them a say in things
Additionally, pick out the worst aspects of the items for each player, determine which effects are game-breaking and which are just annoying for you, I would also consider coming up with some fun alterative abilities for the items that aren't going to give you the same headaches on combat the current items cause.
Can I be honest? Yeah, of course they’re annoyed when you give them something awesome and then take it away. Most people would be, even if they know it’s right. That’s fine, they’re allowed to be. They’re probably going to be annoyed again. But if they care about the game, they’ll understand. But that doesn’t mean the answer is to just hamfist into the game that they lose it. Assuming your players aren’t complete idiots, they’re going to realize what you’re doing and they’ll be even more upset because you didn’t even have the decency to talk to them about it first.
Your players know the game too. Talk to them. Let them help you come up with a solution. Maybe it not getting rid of the items entirely but making them less powerful. Or maybe they can switch them out for 1 or maybe even 2 lower level items with more niche uses but are still cool. Maybe some people built the character around the item and would like a chance to respec, and maybe some would rather just change the item—that’s okay too, not everyone needs the same solution.
Also, a DM trick if you want to try going without nerfing stuff: if encounters are too easy it’s okay to just…make them harder on the fly. A boss with 400 HP got crushed in two rounds and it’s unsatisfying and boring for everyone? oops you misread, he’s actually an 800 HP boss. 13 AC way too low but you really want to use a cool creature? Well don’t question why this beast is wearing heavy armor, but now it is…(I wouldn’t change AC mid battle though). All your players have magic items that let them fly? Okay cool, these meelee soldiers now have cross bows too, or this monster can spit acid, whatever makes sense.
Most players aren’t going to know the stat blocks, and if they do they probably also DM and know the struggle and probably do the same. My DM admitted to me she adds 100-200 HP to every encounter in the book we’re because we just destroy them in a couple rounds. That’s part of the fun of tabletops you don’t have in things like video games, you can
From experience it also works the other way—if your party is doing great but you made the encounter a little too hard, maybe the enemy is a bit more sickly than you initially thought and that hit actually did kill them)
^ This. I give my bosses a minimum number of hits and/or phases. If they nuke the hell out of it in one round, then it turns out that was it's weaker form and the boss enrages. More minions pour in. Lair actions trigger. The boss reveals its true form. A devil/demon joins the fray. Or depending on their power level, a God takes dirext interest in the events and decides to intervene on behalf of the boss.
I’m an overplanner and really bad at modifying things on the way, so when I DM and it comes to Boss Fights I actually have written down contingencies that make sense within the realm - and if the Player take the time before the combat to investigate, they can maybe even figure out what the ‘twist’ might be.
For example, before they head out to clear a Bandit Encampment - really an abandoned fortress from the Demon Wars centuries ago - if they talk to the person they buy Healing Potions/supplies from they will hear that it’s getting harder to source the ingredients for certain potions that have to come from afar because the Bandits really seem to focusing on merchants that carry Alchemical Supplies.
Antidotes and other anti-poison potions are really in short supply because of it.
This lets me reasonably have set up that the higher echelon of the Bandits where actually Alchemists all along as they quaff down some experimental potions that give them power boosts, while also making it reasonable that they had some plague or illness that heavy exertion caused a sudden relapse in.
And if things go well, then neither need to become as obvious as if things had taken a sudden dive to being Too Weak/Strong.
I get why some DM's do this, and to each their own, but I will say that "fudging" things doesn't help improve a DMs ability to design balanced encounters, and if the players ever figure out what you're doing, they'll likely (and rightfully) be upset to find out that their damage numbers don't actually matter.
You have the option of working directly with the players too on their items.
If they see that investment from you along with the context that its burning you out and needs to change, they should jump on board pretty quick.
Look, the *right* way is to talk with your players and let them know you're not having fun setting up encounters. People have analyzed this, so I won't say more.
The **wicked** way to fix this is to pull a double Brennan on them. If you know your players well and know they wouldn't agree to a general nerf, but they won't mind a lore/story imposed one, you introduce the new bbeg with a Mordecainen's disjunction spell. And once everything is broken, he lets them know his minions have already broken through to their item storage, stolen everything and he plans to use their own gear to take over the world.
Oh man, I dont know the setting your in at all, but if they are hoarding shit in a dangerous place, raid the hoard! U can slow play it too, players find strange foot prints, beings skittering into the shadows. Been awhile since I flipped through the monster manual but I think there is a demon that likes shinies and is especially tricky. Could be fun to have one of those show up, start pocketing small, unguarded things, then work up to bigger things. But I understand that is more prep, so the honest convos is the way to go.
I know nothing of this campaign, but could something happen to their level 5 tree tower base? Is it guarded somehow when they aren't there? All the stuff they have stashed there could be stolen. Maybe someone tougher than them moves in? Maybe some sort of accident or disaster destroys it all. They'd be left with only what they are carrying.
>so, let's start from a clean slate. What do you prefer? We conclude this adventure and start anew with new characters or we reroll all characters with the same level and gold given from the tables?
It doesn’t actually take any longer to create powerful enemies, they already exist in the MM, this DM is just lazy and second guessing themself. Tie in the weapons/items in question to a NPC or enemy, force your player to give it up, or create a brand new monster that is immune to the advantage, or turns it somehow into a disadvantage to the player.
Have a convo with the players. If you just take their stuff without explaining why, they'll think you're punishing them. They're playing well and having fun. Don't accidentally make them think you have a problem with that.
Talk to the players and agree on a solution. Taking away awesome loot for no real plot reason (the reason is balance, you know it and players will know, too) is honestly on of the worst things a DM can do to players.
As a player who has experienced all our magic items LITERALLY DISAPPEARING in the game with no warning, I strongly support this out of game solution. It felt awful.
I would suggest against trying to remove or nerf the weapons in game.
Rather, just talk to your players. You're allowed to discuss things about the game "out of game."
Explain to them that you were inexperienced when you made the items in question, that you inadvertently made them way too powerful, and now, as a result, you're having a very difficult time running the game and trying to create fun challenges for them which is stressing you out and diminishing your enjoyment of the game. Apologise for your error if you think that will help.
Ask them to work with you to depower the items so that they are still cool and useful but the power of the items is reduced to something more in line with what the system suggests and something you can manage.
If your players are cool people they should be fine with having their items fairly "nerfed" to "normal" levels for the good of the game and your peace of mind.
with their consent, I'd do something like plane shift or time travel or hop to parallel universe without any of their things. Maybe have a way for them to keep some non OP stuff. And have the challenge of starting from scratch. Getting back where they came from could be the challenge, but it might be like a very long term process. And potentially getting their stuff back from whoever found it when the were gone would be an additional process (or sealing it where it won't cause harm tot he world).
But I'd get buy in by explaining the situation... like I painted myself into a corner as a DM and need to rebalance things in order to keep the game fun. So they will not feel like you are just randomly robbing them.
Or maybe it would be fun for their gear to be stolen by some type of planar boss like a noble genie or something who is going to use it to do something OP that the PCs can then respond to. Sounds like it could have potential.
Been there :) and I still do it lol. You're doing the right thing by naturally trying to upbalance your side of it.
One thing does pop out to me: The paladin attuning to everything.
One key thing is to remind them that they can only attune to 3 items. If they're not following that, it might help a bit right off the bat? Generally, chat to them. Let them know that it's fun but you're hitting the limit of what you can create for them. That to continue you all might need to work together and dial back on some previous stuff. A 'sacrifice' quest is a good one. I had a group of players who also used the opportunity to sell gear for something a bit less tangible in sessions - like building a manor house or guild hall, creating a fort, etc. You could even have these things give group perks like a minion, a buff, creating food, etc.
I might have given them magical items that increased the number of attunement slots they have to 6 😅
To be fair they got them as rewards for beating really challenging bosses early on with clever strategies. I didnt see the problem at the time but i also didnt think about them attuning to a weapon for just one aspect of it and never actually using the weapon in combat.
Yeah talk with them and say you fucked up, specifically with this.
Magic items aren't even included in the balancing of the game (huge oversight), so giving them powerful items then basically removing the limit on them too is far too much.
Yeeeeah, in the DMG, it specifies three things you should avoid messing with in homebrew: attunement slots, concentration, and action economy.
When you have your conversation with your players, I'd suggest finding that quote/paragraph in the DMG and showing them directly. Be willing to let them keep cool and maybe even slightly overtuned things, but focus on removing any powers that cross these lines. A player having a +2 sword instead of a +1 is not as much of a headache for you as having +1 attunement options.
I would also suggest coming up with a magical item version of a money sink, so that they feel like their items are not wasted. For example, would they be interested in buying a castle or stronghold? They could hire some trustworthy guards to defend their home, making use of those items. They could also barter a magic item to a mid-level wizard to build a teleportation circle for them, if they want. There's other ways to customize it as well. Or they could open a tavern, or a ship's port, or build a fighting tournament to test heroes. And definitely get the players ideas as well!
I had a wizard attuned to an incredible sword that could cast fly, transport via plants and some other spells. Never swung it once lol and it was a +3 vorpal or something for the actual “sword part” stats!
Everyone has made some great comments about open communication and such that you should pay attention to. These are my two cents.
>Our parties paladin can increase his AC to 28-30
Attacks that force saving throws, AOE spells.
>Our fighter/rogue can deal consistently up to 60-70 damage in a single turn.
Damage immunities and resistance, Maze spell.
>our ranger gets like +15 to all his ranged attacks
Cover, enemies can drop to prone behind something at the end of their turn, then back up again to attack. Windy environment or Control Wind spell.
> The paladin keeps attuning to everything
Characters should only be able to attune to three items (making items require attunement is useful for getting them to choose). Either talk to them about adhering to this or perhaps if they stay attuned to a bunch they will either take exhaustion or some other adverse effect (but defo don't just spring it on them, more, *hey, I just realised this, my b, let's chat about how it'll be handled going forward).*
>Im basically revamping every floor of the undermountain room by room
It's also ok to just do this on the fly? Someone was once asked how they decided how many HP monsters had and they said "as many as is fun."
Instead of using money, NPCs request magic items in exchange for information or help.
Give them a keep as a reward so they can keep some of the magical items there instead of carrying them all the time.
Give them squires or a low level party that looks up to them that they can gift items to. Bonus points if yous do one shots playing as these characters so they can still use the items. (EXTRA bonus points if they have to rescue the main party at some point.)
Areas like a beholders lair where no magic has an effect.
Some of the items have been "sleeping" and are waking up. Maybe they didn't feel like talking before, but the sentient sword that was just picked up had a fight with the sentient shield after their last owner was killed and they went their separate ways. The sword is still not talking because it's giving the shield the silent treatment.
Also, if you have a list of all the magic items that would be class. I love homebrew. Sounds like a fun campaign.
I love this reply! Tons of good ideas :)
I think as for OP taking a long time to balance things, unfortunately I feel like that is the life of a DM, and it sounds like OP is a damn good one at that. My suggestion would be to take a break DMing for a couple sessions, maybe ask if the players can run couple 1 shots or something. It's sounds like they had a ton of fun at the beginning working hard on making the campaign personalized and fun, but DM fatigue is real. Maybe after being a no-pressure player for a couple hangouts you'll be back to loving the prep.
This is I think the best response here. I would however tell them they cannot have 6 attunement slots. Having 4 is a buff and it’s not debilitating. Start with that and also make them keep track of weight. They cannot carry all these items if they don’t have the carry capacity for it. As well making sure they are using the items properly. You cannot swap weapons on a turn, item interactions and stowing weapons all come with their own rules. Just these things could balance the game a lot. I’ve boosted my AC to 34 as a hex blade sword bard, even higher when the cleric tags me with Shield of Faith. Most of these mechanical things can happen, RAW 5e pretty early. Having monsters have HP equal to whenever someone does something cool enough to finish it is just fine.
Quests that required sacrificing a powerful piece of gear to progress.
If they try to throw something too weak at it, it fails, they loose the piece, and they try again with a stronger item.
The players get to decide who/what to loose, and they feel like they are progressing the story by breaking an ancient seal (or making one) without needing to get some ones help/McGuffin (because they already have so many)
A possible downside of this could be a player hording his good items vs another player happily tossing them out ever opportunity creating a power imbalance, if this starts to occur you may need to talk with your players about the issues out of game and work to rebalance everything, or they might fix it themselves by keeping better track of what items they ditch.
I think this combined with the above conversation could work quite well, that way they understand why and also feels as though it's contributing to the story
Having been in a similar situation as a player, this ain't it, chief. Maybe it could be, but in a recent campaign (currently on hold), our DM decided he'd given us too much power with our magic items, and suddenly there was no point getting excited about new ones we found because we knew they'd just get taken away from us arbitrarily.
Always a possible issue, as I said it may simply need to be discussed with the players.
A likely alternative to your problem would have been no longer getting powerful items, which also takes the fun out of it.
My solution allows new items to continue to be added to the game, and lets players choose which ones they get rid of - This ensures the items they consider most important, or build defining, don't go anywhere.
Having the discussion with the players is the important thing, I think. We had the "you must each give up a magic item to pass" scenario and maybe we were just jaded at this point but it wasn't fun.
You can also make it so it is not just a powerfull piece put a certain type of item. As in a little riddle that points towards a dagger that needs to be of a certain magical power to work, the next time it requires a large magical piece of metal(plate mail sized by pure coincidence) to work. This way you can have them all give up a piece 1 at a time while still keeping your awesome solution viable
That's the thing. You can't. You cannot solve this issue by taking away their toys. The only time players ever enjoy something being taken away is if something is also given to them. So, realistically your best option is to talk to your players, and try to figure out a way to reroute their strength into other avenues. In giving up their magic items, perhaps they gain some more abstract things, or even just money. Depending on the player, they might want political power, a title, or any other amount of things. You really just gotta ask them.
WELL. my dm had us start at a higher level and we had x amount of gold to purchase items. i spent a long time choosing what i’d buy and really deliberated on it.
move forward to several sessions and we all woke up in a pile of acid with mostly all our items destroyed, and over half of our wealth robbed from the NPC who “saved us” and woke us up. also, we hadn’t done anything stupid or deserved, the DM just decided we would wake up in the session like that.
i was big mad. biiiig mad. ruined a couple sessions for me, to be honest. felt very betrayed and angry that my items i loved and really cherished and chose were just…. gone with no real explanation. don’t “organically rob” your players, especially if you’ve got a good vibe and dedicated players. if the DM had asked or been like “wow i gave you guys way too much money ” or “actually that armor is a bit too great, i think something like this is good for you and also makes you less OP” i’d have totally agreed and been like “yeah take some back you’ve been super generous”.
i liked an early comment where you talked to them about it and how you have to do a bunch of extra work. offer an opportunity to trade in some items which maybe have some silly, but creative uses? like a shield where once per day can be used like a decanter of endless water! they still get a shield, but then they get an opportunity to have something that could be weirdly helpful and fun for the story?
i don’t know if this was helpful. but i hope it is?
Hey yo, I think many of us have been there.
Honestly? I’d just tell the party exactly what you’ve said in this post. Be really clear that you love your campaign and DMing. But just be like, “It’s honestly really hard to plan games for y’all because of these items. It’s eating up so much time and frustrating me. Can we nerf your items?”
Honestly, my suggestion was going to be to persevere until a conclusion to the story and then start a new campaign, but if you don't see the campaign ending any time soon, my best suggestion is communication.
They may not be happy about it, and they may love being so strong, but at the same time it will eventually burn you out no matter how much you enjoy it.
But, if that's a no go, and seeing as you are in the Mad Mage's Dungeon, there are plenty of tricks you can use. Though my favorite would be:
>You enter a new floor, but as you pass the threshold there is a sudden flux of power and a blinding flash of light. You hear cackling echo around you.
>
>"Such pretty little toys you have. I've been watching you for a while, and I must say I'm intrigued. Let me hold onto them for a while. Don't worry. You'll get them back...if you can find them. Now, what should my first experiment be..." - More cackling can be heard as they suddenly find themselves stripped of their most precious, and powerful, magical items by none other than Halaster Blackstaff.
The bro is practically a god in his own domain. He can do anything he wants, and if they get them back...perhaps at the end of the campaign (if you end it at the Mad Mage), they can retire with pride (hopefully) that they triumphed even at their "weakest".
Why did you give it to them in the first place?? Don’t rob them, just lead them into encounters with enemies that are powerful enough to get around those weapons/defenses, and if you don’t know why those are… CREATE SOME! The world is your oyster. Maybe a giant, poisonous oyster??? DM’s seems to keep forgetting they are more powerful than all the gods in faerun
Just talk with them. We had the same issue in a group and everyone was cool with removing em. Maybe turn em into one use items so they can use em one more time.
Make them even stronger!.... Wait, wait hold on, don't leave, I have a point.
For one big glorious battle have the magic items become crazy strong due to a massive concentration of magic in an area and then...... Burn out.
They do super OP crazy shit and then they are reduced to weaker varients of themselves.
How to make this not feel horrible you ask? Make it a part of the story to refuse the weapons with power again over time. This time at a easier to handle pace.
My approach would be to start with a mature conversation with the players, and set out some options for discussion.
One I tend to like is the “yes, these items are ridiculously powerful, but we can have the story catch up to why. Power has consequences, perhaps these items are actually sentient and about to wake up, or cursed, or the items that belong to a forgotten god. “ you can create a story where they have to get rid of or destroy the items somehow. The One Ring strategy ….
You actually could use one of 3 variants:
1. Just speak with players. Tell em you cant anymore balance all that things you created and just talk about it. We all mistakes, usually people could understand, especially if you new in being DM or even in dnd at all.
2. Second, you may try to get rid of their items with some kind of rust monster or make them some special use, so you can epically sacrifice them in "flames of Mordor!!!", for the peace in the world to set.
3. There is my own way, its bad advice, but good advice. Hard to explain, just read it.
Stop make monsters, like, "Big and Strong, Hulk crush", throw bestiary out of the window and have some fun giving monsters some special stuff.
Paladin have 38 AC? Throw attacks out of the window, next to bestiary, and start to make spells with absurd DC!
Ranger with +15 to accuracity? Sure! AC 35 could still handle that all, couldn't it? And even if their crit, just give them something like adamantite armor.
Too much damage? Made them immune for 3 rounds or give them 3d20 regeneration every round and two phases?
Need damage? "Why don't just give it 10 attacks with 17+ crit and +17 to attack and... 3 actions" maybe? Or summon some monsters every round so your players either could kick boss and take damage or kill stuff and die from boss.
Have the party of mirror monsters (aka. doppelganger), with ability to absorb stats of their dead allies.
Its four if players? Sure, there is four if dragons as well! But well...
that something I really like to do, but, well, you need to understand that your party, ya know ... Isn't invincible!!! So you shouldn't first of all, comboing all that stuff at once, and secondly, at least try to balance it a bit. Just a bit. Usually, if you want to make some crazy shenanigans like that, you need to make your party know, that fight would be tough, and TPK is near. Be more loyal to players and make that monsters stupid, if you cant balanced them properly and your party is having a bad time.
All of the options have their bad and good sides, if I have fun with all of that "Evil god syndrome" doesn't mean your players would like it, as well it doesn't they don't. So, just. Try something that you think is more up for you, cause all members of session should have some fun, as well as DM. If you has no fun, why are you still DMing?)
players gear is too OP.
Players don't like things being taken away. What do I do?
Ok here is the simple answer. Talk to them out of game and explain that their weapon are too OP and need to be nerged.
Down grade the items they have from WMDs to the Best a player of that level can get.
Perhaps compensate each character with a tower, castle,barony, 50 statues built of them. Whatever to take the sting off. Be clear that what they have breaks the game and that at their level, even with no magic items their already close to game breaking.
So ya. Nerf their items to the point that they are still pretty legendary but not OP, give them a cookie and continue the game.
They go to parlay with a rival gang and have to surrender their weapons ahead of the meeting. The meeting is disrupted by a third party attacking and the party has to team up with the rival just to survive, but their OP weapons are lost.
The party contracts a hideous fungus, the only cure for which is to bathe naked in a magic pool in a cave of glowing mushrooms. While bathing, the mushrooms turn out to be creatures who make off with their OP armour pieces.
To gain entry to a place, the door guardian demands payment from each party member, one of their OP items.
Upon a character death, an NPC offers to resurrect them by unbinding the magic power of one of their OP items, but the item will be destroyed or rendered mundane.
To take part in an arena battle, the party must use supplied equipment. The arena manager cast a binding contract of certain death on themselves as a guarantee that they’ll get their OP gear back. After the battle, the party finds him dead and their gear gone. A note on the body apologises and explains that he sold the gear to pay off a powerful crime lord to protect his family, despite knowing he’d die. The party can pursue the crime lord for revenge but their gear is long gone in any case.
Are you sure the amount of work you have to put in will go down if you take away the weapons?
D&D encounters are simply a lot of work, doesn't matter if it's one demon lord, two demon lords, an arch demon lord or twenty arch arch arch demon lords. It's all the same amount of work.
So short of actually just talking to your players and coming to an equitable agreement about removing the stuff that's causing problems, you could do the following:
1: Identify the stuff that's really breaking the game. Limit yourself to one item per player. This is important because you don't want to leave them completely without gear.
2: Make your solution permanent and traceable. Having the items disappear in the Feywild without explanation or recourse is only going to frustrate your group. A jealous king or high-powered character who steals from the players might seem like a good idea until you realize that your players will want to steal these items back. When you tell them they can't, see the Feywild example above. Destroyed gear is final and immutable. Maybe they can get it back with a wish when they are much higher level.
3.1: Options: Rust monsters used to be able to melt magical items, now they can't. But who's to say a horde of special myrmidons protecting the queen don't have the special secretions that destroy everything like in the tales of old.
3.2: Great things require great sacrifices. Are your players the sort who might willingly destroy their best thing for a moral reward? How about a material reward? Maybe a chance to peek into the future?
3.3: The items are cursed, and removing the curse will remove the magic, too. How the curse is applied is up to you, but it should be a severe enough drawback to negate the game-breaking nature of the item.
This is why I always try to tell new players and DMs that homebrewing anything with mechanics is a huge mistake. Worlds, plots, flavor can be totally fine to homebrew(though I still recommend starting off running at least 1 official module first to understand how to construct a campaign and see what balanced encounters look like)
Few Options for you here though:
out of game - "Hey i screwed up due to my inexperience and the power creep is killing the game. I need to fix mistakes I made in the stuff I homebrewed or I won't be able to continue DMing this campaign"
Speed up the end game to just finish out the campaign sooner. They are probably OP enough to take on the BBEG if you broke their characters that much. Throw together a final fight with clear opportunities to really utilize all the powerful abilities they have acquired in an epic battle.
If you are not already honoring the 3 attunement slots limitation, you need to be sure too. Its one of the few core rules that even the DMG specifically notes should NOT be messed with by the DMs as it breaks easily breaks the game(as well as invalidating some of the best features of the artificer class).
What are some of the items youve homebrewed for them? I'm curious just how bad of a situation youve gotten yourself into lol
Also dont be too hard on yourself. This is a super common mistake new DMs make thinking passing out OP stuff is just adding "more fun" before realizing how easily you can break the game system or even just trivialize all the actual player character choices compared to overpowered equipment.
Just be honest.
Tell them the truth that things got away from you and that unless you retcon the magical items, the campaign is going to be very hard to continue.
Honesty in this situation is better then trying to fix things in game.
There's not an 'organic' solution to this problem.
The solution is to talk to the table and let them know that all those cool weapons have broken the math of D&D, especially 5e, to the point that fixing it is no longer viable. And straight up include your frustration at encounter building and difficulty making it fun to run things, but expressed in a way where it is clear that you are not angry at *them*, since they are just using the tools that they were given.
You tell your players what's up and ask if they would rather:
Have all the OP stuff immediately disappear, and they can quest again to find tamer versions of their cool weapons and gear.
OR
Ridding themselves of the OP stuff becomes key to solving some key plot points.
Examples:
The enchantment on the Paladin's armor is the exact magic that can be used to lock up some portal that would let an otherworldly entity destroy the plane. Will you sacrifice your nifty suit of armor to save the world?
The bow that makes the Ranger so deadly accurate is actually a sentient malevolent being that was trapped as a tree, and that wood was turned into a weapon. The longer it is used, the more awake the ancient evil becomes. It must be thrown into the fires of Mount [Redacted by Cease and Desist].
You take a month or so off from the mad mage, and the party all has in-story fulfilling reasons why their OP items are no longer on their character sheet. Everyone gets replacements from the Uncommon-Rare tiers and maybe one item higher for being a good sport.
However, you should de-escalate and re-escalate slowly.
You take the magic items into account and plan all encounters through the new lens as each item is removed and replaced with its new normal.
I'd amend the weapons and armour. I've had this happen to me but they didn't just make it worse they changed it. Took raw power down a notch and added utility. It still is a change but its not a pure nerf.
I've had this problem, and I played it up with even more broken items that let them murder themselves.
For instance wand of counter spell, infinite charges, counterspells by absorbing the cast spell, eventually after 5 or so uses it counterspells... And releases the first spell captured, first in first out kinda deal, then slowly becomes more and more of a nuisance by tagging into wild magic, randomizing the spell, always remember to roll for it being legit, until it starts casting fireball in addition to nearly every spell that comes out, and if they still don't discharge the magic eaten nearly everyday then it starts going off after 1 day, slowly decreasing hours by how many days it's been. My players loved and HATED this item, as it trivialized an archlich, but then the wand became volatile and became the boss effectively and they had to weather the storm of attacks during their celebratory long rest where they drank themselves into making terrible skill checks... Cloudkill and tashas hideous laughter is a hell of a combo.
Or an axe that gave incredible stats when used but needed to be fed spell slots to activate (aoe acid damage etc)
Rust monsters are a thing, have one take a nibble at night and run away during watch or if a party member sees him. Leave some refuse or something behind to make him trackable, most things want to live, don't be afraid to have him run away into the mountains or cave, giving you an opportunity for a side quest, treasure room, or kobold settlement where they are plagued by rust monsters and will pay in dragon gold... To which the dragon gets mad.
Don't be afraid of talking it out to your players too. I actually had to do this because everyone got to level 20 and I ran out of monsters and reasons for my players to fight so I ran one last world ending campaign with custom monsters well beyond mortal capabilities that ate shadows like souls and left the planet a husk of its former self. They ended up winning slightly because they managed to mind control siege beasts and wreck the pylons powering the portals but they all had their shadows taken and over time reduced them back to level 7. To which it was fun for everyone again (and yes a few made new characters) but now I had a post apocalypse world to play with and they had reasonable non-ancient dragon level encounters. I couldn't have done that if I'd told them I'm not having fun.
Apologies for the wall of text. Hope this helps
How many items are they attuned to ?? If you go over 3, you really start to mess around with power. One or 2 good items shouldn't overpower things too much.
However, if its a custom item, I cant speak to that cause no idea what you may have going on. if your paladin is getting up to 28-30 Ac though, what can you really do unless you start making custom monsters ?
Its a good learning experience though. I would oush towards wrapping the campaign up. Let them take on a super tough bad guy with a ton of minions as a last hurrah, then retire those characters. Move on to a new campaign a d wipe that slate clean :)
I'm sure I did a similar thing, but my first Dm was a bit over 30 years ago so hard to remember exactly. There was no limit to attunement so things could get wonky fast.
Talk to them. Be honest tell them that you realized all those powerful items makes the game much more difficult to run.
That it causes a lot of problems for you. And when it causes problem for the DM it also means it will be a problem for the group. If you as a DM have to put down so much work you might end up not having fun. and if the DM is not having fun running his game. The game WILL suffer. D&D is meant to be fun for all players and that includes the DM.
Be open about it. That is usually the best way to solve any game related problem.
Is the +15 to hit on the ranger melee or ranged? At level 12 it's actually quite possible to get +15 to ranged with just items from the books. +2 bow, archery weapon style gives +2, bracers of archery gives another +2, 5 from 20 dex, and I think proficiency for level 12 is a +4? For +15 to hit, if proficiency is only 3 you can do +3 bow for the +15.
Talk to the players, let them know your plans are to work a way to nerf their gear.
Then setup a scenario where they have to willingly donate/sacrifice some of their gear to a magic totem or something to build up enough magical power to do X thing that needs to happen.
That way they're not losing the gear to thieves or nerfing, they're sacrificing for a good reason. Both in character and out.
What if I told you there exists a magic spell that can destroy most magic items?
Or you can try and set up a situation where they choose to give up some of their items.
It also kind of depends on their choices. If you give obvious warning signs that they are outmatched an they choose to fight and lose then it would be reasonable for their equipment to be confiscated. But the thing is it's about giving them obvious options and making it a consequence if they make the wrong choice and fail to successfully achieve what they chose to do.
I take my players' crap away from them all the time. There's all sorts of ways to do it:
Players are captured and forced to turn over their stuff by their captors (easier at lower levels.)
Players must cross through a portal they can only go through naked (Terminator Effect)
Players go to a different plane where their weapons don't work as normal and they must exchange them for more functional weapons.
Of course, most of these come with the players' expectation that they'll get their stuff back eventually. But maybe you can dole it back out more slowly, or permanently "lose" an item from time to time, or return a less op version to the player.
> The paladin keeps attuning to everything he finds without caution at all
Just making sure.... You know they can only attune to 3 magic items at a time, right?
Have them be forced into some tournament. Their equipment is taken and they're forced to fight with waves of enemies with equipment given to them. Something eventually goes wrong and they're forced to run away without Retrieving their stuff. Getting all their stuff back can be a whole new quest that won't happen until later down the line so they won't feel like they're all gone for good.
Buff enemies, don't nerf players.
Taking the items away is not fun for them.
I did the same mistake when i first played 3rd edition. Even tho i had already a decade of experience i allowed players to craft magic items.
We wanted to experience 3rd edition as it is, without changing anything.
I had them fight a tribe of humanoids who had found the body of a dead God like Titan, deep in their caves.
Their shamans used the blood of the God as ink and tattooed the bodies of the tribe.
(I basically gave them all +10 barbarian levels)
20 years later, they still remember these encounters.
I want to stress in the strongest possible terms that there is no story feature which will make this feel good, or even just not-bad. Anything you do to separate the characters from the items that the players love will feel like you stealing from them, because that's what you're doing. Your reasons might be good, but this problem cannot be solved entirely in-game.
Talk to your players. Be up front with them that their items just make them too powerful and it's causing you problems. Work together on a solution, which may or may not involve in-game events at all. Honestly my best piece of advice here is to ask them to help you, in those words. Something like "Hey I've been putting in a lot of work to keep the game interesting because of all the really powerful magic items I gave you. It's getting to be too much and I just can't keep up anymore. Can you help me find a way to reduce the power so I don't have to keep struggling with this?"
Seems like a good opportunity to drive the story. They are probably grown attached to the op weapons after some use, which is good and makes the players invested. What if the weapons became weakened/cursed from after a battle with a lich or a crazy cult noticed and did something? The players would need to work on restoring the weapons to their former glory through various quests and learning lore.
Give them a bag of holding, except it's not actually a bag of holding, it's that one bag that looks like it, but instead it just eats whatever they put in it..
[DnD Beyond › Bag of Devouring - Magic Items]
(https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4580-bag-of-devouring)
A curse. Something potent that requires human sacrifice. Drains their equipment gradually but inexorably. They can perform some rituals or something to slow it, but until the bbeg that cast the curse dies the curse stays in place. Bring the power back down to a manageable level and then let them track down some kind of maguffin that restores a bit of power, until the story lets them track the final piece to said bbeg.
Fastest way out:
In the next Taverne the Party gets poisoned (with a veeeery potent and veeeery sneaky poison) and robbed.
They all live but lose the Gear (exeption would be Low Level Gear.) They will need to find the culprit.
Long story short: the culprit was a cult who needed this Magic items to summon X. When the Party gets there, the items are gone and the big Bad Boss Fight Starts.
I like this idea a lot. They're characters are very arrogent at this point because theyre so powerful so it probably wouldnt be that hard to get them to drop their guard enough to get poisoned. Plus ive never actually poisoned them before like this so i dont think they'd see it coming
equally, from a player perspective it would feel really bad that all of our stuff got stolen and eaten without any compensation whatsoever.
like, 'you fail a con save so you lose all your items' is a real feelsbad. this is something better solved by a chat with the players as opposed to doing a 'rocks fall everyone's poisoned'.
start with 3 attunement slots instead of the 6 you said they have, tha will make a huge difference. the DMG actually specifically warns against exactly this: "Beware of adding anything to your game that allows a character to concentrate on more than one effect at a time, use more than one reaction or bonus action per round, or attune to more than three magic items at a time. Rules and game elements that override the rules for concentration, reactions, bonus actions, and magic item attunement can seriously unbalance or overcomplicate your game."
OP could have a Chest nearby with good balanced items.
Also OP could say "welp, the items are gone because you took too long". So the Players believe that had a Chance.
I would be fine if my DM did this. I Had a DM nerf one of my abilities mid campain because it sucked the fun out of everything.
Tell the players that you messed up first. Do not just do this. It'll feel like shit. Talk to your players like a proper adult. This is a game about talking to each other, TALK. Communicate.
> Plus ive never actually poisoned them before like this so i dont think they'd see it coming
You get one (1) and only one (1) chance to do something like that, though, and while it may succeed in 'legitimately' taking their gear away because you *can* say "hey, you had the chance to make saves, you all just failed them, and you could have been more careful," the result will be paranoid players who will proactively roll perception/investigation/etc about *everything* and will interrogate every NPC they meet and will paranoidially sleep in shifts everywhere, not treating anywhere as being safe ever again.
If you do try to do this, I sincerely recommend not actually burning all their gear. Give them a chance to actually stop/delay/weaken the ritual and save some of the gear, with the caveat that the most absurd stuff is going first.
Don't burn everything before they get there, I'd even recommend making a whole little dungeon for the cult with multiple paths and distractions, but a clear timer, like a loud magical shattering happening either every turn or every few turns depending on the sheer amount of items, and every time this noise happens one of the items was lost.
When they finally reach the end, the items are in altars all around the room, each guarded by a/a group of cultist/s, maybe even helped and protected by aberrations, or golem if you want this to be an artificial God situation. If they kill the cultist and take the item out of the altar, the item is safe (which is why the most busted stuff goes first). After the most busted shit is gone, you can roll for which items break next, but I'd try to make it so it would be going between players, so one of each before another of the first player.
And if you want the encounter to be even more memorable, you could give the enemy extra powers based on which items were destroyed. For example, the items that give the ranger +15 were destroyed? Now the boss has an extremely accurate ranged attack. Multiple AC items? Not only does its AC go up, (by a manageable amount), it gains some mild resistance to regular damage. Some type of magic casting item? Legendary action to cast its spells.
With this, they will definitely be sad about losing the items, which is why I'd still talk to them first, but getting to have a chance to save them and having an incredibly cool fight for it might offset it, especially if you actually put some new, very cool (but less powerful) magic items also being sacrificed along with theirs, that they could save to gain new equipment. I'd also see how many items get destroyed before they arrive at the final chamber, and if they'd have lost pretty much everything because they took too long, you can just add more piles of broken items at the floor and say some of theirs were being added to altars in place of previously sacrificed ones.
Also, this might be a cool place to introduce some characters to help them out, npcs whose loot *also* got stolen and can help expedite the process of arriving there. This makes it seem less like a targeted attack and more that they were just looking for powerful loot, and they had a lot of it. Possibly some of these already got in before they did, and are already fighting enemies in the dungeon when they arrive, then it becomes a dilemma as well Del, where they can leave these people to fend for themselves and get to ignore some enemies, or help them and get a new ally.
Or, instead of a retcon, you kan do like morbius did with Thor.
"Oh please mr superhero, my planet/timeline is in danger and the only way to save it is if you sacrifice the magical power(s) of this weapon you have right here!"
Of course it was a lie, but thor fell right into it. And the writers and editors didn't have to worry anymore about Thor time travelling
If the only issue is damage, just stop tracking HP. Once everyone gets some satisfying shots in, or gets to do something cool, just declare the monster dead.
OK.
Just start a new campaign where they must go through a portal which only let organic matter pass. Tell 'em not to worry, they'll get their stuff back as soon as they complete the mission and come back through the portal.They can only open the portal with an item they'll find along the way.
1) You'll set your player in a very survival oriented game in the early sessions, and it will make for a nice change.
2) You're free to let them come back and realise XXX years passed in their home plane, their home base / temple of patron lays in ruins and they can launch a new campaign to retrieve their gear.
Listen to a fool: stop giving your monster a health bar.
That's it.
Feels like not going down this round? Then the monster survive a fatal blow, fueled by ungodly rage and fucking destroy even mountains.
You K.O.ed 3 PC out of 5? The paladin, exhaling one last breath exhausted by the fight, slash the monster in half, living up to his party's expectations and avenging their pain.
I think that when your player have strong character, then you have to pump the enemy to the next level, pushing the limits of what your players can do. Invest in finding a new type of challenge for them, for example: a lich has a barrier that reflects all kind of Magic attacks but the party notices that every time the barrier activates a pylon behind him glows and if they destroy it the barrier vanish.
Actually the curse arc of the paladin was genius, but if you want an even simpler method of removing the magic items:
***A N T I M A G I C F I E L D***
Good luck my friend and remember: fight OP shit with OP shit
If you don't want to spend a lot of time editing monsters in a preset module, just triple their hp and bump their proficiency. Only really get into the nitty gritty for big, important fights.
As already suggested: out of game communication is key here.
And perhaps, since you're running DotMM, propose a deal with Halaster. Hand in a powerful item for a different (not overpowered, but still needed) one, for an IOU from Halaster that can be used whenever needed, maybe if (next to the party members you mentioned) you've got a wizard some spell scrolls to expand their choice of spells, or anything really. Together with your players you come up with deals that make the game fun for everyone, not just the players :) But again: after you let them know it's bugging you!
I'm having a similar experience with a homebrew item in DotMM. It's a broken staff of flame which outputs crazy damage for too small a tradeoff. Fortunately the druid player that uses it wants to change his subclass to wildfire. We decided that it'll be possible, but at the cost of that item. I've planned a whole thing around it and if it's ok, I won't share the details in case he stumbles upon this comment :P But it's an example in which the DM and player came with a solution for a rather troublesome and poor choice of item reward in the past
Just my two copper to consider :)
Tell them what you said here, then in game have a portal connecting a floor/room to the next that sends them out nakid on the other side or something 🤔🙂
make them steal it themselves:
storys about their legendary deeds have spread far and wide.
rumors have it they are just ordinary people, but these artifacts helped them to achieve the extraordinary.
be it peasant or lord, collector of wonders or just a greedy thief, many want these artifacts for their own reasons and so a small group formed and forged a plan to get hold of the artifacts.
i present to you the second party,
let them steal it.
edit: the players will play the second party just to clarify.
To add humour into a game, have your players enter a city district where they have to surrender weapons, where they are put into a chest and the players are given a tag/ scroll with the details on it. Make sure you note that the clerk in charge of this is either very old or it's his first day on the job.
they do their business in the district (quests, shop etc), go back to the clerk, and find out he's accidentally mixed the chests up. He is completely humiliated when he finds out, and promises to do everything he can to get it back, including details of who got their items.
The other group could be a group of level 1 adventurers who now luck into these magic items, or a family with one of the items left out was a treatment for a disease/curse, or whatever. Insert a madcap chase sequences, bartering or social problem solving, stuff that allows them to not rely on their weapons, but still feels good to play.
I did this for a group of mine, and two players actually passed on some of their magic items to the new adventurers after the all got in over their head with a beholder. Got a fun little fight where the players controlled two party members each to fight it.
Push them to their limit with a fight JUST outside of their capabilities and TPK them. Then send in the B squad to revive the original party, and when they get there, the party has been picked clean.
Not a DM, but I would use a battle with an underboss to rebalance their items.
It could be an orb of some sort that draws from their power. I’m sure you could find an explanation, but I’d be happy with that narrative.
I would however make them underpowered after the battle. That way replacing, or repairing to the correct level, will give feel more organic.
As others have said though, explain afterwards why they’ve lost the overpowered items.
Actually I would do a really hard questline where they encounter really strong enemyie - they get beat by them, but they dont die, they just got captured and all their items got stripped of of them. Now they need to find a smart way out and can only partly retrieve their items if they are lucky (it will be really hard to retrieve the op items, therefore they are almost no option to get back).
so while escaping they get some items back, but with a high certainty not the op shit (they are stored at really well protected places).
Maybe you can integrate that in the next mission or quest or storyline - as an example, they got hired to find out whats happening to the merchants that went missing at a mountain path. At arrival they find traces of battle with an "dragon" or so, but while investigating more tidily they find out that those traces are manmade and they find footprints which leads to a hidden huge cave in the mountains. At arrival they get taken by suprised and are overpowered - which leads to their capture and stripping of their items. Now they need to find a smart way to escape, because the enemy is over their level but therefore isnt attentive, because they are way stronger. So they are kinda able to escape with smart thinking and can partly take some of the stuff back.
When they suceed in the escape and go back to get backup or so, the thieves or whatever already moved to a new place...because they dont want to get caught.
So just find a fun way and integrate it in your campain to strip them from those items. That was my idea. Have fun
I've heard tales of a zebra like creature that can unmagickfy an item with a lick. Idk it's name but it haunts my thoughts. I'd make It imune to magic and more powerful the more it licks. It doesn't even harms you it just feeds, grows and heals.
I've dealt with similar situations in the past and there were 2 routes I took (none of which involved taking items away):
1. Let them keep using the items, but up the stakes/risk of using the items that aren't appropriate for them at this time. Maybe that +3 flaming greatsword is too hard to wield without more experience and now poses disadvantage in some circumstances. Or the staff that the wizard has been using above his power level has developed cracks in it and runs the risk of catastrophic energy release when used. Make them think about whether the risk is actually worth it.
2. Things can also get interesting quickly when you disable the advantages of those magic items. I once tossed a group of 3 paladins, a battlemaster fighter and a life cleric against the player group. That part seems slightly challenging, but I also gave them hostile magic immunity necklaces that the group had to find a way around. A bit of a puzzle for sure, and they just barely managed to scrape by with some clever thinking.
Tell them that the gear was actually owned by a legion of gods who are pissed that it was stolen, and if it isn't returned then they'll destroy the world. Instant sidequest, plus you can ease them into using different gear by hinting that the gods may still attack them once their stuff is returned
I ran into the same problem but with just one sword. The next kingdom they went into owned the" lost for generations " sword and all their problems befell them when it happened... they were so great full they made anything that they wanted. They felt like they completed something while getting a good reward. It was a vorpal to a flame blade.
Party wipe, but only unconscious. Have them wake up in prison/a dungeon/mad scientist lair without anything but their skin. No spellbooks, no items, and interrupt sleep so no long rests. Welcome to a hard reset that the players will LOVE: ESCAPE FROM \[insert name here\]!!
I gave my players too many items right away, to the point that they never really used them.
So, one day they met a trader that had a "Cart of Holding" that had *almost* anything in it - the player's traded two items of one quality for an item of the next highest quality. Cleared out their bags and they chose what they actually wanted...within reason, no artifacts or anything tied to specific characters.
Now, the difference is that your players use these items and seem to like them. So, you could still do something similar, but with different items. Incentivize them to want to trade in their stuff.
Also, talk about this above-board at any time.
Start throwing mind control /dampening creatures at them. Ilithid colony and the supporting monsters and everything that goes with them. When taken as slaves they would have their gear removed before they are taken to the pens for "cattle". Suddenly, after a few months of mindless slavery under the suppressive power of an elder brain, they and all the other slaves "wake up" because a different group of adventurers managed to kill the elder brain. Now it's a race to find, and get back their magic gear. Maybe some of it is missing. Oh no! Now to get it back they gotta track down that more powerful group of adventurers that just got even more powerful cause they are running around with all their OP gear. It's a whole e/side quest built on the idea of stealing back that which has already been rightfully stolen! Lol
In the future for OP magic items I suggest using artifact rules that give various benefits and detriments on various scales. Every table is obviously different but I like the idea of a powerful magical boon also creating a corrupting force that hinders them.
Have them make a deal with a demon. They trade their current weapons in for even more powerful weapons. And then the demon rips them off. They trusted a demon.
Have them get captured.
I took over for a DM and the party had gotten some very powerful items.
It was going to make the start of the new campaign very hard for me (running a prewritten campaign with some homebrew changes at times) and I didn’t want to just outright tell them “hey everything you had is gone.”
They got captured in an encounter after a TPK situation that was planned, they didn’t know, and woke up with nothing on in a “prison of sorts.”
They had to escape without any equipment and when they went looking for their stuff they learned it had been sold at a local market.
They quickly ran to the market to find most of their equipment had been sold and they had the wrong currency of money (they had a lot of money due to last campaign.)
It was a very nice “reset” of sorts that fit the story very very well.
They were mad, but had a lot of fun in the encounter because it was challenging. These items they had come to rely heavily on were gone and they had to be smart.
Out of game after the encounter I explained to them why and they were totally cool with it. They will soon be getting some good items after their next encounter… if they survive. This will be about 3/4 the way through the campaign now.
I gave a player an OP weapon. So, I set up a scenario where he'd end up visiting the ethereal plane and encountered a minor goddess. She needed the weapon to save her people, and she'd return it when he finally returns to his home region. In exchange she swapped his St and Dex scores (which he'd mentioned once).
On the back of the people saying have a conversation beforehand, you should do that but also tell them this will be happening narratively too.
You could have the players encounter a benevolent dragon that is on death's door as it has a sickness causing it to be unable to move in it's lair and one that can only be cured by consuming powerful magical artifacts. This gains them an ally in the dragon that can give them all a boon such as an ability score increase that pushes their primary stat up to a potential 22 or a feat. The dragon also could make an appearance in an otherwise impossible grand scale battle.
That way the players still have a permanent benefit but one that is more easy to balance around and the blow is softened somewhat.
>Our parties paladin can increase his AC to 28-30.
That's normal. My lvl 11 bladesinger has 20 flat AC with studded leather +2 and cloak of protection. 25 AC with bladesong and 30 AC with Shield spell. You counter it by using saving throws instead of attacks.
>Our fighter/rogue can deal consistently up to 60-70 damage in a single turn
That's normal, my bladesinger does 11d8+11 each round for an average of 50-60 damage (shadow blade lvl 5 and magic sword +1 with booming blade), supplemented by 15% crit chance per attack with Elven accuracy. So the damage is usually higher.
Fighters hitting 4 times with GWM and PAM will give you even more damage.
>and our ranger gets like +15 to all his ranged attacks.
Again, normal. Proper ranger on level 11 will have a +5(Dex)+4(Prof)+2(Archery style)+2(bow) for a total of +13, if using +2 arrows that will be the same +15 yours does.
I don't see any game breaking shenanigans.
Upd: 6 attunement slots on a paladin you mentioned below, now this, yeah, that's fucked up.
If the players are up for some moral dilemma, reveal that the items they are using benefit a great enemy in some way.
Every time the Rogue kills someone with that weapon, the Abyss gets stronger.
Every time the Paladin avoids a hit, a guard/soldier in an allied/Good town is struck into a mysterious coma.
The Ranger's item is super easy to scry, and there are a number of evil creatures watching, tracking, and listening to everything the players do.
This makes the choice of using these items more difficult, especially if it might bite them later on (or they find out because things start going bad). Invading demons start showing up, prices rise, security drops, etc.
One of my players blew a magical horn within a mile of a black dragons lair (they knew it was there several sessions ago, and were actively avoiding it/trying to avoid the dragons attention). The dragon however was an adult, and well above their level in terms of conflict potential. So when they woke it up and pissed it off with their loud noises, I was questioning the best way to handle it.
I just had them offer up magical items for its hoard that were of sufficient interest to the dragon. By the end of the session, they all felt relieved that they didn't have to fight/run from the dragon, and only one of my players was more distraught about their item loss. And it was only because they wished they had given away another item instead.
TL:DR - Powerful creatures may turn a blind eye to your players in exchange for magical items of sufficient quality. If you ensure that the creature will only be happy with the highest quality of items, you can effectively remove those items from play.
... A level 11 PC pumping out 60-70 isn't even abnormal. Especially for a martial. That's what they do, heavy single target damage is their entire bag. A party fresh off a long rest will absolutely be able to lay the smack down on most fights
TPK them. Absolutely stomp them. Have them face a horde of the undead or something that just kicks their asses and kills them. Death saves and all.
Then, have them wake up, together, in a dark demi-plane. A God or Demon or Something is there with them. They're told that their exploits garnered said God's attention, and they'd like to see them perform more feats again as their champions. That they'll be rewarded as the God sees fit with equipment or blessings for the deeds they do. But there is a catch. The catch being that they will awake 100 years after their deaths, all as they were in their youth, just after they all left home. They'll awake with none of their current powers, or equipment. They start fresh. If they want, they can even change their class.
That is the deal offered. If they take it, start a new campaign fresh. If they do not take it, their characters are left dead.
In addition to telling the players why you want to make the change and getting their buy-in (as others have suggested), here are some ideas for retiring the gear:
1. Give them special gear that is required for a new area. They can keep the old gear, but it is ineffective or doesn't have a special property that makes it work in the new place.
2. Make a worthy cause that they can donate the gear to. Some kind of crusade to hold back monster hordes from another dimension or something.
3. Depending on how they got the gear in the first place, you may be able to have them travel back in time and give the gear to their earlier selves. Just ignore any paradox this creates by saying "it's magic".
4. If they're famous enough, have a museum or government request their gear to put on display. They can get something awesome, but non-combat related in exchange.
5. Just generally offer something awesome and non-combat-related in exchange for the gear. Their own town or magical castle or something.
Idk if it’s still a spell in later editions but my go to for this is as they fight more and more powerful people one of the casters is bound to cast Mordenkainen’s disjunction which will permanently disenchant everything around it in a 30 foot area unless it makes a save Vs spell, it even has a 1% chance per level to destroy artifacts, albeit destroying an artifact could strip said caster of casting capabilities permanently so it’s not a risk most would take.
Conversation with your party explain to them that your having a hard team adjusting everything to keep up with their gear, see what they want maybe they just wanna blow through the dungeon as big bad heroes maybe they agree so yall can just mechanically rebalance without seeking a narrative reason (if ya need one magic fluxes with the shifting of the leylines and it affected the parties gear as it passed over and through them) maybe they agree and yall can work on a narrative together, don't try and sneak anything they likely feel like they earned that gear so losing it cheaply will likely upset them (depending on party that may not be a concern you know them better consider how the paladin reacted to the curse as a base of reference)
Biggest baddest enemy can only be killed with a mythical spear. The spear is broken. Only way to reforge the spear is to put magical materials of a certain worth into the magical forge. Bye bye all the equipment you want gone, hello to a ridiculously powerful weapon they can only use on the big bad
Could do a lotr style narrative campaign, where the creator of their magical items has arisen as a big bad and is cursing/draining their life force and acting as phlacteries. They may be able to save the items, but as lesser versions with some of the magic having been drained away. Emphasis a narrative pay off, and they can keep the item, but there are consequences and/or more hurdles to overcome. Could be a cool campaign, but 100% depends on the group.
Instead of retconning, as other people suggested, maybe there can be a party of inexperienced NPC adventurers that your players come across. They have some kind of really important mission only they can do and they will just get slaughtered if they don't get some kind of power boost. Since your players have gotten more powerful since the start of the campaign, maybe you can convince them (along with an out of game discussion) to give up their equipment, considering that they have evolved past needing them. It lets them feel like they aren't 'losing' their items, and the NPC group could come back later in the campaign for a massive team-up event like some kind of Avengers movie.
Talk to the party, explain the situation, and let them know you have an in-game method of getting rid of the gear and allow them to replace the gear. Make a list of appropriately leveled gear for them to choose from to eventually replace it.
for the in-game reason. Shipwreck would be my go-to. The adventurers have been invited by a powerful noble to travel to (\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_) one night there is a lavish dinner party on the voyage and the party is expected to dress in their finest clothing. During the party a huge storm suddenly strikes the ship. The boat is tossed about and torn to pieces by the storm. They fall unconscious and wake up on an unknown island, with nothing but the torn clothing they were wearing before.
A fun challenge would be the players have to survive the island, the island has wild magical effects so any teleport attempts causes weird things to happen. I would go with the island is a fey junction point where the barrier between planes is weak. Give the island fun monsters and strange artifacts that are more appropriate for their level. They can try to make new weapons with sticks and stones but must find a way off the island and back to civilization.
I have always found as a DM that being open and honest with my group has been the best course of action. Present the problem, present your solution, listen to their ideas, re-work your solution to include their ideas as well.
I gave my party dragon slaying weapons too soon in my last game and so I had the bad guys steal them after knocking out a player during their watch. They were able to recover some things later but I turned the op weapons into tools that the bad guys used to kill the good dragons.
The players gave chase initially. And I let them capture interrogate and kill the monks who stole from them but they were only able to recover some of the less op items.
The thought is to turn it into a quest but make the bad guys use the op items in some way that consumes them. They appreciated seeing their lance of dragon slaying blown up to 50x its size and dropped on their gold dragon ally.
If I actually watched/listened to more of the DND podcasts and shows I'd be able to remember where the hell I saw this clip from, but Brennan Lee Mulligan had a moment in one of his campaigns where the player(s) did something interacting with an ancient magic, and it caused all their magic items to explode and deal them damage. I'm assuming they went about replacing them, but what I'm trying to say is if it's part of the story, and there are contested rolls to keep the items then it will feel less like you took the gear and more like you put up a challenge and they failed, which happens in DND.
Personally, if you're not being stingy with gear I don't think they'll be too upset with it. They may be sad they lost out on the "good stuff." If asked OOC you can just say the truth, which was you felt like you couldn't give them new stuff because the old stuff was too good and it kept throwing everything out of whack.
I would personally prefer to explain exactly what you just told us, openly, you were new to DND, stuff you gave them breaks the game, time to re-balance.
Or to make things even easier on you, and more neutral/less debate, time to reset the campaign, start again, warn them at session zero that magical weapons might seem a bit underwhelming because they are closer to the intended loot.
Or, be creative, time for some really BBEG, with a "end all magic" agenda (like the plot of Kora maybe, like he/she gains tractions amongst the commoners that suffer under the oppression or magical beings).
he/she has a doomsday device that absorbs magic around him, or worldwide, or corrupts the mana so that using magic actually drains people's vitality etc....
When they fight him/her, all their gear looses magical powers, and even after they defeated him/her, the world has lost a considerable amount of magic, and from now on, every gear is back to normal DND lvls.
Having read some of the previous comments with excellent suggestions, I'll add my two cents:
If you did want to do something non-meta, something that doesn't involve discussion away from the table, you could involve something that I usually find to be a problem: fortune telling, AKA precognition.
You could take away their OP stuff if you warn them in-game that it's definitely, unavoidably going to happen. "You've been cursed (maybe. by whom? I dunno). You will lose EVERYTHING. Avoidance will only hasten this doom."
Then you hit them with whatever super interesting machinations you've come up with. My little speech up there is garbage, but it's only for illustration. You or I or anyone who's willing to work a bit could come up with a good scheme and a good precognition, one that even spells out the meta reasons for it happening. Anything.
Not saying it'll succeed in completely assuaging the blow, but you'll have done a lot of work to make it real.
What about > Hey guys. I've learned a lot in the last couple of years as a DM, and I'm having fun and the game and characters are amazing. But I'm also starting to see some errors that I made, and the higher we go in level, the more apparent those are becoming. > Here's the deal. The magic items I gave you guys are ridiculously OP. And that means that I have to spend 10 times as long creating equally ridiculous OP enemies to make combat last longer than two rounds. That part is *not* fun. > I'd like to see if we can retcon some of the gear to keep it reasonable for the sake of game balance and my sanity. I want you guys to keep doing what you do and having fun, but in a way that fits better with the intended balance of the game. or something?
OP, this is the better solution. Doing it in game withholds the context from your players. That context is " the dm ain't having fun". These discussions are a big part of the game too. Make sure you do right by you as a DM - don't get bullied, stick to your guns, keep your cool and you'll be fine.
Yes, the DM is a player too and deserves to have fun. DMs already have the lion's share of prep/"homework" to do for game sessions, so it should be 100% okay to "hotfix" a game once in a while(and honestly, inevitable in longggg, multi-year games) if they are finding the prep outweighs the at-the-table fun. You don't have to remove the gear, just hotfix them and adjust their bonuses/effects to bring them in line with similar items of that level. If your players are reasonable, they will understand. Some will be butthurt about it cause people love being OP in games, but tough shit, it's a game for fun for everyone at the table.
> inevitable in longggg, multi-year games) I ran two 7+ year games and modest retcons/fixes absolutely happen. One of my games involved 100% custom-made dragon savage progressions and we had to make a few somewhat annoying but hard fixes with some of the dragons due to balance issues that looked fine on paper but made themselves known in gameplay. The other, being my first campaign and done in early high school to early college, involved the players being the Chosen Ones and not only having powerful artifacts but managed to get me to approve a flying ship that was virtually invulnerable. It lead to some fun scenes (like when a colossal centipede grappled the *entire ship* by grasping at the hanger bay) but it also led to a lot of "and we fly over this." So in the end we agreed it had to go, and in part because it was actually taking away the player desire for agency.
7+ is longer than my last world (6). How did you not burn out after half that time?
First was youthful energy that came from high school; the second was that the game was a dragons-only campaign where the PC characters started as eggs sent backward 1,000 years in time to avert a huge world-breaking calamity. It was fun to build out a gigantic play space for baby dragons to fight, conquer, and most fun - be humbled. The physically strongest got the shit kicked out of him by a herd of elephants. I think we ended the game around level 27 when real-life meant even infrequent gaming was becoming a tough call.
>(and honestly, inevitable in longggg, multi-year games) \*looks left, then right, then at his untested homebrew undergoing a trial-by-fire with a probable rules lawyer in two weeks...\*
This is the best answer- if they are your friends then they should understand that you were very liberal with items early on and that was a rookie mistake Or Halastar can show up with an Time Stop trap, casually walk through and take items from them as he has been watching the entire time. Both work
If you're worried about how they'll take it, tell them they don't have to decide right now, but you'll be running tonight's session at the unaltered levels. They won't be having nearly as much fun when they litterally steamroll through a session, one shot killing everything.
I'll echo this; I'd place the offer on the table to redesign each of their character as if it was from scratch at that level; reset everything they have. Feats equipment ect. Then give them each the gold for their level, a single legendary magic item (barring the broken ones like The Deck, or Ring of3w, or anything like that) then give them a single epic boon of their choosing. This way they lose their OP stuff, get a chance to rebuild their character, and get rewarded for it via epic boon. Now they are WAY more balanced and feel like they weren't completely nerfed.
I like this idea
It can even be a evil wizard who casts a elaborate ritual that teleports them to an alternate world and during the transfer stripped them of their items and jumbled the skills around. When they get to the new world the items they pick are in the jail they have to break out of to retrieve.
You can do this but I find just having an out of game conversation and making out of game mechanical decisions and then picking up the story is less intrusive and feels less bad it just feels like "Hey we're giving our dm this concession for whatever reason"
Yes but once they have this talk, that can be the story used to explain the changes and give them the option of finding a few of the item that may have made it to the new world too. And a new bbeg to fight. Make him a level 20 wizard of some kind. And he has to build back up his strength while they make their way back to him
Now this previous comment? That's one well thought out and well constructed request. That's the way to do it, for sure... *However* ... should that NOT work out; https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17001-rust-monster Just gonna leave that there...
> nonmagical
Rust monster inside a trapped room that contains an anti-magic field!
That's so diabolical it made me want to cackle with glee.
Jesus christ man, seek psychological help. You're clearly sick in the head lmao
I think the rust monster’s ability would also be considered magical though…
RAW it is not magical and would still work in an antimagic field. It doesn't have the keywords "magic" or "spell", so It's mundane, just like gorgon's breath, the splitting ability of an ooze, or an ettercap's web attack. Interestingly, a basilisk's gaze is magical, but a medusa's isn't.
This sounds like a technicality. Of course Medusa’s gaze is magical. Come on.
Considering that in 3.5e a Medusa's Petrifying Gaze is tagged as a Supernatural ability, and Supernatural abilities are unaffected by Anti-Magic, it's likely that the 5e Medusa's gaze working under anti-magic is an intentional design choice.
Naw. She's just that damn ugly.
I sort of agree, but not on the wording technicality — if a Medusa's Petrifying Gaze ability was meant to be magical, it would be fixed in the errata. If you're really nitpicky with it, a Medusa's whole existence is magical, and unless their curse was bestowed by a deity (one of four possible avenues for being a Medusa, the other two being draconic, archmage, or fiend patrons) then all of the magic would cease functioning in the AntiMagic Field, including their curse and their gaze. But if that's true then you can also beat a Medusa by casting a 3rd level Remove Curse and turning them back into a normal human (ideally a commoner with 4 HP).
I think you’re giving the D&D team too much credit. They’ll only errata things they notice, and 5e is not a particularly well-templated game like Pathfinder 2e or Magic: The Gathering are. How many times has “Medusa in an anti-Magic field” come up?
What, you've never heard of the dee-emneedsabreak variant? The one which was magically altered to exude a very short half-life magical dispelling ooze from their feelers? It allows them to bypass magical protection and dissolve the metals they're made of. They were one of several species that were modified into freaks of nature. All done by the same jackass wizard who thought owls and bears should be able to procreate, so they magically slapped them together.
Probably the same guy who made it so you can't put a bag of holding inside a bag of holding, preventing me from coding with my bags of holding
...coding?
:)
.... New magic item... Bag of Coding Can contain One Item in addition to up to two other Bags of Coding. Bag can be attuned to a crystal (or multiple) that, when placed inside another Bag of Coding, is treated as if it were the original.
The worst variant I’ve seen of this came from Dungeons of Dredmore, and IIRC it didn’t damage the weapon itself. Instead it altered the magical buff to an equally powerful debuff/curse. What’s that? Your blade of misty step as a reaction just got corrupted into a blade of ‘relocate randomly every time you deal damage?? Oh no. How dreadful.
> dee-emneedsabreak Ah yes, the varient created by the gods Dieh-ehm and EnnePiecee
Eh, just grab the 4e one that specifically eats magic items instead.
A DM can change whatever he wants.
Magical-Rust Monster
If OP can create fabulous custom objects, why not a rust monster that can rust magical objects too?
You are bad
No… what’s bad is suggesting a rust dragon 😜
Agreed, it would be really bad to say out loud that the rust dragon is literally statted in the Draconomicon for 3.5- section for Planar Dragons. Like REEEAL bad.
omg this is exactly what i need, thank you
Nevermind tact and sensitivity and sharing your feelings blah blah blah... THIS is the way to do it OP! There's a reason that the DND universe is filled with tons of lost civilizations. Magic fails every now and again as evil triumphs.
Counterpoint, this doesn't go far enough. Avoid the conversation AND in-game conflict by poisoning their snacks.
Came here to say this
Earlier editions had the disenchanter. Someone stated it for 5e. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QJVNXH1YIGsvcIFrW6j6z\_qfkCgXDHlu/view
This is the best approach. Honest and communicative.
I did that with my players. It worked. Talk to them like grown ass adults.
This is exactly how I'd handle it. I'd also offer to the group "Rather than retcon, give me some ideas on how you'd be willing to see these items and powers be 'in-game' toned down to a normal level."
I really like this. As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed if I were just singled out one day and stripped of all my cool stuff. Having it "hotfixed" to have an intended +22 AC instead of 30 (as an example) would feel fair. Having it explained would feel much better than just being robbed and losing all of the cool stuff that I've been working with.
I've retconned items before and noticed it annoyed my players because i nerfed the weapons/armor at the time too much. Perhaps I should ask the former DM in the group to help me retconn them without ruining the fun of the group's favorite weapons/armor? Its definitely a challenging concept given just how many items they have. They turned the tree tower in Level 5 into a base and store all the stuff they dont want to use at the moment there. So if I nerfed the current items they had i have no doubt they'd just swap them out with others. After the last time i did it i decided to try to avoid doing it again which led me to the idea of using curses to limit the potential of the items. And cursing my paladin actually worked rather well. He was annoyed at first but ended up admitting the side quest to remove the curse was fun so it was worth it in the long run. But i cant just keep cursing them over and over again. Well i could the paladin (he never stops just blindly trusting all items he finds) but the rest of the party is much smarter and are actually pretty good at avoiding things like that.
A lot of it is about agency, talk to your players, tell them you don't want to take their items away but the power level is causing problems for you and you would appreciate it if they would compromise with you on dialling back the power to a more manageable level. Give them a say in things Additionally, pick out the worst aspects of the items for each player, determine which effects are game-breaking and which are just annoying for you, I would also consider coming up with some fun alterative abilities for the items that aren't going to give you the same headaches on combat the current items cause.
Can I be honest? Yeah, of course they’re annoyed when you give them something awesome and then take it away. Most people would be, even if they know it’s right. That’s fine, they’re allowed to be. They’re probably going to be annoyed again. But if they care about the game, they’ll understand. But that doesn’t mean the answer is to just hamfist into the game that they lose it. Assuming your players aren’t complete idiots, they’re going to realize what you’re doing and they’ll be even more upset because you didn’t even have the decency to talk to them about it first. Your players know the game too. Talk to them. Let them help you come up with a solution. Maybe it not getting rid of the items entirely but making them less powerful. Or maybe they can switch them out for 1 or maybe even 2 lower level items with more niche uses but are still cool. Maybe some people built the character around the item and would like a chance to respec, and maybe some would rather just change the item—that’s okay too, not everyone needs the same solution. Also, a DM trick if you want to try going without nerfing stuff: if encounters are too easy it’s okay to just…make them harder on the fly. A boss with 400 HP got crushed in two rounds and it’s unsatisfying and boring for everyone? oops you misread, he’s actually an 800 HP boss. 13 AC way too low but you really want to use a cool creature? Well don’t question why this beast is wearing heavy armor, but now it is…(I wouldn’t change AC mid battle though). All your players have magic items that let them fly? Okay cool, these meelee soldiers now have cross bows too, or this monster can spit acid, whatever makes sense. Most players aren’t going to know the stat blocks, and if they do they probably also DM and know the struggle and probably do the same. My DM admitted to me she adds 100-200 HP to every encounter in the book we’re because we just destroy them in a couple rounds. That’s part of the fun of tabletops you don’t have in things like video games, you can From experience it also works the other way—if your party is doing great but you made the encounter a little too hard, maybe the enemy is a bit more sickly than you initially thought and that hit actually did kill them)
^ This. I give my bosses a minimum number of hits and/or phases. If they nuke the hell out of it in one round, then it turns out that was it's weaker form and the boss enrages. More minions pour in. Lair actions trigger. The boss reveals its true form. A devil/demon joins the fray. Or depending on their power level, a God takes dirext interest in the events and decides to intervene on behalf of the boss.
I’m an overplanner and really bad at modifying things on the way, so when I DM and it comes to Boss Fights I actually have written down contingencies that make sense within the realm - and if the Player take the time before the combat to investigate, they can maybe even figure out what the ‘twist’ might be. For example, before they head out to clear a Bandit Encampment - really an abandoned fortress from the Demon Wars centuries ago - if they talk to the person they buy Healing Potions/supplies from they will hear that it’s getting harder to source the ingredients for certain potions that have to come from afar because the Bandits really seem to focusing on merchants that carry Alchemical Supplies. Antidotes and other anti-poison potions are really in short supply because of it. This lets me reasonably have set up that the higher echelon of the Bandits where actually Alchemists all along as they quaff down some experimental potions that give them power boosts, while also making it reasonable that they had some plague or illness that heavy exertion caused a sudden relapse in. And if things go well, then neither need to become as obvious as if things had taken a sudden dive to being Too Weak/Strong.
I get why some DM's do this, and to each their own, but I will say that "fudging" things doesn't help improve a DMs ability to design balanced encounters, and if the players ever figure out what you're doing, they'll likely (and rightfully) be upset to find out that their damage numbers don't actually matter.
You have the option of working directly with the players too on their items. If they see that investment from you along with the context that its burning you out and needs to change, they should jump on board pretty quick.
Look, the *right* way is to talk with your players and let them know you're not having fun setting up encounters. People have analyzed this, so I won't say more. The **wicked** way to fix this is to pull a double Brennan on them. If you know your players well and know they wouldn't agree to a general nerf, but they won't mind a lore/story imposed one, you introduce the new bbeg with a Mordecainen's disjunction spell. And once everything is broken, he lets them know his minions have already broken through to their item storage, stolen everything and he plans to use their own gear to take over the world.
Is that a D20 reference I see?
Nope, Critical Role Calamity
Oh man, I dont know the setting your in at all, but if they are hoarding shit in a dangerous place, raid the hoard! U can slow play it too, players find strange foot prints, beings skittering into the shadows. Been awhile since I flipped through the monster manual but I think there is a demon that likes shinies and is especially tricky. Could be fun to have one of those show up, start pocketing small, unguarded things, then work up to bigger things. But I understand that is more prep, so the honest convos is the way to go.
I know nothing of this campaign, but could something happen to their level 5 tree tower base? Is it guarded somehow when they aren't there? All the stuff they have stashed there could be stolen. Maybe someone tougher than them moves in? Maybe some sort of accident or disaster destroys it all. They'd be left with only what they are carrying.
>so, let's start from a clean slate. What do you prefer? We conclude this adventure and start anew with new characters or we reroll all characters with the same level and gold given from the tables?
It doesn’t actually take any longer to create powerful enemies, they already exist in the MM, this DM is just lazy and second guessing themself. Tie in the weapons/items in question to a NPC or enemy, force your player to give it up, or create a brand new monster that is immune to the advantage, or turns it somehow into a disadvantage to the player.
Worst advice ever... Instead of helping anything this ruins even more fun and probably doesn't even fully adress the Problem.
Have a convo with the players. If you just take their stuff without explaining why, they'll think you're punishing them. They're playing well and having fun. Don't accidentally make them think you have a problem with that.
Talk to the players and agree on a solution. Taking away awesome loot for no real plot reason (the reason is balance, you know it and players will know, too) is honestly on of the worst things a DM can do to players.
As a player who has experienced all our magic items LITERALLY DISAPPEARING in the game with no warning, I strongly support this out of game solution. It felt awful.
I would suggest against trying to remove or nerf the weapons in game. Rather, just talk to your players. You're allowed to discuss things about the game "out of game." Explain to them that you were inexperienced when you made the items in question, that you inadvertently made them way too powerful, and now, as a result, you're having a very difficult time running the game and trying to create fun challenges for them which is stressing you out and diminishing your enjoyment of the game. Apologise for your error if you think that will help. Ask them to work with you to depower the items so that they are still cool and useful but the power of the items is reduced to something more in line with what the system suggests and something you can manage. If your players are cool people they should be fine with having their items fairly "nerfed" to "normal" levels for the good of the game and your peace of mind.
could even have the players rewrite their equipment that seems fair, and then have the DM run over it for review
with their consent, I'd do something like plane shift or time travel or hop to parallel universe without any of their things. Maybe have a way for them to keep some non OP stuff. And have the challenge of starting from scratch. Getting back where they came from could be the challenge, but it might be like a very long term process. And potentially getting their stuff back from whoever found it when the were gone would be an additional process (or sealing it where it won't cause harm tot he world). But I'd get buy in by explaining the situation... like I painted myself into a corner as a DM and need to rebalance things in order to keep the game fun. So they will not feel like you are just randomly robbing them. Or maybe it would be fun for their gear to be stolen by some type of planar boss like a noble genie or something who is going to use it to do something OP that the PCs can then respond to. Sounds like it could have potential.
Been there :) and I still do it lol. You're doing the right thing by naturally trying to upbalance your side of it. One thing does pop out to me: The paladin attuning to everything. One key thing is to remind them that they can only attune to 3 items. If they're not following that, it might help a bit right off the bat? Generally, chat to them. Let them know that it's fun but you're hitting the limit of what you can create for them. That to continue you all might need to work together and dial back on some previous stuff. A 'sacrifice' quest is a good one. I had a group of players who also used the opportunity to sell gear for something a bit less tangible in sessions - like building a manor house or guild hall, creating a fort, etc. You could even have these things give group perks like a minion, a buff, creating food, etc.
I might have given them magical items that increased the number of attunement slots they have to 6 😅 To be fair they got them as rewards for beating really challenging bosses early on with clever strategies. I didnt see the problem at the time but i also didnt think about them attuning to a weapon for just one aspect of it and never actually using the weapon in combat.
Yeah talk with them and say you fucked up, specifically with this. Magic items aren't even included in the balancing of the game (huge oversight), so giving them powerful items then basically removing the limit on them too is far too much.
Yeeeeah, in the DMG, it specifies three things you should avoid messing with in homebrew: attunement slots, concentration, and action economy. When you have your conversation with your players, I'd suggest finding that quote/paragraph in the DMG and showing them directly. Be willing to let them keep cool and maybe even slightly overtuned things, but focus on removing any powers that cross these lines. A player having a +2 sword instead of a +1 is not as much of a headache for you as having +1 attunement options. I would also suggest coming up with a magical item version of a money sink, so that they feel like their items are not wasted. For example, would they be interested in buying a castle or stronghold? They could hire some trustworthy guards to defend their home, making use of those items. They could also barter a magic item to a mid-level wizard to build a teleportation circle for them, if they want. There's other ways to customize it as well. Or they could open a tavern, or a ship's port, or build a fighting tournament to test heroes. And definitely get the players ideas as well!
I had a wizard attuned to an incredible sword that could cast fly, transport via plants and some other spells. Never swung it once lol and it was a +3 vorpal or something for the actual “sword part” stats!
Everyone has made some great comments about open communication and such that you should pay attention to. These are my two cents. >Our parties paladin can increase his AC to 28-30 Attacks that force saving throws, AOE spells. >Our fighter/rogue can deal consistently up to 60-70 damage in a single turn. Damage immunities and resistance, Maze spell. >our ranger gets like +15 to all his ranged attacks Cover, enemies can drop to prone behind something at the end of their turn, then back up again to attack. Windy environment or Control Wind spell. > The paladin keeps attuning to everything Characters should only be able to attune to three items (making items require attunement is useful for getting them to choose). Either talk to them about adhering to this or perhaps if they stay attuned to a bunch they will either take exhaustion or some other adverse effect (but defo don't just spring it on them, more, *hey, I just realised this, my b, let's chat about how it'll be handled going forward).* >Im basically revamping every floor of the undermountain room by room It's also ok to just do this on the fly? Someone was once asked how they decided how many HP monsters had and they said "as many as is fun." Instead of using money, NPCs request magic items in exchange for information or help. Give them a keep as a reward so they can keep some of the magical items there instead of carrying them all the time. Give them squires or a low level party that looks up to them that they can gift items to. Bonus points if yous do one shots playing as these characters so they can still use the items. (EXTRA bonus points if they have to rescue the main party at some point.) Areas like a beholders lair where no magic has an effect. Some of the items have been "sleeping" and are waking up. Maybe they didn't feel like talking before, but the sentient sword that was just picked up had a fight with the sentient shield after their last owner was killed and they went their separate ways. The sword is still not talking because it's giving the shield the silent treatment. Also, if you have a list of all the magic items that would be class. I love homebrew. Sounds like a fun campaign.
I love this reply! Tons of good ideas :) I think as for OP taking a long time to balance things, unfortunately I feel like that is the life of a DM, and it sounds like OP is a damn good one at that. My suggestion would be to take a break DMing for a couple sessions, maybe ask if the players can run couple 1 shots or something. It's sounds like they had a ton of fun at the beginning working hard on making the campaign personalized and fun, but DM fatigue is real. Maybe after being a no-pressure player for a couple hangouts you'll be back to loving the prep.
This is I think the best response here. I would however tell them they cannot have 6 attunement slots. Having 4 is a buff and it’s not debilitating. Start with that and also make them keep track of weight. They cannot carry all these items if they don’t have the carry capacity for it. As well making sure they are using the items properly. You cannot swap weapons on a turn, item interactions and stowing weapons all come with their own rules. Just these things could balance the game a lot. I’ve boosted my AC to 34 as a hex blade sword bard, even higher when the cleric tags me with Shield of Faith. Most of these mechanical things can happen, RAW 5e pretty early. Having monsters have HP equal to whenever someone does something cool enough to finish it is just fine.
Quests that required sacrificing a powerful piece of gear to progress. If they try to throw something too weak at it, it fails, they loose the piece, and they try again with a stronger item. The players get to decide who/what to loose, and they feel like they are progressing the story by breaking an ancient seal (or making one) without needing to get some ones help/McGuffin (because they already have so many) A possible downside of this could be a player hording his good items vs another player happily tossing them out ever opportunity creating a power imbalance, if this starts to occur you may need to talk with your players about the issues out of game and work to rebalance everything, or they might fix it themselves by keeping better track of what items they ditch.
I think this combined with the above conversation could work quite well, that way they understand why and also feels as though it's contributing to the story
Having been in a similar situation as a player, this ain't it, chief. Maybe it could be, but in a recent campaign (currently on hold), our DM decided he'd given us too much power with our magic items, and suddenly there was no point getting excited about new ones we found because we knew they'd just get taken away from us arbitrarily.
Always a possible issue, as I said it may simply need to be discussed with the players. A likely alternative to your problem would have been no longer getting powerful items, which also takes the fun out of it. My solution allows new items to continue to be added to the game, and lets players choose which ones they get rid of - This ensures the items they consider most important, or build defining, don't go anywhere.
Having the discussion with the players is the important thing, I think. We had the "you must each give up a magic item to pass" scenario and maybe we were just jaded at this point but it wasn't fun.
True, but 99% of the questions asked here have that answer.
A very valid point. Something in me just saw your suggestion and triggered a 'nam flashback.
You can also make it so it is not just a powerfull piece put a certain type of item. As in a little riddle that points towards a dagger that needs to be of a certain magical power to work, the next time it requires a large magical piece of metal(plate mail sized by pure coincidence) to work. This way you can have them all give up a piece 1 at a time while still keeping your awesome solution viable
I really like the idea of combining this with the top comment about discussing with your players retconning the items.
If a DM tried this on me, I'd just not do the quest.
That's the thing. You can't. You cannot solve this issue by taking away their toys. The only time players ever enjoy something being taken away is if something is also given to them. So, realistically your best option is to talk to your players, and try to figure out a way to reroute their strength into other avenues. In giving up their magic items, perhaps they gain some more abstract things, or even just money. Depending on the player, they might want political power, a title, or any other amount of things. You really just gotta ask them.
WELL. my dm had us start at a higher level and we had x amount of gold to purchase items. i spent a long time choosing what i’d buy and really deliberated on it. move forward to several sessions and we all woke up in a pile of acid with mostly all our items destroyed, and over half of our wealth robbed from the NPC who “saved us” and woke us up. also, we hadn’t done anything stupid or deserved, the DM just decided we would wake up in the session like that. i was big mad. biiiig mad. ruined a couple sessions for me, to be honest. felt very betrayed and angry that my items i loved and really cherished and chose were just…. gone with no real explanation. don’t “organically rob” your players, especially if you’ve got a good vibe and dedicated players. if the DM had asked or been like “wow i gave you guys way too much money ” or “actually that armor is a bit too great, i think something like this is good for you and also makes you less OP” i’d have totally agreed and been like “yeah take some back you’ve been super generous”. i liked an early comment where you talked to them about it and how you have to do a bunch of extra work. offer an opportunity to trade in some items which maybe have some silly, but creative uses? like a shield where once per day can be used like a decanter of endless water! they still get a shield, but then they get an opportunity to have something that could be weirdly helpful and fun for the story? i don’t know if this was helpful. but i hope it is?
'the paladin keeps attuning to items' There's a limit to the number of attunements though so he should only have 3 attuned items
Everyone here has posited really strong arguments for clear and open communication. I have two words: Mordenkainen's Disjunction 😈😈😈
Conversation first. If they’re not having it, buff the monsters.
Hey yo, I think many of us have been there. Honestly? I’d just tell the party exactly what you’ve said in this post. Be really clear that you love your campaign and DMing. But just be like, “It’s honestly really hard to plan games for y’all because of these items. It’s eating up so much time and frustrating me. Can we nerf your items?”
Lend the items out to NPCs! The party can negotiate for more manageable benefits and there's the potential of the items returning in the future.
Honestly, my suggestion was going to be to persevere until a conclusion to the story and then start a new campaign, but if you don't see the campaign ending any time soon, my best suggestion is communication. They may not be happy about it, and they may love being so strong, but at the same time it will eventually burn you out no matter how much you enjoy it. But, if that's a no go, and seeing as you are in the Mad Mage's Dungeon, there are plenty of tricks you can use. Though my favorite would be: >You enter a new floor, but as you pass the threshold there is a sudden flux of power and a blinding flash of light. You hear cackling echo around you. > >"Such pretty little toys you have. I've been watching you for a while, and I must say I'm intrigued. Let me hold onto them for a while. Don't worry. You'll get them back...if you can find them. Now, what should my first experiment be..." - More cackling can be heard as they suddenly find themselves stripped of their most precious, and powerful, magical items by none other than Halaster Blackstaff. The bro is practically a god in his own domain. He can do anything he wants, and if they get them back...perhaps at the end of the campaign (if you end it at the Mad Mage), they can retire with pride (hopefully) that they triumphed even at their "weakest".
You only had to give big bosses 300 hp for a wmd equipped level 12 party?
RIGHT? I swear some of these people just need a creative writing outlet for the fact they’ve never actually played DND
Why did you give it to them in the first place?? Don’t rob them, just lead them into encounters with enemies that are powerful enough to get around those weapons/defenses, and if you don’t know why those are… CREATE SOME! The world is your oyster. Maybe a giant, poisonous oyster??? DM’s seems to keep forgetting they are more powerful than all the gods in faerun
Forgive my typos 🍺
I have a variant of gelatinous cube called magneto-slime which requires a strength check to hit it or the weapon is taken from the player’s hand
Just talk with them. We had the same issue in a group and everyone was cool with removing em. Maybe turn em into one use items so they can use em one more time.
TLDR; Organically add bigger tougher bosses.
Make them even stronger!.... Wait, wait hold on, don't leave, I have a point. For one big glorious battle have the magic items become crazy strong due to a massive concentration of magic in an area and then...... Burn out. They do super OP crazy shit and then they are reduced to weaker varients of themselves. How to make this not feel horrible you ask? Make it a part of the story to refuse the weapons with power again over time. This time at a easier to handle pace.
You can't. You could add some secret hidden curses to them that have "always" been there but only just triggered.
My approach would be to start with a mature conversation with the players, and set out some options for discussion. One I tend to like is the “yes, these items are ridiculously powerful, but we can have the story catch up to why. Power has consequences, perhaps these items are actually sentient and about to wake up, or cursed, or the items that belong to a forgotten god. “ you can create a story where they have to get rid of or destroy the items somehow. The One Ring strategy ….
You actually could use one of 3 variants: 1. Just speak with players. Tell em you cant anymore balance all that things you created and just talk about it. We all mistakes, usually people could understand, especially if you new in being DM or even in dnd at all. 2. Second, you may try to get rid of their items with some kind of rust monster or make them some special use, so you can epically sacrifice them in "flames of Mordor!!!", for the peace in the world to set. 3. There is my own way, its bad advice, but good advice. Hard to explain, just read it. Stop make monsters, like, "Big and Strong, Hulk crush", throw bestiary out of the window and have some fun giving monsters some special stuff. Paladin have 38 AC? Throw attacks out of the window, next to bestiary, and start to make spells with absurd DC! Ranger with +15 to accuracity? Sure! AC 35 could still handle that all, couldn't it? And even if their crit, just give them something like adamantite armor. Too much damage? Made them immune for 3 rounds or give them 3d20 regeneration every round and two phases? Need damage? "Why don't just give it 10 attacks with 17+ crit and +17 to attack and... 3 actions" maybe? Or summon some monsters every round so your players either could kick boss and take damage or kill stuff and die from boss. Have the party of mirror monsters (aka. doppelganger), with ability to absorb stats of their dead allies. Its four if players? Sure, there is four if dragons as well! But well... that something I really like to do, but, well, you need to understand that your party, ya know ... Isn't invincible!!! So you shouldn't first of all, comboing all that stuff at once, and secondly, at least try to balance it a bit. Just a bit. Usually, if you want to make some crazy shenanigans like that, you need to make your party know, that fight would be tough, and TPK is near. Be more loyal to players and make that monsters stupid, if you cant balanced them properly and your party is having a bad time. All of the options have their bad and good sides, if I have fun with all of that "Evil god syndrome" doesn't mean your players would like it, as well it doesn't they don't. So, just. Try something that you think is more up for you, cause all members of session should have some fun, as well as DM. If you has no fun, why are you still DMing?)
players gear is too OP. Players don't like things being taken away. What do I do? Ok here is the simple answer. Talk to them out of game and explain that their weapon are too OP and need to be nerged. Down grade the items they have from WMDs to the Best a player of that level can get. Perhaps compensate each character with a tower, castle,barony, 50 statues built of them. Whatever to take the sting off. Be clear that what they have breaks the game and that at their level, even with no magic items their already close to game breaking. So ya. Nerf their items to the point that they are still pretty legendary but not OP, give them a cookie and continue the game.
They go to parlay with a rival gang and have to surrender their weapons ahead of the meeting. The meeting is disrupted by a third party attacking and the party has to team up with the rival just to survive, but their OP weapons are lost. The party contracts a hideous fungus, the only cure for which is to bathe naked in a magic pool in a cave of glowing mushrooms. While bathing, the mushrooms turn out to be creatures who make off with their OP armour pieces. To gain entry to a place, the door guardian demands payment from each party member, one of their OP items. Upon a character death, an NPC offers to resurrect them by unbinding the magic power of one of their OP items, but the item will be destroyed or rendered mundane. To take part in an arena battle, the party must use supplied equipment. The arena manager cast a binding contract of certain death on themselves as a guarantee that they’ll get their OP gear back. After the battle, the party finds him dead and their gear gone. A note on the body apologises and explains that he sold the gear to pay off a powerful crime lord to protect his family, despite knowing he’d die. The party can pursue the crime lord for revenge but their gear is long gone in any case.
Are you sure the amount of work you have to put in will go down if you take away the weapons? D&D encounters are simply a lot of work, doesn't matter if it's one demon lord, two demon lords, an arch demon lord or twenty arch arch arch demon lords. It's all the same amount of work.
So short of actually just talking to your players and coming to an equitable agreement about removing the stuff that's causing problems, you could do the following: 1: Identify the stuff that's really breaking the game. Limit yourself to one item per player. This is important because you don't want to leave them completely without gear. 2: Make your solution permanent and traceable. Having the items disappear in the Feywild without explanation or recourse is only going to frustrate your group. A jealous king or high-powered character who steals from the players might seem like a good idea until you realize that your players will want to steal these items back. When you tell them they can't, see the Feywild example above. Destroyed gear is final and immutable. Maybe they can get it back with a wish when they are much higher level. 3.1: Options: Rust monsters used to be able to melt magical items, now they can't. But who's to say a horde of special myrmidons protecting the queen don't have the special secretions that destroy everything like in the tales of old. 3.2: Great things require great sacrifices. Are your players the sort who might willingly destroy their best thing for a moral reward? How about a material reward? Maybe a chance to peek into the future? 3.3: The items are cursed, and removing the curse will remove the magic, too. How the curse is applied is up to you, but it should be a severe enough drawback to negate the game-breaking nature of the item.
This is why I always try to tell new players and DMs that homebrewing anything with mechanics is a huge mistake. Worlds, plots, flavor can be totally fine to homebrew(though I still recommend starting off running at least 1 official module first to understand how to construct a campaign and see what balanced encounters look like) Few Options for you here though: out of game - "Hey i screwed up due to my inexperience and the power creep is killing the game. I need to fix mistakes I made in the stuff I homebrewed or I won't be able to continue DMing this campaign" Speed up the end game to just finish out the campaign sooner. They are probably OP enough to take on the BBEG if you broke their characters that much. Throw together a final fight with clear opportunities to really utilize all the powerful abilities they have acquired in an epic battle. If you are not already honoring the 3 attunement slots limitation, you need to be sure too. Its one of the few core rules that even the DMG specifically notes should NOT be messed with by the DMs as it breaks easily breaks the game(as well as invalidating some of the best features of the artificer class). What are some of the items youve homebrewed for them? I'm curious just how bad of a situation youve gotten yourself into lol Also dont be too hard on yourself. This is a super common mistake new DMs make thinking passing out OP stuff is just adding "more fun" before realizing how easily you can break the game system or even just trivialize all the actual player character choices compared to overpowered equipment.
Just be honest. Tell them the truth that things got away from you and that unless you retcon the magical items, the campaign is going to be very hard to continue. Honesty in this situation is better then trying to fix things in game.
There's not an 'organic' solution to this problem. The solution is to talk to the table and let them know that all those cool weapons have broken the math of D&D, especially 5e, to the point that fixing it is no longer viable. And straight up include your frustration at encounter building and difficulty making it fun to run things, but expressed in a way where it is clear that you are not angry at *them*, since they are just using the tools that they were given. You tell your players what's up and ask if they would rather: Have all the OP stuff immediately disappear, and they can quest again to find tamer versions of their cool weapons and gear. OR Ridding themselves of the OP stuff becomes key to solving some key plot points. Examples: The enchantment on the Paladin's armor is the exact magic that can be used to lock up some portal that would let an otherworldly entity destroy the plane. Will you sacrifice your nifty suit of armor to save the world? The bow that makes the Ranger so deadly accurate is actually a sentient malevolent being that was trapped as a tree, and that wood was turned into a weapon. The longer it is used, the more awake the ancient evil becomes. It must be thrown into the fires of Mount [Redacted by Cease and Desist]. You take a month or so off from the mad mage, and the party all has in-story fulfilling reasons why their OP items are no longer on their character sheet. Everyone gets replacements from the Uncommon-Rare tiers and maybe one item higher for being a good sport. However, you should de-escalate and re-escalate slowly. You take the magic items into account and plan all encounters through the new lens as each item is removed and replaced with its new normal.
I'd amend the weapons and armour. I've had this happen to me but they didn't just make it worse they changed it. Took raw power down a notch and added utility. It still is a change but its not a pure nerf.
I've had this problem, and I played it up with even more broken items that let them murder themselves. For instance wand of counter spell, infinite charges, counterspells by absorbing the cast spell, eventually after 5 or so uses it counterspells... And releases the first spell captured, first in first out kinda deal, then slowly becomes more and more of a nuisance by tagging into wild magic, randomizing the spell, always remember to roll for it being legit, until it starts casting fireball in addition to nearly every spell that comes out, and if they still don't discharge the magic eaten nearly everyday then it starts going off after 1 day, slowly decreasing hours by how many days it's been. My players loved and HATED this item, as it trivialized an archlich, but then the wand became volatile and became the boss effectively and they had to weather the storm of attacks during their celebratory long rest where they drank themselves into making terrible skill checks... Cloudkill and tashas hideous laughter is a hell of a combo. Or an axe that gave incredible stats when used but needed to be fed spell slots to activate (aoe acid damage etc) Rust monsters are a thing, have one take a nibble at night and run away during watch or if a party member sees him. Leave some refuse or something behind to make him trackable, most things want to live, don't be afraid to have him run away into the mountains or cave, giving you an opportunity for a side quest, treasure room, or kobold settlement where they are plagued by rust monsters and will pay in dragon gold... To which the dragon gets mad. Don't be afraid of talking it out to your players too. I actually had to do this because everyone got to level 20 and I ran out of monsters and reasons for my players to fight so I ran one last world ending campaign with custom monsters well beyond mortal capabilities that ate shadows like souls and left the planet a husk of its former self. They ended up winning slightly because they managed to mind control siege beasts and wreck the pylons powering the portals but they all had their shadows taken and over time reduced them back to level 7. To which it was fun for everyone again (and yes a few made new characters) but now I had a post apocalypse world to play with and they had reasonable non-ancient dragon level encounters. I couldn't have done that if I'd told them I'm not having fun. Apologies for the wall of text. Hope this helps
How many items are they attuned to ?? If you go over 3, you really start to mess around with power. One or 2 good items shouldn't overpower things too much. However, if its a custom item, I cant speak to that cause no idea what you may have going on. if your paladin is getting up to 28-30 Ac though, what can you really do unless you start making custom monsters ? Its a good learning experience though. I would oush towards wrapping the campaign up. Let them take on a super tough bad guy with a ton of minions as a last hurrah, then retire those characters. Move on to a new campaign a d wipe that slate clean :) I'm sure I did a similar thing, but my first Dm was a bit over 30 years ago so hard to remember exactly. There was no limit to attunement so things could get wonky fast.
Talk to them. Be honest tell them that you realized all those powerful items makes the game much more difficult to run. That it causes a lot of problems for you. And when it causes problem for the DM it also means it will be a problem for the group. If you as a DM have to put down so much work you might end up not having fun. and if the DM is not having fun running his game. The game WILL suffer. D&D is meant to be fun for all players and that includes the DM. Be open about it. That is usually the best way to solve any game related problem.
Is the +15 to hit on the ranger melee or ranged? At level 12 it's actually quite possible to get +15 to ranged with just items from the books. +2 bow, archery weapon style gives +2, bracers of archery gives another +2, 5 from 20 dex, and I think proficiency for level 12 is a +4? For +15 to hit, if proficiency is only 3 you can do +3 bow for the +15.
New campaign or talk to your party. If I lost all my magic items for no reason in a game that was still ongoing the party would lose me, lol.
Black puddings And also there's an attunement limit per character that it sounds like you're not following.
You can’t. How did they get them to begin with?
Talk to the players, let them know your plans are to work a way to nerf their gear. Then setup a scenario where they have to willingly donate/sacrifice some of their gear to a magic totem or something to build up enough magical power to do X thing that needs to happen. That way they're not losing the gear to thieves or nerfing, they're sacrificing for a good reason. Both in character and out.
What if I told you there exists a magic spell that can destroy most magic items? Or you can try and set up a situation where they choose to give up some of their items. It also kind of depends on their choices. If you give obvious warning signs that they are outmatched an they choose to fight and lose then it would be reasonable for their equipment to be confiscated. But the thing is it's about giving them obvious options and making it a consequence if they make the wrong choice and fail to successfully achieve what they chose to do.
You can't.
That’s the neat part. You don’t. Players will always be upset about losing cool stuff
I take my players' crap away from them all the time. There's all sorts of ways to do it: Players are captured and forced to turn over their stuff by their captors (easier at lower levels.) Players must cross through a portal they can only go through naked (Terminator Effect) Players go to a different plane where their weapons don't work as normal and they must exchange them for more functional weapons. Of course, most of these come with the players' expectation that they'll get their stuff back eventually. But maybe you can dole it back out more slowly, or permanently "lose" an item from time to time, or return a less op version to the player.
> The paladin keeps attuning to everything he finds without caution at all Just making sure.... You know they can only attune to 3 magic items at a time, right?
Have them be forced into some tournament. Their equipment is taken and they're forced to fight with waves of enemies with equipment given to them. Something eventually goes wrong and they're forced to run away without Retrieving their stuff. Getting all their stuff back can be a whole new quest that won't happen until later down the line so they won't feel like they're all gone for good.
Black pudding. Eat their armor and weapons. Have a group of enemies each throw glass bottles with Balck Oozes in them at the players.
Buff enemies, don't nerf players. Taking the items away is not fun for them. I did the same mistake when i first played 3rd edition. Even tho i had already a decade of experience i allowed players to craft magic items. We wanted to experience 3rd edition as it is, without changing anything. I had them fight a tribe of humanoids who had found the body of a dead God like Titan, deep in their caves. Their shamans used the blood of the God as ink and tattooed the bodies of the tribe. (I basically gave them all +10 barbarian levels) 20 years later, they still remember these encounters.
I want to stress in the strongest possible terms that there is no story feature which will make this feel good, or even just not-bad. Anything you do to separate the characters from the items that the players love will feel like you stealing from them, because that's what you're doing. Your reasons might be good, but this problem cannot be solved entirely in-game. Talk to your players. Be up front with them that their items just make them too powerful and it's causing you problems. Work together on a solution, which may or may not involve in-game events at all. Honestly my best piece of advice here is to ask them to help you, in those words. Something like "Hey I've been putting in a lot of work to keep the game interesting because of all the really powerful magic items I gave you. It's getting to be too much and I just can't keep up anymore. Can you help me find a way to reduce the power so I don't have to keep struggling with this?"
You can't. Players getting weaker is not the power fantasy D&D provides. I'd suggest just ending the campaign with a finale and starting over.
Seems like a good opportunity to drive the story. They are probably grown attached to the op weapons after some use, which is good and makes the players invested. What if the weapons became weakened/cursed from after a battle with a lich or a crazy cult noticed and did something? The players would need to work on restoring the weapons to their former glory through various quests and learning lore.
Give them a bag of holding, except it's not actually a bag of holding, it's that one bag that looks like it, but instead it just eats whatever they put in it.. [DnD Beyond › Bag of Devouring - Magic Items] (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4580-bag-of-devouring)
A curse. Something potent that requires human sacrifice. Drains their equipment gradually but inexorably. They can perform some rituals or something to slow it, but until the bbeg that cast the curse dies the curse stays in place. Bring the power back down to a manageable level and then let them track down some kind of maguffin that restores a bit of power, until the story lets them track the final piece to said bbeg.
Fastest way out: In the next Taverne the Party gets poisoned (with a veeeery potent and veeeery sneaky poison) and robbed. They all live but lose the Gear (exeption would be Low Level Gear.) They will need to find the culprit. Long story short: the culprit was a cult who needed this Magic items to summon X. When the Party gets there, the items are gone and the big Bad Boss Fight Starts.
I like this idea a lot. They're characters are very arrogent at this point because theyre so powerful so it probably wouldnt be that hard to get them to drop their guard enough to get poisoned. Plus ive never actually poisoned them before like this so i dont think they'd see it coming
equally, from a player perspective it would feel really bad that all of our stuff got stolen and eaten without any compensation whatsoever. like, 'you fail a con save so you lose all your items' is a real feelsbad. this is something better solved by a chat with the players as opposed to doing a 'rocks fall everyone's poisoned'. start with 3 attunement slots instead of the 6 you said they have, tha will make a huge difference. the DMG actually specifically warns against exactly this: "Beware of adding anything to your game that allows a character to concentrate on more than one effect at a time, use more than one reaction or bonus action per round, or attune to more than three magic items at a time. Rules and game elements that override the rules for concentration, reactions, bonus actions, and magic item attunement can seriously unbalance or overcomplicate your game."
OP could have a Chest nearby with good balanced items. Also OP could say "welp, the items are gone because you took too long". So the Players believe that had a Chance. I would be fine if my DM did this. I Had a DM nerf one of my abilities mid campain because it sucked the fun out of everything.
Tell the players that you messed up first. Do not just do this. It'll feel like shit. Talk to your players like a proper adult. This is a game about talking to each other, TALK. Communicate.
> Plus ive never actually poisoned them before like this so i dont think they'd see it coming You get one (1) and only one (1) chance to do something like that, though, and while it may succeed in 'legitimately' taking their gear away because you *can* say "hey, you had the chance to make saves, you all just failed them, and you could have been more careful," the result will be paranoid players who will proactively roll perception/investigation/etc about *everything* and will interrogate every NPC they meet and will paranoidially sleep in shifts everywhere, not treating anywhere as being safe ever again.
If you do try to do this, I sincerely recommend not actually burning all their gear. Give them a chance to actually stop/delay/weaken the ritual and save some of the gear, with the caveat that the most absurd stuff is going first. Don't burn everything before they get there, I'd even recommend making a whole little dungeon for the cult with multiple paths and distractions, but a clear timer, like a loud magical shattering happening either every turn or every few turns depending on the sheer amount of items, and every time this noise happens one of the items was lost. When they finally reach the end, the items are in altars all around the room, each guarded by a/a group of cultist/s, maybe even helped and protected by aberrations, or golem if you want this to be an artificial God situation. If they kill the cultist and take the item out of the altar, the item is safe (which is why the most busted stuff goes first). After the most busted shit is gone, you can roll for which items break next, but I'd try to make it so it would be going between players, so one of each before another of the first player. And if you want the encounter to be even more memorable, you could give the enemy extra powers based on which items were destroyed. For example, the items that give the ranger +15 were destroyed? Now the boss has an extremely accurate ranged attack. Multiple AC items? Not only does its AC go up, (by a manageable amount), it gains some mild resistance to regular damage. Some type of magic casting item? Legendary action to cast its spells. With this, they will definitely be sad about losing the items, which is why I'd still talk to them first, but getting to have a chance to save them and having an incredibly cool fight for it might offset it, especially if you actually put some new, very cool (but less powerful) magic items also being sacrificed along with theirs, that they could save to gain new equipment. I'd also see how many items get destroyed before they arrive at the final chamber, and if they'd have lost pretty much everything because they took too long, you can just add more piles of broken items at the floor and say some of theirs were being added to altars in place of previously sacrificed ones. Also, this might be a cool place to introduce some characters to help them out, npcs whose loot *also* got stolen and can help expedite the process of arriving there. This makes it seem less like a targeted attack and more that they were just looking for powerful loot, and they had a lot of it. Possibly some of these already got in before they did, and are already fighting enemies in the dungeon when they arrive, then it becomes a dilemma as well Del, where they can leave these people to fend for themselves and get to ignore some enemies, or help them and get a new ally.
Or, instead of a retcon, you kan do like morbius did with Thor. "Oh please mr superhero, my planet/timeline is in danger and the only way to save it is if you sacrifice the magical power(s) of this weapon you have right here!" Of course it was a lie, but thor fell right into it. And the writers and editors didn't have to worry anymore about Thor time travelling
talk about: "retiring the active characters and starting with new ones"
Prison
Rust monster
If the only issue is damage, just stop tracking HP. Once everyone gets some satisfying shots in, or gets to do something cool, just declare the monster dead.
Rust Monster infestation... 😈
OK. Just start a new campaign where they must go through a portal which only let organic matter pass. Tell 'em not to worry, they'll get their stuff back as soon as they complete the mission and come back through the portal.They can only open the portal with an item they'll find along the way. 1) You'll set your player in a very survival oriented game in the early sessions, and it will make for a nice change. 2) You're free to let them come back and realise XXX years passed in their home plane, their home base / temple of patron lays in ruins and they can launch a new campaign to retrieve their gear.
Listen to a fool: stop giving your monster a health bar. That's it. Feels like not going down this round? Then the monster survive a fatal blow, fueled by ungodly rage and fucking destroy even mountains. You K.O.ed 3 PC out of 5? The paladin, exhaling one last breath exhausted by the fight, slash the monster in half, living up to his party's expectations and avenging their pain. I think that when your player have strong character, then you have to pump the enemy to the next level, pushing the limits of what your players can do. Invest in finding a new type of challenge for them, for example: a lich has a barrier that reflects all kind of Magic attacks but the party notices that every time the barrier activates a pylon behind him glows and if they destroy it the barrier vanish. Actually the curse arc of the paladin was genius, but if you want an even simpler method of removing the magic items: ***A N T I M A G I C F I E L D*** Good luck my friend and remember: fight OP shit with OP shit
If you don't want to spend a lot of time editing monsters in a preset module, just triple their hp and bump their proficiency. Only really get into the nitty gritty for big, important fights.
As already suggested: out of game communication is key here. And perhaps, since you're running DotMM, propose a deal with Halaster. Hand in a powerful item for a different (not overpowered, but still needed) one, for an IOU from Halaster that can be used whenever needed, maybe if (next to the party members you mentioned) you've got a wizard some spell scrolls to expand their choice of spells, or anything really. Together with your players you come up with deals that make the game fun for everyone, not just the players :) But again: after you let them know it's bugging you! I'm having a similar experience with a homebrew item in DotMM. It's a broken staff of flame which outputs crazy damage for too small a tradeoff. Fortunately the druid player that uses it wants to change his subclass to wildfire. We decided that it'll be possible, but at the cost of that item. I've planned a whole thing around it and if it's ok, I won't share the details in case he stumbles upon this comment :P But it's an example in which the DM and player came with a solution for a rather troublesome and poor choice of item reward in the past Just my two copper to consider :)
Tell them what you said here, then in game have a portal connecting a floor/room to the next that sends them out nakid on the other side or something 🤔🙂
make them steal it themselves: storys about their legendary deeds have spread far and wide. rumors have it they are just ordinary people, but these artifacts helped them to achieve the extraordinary. be it peasant or lord, collector of wonders or just a greedy thief, many want these artifacts for their own reasons and so a small group formed and forged a plan to get hold of the artifacts. i present to you the second party, let them steal it. edit: the players will play the second party just to clarify.
I would "disenchant the weapon", make it loose power and send you on a quest to recover it. Corrupted ashbringer gang?
To add humour into a game, have your players enter a city district where they have to surrender weapons, where they are put into a chest and the players are given a tag/ scroll with the details on it. Make sure you note that the clerk in charge of this is either very old or it's his first day on the job. they do their business in the district (quests, shop etc), go back to the clerk, and find out he's accidentally mixed the chests up. He is completely humiliated when he finds out, and promises to do everything he can to get it back, including details of who got their items. The other group could be a group of level 1 adventurers who now luck into these magic items, or a family with one of the items left out was a treatment for a disease/curse, or whatever. Insert a madcap chase sequences, bartering or social problem solving, stuff that allows them to not rely on their weapons, but still feels good to play. I did this for a group of mine, and two players actually passed on some of their magic items to the new adventurers after the all got in over their head with a beholder. Got a fun little fight where the players controlled two party members each to fight it.
Push them to their limit with a fight JUST outside of their capabilities and TPK them. Then send in the B squad to revive the original party, and when they get there, the party has been picked clean.
Rust monster den.
The magic of the items has failed. Quest time. Or a curse has been placed upon the items. Quest time. Take the items away not the hope.
Not a DM, but I would use a battle with an underboss to rebalance their items. It could be an orb of some sort that draws from their power. I’m sure you could find an explanation, but I’d be happy with that narrative. I would however make them underpowered after the battle. That way replacing, or repairing to the correct level, will give feel more organic. As others have said though, explain afterwards why they’ve lost the overpowered items.
Actually I would do a really hard questline where they encounter really strong enemyie - they get beat by them, but they dont die, they just got captured and all their items got stripped of of them. Now they need to find a smart way out and can only partly retrieve their items if they are lucky (it will be really hard to retrieve the op items, therefore they are almost no option to get back). so while escaping they get some items back, but with a high certainty not the op shit (they are stored at really well protected places). Maybe you can integrate that in the next mission or quest or storyline - as an example, they got hired to find out whats happening to the merchants that went missing at a mountain path. At arrival they find traces of battle with an "dragon" or so, but while investigating more tidily they find out that those traces are manmade and they find footprints which leads to a hidden huge cave in the mountains. At arrival they get taken by suprised and are overpowered - which leads to their capture and stripping of their items. Now they need to find a smart way to escape, because the enemy is over their level but therefore isnt attentive, because they are way stronger. So they are kinda able to escape with smart thinking and can partly take some of the stuff back. When they suceed in the escape and go back to get backup or so, the thieves or whatever already moved to a new place...because they dont want to get caught. So just find a fun way and integrate it in your campain to strip them from those items. That was my idea. Have fun
I've heard tales of a zebra like creature that can unmagickfy an item with a lick. Idk it's name but it haunts my thoughts. I'd make It imune to magic and more powerful the more it licks. It doesn't even harms you it just feeds, grows and heals.
I've dealt with similar situations in the past and there were 2 routes I took (none of which involved taking items away): 1. Let them keep using the items, but up the stakes/risk of using the items that aren't appropriate for them at this time. Maybe that +3 flaming greatsword is too hard to wield without more experience and now poses disadvantage in some circumstances. Or the staff that the wizard has been using above his power level has developed cracks in it and runs the risk of catastrophic energy release when used. Make them think about whether the risk is actually worth it. 2. Things can also get interesting quickly when you disable the advantages of those magic items. I once tossed a group of 3 paladins, a battlemaster fighter and a life cleric against the player group. That part seems slightly challenging, but I also gave them hostile magic immunity necklaces that the group had to find a way around. A bit of a puzzle for sure, and they just barely managed to scrape by with some clever thinking.
I would just power creep the enemies. The next set of villains are strong enough to fight them on equal terms.
Tell them that the gear was actually owned by a legion of gods who are pissed that it was stolen, and if it isn't returned then they'll destroy the world. Instant sidequest, plus you can ease them into using different gear by hinting that the gods may still attack them once their stuff is returned
I ran into the same problem but with just one sword. The next kingdom they went into owned the" lost for generations " sword and all their problems befell them when it happened... they were so great full they made anything that they wanted. They felt like they completed something while getting a good reward. It was a vorpal to a flame blade.
Party wipe, but only unconscious. Have them wake up in prison/a dungeon/mad scientist lair without anything but their skin. No spellbooks, no items, and interrupt sleep so no long rests. Welcome to a hard reset that the players will LOVE: ESCAPE FROM \[insert name here\]!!
I gave my players too many items right away, to the point that they never really used them. So, one day they met a trader that had a "Cart of Holding" that had *almost* anything in it - the player's traded two items of one quality for an item of the next highest quality. Cleared out their bags and they chose what they actually wanted...within reason, no artifacts or anything tied to specific characters. Now, the difference is that your players use these items and seem to like them. So, you could still do something similar, but with different items. Incentivize them to want to trade in their stuff. Also, talk about this above-board at any time.
Have them lose them…and promise that they can get them back if they prove that they’re more than just their stuff?
Start throwing mind control /dampening creatures at them. Ilithid colony and the supporting monsters and everything that goes with them. When taken as slaves they would have their gear removed before they are taken to the pens for "cattle". Suddenly, after a few months of mindless slavery under the suppressive power of an elder brain, they and all the other slaves "wake up" because a different group of adventurers managed to kill the elder brain. Now it's a race to find, and get back their magic gear. Maybe some of it is missing. Oh no! Now to get it back they gotta track down that more powerful group of adventurers that just got even more powerful cause they are running around with all their OP gear. It's a whole e/side quest built on the idea of stealing back that which has already been rightfully stolen! Lol
In the future for OP magic items I suggest using artifact rules that give various benefits and detriments on various scales. Every table is obviously different but I like the idea of a powerful magical boon also creating a corrupting force that hinders them.
Have them make a deal with a demon. They trade their current weapons in for even more powerful weapons. And then the demon rips them off. They trusted a demon.
Play 3.5 where those types of items are awesome and balanced by this level
Give their enemies the same items.
Have them get captured. I took over for a DM and the party had gotten some very powerful items. It was going to make the start of the new campaign very hard for me (running a prewritten campaign with some homebrew changes at times) and I didn’t want to just outright tell them “hey everything you had is gone.” They got captured in an encounter after a TPK situation that was planned, they didn’t know, and woke up with nothing on in a “prison of sorts.” They had to escape without any equipment and when they went looking for their stuff they learned it had been sold at a local market. They quickly ran to the market to find most of their equipment had been sold and they had the wrong currency of money (they had a lot of money due to last campaign.) It was a very nice “reset” of sorts that fit the story very very well. They were mad, but had a lot of fun in the encounter because it was challenging. These items they had come to rely heavily on were gone and they had to be smart. Out of game after the encounter I explained to them why and they were totally cool with it. They will soon be getting some good items after their next encounter… if they survive. This will be about 3/4 the way through the campaign now.
I gave a player an OP weapon. So, I set up a scenario where he'd end up visiting the ethereal plane and encountered a minor goddess. She needed the weapon to save her people, and she'd return it when he finally returns to his home region. In exchange she swapped his St and Dex scores (which he'd mentioned once).
On the back of the people saying have a conversation beforehand, you should do that but also tell them this will be happening narratively too. You could have the players encounter a benevolent dragon that is on death's door as it has a sickness causing it to be unable to move in it's lair and one that can only be cured by consuming powerful magical artifacts. This gains them an ally in the dragon that can give them all a boon such as an ability score increase that pushes their primary stat up to a potential 22 or a feat. The dragon also could make an appearance in an otherwise impossible grand scale battle. That way the players still have a permanent benefit but one that is more easy to balance around and the blow is softened somewhat.
Alternatively, you could start using level-appropriate monsters from 3.5 or Pathfinder where they don't have bounded accuracy.
>Our parties paladin can increase his AC to 28-30. That's normal. My lvl 11 bladesinger has 20 flat AC with studded leather +2 and cloak of protection. 25 AC with bladesong and 30 AC with Shield spell. You counter it by using saving throws instead of attacks. >Our fighter/rogue can deal consistently up to 60-70 damage in a single turn That's normal, my bladesinger does 11d8+11 each round for an average of 50-60 damage (shadow blade lvl 5 and magic sword +1 with booming blade), supplemented by 15% crit chance per attack with Elven accuracy. So the damage is usually higher. Fighters hitting 4 times with GWM and PAM will give you even more damage. >and our ranger gets like +15 to all his ranged attacks. Again, normal. Proper ranger on level 11 will have a +5(Dex)+4(Prof)+2(Archery style)+2(bow) for a total of +13, if using +2 arrows that will be the same +15 yours does. I don't see any game breaking shenanigans. Upd: 6 attunement slots on a paladin you mentioned below, now this, yeah, that's fucked up.
If the players are up for some moral dilemma, reveal that the items they are using benefit a great enemy in some way. Every time the Rogue kills someone with that weapon, the Abyss gets stronger. Every time the Paladin avoids a hit, a guard/soldier in an allied/Good town is struck into a mysterious coma. The Ranger's item is super easy to scry, and there are a number of evil creatures watching, tracking, and listening to everything the players do. This makes the choice of using these items more difficult, especially if it might bite them later on (or they find out because things start going bad). Invading demons start showing up, prices rise, security drops, etc.
One of my players blew a magical horn within a mile of a black dragons lair (they knew it was there several sessions ago, and were actively avoiding it/trying to avoid the dragons attention). The dragon however was an adult, and well above their level in terms of conflict potential. So when they woke it up and pissed it off with their loud noises, I was questioning the best way to handle it. I just had them offer up magical items for its hoard that were of sufficient interest to the dragon. By the end of the session, they all felt relieved that they didn't have to fight/run from the dragon, and only one of my players was more distraught about their item loss. And it was only because they wished they had given away another item instead. TL:DR - Powerful creatures may turn a blind eye to your players in exchange for magical items of sufficient quality. If you ensure that the creature will only be happy with the highest quality of items, you can effectively remove those items from play.
... A level 11 PC pumping out 60-70 isn't even abnormal. Especially for a martial. That's what they do, heavy single target damage is their entire bag. A party fresh off a long rest will absolutely be able to lay the smack down on most fights
Rust monster
Another option: "Guys, I start a new campaign, let's roll new level 1 characters"
TPK them. Absolutely stomp them. Have them face a horde of the undead or something that just kicks their asses and kills them. Death saves and all. Then, have them wake up, together, in a dark demi-plane. A God or Demon or Something is there with them. They're told that their exploits garnered said God's attention, and they'd like to see them perform more feats again as their champions. That they'll be rewarded as the God sees fit with equipment or blessings for the deeds they do. But there is a catch. The catch being that they will awake 100 years after their deaths, all as they were in their youth, just after they all left home. They'll awake with none of their current powers, or equipment. They start fresh. If they want, they can even change their class. That is the deal offered. If they take it, start a new campaign fresh. If they do not take it, their characters are left dead.
In addition to telling the players why you want to make the change and getting their buy-in (as others have suggested), here are some ideas for retiring the gear: 1. Give them special gear that is required for a new area. They can keep the old gear, but it is ineffective or doesn't have a special property that makes it work in the new place. 2. Make a worthy cause that they can donate the gear to. Some kind of crusade to hold back monster hordes from another dimension or something. 3. Depending on how they got the gear in the first place, you may be able to have them travel back in time and give the gear to their earlier selves. Just ignore any paradox this creates by saying "it's magic". 4. If they're famous enough, have a museum or government request their gear to put on display. They can get something awesome, but non-combat related in exchange. 5. Just generally offer something awesome and non-combat-related in exchange for the gear. Their own town or magical castle or something.
Idk if it’s still a spell in later editions but my go to for this is as they fight more and more powerful people one of the casters is bound to cast Mordenkainen’s disjunction which will permanently disenchant everything around it in a 30 foot area unless it makes a save Vs spell, it even has a 1% chance per level to destroy artifacts, albeit destroying an artifact could strip said caster of casting capabilities permanently so it’s not a risk most would take.
Lol it's pretty simple. OP gear would be desired by OP NPCs. Steal it. And at the same time introduce a badass villain
Conversation with your party explain to them that your having a hard team adjusting everything to keep up with their gear, see what they want maybe they just wanna blow through the dungeon as big bad heroes maybe they agree so yall can just mechanically rebalance without seeking a narrative reason (if ya need one magic fluxes with the shifting of the leylines and it affected the parties gear as it passed over and through them) maybe they agree and yall can work on a narrative together, don't try and sneak anything they likely feel like they earned that gear so losing it cheaply will likely upset them (depending on party that may not be a concern you know them better consider how the paladin reacted to the curse as a base of reference)
Biggest baddest enemy can only be killed with a mythical spear. The spear is broken. Only way to reforge the spear is to put magical materials of a certain worth into the magical forge. Bye bye all the equipment you want gone, hello to a ridiculously powerful weapon they can only use on the big bad
TPK the party.
Could do a lotr style narrative campaign, where the creator of their magical items has arisen as a big bad and is cursing/draining their life force and acting as phlacteries. They may be able to save the items, but as lesser versions with some of the magic having been drained away. Emphasis a narrative pay off, and they can keep the item, but there are consequences and/or more hurdles to overcome. Could be a cool campaign, but 100% depends on the group.
Instead of retconning, as other people suggested, maybe there can be a party of inexperienced NPC adventurers that your players come across. They have some kind of really important mission only they can do and they will just get slaughtered if they don't get some kind of power boost. Since your players have gotten more powerful since the start of the campaign, maybe you can convince them (along with an out of game discussion) to give up their equipment, considering that they have evolved past needing them. It lets them feel like they aren't 'losing' their items, and the NPC group could come back later in the campaign for a massive team-up event like some kind of Avengers movie.
Talk to the party, explain the situation, and let them know you have an in-game method of getting rid of the gear and allow them to replace the gear. Make a list of appropriately leveled gear for them to choose from to eventually replace it. for the in-game reason. Shipwreck would be my go-to. The adventurers have been invited by a powerful noble to travel to (\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_) one night there is a lavish dinner party on the voyage and the party is expected to dress in their finest clothing. During the party a huge storm suddenly strikes the ship. The boat is tossed about and torn to pieces by the storm. They fall unconscious and wake up on an unknown island, with nothing but the torn clothing they were wearing before. A fun challenge would be the players have to survive the island, the island has wild magical effects so any teleport attempts causes weird things to happen. I would go with the island is a fey junction point where the barrier between planes is weak. Give the island fun monsters and strange artifacts that are more appropriate for their level. They can try to make new weapons with sticks and stones but must find a way off the island and back to civilization. I have always found as a DM that being open and honest with my group has been the best course of action. Present the problem, present your solution, listen to their ideas, re-work your solution to include their ideas as well.
I gave my party dragon slaying weapons too soon in my last game and so I had the bad guys steal them after knocking out a player during their watch. They were able to recover some things later but I turned the op weapons into tools that the bad guys used to kill the good dragons. The players gave chase initially. And I let them capture interrogate and kill the monks who stole from them but they were only able to recover some of the less op items. The thought is to turn it into a quest but make the bad guys use the op items in some way that consumes them. They appreciated seeing their lance of dragon slaying blown up to 50x its size and dropped on their gold dragon ally.
If I actually watched/listened to more of the DND podcasts and shows I'd be able to remember where the hell I saw this clip from, but Brennan Lee Mulligan had a moment in one of his campaigns where the player(s) did something interacting with an ancient magic, and it caused all their magic items to explode and deal them damage. I'm assuming they went about replacing them, but what I'm trying to say is if it's part of the story, and there are contested rolls to keep the items then it will feel less like you took the gear and more like you put up a challenge and they failed, which happens in DND. Personally, if you're not being stingy with gear I don't think they'll be too upset with it. They may be sad they lost out on the "good stuff." If asked OOC you can just say the truth, which was you felt like you couldn't give them new stuff because the old stuff was too good and it kept throwing everything out of whack.
I would personally prefer to explain exactly what you just told us, openly, you were new to DND, stuff you gave them breaks the game, time to re-balance. Or to make things even easier on you, and more neutral/less debate, time to reset the campaign, start again, warn them at session zero that magical weapons might seem a bit underwhelming because they are closer to the intended loot. Or, be creative, time for some really BBEG, with a "end all magic" agenda (like the plot of Kora maybe, like he/she gains tractions amongst the commoners that suffer under the oppression or magical beings). he/she has a doomsday device that absorbs magic around him, or worldwide, or corrupts the mana so that using magic actually drains people's vitality etc.... When they fight him/her, all their gear looses magical powers, and even after they defeated him/her, the world has lost a considerable amount of magic, and from now on, every gear is back to normal DND lvls.
Having read some of the previous comments with excellent suggestions, I'll add my two cents: If you did want to do something non-meta, something that doesn't involve discussion away from the table, you could involve something that I usually find to be a problem: fortune telling, AKA precognition. You could take away their OP stuff if you warn them in-game that it's definitely, unavoidably going to happen. "You've been cursed (maybe. by whom? I dunno). You will lose EVERYTHING. Avoidance will only hasten this doom." Then you hit them with whatever super interesting machinations you've come up with. My little speech up there is garbage, but it's only for illustration. You or I or anyone who's willing to work a bit could come up with a good scheme and a good precognition, one that even spells out the meta reasons for it happening. Anything. Not saying it'll succeed in completely assuaging the blow, but you'll have done a lot of work to make it real.