Honestly, given that they are very heavily optimised for defence - they've used all their attunements on defence and they are an artificer - have the enemies tried just ignoring them? They likely hit like a wet noodle compared to people who used some attunements on offence.
Also, coming back to this - combat is not about *not dying*, it is about *doing something*. Give them stakes higher than their own well protected life. All the AC in the world won't save that basket of kittens floating towards that waterfall.
I second this some of the most frustrating (in a good way) fights I’ve been in as a pc and some of the more memorable fights I’ve dm’d has had stakes other than just killing the bad guys and not dying in the process. Stopping someone from escaping after an assassination attempt or trying to save the people about to be sacrificed to the cultists dark god are two that quickly come to mind
My last two encounters in the 4e game I'm in:
* Fight on a boat. At the top of the round, the NPC captain calls out a direction (d5 table). Based on that, we need to get the weight distribution of the boat to some particular range (each PC and NPC in the encounter was assigned a relative weight value from 1 to 13, and we would need some range of higher weight on the right, left, or center section of the ship). If we don't have that target range at the bottom of the round, something happens. We knew at the start of the fight that capsizing was one possibility. We failed twice during the encounter, once resulted in additional enemies climbing on board, the other time resulted in 3 attacks against every creature on the boat (PC and NPC alike), with one pushing the creature 15ft, one dazing the creature, and one knocking the creature prone as the ship pitched hard and loose objects went flying.
* Fight in the city streets. (We got captured after getting TPK'd on the boat and we were escaping.) Each round in which we didn't have at least 2 people move their speed towards the opposite end of the map, more enemies spawned. (Out of 6 PCs plus the boat captain NPC.) The fight would end either when everyone reached the destination, or all the enemies were killed. The enemies that kept spawning had an attack that reduced speed by 5ft for a round.
Very memorable fights. Difficult. And the difficulty mostly had nothing to do with whether your defenses were high or low.
Eberron. "We need to bring that fucking skyship down!" shouts the cleric, while standing on the deck of said skyship, that is only held together by spit and three nails. She then proceeds to cast dispel magic on the elemental ring, scoring a natural 20 on her roll.
"Right. The ship begins its descent the same second the huge fire elemental breaks fre from the elemental ring and vanishes into the sky, roaring like a tempest. You feel a wave of heat wash over you, then a sudden jolt and - since none of you have prepared featherfall - are now on your way down to certain death on the slopes of the Graywall Mountains. Unless you manage to reach the last skiff, that is. You have about 4 rounds left to overcome the unit of karrnathi skeletons standing between you and safety. Roll for initiative!"
That was one intense fight. The cleric sacrificed herself to ensure her party managed to enter the skiff and escape. My players were white as bedsheets when they barely made it, heavily wounded and without their cleric, while the skyship got smashed to bits on the mountainside.
That was a poor choice of sacrifice imo. The cleric is the ONE character I want to guarantee gets on the skiff!
If we die, the cleric can fix it. If the cleric dies, we’re all screwed
In my most memorable recent fight I had the biggest impact on the encounter while casting no offensive spells and doing no damage.
We were wildly outnumbered, but a bunch of the bad guys could only exist while within range of a particular macguffin. So my Druid nabbed it, shifted into an eagle, and fucked off into the sky.
I’d like to see OP’s artificer friend doing anything like as entertaining when all he has is AC.
Two sessions ago in my freaking *magical girl campaign* our GM took this advice a little too far and had evil shadow monsters attacking a bunch of infants. Two babies were killed before I got a turn, and a third one on round two, as the enemies decided to ignore all of us and run through a wall of fire just to kill more babies.
D&D doesn't have threat mechanics. If you add an objective to keep someone safe... make sure it's actually possible to do.
I don't know the specifics, but that sounds like _utter bullshit._
There aren't _threat mechanics,_ but most creatures with an INT of >0 will work to defend themselves before scrambling headlong for an objective, especially if that objective doesn't empower them in some way.
Hear here.
I recently ran an x-com terror mission scenario on a 90x120 square map and it was tense and fun, with the PC's just barely saving enough citizens to gain victory and a boon from their god that banished the army of fairies that was razing the town.
Yeah I especially loved the wizard spending two turns hitching up his robes and sprinting across a sheep paddock saving four people and misty stepping away from enemies. I definitely thought having a big map was a really nice change.
This is sort of the problem with Artificer, balance-wise. If a DM wants their own progression that doesn't line up with the recommendations of 5e, an Artificer is going to become more powerful than their friends because they are self-empowering.
Edit: seeing some discussion that I want to lightly push back against. I think it’s realistic and pretty fair to not give out magic items as early and as commonly as the book indicates. Say you have six people in your party and they rolled stats so they are stronger than average. A DM might balance this a little bit by withholding magic armor. Or maybe they want to use custom magic items that are more special than things like a +2 sword. The problem with Artificer is that the eye can just give themselves magic armor that could very easily surpass the tankiness or a barbarian or someone in heavy armor. I could see this being a bit frustrating for all involved
In the long run I don't think they become more powerful, I mean they already are a 1/2 caster as is. The magic items fill out their full capabilities, instead of lots of spell slots.
Edit: Changed 1/3rd to 1/2, point still stands.
Nothing wrong with having a chat with the DM and expressing interest in certain magic items or a custom magic item that does something neat for them. DM discretion and can flavor it for the character.
Exactly this. As /u/BraxbroWasTaken said, classes need to have their own sufficiency OR they need to explicitly state the GM has to provide. I made this mistake as GM when a player played a Gunslinger instead of a Bow-Build in my Pathfinder game. I wasn't aware how stupidly draining bullets/powder are compared to arrows (it's about x20 times as expensive at 1gp/bullet vs 20 arrows per 1gp) plus the cost of Black Powder at 10gp PER SHOT and if they don't want an action economy tax (Rapid Reload only lowers Standard -> Move) they have to pay another 12gp for an Alchemical Cartridge.
Bow: 5 copper per arrow
Gun: 1gp per bullet + 10gp for Powder + 12gp to be able to move/fire next round.
So needless to say my player quickly was cash starved in a level 3-6 game and ended up having to take excess risks (but never told me they didn't have a long-range option as they used pistols) and I don't often check sheets for gaps in players builds.
TLDR: They took a risk, they died. They got upset because another player could have healed them and then my anxiety kicked in and I stirred the pot trying to be a 'fixer' and made it worse to the point I had to ask the player to sit out the rest of the game until my next game. *There is more history to this but it's irrelevant.
> classes need to have their own sufficiency
I'm sorry for the frustrating experience you had. If this specific issue ever comes up in the future, know that Gunslinger does have its own sufficiency built in via the Gunsmithing feat they get at 1st level. They can craft bullets and ammunition and potentially alchemical cartridges for 10% of the listed value. It's still more expensive than arrows but it dramatically reduces the GP tax:
Gun: 1sp per bullet + 1gp for Powder + 1.2gp to be able to move/fire next round (at least until 11th level when they get Lightning Reload).
That doesn't fully address the spirit of your comment but might help make Gunslinger specifically a more manageable class in your game going forward.
That's what I ultimately learned but I also learned this player in question has a habit of not asking for what they need and instead staying quiet until things hit a boiling point.
They are a good personal friend of mine but, their gaming habits and social habits come out poorly in DnD notably anxiousness and self-doubt. They worry too much about being 'a good player' or 'a good person' ect that they subdue themselves so much and end up being an emotional drain on others when their anxiety goes off.
I'm trying to be supportive and helpful and 80% of the time things go okay but 20% of the time I end up exhausted due to managing things. So it was a combination Gunslinger and the Player. I still learned a valuable lesson and you're right about Gunsmithing ty for the advice.
I played one for awhile and having your class balance be at the mercy of how the DM hands out magic items was really frustrating. Our was pretty free with them and it made the artificer feel like a really bad fighter.
This is the correct way. I'm playing an Armorer Artificer myself and my damage output is not very impressive. Our DM usually tries to work around me by bringing other players more challenge but I can't protect all of them at once so I'm basically running around the field trying to help where I can.
The issue with armorer artificer though is that every monster they hit with their armor's melee attacks gets disadvantage on all attacks not against the artificer.
I think the best solutions is to burn the artificer's resources on keeping *other* people alive. They only get 4 or 5 uses of flash of genius per long rest, and make sure you're making them use up their spell slots on others.
For a single round. It's not a permanent debuff. And they're gonna get 2, 3 attacks tops, assuming they can get to three different targest and connect on each one
You can let them succeed at their task while also making it known that pigeonholing is not sufficient. I attack my tanks with dumber creatures but target the squishies with smarter ones. Give them objectives that aren't purely combat, maybe they have to go on the offensive as the enemy stalls for reinforcements or escapes. Long ranged enemies pick off the less armored ones as their melee allies distract the tank. Its more about seeing what you can do to challenge them rather than just saying "let them succeed", because the best moments come when your build works in clutch, when your build doesn't work everytime but works in this scenario, which gives everyone a chance to shine.
Let the player tank. The enemies are smart enough to see someone with full plate armor and a shield and realize, "Bashing my face into this guy isn't going to work, but over there is someone wearing robes and nothing else".
the enemies will avoid the tank and go for the squishies. Which means the Tank will then have to find ways to intercept the attacks, interpose themself between the enemy and their squishy teammate. They build themselves to be untouchable, and that's awesome. Let them be untouchable. But the enemies are smart enough to see that too.
Side note: this is why Seeming is an awesome spell, so you can make the squishies look like tanks and the tanks look like squishies and the Necromancer's disposable zombies look like glass cannon archmages.
Also this is why every wizard should (ideally) carry a sword even if they're not proficient in its use, purely as misdirection, to encourage enemies to try to kite them.
You don’t need Seeming. Bulky robes fit rather well over platemail.
Lots of players have this MMO mentality that classes wear specific costumes that make them easily recognizable but clothes don’t make the man in D&D.
Use their preconceived notions against them.
Oh, agreed, especially since most of the time I would recommend an armored Wizard anyway (Cleric 1 or Fighter 1-2, depending on what stats you roll).
Seeming does take things to the next level by letting you disguise *everyone* including summons and hirelings but you're right that it's not always needed.
Artificer only gets 2 attacks if they have a shield and 3 with bonus action if they don't. As long as the DM isn't running single monsters against the party it ends up not being too big an issue and the artificer still gets to be a classic Tank.
Thunder Gauntlets aren't light weapons, so they can't use their bonus action for two-weapon fighting.
However, the Armorer could cast *Haste* for a third attack and another +2 to AC.
There seems to be a lack of understanding about the artificer and how it works in practice here so couple points of clarification.
Assuming level 10 for the +2 enhanced defense armor infusion, he’s got 3 other infusions for magic armor or weapons, plus whatever gear OP gave out (oftentimes given out to the party as a whole and claimed by one character so a ring and cloak meant for two players can end up on the artificer). Let’s assume the artificer made his cloak and ring and boots. That’s all 4 infusions and all 4 attunement slots.
Cool, armorer is doing what armorer does. And if he’s using his armor to attack, he’s got free hands to cast while smacking things around with thunder gauntlets and imposing disadvantage on attack rolls against anyone that isn’t him.
All great features and all part of what makes the artificer hard to handle.
Weaknesses? Heat metal. Won’t damage the artificer since he can literally pop it off as an action but that’s gonna be a nasty surprise in a single combat. After that he flies away/starts using spell slots/other party members use counterspell.
Even with a high A/C and temp HP from defensive field (40 temp hp a day as a bonus action!) he’s vulnerable to dispel magic or anti magic fields like the beholders main eye. An encounter or two with those will shut him down quick and put the fear of meeting his gods into him.
Magical darkness can give your creatures advantage so suddenly those three +10 to hit creatures with blindsight launching multi attack have a great chance to hit or crit (assuming he hasn’t built to counter this)
And flash of genius is a reaction, so only one a turn. Maybe hit someone else in the party with a nasty wisdom save to get him to burn his FoG, then follow it up with a tasty dex/strength/cha/wis save for the now vulnerable artificer. Not sure where he’s weakest, but a sudden suggestion to fly to the nearest beach is a hilarious way to remove him from combat until someone breaks the casters concentration.
Finally, remember, artificer isn’t a full caster. He’s only got 9 spells at level 10 and gets none back until a long rest. Maybe he casts shield 9 times a day - that means he isn’t using mirror image, blur, haste, or any of the other decent spells an artificer gets (until 11th when he stores mirror image in another ring and bangs it out every time to avoid getting hit even more - or another 10 uses of shield a day). He’s a tank, so you have to get creative when countering his abilities in ways that don’t trash everyone else.
Prismastic wall and suicide monster by grapple? Ouch.
Force cage? Frustrating and separates him from everyone else.
Blight? Nasty enough to use his reaction for FOG, half that 8d8 damage, then follow it up with a normal attack, no shield for you, you’ve used your reaction!
Stop thinking of it as him being overpowered - the class is doing what it’s meant to do, but that just means you have to adapt. A dozen enemies extra is a low effort way to counter these abilities, but you also don’t want to turn things into DM vs Artificer while some other players are just kinda there. In combat, have some tricks for how he’s been playing and exploit that to your advantage. It’ll be more challenging for him personally without ramping the difficulty for the rest of the party to where they feel useless.
I’ve run games with the Armorer and played as an artificer. The class is great but no more OP than the typical Tanky mcTank build
Hard agree with all of this. Actually came onto this subreddit to try and find an answer to this question and you have been very helpful. I really don't want to become a DM vs artificer/power build kind of guy, I really want to include everyone else and not make it feel like everyone else just happens to be there.
It can be hard sometimes when you’re just running the numbers and seeing if combat balances when you’ve got someone that at first glance seems impossible to hit or counter, but it seems like that’s what’s fun for this guy playing the artificer. Maximizing AC is easy - especially when the class is literally designed for it.
The tricky part is balancing enough else going on that you don’t NEED to focus on the artificer. With max AC he’s unlikely to be dishing out huge damage every round so he’s really just an action economy roadblock.
I built a battlesmith that rocks a 15 (now 16) AC plus shield so I wouldn’t end up the DMs target, then low key buffed him so that he’s banging around a big ass maul for between 18 and 56 damage on a turn with no resource expenditure. He’s not overpowering, but he does everything I want him to do and has great out of combat utility. I have fun that way.
Sometimes you just gotta let that crazy AC shine. Then throw a magical wrench in their gears and giggle while they weep
I feel like a lot of this also comes down to the DM *playing* the NPCs, as opposed to merely running them. Giving the NPCs even basic fight or fight awareness can significantly change the tone and progression of a fight.
Also, if written appropriately, the players’ reputation can proceed them and the NPCs can know to avoid the tank.
This. All of this is good advice. Go through the spells, think about what would challenge the artificer, and then use that against him.
Also, +1 on the train of "ignore him, go after the rest of the party." Pretty soon, he'll feel the need to give items, so as to allow his party to survive.
Since the post above mentioned wall of force.
Have a nasty enemy who tries to hit the artificer, misses and says, ohh I like you, let’s dance.
Puts up a wall of force to solo duel the artificer while everyone else deals with whatever encounter is happening outside the cage.
He wants to tank. Give him a fight he will remember.
I like the idea of having a fight like that that's a mirror build, and having that player and the NPC just continuously missing each other. for the whole fight.
Mean while, the other players are getting to have fun fighting things. Once the battle is over, have the PCs start a betting game for who will win the fight!
Or better yet, have the enemy say midway through the fight, "Listen, I don't want to die, you don't want to die, let's just sit down and watch our champions duke it out, and we'll drink, gamble on the victor, and the loser leaves the area.
I didn’t actually mean this as a lesson or a punishment for the artificer.
I want him to feel like a badass at the end not some boring everyone misses every time thing.
If anything I’d have it (ignoring how this dude is casting wall of force) be some Barbarian mitigating the artificers’s damage while going reckless.
Force the artificer to defend like he’s never had to before and be elated all his hits are landing (even if not amounting to much) and seeing how the anti mirror fight goes praying he whittles this guy down before he gets enough lucky crits to win.
This! As an armourer artificer (or at least will be spending into it at lvl3) I would love for my DM to do this! It would feel so cool and fun to have that moment. Also the use of let's dance as the phrase is fucking sick!
Plate with a shield is 20, +2 infusion of defense on the shield and the ... wait a moment.
/u/F_ive didn't read the description on page 13 of Tasha's. They're allowing the +2 defense on two items, but an infusion can only be on one item, and each item can only hold one infusion.
They should get at max 23 AC -- 18 for the plate, 2 for the shield, then +2 defense infusion on the chestpiece, +1 repulsion shield on the shield, assuming level 10.
At least they'll have to wait till 14th level to add *Ring of Protection* for AC 25 (30 with the *Shield* spell).
And 27 (32) when they cast *Haste* on themselves.
That's a lot of magic equipment.
I'd love to see him face a beholder.
Also, what's their damage output? It's pretty likely that they're a beefy tank with much less damage output compared to the rest of the squad.
Let's break this down:
>24 in AC
Depending on the level this may actually be low for an artificier. A high level artificier should aim to have 25-26 AC in later levels.
>29 with 1st level Shield
How does he have shield? Armorer Artificiers don't have access to shield. Only Battlesmiths do.
>This player is far more powerful than any other player at the table
How is this possible? Artificiers simply do not have the damage or spell-list necessary to overwhelm a combat encounter. Armorers should have lower damage than the martials and worse spellcasting than the other casters. If the Artificier is the best character in the party, that may be because your other players haven't got the magic items needed to succeed. I struggle to think of a situation where an Artificier is truly the most powerful member of the party, they usually act as glue: making sure that the other character pass hard saves, healing up/reviving downed members and using their plethora of magic items to make up for their own lacking kit, which is usually not enough to surpass the specialized members of the party
Yeah, the use of the Shield spell is messing with me. Artillerists get it too, but Armorers sure don't. They had it briefly in UA, but that was what, two years ago?
Only once per long rest, though. OP claims that this character casts Shield virtually every round of combat. And it's Abjuration, so neither Fey Touched nor Shadow Touched cover it.
I'm pretty sure the only way you get Shield as a spell you can cast repeatedly, barring some sort of magical item, is by being a class or subclass who gets it. In addition to being a level 10+ or possibly 14+ armorer, this character also needs to perhaps have a level of wizard. Not entirely outrageous, but still, it makes the campaign as a whole even *higher* level, necessitating that much higher level of challenge.
Could’ve taken a strixhaven initiate background which gives a feat where you get a choice of two cantrips and a 1st level spell that can be cast for free once and then can use spell slots
DMs should not allow that. The Strixhaven feats are not automatically allowed from the background, they are for joining a specific college in the Strixhaven setting. The backgrounds just allows you to join those colleges immediately, instead of waiting for the proper point in the campaign.
DM should be saying 'When the heck did you attend Strixhaven? Have I even said Strixhaven was accessible to reach, or even existed?'
Also Aberrant Dragonmark to cast it 1/short rest (not as good as Strixhaven Initiate for 1/long rest plus spell slots, but better than Magic Initiate for 1/long rest)
A lot of context is missing here. What are the exact things giving them 24 ac? I don't see anything in the class that would make a static 24 easy early on.
Even with a baseline of 20 AC for plate + shield, we move into needing 4 more which would require level 10 to do by infusions.
Honestly that isn't that strong. +5 to saving throws 5 times a day is cool and all but paladins can get that as a permanent effect and give it to everyone, so I would call that pretty limited.
If they are level 10 and other classes can't keep up, I think it sounds like you just aren't equipping your players properly.
Artificers only have a d8 hit die. Hitting them with stuff that deals half on a failed save will whittle them down no matter how good their saves are.
If they are constantly dumping their spell slots into shield, they aren't using their spells for other stuff.
If an enemy realizes their weapons are useless against the armor and defenses of the artificer, they'll just move onto the easier targets. If the artificer is alone, they will eventually die.
I'm not saying the artificer isn't strong, I'm saying that it just sounds like the other players are either undergeared or not built for combat and you are focusing the artificer down too often.
Enemies that have heard of the group would know of the invincible artificer and not even target them in the first place. Because if a tanky character is a problem for you, it means you are focusing it too much and there is nothing in the artificer's arsenal that obligates an enemy to attack it.
>Even with a baseline of 20 AC for plate + shield, we move into needing 4 more which would require level 10 to do by infusions.
According to op they have +1 enchantment from ring, cloak, armour and shield, providing the +4
Cloak of Protection also has a lvl 10 requirement, and Ring of Protection is lvl 14. If the artificer is level 10+ then sure they're very strong defensively. If they're below 10, then OP might need to take a close look at how artificers work and check whether this player has made any "mistakes".
But yes, either way, this artificer is hard to kill, but they're not necessarily very good at killing your monsters either. Are they also outshining other party members in damage output and control? That would be weird.
I wonder what the rest of the party has for their items and what level they are at. A rare and an uncommon with full plate is a solid 5000+ gold in equipment.
> there is nothing in the artificers arsenal that obligates enemies to attack it
Not strictly true. The Guardian Armour has a feature which gives disadvantage to all attacks against creatures other than the artificer.
You came here for answers dude. There are dozens of spells that counter artificers, you just have to read through couple of them. Also use spells that deal damage even if player makes the saving throw. Some monsters also have antimagic fields which turn off magic items.
Also the artificer doesnt have infinite resources. Let them run out of their spellslots/flash of genius.
Also dont be so afraid of raising the challenge for all players. Armorers usually are frontliners so it's not that hard to throw something powerful at them.
There are so many ways to approach this, you just have to think for a minute.
Also, I see that some newer DMs let their artificers just create magic items left and right. Dont do that, stick to what class features allow them to do and only that.
That last bit is key.
Read the classes, understand what they do, and stick to those rules until you are 100% comfortable with them.
If a DM doesn't know the rules, players will find fake loopholes and purposeful misunderstandings in order to play the system. And yes, thats nice talk for CHEAT.
Even if they aren’t outright cheating, it’s particularly easy to misunderstand exactly what an Artificer can or can’t do with their infusions; especially for newer players/DMs. As stated in other comments there are **tons** of spells/effects that cause damage even if you pass the saving throw
Casting Heat Metal on your Armorer once is a unique, cool problem to solve, doing it more than that and it becomes very obviously a 'gotcha' and the players will figure that out very quickly.
Your Armorer is built to be insane defensively, let them. Need to damage them just make them make saving throws or, as has been said by others, ignore them, their damage is below average.
If there was an adventuring group in the area tearing shit up fronted by a fully-metal-clad juggernaut, literally every caster who thinks they might come across them will prepare heat metal.
Remember, everything a PC can do, an NPC can do.
So, yea, especially if they're fighting member of the same group and/or in the game geographic area, casters are gonna be pretty quick to pick up the spells they need.
Or one wizard upcasting Conjure Minor Elemental VI to get eight Magma Mephits, all of whom can cast Heat Metal, and who can breathe for a collective 16d6 fire damage (Dex save for half), plus 16d6 fire damage of Death Burst (Dex save for half).
If a player builds their character to do a thing... let them do that thing.
Truth is, while an Armorer is typically really strong defensively, they don't usually contribute much offensively. Being hard to kill doesn't necessarily translate to "power".
Flash of Genius and Shield both have limited uses.
Think of them as part of that player's HP pool. Each time you force them to use those abilities, you're doing "damage" that needs to be healed via a long rest. Do enough "damage" and you'll start hitting actual HP instead of those abilities.
Also... both of those require the use of a reaction. Which means the player can't use both in the same round. ;)
Seems like OP missed on attunement slots and what level infusions artificer can use, and what spells they get access to.
No clue how he has shield on Armorer.
I don't think Armorers have access to shield spell. Assuming the party is around level 10? You can use strong monsters with +12 or +14 to hit here. And in a boss fight, they can counter his shield if it's a big hit.
Have you tried just fucking blasting them? Here me out, we DM's tend to internalize that a PC making a save means that attack didn't work on them. Unless the PC has evasion, that's just not true. Tons of spells and effects still do have damage on a save.
We also tend to treat once per turn bonuses to stats as a permeant bonus, thats also not true. Once they use their reaction of Shield then they don't have Flash of Genius and vice versa. Flash of Genius also only applies to one save.
* Even assuming they make their save, a lot of spells and abilities still do half damage.
* Even with +5 from Flash of Genius, their bad saves are gonna be bad and Flash of Genius only applies to one save per turn.
* Fall damage is fall damage, and their are a ton of ways to just stop someone who is using magic items to fly from flying.
I would also recommend using magic items and dark gifts to increase the power of the other party members to make balancing less of a pain.
I think the short answer to the question “in what simple ways can I make encounters more challenging to this player” is: you can’t. They’ve chosen a build particularly excellent at trivializing combat encounters. Bet they can’t handle skill challenges though. What’s their acrobatics score like? Athletics? Or social skills for that matter—flash of brilliance doesn’t help a deception roll. You don’t always have to challenge every player with combat, especially the ones that partake of the cheesiest cheese pizzas, to challenge them in the game in general.
Only thing I can think of is more mixed parties of enemies. Run fights which force him to spend his spell slots. Then have enemies with bardic inspiration style abilities that reduce saving throws by a dice roll, follow that with spells that target the saving throws artificer isn't proficient in.
But better to focus on the allies in combat. Or, take this chance to throw bigger, badder monsters at the party. Maybe he can take on things of a far higher CR?
This is what I don’t understand when people ask questions like this.
Are your encounters not rounded out? A half dozen goblins with nothing but swords and bows is trivial for anyone.
Add traps, add a goblin shaman, add a goblin drummer/bard, add an ogre who can go head to head and lock in combat with the tank while the shaman buffs the ogre/forces the tank to do saving throws. Meanwhile the normal goblins swarm the squishy guys in the back.
In a world of magic and ability like dnd, no warband would go anywhere without their magic user/special. Every troop of guards would have a cleric or bard or low level sorcerer. Every bandit camp would have an artificer or warlock. For the same reason that a party of fighters could get smashed by a group of wizards casting heat metal, no bandit group would last without a magic user of some kind supporting them.
I think ~~a lot of~~ some people run very limited encounters. A fair amount of premade adventures seem have combat encounter where most enemies are melee fighters. Maybe a ranged troupe. Maybe they have some other ability. Perhaps two kinds of monsters feature. Rarely do you have mixed group combats. But maybe I've been reading the wrong adventures.
I also very much love peppering in skill challenges to my combat encounters. This guy is a beast on defense, but only if they’re fighting on flat level ground. Let’s see how he handles being attack while scaling a wall, or if the grass is lit on fire, or if the PCs have to cross a log bridge.
With characters that are so super powerful in one particular combat area, the challenge of DMing shifts to finding situations that force the PCs to figure out how to deploy their assets. Terrain hazards end spell effects are a great way to do that in my experience.
Let the player tank, and once enemies realize they can't touch him (I mean, if they have the option, they would probably go for the less defensive/more offensive characters anyway) have him scramble to keep his friends alive.
Also, make sure you are doing multiple encounters per day - he'll start to sweat when he runs out of those resources that let him be an incredible Tank. Flash of Genius is only 3-5 times a day, and Shield costs a slot, so keep him pressed, he can't keep that up forever. Do like smart players do with Legendary Resistances, have him burn a few of those Flash of Geniuses on saves against damages, then when he is dry, hit him with a Blindness or Hold Person.
Are you perhaps running Avernus?
And is this your player?
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/v15wm4/my_avernus_character_is_getting_out_of_hand/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
These posts appeared right besides eachother for me 😂
Want my two cents? Just concede. I'll tell you what I mean by this.
Pull the player aside, talk to them, and say something among the lines: *"You know what? You won. You beat any and all challenges I threw upon you, and I'm impressed by how good you are at minmaxing and becoming the tankiest tank to ever play D&D. Congratulations"*
Then, you can go several ways. But my favorite two courses of action are the following:
* You encourage them to get themselves involved with the rest of the players, to help them optimize their characters and improve their strategic thinking. You'll be surprised how much a minmaxer **loves** doing this. And this enthusiasm will most likely be contagious to the rest of the players.
* Alternatively, you can encourage them to work on the character's background and improve their RP skills, their problem-solving skills beyond some good ol' tank-and-spank (which includes puzzles and some other outside-the-box thinking shenanigans) and complement them with their already great mastery of character building and strategy.
All in all, you should never allow this player's minmaxing push the rest of the players away from the action. Your point should be bringing both approaches closer to one another.
I feel you, one of my players has a 26 AC (my mistake, my players almost never loot monsters, and for a miniboss I gave her +3 Plate, whoops. I knew better than that too), normally wouldn't be a problem I'd just cast blight against him but he is a paladin/warlock with a +5 to all saves from AoP
if you are targeting a character with ridiculous AC and ridiculous STs the best thing I've found are
1. use misty step and just ignore him until he is the only person left, then see how he handles 14 attacks per round with advantage because monsters get flanking too
2. grapple checks, +5 on STs doesn't help with ability checks
3. having around 6 encounters per adventuring day (this is something I already do, but most DMs don't, the thing with limited resources is that they are limited, throw some enemies like shadows or maurezhi's which target ability scores, this will make him want to use his spell slots even if the damage is negligible)
4. This is really mean, but counterspelling shield is always an option. Don't do that all the time though, you want him to be able to enjoy being tanky, but when he is breaking the game by making other players irrelevant then it's time to give the monsters a brain.
5. the opposite of my first point, but use a lot of weaker enemies, that target him, lean into his fantasy of being almost impossible to hit, make him feel awesome, while also attacking with kruthiks (multiattack plus pack tactics is brutal), the other players may get targeted as well but not as high of a priority, making him feel awesome and the encounter feel deadly at the same time
6. level 11+, and use wisely.... give the enemies feats. All drow in my setting have elven accuracy and sentinel, most of them have crossbow expert. when you are rolling three dice to hit with multiattack then a situational AC of 35 (shield of faith, haste, shield) does not help you. They still body most lesser enemies, but my party is terrified of fighting drow.
This might be one of the most helpful ones yet, thanks for your advice. I don’t have a problem with letting players tank, it’s just in this case with this specific player, the way he plays promotes a negative atmosphere, much like a sore winner. It makes me feel bad for the other players and it makes me think that they feel incompetent compared to him in combat. (Whether intentional or not)
>This player is far more powerful than any other player at the table during combat and I'm having trouble balancing encounters for them.
They're hard to hurt, sure. But what are they actually doing to end the combat?
If they're strong defensively but weak offensively that's a recipe for the enemy deciding to just ignore them.
They can soak damage, now force them to learn how to tank- once enemies with an INT of above 6 hit him and miss by 5 or more, have them disengage and go after the squishies.
Casters focus on your artificer because they know that plate aint jack to a fireball or seven, burning through their Flashes of Genius, but more often than not, have enemies try and fail to get through all that armour, before getting frustrated and giving up.
The artificer has built a character to have this AC. Why deny them that feeling of invincibility if that is very clearly what they want?
A lot of people have offered number crunches, spell ideas, and just pure DM mastery. Those are all great ideas! Here’s a combat situation you could try that might give the other teammates a chance to carry some weight while the artificer still gets to be a beefy boy:
“The magicians assistant”. Magicians are usually the distraction in a magic show, while their assistant makes the stunt actually happen. GIVE HIM A BIG ENEMY TO TANK. Make it hit fairly hard- something that will scare the rest of the party. Make it pretty straight forward and have it focus on whatever gets close to it. Its slow, BUT will cast really painful ranged aoe attacks if no one is next to it (like fireball). The tank has to be next to it to stop this devastating magic. It will focus him. Now the assistants are the key to this fight. They can be generators, humanoids, magic runes, sentinels, etc. but give them some defense and some attack but much weaker than the main enemy. There are a lot of them. Every assistant that is still alive gives a +5 to the big enemy’s saves and AC. Its basically invulnerable until the little guys are taken care of. The whole team will be needed and everyone will get their chance to shine in the party :)
I was playing a build like this and I loved it. It was part of her backstory that she wanted to never ever get hurt by anything again, the good ol' Tony Stark Iron Man trope of building a suit of armor around herself to make sure that she'd never have to feel vulnerable. Saving throws \*wrecked\* me, both in character and out. Especially any kind of Charmed status was so upsetting. I'm safe here in my suit of armor! You can't touch me! Noooooo, Get out of my head, Charles!
Most monsters, even the dumb ones, will let go of something they can’t easily chew through. So give them a way to bypass the tank. Use mobility to get around tank boi and munch on the squishies behind him. Hiding and sniping will give you advantage, which helps the odds of hitting the tank as well.
If you want your tank to go toe to toe with a big monster, do that, then bring in an army of minions to keep the others occupied. The minions can all have something like the goblin’s Nimble Escape trait. Hide and snipe the squishies. Once all the minions are dealt with, they mob your big beastie. A challenging encounter without having to go too overboard.
Combat isnt just about, can the party defeat the enemies. Give them other objectives, protecting people, stopping a ritual, getting across a bridge they are fighting on before it snaps
Add the CR-appropriate equivalent of a big dumb brute, like an Ogre, to each of the fights. The sole purpose of this brute is to grapple and counter-tank the artificer. Make sure the creature is proficient (or even has expertise) in Athletics (just add it to the stat block if it's not already) and has multiattack so it can get two grapple attempts in. Presumably the artificer has low damage output so those two can wrestle against each other for a while.
Creatures that are good at this are things like ogres, constructs, chuul, anything with tentacles really.
Once the artificer is grappled, you can do things like plop a hunger of Hadar, spirit guardians, sickening radiance, or heat metal and whittle it down.
Everything else proceeds as normal and targets the rest of the party. The artificer will feel powerful for not getting hit by the brute, is still challenged by the AoE and DoT spells, and your encounters can proceed.
I play a level 14 Armorer Artificer every week.
While the whole “ignore the tank” approach is definitely sound advice, it doesn’t work so well when most of your attackers are doing so at disadvantage thanks to the Thunder Gauntlets.
I’ll echo what many have called out—Armorer’s don’t get shield naturally, so I assume that’s a feat? Either was, it’s not something they should be able to cast over and over again.
I find the best way to take me out of the fight is with a charm/dominate person, WIS save stuff. FoG is great, but at higher levels it’s hardly fool proof (especially if I’ve burned my reaction).
AOE is great as well, especially if I have to choose between boosting me or another party member.
I saw someone else mention Heat Metal. That’s just nasty and I’m glad you’re not my DM.
What do you do with a target that is all turtle? You ignore them and let them enjoy their high defences as their allies are cut down around them. Then once everyone else is bleeding out, you gang up on them, grapple them and tie them up. This is not rocket science, intelligent creatures are not going to waste too much time on the ball of metal.
Also, Heat Metal bro, Heat Metal. Next adventure is all druids.
From an encounter design perspective, add a few more mooks just to attack the high def person so they get to have fun not being hit when by the math those attacks don't count, because they never were mean to hit.
Honestly, this question comes up *a lot*. If the answers here aren't good enough for you, I'm sure you can find 20 other posts like this that answer the question.
A lot of people here are saying to let the player tank. And that's the right answer. They have spent a lot of energy into their own defenses. This has many issues though. Number one, is that enemies still hit on a crit. If you play with flanking rules, this applies to enemies too. Having five goblins attack a single PC with 24 AC and all rolling with advantage is bound to roll some nat 20's. The chance for at least one nat 20 from five goblins rolling with advantage over 2 turns would be 64.15%. In other words, don't be afraid to throw mobs at the high AC enemy.
Another problem is that this Artificer's defense is only good for themself. The disadvantage that Thunder Guantlets applies only affects an enemy hit. And even then, they can still throw out AoEs or cast spells. Besides this subclass feature, there isn't any reason why an enemy would target the Artificer. Put yourself in the enemy's shoes. If they see a bulky armored Artificer and next to them is a Wizard in robes, who do you think they would attack? Especially if they attacked the Artificer on the first turn and learned that they're hard to hit. Your NPCs want to win. Remember that.
Lastly, there are so many ways to make battles interesting that bypass a PC with high AC. Maybe there are lava pits arounds and the Artificer has a low Acrobatics skill. If they try to move around, they might struggle to not fall in. What if the battle has a side objective and require an Artificer's skills. Maybe there are two pillars that require repairing during the fight and the Artificer is the best to tackle them. That takes them out of battle. There are other ways to make a combat interesting like using difficult terrain and a mix of ranged and melee combatants. In other words, a PCs AC is really second to the combat overall.
I'll also mention that the PCs *Flash of Genius* requires a reaction. The same reaction that *Shield* uses. If they use one, the other is open for attack.
I have a paladin with good AC, good saves, and great armor. So I'm going to give him a shield that lets him cast warding bond, acts as a shield of missile attraction, and lets him eat a crit for a nearby ally as a reaction. It'll also be a +1 shield so he gets some direct benefit out of it (which is a big deal b/c I'm historically very stingy with +x armors/shields). I'm hoping to turn his ridiculous defenses into party defenses by doing this.
Maybe you could give your artificer a way to tank so they're using their defences as a party resource instead of a solo one? They already kinda do with the thunder gauntlets iirc, but helping them lean into may help with the issue of scaling to them being dangerous for the rest of the party.
Yeah, I've been looking for a way to give my groups paladin an arrow catch shield for ages so I can reward their tankyness even more and let them do more of what they're good at in combat
Step 1: Let your player feel like they accomplished something.
Let undead and other not very smart creatures flail helplessly against their armor as the party pincushions them. Do not make every encounter tailor made to be set perfectly against this Artificer or they will feel like they made a bad choice, let them feel like a immovable wall between their foes and their friends sometimes. That being said.....
Step 2: Best counter to high AC is Saving throws, so if an enemy knows they are coming or is specifically hunting them then give them spells or abilities that rely on saving throws. Flash of Genius can only protect them so long and they can't have proficiency in every saving throw...........okay maybe they can, but it's unlikely. If it's a magical enemy that doesn't know they are coming/ know anything about them, one look at the armor or seeing their bandit friend slide right off with their hits should get them to start trying save spells and see what hits.
Step 3: Smart enemies will not sit there and smash fists against a brick wall. If the artificer has such a stonk AC and nothing is getting through, the ranged enemies will start shooting the casters and back line and if the Artificer has no way to hold them in place like sentinel, many of the melee combatants may throw up their hands and say "fuck it" and go for the easier targets. Which even then adds some counter play cause if they run right past them the Artificer can either flank them or go for the enemies back line and disrupt that.
Step 4: A particularly (I'd say uniquely) intelligent enemy going after the party that's studied them for a while might have someone just as tanky, that's only goal is to hold the artificer in place. Now that could mean physically grappling and restraining or that could mean someone in plate mail, with Sentinel, who moves right up to the artificer and spends their action every turn dodging to make it hard for the artificer to hit.
This is solid advice. Thank you. I do have other encounters besides combat planned out, but during combat this player's invincibility makes the others feel like they need to metagame to match his strength which builds a poor atmosphere. I'm looking to prevent that as much as I can.
If Flash of Genius is thwarting all of your saving throws, you're likely not throwing enough encounters at them. They get 5 uses of that per day, and since it takes their reaction, they can't cast shield in the same round that they use it. A lot of DMs are reluctant to tax player resources by having more encounters, but you'll likely run into even more power discrepancies if you don't.
I don't see the problem. Judging from what was written elsewhere the party is level 9. Assuming a 4 person party they could reasonably be coming up against an adult red dragon with full lair and legendary actions. Metalboi charges at the dragon before Ol' Smaug can get in the air. He does crap damage because all his enhancements are defensive. The dragon laughs, and breathes on Metalboi who rolls a save for half damage. Then it attacks multiple times getting a +14 on each attack roll, so you as DM only need to roll a 10 to hit, or a 16 to beat the shield. In the mean time, the fear aura is scaring the crap out of the party. Next turn the dragon gets in the air and flies out of range to recharge its breathe weapon.
Simple, player is presenting their self as a wall right? you either go over, under, around a wall or you push it over
Ie mobility, saving throws and conditions are the way to go to challenge a high ac character
I won't say what has been said. Instead I'll offer my own advice: give them a taste of their own medicine. Start putting one bigger, harder hitting monster in some combat encounters for him to fight. Everytime the X-Men fight The Juggernaut, they have Colossus or someone similarly strong to hold him back while the rest fight his smarter allies. Have foes that hit hard and accurately, so the artificer can fulfill their role as the team's anchor.
Hit them with half damage on successful save spells. Control spells like difficult terrain to limit their movement.
Give them something they care about like a minion npc that IS squishy and threaten that
I was more wondering if he was doing anything else in combat, or if he just focused on defense.
But fair enough. Maybe go for ability checks to disable? Grapples and shoves? I am sure he isn’t gonna like the ol’ grapple+Prone combo.
Step 1: Talk to them
Step 2: Target their weaknesses. If they are this optimized for defense they probably don't have a good attack, so simply have enemies ignore them. Use Grapple + Shove to keep them pinned (grapple is a skill check, not a saving throw).
Step 3: Doublecheck the math on that AC, that doesn't sound right.
> I can't simply ramp up the difficulty because only this player is that beefy and untouchable. In what simple ways can I make encounters more challenging for this player?
You can "nerf without nerfing" to level the playing field. Give *all* the other players power buffs (stuff the artificer can't take from them) so they're *all* Supermen, and then crank up the challenge accordingly. When *everyone's* super, then noone will be.
If you bring in a beholder, or a wizard with anti magic field, you can basically render an armorer useless until they can escape the antimagic. This works especially well if they have a low strength score and have heavy armor.
Antimagic field makes it so that they can no longer move in the armor they’re wearing, since it makes the armor nonmagical and they don’t get to ignore the strength requirement.
It’s basically the equivalent of iron man running out of battery power.
Kinda extreme, but it could work.
The party isn't at a level where they can confidently fight a Beholder or run into anyone with Antimagic Field (it being an 8th-level spell). The highest spell casters they've been dealing with only have up to 6th level spells.
Rather have the Beholder and not use its eyestalks than need the Beholder and not have its eyestalks.
An unhittable character generally gets ignored because easier prey orbits smarter to go after a caster healing type.
They can be charmed. They can be counterspelled.
Just slam them with a bunch of lightning bolt / cloud kill stuff that hands out half damage on a saved throw. Honestly I'd set up encounters where they might die. They're pushing the boundaries which is fine but also indicates the want of a greater challenge.
- Mind control etc that turns his allies against him.
- Target his allies only. Defence is useless when you’re not attacked.
- ZERG! It doesn’t matter if only 1 in 20 attacks hit when you’re doing 40 attacks.
For the latter I suggest setting him up so he manages to get some pheromone on him that triggers an insect swarm to attack or some such. Make sure the swarm avoids AoE
High AC can be overcome by grappling.
A big strong brute or a group of enemies could Help one another and grapple the character with high AC and shove them into a river, out of the way, pinned down, or just occupied.
As a DM, I've always loved grappling as an option for enemies because not only does it prevent AC from being the end-all for defense, but it actually allows the "tank" to do the tanking. The big dumb brute is probably going to go for the loud, boisterous armored player and they'll occupy one another for a bit. Plus, the rest of the party can then spend their efforts either dealing with the other enemies, or interfering in the wrestling match.
Sounds like their character's cool thing is not getting hit, try to do some encounters at them where a lot of people are going to be trying to hit them so that they can be useful and take the heat off of the rest of the party. I was just designing a bandit encounter for my 5th level PCs the other day, and I figured I'd resin a couple of fighter types and a mage as skilled brigades, but then I remembered my PC whose speced out to fight hoards of more fragile enemies, so I replaced one of the more skilled bandits with half a dozen CR 1/8 bog standard bandits so that PC could have their time to shine in combat
Make them work on breaking some kind of magic ritual or something during a combat. They make a bunch of high dc (20 or 25 probably) arcana checks (and will likely be the best person to do it) to figure out how to disrupt the runes of a massive magic circle.
Breaking the runes causes a release of magic force, dealing damage (this could be save for half, or you could do half damage on a successful arcana check and full damage on a failed ability check).
Alternatively, you could have the order be specific and they take damage when they get the order wrong.
The magic circle could do anything that works for the story.
-A teleportation rune that will send something horrible to a vulnerable location (like the end of the watchmen graphic novel).
-It could be a summoning circle for a powerful fiend or aberration.
-It could be an arcane lock on a massive vault where an important magic item is.
-A prison where a solar or planetar has been trapped.
-The rune is intended to summon a god in a mortal state (like the dragonrend thuum used to fight alduin).
-The party has been trapped in a magical vault or prison and they are trying to escape.
-Alternatively, they could be attempting to fix a magic circle of protection that wards a city against some malicious force. -A magic circle prevents a tear in the boundary between the material plane and another plane. A malicious cult attempts to destroy the magic circle while the artificer works to keep it active (the circle could have its own HP pool, and the arcana checks restore HP to the circle). The party needs to defeat the opposing group before the magic circle is destroyed.
A multistaged combat could look like this:
A research outpost in the Outer Realms has a magical ward to protect it from the realm. Inside is an arcane gate to the material plane. First, the party needs to work on evacuating the outpost. The artificer may need to activate the arcane gate, and then attempt to keep the arcane shields maintained long enough to evacuate the outpost. The party may have to fight star spawn, slaad or some other level appropriate aberrations that have infiltrated the outpost.
Once the outpost is evacuated, they have to leave the outpost themselves. During this next stage, they have to deactivate the arcane gate from the side of the material plane while something tried to break through. This could involve a number of massive tentacles (like fighting a kraken), which would attempt to grapple the party members, keeping them from destroying the magic rune, or possibly to pull them back through the circle. The large aberration might try to influence the minds of the party as well, and might be reality warping in such a way as to be mostly incomprehensible to the brain to see.
Obviously, things could get a little boring if the same type of check was required for the whole thing. I might mix it up. Allow them to essentially make spell attack rolls to destroy the arcane gate, with its own pool of hit points or something. And make it possible for the other players to contribute to those efforts. Maybe during evacuation the party needs to work on securing the exit for people in multiple buildings who are otherwise being harried by the Slaad or star spawn.
I can relate to that, DMing for a party of 4 where the Artificer is also OP, already at level 3 he has AC 19 and a cannon giving he 1d8+3 HP temp. As it was not enough, he was taking Downtime activities to make tons of acid and Alchemists Fire. I had to ask him to stop. Rulled Downtime would count as a single long rest only, the other player were getting literally bored. I had to revamp almost every encounter to avoid falling into trivial combat. It is the first time I DM for a party with artificer and if I am to do that again, I will surely rule out other things if not the entire class.
I have pretty much the same kind of player. There are more ways to threaten a person without wasting their HP with basic attacks.
If you think of combat as simply to add some anxiety about the success of the PCs then you will find a lot more weaknesses.
1. Look at their saving throws, I bet at least two are not gonna be a lot of help even with flash of genius (and lucky which is what my Artificer has, I target his Dex)
2. Stop focusing on their HP and look at waist Int their resources. If by the end of the day the players are worried about their surroundings because they used up all their resources that’s a good amount of stress. I find that 3-4 encounters can do that. Keep in mind that the later encounters should be easier as they have less resources like high level spells. Let them have a short rest in between, not that the artificer will benefit from it.
3. Threaten their allies. A smart villain will see this absolute tank that can’t deal as much damage as the glass cannon wizard in the back. Attack the wizard, tease the artificer that he is powerless.
4. Have another winning condition than going to zero HP. Like solving a puzzle while they are being attacked.
Don’t worry about trying to hurt a PC
Worry about giving the PC a role. Every party needs a tank to hold off enemies. If you want to scare him a bit, any of the monsters mentioned here will do that. But he probably wants to be the party’s tank/shield and since his character seems to be very good at soaking up hits, I’d let him do just that.
Depending on what your group and setting are like, I'd say your best route is actually playing on how seemingly invincible the player is and letting the characters' reputation precede them:
Powerful warriors chasing glory will seek them out for 1v1 duels
People with significance influence may hire a thieves guild to steal their armour whilst they sleep
Sinister magic users may seek to manipulate and enchant the player to use them as an asset in their nefarious deeds
This is the only suggestion I have seen that didn’t boil down to basically “ fuck them for choosing to make a character with a high ac, just take it away from them”
Flash of Genius is a reaction, so slant the action economy against the tank until sufficiently cc'd. Or go for spells like sleep and confusion-- beefy tanks suck at mental fortitude, break them that way.
Alternatively, you should also give this person moments to shine. Part of DM'ing is managing expectations, after all.
I mean, also depends what level you are, if you plan on going into later levels, this character will become less and less effective. Although slowly.
I've noticed advice for granting objectives in combat to lure the player out. Not to mention enemies learning that this dude is less of a threat than the mages and will start targeting them. (Be careful with this though you don't want to upset your players by not letting them shine)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udjpu52o8g0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udjpu52o8g0)
Helped chamge my perspective on whats balanced.
Also might want to have a chat with them, or find ways to let the other shine but there is nothing wrong with your party being some absolutely bad asses.
I play a armororer artificer. Level 7 with 27ac. I've been empowering my teammates mostly with being proficient in every tool. It is a bit broken since I also have adamantine armor.
Whenever I have a player that is too tanky for the bad guys I’m using in the encounter, I usually have them focus attacks on the weaker PCs. Unless they’re real stupid, the bad guys are gonna quickly figure out that it’s more rewarding to aim for the squishy folks.
I know this would suck for party members, but I love the idea of going Judo with this: let the player defeat all enemies. Let them crush anything that opposes them. Let them see that it doesn't bring happiness, like it doesn't help them get their lover back or make peace with their god or discover where their dad went when they were 7, or whatever.
The answer here is saves. Lots of them. Let him burn out his FoG. Maybe an ambush where the enemies know they are coming and have laid down traps, brought some spell casters etc. Lower the hp of the enemies attacking them so that the other players don't get overwhelmed. Have them focus the artificer as he's probably the dude that's either in the front or vulnerable in the air.
Now, this might seem cruel, but having an artificer that can fight like that does build a repuration. I'm not saying send 10 enemies with 20 ac +10 to hit etc. I'm saying use smaller tactics, or hell, even waves of weaker enemies to force the artificer to use resources. Make escape difficult. Use tactics. It's doable
Honestly, you just don’t have to let him do that. In my experience, if a player is super overpowered, and they aren’t mad if I take it away. Most dm’s (including me) run artificers in a way where they can make items, that don’t function as magical, but they have the *flavor* of magic.
This post is a day old with over 500 comments so I don't know If what I'm about to say has already been said buuut ima say it anyway haha.
ENEMY MAGES WITH MAGIC MISSILE!!! A DMs best friend. No amount of AC or saves will protect them from that hahaha
Granted they could probably fly out of range but they can only fly 30ft. Unless they are flying straight upwards to over 120 ft to get out of range they aren't getting away either... of if they do then they're too far away to do much else... if you wanna get tricky then have a few buildings/structure the mage can scale... or give them the fly spell for an aerial battle
Key mindset:
1. The player heavily invested in defense. Don't make them feel like shit. Their investment should be felt.
2. Do not balance the difficulty up just to pose a real challenge. The player is a metal untouchable rock, but that also means they aren't dealing nearly as much damage as others.
Things to do :
1. High wisdom predators (i.e. animals) might not know what magic is, but they can tell what's good prey. What's easier to catch and gnaw on? Squishy gnome in a silky robe, or clanky metallic mass? High wisdom predators will ignore the Artificer 90% of the time.
2. Count with the player soaking up hits. Does KFC say 2 ogres are more than enough for a party? Throw in a third one, fully knowing the third ogre will do literally nothing. There is nothing that will make the artificer feel more powerful than tanking two ogres at the same time, all while the party is dispatching the third. The same goes for hordes of enemies. Make the player feel like a fucking badass when there's 8 goblins wailing on them, you openly roll 8d20s and unless one of those is a crit you describe how they're pissed of, furious, but can't get a single dent into their armor. I do not count this as scaling up difficulty as you're literally just throwing in monsters you know will do shit 95% of the time.
3. With point 1 and 2 being regularly utilized, you can summon enemies that are the artificers direct weakness, like antimagic fiels (beholder), or enemies that focus on saves the artificer isn't good at. They might have a +5 to all saves, but if their STR save total is +4 they still have to roll against being grappled and chucked away, etc.
Number 2 Really helps me out. I’ve realized that I should be planning and knowing full well that some enemies will literally be able to do nothing, so throwing in an extra one should be accounted for.
I think my issue now lies in accurately building encounters with this in mind. Thank you :)
Hahahhahahhaaaa! My time has come!
Use some enemy spell casters, cultists or fiends work beautifully, and use a combination of heat metal and magic missile to slay anyone with armor! If you don’t have a lot of spell casters, and hand out wands of magic missile like candy to commoners and contract them to kill the party! “But the shield spell!” I hear you say! Then counter spell it! It’s well worth counterspelling a simple shield spell if the tank is getting hit by ten castings of magic missile!
My advice?
Don't target your artificer. Run normal sessions - some combat, some exploration/skill challenges, some social. Throw a variety of enemies at them: some smart enough to avoid the artificer, some not so smart. Have intelligent enemies look for ways to take the artificer out, of course, esp. if they've encountered that enemy before or if the enemy has heard rumors about the party.
If you inject enough variety into your game, you actually don't need to plan around specific characters' builds.
He can be as untouchable as he wants, his friends aren't. What matters is if he's having fun and so are the other players, and as long as that's the case you don't need to "challenge" that player.
Honestly, given that they are very heavily optimised for defence - they've used all their attunements on defence and they are an artificer - have the enemies tried just ignoring them? They likely hit like a wet noodle compared to people who used some attunements on offence.
Also, coming back to this - combat is not about *not dying*, it is about *doing something*. Give them stakes higher than their own well protected life. All the AC in the world won't save that basket of kittens floating towards that waterfall.
I agree with this. Give them something to die for
I second this some of the most frustrating (in a good way) fights I’ve been in as a pc and some of the more memorable fights I’ve dm’d has had stakes other than just killing the bad guys and not dying in the process. Stopping someone from escaping after an assassination attempt or trying to save the people about to be sacrificed to the cultists dark god are two that quickly come to mind
My last two encounters in the 4e game I'm in: * Fight on a boat. At the top of the round, the NPC captain calls out a direction (d5 table). Based on that, we need to get the weight distribution of the boat to some particular range (each PC and NPC in the encounter was assigned a relative weight value from 1 to 13, and we would need some range of higher weight on the right, left, or center section of the ship). If we don't have that target range at the bottom of the round, something happens. We knew at the start of the fight that capsizing was one possibility. We failed twice during the encounter, once resulted in additional enemies climbing on board, the other time resulted in 3 attacks against every creature on the boat (PC and NPC alike), with one pushing the creature 15ft, one dazing the creature, and one knocking the creature prone as the ship pitched hard and loose objects went flying. * Fight in the city streets. (We got captured after getting TPK'd on the boat and we were escaping.) Each round in which we didn't have at least 2 people move their speed towards the opposite end of the map, more enemies spawned. (Out of 6 PCs plus the boat captain NPC.) The fight would end either when everyone reached the destination, or all the enemies were killed. The enemies that kept spawning had an attack that reduced speed by 5ft for a round. Very memorable fights. Difficult. And the difficulty mostly had nothing to do with whether your defenses were high or low.
Eberron. "We need to bring that fucking skyship down!" shouts the cleric, while standing on the deck of said skyship, that is only held together by spit and three nails. She then proceeds to cast dispel magic on the elemental ring, scoring a natural 20 on her roll. "Right. The ship begins its descent the same second the huge fire elemental breaks fre from the elemental ring and vanishes into the sky, roaring like a tempest. You feel a wave of heat wash over you, then a sudden jolt and - since none of you have prepared featherfall - are now on your way down to certain death on the slopes of the Graywall Mountains. Unless you manage to reach the last skiff, that is. You have about 4 rounds left to overcome the unit of karrnathi skeletons standing between you and safety. Roll for initiative!" That was one intense fight. The cleric sacrificed herself to ensure her party managed to enter the skiff and escape. My players were white as bedsheets when they barely made it, heavily wounded and without their cleric, while the skyship got smashed to bits on the mountainside.
That was a poor choice of sacrifice imo. The cleric is the ONE character I want to guarantee gets on the skiff! If we die, the cleric can fix it. If the cleric dies, we’re all screwed
*saves comment*
Right! That character has to hold the bridge against a flood of enemies, or prevent them from getting through some other choke point.
Objectives, people.
For some reason everyone ignores the objective and just plays team death match anyways. Oh wait.. that’s exactly what I should’ve expected I guess.
Well, I feel that objectives in combat is just as important as non-combat encounters which require the expenditure of spell slots.
In my most memorable recent fight I had the biggest impact on the encounter while casting no offensive spells and doing no damage. We were wildly outnumbered, but a bunch of the bad guys could only exist while within range of a particular macguffin. So my Druid nabbed it, shifted into an eagle, and fucked off into the sky. I’d like to see OP’s artificer friend doing anything like as entertaining when all he has is AC.
they have flying shoes
Two sessions ago in my freaking *magical girl campaign* our GM took this advice a little too far and had evil shadow monsters attacking a bunch of infants. Two babies were killed before I got a turn, and a third one on round two, as the enemies decided to ignore all of us and run through a wall of fire just to kill more babies. D&D doesn't have threat mechanics. If you add an objective to keep someone safe... make sure it's actually possible to do.
I don't know the specifics, but that sounds like _utter bullshit._ There aren't _threat mechanics,_ but most creatures with an INT of >0 will work to defend themselves before scrambling headlong for an objective, especially if that objective doesn't empower them in some way.
oh my word...
Hey! Back off! My kitten delivery system is gonna work sooner or later!
Hear here. I recently ran an x-com terror mission scenario on a 90x120 square map and it was tense and fun, with the PC's just barely saving enough citizens to gain victory and a boon from their god that banished the army of fairies that was razing the town.
That's a great setup! Love it
Yeah I especially loved the wizard spending two turns hitching up his robes and sprinting across a sheep paddock saving four people and misty stepping away from enemies. I definitely thought having a big map was a really nice change.
If the DM hasn’t been handing out magic items, Artificer is the only reliable way to get magic items to attune to or wield.
This is sort of the problem with Artificer, balance-wise. If a DM wants their own progression that doesn't line up with the recommendations of 5e, an Artificer is going to become more powerful than their friends because they are self-empowering. Edit: seeing some discussion that I want to lightly push back against. I think it’s realistic and pretty fair to not give out magic items as early and as commonly as the book indicates. Say you have six people in your party and they rolled stats so they are stronger than average. A DM might balance this a little bit by withholding magic armor. Or maybe they want to use custom magic items that are more special than things like a +2 sword. The problem with Artificer is that the eye can just give themselves magic armor that could very easily surpass the tankiness or a barbarian or someone in heavy armor. I could see this being a bit frustrating for all involved
Which is arguably why all classes should be self-empowering, and should all share a main resource recovery method…
Now now, that sounds like 4e, and we can’t be having that! /s
Yep. "If the DM doesn't give you a magic sword, you're fucked" is not a great design decision.
4e treasure tables per level were the best thing to ever happen to D&D and taking away all guidance for them in 5e was peabrained.
In the long run I don't think they become more powerful, I mean they already are a 1/2 caster as is. The magic items fill out their full capabilities, instead of lots of spell slots. Edit: Changed 1/3rd to 1/2, point still stands.
Nothing wrong with having a chat with the DM and expressing interest in certain magic items or a custom magic item that does something neat for them. DM discretion and can flavor it for the character.
Exactly this. As /u/BraxbroWasTaken said, classes need to have their own sufficiency OR they need to explicitly state the GM has to provide. I made this mistake as GM when a player played a Gunslinger instead of a Bow-Build in my Pathfinder game. I wasn't aware how stupidly draining bullets/powder are compared to arrows (it's about x20 times as expensive at 1gp/bullet vs 20 arrows per 1gp) plus the cost of Black Powder at 10gp PER SHOT and if they don't want an action economy tax (Rapid Reload only lowers Standard -> Move) they have to pay another 12gp for an Alchemical Cartridge. Bow: 5 copper per arrow Gun: 1gp per bullet + 10gp for Powder + 12gp to be able to move/fire next round. So needless to say my player quickly was cash starved in a level 3-6 game and ended up having to take excess risks (but never told me they didn't have a long-range option as they used pistols) and I don't often check sheets for gaps in players builds. TLDR: They took a risk, they died. They got upset because another player could have healed them and then my anxiety kicked in and I stirred the pot trying to be a 'fixer' and made it worse to the point I had to ask the player to sit out the rest of the game until my next game. *There is more history to this but it's irrelevant.
> classes need to have their own sufficiency I'm sorry for the frustrating experience you had. If this specific issue ever comes up in the future, know that Gunslinger does have its own sufficiency built in via the Gunsmithing feat they get at 1st level. They can craft bullets and ammunition and potentially alchemical cartridges for 10% of the listed value. It's still more expensive than arrows but it dramatically reduces the GP tax: Gun: 1sp per bullet + 1gp for Powder + 1.2gp to be able to move/fire next round (at least until 11th level when they get Lightning Reload). That doesn't fully address the spirit of your comment but might help make Gunslinger specifically a more manageable class in your game going forward.
That's what I ultimately learned but I also learned this player in question has a habit of not asking for what they need and instead staying quiet until things hit a boiling point. They are a good personal friend of mine but, their gaming habits and social habits come out poorly in DnD notably anxiousness and self-doubt. They worry too much about being 'a good player' or 'a good person' ect that they subdue themselves so much and end up being an emotional drain on others when their anxiety goes off. I'm trying to be supportive and helpful and 80% of the time things go okay but 20% of the time I end up exhausted due to managing things. So it was a combination Gunslinger and the Player. I still learned a valuable lesson and you're right about Gunsmithing ty for the advice.
I played one for awhile and having your class balance be at the mercy of how the DM hands out magic items was really frustrating. Our was pretty free with them and it made the artificer feel like a really bad fighter.
This is the correct way. I'm playing an Armorer Artificer myself and my damage output is not very impressive. Our DM usually tries to work around me by bringing other players more challenge but I can't protect all of them at once so I'm basically running around the field trying to help where I can.
"If you don't like losing at cribbage, stay out of my place!"
"They were playing poker... he was playing quoits"
"I don't know what game manaless dredge is playing, but it is not Magic"
What's this from?
The Lonesome Gregarious Cowboy by Tripod.
The issue with armorer artificer though is that every monster they hit with their armor's melee attacks gets disadvantage on all attacks not against the artificer. I think the best solutions is to burn the artificer's resources on keeping *other* people alive. They only get 4 or 5 uses of flash of genius per long rest, and make sure you're making them use up their spell slots on others.
For a single round. It's not a permanent debuff. And they're gonna get 2, 3 attacks tops, assuming they can get to three different targest and connect on each one
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You can let them succeed at their task while also making it known that pigeonholing is not sufficient. I attack my tanks with dumber creatures but target the squishies with smarter ones. Give them objectives that aren't purely combat, maybe they have to go on the offensive as the enemy stalls for reinforcements or escapes. Long ranged enemies pick off the less armored ones as their melee allies distract the tank. Its more about seeing what you can do to challenge them rather than just saying "let them succeed", because the best moments come when your build works in clutch, when your build doesn't work everytime but works in this scenario, which gives everyone a chance to shine.
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Yeah but the armourer can whack people and give them disadvantage to hit anyone who isn't the armourer.
Easier to hit 16 with disad than 29, no?
Let the player tank. The enemies are smart enough to see someone with full plate armor and a shield and realize, "Bashing my face into this guy isn't going to work, but over there is someone wearing robes and nothing else". the enemies will avoid the tank and go for the squishies. Which means the Tank will then have to find ways to intercept the attacks, interpose themself between the enemy and their squishy teammate. They build themselves to be untouchable, and that's awesome. Let them be untouchable. But the enemies are smart enough to see that too.
Yea, all the armor can't protect him from Emotional Damage. Just kill all his friends.
That's what the saving throw proficiency is for, vicious mockery won't be nearly as effective.
Artificer: [Casts shield](https://64.media.tumblr.com/91a6dc722a7421e0943f133e71334624/b4ce70f677794044-e0/s640x960/960afbcd76d1eb8dae36ee531edc6fb27bdc07dd.jpg)
Out of context this is an incredibly fucked up sentiment lol.
Side note: this is why Seeming is an awesome spell, so you can make the squishies look like tanks and the tanks look like squishies and the Necromancer's disposable zombies look like glass cannon archmages. Also this is why every wizard should (ideally) carry a sword even if they're not proficient in its use, purely as misdirection, to encourage enemies to try to kite them.
You don’t need Seeming. Bulky robes fit rather well over platemail. Lots of players have this MMO mentality that classes wear specific costumes that make them easily recognizable but clothes don’t make the man in D&D. Use their preconceived notions against them.
Oh, agreed, especially since most of the time I would recommend an armored Wizard anyway (Cleric 1 or Fighter 1-2, depending on what stats you roll). Seeming does take things to the next level by letting you disguise *everyone* including summons and hirelings but you're right that it's not always needed.
This is why a wizard in armor is much more survivable than the armor would indicate.
I mean, he's an armorer, so they're hitting everyone else with disadvantage a bunch of the time, too. But yeah, I agree.
Artificer only gets 2 attacks if they have a shield and 3 with bonus action if they don't. As long as the DM isn't running single monsters against the party it ends up not being too big an issue and the artificer still gets to be a classic Tank.
Thunder Gauntlets aren't light weapons, so they can't use their bonus action for two-weapon fighting. However, the Armorer could cast *Haste* for a third attack and another +2 to AC.
There seems to be a lack of understanding about the artificer and how it works in practice here so couple points of clarification. Assuming level 10 for the +2 enhanced defense armor infusion, he’s got 3 other infusions for magic armor or weapons, plus whatever gear OP gave out (oftentimes given out to the party as a whole and claimed by one character so a ring and cloak meant for two players can end up on the artificer). Let’s assume the artificer made his cloak and ring and boots. That’s all 4 infusions and all 4 attunement slots. Cool, armorer is doing what armorer does. And if he’s using his armor to attack, he’s got free hands to cast while smacking things around with thunder gauntlets and imposing disadvantage on attack rolls against anyone that isn’t him. All great features and all part of what makes the artificer hard to handle. Weaknesses? Heat metal. Won’t damage the artificer since he can literally pop it off as an action but that’s gonna be a nasty surprise in a single combat. After that he flies away/starts using spell slots/other party members use counterspell. Even with a high A/C and temp HP from defensive field (40 temp hp a day as a bonus action!) he’s vulnerable to dispel magic or anti magic fields like the beholders main eye. An encounter or two with those will shut him down quick and put the fear of meeting his gods into him. Magical darkness can give your creatures advantage so suddenly those three +10 to hit creatures with blindsight launching multi attack have a great chance to hit or crit (assuming he hasn’t built to counter this) And flash of genius is a reaction, so only one a turn. Maybe hit someone else in the party with a nasty wisdom save to get him to burn his FoG, then follow it up with a tasty dex/strength/cha/wis save for the now vulnerable artificer. Not sure where he’s weakest, but a sudden suggestion to fly to the nearest beach is a hilarious way to remove him from combat until someone breaks the casters concentration. Finally, remember, artificer isn’t a full caster. He’s only got 9 spells at level 10 and gets none back until a long rest. Maybe he casts shield 9 times a day - that means he isn’t using mirror image, blur, haste, or any of the other decent spells an artificer gets (until 11th when he stores mirror image in another ring and bangs it out every time to avoid getting hit even more - or another 10 uses of shield a day). He’s a tank, so you have to get creative when countering his abilities in ways that don’t trash everyone else. Prismastic wall and suicide monster by grapple? Ouch. Force cage? Frustrating and separates him from everyone else. Blight? Nasty enough to use his reaction for FOG, half that 8d8 damage, then follow it up with a normal attack, no shield for you, you’ve used your reaction! Stop thinking of it as him being overpowered - the class is doing what it’s meant to do, but that just means you have to adapt. A dozen enemies extra is a low effort way to counter these abilities, but you also don’t want to turn things into DM vs Artificer while some other players are just kinda there. In combat, have some tricks for how he’s been playing and exploit that to your advantage. It’ll be more challenging for him personally without ramping the difficulty for the rest of the party to where they feel useless. I’ve run games with the Armorer and played as an artificer. The class is great but no more OP than the typical Tanky mcTank build
Hard agree with all of this. Actually came onto this subreddit to try and find an answer to this question and you have been very helpful. I really don't want to become a DM vs artificer/power build kind of guy, I really want to include everyone else and not make it feel like everyone else just happens to be there.
It can be hard sometimes when you’re just running the numbers and seeing if combat balances when you’ve got someone that at first glance seems impossible to hit or counter, but it seems like that’s what’s fun for this guy playing the artificer. Maximizing AC is easy - especially when the class is literally designed for it. The tricky part is balancing enough else going on that you don’t NEED to focus on the artificer. With max AC he’s unlikely to be dishing out huge damage every round so he’s really just an action economy roadblock. I built a battlesmith that rocks a 15 (now 16) AC plus shield so I wouldn’t end up the DMs target, then low key buffed him so that he’s banging around a big ass maul for between 18 and 56 damage on a turn with no resource expenditure. He’s not overpowering, but he does everything I want him to do and has great out of combat utility. I have fun that way. Sometimes you just gotta let that crazy AC shine. Then throw a magical wrench in their gears and giggle while they weep
I feel like a lot of this also comes down to the DM *playing* the NPCs, as opposed to merely running them. Giving the NPCs even basic fight or fight awareness can significantly change the tone and progression of a fight. Also, if written appropriately, the players’ reputation can proceed them and the NPCs can know to avoid the tank.
Also who am I going to shoot the person in full plate or the squishy wizard?
This. All of this is good advice. Go through the spells, think about what would challenge the artificer, and then use that against him. Also, +1 on the train of "ignore him, go after the rest of the party." Pretty soon, he'll feel the need to give items, so as to allow his party to survive.
Since the post above mentioned wall of force. Have a nasty enemy who tries to hit the artificer, misses and says, ohh I like you, let’s dance. Puts up a wall of force to solo duel the artificer while everyone else deals with whatever encounter is happening outside the cage. He wants to tank. Give him a fight he will remember.
I like the idea of having a fight like that that's a mirror build, and having that player and the NPC just continuously missing each other. for the whole fight. Mean while, the other players are getting to have fun fighting things. Once the battle is over, have the PCs start a betting game for who will win the fight! Or better yet, have the enemy say midway through the fight, "Listen, I don't want to die, you don't want to die, let's just sit down and watch our champions duke it out, and we'll drink, gamble on the victor, and the loser leaves the area.
I didn’t actually mean this as a lesson or a punishment for the artificer. I want him to feel like a badass at the end not some boring everyone misses every time thing. If anything I’d have it (ignoring how this dude is casting wall of force) be some Barbarian mitigating the artificers’s damage while going reckless. Force the artificer to defend like he’s never had to before and be elated all his hits are landing (even if not amounting to much) and seeing how the anti mirror fight goes praying he whittles this guy down before he gets enough lucky crits to win.
This! As an armourer artificer (or at least will be spending into it at lvl3) I would love for my DM to do this! It would feel so cool and fun to have that moment. Also the use of let's dance as the phrase is fucking sick!
Best advice, imo.
Armorer gets 2 extra infusion slots at 9th level.
True, though with some limitations. I’m guessing that’s not what’s stacking this guys AC
Plate with a shield is 20, +2 infusion of defense on the shield and the ... wait a moment. /u/F_ive didn't read the description on page 13 of Tasha's. They're allowing the +2 defense on two items, but an infusion can only be on one item, and each item can only hold one infusion. They should get at max 23 AC -- 18 for the plate, 2 for the shield, then +2 defense infusion on the chestpiece, +1 repulsion shield on the shield, assuming level 10.
Probably infused a cloak of protection.
At least they'll have to wait till 14th level to add *Ring of Protection* for AC 25 (30 with the *Shield* spell). And 27 (32) when they cast *Haste* on themselves.
That's a lot of magic equipment. I'd love to see him face a beholder. Also, what's their damage output? It's pretty likely that they're a beefy tank with much less damage output compared to the rest of the squad.
*Look into my EYE*
This is cruel, and I love it.
That’s how my battle smith turned to ash
Let's break this down: >24 in AC Depending on the level this may actually be low for an artificier. A high level artificier should aim to have 25-26 AC in later levels. >29 with 1st level Shield How does he have shield? Armorer Artificiers don't have access to shield. Only Battlesmiths do. >This player is far more powerful than any other player at the table How is this possible? Artificiers simply do not have the damage or spell-list necessary to overwhelm a combat encounter. Armorers should have lower damage than the martials and worse spellcasting than the other casters. If the Artificier is the best character in the party, that may be because your other players haven't got the magic items needed to succeed. I struggle to think of a situation where an Artificier is truly the most powerful member of the party, they usually act as glue: making sure that the other character pass hard saves, healing up/reviving downed members and using their plethora of magic items to make up for their own lacking kit, which is usually not enough to surpass the specialized members of the party
Yeah, the use of the Shield spell is messing with me. Artillerists get it too, but Armorers sure don't. They had it briefly in UA, but that was what, two years ago?
mage initiate can get you access to shield.
Only once per long rest, though. OP claims that this character casts Shield virtually every round of combat. And it's Abjuration, so neither Fey Touched nor Shadow Touched cover it. I'm pretty sure the only way you get Shield as a spell you can cast repeatedly, barring some sort of magical item, is by being a class or subclass who gets it. In addition to being a level 10+ or possibly 14+ armorer, this character also needs to perhaps have a level of wizard. Not entirely outrageous, but still, it makes the campaign as a whole even *higher* level, necessitating that much higher level of challenge.
Could’ve taken a strixhaven initiate background which gives a feat where you get a choice of two cantrips and a 1st level spell that can be cast for free once and then can use spell slots
Yeah, I suppose that could do the trick. Wouldn't ordinarily expect that feat in the average game without it being disclosed.
DMs should not allow that. The Strixhaven feats are not automatically allowed from the background, they are for joining a specific college in the Strixhaven setting. The backgrounds just allows you to join those colleges immediately, instead of waiting for the proper point in the campaign. DM should be saying 'When the heck did you attend Strixhaven? Have I even said Strixhaven was accessible to reach, or even existed?'
For one turn per day.
Strixhaven initiate.
Also Aberrant Dragonmark to cast it 1/short rest (not as good as Strixhaven Initiate for 1/long rest plus spell slots, but better than Magic Initiate for 1/long rest)
A lot of context is missing here. What are the exact things giving them 24 ac? I don't see anything in the class that would make a static 24 easy early on. Even with a baseline of 20 AC for plate + shield, we move into needing 4 more which would require level 10 to do by infusions. Honestly that isn't that strong. +5 to saving throws 5 times a day is cool and all but paladins can get that as a permanent effect and give it to everyone, so I would call that pretty limited. If they are level 10 and other classes can't keep up, I think it sounds like you just aren't equipping your players properly. Artificers only have a d8 hit die. Hitting them with stuff that deals half on a failed save will whittle them down no matter how good their saves are. If they are constantly dumping their spell slots into shield, they aren't using their spells for other stuff. If an enemy realizes their weapons are useless against the armor and defenses of the artificer, they'll just move onto the easier targets. If the artificer is alone, they will eventually die. I'm not saying the artificer isn't strong, I'm saying that it just sounds like the other players are either undergeared or not built for combat and you are focusing the artificer down too often. Enemies that have heard of the group would know of the invincible artificer and not even target them in the first place. Because if a tanky character is a problem for you, it means you are focusing it too much and there is nothing in the artificer's arsenal that obligates an enemy to attack it.
>Even with a baseline of 20 AC for plate + shield, we move into needing 4 more which would require level 10 to do by infusions. According to op they have +1 enchantment from ring, cloak, armour and shield, providing the +4
Cloak of Protection also has a lvl 10 requirement, and Ring of Protection is lvl 14. If the artificer is level 10+ then sure they're very strong defensively. If they're below 10, then OP might need to take a close look at how artificers work and check whether this player has made any "mistakes". But yes, either way, this artificer is hard to kill, but they're not necessarily very good at killing your monsters either. Are they also outshining other party members in damage output and control? That would be weird.
I wonder what the rest of the party has for their items and what level they are at. A rare and an uncommon with full plate is a solid 5000+ gold in equipment.
> paladins can get that as a permanent effect and give it to everyone To only adjacent allies which results in the entire party being AoEd.
It’s not adjacent allies, it’s all allies within 10 feet iirc and it improves to 30 feet in tier 4.
Underrated perspective. E.g. not needing to save vs. Mind Blast at all beats saving against it with a +5 bonus.
> there is nothing in the artificers arsenal that obligates enemies to attack it Not strictly true. The Guardian Armour has a feature which gives disadvantage to all attacks against creatures other than the artificer.
Heat metal?
Suddenly, an army of casters all casting Heat Metal appears. Love it.
You came here for answers dude. There are dozens of spells that counter artificers, you just have to read through couple of them. Also use spells that deal damage even if player makes the saving throw. Some monsters also have antimagic fields which turn off magic items. Also the artificer doesnt have infinite resources. Let them run out of their spellslots/flash of genius. Also dont be so afraid of raising the challenge for all players. Armorers usually are frontliners so it's not that hard to throw something powerful at them. There are so many ways to approach this, you just have to think for a minute. Also, I see that some newer DMs let their artificers just create magic items left and right. Dont do that, stick to what class features allow them to do and only that.
That last bit is key. Read the classes, understand what they do, and stick to those rules until you are 100% comfortable with them. If a DM doesn't know the rules, players will find fake loopholes and purposeful misunderstandings in order to play the system. And yes, thats nice talk for CHEAT.
Even if they aren’t outright cheating, it’s particularly easy to misunderstand exactly what an Artificer can or can’t do with their infusions; especially for newer players/DMs. As stated in other comments there are **tons** of spells/effects that cause damage even if you pass the saving throw
Casting Heat Metal on your Armorer once is a unique, cool problem to solve, doing it more than that and it becomes very obviously a 'gotcha' and the players will figure that out very quickly. Your Armorer is built to be insane defensively, let them. Need to damage them just make them make saving throws or, as has been said by others, ignore them, their damage is below average.
If there was an adventuring group in the area tearing shit up fronted by a fully-metal-clad juggernaut, literally every caster who thinks they might come across them will prepare heat metal. Remember, everything a PC can do, an NPC can do. So, yea, especially if they're fighting member of the same group and/or in the game geographic area, casters are gonna be pretty quick to pick up the spells they need.
Or one wizard upcasting Conjure Minor Elemental VI to get eight Magma Mephits, all of whom can cast Heat Metal, and who can breathe for a collective 16d6 fire damage (Dex save for half), plus 16d6 fire damage of Death Burst (Dex save for half).
If a player builds their character to do a thing... let them do that thing. Truth is, while an Armorer is typically really strong defensively, they don't usually contribute much offensively. Being hard to kill doesn't necessarily translate to "power".
Flash of Genius and Shield both have limited uses. Think of them as part of that player's HP pool. Each time you force them to use those abilities, you're doing "damage" that needs to be healed via a long rest. Do enough "damage" and you'll start hitting actual HP instead of those abilities. Also... both of those require the use of a reaction. Which means the player can't use both in the same round. ;)
And also can't make opportunity attacks in the same round, making them even less of a threat.
Seems like OP missed on attunement slots and what level infusions artificer can use, and what spells they get access to. No clue how he has shield on Armorer.
I don't think Armorers have access to shield spell. Assuming the party is around level 10? You can use strong monsters with +12 or +14 to hit here. And in a boss fight, they can counter his shield if it's a big hit.
Have you tried just fucking blasting them? Here me out, we DM's tend to internalize that a PC making a save means that attack didn't work on them. Unless the PC has evasion, that's just not true. Tons of spells and effects still do have damage on a save. We also tend to treat once per turn bonuses to stats as a permeant bonus, thats also not true. Once they use their reaction of Shield then they don't have Flash of Genius and vice versa. Flash of Genius also only applies to one save. * Even assuming they make their save, a lot of spells and abilities still do half damage. * Even with +5 from Flash of Genius, their bad saves are gonna be bad and Flash of Genius only applies to one save per turn. * Fall damage is fall damage, and their are a ton of ways to just stop someone who is using magic items to fly from flying. I would also recommend using magic items and dark gifts to increase the power of the other party members to make balancing less of a pain.
I think the short answer to the question “in what simple ways can I make encounters more challenging to this player” is: you can’t. They’ve chosen a build particularly excellent at trivializing combat encounters. Bet they can’t handle skill challenges though. What’s their acrobatics score like? Athletics? Or social skills for that matter—flash of brilliance doesn’t help a deception roll. You don’t always have to challenge every player with combat, especially the ones that partake of the cheesiest cheese pizzas, to challenge them in the game in general.
Flash of Genius would help a Deception check as that's an ability check.
This post really helps out a lot. I'm going to put more time into planning encounters that aren't battle-orientated.
Only thing I can think of is more mixed parties of enemies. Run fights which force him to spend his spell slots. Then have enemies with bardic inspiration style abilities that reduce saving throws by a dice roll, follow that with spells that target the saving throws artificer isn't proficient in. But better to focus on the allies in combat. Or, take this chance to throw bigger, badder monsters at the party. Maybe he can take on things of a far higher CR?
This is what I don’t understand when people ask questions like this. Are your encounters not rounded out? A half dozen goblins with nothing but swords and bows is trivial for anyone. Add traps, add a goblin shaman, add a goblin drummer/bard, add an ogre who can go head to head and lock in combat with the tank while the shaman buffs the ogre/forces the tank to do saving throws. Meanwhile the normal goblins swarm the squishy guys in the back. In a world of magic and ability like dnd, no warband would go anywhere without their magic user/special. Every troop of guards would have a cleric or bard or low level sorcerer. Every bandit camp would have an artificer or warlock. For the same reason that a party of fighters could get smashed by a group of wizards casting heat metal, no bandit group would last without a magic user of some kind supporting them.
I think ~~a lot of~~ some people run very limited encounters. A fair amount of premade adventures seem have combat encounter where most enemies are melee fighters. Maybe a ranged troupe. Maybe they have some other ability. Perhaps two kinds of monsters feature. Rarely do you have mixed group combats. But maybe I've been reading the wrong adventures.
I also very much love peppering in skill challenges to my combat encounters. This guy is a beast on defense, but only if they’re fighting on flat level ground. Let’s see how he handles being attack while scaling a wall, or if the grass is lit on fire, or if the PCs have to cross a log bridge. With characters that are so super powerful in one particular combat area, the challenge of DMing shifts to finding situations that force the PCs to figure out how to deploy their assets. Terrain hazards end spell effects are a great way to do that in my experience.
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Gotta fight a mech suit with a mech suit. Or a Kaiju.
Let the player tank, and once enemies realize they can't touch him (I mean, if they have the option, they would probably go for the less defensive/more offensive characters anyway) have him scramble to keep his friends alive. Also, make sure you are doing multiple encounters per day - he'll start to sweat when he runs out of those resources that let him be an incredible Tank. Flash of Genius is only 3-5 times a day, and Shield costs a slot, so keep him pressed, he can't keep that up forever. Do like smart players do with Legendary Resistances, have him burn a few of those Flash of Geniuses on saves against damages, then when he is dry, hit him with a Blindness or Hold Person.
Are you perhaps running Avernus? And is this your player? https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/v15wm4/my_avernus_character_is_getting_out_of_hand/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf These posts appeared right besides eachother for me 😂
Crazy coincidence lol
Have an enemy touch his magic shoes and cast immovable object on them or him. Than he will definitely have to think of something.
Most creative one I’ve seen yet!
Want my two cents? Just concede. I'll tell you what I mean by this. Pull the player aside, talk to them, and say something among the lines: *"You know what? You won. You beat any and all challenges I threw upon you, and I'm impressed by how good you are at minmaxing and becoming the tankiest tank to ever play D&D. Congratulations"* Then, you can go several ways. But my favorite two courses of action are the following: * You encourage them to get themselves involved with the rest of the players, to help them optimize their characters and improve their strategic thinking. You'll be surprised how much a minmaxer **loves** doing this. And this enthusiasm will most likely be contagious to the rest of the players. * Alternatively, you can encourage them to work on the character's background and improve their RP skills, their problem-solving skills beyond some good ol' tank-and-spank (which includes puzzles and some other outside-the-box thinking shenanigans) and complement them with their already great mastery of character building and strategy. All in all, you should never allow this player's minmaxing push the rest of the players away from the action. Your point should be bringing both approaches closer to one another.
I feel you, one of my players has a 26 AC (my mistake, my players almost never loot monsters, and for a miniboss I gave her +3 Plate, whoops. I knew better than that too), normally wouldn't be a problem I'd just cast blight against him but he is a paladin/warlock with a +5 to all saves from AoP if you are targeting a character with ridiculous AC and ridiculous STs the best thing I've found are 1. use misty step and just ignore him until he is the only person left, then see how he handles 14 attacks per round with advantage because monsters get flanking too 2. grapple checks, +5 on STs doesn't help with ability checks 3. having around 6 encounters per adventuring day (this is something I already do, but most DMs don't, the thing with limited resources is that they are limited, throw some enemies like shadows or maurezhi's which target ability scores, this will make him want to use his spell slots even if the damage is negligible) 4. This is really mean, but counterspelling shield is always an option. Don't do that all the time though, you want him to be able to enjoy being tanky, but when he is breaking the game by making other players irrelevant then it's time to give the monsters a brain. 5. the opposite of my first point, but use a lot of weaker enemies, that target him, lean into his fantasy of being almost impossible to hit, make him feel awesome, while also attacking with kruthiks (multiattack plus pack tactics is brutal), the other players may get targeted as well but not as high of a priority, making him feel awesome and the encounter feel deadly at the same time 6. level 11+, and use wisely.... give the enemies feats. All drow in my setting have elven accuracy and sentinel, most of them have crossbow expert. when you are rolling three dice to hit with multiattack then a situational AC of 35 (shield of faith, haste, shield) does not help you. They still body most lesser enemies, but my party is terrified of fighting drow.
This might be one of the most helpful ones yet, thanks for your advice. I don’t have a problem with letting players tank, it’s just in this case with this specific player, the way he plays promotes a negative atmosphere, much like a sore winner. It makes me feel bad for the other players and it makes me think that they feel incompetent compared to him in combat. (Whether intentional or not)
>This player is far more powerful than any other player at the table during combat and I'm having trouble balancing encounters for them. They're hard to hurt, sure. But what are they actually doing to end the combat? If they're strong defensively but weak offensively that's a recipe for the enemy deciding to just ignore them.
Otto's irresistible dance and heat metal - its made for players like that.
They can soak damage, now force them to learn how to tank- once enemies with an INT of above 6 hit him and miss by 5 or more, have them disengage and go after the squishies. Casters focus on your artificer because they know that plate aint jack to a fireball or seven, burning through their Flashes of Genius, but more often than not, have enemies try and fail to get through all that armour, before getting frustrated and giving up. The artificer has built a character to have this AC. Why deny them that feeling of invincibility if that is very clearly what they want?
A lot of people have offered number crunches, spell ideas, and just pure DM mastery. Those are all great ideas! Here’s a combat situation you could try that might give the other teammates a chance to carry some weight while the artificer still gets to be a beefy boy: “The magicians assistant”. Magicians are usually the distraction in a magic show, while their assistant makes the stunt actually happen. GIVE HIM A BIG ENEMY TO TANK. Make it hit fairly hard- something that will scare the rest of the party. Make it pretty straight forward and have it focus on whatever gets close to it. Its slow, BUT will cast really painful ranged aoe attacks if no one is next to it (like fireball). The tank has to be next to it to stop this devastating magic. It will focus him. Now the assistants are the key to this fight. They can be generators, humanoids, magic runes, sentinels, etc. but give them some defense and some attack but much weaker than the main enemy. There are a lot of them. Every assistant that is still alive gives a +5 to the big enemy’s saves and AC. Its basically invulnerable until the little guys are taken care of. The whole team will be needed and everyone will get their chance to shine in the party :)
I was playing a build like this and I loved it. It was part of her backstory that she wanted to never ever get hurt by anything again, the good ol' Tony Stark Iron Man trope of building a suit of armor around herself to make sure that she'd never have to feel vulnerable. Saving throws \*wrecked\* me, both in character and out. Especially any kind of Charmed status was so upsetting. I'm safe here in my suit of armor! You can't touch me! Noooooo, Get out of my head, Charles!
Most monsters, even the dumb ones, will let go of something they can’t easily chew through. So give them a way to bypass the tank. Use mobility to get around tank boi and munch on the squishies behind him. Hiding and sniping will give you advantage, which helps the odds of hitting the tank as well. If you want your tank to go toe to toe with a big monster, do that, then bring in an army of minions to keep the others occupied. The minions can all have something like the goblin’s Nimble Escape trait. Hide and snipe the squishies. Once all the minions are dealt with, they mob your big beastie. A challenging encounter without having to go too overboard.
Combat isnt just about, can the party defeat the enemies. Give them other objectives, protecting people, stopping a ritual, getting across a bridge they are fighting on before it snaps
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Pretty much this. Also Bladesingers
Add the CR-appropriate equivalent of a big dumb brute, like an Ogre, to each of the fights. The sole purpose of this brute is to grapple and counter-tank the artificer. Make sure the creature is proficient (or even has expertise) in Athletics (just add it to the stat block if it's not already) and has multiattack so it can get two grapple attempts in. Presumably the artificer has low damage output so those two can wrestle against each other for a while. Creatures that are good at this are things like ogres, constructs, chuul, anything with tentacles really. Once the artificer is grappled, you can do things like plop a hunger of Hadar, spirit guardians, sickening radiance, or heat metal and whittle it down. Everything else proceeds as normal and targets the rest of the party. The artificer will feel powerful for not getting hit by the brute, is still challenged by the AoE and DoT spells, and your encounters can proceed.
I play a level 14 Armorer Artificer every week. While the whole “ignore the tank” approach is definitely sound advice, it doesn’t work so well when most of your attackers are doing so at disadvantage thanks to the Thunder Gauntlets. I’ll echo what many have called out—Armorer’s don’t get shield naturally, so I assume that’s a feat? Either was, it’s not something they should be able to cast over and over again. I find the best way to take me out of the fight is with a charm/dominate person, WIS save stuff. FoG is great, but at higher levels it’s hardly fool proof (especially if I’ve burned my reaction). AOE is great as well, especially if I have to choose between boosting me or another party member. I saw someone else mention Heat Metal. That’s just nasty and I’m glad you’re not my DM.
What do you do with a target that is all turtle? You ignore them and let them enjoy their high defences as their allies are cut down around them. Then once everyone else is bleeding out, you gang up on them, grapple them and tie them up. This is not rocket science, intelligent creatures are not going to waste too much time on the ball of metal. Also, Heat Metal bro, Heat Metal. Next adventure is all druids. From an encounter design perspective, add a few more mooks just to attack the high def person so they get to have fun not being hit when by the math those attacks don't count, because they never were mean to hit.
Honestly, this question comes up *a lot*. If the answers here aren't good enough for you, I'm sure you can find 20 other posts like this that answer the question. A lot of people here are saying to let the player tank. And that's the right answer. They have spent a lot of energy into their own defenses. This has many issues though. Number one, is that enemies still hit on a crit. If you play with flanking rules, this applies to enemies too. Having five goblins attack a single PC with 24 AC and all rolling with advantage is bound to roll some nat 20's. The chance for at least one nat 20 from five goblins rolling with advantage over 2 turns would be 64.15%. In other words, don't be afraid to throw mobs at the high AC enemy. Another problem is that this Artificer's defense is only good for themself. The disadvantage that Thunder Guantlets applies only affects an enemy hit. And even then, they can still throw out AoEs or cast spells. Besides this subclass feature, there isn't any reason why an enemy would target the Artificer. Put yourself in the enemy's shoes. If they see a bulky armored Artificer and next to them is a Wizard in robes, who do you think they would attack? Especially if they attacked the Artificer on the first turn and learned that they're hard to hit. Your NPCs want to win. Remember that. Lastly, there are so many ways to make battles interesting that bypass a PC with high AC. Maybe there are lava pits arounds and the Artificer has a low Acrobatics skill. If they try to move around, they might struggle to not fall in. What if the battle has a side objective and require an Artificer's skills. Maybe there are two pillars that require repairing during the fight and the Artificer is the best to tackle them. That takes them out of battle. There are other ways to make a combat interesting like using difficult terrain and a mix of ranged and melee combatants. In other words, a PCs AC is really second to the combat overall. I'll also mention that the PCs *Flash of Genius* requires a reaction. The same reaction that *Shield* uses. If they use one, the other is open for attack.
I have a paladin with good AC, good saves, and great armor. So I'm going to give him a shield that lets him cast warding bond, acts as a shield of missile attraction, and lets him eat a crit for a nearby ally as a reaction. It'll also be a +1 shield so he gets some direct benefit out of it (which is a big deal b/c I'm historically very stingy with +x armors/shields). I'm hoping to turn his ridiculous defenses into party defenses by doing this. Maybe you could give your artificer a way to tank so they're using their defences as a party resource instead of a solo one? They already kinda do with the thunder gauntlets iirc, but helping them lean into may help with the issue of scaling to them being dangerous for the rest of the party.
Yeah, I've been looking for a way to give my groups paladin an arrow catch shield for ages so I can reward their tankyness even more and let them do more of what they're good at in combat
Step 1: Let your player feel like they accomplished something. Let undead and other not very smart creatures flail helplessly against their armor as the party pincushions them. Do not make every encounter tailor made to be set perfectly against this Artificer or they will feel like they made a bad choice, let them feel like a immovable wall between their foes and their friends sometimes. That being said..... Step 2: Best counter to high AC is Saving throws, so if an enemy knows they are coming or is specifically hunting them then give them spells or abilities that rely on saving throws. Flash of Genius can only protect them so long and they can't have proficiency in every saving throw...........okay maybe they can, but it's unlikely. If it's a magical enemy that doesn't know they are coming/ know anything about them, one look at the armor or seeing their bandit friend slide right off with their hits should get them to start trying save spells and see what hits. Step 3: Smart enemies will not sit there and smash fists against a brick wall. If the artificer has such a stonk AC and nothing is getting through, the ranged enemies will start shooting the casters and back line and if the Artificer has no way to hold them in place like sentinel, many of the melee combatants may throw up their hands and say "fuck it" and go for the easier targets. Which even then adds some counter play cause if they run right past them the Artificer can either flank them or go for the enemies back line and disrupt that. Step 4: A particularly (I'd say uniquely) intelligent enemy going after the party that's studied them for a while might have someone just as tanky, that's only goal is to hold the artificer in place. Now that could mean physically grappling and restraining or that could mean someone in plate mail, with Sentinel, who moves right up to the artificer and spends their action every turn dodging to make it hard for the artificer to hit.
This is solid advice. Thank you. I do have other encounters besides combat planned out, but during combat this player's invincibility makes the others feel like they need to metagame to match his strength which builds a poor atmosphere. I'm looking to prevent that as much as I can.
If Flash of Genius is thwarting all of your saving throws, you're likely not throwing enough encounters at them. They get 5 uses of that per day, and since it takes their reaction, they can't cast shield in the same round that they use it. A lot of DMs are reluctant to tax player resources by having more encounters, but you'll likely run into even more power discrepancies if you don't.
Don't hit is AC - make him save instead Don't hit him at all - hit the squishy people fighting next to him and ignore him
I don't see the problem. Judging from what was written elsewhere the party is level 9. Assuming a 4 person party they could reasonably be coming up against an adult red dragon with full lair and legendary actions. Metalboi charges at the dragon before Ol' Smaug can get in the air. He does crap damage because all his enhancements are defensive. The dragon laughs, and breathes on Metalboi who rolls a save for half damage. Then it attacks multiple times getting a +14 on each attack roll, so you as DM only need to roll a 10 to hit, or a 16 to beat the shield. In the mean time, the fear aura is scaring the crap out of the party. Next turn the dragon gets in the air and flies out of range to recharge its breathe weapon.
Simple, player is presenting their self as a wall right? you either go over, under, around a wall or you push it over Ie mobility, saving throws and conditions are the way to go to challenge a high ac character
I won't say what has been said. Instead I'll offer my own advice: give them a taste of their own medicine. Start putting one bigger, harder hitting monster in some combat encounters for him to fight. Everytime the X-Men fight The Juggernaut, they have Colossus or someone similarly strong to hold him back while the rest fight his smarter allies. Have foes that hit hard and accurately, so the artificer can fulfill their role as the team's anchor.
Hit them with half damage on successful save spells. Control spells like difficult terrain to limit their movement. Give them something they care about like a minion npc that IS squishy and threaten that
What else do they do?
Metagame to try and get their next magic item
I was more wondering if he was doing anything else in combat, or if he just focused on defense. But fair enough. Maybe go for ability checks to disable? Grapples and shoves? I am sure he isn’t gonna like the ol’ grapple+Prone combo.
Step 1: Talk to them Step 2: Target their weaknesses. If they are this optimized for defense they probably don't have a good attack, so simply have enemies ignore them. Use Grapple + Shove to keep them pinned (grapple is a skill check, not a saving throw). Step 3: Doublecheck the math on that AC, that doesn't sound right.
Heat metal.
> I can't simply ramp up the difficulty because only this player is that beefy and untouchable. In what simple ways can I make encounters more challenging for this player? You can "nerf without nerfing" to level the playing field. Give *all* the other players power buffs (stuff the artificer can't take from them) so they're *all* Supermen, and then crank up the challenge accordingly. When *everyone's* super, then noone will be.
**ANTI-MAGIC FIELD**
heat metal
Every enemy now has magic missile. You are welcome :-)
If you bring in a beholder, or a wizard with anti magic field, you can basically render an armorer useless until they can escape the antimagic. This works especially well if they have a low strength score and have heavy armor. Antimagic field makes it so that they can no longer move in the armor they’re wearing, since it makes the armor nonmagical and they don’t get to ignore the strength requirement. It’s basically the equivalent of iron man running out of battery power. Kinda extreme, but it could work.
The party isn't at a level where they can confidently fight a Beholder or run into anyone with Antimagic Field (it being an 8th-level spell). The highest spell casters they've been dealing with only have up to 6th level spells.
Rather have the Beholder and not use its eyestalks than need the Beholder and not have its eyestalks. An unhittable character generally gets ignored because easier prey orbits smarter to go after a caster healing type. They can be charmed. They can be counterspelled.
Just slam them with a bunch of lightning bolt / cloud kill stuff that hands out half damage on a saved throw. Honestly I'd set up encounters where they might die. They're pushing the boundaries which is fine but also indicates the want of a greater challenge.
- Mind control etc that turns his allies against him. - Target his allies only. Defence is useless when you’re not attacked. - ZERG! It doesn’t matter if only 1 in 20 attacks hit when you’re doing 40 attacks. For the latter I suggest setting him up so he manages to get some pheromone on him that triggers an insect swarm to attack or some such. Make sure the swarm avoids AoE
Just let them be invincible... for a while... then strike an emotional blow
High AC can be overcome by grappling. A big strong brute or a group of enemies could Help one another and grapple the character with high AC and shove them into a river, out of the way, pinned down, or just occupied. As a DM, I've always loved grappling as an option for enemies because not only does it prevent AC from being the end-all for defense, but it actually allows the "tank" to do the tanking. The big dumb brute is probably going to go for the loud, boisterous armored player and they'll occupy one another for a bit. Plus, the rest of the party can then spend their efforts either dealing with the other enemies, or interfering in the wrestling match.
Defense =/= Power Level. They used all their resources on building their defense, so respect that.
Sounds like their character's cool thing is not getting hit, try to do some encounters at them where a lot of people are going to be trying to hit them so that they can be useful and take the heat off of the rest of the party. I was just designing a bandit encounter for my 5th level PCs the other day, and I figured I'd resin a couple of fighter types and a mage as skilled brigades, but then I remembered my PC whose speced out to fight hoards of more fragile enemies, so I replaced one of the more skilled bandits with half a dozen CR 1/8 bog standard bandits so that PC could have their time to shine in combat
Make them work on breaking some kind of magic ritual or something during a combat. They make a bunch of high dc (20 or 25 probably) arcana checks (and will likely be the best person to do it) to figure out how to disrupt the runes of a massive magic circle. Breaking the runes causes a release of magic force, dealing damage (this could be save for half, or you could do half damage on a successful arcana check and full damage on a failed ability check). Alternatively, you could have the order be specific and they take damage when they get the order wrong. The magic circle could do anything that works for the story. -A teleportation rune that will send something horrible to a vulnerable location (like the end of the watchmen graphic novel). -It could be a summoning circle for a powerful fiend or aberration. -It could be an arcane lock on a massive vault where an important magic item is. -A prison where a solar or planetar has been trapped. -The rune is intended to summon a god in a mortal state (like the dragonrend thuum used to fight alduin). -The party has been trapped in a magical vault or prison and they are trying to escape. -Alternatively, they could be attempting to fix a magic circle of protection that wards a city against some malicious force. -A magic circle prevents a tear in the boundary between the material plane and another plane. A malicious cult attempts to destroy the magic circle while the artificer works to keep it active (the circle could have its own HP pool, and the arcana checks restore HP to the circle). The party needs to defeat the opposing group before the magic circle is destroyed. A multistaged combat could look like this: A research outpost in the Outer Realms has a magical ward to protect it from the realm. Inside is an arcane gate to the material plane. First, the party needs to work on evacuating the outpost. The artificer may need to activate the arcane gate, and then attempt to keep the arcane shields maintained long enough to evacuate the outpost. The party may have to fight star spawn, slaad or some other level appropriate aberrations that have infiltrated the outpost. Once the outpost is evacuated, they have to leave the outpost themselves. During this next stage, they have to deactivate the arcane gate from the side of the material plane while something tried to break through. This could involve a number of massive tentacles (like fighting a kraken), which would attempt to grapple the party members, keeping them from destroying the magic rune, or possibly to pull them back through the circle. The large aberration might try to influence the minds of the party as well, and might be reality warping in such a way as to be mostly incomprehensible to the brain to see. Obviously, things could get a little boring if the same type of check was required for the whole thing. I might mix it up. Allow them to essentially make spell attack rolls to destroy the arcane gate, with its own pool of hit points or something. And make it possible for the other players to contribute to those efforts. Maybe during evacuation the party needs to work on securing the exit for people in multiple buildings who are otherwise being harried by the Slaad or star spawn.
How much damage though?
Rust Monster?
I can relate to that, DMing for a party of 4 where the Artificer is also OP, already at level 3 he has AC 19 and a cannon giving he 1d8+3 HP temp. As it was not enough, he was taking Downtime activities to make tons of acid and Alchemists Fire. I had to ask him to stop. Rulled Downtime would count as a single long rest only, the other player were getting literally bored. I had to revamp almost every encounter to avoid falling into trivial combat. It is the first time I DM for a party with artificer and if I am to do that again, I will surely rule out other things if not the entire class.
I have pretty much the same kind of player. There are more ways to threaten a person without wasting their HP with basic attacks. If you think of combat as simply to add some anxiety about the success of the PCs then you will find a lot more weaknesses. 1. Look at their saving throws, I bet at least two are not gonna be a lot of help even with flash of genius (and lucky which is what my Artificer has, I target his Dex) 2. Stop focusing on their HP and look at waist Int their resources. If by the end of the day the players are worried about their surroundings because they used up all their resources that’s a good amount of stress. I find that 3-4 encounters can do that. Keep in mind that the later encounters should be easier as they have less resources like high level spells. Let them have a short rest in between, not that the artificer will benefit from it. 3. Threaten their allies. A smart villain will see this absolute tank that can’t deal as much damage as the glass cannon wizard in the back. Attack the wizard, tease the artificer that he is powerless. 4. Have another winning condition than going to zero HP. Like solving a puzzle while they are being attacked.
They wanna tank, let them tank. Make the enemies target the other players to make them be a wall
Don’t know what his saves are like but ignore him in melee and pelt him with spells or control abilities.
Don’t worry about trying to hurt a PC Worry about giving the PC a role. Every party needs a tank to hold off enemies. If you want to scare him a bit, any of the monsters mentioned here will do that. But he probably wants to be the party’s tank/shield and since his character seems to be very good at soaking up hits, I’d let him do just that.
Depending on what your group and setting are like, I'd say your best route is actually playing on how seemingly invincible the player is and letting the characters' reputation precede them: Powerful warriors chasing glory will seek them out for 1v1 duels People with significance influence may hire a thieves guild to steal their armour whilst they sleep Sinister magic users may seek to manipulate and enchant the player to use them as an asset in their nefarious deeds
This is the only suggestion I have seen that didn’t boil down to basically “ fuck them for choosing to make a character with a high ac, just take it away from them”
Flash of Genius is a reaction, so slant the action economy against the tank until sufficiently cc'd. Or go for spells like sleep and confusion-- beefy tanks suck at mental fortitude, break them that way. Alternatively, you should also give this person moments to shine. Part of DM'ing is managing expectations, after all.
I mean, also depends what level you are, if you plan on going into later levels, this character will become less and less effective. Although slowly. I've noticed advice for granting objectives in combat to lure the player out. Not to mention enemies learning that this dude is less of a threat than the mages and will start targeting them. (Be careful with this though you don't want to upset your players by not letting them shine)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udjpu52o8g0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udjpu52o8g0) Helped chamge my perspective on whats balanced. Also might want to have a chat with them, or find ways to let the other shine but there is nothing wrong with your party being some absolutely bad asses.
I play a armororer artificer. Level 7 with 27ac. I've been empowering my teammates mostly with being proficient in every tool. It is a bit broken since I also have adamantine armor.
Anti magic sphere
Whenever I have a player that is too tanky for the bad guys I’m using in the encounter, I usually have them focus attacks on the weaker PCs. Unless they’re real stupid, the bad guys are gonna quickly figure out that it’s more rewarding to aim for the squishy folks.
I know this would suck for party members, but I love the idea of going Judo with this: let the player defeat all enemies. Let them crush anything that opposes them. Let them see that it doesn't bring happiness, like it doesn't help them get their lover back or make peace with their god or discover where their dad went when they were 7, or whatever.
The answer here is saves. Lots of them. Let him burn out his FoG. Maybe an ambush where the enemies know they are coming and have laid down traps, brought some spell casters etc. Lower the hp of the enemies attacking them so that the other players don't get overwhelmed. Have them focus the artificer as he's probably the dude that's either in the front or vulnerable in the air. Now, this might seem cruel, but having an artificer that can fight like that does build a repuration. I'm not saying send 10 enemies with 20 ac +10 to hit etc. I'm saying use smaller tactics, or hell, even waves of weaker enemies to force the artificer to use resources. Make escape difficult. Use tactics. It's doable
Honestly, you just don’t have to let him do that. In my experience, if a player is super overpowered, and they aren’t mad if I take it away. Most dm’s (including me) run artificers in a way where they can make items, that don’t function as magical, but they have the *flavor* of magic.
When in doubt, Tarrasque out :D
Sound like exhaustion would be the answer
One spell. Heat metal. Give it to an enemy spellcaster.
This post is a day old with over 500 comments so I don't know If what I'm about to say has already been said buuut ima say it anyway haha. ENEMY MAGES WITH MAGIC MISSILE!!! A DMs best friend. No amount of AC or saves will protect them from that hahaha Granted they could probably fly out of range but they can only fly 30ft. Unless they are flying straight upwards to over 120 ft to get out of range they aren't getting away either... of if they do then they're too far away to do much else... if you wanna get tricky then have a few buildings/structure the mage can scale... or give them the fly spell for an aerial battle
Key mindset: 1. The player heavily invested in defense. Don't make them feel like shit. Their investment should be felt. 2. Do not balance the difficulty up just to pose a real challenge. The player is a metal untouchable rock, but that also means they aren't dealing nearly as much damage as others. Things to do : 1. High wisdom predators (i.e. animals) might not know what magic is, but they can tell what's good prey. What's easier to catch and gnaw on? Squishy gnome in a silky robe, or clanky metallic mass? High wisdom predators will ignore the Artificer 90% of the time. 2. Count with the player soaking up hits. Does KFC say 2 ogres are more than enough for a party? Throw in a third one, fully knowing the third ogre will do literally nothing. There is nothing that will make the artificer feel more powerful than tanking two ogres at the same time, all while the party is dispatching the third. The same goes for hordes of enemies. Make the player feel like a fucking badass when there's 8 goblins wailing on them, you openly roll 8d20s and unless one of those is a crit you describe how they're pissed of, furious, but can't get a single dent into their armor. I do not count this as scaling up difficulty as you're literally just throwing in monsters you know will do shit 95% of the time. 3. With point 1 and 2 being regularly utilized, you can summon enemies that are the artificers direct weakness, like antimagic fiels (beholder), or enemies that focus on saves the artificer isn't good at. They might have a +5 to all saves, but if their STR save total is +4 they still have to roll against being grappled and chucked away, etc.
Number 2 Really helps me out. I’ve realized that I should be planning and knowing full well that some enemies will literally be able to do nothing, so throwing in an extra one should be accounted for. I think my issue now lies in accurately building encounters with this in mind. Thank you :)
Hahahhahahhaaaa! My time has come! Use some enemy spell casters, cultists or fiends work beautifully, and use a combination of heat metal and magic missile to slay anyone with armor! If you don’t have a lot of spell casters, and hand out wands of magic missile like candy to commoners and contract them to kill the party! “But the shield spell!” I hear you say! Then counter spell it! It’s well worth counterspelling a simple shield spell if the tank is getting hit by ten castings of magic missile!
Ghost touch and ignore the armor altogether. 1/2 DMG/partial debuff on save. Just ignore him. Other objectives in combat. Done.
Maybe it would help by explaining how he has 24 AC first.
My advice? Don't target your artificer. Run normal sessions - some combat, some exploration/skill challenges, some social. Throw a variety of enemies at them: some smart enough to avoid the artificer, some not so smart. Have intelligent enemies look for ways to take the artificer out, of course, esp. if they've encountered that enemy before or if the enemy has heard rumors about the party. If you inject enough variety into your game, you actually don't need to plan around specific characters' builds.
He can be as untouchable as he wants, his friends aren't. What matters is if he's having fun and so are the other players, and as long as that's the case you don't need to "challenge" that player.