47
By discussing it with their players
"Hey guys, I messed up. I gave you all weapons that are more suited for level 15+ characters, and as a result, you're oneshotting every level appropriate encounter I can throw at you. If we want to keep playing the game as it's intended to, I'm going to have to remove the overpowered weapons I gave you when I didn't ...
20
It's overpowered
I will highlight specific problem points.
The ability score increase of four dexterity is too much, and the corresponding decrease does not balance it out. This is because normal character builds in DnD tend towards not using all ability scores equally, resulting in almost any trade that results in more primary at the expense of a "dump ...
20
The Balance Implications would probably be minimal
In my experience as a DM for several different settings, the range of creatures that typically have resistance or immunity to Fire Damage is not meaningfully more or less powerful than the (comparably few) creatures that typically have resistance or immunity to Psychic damage, nor are they especially more ...
17
Shift the narrative to fit the needs of fun
If monsters getting stomped quickly are no fun, direct the story in a way that puts the characters in the way of stronger enemies.
Beefier variants
The boon given to the characters makes them special. Use this in the story as a justification for them to go after the stronger or strongest variants of opponents. ...
12
There are a few options.
Option 1: No more toys
I would say that the best option is to simply take away the magic items. I know you said that the DM doesn't want to take away the items, but as a DM, he must to learn to say "No" at some point, and this will likely be the healthiest option for the game. Whether it's a Poof! they vanish before the parties ...
10
The Practical Solution
Treat magic items as giving your players +1 or +2 effective levels, and be careful about shunting in monsters who deal too much damage too quickly. Offensive items make PCs deal more damage, but they can't take more.
So, if you're level 6 with really potent magic items, treat your party as if they were Level 8 instead for the purpose ...
10
Resistance and Immunity
Fire is the fourth (third if you exclude nonmagic weapon damage) most commonly resisted damage type as well as being second most common to be immune. Almost all fiends are resistant or immune, Fire elementals, Fire giants, and the list goes on. The only damage type less resisted than Psychic is Force (although Radiant has more ...
9
This homebrew extremely unbalanced
1. Ability Scores
A +4 to Dexterity makes this race unbalanced. In a point buy system the character would start with 19 Dexterity and be able to hit 20 Dexterity and 16 Constitution at Level 4. That makes this race ideal for a Rogue, Monk, or a Dexterity-based Fighter/Ranger. This is way ahead of any other race ...
9
To use the same format as the previous answer, here's an updated count (as at 30/12/2019) of spells with saving throws from all official published sources available on D&D Beyond. The number in brackets includes the six spells with saving throws currently available as Unearthed Arcana (which are not considered official).
\begin{array}{r l l}
& ...
8
The players do about 2.5x more damage; give all the monsters 2.5x their normal hit points
The players can do lots of damage (which is fun) but the monsters last about the same number of rounds (3-5 is good for a satisfying combat) and they are not doing any more damage to the PCs as higher CR monsters would. If you double the damage and double hit points ...
8
I think traits are a poor vehicle for this kind of change
From the outset, I want to say that this is a massive change compared to most traits. Traits are tiny things, +1 or +2 here, −1 or −2 there, and that’s what they’re supposed to be. Fitting such a large change into the same “slot” is extremely awkward, and really quite dubious.
Balance is ...
7
This is what we used to call 'Monty Hall' problem back in AD&D. If you take away the cool stuff, players will get bitter. Kill them all they will get really upset, but chances are a compete restart might be the thing. The DM and perhaps the players have to ask themselves a few questions starting with do they like their characters or the stuff their ...
6
There are no fair adjustments for this spell in your environment. It is already balanced
The intended effectiveness of Animate Dead is that of a 3rd level spell that scales with the slot used. Its effectiveness is largely around the action economy, and having extra attackers is very good.
Of course you can buff Animate Dead through any number of methods. ...
4
No, because the proposed changes do not address the reasons for its tier placement.
I've played multiple kineticists with different builds, elements, and party compositions across different levels of play. The
The first two suggestions (removing burn cap and reducing nonlethal damage to negligible levels) essentially allow the kineticist to nova all the ...
4
No
Weird interactions. As is, the optimal strategy (when upcasting and with a chance to hit greater than ~60%, which is easily achieveable) would be to always make the attack instead of dealing damage automatically once the spell connected. That would get you (at 5th level) up to 5d12 every turn instead of 3d12. This isn't really in the spirit of the ...
3
Yes
From memory, Rise of the Runelords manages to mostly avoid the bad design trap of 'you need a thief/wizard/cleric/str 20 guy to bypass this Locked Door and that is the only way to bypass it and the adventure cannot continue if you don't', so needing any specific class or character type is largely avoided (although any DM worth half a thimble of salt ...
3
We've been using a variation on this system for some time now and haven't seen many ill-effects from it. In general, the slight power boost it gives players can always be offset by the DM tuning the encounters to be slightly harder, so I don't see that as an issue.
Using it the way EotE describes comes with the danger that Theik describes, allowing wizards ...
3
The base race is nearly as good as many official races even before assessing subraces
I am going to attempt to evaluate this using the unofficial Detect Balance homebrew evaluation spreadsheet:
ASI +1: 4 points
Permanent Spacesuit: Radiant and cold resist, 5 points. AC 13 + Dex mod, 3 points. Hold breath (1 hour), 4 points (1 per 15 minutes). Lamp, 1 or 2 ...
3
It seems balanced, but...
At first glance it seems balanced. It does not have anything particular worrisome or that it may break the class or abuse the system in any way. But, when I looked at the patron a bit closer I found some glaring problems.
The easiest one is the first two abilities "Nature's Aid" and "Earth Friend". Usually, when designing a class ...
3
Consider an alternative approach for that ranged grapple…
The grapple-at-range effect of Sailor's Lament (here) (minor artifact; 80 lbs.) as presented probably won't be a lot of fun and it may break the game.
Let me establish this first: When the description says, "The tentacles can also be used to initiate a grapple, in which case they remain for the ...
3
A cap on burn is absolutely required if the cost itself is not very high. If you do not want the total burn to be capped, you will need to go through every ability that isn't currently capped and ask yourself "is this broken if somebody can use it as many times as they have hit points?" Two things that clearly are not are Elemental Overflow and Force Ward (...
2
Nerf the weapons
Treat the cause, not the symptoms, by making the weapons not-overpowered-anymore. The weapons should deal less damage, have smaller areas of effect, and in some cases, should have limited uses per day.
Explain Why
Explain to the players the actual problem here: Monsters of level-appropriate challenge ratings don't pose an interest, and ...
1
Overall, this class is surprisingly balanced.
It's pretty obviously that someone decided to port the Pathfinder Alchemist over to 5e, and they did a remarkably good job. Only a few things stand out to me:
The entire Mutator subclass is fairly weak without investing basically all of your discoveries into it, cutting down on your utility pretty heavily. ...
1
There are plenty of ways to take away toys from players.
theft, this one is just simple, magic items are valuable, roll a stealth check against their passive perception, when they wake up one weapon is just gone. this is even more useful if you need them to go somewhere, let them find a trail and the payers will go ANYWHERE you lead them. great for leading ...
1
It seems mostly OK, but it could probably use a few tweaks.
First off, I rather like the theme on these guys. Secondly, this is fairly balanced overall, but some of the numbers are a bit high, and I think we could stand bringing a few things down by a small amount.
For the base characteristics of the race, I think the Jetpack, the Bouncy Heads, and the ...
1
With enough effort, yes, absolutely.
The real key here will be making most of the abilities scale base on your level. For example, bardic inspiration or maneuver masters die size, and monks unarmed strike damage all scale base on the level of the character in that class. The other option is to have the sub-classes grant bonuses based on what other subclass ...
1
Maybe, but it would require a fundamental redesign of subclasses, or design of a new feature, to work
Allowing a PC to take two options at once would present balance difficulties, as you have already surmised. You could build new features to enable such a system, since the Warlock does give some bit of a precedent of how that'd work.
Consider the Warlock ...
1
It looks like you're trying to merge the effects of several patrons together (namely the Fiend and the Undead patrons) and in that vein (pun intended) I have a few recommendations for you.
1. Drop 2 options for each level.
First off, it's much more difficult to balance 3 options vs each other. Take the Totem Barbarian for example. from their first set of ...
1
Passive arcana checks greatly increases the power of counterspell and removes a layer of strategy from wizard battles.
Information is power. Knowing what spell is being cast without having to spend encounter resources (a reaction) is powerful. The uncertainty of if counterspell will be wasted is one of it's drawbacks. Mitigating this drawback makes ...
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