RPGMemes

I mean, the Monk being immune to poison doesn't save anyone else in the breath attack.

Part of D&D is building synergy between the classes and operating as a team. At the same time, it's the group's biggest vulnerability.

Mind-splort the meat shield, gum up the support, grapple the damage dealer, or backstab the controller. Suddenly, the team is scrambling as their game plan falls apart.

And green dragons have so many tricks up their sleeves! The last thing I'm worried about is the breath weapon. It's our horny bard falling for her damned come-hither smile that keeps me up at night.

I tailor my encounters to what my players like, not what's going to challenge their dice and IRL luck. If my players are finding themselves having to cheese their build and pick the optimum feats and talents just so they can stand a chance, then I've failed as a DM.

If you're cheesing your build because you want to feel powerful, just tell me, and I'll do a campaign where you can feel powerful without needing to cheese your build. You should be able to make the character you want to roleplay as without feeling like you're inadvertently gimping yourself.

It's why I like Genesys and Powered by the Apocalypse, because those are RP heavy systems that don't require you to spend ages messing with stats in order to play the character you want to play.

Let your players do cool shit. Let them be good at what they built their character for. You can challenge them while still giving them opportunities to be awesome.

Last campaign I ran the paladin was so proud of herself for smiting down a couple lesser demons and gushed about it for the rest of the week. So for the next 3 arcs of that campaign I snuck in a cambion who was hounding the party and got his lights clocked in multiple times just knowing the dopamine release it gave that player even when every 'challenging' encounter crafter for that group was done in about 5 terms and took me nearly and hour to craft ahead of time.

To me as the DM it's your job to learn what quirks or functionality of the players particularly enjoy about their characters and find a way to sneak in encounters, puzzles or situations that give that player time to shine and enjoy it. Even and especially if it trivializes the challenge you put into it.

I managed to work up an immunity to Poison, so our DM had a drow princess get one last action when she got to 0 hp to attack me with her only attack spell as I had severely pissed her off, and it was cast at 5th level

But her only attack spell was Ray of Sickness

Did that and when the monk was engulfed in the cloud of poison taking no damage he felt like quite the badass going for a flurry of blows with advantage (I told him with advantage because the dragon wasn't expecting him to be unfazed and he kept himself concealed in the cloud on his approach).

That's also when the rest of the party found out the monk was immune to poison.

10/10 would do that again

Look, they're the main characters of the story, they're supposed to look badass sometimes..

It's honestly really funny to me how frequently some DMs forget basic writing principles. If something is set-up, either by yourself or your players, you should find a way to pay it off. It's a really lame story if your monk has developed an immunity to poison and it never comes up a single time. Chekov's gun was made to be fired!

But by no longer utilizing poison against the party because of the monk, the monk has effectively made the entire party immune to poison by virtue of it no longer being present in encounters! Hah!

But seriously though, cutting out stuff you know the party will hard-counter is just going to make the party not feel as cool. A balance of both is important. Believe me, as the guy in the party who could cast Silence, I know; hard-countering every boss encounter kind of makes the boss feel lame instead of fun.

You also don't need to make every enemy an idiot like a videogame. Monk catches an arrow? Archer wastes a turn figuring that out, calls it out to his teammates start of next turn and targets someone else.

A green dragon, depending on your source books, should be more than smart enough to notice its breath attack didn't work on someone and change tactics.

It doesn't work in every situation, like with enemies that shouldn't be smart enough to figure it out, but there's some great room for fun reminding your players that the enemies aren't always braindead.

It also can add an extra layer to combat. Take out the commander that's noticing this stuff to prevent it. Kill the archer before he can call out the monk caught his arrow, so another archer wastes a turn.

Your monk can catch arrows now? Don’t stop shooting them. Shoot them more.

I have a character in a campaign DM'd by my buddy, and they're a pretty weak build, as he was giving powerups to the party I asked for a much weaker change to my character that would let me make an attack while staying hidden.

Literally, the first time I got to try out the strategy, it was immediately invalidated, and I wanted to quit on the spot. The one cool thing my character could do I wasn't allowed to do...

I have started to balance the game less and less and its getting more and more fun.

First, hell yes.

Second, if you like being an adversarial DM, just let them know that's the type of game you like to run. They don't have to play and you will have to find some players that like that style.

This was always frustrating. One particular dm did that a lot. Oh, x was showing up so someone took y ability to deal with it? X no longer shows up ever again. Cool. Feels bad.

No party is immune to 100 twig blights in close proximity.

Honestly, why do DMs feel the need to try and wipe the party? DMs should be hoping the party succeeds because the party is usually going to find a way to wipe without their assistance.