Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 142 - Don’t Nerf Your PCs Part 2

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

I'm not done with nerfing!  There's a major aspect of not nerfing PCs that I forgot to cover last week:  letting your PCs excel at what they're good at. Tune in this week as we continue the discussion on this important topic! #DnD #DungeonsandDragons #Pathfinder #DMTips

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Characters have certain strengths, and by and large, you should set up encounters, whether exploration, combat, or social, for characters to take advantage of those strengths. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to episode 142 of the Taking 20 podcast. Don't nerf your PCs unless part two. This week's sponsor, steaks. Grilling steaks is the only place where you won't get arrested for rubbing your meat in public. If you like this podcast, please consider helping me spread the word. I see where a few people retweet my episode announcements and other social media posts, and thank you so much for doing so. I'd appreciate it if you helped me spread the word

about the podcast to people who may be interested, especially those new to the hobby. Now, last week, I spent a lot of time talking about not nerfing PCs, but as I was wrapping the episode up and glanced back at my notes, I left a major topic out last week, and rather than re-editing it to make that episode 35 damn minutes long, I split it into part two. Now, with apologies to our YouTube listeners, I had said in the uploaded video last week that this week's video would be how to end a campaign, but I had to call an audible this week because, well, one of the most important aspects of not nerfing PCs is that you really shouldn't take away what they're good at. nerfing PCs is that you really shouldn't take away what they're good at. Depending on your game system, PCs tend to have certain strengths based on their classes, races, ancestries, equipment, and backgrounds. Especially Pathfinder 1st edition and 5th edition before the update

that was in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Barbarians tend to have high strength and constitution. Wizards tend to be intelligent. Clerics and druids tend to be mentally strong and can shrug off mental effects really well. Bards tend to be the face of the party. Orcs tend to be stronger. Furbolgs tend to be wise. Gnomes tend to be smart, and so forth. Now, after the Tasha's Cauldron update, races have a lot more flexibility in 5e, and there are fewer cases where certain race class choices were mandatory to min-max your character. But now, post-update, gnome barbarians can be just as capable as goliaths, and gnoll wizards can be just as deadly as human ones. I've made no secret about my love for this change and the variety that it brings to the table, but that's not why we're here. Race in 5th edition and Ancestry in Pathfinder 2 edition

are now a less important choice than the older game systems. This episode is going to be focused on those two game systems and focusing on classes, but I'll have a bit at the end for the game systems that have fixed ability modifiers based on species of the character. Now, for 5th edition, post-Tasha's, and Pathfinder 2e, race and ancestry have become almost cosmetic differences with the exception of certain abilities assigned to certain ancestries and races. Dwarves in darkvision or lowlightvision, gnomes get innate spellcasting or the ability to make mechanical objects. In Pathfinder 2e, for example, Anadi get fangs, Strix have wings, catfolk land on their feet when they fall.

These differences are baked into the game system, and they're good differences to keep in mind when you're building your character as a player and when you're running the game as a DM. Now, that doesn't mean as a DM you sow seeds of discord from their differences, like trying to get the Shuny and Catfolk party members to fight like Catfolk and Shuny. You see what I did there? You see, Shuny are dog-like people, and Catfolk are like... You know what? Never mind. What it means is that in the back of your mind, or on the inside of your DM screen, should be a reminder sheet of what everyone is playing and some important stats about them. You don't keep this so you can take advantage of their weaknesses, but so you can let characters do what they're good at and play to their strengths.

Some GMs do their players a disservice and try to rig the adventure to minimize the party's advantages and bring their disadvantages forward. They treat the party composition as a puzzle to be solved. They design various compositions of baddies trying to outsmart the player character builds. Out of combat, they make outsmart the player character builds. Out of combat, they make it so that the higher charisma characters can't make the diplomacy check or that the dumb characters are the ones having to make investigation rolls. In combat, they throw various types of enemies at the PCs, and they may find one type of enemy or combination of enemies that renders one or more characters less effective. And when they find that combination of abilities that makes it tougher for the wizard or the artificer or gunslinger,

they hammer that weakness and throw monster type after monster type to try to take advantage of it. So they're trying to throw ill-prepared characters into situations and watch as the character struggles to do something they're not built to do. By no means am I saying that the orc barbarian shouldn't be the negotiator for the party. You can absolutely make a viable build for this. But if this particular barbarian has a minus four to persuasion or negotiations, they are naturally going to struggle. Characters have

certain strengths, and by and large you should set up encounters, whether exploration, combat, or social, for characters to take advantage of those strengths. The barbarian should be able to flex their muscles and lift the fallen stone in front of the escape route door. The bard should be able to use her force of personality to influence the guard to look the other way. Uh, no, this isn't a corpse. Um, he's just asleep. I promise. The wizard should be able to show off how smart and how much knowledge he has. Now, I can hear some of my beloved GMs out there saying, no shit, Jeremy. Why would I do anything different? I'm here to tell you that you may be doing it without knowing it. So as I mentioned,

certain characters have certain abilities based on their ancestry, class, feat, spell selection, and so forth. You should do what you can to let those characters use those abilities to solve the problem and be the hero. So let's start outside of combat, which is an easier conversation. During exploration, I've heard many DMs lament the fact that 5e, Arakokra, and Pathfinder 2e Strix have the ability to fly, which take the teeth out of many types of traps like spike pits, ankle-level scythes, or anything with a pressure plate. the ability to fly, which take the teeth out of many types of traps like spike pits, ankle level

scythes, or anything with a pressure plate. They can just cross pit traps in dangerous terrain without being any sort of a problem, and it makes those traps inconsequential. Yeah? And? The wrong answer is for GMs to say, well, now all of my traps will be in areas where flying isn't possible. Or, yeah, you're flying, but not high enough and get hit by the trap anyway. What you've just done is take away part of the fun of the game from the player, and maybe because they want to play a flying character. They like the thought of being half-human, half-bird, strix, or a birdfolk or a cocra, and the flying ability these ancestries give the character is fun to them. By designing

your game specifically to nullify that character's ability, you are nerfing that character whether you mean to or not. Let's stay in Pathfinder 2e for a moment. Suppose you've designed this nasty trap where the bridge 30 feet over a rocky crevice will collapse, doing 15 points of filing damage and knocking the characters prone when they land. It also will awaken the snakes that hunt inside the crevice. You set the DC to grab the edge and not fall, but it just so happens that one of the characters is a catfolk, and because of their ancestry ability called Land on Your Feet, they take half damage, so 7 points of damage in this case, and land on their feet instead, ready for combat. Your devious trap

still left three quarters of the party prone, but one took relatively little damage and is ready for the fight immediately. If you declare that the catfolk is also prone because they just are, you're nerfing their character. You're modifying an ability simply because you don't like the fact that it makes the encounter easier. Hopefully you see my point. Challenging characters during exploration or social encounters requires careful design choices. Taking away character abilities to make your design job easier does your players a disservice. Look, if you want to ban Aarakocra or Catfolk or the Featherfall spell and tell the players in session zero, no problem.

No complaints here, but just don't take away a game feature simply because it renders some trap, exploration ability, or social encounter easier for you. While I'm all for lazy DMing, this is the worst way to make your job easier, by taking away fun from the players. Another way of nerfing PCs is for the DM to set up scenarios where characters best suited to the social encounter simply aren't allowed to participate. Don't get me wrong, it's hilarious for the fighter who dump-statted Charisma to have to successfully navigate a mob daughter's quinceañera, but that should be the whole party attending and the fighter interaction should be just a small part of it. Nerfing the PCs would be when the DM comes with some arbitrary reason why the bard isn't allowed to be the spokesperson for

the party, even though the bard is standing right there and trying to talk. Or making the cleric do the trap searching because of some arbitrary reason like the hall is too narrow. In other words, our players are generally smart and capable and will try to prepare for a range of scenarios. If one of your party members has the right skills or feats or equipment, let them show off by doing what they're good at. Now let's continue that line of thought moving to characters in combat. Some characters are good melee fighters. Let's say you build your 5e spearfighter to be at her best surrounded by enemies that she can draw to her and then mow them down like wheat in a field.

They are an, I don't know, an ancestral guardian barbarian with the sentinel feet in your 5e campaign. If you as a DM decide that all baddies will start far away from them in combat, that's not right. That character is good at bringing those monsters to them and absorbing their attacks so the other party members don't have to. The vast majority of the time, you should let them be the baddie magnet and show off. Another example I've seen in other games is monks. Now, hear me out. Somewhere a GM just thought, monks suck. Depending on the game system and build, I agree with you. One party I was in a long time ago called the Monk Flurry of Blows ability,

quote, the opportunity for five missed attacks in the same round, end quote. Monks in 5e and Pathfinder 2e can do things like deflect arrows or even catch them. Once a character gets that ability, I've seen some DMs and GMs suddenly never shoot another arrow at the monk character ever again while the bard looks like Boromir at the Battle of Amon Hen. With so much ammunition sticking out of him,

he earns the nickname Quiver. That player took that ability for their character because they believe it makes sense mechanically, or it meets their vision of what they it makes sense mechanically, or it meets their vision of what they want the character to be, or maybe just because it fucking sounds awesome. By designing your combat encounters to not let them show off these abilities, you're nerfing your PCs, and in my opinion, making your game worse. Now let's talk about an exception to this rule. If the baddies are led by a highly intelligent creature,

or if the baddies are intelligent themselves, and the monk catches the first arrow or three fired at them, the baddie chief's probably going to figure that out and direct the archers to shoot at someone else. That's not nerfing. That's playing smart adversaries in a smart way. But those tactics should be saved for tougher fights against smarter opponents. Against low-level mobs, let the characters flex. I promised to talk about 5th edition pretoshes,

Pathfinder 1st edition, and other game systems with fixed ancestry modifiers, and all of my advice leading up to this point still applies. Let your characters stunt on those hoes more often than not. The good news is that characters in these older game systems won't have the variety that DMs of the newer game systems have to deal with. In my experience with multiple gaming groups and running one-shots at multiple gaming conventions and gaming stores, a lot of players tend to build their characters in a min-max fashion, making character choices based on pushing the numbers as high as they can. Barbarians tend to be Goliaths or Githyanki or Half-Orcs or Orcs for the racial strength bonuses. Clerics tend to be Githzerai or Azimars or Changelings because of

their innate bonus to wisdom. Infiltrators and Rogues tend to be Elves or Catfolk for that sweet, sweet bonus to dexterity. While some campaigns in the occasional player will build their character to be more thematic than numerically superior, more flavor than crunch, if you will, the vast majority of characters in a lot of these older game systems will be of limited variety, so it'll be easier for you to adjust the campaign around the players rather than adjust the player's abilities on the fly. Once you've GM'd a few games, these typical choices will become more and more obvious, and it will be easy for you to keep these characters' strengths in mind and allow their

characters to show off a bit. If you're running a newer gaming system with a lot more variety, just keep a cheat sheet behind your DM screen that you can refer to when you need to. One of the key aspects of being a DM is remembering that you are not against the players at your table. Character composition and design is not a puzzle for you to solve, like a walnut for you to crack. These halflings and humans in Anadi, these investigators, scouts, and rangers, they're the heroes of the story and are better equipped to handle the world's dangers than your average commoner on the street. Let your players' characters use their abilities that they're good at, set them up for success, and I'll bet you and your players will have fun doing it.

Shorter episode this week because it was a part two, but if you like this episode, please consider sharing it on IG, Twitter, Reddit, or any other social media platform. It'll help me get the word out to others who may be looking for a podcast to learn more about tabletop RPGs. Now, before I go, I once again want to thank this week's sponsor, Steaks. When it comes to food, steak is a rare medium when it's well done. Tune in next week, by the way, when I'll talk about gaining inspiration from other gaming systems, specifically talking about some of the latest books released by Paizo, specifically The Book of the Dead, The Dark Archive, and The Lost Omens Travel Guide.

This has been episode 142, part 2 of Don't Nerf Your PCs. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.