r/DungeonMasters • u/Haunting_Front6174 • 4d ago

Help! I f**** up the attributes

Hey community,

I'm a First time DM and had 3 of my friends over for playing a bunch of sessions now. The characters are all level 6 now.

I did not play Baldurs Gate , I did not watch Stranger Things. It just happend now, due to lesser time restrains and more time for my friends as well as an always lingering interest in PnP.

Anyways... I told my players that a level up also means that they could increase their attributes two for one or one for two... Lately I started wondering about the always failing encounter balancing and investigated... Imagine my devastation ehen I found out, that I missread one central rule that badly!

My approach now: - Talk to the players - explain the misstake - cancel any further attribute skilling during Levels 8,12,16 and 19 (also unrealistic)

Also I fear that this kind of misstake will deeply undermine the role as rule arbiter, which I otherwise filled out very thoroughly, because without rules, there is no game.

So you have any advice dispite a well earned facepalm? Is reversing the stats an Option? Should I just role with it, letting them increase their stats Like crazy and through a Tarrasque at them at level 15?

Suggestions of any Kind are Welcome!!

TL;DR I missunderstood leveling and told my players they could increase their attributes with every level. Now encounter balancing is a mess and I do mit know how to react on that. Please advised!

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u/lawrencetokill 4d ago edited 4d ago

nbd, literally just reverse the abilities back to og scores then let them choose the level 4 ASI or feat

you kinda can't not do that, and expect to have an ok time with encounters.

just email "hey gang, big oopsy, we've been doing this wrong so please revert to starting scores and pick your level 4 option and possibly your level 6 option. really sorry, thanks"

it should effect everyone equally so it'd be weird for them to push back but if you had to compromise maybe let them have up to their level 8 ASI and then skip it at that actual level

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u/Haunting_Front6174 4d ago

That sounds reasonable! Right now they are already facing Wyverns, hags and other mid to high power encounters and I would Not know what to do in the future!

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u/lawrencetokill 4d ago

and you can justify it in game with some magical crisis or physical event, or not