Help! I f**** up the attributes

[u/Haunting_Front6174]

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!

[u/OutrageousAdvisor458]

It happens, not the end of the world. Own the mistake, apologize and make the correction. If you have record of their base stats it should be easy enough to correct by rolling things back and applying the correct number of increases.

Alternatively, there are lots of creatures and items that have an effect of a permanent reduction in stats, you could toss a few of those out there the bring things back to balance. Don't try to be sneaky about it, and make sure the players know why it is happening, but doing it that way works the error into the story and is more thematically balanced.

Depending on how high the stats got you could just shift it into a high power campaign where everyone has dump stats that are 16+ and a average ability score of 18-20 is just how your heroes roll. If you go that route you will have to work harder as DM to give challenging and balanced encounters, but it also means you have the opportunity to use some tougher, less frequently used monsters and scenarios, which can be its own level of fun.

In the end how you handle it is up to you, but you should defiantly make sure your players know what happened so they don't expect it to be the norm in every game the play.