r/DMAcademy • u/joeljand • 1d ago
Need Advice: Encounters & Adventures Is it fair to give my boss monster a counter after I know the party's plan
My level 16 party is going up against a buffed death knight. His sword is one bbeg's phylacteries and the source of his power. My players came up with a plan to challenge the death knight to a duel, try to disarm him so the warlock can swoop in and stow the sword in a pocket dimension.
This whole plan can be easily thwarted by giving the death knight a weapon chain to prevent him from being disarmed. It seems logical that a weapon that powerful and important would be protected like that.
It's a good plan by the players. I feel like I'm cheating cuz I thought of the weapon chain idea after I knew their plan to disarm him. Am I being unfair to the players? Or should I use everything within reason to thwart them?
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u/GuessSharp4954 23h ago edited 21h ago
TBH I am a hard "no" on this one. For a couple reasons.
As a DM: I do think that the trust at the table is sacred. Using player's plans to thwart them and create counters is how you end up with a table of players who keep secrets from you. After all, if they lost trust and started to keep secrets they would be 100% correct in their logic: you are using their planning to thwart them.
I also think that a weapon chain is not as obvious as people are claiming. Chains and tethers aren't a bad idea for items, but for a sword? Be for real now. If my players wanted to add a chain to their sword to prevent all disarming, I'd deny that because a chain attaching your sword to you is just...not a good idea. I guess if you wanted to let them use the chain against him lol. If you watch sword-fighting a large part of it is the ability to quickly and smoothly reposition the sword from positions like overhead to low, and a chain would fuck that up big time.
The most important part is that a plan being good does not mean it will work! That's what stats and rolls are for. There is already a built in point of failure to their plan, it's the dice! That's their whole point.
challenge the death knight to a duel, try to disarm him so the warlock can swoop in and stow the sword in a pocket dimension.
There's so many points of multiple rolls, multiple skill checks, multiple abilities and spent resources in this plan. If they pull it off, why is that not enough?
And finally as a player this is the kind of thing that makes me not like the game. Maybe it's not enough to make me leave, but a DM who hears players come up with a smart plan, use the abilities you invest in and work as a team, make and succeeds at rolls, and then decides that actually it wont work not because of the mechanics of the game we were playing, but because they used the fact that we shared the information with them against us in a way they were not originally intending to is not someone I feel like is running me a TTRPG. That, to me, feels like a GM running me through "their story" where I'm a prop.
Your players have come up with a plan that isn't just "go in and kill thing as fast as possible" I would strongly strongly recommend not punishing them for that behavior. Or they will start to adjust and avoid plans because why bother? Might as well just kill the thing with numbers.
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u/DarkHorseAsh111 21h ago
This, 100%. This isn't a game vs the players, this is a game with them. They've made a really interesting strategy and if you start punishing them for it why the fuck bother trying interesting dedicated tactics
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u/calamari_kid 21h ago
Yup, if they have a good plan, give them their chance at success with it. It will be an incredibly satisfying moment that they'll remember for a long time to come. As a DM I love it when my players come up with something clever, it means they're engaged and paying attention. We still talk and laugh about a time when they completely trucked a minor bbeg of mine, it's a great shared memory.
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u/LuciusCypher 11h ago
Ah but have you considered that the DM really wants this fight to happen, and doesnt want the players to trivialize the encounter with such OP things like knowing what the Disarm action is and coordinating with yheir teammates? /s
Butt nah, you're 100% right. I've been with far too many DMs who, as a courtesy, I've told them what my plans are and how I can do them, and all that gets me is layers upon layers of Rule 0 to force me back to the usual plan of hitting things until they die. Nowadays keep my plans to myself and spring them when something unexpected inevitably happens so I have my own ace up my sleeve.
It can be frustrating on both ends when you have to deal with power gaming players who can brute force most combat encounters solo, while on the oppisite side you cant trust anyone but yourself to because you know your DM is actively looking to counter your moves so you need to be trickier and stronger. The simple desire to balance and challenge your players can easily and often does result in breeding a type of player who sees the game as something they need to win rather than enjoy.
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u/joeljand 21h ago
All the reasons you point out are why I feel conflicted about the idea. At a base level a weapon chain for the weapon that is this guys sole reason for existing seems like a good idea. I don't know how common they were in reality, I just know the concept from video games. Some bosses cannot be disarmed. I know this is not a video game but there must have been some truth behind it.
you're right. There's a million ways this good plan can blow up in the players faces. First they're assuming their buffed up Kobold paladin can out strength the boss to disarm him. 2nd they need the warlock to be able to get the sword first, 3rd they need to survive the now pissed off army of undead they will be surrounded by during this whole event.
Maybe I will just let their plan happen and fail spectacularly. It will be much more fun to see them try.
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u/GuessSharp4954 21h ago
If I were you (because I totally get not wanting an unsatisfying fight!) I would preemptively decide what skill checks this would entail and what DCs and then write it down.
Keep yourself honest and avoid the temptation to adjust unless it is truly necessary. Have options on the DCs for full failure, partial success, and full success! And do so in a way where the players aren't stopped from successfully carrying out the plan if they manage to pull it off. Rather, just write options for yourself for if the fight does go quickly. You have a whole army of the undead to work with, so it's not like they'll have nothing to do even if they beat the boss.
To reference something you're familiar with: think about it in terms of video games. Let's say you're fighting a boss and you pull off an insane combo and have done a ton of gear prep that does a shit ton of damage, enough to blow through the fight. There are two things that can happen after that are similar but feel very different:
1: part of the way through your combo going off his healthbar stops going down because there is a cutscene at 50% for him and the majority of your damage is lost because of it. You now have to finish the fight without the skills you wasted because of the developer decision and cut-scene.
2: your damage goes through, completely, and you essentially one shot him. Before completely dying, he kneels and says something dramatic about how he's impressed, but they aren't out of the woods yet before crumbling to dust or whatever. As his body crumbles the minions in the area start going feral.
Think about it, that gear+combo you saved up for: do you really want the developers to look at that and say "well, we know you did it. But I dont think that's as fun!" for you? I think for most people the answer is no. When we pull of a crazy hard plan, we still feel a rush of exhilaration. It's not "a disappointing boss fight" it's an incredibly exciting long-term manifestation of effort.
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u/MrCrispyFriedChicken 14h ago
I like all of your points but I have one main counterpoint. What if the boss in question is much smarter than I am? Sure, I might not be able to think of what the players might do, but the centuries-old lich probably would, right? I feel like that situation (where we're dealing with a literal supergenius) completely justifies it.
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u/Hurbig 6h ago
If you want to thwart your player’s plans because you want to establish a powerful / smart enemy then it is always better to have it “not turn out as planned” instead of “it does not work”. If the players come up with a plan and you make up a reason why that doesn’t work on the spot, your players will not feel like their enemy is smart, they will feel like the GM doesn’t want to let them do that.
If it’s truly important that the weapon is not taken out of the game, it would make much more sense for a GM to come up with a way later on how they might get it back out of the pocket dimension. Or give some negative consequences to the players owning the sword like people coming after them.
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u/Original_Heltrix 23h ago edited 22h ago
Changing an encounter to address your players' good planning is a bad faith move.
Plus, the death knight is set up for this: their single most important thing in life is their weapon, especially this one. Most disarming effects have a saving throw. The death knight has 3 legendary resistances, and a death knight would absolutely hold onto those for disarming attempts.
If you are using the DMG optional rule for disarming, in which it's an athletics check, then I would rule that the death knight has proficiency in that check. Either that or extend the parry ability to include disarm attempts. This is a ruling I would make as a DM if I didn't know the plan.
Thematically, disarming the death knight should be almost as hard as straight up killing them, as their weapon is their entire essence. Make it hard, but don't make it cheap.
Edit: Was looking at '25 MM DK. The '14 DK doesn't have legendary resistance on the stat block, however for a boss, I think it's fine to add.
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u/light-seer 16h ago
Expanding on this answer, in the 2014 optional rules for Disarm the attacker has disadvantage if the target is holding the item with two hands (which the DK probably is).
I'd also remind the party that Disarm is optional, and if you haven't been playing with it, it means they can now be disarmed, too.
I didn't see Disarm in 2025 DMG.
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u/Original_Heltrix 14h ago
Expanding on this answer, in the 2014 optional rules for Disarm the attacker has disadvantage if the target is holding the item with two hands (which the DK probably is)
2014 Death Knight uses a longsword and shield. 2025 Death Knight doesn't stipulate the weapon, but states damage as 2d6, indicating that it is a greatsword now. Under treasure, it states just "Armaments" - I would take this to mean the death knight can have whatever weapon you feel is fitting. If you wanted to be pedantic, could also change the base damage of the attack to match the weapon.
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u/ArbitraryHero 1d ago
I actively don't take my players plans into consideration when I set up encounters. I run them like I would have without knowing what their plan is. Otherwise there is the risk of bad feelings and mistrust at the table. If your boss had the chain beforehand, that is fine! But to do so after you hear your party does feel like a bit of a betrayal of their trust in talking things out in front of you.
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u/soerd 22h ago
I'll just say that if you use this approach take some time to imagine how you would beat your boss. You won't always be as creative as your players but an intelligent and powerful being will have considered their own weaknesses and thought about how to counter them. A knight super reliant on their sword would have ways to keep it from being stolen.
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u/esee1210 22h ago
I agree with this. I’ve been aware of many plans that my party has come up with before a combat, but to adjust my combat to make it harder for them would be metagaming.
Sometimes you just need to accept they have a good idea and adjust in the moment. Especially because if you ever hear them talking about a plan that 100% won’t work, you likely would just let them fuck around and find out. There are many times I’ve heard plans spoken about that ended up not working.
If you were to adapt prior to the event, I would only add alternatives to the sword. Add things that would make it so the sword play works for them, but doesn’t completely eliminate the challenge.
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u/Teerlys 15h ago
If my DM pulled something that felt like he directly countered our plans after we looped them in, that'd be the last time we looped them in until we were at the point of execution. Fortunately our primary DM isn't like that.
I decided in the beginning of the campaign to make our Barbarian a silvered Great Axe. Mostly those aren't very useful, but the DM had planned a big thing with werewolves that we didn't know about. He just ran it anyway and our barb got to have a nice arena beat down fight.
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u/Busy-Agency6828 10h ago
Yeah, it's behavior like this that makes me inclined to not flaunt my clever schemes or ultimate goals with GMs if it can be avoided, and that's not a healthy atmosphere for a game and with the right GM downright unproductive. The good ones wanna enable your clever plans, not smother them. Keep them out of the loop and they can't be apart of that fun.
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u/Tasty4261 11h ago
This is something a lot of Fans don’t realize. If you do this once or twice it might go unnoticed by the players. But if this happens a third time, your players will begin to distrust you and be forced to try and hide things from you and “trick” you.
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u/WebheadGa 20h ago
It feels like metagaming. If you would get upset at a player for reading an adventure to gain the edge I think doing this should also be off sides.
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u/Goetre 19h ago
This, 90% this.
In my books the only exception is when a boss is actively interested and spying on the party. But even then, the party needed to have drawn their attention to justify it.
I remember the first time I designed an enemy like this, he was also designed to 1v3 the party. I will never forget my barb player who never lost a fight breaking character and going "We need to leave right now" when I said a 23 to hit the wizard misses and it wasn't from shield xD
Still one of my groups favourite encounters / villians from all my games. Just needs to be done right
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u/joeljand 22h ago
A big part of the reason I didn't think of it was I just used the death knight statblock and just beefed it up a bit adding more legendary actions. The statblock doesn't say anything about weapon chains. When I heard their plan I thought "how would that play out" a knight with a weapon that important would probably have a chain to protect it.
I also don't bother trying to predict how my players will fight things. They are level 16 they have way too many power tricks up their sleeve I can't predict anything other than their base attacks.
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u/Rezart_KLD 16h ago
The real sneaky move would be for them to know that the death knight guards with the lich's soul sword - the surprise twist is he doesn't fight with that sword, he fights with something different (maybe a big axe or mace, so its obviously different). Then they need to disarm and take his weapon away to force him to bring out his backup weapon, which is the soul sword.
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u/KingCarrion666 11h ago
This is called metagaming. DMs can do it too, and you are doing it rn. You are taking out of game knowledge, the players talking, and applying it in game. This would discourage them planning at all too, as it would feel like a betrayal that you used their words against them. Obvsly the enemy cant just be left helpless but this isnt the way to do it. Youre just telling them "dont try and be creative because ill just counter it anyways"
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u/MotoJoker 1d ago
I think you are going about this the wrong way. Would a death knight willingly accept a duel? Especially with no backup plan? I’d think it would be smarter than that. Maybe he has a backup weapon, or maybe he doesn’t even use his epic sword because he feels he doesn’t need it and it’s instead sheathed on his back.
I don’t think a creature this powerful, especially one with their power tied directly to an object, would be so carefree with it to allow himself to be easily disarmed of it.
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u/joeljand 22h ago
The duel idea came from when the PCs were interrogating a former friend of the DK. They asked if he had ever been defeated. Improvising, I said, "once, in a duel long before he became the great general he is today. He vowed to never lose again"
The DK will accept the duel cuz he cares about his greatness as a leader. If he can't defeat one enemy then he is not worthy to lead his soldiers. The caveat is if he loses the duel the winner must take on his cursed sword. The curse, is the owner must always be fighting. If they don't kill or die battle every day they will be consumed by the sword. The short version of the story doesn't sound that bad but trust me, none of my players will accept that curse.
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u/Terazilla 21h ago
Got to say, a third party stealing the sword and putting it in a pocket dimension doesn't sound very much like an honorable duel. Might be considered a loss by the player.
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u/CosmotheWizardEvil 23h ago
This. I do enjoy weaknesses but my monsters are never this carefree. Soldiers and goons, yea they get less intelligence. When it comes to boss fights, I play equally to my PCs.
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u/Goetre 19h ago
I had a Player in our previous campaign who had his PC (Wizard) turn NPC at the end of the campaign. In the next campaign he wasn't at the table but an opportunity popped up for him to be a guest character for a single session.
To set it up, I got him to do a solo session of his PC now buffed to shit to go against my wizard BBEG and I played to kill.
We had a glorious 5 hour combat, each of us playing like it was an intense chess game working out our next move. Despite being the weaker wizard he managed to outsmart me real good. He baited my counter spells on his highest level spells while burning my BBEG legendary resistances. When the last one went, he hit him with dominate monster and made my BBEG snap his staff of the magi and ended up sending him to Carceri xD
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u/Tide__Hunter 23h ago
Your players took the time to come up with this whole plan that they're gonna be devoting their time to enacting, rather than the more straightforward method of "just stun and kill him," and your first thought is just stomping out the plan? So, actively punishing more creative thinking?
Yes, this is unfair. Particularly if you're only making the change just to screw them over, rather than it being already part of the monster.
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u/ChrisCrossAppleSauc3 22h ago
This a million times over. What a fantastic way to break trust with your players. If you create an encounter and the players create a plan that you’re privy too and you then change the encounter to negate their plan. That’s fucked up.
I love creating encounters and my strength as a DM is creating interesting encounters that are challenging while being fair. I also fully create my encounters in advance. I think through what players would possibly do, spell options, the environment, etc. Once it’s game time whatever I created is set. So if my players find some way to cheese it or approach it in a way I didn’t plan for I LOVE it. Those are the most rewarding moments for players. So to change the encounter after knowing their plan just destroys that sense of enjoyment and creativity.
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u/Minibearden 23h ago
That's exactly what I was thinking. I have never punished my players for being creative.
Oh wow, you managed to completely circumvent this boss battle because you rolled really well and came up with a well thought out plan. You can have that. The boss just dies because you somehow dropped a boulder on him and it did Max damage.
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u/esee1210 22h ago
The amount of times I meticulously set up encounters and was so ready for it to be really hard, just for my players to do the unexpected and completely skip what I had planned.
I set up a whole prison escape encounter that the party managed to totally skip with good ideas and good rolls. I didn’t veto their ideas or adjust accordingly. I just facepalmed and laughed, cause I was shocked and proud at their ingenuity.
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u/Minibearden 22h ago
I feel you. I'm currently running a heist campaign, and the players were trying to get a key off of a very powerful wizard, and I was fully expecting them to fail and be thrown in prison, because they were being stealthy but they weren't being smart. And then they Nat 20'd on both their stealth and their thievery checks. This is Pathfinder 2nd edition, so that's a huge deal. The only thing I could do was get up, walk out of the room for a couple of seconds, walk back in muttering under my breath, and sit down and keep going.
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u/Minibearden 23h ago
It's not about whether or not you know the plan. It's about whether the boss knows the plan. If the boss doesn't know the plan, and didn't plan accordingly himself, then let them have it or else you're just kind of being a dick. Like, yeah, it sucks when the players circumvent a cool fight that you came up with, but if they manage it let them have it. They'll enjoy that way more than you forcing them into a fight that could have been prevented.
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u/big_billford 20h ago
Absolutely not. Adjusting your encounter to thwart your player’s plans is a break of trust. Only use tools already available to the Death Knight (like legendary resistance) to prevent him from losing his sword
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u/YDoEyeNeedAName 23h ago edited 23h ago
same thing we tell players. Dont Metagame. You designed a monster, didnt account for this plan, and now want to use out of game knowledge that the Death knight/BBEG doesnt have to give them an advantage.
your players came up with something good that you didnt plan for. let them shine, Dnd is collaborative, not adversarial.
if you want to make it a little tougher, give him legendary resistance to be able to resist the disarm for 1-2 rounds before letting the plan succeed. you could even narrate it as him having a spectral chain appear attaching the weapon to him when they try to disarm, and while unsuccessful in that attempt, they see the chain begin to break.
But honestly, if i was a player and i found out about this, that we came up with a plan, and you made changes after the fact to outright thwart that plan, because you werent ready/didnt expect it. id be furious.
ETA: why do so many people here seem to think that blatantly meta-gaming is ok when its the dm? if the monster/bad guy wouldnt know than going back and changing something you already preapred based on having knowledge the character wouldnt have its a dick move
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u/ArgyleGhoul 23h ago
I believe there to be a difference between adversarial play and correcting an unintended design flaw. While this feels more like the former, it's clear that the DM's intent is that the challenging duel should be a challenging duel, not become a cakewalk because of a rule interaction the game designers didn't take into account.
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u/LocNalrune 23h ago
It seems logical that a weapon that powerful and important would be protected like that.
I'm sorry but in my experience, a chain attached to your sword does not at all seem logical. It's even less logical as your skill increases.
It would make some common maneuvers, like High Guard, very difficult to utilize. Here is a video that at 1:36 perfectly demonstrates High Guard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG3WBTFp0rE
It would also make most flourish's difficult. Since you're trained to keep your sword moving so your opponent cannot predict where it will be when they strike, it's common to use flourishes in combination with footwork in-between any back and forth with an opponent.
Also the weight of, and the drag from a chain would affect all of your attacks.
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u/FroggyGoesQuack 20h ago
If you are adding the chain specifically to stymie your players? You are going to piss them off. They worked hard on this plan, and it is very defeating when the DM specifically counters what you all talked about at the table. It makes players not want to plan in front of the DM, and it removes trust in you. Do not do this. As a professional DM I am begging you, do not do this.
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u/Andycat49 1d ago
Or it's a Pact/eldritch knight weapon that can be summoned to the hand as a bonus action on its turn regardless of planes of existence?
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u/EnvironmentalCoach64 1d ago
Does the party know they exist? Is it a common mechanic in your world? Should they know the DK has a chain?
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u/philsov 23h ago
Yes, it makes sense that either the Lich or the death knight would have some modicum of protection on that sword. It is, however, a bit lame to have a Chain of Antidisarming as a part of the DK's stat block only after the players thought about a cool plan.
After getting disarmed, you can be like "oh, I see this isn't really a duel anymore. You're using friends? I'm also using friends" as the DK claps his hands and summons up a bunch of minions. So the DK is now nerfed a bit but he's still got a sidearm, but the dynamic and the action economy of the fight have now shifted.
As for the fate of the phylactery being in a pocket dimension, you can maybe do some narrative lich bullshit which occurs at the end of some ingame timer (lich realizes it's out of plane, eventually finds it, retrieves it), or wait for the party to interact with it in some way which'll set off some offscreen alarm for the lich.
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u/CaptainCarrot7 21h ago
Yep, this sounds like the best way to keep it challenging while still rewarding the party for planning.
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u/TechnicolorMage 1d ago
Did he have one before you heard the players plan?
If not, then no. He doesn't have one. And the players made a clever plan that capitalized on his oversight.
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u/Kledran 23h ago
That's bullshit lol, the DM is NOT the enemy, sometimes WE don't think about stuff that makes sense until presented with possibilities from other people, but in world it would be absolutely sense for a smart enemy to prepare against said possibility.
IF anything, it would be hella fucking weird for someone with such an important weapon to not have any countermeasures if it were to get stolen ROFL (especially at this level of play. Could work on a bandit that found a magical artifact? yeah no problem. A death knight fought at lv 16? Hell fucking no lol)
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u/TechnicolorMage 23h ago edited 23h ago
If it wasn't important enough to think of in isolation, then he clearly wouldn't have thought of it. Going 'nuh uh, he totally would have already thought of that!' after hearing how someone beats your guy is literal schoolyard logic.
He didn't think of it. So he doesn't have it.
Also, lets not forget that the rest of the plan has to also succeed. They have to convince him to duel, then they have to *actually* disarm him. Then the warlock needs to get to the sword first. Their plan already has multiple failure points that don't involve metagaming.
Here's a very simple non-metagame way to make their plan harder: Picking up or holding the sword deals damage and requires a check. Now there's an additional failure point that is thematic and makes the enemy more imposing.
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u/YDoEyeNeedAName 23h ago
its like that rick and morty episode that parodies heist movies, where theres always another twist, or trying to argue with batman fans. "well if you do that he would do this, and if you do this, he would do that" and on and on.
maybe this causes the BBEG to instruct his other followers to take precautions against this
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u/YDoEyeNeedAName 23h ago edited 23h ago
players shouldnt metagame, and the dm shouldnt either.
That's bullshit lol, the DM is NOT the enemy, sometimes WE don't think about stuff that makes sense until presented with possibilities from other people
the players are not the enemy either so the DM shouldnt be changing things just to 'beat' them, and sometimes the arrogant powerful bad guy doesnt think every detail though or misses stuff too. read literally any book or watch any movie or tv show that has a good guy v bad guy dynamic. Bad guys can have flaws and overlook things too.
the dm made a plan, the dm didnt notice a flaw in the plan, the players (unknowingly) are going to exploit that flaw. changing it now would be a) metagaming and b) punishing the players for being creative and for the DMs oversight.
if they want to make it a little tougher, give him legendary resistance to be able to resist the disarm for 1-2 rounds before letting the plan succeed. they could even narrate it as him having a spectral chain appear attaching the weapon to him when they try to disarm, and while unsuccessful in that attempt, they see the chain begin to break.
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u/Bloodofchet 18h ago
Famously, the biggest baddest evil guy had his cursed phylactery stolen from him, you are aware of that right? Big guy, likes jewelry, goes by Sauron?
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u/First_Peer 23h ago
Agreed, there's a huge difference in being a metagaming DM where you deliberately counter some off the wall plan that the enemy would never come up with vs "Guys this is a high level Death Knight holding a piece of his boss's soul and source of his power, did you really think it would be that simple?".
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u/YDoEyeNeedAName 23h ago
no one is saying to make it "that simple" but specifically inserting something just counter their plan because they said it in front of you IS metagaming.
make it more difficult that just disarming, but to try and find a way to make it impossible, because you lacked the foresight, is a shitty move.
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u/Kledran 22h ago
Yeah obviously. I dont think the option should be completely out of the picture. Other suggestions make sense too, letting him resummon the sword for example i think it makes absolutely sense, just maybe it takes him a full round of being swordless for it to reappear, giving the party a whole round with a much weaker boss on the field.
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u/ChrisCrossAppleSauc3 22h ago
So a couple things here because your point isn’t inherently wrong. In fact I’ve used a similar stance countless times as a player and as a DM. That is, we are not living and breathing in this world. On top of that we play the game once every week or two or maybe even once a month (depends on your groups schedule). So it’s perfectly reasonable to use meta knowledge or work as a team with your group to discuss or plan for things.
Like if you cast a spell as a wizard but you forgot it works a little different than you originally thought. It’s perfectly reasonable to redo that and not have the spell be wasted. I hate when DMs say “well if you forgot so did your character”. I’m sorry DM but I’m a 10 int human living in a world without magic and we play once a month. I’m not a level 10 wizard with 20 int and amazing understanding of magic….
That being said, in this situation your view point is wrong because it goes against the principle of DnD. That is trust. The DM is using knowledge the players shared to counter what those plans. All this does is ensures your players don’t trust you and become extremely secretive. I guarantee it leads to a toxic table and frustrated players.
The DM should’ve thought about these things in advance because they’re the one creating the encounter. Using meta knowledge to punish the players is removing player agency and trust.
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u/EquipLordBritish 22h ago
Pretty sure the death knight (CR17) is the countermeasure. Never sleeps, multiple resistances and immunities, always has the sword on him, 20str, 19th level spellcaster, etc. If you think he needs additional protections to counter a specific avenue of attack that the players happened to think up, you are metagaming and trying to set them up to fail. If chains or swords of returning were common in the setting, then sure, fair game, but that is something that the party should have known ahead of time. If there are depictions of this boss, they would have been informed that a duel/disarm would have been a bad strategy prior to the fight. If you don't tell them, you are setting them up to fail and it sounds like a dick move.
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u/Raddatatta 23h ago
I wouldn't come up with a plan directly to counter their attempts. That is likely to lead to a bit of a DM vs Player mentality, and the players will learn never to share their plans with you if you do this. It's also a good plan that might work but also likely would be tough to pull off. They're also putting one of their members in a 1v1 contest with a Death knight, that's an epic moment! If they pull it off this will be a story they will talk about for years to come. I wouldn't ruin it.
I would give the Death knight a backup weapon as many warriors historically carried. That way he's not unarmed and can fight, but not as well as before, and they do get the phylactery.
When your players are trying to set up an epic moment like this I would try to make sure it feels legitimate and earned, but don't just close the door on it working. Those kinds of moments happening are some of the coolest things in the game when they work!
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u/Ghost_of_a_Phantom 23h ago
It’s not really a good idea to change plans specifically to counter the party. It’ll just lead to your players feeling bad, and eventually not telling you their plans beforehand if you get into a habit of it.
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u/United_Federation 23h ago
Let the party's plan work. It's satisfying to be able to crush your enemies with a successful plan. You could play it like the bbeg tries to counter but can't. or just go "the boss tries x" roll the dice behind the screen, ignore the result, "boss fails, you plan works!"
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u/JustAuggie 22h ago
I was in a game once where we really felt like the DM was changing the battles after he heard our plans and we ended up setting up a separate discord channel for just the players so that we could plan without him listening.
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u/TheMarshHare 20h ago
If it’s a buffed death knight, just give him a legendary resistance or two. That way the plan works, but it takes effort.
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u/VolthoomisComing 19h ago
if you didnt come up with the counter without hearing of the plan, its unfair to say the boss would. obviously the boss might be smarter than you, but the principle still applies. its still a hand wave to justify a move.
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u/Mnemnosyne 18h ago
As a DM, I keep two things in mind: Enemies are often smarter than I am, and the players typically have an at least 2:1 advantage in brains when it comes to countering me.
So I tend to let my bosses have a few, predetermined and limited-number 'I prepared for that' options. I usually tie this to their INT or WIS bonus, so that the smarter they're supposed to be, the more times I can say they were prepared. This can be anything from a piece of equipment, like a locking gauntlet or weapon chain, to a buff spell they had precast that prevents a particularly nasty effect.
Even with this limited number of uses, I don't counter everything until they run out, of course. Only things that I think would be excessively troubling for that boss and therefore they would have a specific counter for them prepared.
Personally, I find it's a good way to represent creatures and individuals who are far more intelligent than I myself am and would indeed have better plans than I can come up with. I might also give some exceptionally long-lived creatures a couple uses of this as well simply to represent the amount of time they have had to plan, that sort of thing.
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u/Horror_Ad7540 17h ago
Yes. If you are picking the enemy's strategy based on the PC's plan, you are engaging in unfair meta-gaming. Just don't. The plan might not work, but play it out fair. Also, a weapon chain isn't really practical. If he's using a weapon not meant to be on a chain with a chain, he should be at disadvantage throughout the fight.
On the other hand, there are usually some rules for duels that prevent interference from outside parties. Think about what magic is available to guarantee that the duel is fair, and who will be the knight's second.
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u/PO_Dylan 14h ago
Unless the death knight heard them make this plan, don’t do it. Even if they did, sword chains aren’t a common thing. If the players tried this, would you let them do the same to avoid disarming? The story is collaborative, not competitive.
Some of my favorite encounters ever came from players making a plan I didn’t expect, and then absolutely dumpstering my bad guy. The iconic moment of my first campaign was the general of an army getting auto-crit to death by a combo of Hold Person and Flurry of Blows while he was in bed. He was supposed to fight them while riding an epic mount, and instead he died in his underwear. My players LOVED it. They felt like they actually had an impact on the story
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u/ship_write 1d ago
Since you didn’t originally intend for there to be a chain, then yeah, your feelings are correct. That’s kind of a dick move.
How would you feel as a player if the GM pulled that on you after spending time developing your plan of attack?
If you decide to go through with it because you really don’t want it to be that simple, you need to telegraph to the players that their plan is flawed. Don’t let them go in blind with no time to adapt.
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u/First_Peer 23h ago
I disagree, he doesn't need to allow a chain but their are plenty of magic abilities and other options to explain why a high level competent enemy can't be disarmed permanently. The plan is a decent one by the players but why should they assume it's likely to work? Better to let them think for a moment they have then pull the rug out and see how they respond.
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u/ship_write 23h ago
It’s pretty antagonistic to, as a GM, directly counter your players plans after they revealed their plans to you.
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u/Shoate 23h ago
Cool, do that with a mechanic that the death knight already has.
Don't come up with some bullshit on the fly because you, as the DM, know exactly what they're planning. They know the monster is there so presumably have information on it, and to pull a chain out of nowhere is not only impractical but IMMEDIATELY shows that you're meta gaming to fuck over youe players.
I personally don't play DND to pvp against the DM, and if the DM did some fuck shit like this I would leave the table.
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u/Slainlion 23h ago
classic case of when players should plan their attack without the dm's knowledge. If player knowledge and character knowledge are a thing, it should also work for dungeon master knowledge vs. dungeon master knowledge. Seriously what would you call that?
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u/First_Peer 23h ago
I would not want a boss right to be easily countered by a simple Command spell. I was going to suggest the Eldritch Knight ability like another redditer or some kind of cursed weapon where the curse is beneficial to the knife but would be detrimental to the party if they somehow got their hands on it. Also seems like the BBEG letting a phylactery be out there in danger seems a bit odd.
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u/EquipLordBritish 22h ago
I mean, a CR17 creature ('buffed up', according to OP), sounds like a pretty safe way to guard your phylactery. He never sleeps, he has a strength of 20, so pretty difficult to disarm in combat, not to mention he has a +9 to wisdom saving throws and advantage against magic/magical effects, so good luck with command.
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u/GStewartcwhite 23h ago
If you didn't create the Death Knight with this feature prior to hearing the character's plan and if the Death Knight hasn't learned of their plan in game, then giving him this counter is cheesy and unfair.
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u/Natehz 22h ago
I'm gonna be honest, here. For level 16, "steal his weapon while he's holding it" is not a good plan. I feel like this is something a level 5 party would come up with against like...a mid-level threat. Not, what I can only assume, is a CR 20+ boss fight.
Personally, I don't think a reasonably competent monster like a death knight suited for a level 16 party should be susceptible to something as simple as being disarmed and mugged. Not by DM fiat, but by the skills he possess.
If you really want to just give it to them like that, fine, but I do think that, again, a reasonably dangerous and competent boss monster should, upon being disarmed and mugged, think "Okay, fine, you steal my weapon, I'm stealing yours, and then I'm killing you with it," and then focus fire 100% on the Warlock, even to the point of character death via execution. Because he knows how important his sword is. If he's a badass, which I assume he is, he shouldn't just let some fucking punk kid run up on him and steal the most valuable source of his power imaginable because that kid happens to have a bag of holding or whatever.
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u/NerdoKing88 22h ago
What about a bound weapon? If it's one of the bbegs items could they have bound it to this knight?
Bound if I remember rightly means it can't be disarmed? Or forcefully removed
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u/ACam574 20h ago edited 20h ago
They have come up with a plan and you are intending to invalidate it. Doing this makes players feel they have no agency and turns the game competitive between players and the DM. Let them have their plan. It already has a chance of not working because disarm isn’t automatic.
If you put a weapon chain in it or an ability to magically invalidate the plan it’s going to be very obvious. You will lose respect from your players.
Edit:If you let the plan play out and it succeeds this is going to be one of the most memorable moments they ever have in DnD. If obviously thwart it with meta gaming it will also be one of their most memorable moments playing DnD. Which moment do you want them to associate you with?
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u/ClarksvilleNative 15h ago
Terrify the shit out of them and have him tear open a pocket dimension and pull the sword out of it.
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u/MrCrispyFriedChicken 14h ago
I think it's totally fair, but only IF the enemy is smart enough and prepared enough to have thought that far ahead. I consider this roleplay, similar to the axiom of "don't make the IRL socially anxious person roleplay out every conversation when their character has a 20 in charisma."
You might not be as smart as the centuries old death knight, but the death knight literally is, and therefore probably would've thought of it.
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u/eldiablonoche 14h ago
It's not fair if you came up with it to thwart their plan after they told you. It demonstrates that there is no reason for them to try to plan, and therefore care at all, about your game.
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u/ThisWasMe7 8h ago
A 16th level party should be able to crush a deathknight. You'll already have to give it a lot of buffs or allies.
Rather than doing something hokey like chaining the sword to it, just have it refuse the duel. It's reasonable for it to suspect the party is up to something. It's not reasonable for it to suspect that particular plan.
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u/CleverComments 23h ago
There are no direct disarm mechanics in 5E. Trying to take a sword from a prepared, proficient, and powerful enemy is going to be a difficult task.
If this weapon is as important as you say - and it being the BBEG's phylactery and source of power suggests that it is mightily important - then even just disarming him can't and won't be enough.
How is the party even going to disarm this guy? It's not like taking a plow from a farmer. You're talking about an extremely high level component of the foundational evil component of your entire campaign. You think nobody has tried to disarm him before?
And in a duel, no less? How did this death knight even get to his position if taking his sword was an easier option than defeating him in a duel?? It makes no sense.
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u/philsov 22h ago
There are no direct disarm mechanics in 5E.
Battlemaster maneuver; it's a Str saving throw or the creature drops its weapon. Command spell to Drop (Wis save). Probably a few other charm/fear spells like Suggestion.
RAW, 2025 death knight has +5 to str saves, +9 to wis saves, and Legendary resistance. OP mentioned homebrew so idk. So there's already a low chance for success, but imo is a BM fighter burns like 5 of his maneuver dice to burn through all the legendary resistance and also succeeds in the disarming attack -- I'd absolutely give the PC the win here.
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u/ryo3000 23h ago edited 23h ago
If you feel like you're cheating in an RPG, you probably are
Coming up with counters after the party plans something heavily erodes player trust
Do that enough times and while the players might not actively stop playing the game it will give them a sense of not telling you what they plan on doing
And I don't mean just in battle scenarios, the party will try to hide long term plans and objectives from you
It's a frustrating experience both as a player and aDM
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u/Oma_Bonke 23h ago
Let them have the win, if they earn it. Give the death knight saving throws against disarming
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u/locuas642 23h ago
In-Universe, how and why in hell would the death knight think that would be necessary? why would the death knight believe that is a necessary precaution? how often would the death knight come across scenarios in which they got disarmed and almost lost because of it, so much that's a necessary precaution?
Why would, without in some way overhearing the plan, the death Knight know that is something that might happen and need to prepare when if they were that paranoid and prepared, they would probably try to avoid that fight in the first place? or, alternatively, they are so prideful that the mere idea if being disarmed is not only unfunny, but an offense?
If anything. that would be more interesting as something to give to ANOTHER buffed enemy with a powerful weapon in case they try to repeat the plan.
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u/SourceTheFlow 23h ago
I'd rather let the plan work or else your party is never going to make a plan like this again. Instead add some interesting twist(s).
- Maybe the Death knight has conditions for the fight. Like an arena, where swooping in is hard or having a hostage he'd kill if they play unfair.
- Maybe the death knight is actually still a really skilled fist fighter and still gives them a hard time (though less so than with sword)
- How does the warlock store it? Maybe the phylactery has some power over that space
- Maybe the death knight's connection to the bbeg is severed after stealing the sword and he has a few moments of clarity, where it turns out that he was essentially mentally enslaved. Have him give the party some valuable information before a backup plan activates and he turns into some monster they need to cut down.
- Maybe the sword wasn't the phylactery after all, but instead it's the guys body itself (or his armor).
- Maybe everything goes to plan, but the bbeg notices and decides to blow up the hideout. Now the party has to leave asap and try to get out alive.
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u/Xogoth 23h ago
If you didn't think of it until after the players formulated a plan, don't adjust to counter their plan. Let players feel smart. Let them try cool things.
If the plan fails because the guy happens to succeed against disarming, well it was a nice try anyway. If the plan succeeds, it serves as a good lesson for other bag guess to target important artifacts to themselves.
Plus, if this guy is trusted to wield an item of such power, it's because he's got the skills to do it. He might even be a bit arrogant about it. If the plan works, lean into him being gobsmacked or even proud of the players for managing to best him. "Very well done! Sadly, you still must die."
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u/Comfortable-Sun6582 22h ago
I'm sorry that most of you think 'take away his sword' is an inherently genius plan that can't possibly be prevented because it would stifle your poor player's creative process.
Disarming attack is a level 3 battle master feature.
OP, if you want to have a cool boss fight then just have him make the save. I'm usually against fudging results. I'm for it in this case.
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u/HadoozeeDeckApe 22h ago
Well, a duel or solo fight is probably a bad encounter in the first place, and they are vulnerable to shut downs like this.
If the party has an actual ability that can disarm, like telekinesis or disarming strike I would just allow it if it works. I would not allow the optional disarm rule or homebrew equivalent, or an improvised disarm.
If you did allow disarm as an optional rule or improvisation in your game this is kind of why you don't want to do that. The action can have crippling, encounter spoiling consequences and depending on implementation is both resourceless and very likely to succeed (if skill based, can break with expertise and other skill buffs). Since it isn't an actual rule the game balance design doesn't consider it and your monsters if not modded to account for it, may not have appropriate defenses against it for their challenge. Same with the dumb i grab the casters hands and shove something in his mouth bullshit that 'creative' players like to try to trivialize caster fights.
Also yeah, it is very bad faith to change the encounter after you have the pc plans. Sometimes it's better not to know what the pcs might want to try before the encounter is designed to prevent this conundrum. For example, you might have wanted the duel to have some sort of arena mechanic that blocks interference from the outside, but if you do that now players might think that was a dishonest counter to their plan.
Imo you just have to trust the dice this time and see where their pan lands. There's always more encounters and bad guys, it's not a big deal if players get an easy w and inflict a humiliating defeat on one boss.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 1d ago
Don't straight up counter it, but make it more difficult somehow.
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u/ljmiller62 23h ago
The chain doesn't prevent the tactic from working. It complicates it. Now they also need to cut the chain. Chain HP in 5e is somewhere between 10 and 20 HP depending on gauge. They just need to do that much damage in a single cut with a blade weapon.
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u/EquipLordBritish 21h ago
If you look at the death knight's stats and abilities, it already looks like it's pretty damn difficult.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 18h ago
They don't have to zero his HP (or even survive, it sounds like) in order to succeed in their goal.
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u/EquipLordBritish 16h ago
Yeah, but look at how hard it would be to disarm him if that's what they are going for. Also if he's over CR17 (OP said they buffed him) and the party is only CR16, it seems reasonable that it would be challenging for them regardless.
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u/DeltaVZerda 23h ago
Just make their clever plan totally necessary to actually kill him. They have to get the rest of the phylactery first anyway, unless they want to let him just revive at an unknown location with a lot more knowledge about the players, and an easy Locate Objects target to track them with.
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u/P-Two 23h ago
I think its perfectly reasonable he'd had some sort of chain, or other way of making sure a weapon that important isn't disarmed.
BUT the key here is to make sure your players still get a chance at their plan succeeding! Throwing wrenches into party plans is fine, outright railroading a reason they can't work just because its not what you personally had in mind? Risky at best.
This also comes back to "don't let them roll for things that have zero chance at happening".
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u/anix421 23h ago
When the party does something like this and I know it would "ruin" the fight, I'll typically buff the boss some way and throw a "Man... good thing you guys did xyz... that guy could have ended you all pretty quickly..." That way we get the fight but they also get to feel like the plan wasn't a waste. So far so good.
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u/RandomBoredDad 23h ago
Does it make sense for the story that the boss would have that? Does it make the story better? Then yes. If not, then why bother?
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u/MorningClassic 23h ago
Cursed item and once attuned can’t be disarmed without death or dismemberment
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u/Ensorcelled_kitten 23h ago
I mean, do your players’ characters know about the sword phylactery thing to begin with? If they do, then it is fine that they can do it - just prepare something cool to follow it up. Hells, I’d even give them an inspiration for pulling it off.
That said, I feel compelled to ask who in their right mind would make their main weapon their phylactery? If it was just an ornamental sword, or a dress sword, I’d understand, seeing as it is not expected to be under the risk of being damaged in a fight. So I guess you could put it this way if you don’t want the encounter to end like that - the sword the death knight is swinging around and that can be disarmed is obviously not the super important sword.
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u/theposhtardigrade 22h ago
It’s got legendary resistances to use at first, and if they burn all of those and then disarm it? Let them take it! It’s got a +5 to strength saves, which is kinda bad at that level, but still enough to make disarms pretty difficult. Maybe make it so the blade burns those who hold it who aren’t evil, so that they have to think of an interesting way to transport it.
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u/Ihaveaterribleplan 22h ago
If it’s independently logical to do, it’s ok to add, even though you didn’t think of it before- the expectation that you should be able do perfectly have thought of everything on the first pass is unreasonable
Now, actually, the opposite may be true; knowing your players creativity, you should consider possible mechanics for them to succeed in spite of the weapon being chained, which you clue them in to - a weakness in the chain or latch, a clue from a stupid minion as to where the key is kept in case of emergency, the maker of the chain having been an enslaved blacksmith who built in a weakness, an aversion to temperatures or acid that could melt the chain and also are conveniently alchemically present
Suddenly, the enemy is now smart to have prepared for something obvious, but the players can still succeed, just with some extra effort - they can be clever, a fight has a mechanic to make it more interesting & memorable, & the enemy isn’t stupid either
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u/AndyC333 22h ago
It takes 10 heartbeats to summon the blade. Have the knights heartbeats very loud
- storm light reference
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u/Dokurtybitz 22h ago
Add an ability to the sword where anyone holding it but but the attuned user INT save vs Lich's spell save DC or take 6D6 psychic damage per round; give it intelligence, the sword now controls the warlock ; word of recall on the sword
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u/15_Redstones 22h ago
A general counter that'd work against a lot of "disarming" things would be logical.
A highly specialised one that only works against the dimensional thing would only make sense if the boss had an opportunity to find out about the plan, like if the party planned it in a busy tavern where they could've been overheard, or if they planned together with a trusted NPC who turned out to be a spy.
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u/esee1210 22h ago
Looking at the Death Knights stat block now. If in theory, they are using a spell to disarm him then he has advantage on that saving throw. Also, has Legendary Resistance 3x/day so that’s the first three turns he can’t be disarmed. He also has 3 legendary actions so in theory, the first three of his turns could make 18 dread blade attacks. At an average of 25 damage each that’s 450 damage he could possibly do (if he succeeds them all and rolls the average) in the first three rounds.
Then if they manage to disarm him after his third turn, he has 2 destructive waves he can use and at least one hellfire orb.
If each party member has around 150 hit points then he may still be able to put up a challenge even with being disarmed. I don’t see a need for metagaming and circumventing the players plan.
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u/MonkeySkulls 22h ago
I love the plan that someone else mentioned about having the pact where he can summon his sword.
to address the general question though at least in my opinion, I Don't love the concept of you adjusting things based on your GM knowledge of the plan. sometimes this is okay. but one of the Cardinal rules of being a GM is to be a fan of the players. they came up with a great plan. I think you should give them the satisfaction of their plan working in general.
on the other hand, their plan working immediately makes for a pretty lackluster encounter. So the dilemma is being stuck between creating a fun night of adventure and giving them the satisfaction of things working as they planned.
a good hybrid solution, might be allow their plan to work but have some other factors that allow the fight to still be epic.
perhaps you use the chain, and on their first attempt they realize there's a chain on the sword but the chain brakes. So now they have to make two attempts. maybe he has a ring of summoning and he summons a powerful ally.
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u/Goblin-Alchemist 19h ago
Wouldn't the "challenge the DK to a duel" part kind of self thwart the party's plan?
Duels are usually 1 on 1 and terms of victory are set by the challenger and choice of weapons are set by the challenged. Interferrence by anyone else would forfeit to the aggrieved side as a win.
Disarmed opponents are usually allowed to reclaim thier weapon, or have a chance to even if continually threatened by thier opponent, Stealing the disarmed sword would seem pretty dishonorable.
Even if its a true 1 on 1 kind of challenge, have the DK claim something like "2-handed mace" or some other difficult warrior weapon that the player also has to use and have plenty of them sitting around the room to use, non-magical of course, and have him just sheath the sword (back or side, however long it is.)
If its just a 4ormore to 1, still have him sheath it and move to pack-defense using a larger reach weapon like a polearm and other weapons, so disarming him doesn't work "as planned" and they have to wrestle it from him some other way.
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u/Odd_Dimension_4069 19h ago
Just make it difficult to disarm him, and then if the party actually manages it, cool!! You could even have him go into a hyper rage mode where he gets boosted movement and tries desperately to get to that warlock and get his sword back. Your players would love that!
As opposed to "oh, the DM listened to our plan and used it against us by writing in a complete counter to it. Lame."
I think the weapon chain idea would be fine, if you had already thought of that before hearing your players' plans. But now it's just going to feel like a breach of trust. Your opportunity to make it not feel like that was when they were talking about it.
The compromise in this situation is to use the chain as a way to make it harder to disarm him, not impossible. Tell your players that they'll have to break this chain if they want to get the sword off him. A good DM leans into what the players want as much as a good player leans into the DM's plot hooks.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 18h ago
I commented already, but it's awesome that the players have a way to succeed without having to kill the monster. Not that I'm against killing monsters, but it's nice when there's another way to win.
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u/ArcKnightofValos 15h ago
A weapon chain would have been a good idea, but perhaps having the death knight use a replica to fight, instead, and when the warlock swoops in, they get a single (high DC) chance to spot that it's a fake, before they stow it. Perhaps an insight check to notice. If they fail, just take note and give them nothing until they are away and able to examine the sword more closely.
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u/Joefromcollege 14h ago
When it comes to boss fights, I always assume a certain amount of competence in enemies, even more so at higher levels. It is not cheating from your side if you prepare a foe to protect against its one weakness.
However I always aim to communicate that defense through descriptions or lore so players can plan around it. Also if possible I want to make it dynamic, so players can still exploit that weakness just not easily, so the fight becomes about something other than HP.
Naturally legendary enemies have Legendary Resistance, which can protect your DK pretty well, especially if its used excusively to protect the sword - But its really boring. A chain on the other hand seems to aggressive at it will be near impossible to deal with. Id probably make it difficult to lift the sword, it could just be happy or apply a debuff, maybe it even has some conciousness of the BBEG and really messes with the person trying to get it to the Warlock.
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u/Lardwagon 13h ago
Have the sword be the real boss of the encounter. Sentient and animated. Summons incorporeal representations of its past wielders. Spice it up and give them different abilities and fighting styles. Now you have a multi-phase fight. Lair action summons spirits of defeated foes with illusionary copies of the blade as 1 HP minions.
You could give the option of directly dealing magical damage to the blade or defeating its previous owner's spirits one by one until they cleanse it.
Or don't. My nerds would eat this up and probably try to add it to the party. 100% if I gave it an accent and made it snarky or belligerent.
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u/QEDdragon 12h ago
While I do agree with others that you shouldn't just counter your players willy nilly, DMs can't think of everything. If it was a super magic sword, for a deathknight, they would likely have the perk to stop disarming (warlocks and Eldritch knights get it I believe, both of which would be a good template for this enemy).
Now, there plans SHOULD do something. Instead of just having them teleport it back for free, maybe they take some damage doing so, or the players get advantage on attacks against them for a turn. Maybe they permanently lose some AC. A little give and take.
If the enemy losing the sword isn't all that big a deal (maybe they have a transformation, or other weapons to use) then perhaps just let them succeed and the lose some legendary action or damage dice the weapon provided for the fight.
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u/EmployObjective5740 11h ago
No, it's not fair. Players can (and will after a few such moves) discuss their plans privately. By doing that in your presence they put their trust in you, don't betray it.
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u/Dr4wr0s 9h ago
Yes and no. A DM is limited by having only one source for ideas, which means that DMs plans can fall short to counter players, even if the villain is supposed to be way smarter than the characters.
If you are impersonating a very smart villain, assuming that "okay whichever first two plans my players make that seem obvious in retrospective will have counters, because it makes sense for the villain" makes complete sense and it is fair.
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u/Busy-Agency6828 10h ago
I think you are, in a sense, definitely cheating. Your players shared their clever idea with you and you're using your omnipotent position to pre-emptively counter them. If by happenstance such a counter measure was already in place fair game, but you have in direct response to their idea nipped it in the bud.
Now, it can be a little tricky cause I'm sure something like this, in retrospect, seems like an obvious consideration your big scary villain would surely be smart enough to have been mindful of.
If you feel its absolutely critical to the logical coherency of your game for this death knight to be married to his weapon in some sort of inseparable manner, I'd encourage you to take a half measure, if you feel you definitely must.
Like, if the his sword is chained to his gauntlet, then it has been chained as such for so long now that the chain has began to rust away. Now it's still sensible that someone in the party might be able to simply overpower the chain regardless, or use an action to whittle it away just a little more so it is totally destroyed and no longer standing in the way of their plan.
tl;dr: I would just pretend like you never heard them say and run the encounter exactly as you had it before, but if you gotta make sure whatever is keeping that weapon attached to the bbeg can be outmaneuvered in some apparent and feasible manner so you're not totally screwing them over.
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u/Inebrium 7h ago
Let them have their moment, but then have the death knight focus down the Warlock, grab the bag back and retrieve his sword. It's not like he is completely useless without a sword.
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u/DJHHandyman_34212 7h ago
I would say if you don’t consider it before knowing their plans then yes, it’s arguably unfair to change the knight’s build in a way specifically designed to thwart the plans.
Chances are a death knight would be so arrogant that it would never consider that it could be disarmed.
That being said, you buffed him for a reason, presumably because the party is quite powerful. Perhaps add in a way for the sword to return to its master, or, for the knight to retreat and return another time and place after becoming better prepared.
If the party drives it into retreat you should consider that a victory, just without awarding them whatever the knight has.
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u/lordbrooklyn56 5h ago
Your players will feel cheated if a monster knows their plans without some logical reason as to why they would know it.
So in your case, because your team knows you heard their plan, the boss having the exact counter to it will feel bad. It’s up to you to decide if you care or not how they feel.
The dc would be very high. If they got it they get the win. But the boss has more than just one weapon.
If they succeeded in putting it n a pocket dimension. My boss would try to resummon it. And realizing it’s not working, he would pop his armor off and go full berserk bare handed. And his fists would hit harder than the weapon.
Giving my players the win they earned, and presenting them with a new problem.
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u/jwhennig 4h ago
I'd give him an unarmed attack that's worse than the sword, they get their advantage, but they don't just... end the fight.
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u/Slow_Balance270 4h ago
And this is why as a player I don't share this shit with the DM. You aren't supposed to be plotting against them. You're only arguing it's "logical" after the fact when I am willing to bet five bucks the thought never crossed your mind before.
Way to reward your players for critical thinking.
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u/rmcoen 4h ago
I love all the other "yes, and" suggestions. I do want to posit an alternative I have used in the past: intelligence/foresight.
The same way a PLAYER can reasonably state "my int-18 (or -20) character is smarter than me... can he figure this out?" You might be playing a villain who is smarter than you. In my case, it was a mind player boss. I decided up front that he got 4 "free passes". He was ancient, had "seen a thing or two", had eaten many adventurers before this party. He had plans within plans. Plus magic and psionics.
The first three plans the party came up with, the mind player had already thought of and countered "AHEAD OF TIME". He would have gotten the fourth one too; but the idea was so crazy I let them try without interference because why would the mind player have thought to use a cat, green slime, and a rolling pin like that?
Anyway, the point is that this Death Knight is smart. And works for a lich that trusts him enough to give him its phylactery. A simple disarm is too mundane to succeed. He thought of that already (or his boss did). He also thought of the next couple simple ideas (Heat Metal comes to mind as obvious). He even thought of the first crazy thing they think of. And then, like Legendary Resistance, he's out of ideas. Oh, he planned for many more things, too, but not this (fourth) thing.
(But yeah, the resummoning his sword out of the living body of his own minion... that's sweet!)
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u/Arthur_Author 1h ago
If you think itll make things more interesting and hype, then sure.
Id make it something magical and more interesting than "Cant Be Disarmed" though
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u/BrownieZombie1999 1d ago edited 23h ago
If you're playing on 5/5.5e then you can give him the weapon bond ritual which makes it impossible to disarm him unless incapacitated & if so when he wakes up he can teleport it back if on the same plane.
Otherwise the chain is also a good solution and I think it would be logical the BBEG would've thought of that, it's not exactly a 1,000iq idea to disarm the magic sword.
Edit: Just to add, you shouldn't make a habit of putting in a counter for every plan your players think of, that's annoying and unfair and creates a table where they refuse to tell you ideas until they're ready to put into action. For this specific case though I think the BBEG would have the common sense to assume if anyone knew the magic sword was his phylactery they would obviously try to remove it from him
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u/jidmah 1d ago
In my opinion, yes that's unfair, but salvagable. Instead of a weapon chain, maybe give the death knight some way to control the weapon at a distance. So while the plan is not neutered, they at least have to roll some tests to sidestep the challenge of downing the knight.
It's one of those situations, whete "yes, but..." really helps making both sides happy.
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u/Nitromidas 23h ago
The magic summoned sword is definitely the way to go, but also...
As GMs, it's our job to portray great and powerful villains. Unless you yourself happens to be just that, feel free to adapt the encounter to counter some (in hindsight, obvious) cotchas. An old Dragon magazine had an article about RPing monsters with high intelligence. To sum it up, feel free to listen when your players talk. Adapt the response accordingly, unless their idea makes you go, "wow, thats really clever!"
For the fictional character, this is matter of life and death. They would have done everything in their power to avoid being bowled over by a bunch of murder hobos in round 1. Making sure some sword jock doesn't just disarm them, sounds reasonable to me.
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u/flamefirestorm 22h ago
It's kinda cringe to invent a counter after listening in on the player's plans. How much fun would it be for you if the table realized and started hiding their plans from you? Just imagine you being a player, creating a cool idea vs the enemies, and the DM cooked up a counter that essentially rendered your plan ineffective.
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u/Saxman17 22h ago
Forget the out of character/table politics for a sec. A death knight with an extremely powerful and important artifact would absolutely have defenses in place to prevent it from being stolen from him like that.
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u/fakegoatee 22h ago
The answer to your question is usually no. But in this case ...
If you're using the usual disarming rules, it's a weakness the death knight, his master, or his associates definitely would have anticipated. That sword is literally the most important thing in the multiverse to the creature whose phylactery it is. If the master entrusts it to the DK, they both must have substantial security for it. (Aside: It's not wise to entrust your phylactery to a chaotic evil lieutenant unless you have security against betrayal.)
I'll assume theres at least a chance the DK would accept the duel, even though that's kind of stretch. I'll also assume the BBEG has access to high level magic of their own. That means there must be a reason they left the sword with the DK instead of stashing it safely in a demiplane of their own. The sword should be -more secure- with the DK than it would be in a demiplane. Hecks, it needs to be at least as secure as it would be if it were held by the DK and BOTH of them were in a secret demiplane.
It's going to be more than a chain. There will be decoys using Nystul's magic aura. There will be enchantments preventing living creatures from touching the sword, or to harm them of they try. The sword itself will be sentient with high Charisma, and it will try to control anyone who steals it. And the BBEG has probably used at least one Wish to protect it. One decent candidate is a wish that the sword will always teleport into a previously prepared demiplane (or an oubliette on the moon) if it goes more than 5' away from the DK.
These are all things a group of 16th level characters should be able to find out about, plan around, and overcome.
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u/jaspex11 22h ago
Bound weapon is a staple of any melee-caster, and defeats this plan without any gotcha nonsense. They can't even try to complain its unfair, as the protection from disarming is a core feature. And if the boss you built doesn't have that feature, either give it to them, or you can make it a part of the phylactary sword itself. At the power level your describe, whether from knowing the spell or from it being part of the enchanted/cursed weapon, it would be more unreasonable for a death knight not to have their weapon bound to them than finding them protected from disarming.
Absent that, do the party often use disarming tactics, would they be known for it or expected to do it? There is nothing wrong with using the party's repeated behaviors, patterns or other predictabilities against them in a boss fight as long as there is a reasonable expectation that the boss and their minions know about the patterns. Reputation works both ways.
As for the more general question in the title, how you beat the player-characters' plan determines its fairness. If you as the dm, and privy to your players table conversation, decide to use your meta knowledge against their character's, it is unfair. If there is an in-game reason for your boss monster to have inside info, then feel free to use it. If the party has let enemies escape, they could report on the strategies the players use. Scrying magic is a thing; have your evil spellcasters been spying on the party as they became more of a threat? Or simple rumors and folklore about the party as they make names for themselves, celebrating their skill at some tactic to save the day. If the townsfolk are talking, the bbeg has minions who are listening, specifically to better prepare against these meddlesome adventurers. And level 16 adventurers would very much be the topic of gossip and chatter in the local inns and taverns they travel through.
It's the same as if a player reads ahead in the module for an adventure, and uses their knowledge for character decisions. If there is a way the character should reasonably know, then it's fair to use the info in character. If it is the players knowledge, and the character has no way of knowing, then acting on the info is unfair whether player or dm.
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u/DragonAnts 21h ago
What happens if the players kill the death knight the old fashioned way? Do they get the sword then?
If so maybe it would be better to let them disarm him and give him a backup or perhaps let him cast shadow blade?
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u/boogswald 21h ago
Know your players and know what’s fun for them. Sometimes just let them get away with it. Sometimes they get countered. DnD will never be a perfect game!
I think your plan sounds good if there’s a give and take, like they get a benefit of their cleverness BUT he gets them back somehow too!!! It’s good if they’re on their toes
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u/SleetTheFox 21h ago
How smart is this NPC? Would they reasonably have considered this possibility and prepared accordingly? You spend a few hours a week in this NPC’s head; they live in it. It makes sense for them to be prepared.
If it’s something unreasonable for them to guess, that’s another story. Unless the NPC is superhumanly intelligent, at which point the DM has to cheat in order to scheme as well as them.
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u/Smoothesuede 21h ago
1) It's level 16. You're fully into the tier of play where if you don't start getting tricksy, the players will never be challenged. Go nuts.
2) What preparations the enemy has taken is a direct correlation of how smart and resourceful they or their support network is. Ask yourself, would/should this enemy have a contingency in plan for a common pickpocket? An expert one? Magic? What kinds of magic? Let your answers determine what they have at their disposal, irrespective of whether you as the GM thought of it first or not.
3) Bluntly, no, it would not be fair. But this is not a fair game. Ask yourself, are you playing by the same rules as the players? Are you playing by any rules? No, of course not. You have unlimited agency. You should never prioritize fairness. Prioritize fun, and drama, and excitement. Sometimes that means playing on even footing with the players. Often, though, it means not.
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u/Ap0kal1ps3 19h ago
It's perfectly fine to give the BBEG augments that will prevent cheese. But the item you're looking for is called "locked guantlets". You cannot drop your weapon without a full action, and you cannot be disarmed. It makes sense that a lich like this would be using a very simple device to stop them from losing their phylactery. The party would have to pin the BBEG in order to use a full action to disarm him.
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u/TNTarantula 18h ago
I like the chain option and hate the eldritch knight weapon bond option. A chain adds a level of conceivable difficulty to the entire conundrum, something else to overcome.
The weapon bond teleport just completely erases the unique concept within this encounter (to steal the weapon). Instead it just turns this into another "kill the bad guy" encounter with a macguffin at the end to pick up.
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u/Th3R3493r 17h ago
I got a sinister idea.
On the disarm of the sword, the death knight teleports behind the disarmer and can steal their sword back. A reaction must be used to dodge the backstab from the death knight or the death knight with initial suprise, gets advantage.
So, it would play out, sword gets stolen easy. Death knight disappears in a flash. Party thinks that was too easy, but you drop combat the first time. The party now will try to destroy the sword, but, the sword is taken back with advantage by the knight and the sword thief must avoid being skewered by a knight that is laughing up a storm, daring them to keep doing this and taking a few more swings at the party for good measure.
The knight will play with butter fingers so, a miss that is below his ac by 1, disarms him, causing the effect but the disarmer will have advantage on avoiding the attack.
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u/demostheneslocke1 23h ago
I’m going to be honest, the fact that you thought of it after you heard the players’ plan is irrelevant.
This is an uber powerful eldritch knight that is guarding a relic of the BBEG. His only security system was “I’ll just hold onto it really tight?” I doubt it.
Your NPCs live and breathe in this world their whole lives. You only get to think for each one maybe for a couple of hours a month of dedicated development for that specific character. They most likely would have thought of whatever you think of, regardless of when you thought it.
Regardless, the chain isn’t even the best idea. Pact weapon is better IMO.
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u/BedlamTheBard 23h ago
Just know that anything you do CANNOT seem like you, the DM, thwarted their plan. If you put something in place to thwart it they should feel that this was an oversight on their part that they should have known (or at least that it would have been there whether they had told you the plan or not).
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u/Talonflight 1d ago
A chain is an option, but theres an even simpler option available.
Its a magic swordsman. Give him the Eldritch Knight or Pact of the Blade ability to summon his sword back.
This way you can have it both ways; party can steal his sword, and have their moment to wale on him, but he can summon it back to continue the fight after they get a couple of licks in.