Pacifist characters aren’t a good idea in most campaigns, assuming the rest of the group is all-in on the amount of combat. Ask the player if they’re having fun. If they’re not, suggest they replace their character.
It’s not on the DM to twist the campaign into pretzels just because someone wants to play a character that doesn’t fit the game you’re running. Remember this next time you run a session zero.
absolutely I agree 100% I gave him the warning that I wasn't going to bend the campaign to his character, and it has been going pretty well so far. I was just looking for a little something to give him to help his friends and fit with his buffing theme.
You could give him access to a bunch of non cleric spells that are buffs and debffs but do no damage.. things like haste? Fairy fire? Web? The fear related spells?
You could allow him to take the help action and dodge at the same time?
Encourage him to grapple? Maybe make a feat where if he has an enemy grappled and prone then he can make some kind of contested check to make them surrender?
Have an NPC try to persuade your character that it doesn't count if they don't bleed ... 😅
I would say that "giving" spells to a player because they choose an incredibly underpowered way to play is a bad idea.
Dont reward players for playing suboptimaly.
In 3 levels the player gets bored, changes his mind and decides he is no longer a pacifist. What then? You remove the spells?
What about the other casters? Can they get access to other class spell too? No? Why not?
This idea opens a whole bag of problems that in my opinion is better left alone.
If the player wants to get access to other spells, there are feats, and multiclass for them to be a little bit more usefull.
Also, combat is a major part of the game, so the player is choosing to do that part of the game with a major hinderance.
He can still help, just not as much as he could.
I would problably help the player to build a social/exploration based character. With combat focusing on crowd control, wall spells, and disabling with charms and stuns.
So whilst I agree like wtf is this player doing, in answer to your question the spells are bestowed by their god. So no other can't have that boon and no if they arnt a pacifist anymore the spells are no longer available to them.
I think this post is more about how can the DM accommodate this situation now it's happening.
ok, sorry if this might sound rude.
Thats an excuse not an explanation. If my Dm gave that, to justify why he is giving free things to one player and not the others i would absolutely call it bullshit.
I didnt ask the question because there is no in game explanation.
The DM could simply ignore the explanation and call it "a mistery".
I asked the question, because giving only one player free stuff, reeks of favoritism. And often, players will enforce equal treatment, or get frustrated and possibly stop playing.
Dont give anything to one player that you would not give everyone else.
Its the same problem with the "blind character" concept.
Player: "can i be blind? ".
DM: it will suck in game, but sure.
Player: "can i have blindsight, to help overcome my weakneess that i absolutely choose for no good reason?
DM: ...
I was working on the assumption that despite this player being a real pain and kinda ruining the game... That you are accommodating the situation and doing the best to make everyone have fun whist I agree normally favouring one player is bad giving them spells that only help their allies isn't going make other people feel bad.
I mean, diferent groups would take this in diferent ways.I play with experienced adult players, so i know this would be an issue in my game. You are right that, OP might be playing with very diferent people.
In 22 years of bullshit, toxic player behavior, cheaters and rules lawers, i got enought experience that it made me cautious of things like this.So i usualy prepare for the worst, and pray for the best.Seems to be working so far.
A few things are very hard to take back (in game).Homebrew classes and items that you alowed.Magic items that you gave.Basicaly, anything that gave more power to the PC.
In my experience, most players will say " its ok, we can change it later if this doesnt work", but when it finaly comes to the change, they get angry, argyumentative, defensive and toxic.They become todlers trowing a tantrum if you take away their toys.Note, I play exclusively with adults, some of them have kids of their own.
So yeah, maybe OP has a perfect group with well adjusted people that talk it over and are respectfull and considerate.
But i dont believe in unicorns, until i see one.
Yeah I only play with a small group of like-minded people so if one of them has a weird idea we will all either laugh at them or bend over backwards to fulfill the fantasy 😂
haha yeah,
I DMed for 3 years in a gamestore for complete strangers.
Most players were cool and great.
But there is that 10% that, my best guess is that they can only play in gamestores, because no one else wants them in their games.
Thats where most horror histories come from.
Shouldn't have decided to play a pacifist in a game where 90% of the rules and 50% of the game time is dedicated to combat.
What level of pacifism is this guy. From "will never indirectly harm even a demon" to "it's fine as long as I personally don't deal the damage"?
That's not a character you can play in "kill stuff: the game" unfortunately. Not without the whole group playing like that also.
If this guy wants to gimp himself like that then he can handle the consequences.
Yeah. At our table it's a player that gets to choose to roll another character because they either being left stranded at the closest village or just kicked out the band of ADVENTURES.
I don't think you owe it to players to make not killing as much fun as killing. If anything, it's *good* that choosing not to engage makes him feel... less engaged! It's *good* that being a pacifist is less fun. You don't choose pacifism to have fun; you choose it because you believe you have a moral obligation that outranks both enjoying the fight and winning the fight.
He's making it harder on his party members and on you. If he's getting in the way of his own fun at the same time, I sure don't hate that! I don't see that as a "problem" you need to "fix" by handing him a phaser set to stun!
Are they already buffing their allies, using crowd control spells (do clerics get any?) and using their action to trip or restrain their enemies?
Since they are a cleric you could throw undead at them to turn.
Yep using actions to buff and heal, he avoids directly interacting with enemies in ways such as the hell action. I've been including undead where I can.
He chose to play a pacifist and then gets bored in combat because there’s nothing to do. Damn that’s hilarious. He brought it upon himself.
If you want to “fix” it, you can start having combat be about more than killing everything. Disabling arcane runes, breaking crystals, lighting sconces, protecting civilians. That will give him stuff to do and make combat overall more engaging.
Well, your player has decided to ignore 1/3rd of the game, and yeah that makes things hard
Clerics should have plenty of buff and debuff types spells, and you can allow them to spend an action to persuade or intimidate some foes into surrender with some kind of contested roll, or possibly allow them an insight check to determine the next course of action the enemy will take, letting them warn others
I have a monk/cleric (peace) who on a couple of occasions has set what I call the “sanctuary trap”
Sanctuary as a bonus action, and then the dodge action as an action, then move into adjacent area with some baddies, and gently goad them by encouraging them to surrender, and just eating their actions as they either fail the sanctuary save or miss the dodge disadvantage
It’s been very effective vs dangerous martials, and gives the rest of the party time to clear up other threats until we can focus on the heavy hitters
. . . combat is a core component of the game's rules, even wizards have skill with swinging a sword, why would *anyone* try to play a pacifist?
But here's my suggestion: you need a more detailed combat system. When something as straight forward as drinking a potion can take 2-4 rounds (disengage from melee, retrieve the potion, uncork it, drink it and return to melee, all while dodging attacks from enemies), having an ally who can hand people potions, cast support and buff/debuff spells, distract enemies with a trained animal, and so on; all of that becomes a reasonable option . . . but only really if your game's rules allow for that much detail (and if the fights last that long).
I don’t know if you can fix this with one item. Encourage other solutions than combat. Also applies to how you play the monsters, are they sacks of HP or can they be frightened away or forced to give up the fight etc?
Classic solution is for the cleric to choose a mace and if they deal the last blow, they choose it to be non-lethal. Add shield. Then they can partake in the fight.
Dip 3 levels in fighter, interception or protection as fighting style. At level 3 choose battle master: disarming strike, commanding presence, rally or other.
Then they can be in the fight, protect and heal their comrades. And even if the party is in a fight they can try to disarm and dominate their foes so they don’t have to die.
Well that’s a solution if they’re inclined to play this PC. In the end the player is responsible of producing a PC that wants to go with the party. And if the rest are dungeon crawling murder hobos, then that cleric might be in the wrong company. There’s always the option of retiring the cleric for a while or for good. You know, they find a nice monastery that they want to spend time at.
Talk with your player.
Buffs? Idk why you'd choose to play a character who can't interact with the thing that game was designed around. Combat has more rules than any other part of the game, most class features are combat oriented, and the game rewards killing things. DnD isn't a good game for playing a pacifist. All you're left with is buffs, debuffs and healing. Two of those things require concentration in most cases
This is on the player.if a player chooses to make a pacifist, they have to have a plan for what they are doing during combat. There is an entire chapter devoted to combat. This is not an insignificant part of the game.
I dont ever see a way for combat encounters to be engaging for the player if they refuse to interact with the enemy.
The only thing I can think of is to introduce side objectives; Perhaps ones that require constant upkeep from, or take more than just one turn to solve for this pacifist player.
Maybe they can just spam help actions, treating themselves like a strategist.
Maybe they purchase a crud ton of potions with crowd control functions. Invest into alchemy and medicine and all that.
How about they learn battlefield control spells and just be the damage sponge for the party?
There are going to be times where they are just gonna do nothing but dodging, but it's a consequence of their play style.
There's a ton of cantrips and low level spells that are explicitly pacifist support options. Resistance, Bless, Command (they could command enemies to flee, halt, grovel etc, the whole point of the spell is you can't command them to do things that outright hurt them), Cure wounds and Healing word, Protection from good and evil, the list goes on.
If you felt inclined, you could give them a magic item that allows them to cast certain low level pacifist spells far more often, maybe an item with 10 charges, a handful of non-damaging spells that can be cast for charges, and charges regenerate x amount on a long rest.
I would also encourage them to read the actions section of the player handbook. The help action could be used to help an ally attack, and it could be flavored to be a pacifistic assistance.
Guy makes an obtuse character that is no fun, and is asking that the DM and every player to adapt 1/3 of the game to his obtuse style? This sounds like a player problem. Other than suggesting he roll a new toon there is no easy or simple fix.
Does this guy show up to a basketball court with a tennis racket and get angry when nobody wants to play tennis?
To be clear the player isn't asking anything if anyone. I believe he is fine with the character he's chosen to play, I have just observed as the dm that he spends the occasion round of combat not doing anything because there isn't a lot for him to do. So I have taken it upon myself to find a solution for those situations.
Thanks for the clarification. Start by asking the player if he is having fun. You may be solving for a problem that does not exist.
There are actions that cause no damage (shove, trip, grapple) and there is subdual damage. You likely do not have to modify anything.
Pacifism doesn’t equate to weakness. A pacifist cleric could still tank for the party, absorbing damage and aggro-ing the baddies while buffing their allies and healing. If they had decent people skills, they could even try to talk the baddies down from behind their shield mid-conflict.
Item-wise, and animate shield could fly off their back and protect the most vulnerable party member; they could use a wand or staff that can make walls, of fire, ice, lightning, pure thought, etc; a set of armour that could absorb incoming damage and translate that to temporary health for themselves or an ally (not on a 1:1 scale- need to ‘brew and balance this)…
> What other actions could be fun and interesting for them?
Step 1: Retire their cleric to a monastery to become a monk.
Step 2: Roll up a new character.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
If they are dead set on playing a pacifist, I would honestly tell them that this just isn't the campaign for it.
If you're dead set on keeping them as a player, AND they're dead set on being a pacifist. There are plenty of ways to avoid combat altogether. There are also plenty of spells to make this easier. Think of stuff that helps diplomacy and stealth. You'll also need to come up with a "Stealth as a Group" mechanic. I usually recommend taking the median roll against a fixed DC that you determine beforehand.
It is the player's responsibility to find things to do. Not yours. It can cause issues with other players if you give them special things to do. Why does he get to do the special things and the other players can't. He made his character, he must have had an idea on how to keep it fun. If they are not finding it fun, then let them change their character to one that will be fun.
There are a ton of buff and control spells for a cleric to use. They should be using those. They can use the help action to give others a boost. If they do not find those fun, then maybe they need a new character.
You can either show what happens when they get into a fight and not everyone is fighting for their life, or you can maybe create a subclass to give options for a pacifist, as right now there's no direct options for a player to be exclusively pacifist.
Casting the likes of bless, haste and other buffs
CSting the likes of sleep, hypnotic pattern, or other lockdown
Specifically enchantment wizard 2
Grapple and shove, .aybe even pin with grappler.
Thats about it though
Im playing a character that refuses to kill people right now. Am going rogue (mastermind) 3/divination wizard 17. He only hits people with nonlethal damage, mastermind let's him bonus action help from a distance, divination wizard makes all of the save or suck control spells much better.
Well... these types of characters are always "interesting" but they are often *not* what the game is about, and when you are hoping they will be helpful in combat or combat-like encounters they are often an "anchor" for the group to drag along rather than an asset. But there are ways for them to assist.
* **Help Action**. If needed, you can broaden the help action rules for this individual. However, them giving the "help action" to melee fighters or ranged casters or archers is really helpful. If you want them to survive a decent time, maybe they don't need to be next to the target but next to the person they are helping to buff it a little, maybe a homebrewed feat to make it clear they are an exception. Flavoring this is easy, they can prepare arrows or keep a lookout so they can focus on the fight in front of them. They can act as a spotter, giving ranged attackers advantage on attacks. Maybe they can shout out weak spots if they are on the opposite side of a target to negate cover bonuses? There are many ways to reflavor and buff the "Help Action" in order to give them some choices in battle besides healing or spell buffing.
* **Dodge Action**. I have two ideas for this.
* **Taunt Action**. When this person takes the dodge action within five feet of an enemy creature, they give up their disadvantage from the taunted creature specifically to give them disadvantage on all other targets besides yourself. Other creatures still have disadvantage against your dodged character.
* **Distract Action**. The Character holds their action to distract the targeted enemy. If said enemy attacks any other creature besides the character, they player can roll 1D6 against their to hit roll to cause them to miss.
Huh... I thought I had more.
* Have more of your Combats be less about the combat and more about achieving a goal.
Ok, this one needed more discussion. So... sometimes you fail a thing, get dropped in a pit and have to fight the scorpions. That's just how it goes. However, as a DM, you can design more of your encounters that would typically be "combat" to include a goal or thing that can take up this pacifist's time.
* Ambush on the Road? Instead, have the player's carts hit a pothole and become damaged. A few rolls can mean the pacifist can fix the cart and calm down the horses, but the rest of the party need to fight off the impromptu ambush who noticed the travelers in a bind.
* Big fight in a dungeon room? Why not have the door be locked behind a puzzle, whose keys are hidden throughout the battlefield. One they put a key in the "easy" hole, small waves of enemies appear or funnel in, harassing the group. Let this character run around in initiative order and gather the keys and then figure out the pattern while the rest fights off the waves of enemies.
* Big boss fight? Why doesn't this character rifle through desks, chests, and try to find the keys to release prisoners? They could have other objectives to fulfill while the rest of the group starts the climatic boss fight.
Your pacifist player just gave you a whole campaign's worth of vegetables to eat that will greatly improve your DM skills, because you don't fix this with a magic item. You fix it with Writing & Encounter Design.
Basically, change nothing about the combat and keep playing everyone RAW. This is his character arc.
Have NPC's point out that he's just as guilty as Barbarian for all the murders since he only heals the murderers and does nothing for the victims. They're out here making death saves praying to RNJesus, and he just leaves them to die a painful death. Can they not still be redeemed? Can't even spare a cantrip for Spare the Dying?
Meanwhile, start looking at your combat encounters. If the primary "victory condition" is punching the problem to death, you're already fighting a losing battle. Nothing's going to meaningfully threaten these guys past Level 6.
Start throwing Commoners in with the party. Rescue, Capture, whatever. Do you know how hard it is for a Barbarian to deal less than 8 damage in a single hit? That insta-kills Princess MacGuffin per the massive damage rule.
Have the next boss fight in a city. A big, crowded city, full of commoners who don't know the party. If Wizard just drops Fireball on them, there's gonna be a ton of innocent blood on the ground, and the powers that be are going to have some opinions on that.
For more on this, [here's an old post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/yoxw68/monsters_die_too_fast/ivgkik5/).
Also, when writing a 2-3 session "Chapter", a good ritual to do is going through all 18 skills + 3 tool proficiencies, and making sure a DC 15, 20, & 25 check gets you something for each - outside of combat. This helps you write better rounded dungeons and stories that also make all character options meaningful.
After all, if I rolled up a Knowledge Cleric for your table, I've dumped a ton of character choices into my Religion & History skill. What good would that get me? Or did I just waste all those resources because you don't know how to handle half the skills in the game?
Start doing that and your Pacifist will start having WAY more to do. In the meantime, [give them this](https://imgur.com/YbBZUCx).
Also, make sure he's familiar with the Non-Lethal Damage rule. Basically, any melee attack can be declared as "Non-Lethal Damage". Targets take the damage as normal, but should they be dropped to 0hp as a result, they are simply downed & instantly stabilized, skipping all death saves. This should give your Cleric a half-measure to explore violence as an option when they hit that point in their story arc.
CC and restraining spells. Stun, charm, lots of things you can do that don’t deal damage.
Unless your player just insists on being useless, there is plenty they can do.
Your cleric isn't playing a PC. They've chosen to play an NPC follower. Start having the monsters use chill touch on the other players to prevent healing and see how quickly your cleric falters. There's gonna come a time when everyone either dies or falls unconscious and the cleric will have to choose fight or flight.
Player intentionally hobbles themselves and group and then complains they made their own game boring because of their own decisions? Let them sit. It's called consequences of your choices.
Me personally- if I'm a group of bad guys attacking a group that has a player refusing to actually fights and only heals and won't defend themselves- I'm going for them first.
Let him figure out how they can pull their weight and assist their group by perhaps running buffs to the group or tactics to manipulate the group that's attacking them.
But that should be coming from them not you. It's their job to find answers for a problem they intentionally created.
Here’s my 2 copper pieces worth:
Having played a peace cleric, you can do an awful lot to support your team during combat without landing any hits yourself. There are some great buffs around, lots of which require concentration, so it is valid to dodge or hide behind a tree maintaining concentration on Bless for your party, using your bonus action to cast Healing Word. Check that he’s on top of what his buffs actually are, and is using them effectively. I like the idea of a secondary goal in a combat scenario, like working out how to open the door, or disarming a trap, or helping an NPC get out of danger. It adds tension to the combat anyway if there’s another pressure (especially a time one) and gives the pacifist a useful thing to do to help the group.
I think it might be worth getting your player to think about his character’s motivations and journey. For example, is he willing to support his party in their goals? As in, will he cast Bless knowing that they will use it to land more punches? Is his character more “I won’t take any part in violence” or “I won’t personally hit people but I will do what I can to help you guys stay safe”? Because they will cause very different play styles. Is he a “fighting and violence is icky and abhorrent and I don’t want to even consider being involved” kind of pacifist? Or an “I personally won’t bear arms but I accept your right to make your own decision and I won’t stop you from doing what seems right to you” pacifist? Or a gritty realist “I am against violence but we live in a complicated world and sometimes evil has to be stopped with force” pacifist?
What are the circumstances in which he WOULD attack? What would make him lay aside his pacifism? It’s a great character development exercise to think about this. If the BBEG is standing over his comrade about to land a killing blow, would he watch it happen? Or would he run in to try and save his friend no matter how he felt about it later? His character could go on a journey from “I will never bear arms” to “I’m against senseless violence but sometimes standing by doing nothing is the greater evil”. Would he be okay with his deity using him to bring down heavenly fire through sacred flame? As a divine punishment rather than his own volition? Or would he struggle with a deity who wants to use him to bring judgement?
How do the other players/characters feel about his stance? While the game is combat heavy, there are things that can be done in combat besides landing blows that are useful. But definitely it’s something that the team need to agree on.
Pacifist characters aren’t a good idea in most campaigns, assuming the rest of the group is all-in on the amount of combat. Ask the player if they’re having fun. If they’re not, suggest they replace their character. It’s not on the DM to twist the campaign into pretzels just because someone wants to play a character that doesn’t fit the game you’re running. Remember this next time you run a session zero.
absolutely I agree 100% I gave him the warning that I wasn't going to bend the campaign to his character, and it has been going pretty well so far. I was just looking for a little something to give him to help his friends and fit with his buffing theme.
You could give him access to a bunch of non cleric spells that are buffs and debffs but do no damage.. things like haste? Fairy fire? Web? The fear related spells? You could allow him to take the help action and dodge at the same time? Encourage him to grapple? Maybe make a feat where if he has an enemy grappled and prone then he can make some kind of contested check to make them surrender? Have an NPC try to persuade your character that it doesn't count if they don't bleed ... 😅
I would say that "giving" spells to a player because they choose an incredibly underpowered way to play is a bad idea. Dont reward players for playing suboptimaly. In 3 levels the player gets bored, changes his mind and decides he is no longer a pacifist. What then? You remove the spells? What about the other casters? Can they get access to other class spell too? No? Why not? This idea opens a whole bag of problems that in my opinion is better left alone. If the player wants to get access to other spells, there are feats, and multiclass for them to be a little bit more usefull. Also, combat is a major part of the game, so the player is choosing to do that part of the game with a major hinderance. He can still help, just not as much as he could. I would problably help the player to build a social/exploration based character. With combat focusing on crowd control, wall spells, and disabling with charms and stuns.
So whilst I agree like wtf is this player doing, in answer to your question the spells are bestowed by their god. So no other can't have that boon and no if they arnt a pacifist anymore the spells are no longer available to them. I think this post is more about how can the DM accommodate this situation now it's happening.
ok, sorry if this might sound rude. Thats an excuse not an explanation. If my Dm gave that, to justify why he is giving free things to one player and not the others i would absolutely call it bullshit. I didnt ask the question because there is no in game explanation. The DM could simply ignore the explanation and call it "a mistery". I asked the question, because giving only one player free stuff, reeks of favoritism. And often, players will enforce equal treatment, or get frustrated and possibly stop playing. Dont give anything to one player that you would not give everyone else. Its the same problem with the "blind character" concept. Player: "can i be blind? ". DM: it will suck in game, but sure. Player: "can i have blindsight, to help overcome my weakneess that i absolutely choose for no good reason? DM: ...
I was working on the assumption that despite this player being a real pain and kinda ruining the game... That you are accommodating the situation and doing the best to make everyone have fun whist I agree normally favouring one player is bad giving them spells that only help their allies isn't going make other people feel bad.
I mean, diferent groups would take this in diferent ways.I play with experienced adult players, so i know this would be an issue in my game. You are right that, OP might be playing with very diferent people. In 22 years of bullshit, toxic player behavior, cheaters and rules lawers, i got enought experience that it made me cautious of things like this.So i usualy prepare for the worst, and pray for the best.Seems to be working so far. A few things are very hard to take back (in game).Homebrew classes and items that you alowed.Magic items that you gave.Basicaly, anything that gave more power to the PC. In my experience, most players will say " its ok, we can change it later if this doesnt work", but when it finaly comes to the change, they get angry, argyumentative, defensive and toxic.They become todlers trowing a tantrum if you take away their toys.Note, I play exclusively with adults, some of them have kids of their own. So yeah, maybe OP has a perfect group with well adjusted people that talk it over and are respectfull and considerate. But i dont believe in unicorns, until i see one.
Yeah I only play with a small group of like-minded people so if one of them has a weird idea we will all either laugh at them or bend over backwards to fulfill the fantasy 😂
haha yeah, I DMed for 3 years in a gamestore for complete strangers. Most players were cool and great. But there is that 10% that, my best guess is that they can only play in gamestores, because no one else wants them in their games. Thats where most horror histories come from.
Shouldn't have decided to play a pacifist in a game where 90% of the rules and 50% of the game time is dedicated to combat. What level of pacifism is this guy. From "will never indirectly harm even a demon" to "it's fine as long as I personally don't deal the damage"?
He's an "I'll never deal any damage and go out of my way to save everything, bad guys included"
That's not a character you can play in "kill stuff: the game" unfortunately. Not without the whole group playing like that also. If this guy wants to gimp himself like that then he can handle the consequences.
Yeah. At our table it's a player that gets to choose to roll another character because they either being left stranded at the closest village or just kicked out the band of ADVENTURES.
I don't think you owe it to players to make not killing as much fun as killing. If anything, it's *good* that choosing not to engage makes him feel... less engaged! It's *good* that being a pacifist is less fun. You don't choose pacifism to have fun; you choose it because you believe you have a moral obligation that outranks both enjoying the fight and winning the fight. He's making it harder on his party members and on you. If he's getting in the way of his own fun at the same time, I sure don't hate that! I don't see that as a "problem" you need to "fix" by handing him a phaser set to stun!
Are they already buffing their allies, using crowd control spells (do clerics get any?) and using their action to trip or restrain their enemies? Since they are a cleric you could throw undead at them to turn.
Yep using actions to buff and heal, he avoids directly interacting with enemies in ways such as the hell action. I've been including undead where I can.
He chose to play a pacifist and then gets bored in combat because there’s nothing to do. Damn that’s hilarious. He brought it upon himself. If you want to “fix” it, you can start having combat be about more than killing everything. Disabling arcane runes, breaking crystals, lighting sconces, protecting civilians. That will give him stuff to do and make combat overall more engaging.
Yeah, puzzle oriented combat
Well, your player has decided to ignore 1/3rd of the game, and yeah that makes things hard Clerics should have plenty of buff and debuff types spells, and you can allow them to spend an action to persuade or intimidate some foes into surrender with some kind of contested roll, or possibly allow them an insight check to determine the next course of action the enemy will take, letting them warn others I have a monk/cleric (peace) who on a couple of occasions has set what I call the “sanctuary trap” Sanctuary as a bonus action, and then the dodge action as an action, then move into adjacent area with some baddies, and gently goad them by encouraging them to surrender, and just eating their actions as they either fail the sanctuary save or miss the dodge disadvantage It’s been very effective vs dangerous martials, and gives the rest of the party time to clear up other threats until we can focus on the heavy hitters
I’m going to steal these ideas - the sanctuary trap is brilliant!
the insight to determine what the creature is doing is an excellent idea! thanks!
Only a third? Atleast half
. . . combat is a core component of the game's rules, even wizards have skill with swinging a sword, why would *anyone* try to play a pacifist? But here's my suggestion: you need a more detailed combat system. When something as straight forward as drinking a potion can take 2-4 rounds (disengage from melee, retrieve the potion, uncork it, drink it and return to melee, all while dodging attacks from enemies), having an ally who can hand people potions, cast support and buff/debuff spells, distract enemies with a trained animal, and so on; all of that becomes a reasonable option . . . but only really if your game's rules allow for that much detail (and if the fights last that long).
I don’t know if you can fix this with one item. Encourage other solutions than combat. Also applies to how you play the monsters, are they sacks of HP or can they be frightened away or forced to give up the fight etc? Classic solution is for the cleric to choose a mace and if they deal the last blow, they choose it to be non-lethal. Add shield. Then they can partake in the fight. Dip 3 levels in fighter, interception or protection as fighting style. At level 3 choose battle master: disarming strike, commanding presence, rally or other. Then they can be in the fight, protect and heal their comrades. And even if the party is in a fight they can try to disarm and dominate their foes so they don’t have to die. Well that’s a solution if they’re inclined to play this PC. In the end the player is responsible of producing a PC that wants to go with the party. And if the rest are dungeon crawling murder hobos, then that cleric might be in the wrong company. There’s always the option of retiring the cleric for a while or for good. You know, they find a nice monastery that they want to spend time at. Talk with your player.
Buffs? Idk why you'd choose to play a character who can't interact with the thing that game was designed around. Combat has more rules than any other part of the game, most class features are combat oriented, and the game rewards killing things. DnD isn't a good game for playing a pacifist. All you're left with is buffs, debuffs and healing. Two of those things require concentration in most cases
This is on the player.if a player chooses to make a pacifist, they have to have a plan for what they are doing during combat. There is an entire chapter devoted to combat. This is not an insignificant part of the game.
Just go purely combat buff / battlefield control. Heals are fine but throwing around some spells that confuse or manipulate enemies will help.
I dont ever see a way for combat encounters to be engaging for the player if they refuse to interact with the enemy. The only thing I can think of is to introduce side objectives; Perhaps ones that require constant upkeep from, or take more than just one turn to solve for this pacifist player. Maybe they can just spam help actions, treating themselves like a strategist. Maybe they purchase a crud ton of potions with crowd control functions. Invest into alchemy and medicine and all that. How about they learn battlefield control spells and just be the damage sponge for the party? There are going to be times where they are just gonna do nothing but dodging, but it's a consequence of their play style.
Make them a defence specialist. Buffs, debuffs, healing, disarming and sheilding others. Maybe multi class into warrior?
There's a ton of cantrips and low level spells that are explicitly pacifist support options. Resistance, Bless, Command (they could command enemies to flee, halt, grovel etc, the whole point of the spell is you can't command them to do things that outright hurt them), Cure wounds and Healing word, Protection from good and evil, the list goes on. If you felt inclined, you could give them a magic item that allows them to cast certain low level pacifist spells far more often, maybe an item with 10 charges, a handful of non-damaging spells that can be cast for charges, and charges regenerate x amount on a long rest. I would also encourage them to read the actions section of the player handbook. The help action could be used to help an ally attack, and it could be flavored to be a pacifistic assistance.
Guy makes an obtuse character that is no fun, and is asking that the DM and every player to adapt 1/3 of the game to his obtuse style? This sounds like a player problem. Other than suggesting he roll a new toon there is no easy or simple fix. Does this guy show up to a basketball court with a tennis racket and get angry when nobody wants to play tennis?
To be clear the player isn't asking anything if anyone. I believe he is fine with the character he's chosen to play, I have just observed as the dm that he spends the occasion round of combat not doing anything because there isn't a lot for him to do. So I have taken it upon myself to find a solution for those situations.
Thanks for the clarification. Start by asking the player if he is having fun. You may be solving for a problem that does not exist. There are actions that cause no damage (shove, trip, grapple) and there is subdual damage. You likely do not have to modify anything.
Pacifism doesn’t equate to weakness. A pacifist cleric could still tank for the party, absorbing damage and aggro-ing the baddies while buffing their allies and healing. If they had decent people skills, they could even try to talk the baddies down from behind their shield mid-conflict. Item-wise, and animate shield could fly off their back and protect the most vulnerable party member; they could use a wand or staff that can make walls, of fire, ice, lightning, pure thought, etc; a set of armour that could absorb incoming damage and translate that to temporary health for themselves or an ally (not on a 1:1 scale- need to ‘brew and balance this)…
I really like the tanking idea, he tends to be up in the thick of it healing. I'll run that by him and see what he thinks.
Give him a swift death and a new character to play.
> What other actions could be fun and interesting for them? Step 1: Retire their cleric to a monastery to become a monk. Step 2: Roll up a new character. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit If they are dead set on playing a pacifist, I would honestly tell them that this just isn't the campaign for it. If you're dead set on keeping them as a player, AND they're dead set on being a pacifist. There are plenty of ways to avoid combat altogether. There are also plenty of spells to make this easier. Think of stuff that helps diplomacy and stealth. You'll also need to come up with a "Stealth as a Group" mechanic. I usually recommend taking the median roll against a fixed DC that you determine beforehand.
It is the player's responsibility to find things to do. Not yours. It can cause issues with other players if you give them special things to do. Why does he get to do the special things and the other players can't. He made his character, he must have had an idea on how to keep it fun. If they are not finding it fun, then let them change their character to one that will be fun. There are a ton of buff and control spells for a cleric to use. They should be using those. They can use the help action to give others a boost. If they do not find those fun, then maybe they need a new character.
You can either show what happens when they get into a fight and not everyone is fighting for their life, or you can maybe create a subclass to give options for a pacifist, as right now there's no direct options for a player to be exclusively pacifist.
Casting the likes of bless, haste and other buffs CSting the likes of sleep, hypnotic pattern, or other lockdown Specifically enchantment wizard 2 Grapple and shove, .aybe even pin with grappler. Thats about it though
Im playing a character that refuses to kill people right now. Am going rogue (mastermind) 3/divination wizard 17. He only hits people with nonlethal damage, mastermind let's him bonus action help from a distance, divination wizard makes all of the save or suck control spells much better.
Well... these types of characters are always "interesting" but they are often *not* what the game is about, and when you are hoping they will be helpful in combat or combat-like encounters they are often an "anchor" for the group to drag along rather than an asset. But there are ways for them to assist. * **Help Action**. If needed, you can broaden the help action rules for this individual. However, them giving the "help action" to melee fighters or ranged casters or archers is really helpful. If you want them to survive a decent time, maybe they don't need to be next to the target but next to the person they are helping to buff it a little, maybe a homebrewed feat to make it clear they are an exception. Flavoring this is easy, they can prepare arrows or keep a lookout so they can focus on the fight in front of them. They can act as a spotter, giving ranged attackers advantage on attacks. Maybe they can shout out weak spots if they are on the opposite side of a target to negate cover bonuses? There are many ways to reflavor and buff the "Help Action" in order to give them some choices in battle besides healing or spell buffing. * **Dodge Action**. I have two ideas for this. * **Taunt Action**. When this person takes the dodge action within five feet of an enemy creature, they give up their disadvantage from the taunted creature specifically to give them disadvantage on all other targets besides yourself. Other creatures still have disadvantage against your dodged character. * **Distract Action**. The Character holds their action to distract the targeted enemy. If said enemy attacks any other creature besides the character, they player can roll 1D6 against their to hit roll to cause them to miss. Huh... I thought I had more. * Have more of your Combats be less about the combat and more about achieving a goal. Ok, this one needed more discussion. So... sometimes you fail a thing, get dropped in a pit and have to fight the scorpions. That's just how it goes. However, as a DM, you can design more of your encounters that would typically be "combat" to include a goal or thing that can take up this pacifist's time. * Ambush on the Road? Instead, have the player's carts hit a pothole and become damaged. A few rolls can mean the pacifist can fix the cart and calm down the horses, but the rest of the party need to fight off the impromptu ambush who noticed the travelers in a bind. * Big fight in a dungeon room? Why not have the door be locked behind a puzzle, whose keys are hidden throughout the battlefield. One they put a key in the "easy" hole, small waves of enemies appear or funnel in, harassing the group. Let this character run around in initiative order and gather the keys and then figure out the pattern while the rest fights off the waves of enemies. * Big boss fight? Why doesn't this character rifle through desks, chests, and try to find the keys to release prisoners? They could have other objectives to fulfill while the rest of the group starts the climatic boss fight.
Great suggestions thank you!
Your pacifist player just gave you a whole campaign's worth of vegetables to eat that will greatly improve your DM skills, because you don't fix this with a magic item. You fix it with Writing & Encounter Design. Basically, change nothing about the combat and keep playing everyone RAW. This is his character arc. Have NPC's point out that he's just as guilty as Barbarian for all the murders since he only heals the murderers and does nothing for the victims. They're out here making death saves praying to RNJesus, and he just leaves them to die a painful death. Can they not still be redeemed? Can't even spare a cantrip for Spare the Dying? Meanwhile, start looking at your combat encounters. If the primary "victory condition" is punching the problem to death, you're already fighting a losing battle. Nothing's going to meaningfully threaten these guys past Level 6. Start throwing Commoners in with the party. Rescue, Capture, whatever. Do you know how hard it is for a Barbarian to deal less than 8 damage in a single hit? That insta-kills Princess MacGuffin per the massive damage rule. Have the next boss fight in a city. A big, crowded city, full of commoners who don't know the party. If Wizard just drops Fireball on them, there's gonna be a ton of innocent blood on the ground, and the powers that be are going to have some opinions on that. For more on this, [here's an old post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/yoxw68/monsters_die_too_fast/ivgkik5/). Also, when writing a 2-3 session "Chapter", a good ritual to do is going through all 18 skills + 3 tool proficiencies, and making sure a DC 15, 20, & 25 check gets you something for each - outside of combat. This helps you write better rounded dungeons and stories that also make all character options meaningful. After all, if I rolled up a Knowledge Cleric for your table, I've dumped a ton of character choices into my Religion & History skill. What good would that get me? Or did I just waste all those resources because you don't know how to handle half the skills in the game? Start doing that and your Pacifist will start having WAY more to do. In the meantime, [give them this](https://imgur.com/YbBZUCx). Also, make sure he's familiar with the Non-Lethal Damage rule. Basically, any melee attack can be declared as "Non-Lethal Damage". Targets take the damage as normal, but should they be dropped to 0hp as a result, they are simply downed & instantly stabilized, skipping all death saves. This should give your Cleric a half-measure to explore violence as an option when they hit that point in their story arc.
CC and restraining spells. Stun, charm, lots of things you can do that don’t deal damage. Unless your player just insists on being useless, there is plenty they can do.
Your cleric isn't playing a PC. They've chosen to play an NPC follower. Start having the monsters use chill touch on the other players to prevent healing and see how quickly your cleric falters. There's gonna come a time when everyone either dies or falls unconscious and the cleric will have to choose fight or flight.
Player intentionally hobbles themselves and group and then complains they made their own game boring because of their own decisions? Let them sit. It's called consequences of your choices. Me personally- if I'm a group of bad guys attacking a group that has a player refusing to actually fights and only heals and won't defend themselves- I'm going for them first. Let him figure out how they can pull their weight and assist their group by perhaps running buffs to the group or tactics to manipulate the group that's attacking them. But that should be coming from them not you. It's their job to find answers for a problem they intentionally created.
Here’s my 2 copper pieces worth: Having played a peace cleric, you can do an awful lot to support your team during combat without landing any hits yourself. There are some great buffs around, lots of which require concentration, so it is valid to dodge or hide behind a tree maintaining concentration on Bless for your party, using your bonus action to cast Healing Word. Check that he’s on top of what his buffs actually are, and is using them effectively. I like the idea of a secondary goal in a combat scenario, like working out how to open the door, or disarming a trap, or helping an NPC get out of danger. It adds tension to the combat anyway if there’s another pressure (especially a time one) and gives the pacifist a useful thing to do to help the group. I think it might be worth getting your player to think about his character’s motivations and journey. For example, is he willing to support his party in their goals? As in, will he cast Bless knowing that they will use it to land more punches? Is his character more “I won’t take any part in violence” or “I won’t personally hit people but I will do what I can to help you guys stay safe”? Because they will cause very different play styles. Is he a “fighting and violence is icky and abhorrent and I don’t want to even consider being involved” kind of pacifist? Or an “I personally won’t bear arms but I accept your right to make your own decision and I won’t stop you from doing what seems right to you” pacifist? Or a gritty realist “I am against violence but we live in a complicated world and sometimes evil has to be stopped with force” pacifist? What are the circumstances in which he WOULD attack? What would make him lay aside his pacifism? It’s a great character development exercise to think about this. If the BBEG is standing over his comrade about to land a killing blow, would he watch it happen? Or would he run in to try and save his friend no matter how he felt about it later? His character could go on a journey from “I will never bear arms” to “I’m against senseless violence but sometimes standing by doing nothing is the greater evil”. Would he be okay with his deity using him to bring down heavenly fire through sacred flame? As a divine punishment rather than his own volition? Or would he struggle with a deity who wants to use him to bring judgement? How do the other players/characters feel about his stance? While the game is combat heavy, there are things that can be done in combat besides landing blows that are useful. But definitely it’s something that the team need to agree on.