Look, if the melee based party let the barbarian pick a fight with the local archers guild in the town of bird people its their own fault.

I put a lot of simpson references in this one and for no particular reason

@eigilholm6979

3 жыл бұрын

It is appreciated xD

@Torthrodhel

3 жыл бұрын

Simpson references are their own reason.

Gronk think that you have knowledge and wisdom as Dungeon Master beyond your years

@gronkthegore-may3083

3 жыл бұрын

@@gamecavalier3230 you Honor Gronk but wonder if you have Gronk confused for someone else. Gronk is great warrior but better War Chef.

@tylerp5259

3 жыл бұрын

GameNinjaD he’s a chef though. He said so himself. It is said he is even better than Godon Ramsus, the legendary god chef.

@gronkthegore-may3083

3 жыл бұрын

@@tylerp5259 Gronk would love to battle Chef God Gordon and prove Gronk superior skills in kitchen! MORE BLOOD WINE!!!!

@gavinclark6891

3 жыл бұрын

You are wise beyond your capacity for cranial mass, Gronk

@damianjonsson1688

2 жыл бұрын

@@gronkthegore-may3083 Me make great blood wine from hearts of enemies, send some to Gronk, make good de-glazing owlbear steak

One thing I did was have the party accompany a wizard into an abandoned stronghold, and when infinitely respawning enemies showed up the party had to protect the wizard for 10 rounds while the wizard casted a ritual that would dispel the enemies after which the party fought a difficult boss encounter with the help of the wizard after which I told them to level up and the wizard paid them in bags of holding so they could carry out the actual treasure.

@YourBoyNobody530

3 жыл бұрын

BTW this was a fifth level party, and the enemies were weak aside from the final boss, and the wizard taught the parties wizard the ritual he used in case they found something like that ever again.

@dicorockhimself

3 жыл бұрын

Thats a great videogamey encounter. This is how you uae video game ideas well into a tabletop

@Pyro_nPain

3 жыл бұрын

That sounds really cool, but how long did 10 rounds of combat take your party? Most encounters rarely ever go above 5 rounds in my experience

@YourBoyNobody530

3 жыл бұрын

@@Pyro_nPain So the enemies were really weak, and home brewed so the players were able to kill most if not all of them each round with minimal effort so it wasn't to slow. However, because they were infinitely respawned I could add more or take away enemies on a round by round basis. I also sped things up by giving them all the same initiative roll so I could get all the enemies out of the way really quickly if they weren't killed first as I rerolled initiative for the monsters every round and actually gave them a bonus to initiative during each round of combat so on the tenth round they were effectively garrentied to go first.

@YourBoyNobody530

3 жыл бұрын

the enemies were designed to wear down the party instead of actually defeating them, and I warned the players about that so the didn't fly off the handle with their new fifth level abilities because if they did the final boss would have been a TPK.

"Then go play Warhammer!" lmao. This is a video every DM I've had needs to watch. The idea that a party must have a "tank" and "healer" has no place in 5e. Encounters must be balanced for the party you have, not for a party that doesn't exist.

@st.zahren5683

3 жыл бұрын

based

@chukyuniqul

3 жыл бұрын

What does "balanced" mean though? The best definition we can have is "a combat that emphasizes the narrative you're trying to present ", easy when you have low tension, getting more difficult as tension rises. But what does that mean? What does difficult mean? If it can kill your party should they make a slip-up or lapse in judgement? That they need to consume something to get through? It's not like I disagree on principle with you, but if you lut the idea of "balanced" in dnd you're already pushing it towards a game, not to mention opening the gate for bitchy players to complain at the DM. I had a plan that required a retriever to kidnap a PC, the guy was an artificer so his con saves were obviously low and failed. And he was damn close to start bitching at me. Credits to the guy, he did seem to rein himself in, roleplaying his frustration at his captor, but the players can't know what your post-encounter plans are, so "balancing" isn't even perceived through the same baseline. Or you could just make encounters escapable if they stumble into them and realize they're poorly equipped.

@G-munny_and_da_boyz

3 жыл бұрын

@@chukyuniqul I'm using the word "balanced" to mean what Davvy said in the video: If your party lacks a specific "role", like a "healer", you shouldn't punish them for it. The combat needs to be winnable with the current party. If it's impossible for them to win without playing 100% perfect, not missing rolls, and the enemies failing a good chunk of their stuff, then it isn't "balanced". If the encounter isn't meant to be winnable, like stumbling upon a Young Dragon in some cave at 3rd level, it should be fairly obvious to the players. If they then choose to fight it, that's on them. I run a deadly game for my players. They like every combat to be a life-or-death scenario. They're level 6 and one of the players has died 5 times. There's only so much you can do to "balance" something for your party, after all. They still have to make good decisions more often than not.

@chukyuniqul

3 жыл бұрын

@@G-munny_and_da_boyz we might even have different grounds. You assume your players understand dragons are enormously powerful. My players fought against a beholder that got tied down by an NPC I specifically had follow them for that purpose if need be and they think they are 100% to thank for killing it. I could throw an ancient dragon at them and if they died because they didn't book it in the blatant underground tunnels then I would be at fault. My players are coming from video games, and unlike me they don't even really watch any of the dnd tubers. And I think I'm bad myself, just in case the level I feel I'm working at isn't clear.

@G-munny_and_da_boyz

3 жыл бұрын

@@chukyuniqul Only one of my players knows a lot about D&D. The rest are still unaware of all the cool and powerful creatures in the world. I actually just had them fight a Young Red Shadow Dragon, in the Shadowfell, and they smoked it in 4 rounds. How? The Glamour Bard. He used his Mantle of Majesty to bonus action Command it to grovel, and it failed 3 times in a row. Between the wizard, paladin and monk in the party, it was over for this dragon. And that was at level 6, and they had already almost wiped to a Blistercoil Weird, prior to entering the Shadowfell. At the end of the day, you have to know your audience. If your players don't know that dragons are powerful, or that beholders are super strong, maybe their characters do? Who is to say the wizard didn't learn about the powerful magic creatures in the world, during their time studying magic? The point of my comment was to illustrate that: The DM shouldn't be creating a world that the players need to deal with. The DM and players should be creating the world, together. So, if 6 people want to play Wizards, build your game around that. Or, find different players.

But at the same time the DM can NEVER let the players know that they fudged the rolls. That time you avoided a TPK by the cleric being the last man standing and managing to banish the demon back to it's home plain goes from epic to pathetic when the DM lets it slip that "lol, he actually managed his saving throw but you lot needed help."

@elgatochurro

3 жыл бұрын

... what's the point in the dice if you refuse to use them? You're just supposed to have the party avoid every single little thing once they're on the verge of a tpk? Really?

@AutisticWombot

3 жыл бұрын

@@elgatochurro it's not that you fudge all the important rolls but things sometime go bad when it's not at all opportune. Additionally, sometimes a player is just rolling badly or having rotten luck, so you use a fudged roll to perk them up a bit. I tend to use fudged rolls as a tool to limit the amount of work which I have to do😂

@mordet2

3 жыл бұрын

@@AutisticWombot sweet, if I ever play as your player, I'll just fudge my dice when thing go wrong for the DM. Dang, you wanted me get up that cliff face to continue the story? Sorry, man, I failed the roll. Hmm? That boss monster is having too easy a fight? Don't worry, I crit.

@charimonfanboy

3 жыл бұрын

Oh, and the need some players have to believe that the dice controls the fate of the game and that their DM is one of the good ones who would never put the good of the game over the blessed dice, can't forget that. Don't try to break the delusion or they are likely to confuse one or two roll fudges to make the story more epic and get everyone more fun with fudging all rolls to plot armour the party. Or get so upset over it that they threaten to break the game and ruin everyone's time by misusing the dice.

@elgatochurro

3 жыл бұрын

@@AutisticWombot why interfere with the combat though? Just cause the players have a bad round or two of combat means you need to break out the kiddie gloves?

Combat? You mean SMITES! -This post was made by the Paladin gang.

@zEr-ne5ri

3 жыл бұрын

@Y.K. dauz volt!

@rimurutempest4945

3 жыл бұрын

Anyone else heard Jocat?

@alexj.cooney5946

3 жыл бұрын

Combat? You mean SNEAK ATTACK! -This post was made by the Rouge gang.

@zEr-ne5ri

3 жыл бұрын

@Alex J. Cooney how do you do heretics?

@dudemcfurgusson7179

3 жыл бұрын

Smite? You mean doot doot on ma floot?! -this message provided by the Bardic School of Gangs

I remember when our dragonborn wizard burned a goblin camp to the ground using nothing but his breath attack. God is he a clever little bastard.

@lechugaenlabiblioteca3298

3 жыл бұрын

Was also a Dragonborn wizard but I slaughtered all of them with the thunderwave spell lol

Puffin uploads and then Davvy uploads immediately after I finish watching!? By the gods, I love the D&D KZread community!

@packrat6196

3 жыл бұрын

I didn't realize puffin uploaded before I read this comment

“Minimum three turns to do something.” Last character cries about Nat 1 on second failed death save. RIP Dorado, you are missed.

This thumbnail is so magic for me in specific for one good reason: the Paladin of my table uses a warhammer. Every time he kills something, he puts exactly.. the bonk sound. He stops all the music, stops the whole table, just to put this glorious sound. Everyone loves him, and we aren't even in session three yet.

How to Challenge a Barbarian in Combat: Cast Calm Emotions, and homebrew that it ends their range automatically if it succeeds and they cannot rage again while within the Calm Emotions field. Edit: This would present an interesting amount of player problem solving, where the Barbarian has to try and avoid the AOE or go without a Rage for a bit. If the enemy is within the field, they may just throw weapons or rocks at the enemy caster. It presents interesting character options

@a.z.pantera5577

3 жыл бұрын

-Takes notes for use against the Barbaradin of his party-

@jacobjensen7704

3 жыл бұрын

That's not very fair to the Barbarian now, is it?

@elgatochurro

3 жыл бұрын

Could just... enthrall or enemies abound, etc that handles barbarians. Ibe had a death knight outright vanish a barbarian for 8 turns while he and his wraith guards attacked the party

@elgatochurro

3 жыл бұрын

@@jacobjensen7704 yeah it's not, literally casting hold person would remove a barbarians rage after its turn and be more useful. On top of all that, how do mages suddenly know how a barbarians rage works? Heavily metagaming

@nineteenlettersonly9687

3 жыл бұрын

@@elgatochurro Erm... the fact that the barbarian is super angry and is, well, raging might lead some individuals (such as a wizard) to realize that they needed to calm this mad man. Calm emotion is the most logical spell to do that.

The unspoken and very loose rule i've made for myself is that I, the dm, am a grave cleric. Twice per session, I can use Sentinel at Deaths Door. I can always see the opponent, and i'm always within 30ft of the map.

@zendikarisparkmage2938

3 жыл бұрын

My similar but far more powerful loose and unspoken rule is that I, the DM, have the Lucky feat.Thrice per the PCs long rests, I can reroll any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw any monster/NPC makes. I can also spend a Luck Point to give a player advantage on a roll, just because.

Knew that I planned a fairly nasty boss fight so decided to get rid of some of those spells and hit point - throw in puny foes in small numbers but every room had the same a true dungeon crawl, funny how it stopped being 'Look at me I'm so powerful' to 'Hey how about you go first' after the third room but it wasn't until they encountered the adult red dragon that suddenly they discovered the were not Gods 'Blindness' doesn't work on Dragons

In my game one of my players was a power gamer barberian. The party destroyed every encounter becaus of him but when the had to fight a cult i used the hold person spell just ones or twice in a encounter and becaus of that the party had a lot more fun. His character is know dead (because of a fight with another player’s bear).

@MrBaldsoprano

3 жыл бұрын

I'm currently playing a wrecking ball of a Barbarian (GWM and Reckless Attacks are enough to pancake my enemies). but if an enemy would target any of her mental stats she's highly likely to fail... I get the occasional OP comment thrown my way, but I feel like she has a wide gaping weakness that is ready to be exploited.

@derekchapman2929

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrBaldsoprano yeah, they are called intellect devourers

@defensivekobra3873

3 жыл бұрын

not to be an duchebag here but the spelling and grammatical errors in this one comment are kinda plentiful and bad. Is it possible that English is not your native language?

@johanvdrunen1869

3 жыл бұрын

@@defensivekobra3873 that is true i 'm from the netherlands and i 'm dyslexic so my grammer sucks

"A DM's job is to kill the heroes" is what I always tell my players in regards to combat so that I can keep them on their toes. The reality, however, is more along the lines of "A DM's job is to beat the heroes within 1-inch of their lives so that when/if they make it out with said inch, it will have been a memorable encounter". Basically treat combat as if it were an honorable sparring mach, do your best and do not patronize your opponent but also respect them and do not go at them like they're your arch-nemeis or something.

My perspective on combat dice rolls is to olay them straight and let the players see the dice. If the dice are not hidden they know it's not me fudging dice to make it easy or playing favorites. Instead of a player is failing miserably I have the enemies ignore them for not being a threat. It gives my players that "skrew you" moment when they land a hit on an enemy who ignored them flat out gets murdered for treating then as a flailing idiot. I also tend to at most have one or two more mobs then players and let beefy characters grab attention if they try to be a tank (ie run into a 1v3). I 100% agree about falling unconscious. If enemies start double tapping players, there is no way to make it look like you are not just trying to murder them. What might be interesting is establishing a dangerous elite enemy like the Royal Guard or the League of Assassins and the first time you fight one they target that npc ally and perform a double-tap and even state "No prisoners no witnesses, no survivors". Then any fight with that type of elite enemy is a " oh shit" because they and they alone will go in for the coup de gras. I haven't tested that idea but its the only one I can think of and make it fair as the players know the threat before it happens to them.

@heii1996

3 жыл бұрын

I have certain enemies that will double-tap (i call them ruthless), so when i started my campaign i told my playes that if they figth a ruthless enemy i will tell them before the figth so they can strategies with that in mind. Whats funny is they've crushed all the ruthless figths so far because they actually work together instead of seeing who can get the finishing blow or kill most enemies. I've only had one player die in 80 hours of game time and it was because he ran alone into a room filled with enemies, and non of his allies where close enough to heal him. He rolled 7, 5 and 1 on his death saves and no one had a way to revive him.

@prof.loophole9708

3 жыл бұрын

@@heii1996 i think letting them know at the start like that is a good call, even in my suggestion it assumes they remember how scary the Royal Guard is lol

@Emmmmmms

3 жыл бұрын

I double tap my players all the time. Whats worse as we have a home brew rule where death saves don’t go away until after a long rest (lesser restoration also gets rid of one). Honestly it makes fights way more intense because it makes death saves almost like a second health pool Although to be fair I don’t double tap with all monsters, but I told my players that if a wolf reduces you to 0 hit points, it’s going to keep biting you until you stop moving, whereas a bandit might just perceive it as they’re basically already dead and move on.

A great book to pick up is "The Monsters Know What They Are Doing" by Keith Ammann. It goes through nearly every monster in 5e's Monster Manual and actually provides a lot of insightful tactics for DMs on how to manage encounters with those creatures, using their lore and stat blocks. I read the entire segment on Goblins, Hobgoblins and the like on a flight from Adelaide to Melbourne and felt my brain expanding on the true moment a cry of "BREE-YARK!" is appropriate.

how to make a combat encounter step 1. see that part of the statblock where it says CR? yeah just ignore that part it's rubbish? step 2. create an encounter that you think will tpk your party step 3. scale it down just a tad. step 4. you're done good luck.

@veteran673

3 жыл бұрын

Being heroes shouldn't be easy!

@jgr7487

3 жыл бұрын

this is amazing!

@sahrahmuller1451

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, what seems like a TPK might be just enough to entertain the group. My Lv 10 group fought a CR 16 monster, no problem, in part because of nice teamwork, but they seemed to have fun!

@debreczeniarpad9956

3 жыл бұрын

A knight and three bandit captains is just the right encounter aganist five level fives after three room of different mix of thugs and spell throwers a'la bandits and spions.

@ivansakal1224

3 жыл бұрын

my 10 characters that died in the last 3 months suggest that this is not the way

2:42 And then the Wizard cast "Gender Reveal Party" and caused a fire that the nearby kingdom had to put out.

1:15 you where right master, the negotiations where quick. Yeah, I am a prequel memer, sue me. Also be general grievous for you.

That last bit, about using the environment. After a long dungeon crawl, a party spellcaster managed to keep the enemy spellcaster occupied with the open/close cantrip. Literally just closing the door in the guy's face, so he wasted an action opening it, so he couldn't blast us while we were taking care of the mooks.

I know I'm way late to the party but I love the image of aggressively negotiating with strahd for the freedom of barovia

"Your game will turn into "It's Always Sunny in the Forgotten Realms" Are you implying that's a bad thing? Because that's a good thing in my books.

@CulturalDuck

3 жыл бұрын

Every game of DnD always ends up turning into It's Always Sunny in the Forgotten Realms tbh.

@dicorockhimself

3 жыл бұрын

I don't know thats a good thing depending on the tone of your game.

@Andreu0rtin

3 жыл бұрын

It depends on the group I guess I suppose there are people that like completely riskless game of DnD

@EasilyBoredGamer

3 жыл бұрын

I find a good game goes between light hearted and serious, too much in either direction isn't very fun in the long run.

@pedrodarosamello64

3 жыл бұрын

Depends on the group and GM really. I would be extremelly bored being a player or the DM in a group like that.

I only ever killed one player due to a mix of overbuilding a boss and players not asking how high up they were before pushing someone off a ledge. If the boss didn't kill him the fall did.

@trequor

3 жыл бұрын

I've killed 4 in the two years ive been DMing. One got resurrected though. I like to make sure that my players know death is a possibility. It makes every moment sweeter to know that one's character is mortal

So we were playing the Star Wars RPG. An NPC had set up a deadly trap, she had killed a bunch of Stormtroopers in a temple that she knew the players were headed to and hid in one of the dead Stormtroopers armors. The players enter the room and don't do any investigating, they just start looting the bodies. I have this tense combat encounter planned, full of misdirection where the players will have to think out an enemy that has out played them. She leaps out at one of the players to attack, Crit 1. She tries to jump away, Crit 1. Player grapples her. Reflex save to get away, Crit 1. I do not roll in front of my players anymore. Some people will say that your players had fun and got a good story out of it. I asked several of them them a year ago about it and not one person remembered this encounter. The dice can help you tell a story but should never get in the way.

DMs, definitely watch this. It's great advice, tailored very well to the tone and mechanics of D&D 5e. I appreciate the forward on organic placement of encounters in the narrative. Classic D&D had its raw lethality to encourage players to only enter fights when they had to and only on their terms. It had reaction rolls to tell the DM "not everything is hostile on sight" and morale rolls to tell them "fights aren't usually to the death". D&D 5e leaves this stuff to the DM and how they craft the narrative and encounters. It's an interesting balancing act maintaining the verisimilitude that comes with encounters being more than just XP chests you unlock with an attack roll, while also keeping them fair, challenging and engaging to play. I'm glad both sides get their due in this video.

My party is in the fayewild and in the mid high teens. We had a quest where a city one of our PCs is from and cares about is being threatened by a high elder elemental. A living hurricane. We spent most if the session trying to find any weaknesses we could exploit in a fight. In the end we found an Arch Druid who too great pleasure in SUMMONING A LIVING MOUNTAIN FROM THE EARTH PLANE TO FIGHT THE HURRICANE !! One of my favorite dnd moments. Let them fight...

Our campaign is incredibly urban, it's inspired by gangs, organized crime and less epic but more intimate encounters. Since we were all on the same page at the start, no one made a paladin or a barbarian, so there really are no tanks and the magic users don't have all the explosive and brutal spells, it's more about manipulation, illusion and less direct damage. As such, I really appreciate that our encounters aren't about draining massive pools of health and are more about heists, puzzles, getting away, fighting invisible enemies, or finding a way around beating specific NPC's that are individually more powerful and so on. This makes every encounter really fun and it meshes really well with the RP-heavy campaign we have. I think you and our DM think alike.

I don't fake my dice rolls, I'm a magician and I can roll in the open and get what I want, but I don't (I feel it ruins the most interesting part of the game). I'm also a DM who doesn't ask "Are you sure?" for 2 reasons. My players should be smart enough to at least think more than 6 seconds ahead, and it is not my job as the DM to think for you, the character made the decision and will suffer the consequence of those actions. But sometime it's just fun to show your party just how glaring a weakness is. I put my level 10 rogue (arcane trickster who had mobile, alert, and was an elf), level 10 bard (valor, likes to polymorph into T-rex), and level 9 fighter (champion) against 3 clerics (2 level 7 and 1 level 8). They lost so horrifically I accidentally made them afraid of anything that posed a challenge for the rest of that game. For context, the rogue player likes to make VERY efficient combat characters and I felt like he was feeling too over confident. Additionally, I told them that it is a low magic setting so that they could pick a martial class at higher levels and not feel useless (you can see how much they liked that). They (very unapologetically) made sure to exploit they fact they had magic and the enemy didn't. I figured it was only fair to show them they are not almighty gods that can't be challenged. Long story short, the clerics never even became bloodied and only cast a healing spell on the 2nd to last turn of combat when 2 of the pc's were already down. The next session was a prison break sequence where they had to get their gear back and they even killed one of the clerics since he was alone (the rogue made sure to not only cut off the head, but to take it with him to "make sure this fucker can't be revived"). He has also walked into a tribal kobold society on a deserted island, killed the adults unprompted, then tried drowning the new hatchlings before kicking one down a pit they couldn't see the bottom of. He still wonders why I made him change his alignment to CE from CN, I didn't penalize him per se, with loss of exp or something, but he got the message.

@MrGoulio

3 жыл бұрын

I play with pretty new players, so having an opportunity for the DM to ask if that's what they really want to do is helpful. When you're still learning the how DnD works, having a moment to pause and think before rushing into certain death is a nice option, one that can be ignored, but an option all the same. My first time playing, I almost died in our first encounter because I was used to video game logic and the DM didn't stop to ask if I was sure that attacking 5 badgers and a druid was really what I wanted to do. As a player I didn't realize that was a little suicidal. My character would've known that, but as a player I didn't. All that said, if you have veterans at your table who are aware of your DM style, then by all means don't bother asking them. But be nice to your new players, they probably need some help adjusting.

5:39 You see, the secret ingredient is crime

Yeah I definitely have most enemies leave them at zero. "Leave the character to the fate of YAHTZEE!" made me laugh really hard

6:59 I wouldn’t mind playing Gravity Falls: the RPG.

I remember a time when my DM must have just watched Kung Fu Panda 2 because in order to eat, get some important items and humble us after we got to 7th level he had us chase a high level monk for the last piece of food in a plate across an entire town and at the moment we hated it because we were suddenly in a bugs bunny episode but looking back at it, it was one of the most fun and challenging encounters and the first to come to mind.

Getting ready for my first time running a larger group session. This was very useful!

usually a dm but in this wee story im a player too my brother a new dm i thought the combat was bland so i asked "there was a long table in the room right?" and he confirmed so i said as a barb "i grab the table and swing it across the room" the gleam in his eye showed he got what i wanted him too get environmental combat is dope next session with him combat was so interactive and thought out it brought a tear too my eye

> 9:14 Rocks falls, Everybody dies D&D Rap Edition was 🔥

0.26 WAIT!! WAS THAT A 13TH AGE DM SCREEN IN ONE OF THOSE PICTURES, holy cow a D&D youtuber that has actually heard and/or played that system, never thought i would see the day, instant subscriber.

@dicorockhimself

3 жыл бұрын

Web dm talks about from time to time

Thank you, I needed this. I'm just now starting as a DM and so far the players are loving the campaign. I'm just worried that it could get stale with the encounters. I've already been doing a couple of things on this video, but what I really needed was the "raising stakes". In story I think my campaign can hold, but the fights need more danger, more type of enemies that can be a challenge for my players, but aren't so deadly

Wow this helped a lot!!! 'bout to spice up my encounters!

Something I often do with death saving throws is that I the DM make them and don’t tell the players. It creates a lot more suspense and allows me to fudge if I need to

The way I put the fear of death into my players, in my very first campaign, was a pretty cool/chilling moment for them. The wizard went down and the druid cast Healing Spirit to revive them... at the beginning of the wizard's turn. Unfortunately the enemy went first and used Thorn Whip to both damage the downed player (autofailing a death save) AND pulled them out of the Healing Spirit. The players were freaked the fuck out and I'll admit that it felt good to see them reacting to an INTELLIGENT enemy. An enemy that actively tries to counter them. After that, they took every combat seriously

4:39 Actually, I can think of a situation where that would be apropriate: The BBEG has been spying on the fighter squad, and wants to premptivly take out in the most tatical and efficent way possible, which ironicly just alearts the PCs to the exsitance of the BBEG, and make them want revenge.

I would have said "You see flashes of light and smoke, as time seems to slow you see suited agents jump out of a van pulling up yelling, you see a well dressed officer start yelling, the shots slow down, you feel warm. You lose balance, you fall on your front, as pools of blood start forming around you, you feel colder. You've just died."

Always helpful Davvy.

Great video long time DM but found the insights on why we fight really useful

Love the shout out to Crit Crab. Love y'all both

I love when players avoid the often bland "conga-line combat" and change the conditions of the fight. Recently, a cult summoned a flesh golem in their basement with my players' group. Terrified, the party quickly escaped and managed to seal the door and burn the building down. Didn't even roll a single damage die. Why bother? Just, boom; encounter solved. It was awesome, satisfying and dramatic. After all, they're called "encounters" not "combats".

@sahrahmuller1451

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, if "damage" and "heal" are your only possible options in a fight, something went wrong most of the time.

@newagecosmonaut8563

3 жыл бұрын

@@sahrahmuller1451 Yup, at that point; might as well play a tabletop wargame.

Simple encounters become much more interesting when taking place in an location that's not just an empty flat plane. Changes in elevation, pits or cliff edges, pools of water, tall grass, lines of pillars, active buzzsaw traps, etc. The 5e DMG outright says that an encounter's CR will decrease or increase, depending on if environmental features are working for or against the PCs.

Barbarian's brain goes stale from boredom. But... barbarians don't have brains...

Ngl, I’d love to watch a _History Of Paper_ video

One of my favorite survival stories, DM dropped a demilich on us. Deleted everyone. I MIGHT have won, a crit might have killed it. I saw my friends corpses around me and i looked at the lich and smiled. "I respect your power" and proceeded to persuade a pact. That crit that woulda killed it, instead it earned me a patron.

When I was playing the first lv. 1 session the other day, I cheated to let one of the first time players survive. I didn't say "It misses". Instead I looked concerned, asked how much life the player had (9) and sighed in relief, saying that she took 16 damage. Afterward I made a big schpiel about how insanely lucky she had been; Had I rolled just two more, she would've died.

I dislike to think of Combat as a break in the game. Basically, fights can be memorable and fun, which is something I learned from Brennan Lee Mulligan in Dimension 20. The fights weren't just important for the story, and high stakes, they were genuinely fun, which is actually the first time I had properly seen a DM do that. I believe it was a mix of changing the goal of the fight to things that weren't "kill", being creative with the environment, and rewarding the creativity of players. Idk, maybe I'll figure the whole formula out one day and add it to this comment.

I just want to say, I really want Davvy's folder he uses for all this dope art

"i wanted to play 'Gravity Falls, the RPG'" omg, i want ot play that too now XD

I had a fun session yesterday. I was running tomb of annihilation and the party got split up. Two of them, who were pretty low on hp and had no healing between them accidentally summoned a bone devil. After knocking them both to single digit hp, the bone devil had a moment of evil bemusement and declared "I'm up for some amusement. First one of you to kill the other gets to live" and then took its turn off. The two were tempted for a moment, but then decided to go down in a blaze of heroic glory instead. The rest of the party managed to get there just in time to see them drop to death saving throws, but then proceeded to not help them much when the wizard used a wand of wonder and percentile rolled a fireball on the bone devil, not doing any harm to it but causing some death save fails for the two. Ultimately the dice gods took both players, but them not turning on each other and fighting with honor to the end really got them inspired and we spent an hour after the session building new characters for them that are aasimar brothers, one protector and one fallen.

The way I see it is that it's fine to challenge the players by having a group of enemies that counter them (flying ranged foes against a melee-focused party, etc) so long as you make sure to include an _actual way_ for them to beat or escape them (have the enemies use spears that the players can throw back at them, etc). The DM should _never_ seek to cause a TPK or punish them, but to give them _fair_ challenges.

Dat Critcrab shoutout tho

A accurate Description of people on Twitter . Also the praise "Pixie pack a punch" . That reminded me of my 1st D&D 3.5 game session . We had a pugilist Pixie in the party . She punched a door into kindling and brawled with a bunch of zombies .

Thanks brother!

One time I rolled a nat1 in a room full of enemies and the song was so bad that they thought we tried to kill them. Combat ensues.

I enjoy these rule videos, and this one is definitely essential. Especially after Zee Bashew got rid of his for seemingly no reason other than copyright. Also, I’d love to see you analyze the new “Exploring Eberron” book, though understand it’d take a while with the sheer amount of content.

Gave you a like just for "grease goblins"

The greatest fight I have been a part of, in which I dm'ed, the win condition was not a hp bar since the boss they were fighting could instant regenerate which they quickly figured out themselves from my descriptions, but instead to stop her from hurting other people and getting a crystal out of her in which her soul was. The boss could turn civilians to be her minions. She was a mud monster that could spawn extra arms and stuff and make copies of herself. They were inside a city, so she ended quickly up with a small army so they began getting civilians out of the way and tried to control her escaperoute (she tried to escape to a temple made of the same mud as she was to be stronger). Their faces when she reached the temple was fantastic, they knew they were screwed. They all barely survived, after the fight though she collapsed together with everything the mud had corrupted, so they had to flee for their lives or be turned like the civilians were, they had a few rounds to get retrieve the gear they lost during the fight, but they chose to run instead, waveing goodbye to hundreds of gold in value of magical items. Just an idea all you dm's out there, her win condition was not their hp bar going to zero but dragging it out so she could turn more and more people to overwhelm them with sheer numbers and theirs were to not let her do that and get the crystal out, which led to whole rounds were nobody was attacking, but just moving, using items and preparing. It was cool

Our parties current tactic is putting the ranger and wizard far back and having my orc paladin tank hits while providing light damage. My favorite cobat of the game so far was one were we were surrounded by 3 cr 3 creatures and level 3 and only survived through abusing flanking, burning all our spell slots and because the enemies hit each other with their aoe.

8:53 That's one sexy Fate.

So the general gist of how I handle it is if the player does something stupid or something that will result in their death they are going to die, but I let them try to pull off whatever they are trying to do. For example if a player tries to make a last stand so that their party members can escape alive then I'll let them do that, and respect their wishes, and ask them to prepare a new character sheet because they are liable to kick the bucket. After the fact depending on game I may have the party get a mission to retrieve their fallen allies corpse before it can be used as a catalyst for some evil ritual.

I definitely appreciate this as I have a feeling an ex-DM of mine definitely played more of the DM vs Player as I can recall numerous of time just because I was the Wizard his higher BBEG of the session would attack me (and the amount of homebrew that he added) and thus my character had died multiple of times when we had a Druid in our party. This was also 2e, so... a simple Call Lightning can do 22d8 of lightning damage if you are 20th-level. Yeah... BBEG one-shots almost all of our NPC companions (roughly 4-5 decently leveled NPC we grew to know over the campaign, dead). 2e was absolutely broken, but no... the Wizard was the most dangerous with their Fireball (that has a limit to its damage of 10d6, so Fireball gets fucked as of 10th-level). Main reason I wouldn't want to play 2e again (that and my DM really didn't understand the rules before ripping out THAC0, Spell Slots, Initiative (except for the 2nd session and last two sessions of that campaign, which lasted a little over a year with a session almost ever week), XP, Saving Throws, etc.) But on a brighter note, the DM removed me as friends so now I don't have to deal with his bullshit anymore

Are ya winning son

"Gravity Falls the rpg" *Gôblin brian starts working* Hmmmmm.......

"BUUUUUUUT, that'll about do it." haha, nice.

Good video 👍

Ooh, ooh, he did a critcrab reference! I know that reference! Take my like...

As someone who played weekly for 3+ years ans then the whole campaign stopped because encounters became super deadly every single time, I agree and encourage everything that has been said in this video. If your players end sessions burned out and out of energy, maybe it's a little too hard. The point of the game is to have a great time and it should be everyone's main goal.

Guy in my party tried taking the gift of vampyr from curse of strahd, and since nobody loved or revered him more than himself(and we had a scroll of revivify) he decided to kill himself. He had a being with him that only he could see as a wild sorcerer, and they got into a fight over accepting the dark god's gift. So before I could pull my scroll out, the dm claimed it rolled better than my passive perception and flew away with the scroll. So now he's just dead.

3:19 what's the art used here? I really like it.

Orc toothpaste

I like to make my combat much more specific by homebrewing very specific abilities that are the basis of the enemies combat style. So battles become like stand battles from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. And also make an interesting environment. If its just a blank room, thats gonna be really boring.

My DM and my best friend cut me some slack once in a one-shot when I was playing a ranger I hadn't hit a single thing. I rolled another abysmally low number against a young red dragon and he decided that I should get the finishing blow

Woha! The chance for surviving death saves is more than 50%! Rolling 20 is 1/20 chance, and it saves the character. Rolling 10-19 is 10/20 or 1/2 chance Rolling 2 - 9 is 8/20 or 2/5 chance Rolling 1 is 1/20 chance, and "weaker" than rolling a 20. I can't math the survival chance in my head right now, but it's obviously higher than 50% :)

@SigurdBraathen

3 жыл бұрын

WAIT, you said 55%? MEH! damn my .. uh... I failed my perception check. Or Intelligence check. Or my think-before-typing skill. Some such :(

In your opinion, is it ok to have a final boss that could potentially TPK?

Another way to cheat as dm is health manipulation. Enemy health is only visible by you, so even if you open-roll you determine whether a npc lives or dies. This means you can have the BBEG take a last stand as if they were a half-orc, or give your wizard that satisfying collateral with a lightning bolt. The same can be done with NPC abilities, spell slots, legendary actions, inventory(eg potions) and stat mods. And you can also add more monsters mid-fight through reinforcements if you need to.

So much Magic: The Gathering art

Idk Gravity Falls the rpg sounds fucking dope

Now I want to plan a rumble in the deep encounter where they need to protect the rogue from a horde of undead while they pick a locked door

"It made sure the party had fun, which is the only thing that really matters" Boy i wish this got preached more in the TTRPG community. some people are so hung up on "playing it right" that this gets lost somewhere on the way.

@MrGoulio

3 жыл бұрын

It kinda depends on the group. Some players have fun playing it right and watching their character die because of the luck of the dice. Some players would hate that, and want a power fantasy. And some just want a cool story.

@ZeZwede

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrGoulio that's my point exactly. if your group thinks one style of play is fun. play that style! it doesn't mean other way of playing is wrong, as long as you have fun with your style.

Yea there's a huge difference between fudging a round 1 nat 20 that would have removed a player from the combat before they could move...and...over fudging to save them constantly

Now I really want to play Gravity Falls the RPG too.

Noooo, no bonk the kobold!

F in the chat for thumbnail kobold

I heard warhammer and was summoned. Who dares call upon this servant of Sigmar?!

@Dracobyte

3 жыл бұрын

SUMMON THE ELECTORATE COUNTS!

I do think that if a player dies make sure you describe it. Let them rp it. It sucks but make sure you use it as a story moment

I really need to learn how to roll dice.

Rules as written; D&D-like combat is such a skinner box... 1st Roll: "Miss" 2nd Roll: "Miss" 3rd Roll: *"BAH GAWD, CRITIKAL HIT 87 DAMAGE!*

My party is currently level 7 and it is a known fact that their bbeg has managed to gain control of the tarrasque. They have blatantly said "we want to kill the bbeg and tame the tarrasque" and I dont know how to work that out.

That Perrin Ayabara photo tho, please tell me it was not just a random cool image.

that encounter sounds pretty similar to the mighty nine bandit encounter...

Look I know it was a joke but the Aarocockra thing actually sounds like a good idea.

WebDM is going to be pissed while watching this :D