Mercer TRIED to Fix D&D’s Riddle Problem… - Vox Machina, Ep. 49 | Critical Role Demystified
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- Опубліковано 6 лип 2024
- As Vox Machina quests for the sphinx, Matt throws some riddles at the party. Some of them were better than others…
CW: Spiders
Chapters:
00:00 - Recap: Summoning Spells Suck Ass
03:29 - Lesson: Low-Stakes Battles Inspire Player Ingenuity
07:31 - Lesson: How to End an Interrogation On Your Terms
09:22 - Lesson: Sam Remembers What His Character Wouldn’t Know
13:28 - Lesson: Keeping “Find the Path” in Play
15:07 - Lesson: Tying Riddles to Skill Checks… in the Wrong Order?
23:19 - Lesson: A Much Better Solution for Including Riddles in D&D
32:50 - Lesson: Grog’s Illiteracy is a Fun Character Choice, Not a Cool Hindrance for the Party
37:56 - Lesson: Providing Players With Handouts for the Important Exposition
44:52 - Final Thoughts
46:14 - Outro
You can watch the full episode here:
Episode 49 - A Name is Earned
• A Name Is Earned | Cri...
Timecodes:
The First Riddle: 2:30:59 - 2:49:00
The Second Riddle: 2:49:00 - 3:08:17
Recommended Reading:
Stealing From Other Player Characters? - Vox Machina, Ep. 46 | Critical Role Demystified: • Stealing From Other Pl...
How to PERFECTLY Deny a D&D Mission In-Character - Vox Machina, Ep. 47 | Critical Role Demystified: • How to PERFECTLY Deny ...
"Find the Path" Almost Destroyed This D&D Group - Vox Machina, Ep. 48 | Critical Role Demystified: • "Find the Path" Almost...
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What is your experience with riddles in D&D?
Hours spent seeing my players brute force
We either blaze through the riddles, or the riddles are two too many steps away from being something answerable 😅
In any case, half my groups decide its better to fail them quickly and fight the monster instead if thats an option
Not a huge fan as it sometimes relies more on the players thinking the same way as the DM rather than them being smart. I've also been on both sides of the attempts to find non-standard solutions to the problems to see the riddle itself as a fun challenge.
I lost an elf cleric I was playing to a riddle about clocks that dealt damage every time you got the answer wrong. He died the same session he was introduced, so I wasn't really all that broken up about it. It's a pretty funny story
Spent literal hours trying to figure out a puzzle that was a poem. We literally just had to get context clues from the poem and say "Iceberg" but we took a solid 2 and a half hours thinking it was way deeper than it was.
On literacy: One needn't be literate to RECOGNIZE letters. My two year old was illiterate but knew his letters.
True that's how I see it as I'm learning a 2nd language and I recognise the letters but I still don't know what all the words mean.
Was just about to comment the same thing
"His name Spyke is spelt with a Y because he is cool."
Damn straight!
Of note about how "contrived" the sphinx's riddles were: The Cavern of Axiom, (that's the name of his lair) appears different for every party who enters it, the sphinx specifically tailors the dungeon and its riddles to the party. This info is found in the Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide, as a way for other DMs to use this location for their games.
But really, if you can't use a painfully contrived riddle to literally gatekeep a literal Sphinx, when can you use them? Sphinxes (Sphinces?) probably use riddles to lock their cookie jars...
I like that you kept 'eerily realistic Crow noises' true to the original subtitles
lol I just copy-paste my CR subtitles from the transcripts on the CR wiki, those are a HUGE timesaver 😁
@@SupergeekMike I was wondering why they matched the originals so closely, they're a nice addition
@@SupergeekMike thank you so much for your attention to subtitles ❤
I throw in riddles as warnings for traps, hints for shortcuts, hints at a monster's weakness. Solving them might get an advantage or avoid sn obstacle, bit doing so is not necessary to advance.
this is genius and I hope I remember this when I DM again, thank you
Genuine question what do you mean by monster weaknesses? Monsters don’t really have weaknesses in 5e, especially not as you climb in CR. Do you just mean more narrative weaknesses like a dragon’s ego or a beholder’s paranoia?
To solve the 5 gallons 3 gallon jug riddle:
1.Fill the 5 gallon jug then dump 3 gallons from the 5 gallon jug filling the 3 gallon jug.
2.Empty the 3 gallon jug then pour the 2 remaining gallons from the 5 gallon into the 3 gallon.
3. Finally fill the 5 gallon jug then use one gallon from the 5 gallon jug to fill the 3 gallon jug which has 2 gallons in it at the moment.
Solution: 4 gallons in the 5 gallon jug!
That does help!
Another solution is to only fill the 3 gallon jug, then pour water into the 5 gallon jug repeatedly until it's full. If you don't dump the last gallon from the 3 gallon jug, you can dump the 5 gallon jug, add the 1 gallon, then fill with 3 more gallons to get 4 gallons!
@@SupergeekMikePart of the reason you couldn’t understand it in Die Hard 3 is because they didn’t show the entire explanation. I’m not sure why they didn’t, but they didn’t.
Five month old comment, but I'm replying anyway cuz I'm a math nerd and I love this stuff. To solve ANY puzzle of the "X item container, Y item container, Z final items" form, create a grid of size (X+1)*(Y+1). Each square on the grid now represents an integer combination of contents in the containers. Put a token at the bottom left -- the first row and first column corresponds to both containers being empty. Now play a game with the following rules:
-At any point you are free to move your token to the beginning or end of either your column or your row. Moving to the end of a row (i.e., the last X position) means filling the first container; moving to the start of a row means emptying that first container; and likewise for start and end of a column for the second container.
-At any point your are alternatively free to move diagonally in either the +X/-Y or the -X/+Y direction, as long as you move to the edge of the board. The first movement corresponds to pouring the second container into the first, and vice versa.
Once you have the grid in front of you to visualize the rules, it becomes pretty intuitive. Just find the square corresponding to Z items in the target container, and work backward! There are usually at least two solutions.
Another point towards your 'Grog can't read' discussion - my 2 year old can't read, but she can say the alphabet AND can recognize specific letters from it. I'm sure Grog could identify the letters, even if he couldn't read what they spelt out.
37:27 There is in fact! An Intelligence of 4 gives a creature the ability to understand at least one language, with the ability to speak/write depending on physiology (having a voice box or hands for example) or magic (like the Awaken spell). Grog has an Intelligence of 6, so mechanically speaking he’s definitely able to recognize letters and numbers in his known languages but would struggle with literacy and acquiring new knowledge.
I forget exactly where I get this from, maybe just a pattern I noticed in stat blocks, but if I find a source I’ll edit it in.
Also you can learn letters before you figure out how they fit together
I would argue the primary mistake in the second riddle is having the hole/shaft in the ceiling before the puzzle was solved. All you would really have to do to make it work is once the four statues were engaged it opens a door leading up; this clearly confirms that you interacted with it correctly, but also that the sand is not a punishment it is simply phase two of escaping the room.
That was my first thought as well
I was assuming the riddle opened some sort of door at the top of the ceiling vent, but I don't remember if they tried looking up their before they solved it? But still, you're right; it's best to put a clear obstacle behind a riddle that is then equally clearly removed once the riddle is solved, so the players have a clear before-and-after, success-vs-failure metric to work with.
I have a simple solution for 'only remembering what your character would know' and here it is:
In my note taking, I only write down the events my character witnessed.
It sounds too simple, like you're getting away with something, but it works. I re-read my notes from the last couple sessions before each session, and it makes it super easy to get into my characters frame of reference.
I ran a sphinx One-Shot where the fight had a game of Hangman in it etched on the wall. Each turn a player could use either their action or bonus action to guess a letter, and they could use an action to solve the puzzle. The answer to the puzzle was Power Word Kill, so using the action to solve it correctly cast the spell on the sphinx, but that meant there was also incentive to fighting the sphinx while solving the puzzle as the sphinx's HP starts at 199 and Power Word Kill only works if the target is below 100.
that's genius design
Regarding the situation when initiative is rerolled, and Matt's ruling that they would restart from the top of initiative order so that Laura's good roll wasn't penalized, I experienced a similar situation as a player where my DM did NOT handle it that way, and it absolutely bummed me out.
We had an absurdly large 9-player party, so combat moved hella slow, and I am legendarily bad at rolling dice. I'm not Will Wheaton bad, but let's just say I feel his pain. So, for one particular encounter where one of us launched a sudden surprise attack, the DM had us roll initiative and then ruled - after I had celebrated rolling a 19, so for once I would actually get to go EARLY - that we would be starting with that surprise action, and continuing on from THAT CHARACTER'S initiative.
Which was below mine.
Meaning I went next to last.
The *ONE TIME* I got a good roll was the *ONE TIME* a high roll was actually worse.
I am - as you can probably tell - still a bit salty about that.
I feel you!
My guy is built all around being lucky, he has like 6 chances a day to amend or reroll stuff. One evening I had only one roll above a 4 all night. On a good day all the rerolling feels a bit like cheating, but to have it not even pay off was just humiliating!
To my knowledge Grog could relay the letters because of Craven Edge. As taken from the CR wiki
Sentience: Craven Edge is a sentient, chaotic evil weapon with an intelligence of 16, a wisdom of 12, and a charisma of 18. It has hearing and darkvision out to a range of 60 ft. This weapon can understand abyssal & common, and can communicate with anyone who's wielded it telepathically. While you are attuned to it, Craven Edge also understands every language you know.
So the sword read it and gave grog the info is my guess, not him ignoring the character trait for the sake of avoiding hindering the party
Ah, X-Men: Evolution. A Man of culture indeed.
I have a puzzle crafted for my campaign where the players enter a pristine room in an otherwise ancient tomb, where it looks like the paint on the walls just finished drying. In the center is a pedestal with an inlaid chessboard, and to open the door on the other side you have to topple the black king. The trick is that every time something is unobserved, it resets to the moment a permanence spell was cast, so you need to keep the king in sight as you walk out of the room, and there's only a slot in the door so when they need to leave, they have to find a way to knock it over from a distance without obscuring it to get out.
Another thing about Grog being unable to read and how it's meant to be a character trait and not a major flaw:
Grog has the Bag of Holding, and Travis is really careful about tracking how much of everything is in the bag. Realistically, Grog shouldn't be able to understand that there's 27,168 gold in the bag, since he can't count higher than 5 (not even sure if he's managed that by this point), but Travis shouldn't be punished for that if he wants to be the one with the bag of holding, so they've just kind of hand waved it away. My personal headcanon is that Grog has been holding it for long enough that whenever Grog tries to remember how much money is in the bag, it emanates to him what sound he needs to make out loud for someone else to understand it, even though he doesn't himself.
Yep, exactly! That’s another fantastic example that I forgot about until after I made the video!
The bag translates it's contents to Grog. Love it.
Matt: What was your stealth check, Sam?
Sam: 15, but it doesn't matter: I'm walking forward.
The fight in the orc camp is actually one of my favourites in the entire Vox Machina campaign. From Scanlan rolling in inside Resilient Sphere, Keyleth summoning Dryads that immediately fall into spikes, the sheer dark comedy of the barely-alive Dryad ALMOST making it out before an orc corpse falls on it, pushing it back into the spikes, and Grog's horrifying Craven Edge execution. I still re-watch this episode to this day.
It’s wild that the handbook will throw the DM under the bus like with the conjuration spells
I ended up making conjuration tables I roll on to help with that. It is also one of the main reason I prefer PF2e. PF2e doesn't expect the DM to come up with the rules for half of the situations in the game, which is why D&D5e can pretend its "rules-lite" compared to PF2e. It isn't. It just makes the DM come up with a bunch of rules and PF2e has the DMs back.
It really does suck but luckily with all the online resources you're pretty easily able to filter by creature types. In person it's far more difficult but online it only takes me a minute or two, maybe longer if i want to tailor the list of candidates to better fit. I have one fey are almost entirely fungus and plant based which does make it more complicated
Yeah those spells are really poorly worded. How hard would it be to include a table? That (or some extra explanatory text) might also clarify the ambiguity that always seems to crop up regarding whether it's the player or the DM who gets to choose which specific creatures appear.
@@shadowscall7758The whole of 5E doesn't do this. It's mostly the PHB. Everything else in other source books always has a stat block to go with it.
It's why the Tasha conjuration spells and dragon tamer Ranger are so liked. They give the creatures stat blocks.
Oh man, no spoilers but the warning that others now know about the Vestiges is such a crazy reveal later on. Excellent foreshadowing by Matt to obfuscate the future event.
Fully yesterday my DM gave us a riddle to open a door with the intention of us not being able to get through the door yet. Bless him, he did try to give us hints about not being able to get through but we were all so focused on getting through the door we ignored them. It did result in some very funny moments and wild bending of logic but they were getting so frustrated I eventually had to ask them above game whether we were intended to get through yet. My advice to DMs is that if a riddle cannot be solved immediately you either separate the riddle from whatever you were trying to get through (like they find it in a book somewhere with part a being solving the riddle to get through the door and part b being finding the door it opens or alternatively have the riddle be given by an NPC that tells them explicitly.
Also the reward to solving a riddle should never be a punishment - to change the second riddle the least, solving it should have opened the shaft up as well as filling the room with sand. Either make it impossible to get through without solving the riddle or make solving the riddle a fun side challenge that gives an added benefit. Don't make your players do work that will then only get them killed.
That fix for the sand trap riddle is very clever. It also makes the trap more sensible in the setting as a way to force intruders to decide how invested they were in their quest. That sand blocks the way out; do they truly believe that their quest is important enough, or will they take the hint and retreat before they're potentially trapped forever? Of course, Vox Machina had a good reason to be there, so they went forward.
The more I’m watching your series the more I’m understanding people’s frustration with Keylith. No hate to Marisha but every time you say “Marisha casts a spell for the first time and it goes wrong” I want to sigh. I don’t think it’s ever Marisha’s fault and I don’t think it’s fair to blame her for that. But I can see how people would be annoyed with it. Still, I think it was probably equally frustrating for Marisha, who casts a new spell expecting it to be useful only to realize she probably wasted her action, her spell slot, and her chance to help the party. That sucks.
If anything it's kinda Matt's fault bc he is kinda going over board to make sure people don't think hes playing favorites for his wife
My issue was never with Keyleth. Marisha had a tendency during c1 to not pay attention to the other players actions during combat. This led to countless times where she had to be reminded about what actions they took so her action wasn’t wasted. It took several minutes to get her up to speed, and it happened A LOT.
@@markcomeau82 I was actually more annoyed with Ashley in combat than I ever was with Marisha. I think Marisha often took more 'real world' approaches to D&D spells, which could sometimes lead to really cool moments (something something treants). I think with Ashley though, maybe because she wasn't playing as often, she was struggling with things her character could and could not do long after the others had gotten into the swing of things - I remember a 1v1 fight she had in c2 being a complete slog as it felt like she had to be guided through the entirety of the fight because she didn't understand how her character worked.
@@keltzy I agree, but since Ashley wasn’t a consistent presence, it wasn’t a persistent issue. And as viewers, it’s easier to give leeway to a player you know has to relearn their character every few months. Marissa got a lot better with paying attention in campaign 2, and now in campaign three her and Ashleigh‘s characters are my favorite.
I feel like after the second time Mercer should have stepped back and took more time to ensure she understood the spells thoroughly, and maybe had an abstract discussion on when they would be useful. And if it was "Marisha didn't pay attention" idk. Maybe do what most people tell DMs to do? Talk to their players? "Hey this thing you're doing is causing a problem at the table."
I think that's definitely a crow. As I'm pretty sure the raven from Discworld is fond of pointing out, crows say "Caw!" Ravens say "Quork!"
Speaking from experience, Mythcarver is an ideal weapon for a College of LORE Bard. I played a Valor Bard in a Tal'Dorei campaign, and the DM gave me Mythcarver when we went hunting for Vestiges. But only Lore Bards get cutting Words. I forget if we homebrewed an alternative or I just stuck with an Artifact I could only use half the features of.
The Tal'Dorei Reborn guide recently updated Mythcarver's features to let them be used by any bard subclass and not just College of Lore, seems that they realized Cutting Words is a subclass feature and fixed it to work on any Bardic Inspiration feature that "affects an enemy".
I like how the "final thoughts" part sounds like the end of a 90's cartoon where inspector gadget tells you about campfire safety before the credits
Ah yes, the beginning of the Taliesin crow noises.
As a DM, I made an agreement with my players. They can pull the 8 pixie trick once per campaign. Otherwise I found a random generator on line that will populate what is summoned for those spells unless the player tells me when they cast the spell what is summoned.
I’ve also found that when conjuring a lot of creatures, giving each player one or two to control speeds things up and makes it less annoying. The casting player usually likes the lessor burden and the other players feel involved
I will say this episode really made me rethink battles as a team vs team. And really helped me to incorporate more role play into the battles as well
"The sun, the fat man walking, and the pillar."
This is a good channel. This is a good series. I like Mike.
If your mind is going to wander to a spiked mutant, it should really be wandering straight to Marrow.
lol I believe that was the reaction to a lot of X-Men fans when Spyke was introduced, “Why didn’t you go with Marrow instead, since she has the same powers?” But since I saw that show before I read X-Men comics, he was the character I knew better lol
@@SupergeekMike That's fair. Spike was a fine character, it's just he never really took off outside the show. Unless you count the kind of semi-related character Spyke from X-Statix.
I really did like Evolution though. And unlike Spike, X-23 proved to be an extremely positive addition to the mutant roster.
@@RonPowerand the similarly named and powered Spike who wasn’t actually Spyke from Xmen 3
On an aesthetic/cinematic note, I love how Kyne's Peace, (one of my favorite songs from the Skyrim soundtrack) plays in the background during Matt's vestige exposition. It lined up so perfectly for the tone of the scene. Getting information about powerful items from an ancient or long lived entity.
riddle me this riddle me that
who's afraid of the big bad bat-The Riddler
Last episode, Matt ruled that Find The Path would just tell the group that the obvious way is right in exchange for a 6th level spell slot.
This episode, Matt ruled that Conjure Woodland Creatures would just trigger a trap before being completely useless in exchange for a 4th level spell slot.
Marisha is getting NOTHING for sleeping with the DM.
Jam packed episode! Wow! Really awesome with lots of cool lessons and best of all you said “Eat my shorts” which was like a soothing balm that I’m not surrounded by just 20 somethings on this app.
I've just noticed that this video is long! Worth every minute, thank you Mike!
I love the way you describe how to share the information with your players, I am totally stealing that.
this series started me listening to C1 and finally i’m ahead of your videos now and omg the longer the campaign goes the easier it is to listen. also love the content keep up the good work !!!
Die Hard 3 skips a step in the logic of the water jug puzzle when they give the solution. It drives me nuts when I watch it.
Yep that’s fair :)
46:07 - but you got it wrong. The main lesson of this episode - X-men Evolution rules
the kamaljiori sphinx riddle battle was actually one of my top favourite combats from the entire campaigns! it was so dramatic and engaging and memorable and felt super high stakes
As far as Grog’s reading skill goes, I’d just assume he’s not great at reading a lot, or more complex words, but he can still recognize individual or small groups of letters.
It could be argued that Keyleth had the knowledge from Find the Path even if the spell wasn't still active, kind of like if you had looked up directions on Google Maps and more or less knew the way even if you weren't actively navigating with it.
Loved the video and this episode when I listened to it, I definitely didn't think about many of these points. As a still fairly new player, thank you for the in depth analysis and critique it really taught me a lot :)
"It's more fun to not have your turn lost"
And this is why I absolutely, 100%, detest paralysis and especially possession/confusion effects when used against PCs "Lose your turn" is not a fun mechanic, and that goes double if the GM then gets to puppet your character into attacking your allies.
I'd definitely say he succeeded. When watching this I was amazed at how well the puzzle was designed, and I detest riddles in game (especially ones that make you do the legwork as a player and the DM refuses to let you use roles, I did a 9 month story arc in a LARP once where I had to solve complex and ridiculous (moon logic even) riddles without using the stats on my sheet). That said, while I love the portrayal of this NPC in LoVM I did really miss the amazing challenge Matt had set up for the game (even if it would have been hard to translate).
I keep a tab with 5etools open at all times when I am playing (we play online). I like knowing the rules, and being able to help out with clarifications (I try to be a rules lawyer for good). But I can't remember everything so having a resource I can quickly check helps a lot.
Really love this series Mike, been watching for a while, but never really thought to comment until now. Loved you touching on the Curse of Strahd card reading idea about writing it out for players later. Its so much better to have players watching and actually listening to what you’re saying rather than have their noses buried in their journals. When you run CoS, do you premake your card readings, or do you actually do them on the spot?
The first time I ran it, I pre-made it based on the locations I wanted them to go to. The second time, for the campaign I just started, I did the reading on the spot, because I no longer felt like I had to push the players to certain locations - I knew Barovia well enough that I felt confident I could nudge the players around the map through other plot hooks.
That being said, I did pull out a few cards that I knew I wouldn’t be as excited about. (For example, one of the card readings reveals that there’s a relic in the camp right outside Madam Eva’s tent, and I just think that’s really undramatic and unsatisfying.)
Next time I run it, I’m not sure which one I’ll do, they both have their pros and cons! Maybe I’ll do it on the spot again but pull out a few more cards, or put some back in - it will depend on how I’m feeling by then.
For the record the party started in Pathfinder where Barbarians are in fact illiterate. So I think that’s just a hold over from there in their roleplay.
Thank you so much for your recap at the end, I understand if it may feel like a 'hat on a hat' situation, as you recap your recap, but I am often left feeling dislocated at the end of a lot of UA-camrs videos. It can just feel jarring and I can't really articulate why. I can't remember if I commented something to this effect a couple months ago, but either way it's greatly appreciated by me.
If you as the DM want to link a death trap to a riddle like the sand, maybe it should have been a situation where stepping into the room activates the sand and by solving the riddle, the sand is stopped and a path to the next room is made clear
LOL Emo Elf 😂😂😂!! I love that Tal used that a description for Vax in his super sulky stage.
Hello! In future episodes, can you maybe share some tips or insights on note taking? I recently started my very first campaign, and am finding it quite difficult to remember information from session to session (we play every two weeks), even though I do take notes and try to read up before the next session. I don't want to sit with a laptop during the game; is there a recommended method to write down and organize names of NPCs or places, in a way that would allow me to then find them easily later when it's relevant?
Love your channel!
I personally write my D&D notes in character, kind of like my character is writing a diary. It makes things so much easier to keep track of what my character knows and what I as a player know.
I might be overthinking this and probably wrong but re-watching this episode, when the sphynx says everything is connected no matter how small and others will be on the hunt for the vestiges as well since they now know about them, it's almost like he's hinting about the scrying spell Ripley put on Percy's gun and listens in on them and now is hunting the vestiges down.
Illiteracy was something barbarians in 3.5e D&D started with, but I'm sure it was gone by PF1.
As for riddles, I usually use simple ones, because they're part of a bigger skill challenge. For a game I ran a couple of years back, the pc where trying to find the source of a dangerous drug that turned people into demons. On one of the transformed victims they found a riddle, the solution to it was correctly guessed "fountain", now they knew what to look for.
Another use for riddles that I found fun was in Blood Lords book 2 in PF2e. There the players exchange riddles with a NPC they meet, the GM gives 3 riddles and the players have to give 3 riddles. It makes it a less one-sided and makes for great back and forth.
I'm not going to lie, I have truly learned so much from watching your videos. Thank you!
I love the die hard riddle, it has been a minute since I last thought about it so it took me some time to think about how to solve it.
Thank you! I'm doing the tarokka reading next session with my players; a session I'm so excited for!! But I was kinda concerned for ruining the tension and atmosphere, by my players having to scribble down everything, the confusion and all of that... I am definitely gonna approach it like that. Thanks
You totally skipped over the foreshadowing in that last warning. He foreshadows two related events; because you have this knowledge, others may as well, and the race is on.
Another point towards sam knowing what scanlan would and wouldn't know is that he stated multiple times that he was acutely aware that his 7(?) Wisdom would mean scanlan would miss a lot of the insight into others. Meaning not knowing about the aversion to raven imagery could also be a low wisdom play too
That made the riddle so fun
A grate episode, all interesting topics for dms
Also, I have heard somewhere that relatively easy encounters are great for after the players get fancy new toys, so they have a chance to test out that new weapon.
Love me some X-Men Evolution references. Man, what a weird show to be my *introduction* to X-Men. It was fantastic
Please do a video about taking notes in dnd sessions
I had a riddle that a dungeon boss used in his password book as a reminder. It opened a codex, but the way the players roleplayed, they ended up being handed the codex and the boss gave them the password.
I know twice it was explained to me and twice I understood but remembering it... I think my brain decided to retire the Die Hard 3 jugs of water from the back of my head.
I do like puzzles a lot, but I understand why some people don't. If I give puzzles, I tend to give the kind that can be experimented with and even if that doesn't help you solve it on your own, it's possible to stumble into the answer. But I'm also generous with allowing rolls to give hints, like "with that nature check, you know that x is true, so it makes sense to you to try y or z!"
The only memory I have that has stuck with me regarding riddles in DnD was from a 2E Ravenloft campaign in the early 90s. Our party was approaching an abandoned (?) tower, and nearing the ground floor entry door, two vulture statues uttered the following in a semi-maniacal tone:
"Two mules! Two mules! Two mules of the foulest brand come into this land!" It repeated a couple times.
It took me a moment, and I blurted out, "Assassination!"
The door opened.
I know I used riddle-like hints for a scavenger hunt type adventure, but, I don't recall the specific wording; they served as a plot device to instantaneously transport the party to the location of the next item in sequence.
Great video, Mike.
This is a good channel! I like Mike!
3:34 Oooo! Gnome in a hamster ball! That’s one of my favorite moments of C1 I think
13:16 Time is a weird soup as Ferne would say
I thought that Grog couldn't read... They've said it more than once!!
Can't read don't really mean can't know letters
Woooooo!!! New episode
Imagine coming up against a sphinx as a Kenku. I recently discovered how short their life was when one of my players mentioned he was an old man at 30. This encounter would have literally killed him.
When they go to find Fenthras, I REALLY hope you bring the discussion that was cut off between Vex and Saundor- Liam wasn't there, he was Skyping it and Saundor brings up the death of the twins mother- Liam can not hear this due to technical difficulties- I really want to know what might have occurred in that scene if both of the twins were their in person
I don't remember much of anything about the die hard movies, but is the solution to the 3 gallon jug and 5 gallon jug problem that you fill both halfway and then pour the contents of the 3 gallon jug into the 5 gallon? 1/2 * 5 = 2.5 ; 1/2*3=1.5 ; 1.5+2.5=4 (I like puzzles, even though I'm pretty bad at them)
A simple way i believe would have made the transition between the riddle and the skill challenge better would have been to only have the entrance to the shaft open when the trap triggered. Making it impossible to ignore the riddle.
I agree, Die Hard 3 does kick ass.
7:31 I have no source to confirm or deny this but Spyke himself could be a reference/allusion to/inspired by Marrow (Sarah Rushman), given the similar powerset and both being in some way associated with the Morlocks.
I dunno just a random thought I had.
I really liked this riddle. The only thing it did was tell you what order to enter the plane doors to find the Sphinx name. The players just thought it related to the lions in the previous chamber and didn't really at all. That was just a regular trap. To keep out travelers that had no chance at earning the name. They figured it out once they got there.
Also also, I'm stupid. I hate puzzles and riddles. I really DO wish that I could just roll for it because it feels WILDLY unfair when I like playing the smart characters, but I can't back it up with my own intelligence. It's literally because of this ("Don't let your players solve the game with their character sheet because that's not what riddles are for") that I won't play intelligent foward characters anymore... Barbarians and dumbass fighters from now on.
I have two different solutions to you bucket problem:
1: Fill the 5gal bucket. Fill the 3gal bucket from the 5gal bucket, leaving 2gal in the 5gal bucket. Empty the 3gal bucket. Pour the 2gal from the 5gal bucket into the 3gal bucket. This will leave 1gal of space in the 3gal bucket. Refill the 5gal bucket and pour off 1gal into the 3gal bucket, leaving 4gals in the 5gal bucket.
2. Fill the 3gal bucket. Pour it into the 5 gal bucket. Refill the 3gal bucket and use it to fill the remaining 2gals of the 5gal bucket. You now have a 3gal bucket with 1gal of water. Empty the 5gal bucket, pour in the 1gal from the 3gal bucket. Refill the 3gal bucket again and pour it into the 5gal bucket along with the 1gal already in the bucket. You have now poured 4 gals into the 5gal bucket.
1) Fill 5 Gallon up
2) Pour 5 Gallon into 3 Gallon until 3 Gallon is Full
3) Empty 3 Gallon
4) Pour remainder of 5 Gallon into 3 Gallon
5) Fill 5 Gallon Up
6) Pour 5 Gallon into 3 Gallon until 3 Gallon is Full
7) The End
an easy rule of thumb with riddles: let your players fail forward at a cost. This applies to most things but instead of locking them out of something, just have it where if everyone fails a difficult combat encounter is summoned or a trap is triggered but are able to move forward.
Is there an advantage to keeping notes for things you don’t witness? I can see where it might be if you allow that some unplayed conversations might occur.
In addition to situations like the one we saw with Sam, it also helps with recaps, and for out-of-character reminders to other players who may have forgotten an important detail their characters might have remembered.
@@SupergeekMike Ah yes, the Marisha of a group.
Is having my players literally do my old math final exam as a puzzle a good idea
I got you. Start with both jugs empty. Now, fill the 5 gallon jug all the way up. Then, use the 5 gallon jug to fill the 3 gallon jug. This will leave you with 2 gallons of water in the 5 gal jug and 3 gallons in the 3 gal jug. (2/5 and 3/3) Now empty the 3 gal jug. So you're at 2 gallons of water in the 5 gal jug, which is all of the water in any jugs. (2/5, 0/3. Pour that water into the 3 gal jug. Now there's 2 gallons in the 3 gal jug and the 5 gal is empty. (0/5, 2/3) Now fill the 5 gal up again. So you have 5 gallons in the 5 gal and 2 gallons in the 3 gal. (5/5, 2/3) Use the 5 gal jug to fill the 3 gal jug completely. This will move 1 gallon of water from the 5 gal to the 3 gal, levaing you with the drsired 4 gallons. (4/5, 3/3)
I still have trouble with initiative even with it written on the table. I tell people to make sure they pay attention. And I willing to allow a person to have two turns in the same round to even it out.
Anyone have a summon woodland creaturers chart.
I ended up making conjuration tables I roll on to help with those spells on Foundry. It is also one of the main reason I prefer PF2e. PF2e doesn't expect the DM to come up with the rules for half of the situations in the game, which is why D&D5e can pretend its "rules-lite" compared to PF2e. It isn't. It just makes the DM come up with a bunch of rules and PF2e has the DMs back for a large majority of situations (obviously no system can get ALL situations).
I think the best way to incorporate a riddle is to present it as like a kids riddle in world that stemmed from the solution to the puzzle.
The riddle isnt given by the puzzle tho.
Kinda like in that vin diesel movie the pacifier
To get 4 gallons with a 3 gallon and 5 gallon jug:
1) fill the 5 gallon jug with water, then fill the 3 gallon jug from the 5 gallon jug.
2) dump the 3 gallon jug. You should now have just 2 gallons of water in the 5 gallon jug, which you transfer to the 3 gallon jug.
3) fill the 5 gallon jug
4) fill the rest of the 3 gallon jug from the 5 gallon by transferring 1 gallon, leaving 4 gallons of water in the 5 gallon jug.
I'm sure this is the last thing you needed to know from this video, but here it is.
Regarding Conjuration spells, how about just have a list of creatures in the spell description like they do in 3.5? Why on earth isn't that in the game?
You can't get the answer from watching Die Hard because the amounts they had when they "solve" it were wrong.
First, Fill the 3 gallon jug and it entirely into the 5 gallon jug
Second, refill the 3 gallon jug and pour 2 more into the 5 gallon jug. This completely filling the 5 gallon jug and leaving 1 gallon in the 3 gallon jug.
Third, empty the 5 gallon jug and pour the 1 gallon from the 3 gallon jug into the 5 gallon jug.
Finally, refill the 3 gallon jug and pour into the 5 gallon jug making exactly 4 gallons.
The solve from the movie didn't have those numbers in the end and it drove me insane when I watched it.
22:23 I like mysteries I once solved how a plague was going to be spread from an accident that had happened a few sessions before
Concerning the conjuration spells, I play a necromancer with a lot of minions. I mean a lot of minions. However, I am myself a former DM so I know how to run them effectively. Group initiative, pre rolling all attacks and damaged rolls, knowing all of their stats, and knowing exactly what creatures my spells can create, etc. my turn with 14 different minions on the battlefield plus myself actually is shorter and more succinct than either the fighter or the barbarian. Summon spells are not bad, bad players don't know how to use summoning spells.
Shout out to Spyke!
This was an older recording compared to what the gang plays now. Has Matt learned a bit since then on conjuration spells? Has his feelings on the subject changed since then? I know that Travis as Fjord summoned a lesser demon in C2 and Liam conjures Frumpkin all the time (usually as a cat so that everyone knows what it looks like). I think that conjuration spells can work for people who do their homework in regards to their spells and work with the DM in providing clear expectations of said spells. Clearly, Marisha is not one of those people.
Sam/Scanlan's casting of Resilient Sphere and trolling the orcs is one of my all-time favorite scenes in this campaign. It's too bad that it wasn't animated.
7:14 WOW! That is a surprise reference! Most people don't know of X-Men: Evolution despite it being a long-running show.
I did create a puzzle box in my campaign that sort-of acted like a riddle. Using XGTE and the magical box with the keys, I hid those keys around a wizard's mansion, and after unlocking the box, they will find another key that will go in a hidden door which led to the wizard's experimental dungeon. I would like to try out a verbal riddle with traps and battles much like what Matt did here.
Frumpkin was summoned via Find Familiar, a far different spell, but the stat blocks for many of the animals Frumpkin could become were in the back of the Player’s Handbook, and not just the Monster Manual. For Summon Greater Demon, I believe Matt was prepared in case Travis took that spell, because warlocks get very few spells, and the spell only summons one creature of whatever type the player chooses. The conjuration spells (Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland Beings, etc.) are a lot more frustrating, and the fact that the Druid has access to way more spells every day than either the Warlock or the Wizard means preparing for this sort of spell does require a lot of effort on the part of either the player of the DM. But until they actually prepare the spell and read through it, they might not realize just how much work is required from them. I don’t think it’s fair to assume Marisha isn’t the type of player to coordinate with the GM, when those sorts of spells just ask for a lot more from the player and the GM than the other examples you listed.
So glad to find out that your an X-men evolution fan
See, i thought the sand was supposed to be able to help them get up through the hole without having someone able to fly
Wow i would be so frustrated if I was Marisha casting either of these 6th level spells and getting so little out of them 😂