Your bit near the end reminds me of how I accidentally broke my little brother's D&D 3e game. In the setting, there had been a band of great heroes who all died a century or two ago (like they do). Now the great evil was rising again, and a new generation of champions was called. We had me, a Paladin; a ranger, a barbarian, and a sorceress (iirc. It's been 20 years or so) We're 1st or 2nd level. Have no magic items. Fighting endless hordes of monsters. And then we found the grave of one of the ancient heroes-- the Paladin. His spirit led us to it through visions my character had. Inside, he has a nice stash of magic items. Pretty impressive magical full-plate, very impressive magic shield, warhammer (the main god of this world was the Hammer Lord), bunch of other cool stuff. And the whole party pretty much decided my character should take it all, as CLEARLY I'd been led here by holy visions. (And we all kind of thought we'd be going after the tombs of the other ancient heroes of whom there were curiously exactly as many as our PC group and they had a similar class spread). My little brother suddenly had a problem. He'd figured we would split the items up and everyone would have one nice thing. Instead, he now had an invulnerable tank paladin and a party slightly underpowered for what he expected. It all came to a head in one adventure where an army of hobgoblins attacked, and there was no way most of them could hit me as I carved my way toward their chieftain and killed him. The lesson I learned from that is "sometimes it's okay to metagame." If my little bro had said "No, actually if you look there's one item that will help each member of your party. I'm not telling you what to do, but there aren't any more tombs full of helpfully organized magic items in the game," things would have gone differently.
The issue is more of the situation being a derailment to the campaign for a linear campaign style. Now, if you give these items knowing this can happen, that cool too.
If my party beat the Big Bad with a Portable Hole + Bag of Holding, I get to throw Big Bad 2 Plainstriding Boogaloo at them. (either as a final boss, or during the following game.)
I mean you have a point, it isnt certain death. Time can even be different in there, so just have the party do a side mission or two and suddenly the boss is back, leveled a bit more, and with friends he met on his travels back. Congratulations on your wombo combo you just made the fight harder and delayed his plans a few days :D great plan.
Defeated a humanoid boss once by stuffing him in a portable hole strapped to the side of a portrait. It was supposed to be a hard fight but between the boss rolling 2 nat 1s and our party getting 2 nat 20s it ended up being a episode of loony toons.
I'm just imagining the relief that comes over the party as the Ranger shoots down the goblin.... only to see 10 more Goblins charging towards their fallen comrade to pick up the items to continue the charge
I've been dealing with these "super characters" for decades now. It can be balanced without "cheating up" monster stats, or nerfing my players hard won magic items. It does take some creativity and thinking fast on your feet, but it can be done. Increase number of monsters strategically, don't get frustrated when players one shot one room, they still have many more areas to clear before they're finished, etc. My players usually get into "player godhood" around 14th or 15th level no matter what I try, if the are still having fun we just keep on going. I often start a second campaign with lower level characters, and alternate campaigns week to week., keeps powerful players humble and lets them play those alternate classes they've been wanting to try. Power levels aside, it's about having fun, so shoot for the highest possible fun level and forget about balance .. to some extent. Good video, thanks.
I agree. Sometimes its fine to let players blast through encounters. It lets them feel their power. They shouldnt have to scrape and claw through every encounter and be challenged with every fight. Sometimes its fun to just run into a small group of relatively easy foes and blow them away. This can also help to make the challenging fights feel all the bigger. because the players are well aware of how easily they deal with basic foes. So the fact this boss is holding his ground makes him seem all the more imposing.
@@TheGoondas87 I had a bunch of characters that had were busting doors and taking names with most of the encounters. My solution was a pair of Bosses one a necromancer and one artificer who made a basically a device that would summon undead (mostly skeletons because why not). the devices would summon 2d6 skeletons every turn, it would do so for 2 rounds then have to recharge for 1 round. so the heroes had to deal with an Artificer of their level, a Necromancer of their level and a metric shit tonne of skeletons. The Paladins and Cleric had their hands full while the others had to figure out how to handle the bosses and mob generator.
As soon as i feel players are ready i just consider them as 1 level = 1 cr, and as a dm I personally like making creatures via player levels to make it feel like I'm playing with the same rules that they're following. A lot of my mini bosses are just funky builds set at high levels, like a Warforged Druid that transforms into a Enormous Tentacle that looks like a tree, or a Lore Bard that uses Melf Minute Meteor alongside Find Steed. Giving them magic items also gives players a way to see the items in action which I think is fun. Thats not all of my encounters though, sometimes i just make a Large-Huge creature with 30-40 Strength and Siege Creature as a way to have a simple encounter that is just in all terms and purposes mean and difficult whatever there level is, other times I give them lower level encounters so that they get a update on how powerful they are and to let me play up the comedy of how screwed these guys they're facing really are sometimes, making them feel higher on the totem pole so that they don't feel the world is always out to get them. Theres fun to be had whatever you set the difficulty at, just be conscious of what the difficulty you want is and when to course correct when a fight is easier or harder than what you planned, either by reducing the damage they need to do or by upping the theatrics a bit to match whatever difficulty the fight is currently at.
While it's possible to strain the narrative to workaround a few of these issues, after having DM-d quite a few high-level high magic session I've got to say it's sometimes pretty implausible to get that to work. What does reliably at least improve matters, and what I would recommend for any DM that intends to give the PCs any kind of ability to trade items or any randomness combined with high-magic, is to reimpose bounded accuracy by (A) simply not having magic items stack, and (B) not having ability score boosting items (or if you do, give them small relative bonuses that cap out at well below 20). Having even 1 AC boosting item is pretty powerful, but having a few - quite likely even playing by DMG stats if you let the players distribute items as they wish - it's just really easy to get into the unhittable ACs, especially with stuff like shield, shield of faith, and the various defensive tricks all kinds of classes have like imposing disadvantage, or defensive duelist, or lucky, or the college of valor's combat inspiration, etc, etc. etc. All those reactions are kind of balanced only under the assuming that your base AC is pretty commonly hit - but if you have a base AC of even "just" 25, then you'll need those measures less than once a round even if NPCs gang up on you, and that renders a PC so close to unhittable that whatever does hit either just won't matter, or will need to have massively unbalancing consequences. And with item stacking, 25 really isn't even close to a worst case scenario. So my recommendation here: just ban item stacking and ability score boosts. The rule barely impacts "normal" gameplay, and whenever it does come up, it's almost always a pretty reasonable nerf; the PCs can still distribute items amongst each other to avoid the overlap, and it's a pretty simple rule too. High level gameplay is still intrinsically unbalanced, but at least that way there's still some level of challenge with normal, non-cherry-picked fights, at least in many cases.
Here’s the counter to the arrow of ultimate destruction; have your bbeg carry a spell scroll of plane shift then play one winged angel as they reappear for the surprise round.
Key thing to remember: portable hole + bag of holding doesn't *kill* anyone, it just planeshifts them, & powerful/important npcs can find ways back Unless they have planeshift ready, it will end the fight, but you can be certain they'll come crawling back days or weeks later with a vengeance
Depends on the DM. Some of them home rule that portable hole into bag of holding (or vice versa) works like it did in 3.5: The resulting implosion kills everything that it hits/sucks in.
The one time I ever had to deal with this, I made the BBEG come crawling back a month later, heavily corrupted by his time in the Astral Plane with some new abilities and reactive teleportation.
As a dm, I totally am fine with the extra dimension bomb. Chances are they'll save it for a big enough villain that the villain will only wast like a lvl 7 spell to get back. haha.
LoL yeah I was about to say the same thing. Had players use this on a Lich in a high level planewalker campaign once. He Chuckled as he was pulled away, and the party got to enjoy their easy win for a bit till they walked into the next room to find the Lich looking at them like: “Really?”
@@stedmanregester6926 Lich: "DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT I JUST DIDN'T PLAN FOR THAT" As an army of goblins with their own bags of holding and things like that scurry to the party
I like creating a "Nemesis" for whoever gets insanely broken. An eldritch monster or a powerful mage hunter NPC , usually linked to the problem magic item, that will actively stalk them to kill or just take the item back. Really gets some interesting RP, and keeps it mechanically interesting cos the power player now has to deal with a personal enemy built to kill them.
@@Chance57 lotr shadow of mordor is a game that has something called the nemesis system, which sometimes makes orcs you kill come back stronger and with a vengeance
I like giving the items the party wants to particular enemies so that they are loot and it adds good challenge/flavor (depending on the item(s)) of the encounters. The portable hole + bag of holding combo was used on a BBEG once. Not once did it occur to the party that the villain knew plane shift. Sucked for the rogue who rushed in valiantly and was now stuck in the Astral Sea.
This is a case of a previous video where if the DM makes this mistake early on then it's time to have that talk with the player saying, "I messed up as a DM," and work with the player to fix this issue so everyone is having fun.
Yes taking their advice into account maybe the weapon could change to do something else. Maybe lising its plus to hit and damage but adding an extra d6 damage on each hit. Still fun and powerful but avoiding the stacking of attack bonuses.
Well I think DMs forget sometimes that they have an entire world at their disposal. If a particular item is too much then there's no reason for a really high level thief to not steal it or for a curse to manifest itself, or for the weapon or item to turn out to be sentient or for the weapon itself to be a legendary quest item with multiple attunement rituals or a combination of these things. Don't get mad at a player for finding creative ways to maximize or abuse their gifts.. that's what we do . Instead use your own creativity and the fact that literally an entire world is at your fingertips to direct or manipulate circumstances as needed. If you can give them ten different ways to find info on a mcguffin you can make a cult after a rogues new dagger because it's their ritual dagger of sacrifice. Etc
@@charlesgargotta23 stealing players items is not a nice way to resolve these issues. Yes you have complete control which is exactly why you shouldn't do it. The player has no agency in that situation amd just feels cheated. Have a grown up conversation with them instead.
@@charlesgargotta23 That's certainly some fun and interesting ways to show the new item is highly desired and keeping it could cause problems along the way, for the group.
The DM used the bag of holding reverse pick pocketed into a party member’s bag of holding, to dump us all into the astral plane for his planned adventure.
BBEG escapes through a portal to the astral plane, Bard: Oh no he's escaping! What do we do? Wizard: (takes out portable hole), Fighter give me your bag. Fighter: What's this about wizard?(Gives Bag) Wizard: We're going after him...
@@link090909 bbeg was probably using the astral plane as a pitstop if anything, probably won't be staying in it for too long unless it has a base there or something
@@link090909 Nothing at an indefinite distance. Things like Locate Object are remarkably short distance. I'd say even giving a 1000% chance, so 01 on D100 twice over is generous. But in fairness, the guy didn't say the wizard had a 'good' plan. Just a plan.
my DM in one of my campaigns gave out way to many magic items, and when my character died we talked about it and he came to realize he kind of regretted it, so i gave him a tabaxi rogue/shadowmonk hybrid build i made, pass without trace, plus 21 to stealth, plus 11 to slight of hand, this cat is slowly stealing magical items, and selling them to pawn shops, great solution imo.
After they die the loot is up for grabs, and the party either has an answer to the combo or they die so the result shall not be good. This is the reason I like to give the bad guys personal abilities that combo with a magic item they have so the party gets a nice (and memorable) item out of the encounter but not the combo.
Give the big bad a Bag of Holding and Portable Hole that he combines when he has lost. *Put some good loot in a chest nearby that does NOT get sucked into the ensuing vortex
@@SubKoopa 1: it crit 2: all 3 charges were spent and 3: the DM used a different rule that allowed all the party members to add damage to the final attack
Of course, by 13th level, any gloom stalker theoretically could find a way to gain flight, though I suppose the aarakocra has the advantage of not needing a spellcasting friend or a magic item.
The cloak of invisibility is like greater invisibility already. In the items description it says nothing about your invisibility breaking if you attack or cast a spell.
Id like to point out something that might not sound resonable but might be something you need to enforce if this flying invisibility comes up in your games. Invisibility and hiding are two different things. When you are invisible, enemies know where you are but have disadvantage to hit you. Hidden is a condition you have when taking the hide action that hides your location to the enemies. So a flying ranger shooting while invisible would be able to be shot at and their location would be known. Arogue doing this could however take the hide action as a bonus action after each attack forcing perception check if they beat the enemies passive perception trying to hide. I realize its kinda stupid to say "well enemies know where you are because invisibility as a condition doesnt hide you" but its even worse to be in the situation of having a unkillable god pc.
@@izunagi9064 You absolutely could if you're trying to make the meme build with just abilities alone, but it's redundant if you already have the Illusionist's Bracers.
Yup. This is happening in our Curse of Strahd game. So busted, even though she doesn’t use Hex. She outpaced my paladin’s burst (I’m not allowed to smite on both attacks on my Attack action) for a long time
@@elinamauno8833 I personally homebrew a simple nerf to Illusionist's Bracers but simultaneously reduce the rarity: The 2nd cantrip can't be the same cantrip. Makes the item more interesting since you can't just spam the same spell over and over, and keeps it in line with how the item was meant to be used. The alternative (if you want to make it fair at Rare rarity) is to make it so the 2nd cantrip can't do damage, so that its specifically a utility item during combat.
How I dealt with the portable hole + bag of holding combo at my table was saying that the rift didn't just simply dissapear, but instead started to grow as the dungeon around them started to shake, and allowed for a cool dungeon escape scenario!
@@christophercombs7561 Yeah I'm with you on this one buddy. And honestly, if you can't deal with a flying ranged attacker, you just suck as a DM because that means you can't handle quite a few mid level casters either. Wizard - "nice, I can fly now!" GM - "Fuck it! New campaign!" seriously, its hard to take them for serious if that is an issue.
@@christophercombs7561 yea 5e is geared for beginners and those who want a simple pick-up-and-play game. You want unlimited potential, you play Pathfinder, or if you really like insane bizarre power and don't mind extra math play Rifts.
When you get a Belt of Giant Strength, boots of flying, cloak of invisibility, bag of holding, portable hole, and +3 arrows from one encounter, it’s a special combo I like to call, “Sweat with no friends”
@@HexenDarkside Or they can just open a hole to the Astral Plane daily using the bags of holding... Heck! For most monsters you don't need another artificer, at lv9 you can have a 7 Sorcerer 2 Artificer with Metamagic Twinned spell and Polymorph. Use that to transform 2 creatures into baby sea turtles and put them in your bag of holding, let those suckers rest in the bag 20ft away from you and then break concentration. What happens next is that both creatures will expand and most creatures on their own would break the bag from the inside, with 2 you're sure that they will. Ta-da! You can do this once per day...
Nice work guys. Your videos are consistently thoughtful, engaging, and high quality. Here are a couple reactions: on the belt of giant strength, I initially thought "why even have it in the game?" You mentioned one reason (high-level, that is, level-20 play). Another reason would be for a cool story beat (say, for a physically weak character to suddenly become strong). The third reason, obviously, is if you want to let the fighter BE a wrecking ball. At first glance, it might sound like DDs are saying "DMs, don't give your players these items." They didn't say that. They said be aware. DMs can give powerful combos and abilities to the players AND still challenge players. Maybe how to challenge powerful players would be a good subject for a follow-up video. Part of the fun for me as a DM is to invent cool items for the players. I also enjoy the follow-up fun of how to continue challenging them when the PCs are "OP" (full disclosure: I like tactical combat). My top 3 tools are minions, environment, and pacing (see below). Warning: the wall of text below is supporting detail from my game that is illustrative but not required reading. My party of 5 has at least 3 of the OP combinations mentioned in the video: a paladin with +3 armor (AC 23), a ranger with +14 to hit, and a wizard with 19 spell save DC. The PCs are currently level 11 and I'm planning for the campaign to end with them just hitting level 13, after about 1.5 to 1.75 years of total game play. In each case, I've given some thought on how to contain or limit the "problem." I've also experimented with a variety of techniques to continue to challenge the players. The paladin's armor requires attunement (it has some extra abilities) and he has a sentinel shield; I've never made a "plus" shield available to the party. In addition, his weapon requires attunement and his wondrous item requires attunement, so his AC is high but not unmanageably so. (Strategy #1: fill up their attunement slots.) The ranger (longbow wielding sharpshooter) has +5 to hit from DEX, +4 from proficiency bonus, +2 from archery fighting style, +2 from her magic bow, and +1 from magic arrows (provided from a magic quiver that makes 7 per day, noncumulative). Notice that -- without any magic items at all -- she would still have +11 to hit. The wizard has Robe of the Archmagi and a +2 wand of the war mage. Her spell save DC is 19 (but it would still be 17 without any magic items) and her spell attack rolls are at +13 (but VERY few of her spells require an attack roll -- basically only firebolt -- and let's face it, if you're an 11th level wizard, your firebolt should hit). (Strategy #2: embrace the fact that characters should be really good at what they should be good at. Don't worry about making an already large bonus a bit larger, particularly if it will rarely be relevant.) Here are some of the strategies that I use to deal with "OP" players: 1) outnumber them. The action economy is real. We're playing (right now) Red Hand of Doom so I'm still throwing hobgoblins at the party, even though the party is level 11. When the party was level 8, I ran the opening scene of RHoD with a warband of 40 hobgoblins (20 ranged, AC 16, and 20 melee, AC 18) 2 hell hounds, a 3rd level hobgoblin cleric and a 5th level hobgoblin sergeant. With Martial Advantage, the hobgoblins messed up the party pretty good. I don't care if each PC one-shots two or three hobgoblins per round (or 6 or 7 with a fireball). The mass of enemies limits their mobility and provides some cover for the bigger, badder bad guys in the rear echelons (casters, generally). Even 6 or 8 incoming arrows per round can challenge the wizard's ability to concentrate on a spell. 2) environment -- darkness (shooting in dim light = disadvantage) and cover can make things much harder for the PCs. I'm only now starting to realize how much I wasn't following the rules early on in the campaign. (E.g., darkvision doesn't really mean the party can *see*.) Enemies can pop out, shoot, and duck under full cover again. The party has some trouble with flying enemies, such as manticores, wyverns, and dragons who can strafe them and fly away again. Enemies that grapple, entangle, have high mobility, and/or that can take reactions and opportunity attacks can really make the players think hard about their choices. For example, I made the giants attacking the walls of Brindol based on the Bloodfray Giants from GGR. 3) Get the party to 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. By limiting their ability to rest, I can get them more to their "baseline" damage as opposed to their burst damage potential. So, remind them -- in a variety of ways -- that the clock is ticking. Use "wandering monsters." Right now I'm running the Battle of Brindol and there are 5 or 6 waves of bad guys they'll face in a row without even a short rest. I have the ability to tune (hp and number of enemies) each wave to make it challenging without making it (too) overwhelming. Lastly, one final story. The party knew, from scouting they'd done in part 1 of RHoD, that a red dragon was coming at them in the Battle of Brindol. They decided to assassinate it before the battle and made a plan to do so. They came in, at night, on giant owls (borrowed from the elves in chapter 2), hit the dragon, and escaped via Transport via Plants. It was a good plan and I felt like they deserved their win. They surprised the dragon ("rolled" 20 for stealth via a portent, but could've used Pass without Trace too) and proceeded to do 435 damage in the first round, which killed the dragon without it having the chance to act at all. Now of that total, only 7% was from their magic items. Mostly it was their skills and abilities used in good combinations (e.g., animate objects + crusader's mantle, for 71 damage). The very next fight, Defend the Walls, the party was back to struggling with hobgoblin minions, a ticking clock, darkness, and enemies that are spaced widely apart. Consequently, the paladin spent most of the fight Banished because they couldn't get to the enemy caster to break her concentration. That fight lasted 6 or 7 rounds (so, quite long) versus the one round versus the dragon.
The high level Belts of Giant Strength are fine UNTIL you also give to-hit bonuses. Then it becomes silly. Otherwise, it just boosts damage rolls, not attack rolls as well. (that said, I wouldn't award any that are over 25 STR until theyre like level 17 or something...)
A +2 weapon can be easily given to a low strength magic user if a member of a small party and keeps getting chased by minions. Even more important in a low magic setting.
@@Ephsy yes, you're right. I'm prepping for my party to face off against a gloomstalker ranger. They rely on darkvision so he'll be invisible to them. Hence the disadvantage comment.
Here's a fun story related to the arrow of ultimate destruction. Back when artificer was still ua I had a DM that let my artificer learn the medical formula for a bag of holding, so that I could make them myself. He was super cool about it and he was really into letting me modify the bag's formulas so that I could make smaller coin purse sized ones. I could make 4 of them in the time it took to make a bag. You see where this is going, right? I made myself 12 "Bolts of Fuck Off"
My artificer player has a standing AC of 23 through no fault of my own. Level 10 artificer, +2 studded leather armour (enhanced defence infusion), +1 shield (repulsion shield infusion ), +5 dex and a cloak of protection (infusion). He dodges melee attacks all day but went down in three rounds against a compotent spellcaster because his saves weren't quite as monstrous
I'm playing a warforged armorer artificer. At level 10, even if I get no magic items, I'll have plate (18) with Enhanced Defense infusion (+2) and a shield (+2) with the Repulsion Shield infusion (+1) and an infused Cloak of Protection (+1) on top of being a Warforged (+1). So when I walk up and punch someone with Thunder Gauntlets, they have to make the choice between attacking one of my allies at disadvantage or trying to hit my 25 AC.
@@daneshannonsparks take a 1 lvl dip into Wizard (cause Int caster) soley to pick up the shield spell. Attack at disadvantage or try to hit AC 30... if you go for light armor instead of plate and have a good dex, you can take Wiz further and become bladesinger. Add your Int mod to AC and still have Shield spell on tap. Artificer's one of the easiest classes to get stupid broken AC cause you don't need the DM to give you magic items, you just make it yourself
This was a fantastic video, thank you. I started playing/running games back in 3.0. The logic behind 5e items has been insanely frustrating to what I'm used too. When you go from being decked out like a Christmas tree by level 10 to maybe having 3 magic items at the same level is a big adjustment. Understanding why 5e does thishelps.
You are not alone in that. My group had the same problems going from 3.5 to 5. I had an archer with a magic bow, whatever ion stone gives you a dex bonus and something else. Once I got sharpshooter, it was just silly. I actually ended up talking to my DM and asking him to take some of the items away because it was wrecking our game.
I'm a 3/3.5 baby myself so I really don't like 5 honestly but bad d&d is better than no d&d so I play it, the world of 3.5 is so much more complex and chaotic its vastly superior imo If you want to make a bard so charismatic he has to fight off assassins send by gods of beauty who are jealous of his looks then you should be able to make the earth quake when you speak damn it
I'm surprised to see they didn't mention Amulet of the Devout from Tasha's being able to work with other classes's spells as long as they multiclass into cleric/paladin.
With the armor/cloak of displacement one. Having all the enemies ignore the high armored character and attack the less armored ones is the characters problem. Not the DM's. If you reverse the situation and you as a party run into a group of monsters and one has a huge AC, you'll go after the lesser ones first to clear the field. Its basic tactics. If you want to be the front line tank, you need to give the monsters a reason to want to attack you. If you make yourself virtually invincible, you have failed in that task, and therefor failed as a tank. Sure you may easily survive every fight, but whats the point if your entire party keeps dying around you. One of my players has just realised this last session. He has gotten his AC to 22 and sometimes 24 using shield of faith. As DM I have low CR creatures attack him for a round or two. They then realise none of them are getting through his armor, even with high rolls, so they give up and go for squishier characters. So he has decided to stick with the high AC but then force creatures to attack him using spells that give the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone but him. Or he finds a bottleneck and puts himself right in it so monsters cant get past him. This is the trade off with high AC. Youll need to get creative if you want creatures to keep swinging at you. Otherwise, as a DM, I struggle to find a logical reason why my monsters will keep uselessly attacking you.
Cloak of displacement also has a clause that it doesnt work if your speed is 0, aka grappled or restrained. So even tho usually PCs with high ac have high athletics and acrobatics you can still swarm them with creatures that grapple and shove causing them to gain advantage against that high ac which might be enough. Another way would be to have a giant creature getting help from minions to grapple them and then have the smaller once attack in groups. Spells that restrain or paralyze also removes that disadvantage and gives advantage to attack them.
There was a player in the longest-running game I have played in who got their AC up to 23 and wears Adamantine Plate. They specifically tried to be a tank and then they decided to be a Battlemaster fighter instead of a Chavalier, the subclass specifically made to do that. So rather than be a wall between the enemy and the rest of the party, he was just horribly overpowered on his own.
@@rcschmidt668 Or he needs a way to extend his reach and reaction options like Polearm Master or Sentinel or Protection fighting style or Battle Smith Artificer's Steel Defender. A good high AC character should be capable of dealing damage as well as taking it. A great high AC character has resistances and prevents his allies getting hit at all and destroys the enemy's action economy. My current Fighter / Artificer has a Ring of Protection, Unity Ring, and Belt of Resistance in addition to his Shield and Half Plate, Improved Defense infusion, and Improved Weapon infusion. That's 22AC, and Warding Bond bumps it to 23 AC while also giving an ally +1 AC and Resistance. Full Plate and the Shield spell would make it 29AC. Then Protection Fighting Style and the Steel Defender create Disadvantage to enemy attacks twice per turn at the cost of a Reaction (one his, one the Defender's). Steel Defender attacks on the Bonus Action, so that's three attacks at level 6. Being a half-caster, he can also cast Sanctuary and Aid to further protect allies. I would certainly understand if a DM blocked this combination.
Flying enemies, more spells or spell like abilities, casters that can cast dispel magic (cancel flight and drop target), battlemasters that can trip, winged humanoid monks that can stun... spiders shoot web... manticores, medusa gaze... I don't know. D&D is supposed to be a game of creativity. Our characters fly all the time and have most of the items described above and maybe better. DM doesn't seem to mind. We still have a great time and our enemies either die really fast or present a challenge or can kill us really really fast. (My DM is the really creative one)
Are you guys going to do a segment on how spells and magic items work together? I’m relatively new to dnd so I haven’t seen too many potent combos in action. But things like unseen servant with an immovable rod or control water with decanter of endless water sound like they could be potent
An artificer can build the overpowered AC just with infusions. Defense+2 Armor, Repulsion shield +1, Cloak of protection +1 , Ring of Protection +1. If they are a battlesmith or artillerist they get shield spell. If they are an Armorer they get plate, but honestly half plate and shield spell is better. Oh and they can get access to shield of faith
My Eldritch Knight lvl 14 with Haste, Boots of Striding and Springing, 25 ac without Shield and a +9 con save will find the caster (See Invisibility included) and Action Surge 7 attacks on them.
As a Druid I caught my DM out with that one. He gave an NPC a bodyguard with AC 25, & the interceptor ability, and assumed we would not be able to hit him enough or be a threat to the NPC. My Druid simply cooked the bodyguard in his armour, leaving the NPC completely unable to dictate the terms he was anticipating to the party. A good lesson for a reasonable new DM that high AC is not everything.
@@savagecabbage8013 Is this hyperbole? I hope it is. If not what CR are you having these problems at? I ask because if I take 3 hours to plan a single encounter, my players would really hope it was a social encounter. If you see me working for 3 hours on a combat encounter, just grab another character sheet and get to work, because you current character is about to have a bad day.
I'm looking forward to seeing this Video, I've always loved the Versitility of magic items and I feel like Rings of spell storing paired with pearls of power are underutilized for how Broken they can be. First I think
My "Instakill" trick is the following: Prereq Items: Bag of Devouring + Iron Flask Note: Only works on things that can get sucked into an iron flask. So, you have an Iron Flask and use it to trap something inside it. You then, go to a bag of devouring. Put your hands inside while holding the flask. If your character doesn't get devoured by the bag, you then open the Iron Flask within the Bag of Devouring. Because of the wording, the moment whatever is inside the Iron Flask starts its turn within the Bag of Devouring, it is instantly consumed, no saves of any kind nor any time to react. The only caveats to this working is: Capturing whatever it is with an Iron Flask to begin with and you or whoever decides to perform the task not getting devoured by the Bag.
@@MsKeylas Unfortunately doesnt work because the bag of devouring will just poop out the iron flask at some randomly determined time by the GM (once per day) to one randomly determined place across the cosmos meaning whatevers inside is free to be released by something else at some point in the future. So to instantly kill whatevers inside, you need to open it while inside the bag of devouring and releasing whatevers in the flask in the bag.
@@freakyskull516 This trick is mainly for extra-planar non-human sized entities but also, the wording on Bag of Devouring means that, even if you stuff it around someones head, unless the 50% chance occurrence of the target being vacuumed in occurs, it wont decapitate/devour them. This method makes that a guaranteed outcome if you can get them into the Iron Flask.
I love playing Dwarves, and am always on the lookout for Periapt of Wound Closure, to combo with Dwarven Fortitude. Bonus points if you're a cleric with Beacon of Hope, or a Pact of the Chain Warlock with Gift of the Everliving Ones. The +2 con from Belt of Dwarvenkind is nice too, but not really needed.
I like doing something similar but as a Monk because the bonus action heal is so dumb. Bonus points if you add a level in Barbarian to not only rage as well but also get some of those sweet sweet d12 hit dice.
I have an artificer character with multiple bags of holding, and whenever the party is stuck/frustrated with a puzzle or whatever situation we’re in, we taunt the DM by saying “Well we’ll just put a bag inside a bag and turn campaign into escaping the Astral Sea.” He hasn’t found it very funny yet.
@@Kino_Cartoon Yes, the fact that I’m an artificer isn’t relevant to how many bags of holding I have, I just mentioned it because most people tend to say what their character is when they tell a story. The campaign is that we’re like special agents of a magical institute so we basically have whatever tools we need at our disposal, including bags of holding. Plus I have a few niche extradimensional spaces that can only be used for storing specific kinds of items like gemstones, but it’s easier to just consider stuff like that a “bag of holding” for the sake of brevity in a UA-cam comment.
@@redstoneraptor8101 your Campaigne sounds really interesting. Like a James Bond version with magic. A lot of really expensive and nearly exclusive stuff which is being used to fullfil a mission. I love it.
From an epic loot drop, my Paladin got a belt of Hill Giant Strength and a +3 Dwarven Thrower because the other Melee character wasn't paying attention when we were dividing the loot. My attack is now +11 at lvl 8, and I'm so happy.
I haven't heard of the portable hole before, but when I first learned about the bag of holding inside another bag of holding thing, it became my dream to one day dm a game where that happens on purpose because I've set up an adventure in the astral plane because that sounds hella fun
Hypothetically, providing that all the players have these stat boosting items, and the like, a DM could do something similar to the creatures that are going up against they players, especially if the creatures come from a well-funded organization or something.
I made a 20th level character that has a passive perception of 50 with a slight bit of homebrew, without that homebrew it’s “only” a 44. Granted, this is a teacher who is an NPC in a setting, but it still exists.
Explanation needed. Wis 20=+5 Expertise =+12 Obervant=+5 Paasive Perception = 32 Luckstone = +1 (Eyes of eagle) Adv = ? +3 - +5 The +1d4 abilities & spells only apply to active checks as far as I know.
@@richardwhaler8717 @Matthew Slade WIS 18 = +4 Expertise = +12 Observant = +5 Ioun Stone of Mastery = +2 (from expertise) Eyes of the Eagle: +5 Raven Queen Warlock with a +6 CHA, homebrew Oath of Passion Paladin with same feature as RQW = +12 Passive Perception: 50, 44 without homebrew
13:30 In 3.5e, I was playing a Halfling Sorcerer. Through the course of the game, I gained the Flight spell (with Hover!) and spellcasting feats that let me cast without the Somatic or verbal components... Fireball, lightning (all creatures in the line within range...), etc. Like your Jill, I became an Apache attack helicopter. I remember one battle encounter, we were assaulting a castle. Party's being harassed by the troops with cover on the battlements. So... I do Fly and go sideways and then up so I'm flanking the guards on the battlement and hit the line with lightning. No more guards.
3.5 is a wild edition that I will always say is the best edition, I had a bard who got his charisma to like 40 and who kept having to fight off assassins from envious gods of beauty
1- Criticism of Belt of giant strength + magic weapon solution: The magic weapon is not the problem with this scenario. The problem is the Belt. No character should be getting such a powerful magic item before high levels such as 18/19/20 with the exception of the Hill giant belt. But a Hill giant belt probably won't help the barbarian/fighter/paladin; it will help the melee cleric. 2- The idea that a player should only have a number of magic items equal to their proficiency bonus... this is not accurate. Attunement restricts you enough. A DM just has to be careful about what specific magic items they give out. A player could have 20 spell scrolls. A Wizard can make those for them-self. They could have numerous common items like the tankard of sobriety or many healing potions. The real problem is magic items with stacking bonuses or strong/unusual powers like flight. Certain magic items are problematic. I don't think its number of items that is the problem.
@@swiftdragonrider Use of the right terminology is important in logic, rhetoric, and argument. Magic Items by definition includes those common and consumable items. Everyone I've played with has always called consumables and common items as magic items because they are located in the magic item section of the DMG or Xanathar's. If you mean wondrous items or weapons or armor say that. If you mean rare, very rare, legendary, or artifacts then say that. To say magic items when you mean something else in the context of this video makes what you're saying explicitly false.
@@fortunatus1 I know this requires more knowledge of these guys but I remember they game the advice not to count comon magic items and give away 1 a game. And from my experience most players don't refer to scrolls and potions as magic items. Also even if you take them by there word I am a okay with not handing out more consumables until they use the ones I gave them. But unrelated to this the video is clearly talking about power and magic items that might case problems and I don't think any number of common/level fitting consumables will brake a party.
Gave my party a belt (can't remember which one) on top of a +2 sword in the first campaign I ran, thinking they would split it across the two martial fighters and everything would be cool. I wanted them to feel and be powerful. Then they stacked them both on the fighter 2/paladin x with GWM and encounter balance for me as a new DM was a disaster. I really should've just given them 2 weapons lmao
I don't really have any predictions since the only magic item combos I can think of are the ones that are explicitly spelled out: the Hammer of Thunderbolts + Belt of Giant Strength + Gauntlets of Ogre Power, or the 5 Dragon Masks. Let's see where this goes.
Welcome to my beholder dungeon! And remember they need a whole hour to Reattune those attunement items after that anti magic eye hits them in round one.
A beholders anti magic eye gaze suppresses magic effects. Those effects are still active, it’s just muted. A character concentrating on the fly spell will fall within the eye cone but doesn’t lose concentration. If the beholder turns around the character can return to flying. This effect is the same to magic items. A plus 2 weapon isn’t plus two in the eye gaze cone but returns to that outside of the effect area. Attunement to their magic cloak works just like concentration on a spell and doesn’t end but is muted while in the area.
@@ProgramKiraTV heck, with how that works combined with the eye beams, fog cloud can completely gimp a beholder if they don’t have minions or access to a light breeze.
One of the way I was pondering to minimize this would be to "tailor" the item for the character you have in mind. Sure the obvious way to give give a say a weapon that makes sense for a class over the other, like a battleaxe instead of a shortsword if you want your paladin to use it instead of your rogue. The way I'd like to go is describing what the item looks like "the cloak has a flower foliage pattern" and hopefully that goes to the ranger, "the staff has a grim raven head motif" so hopefully the warlock gets it. Mind you I'm aware this could only ever work on players that give a damn about their character personalities and esthetics.....
I’ve seen a dm get passed a high ac by having a second attack(like multi attack) be a aoe dex save, so the first attack still contest against their ac but the second still brings danger. Of course it wasn’t as repetitive as that but that was just the example to not only using magic users for attacking the ac tank
That’s what my dm is doing for my character. He’s a high ac fighter and my dm keeps throwing things with breath weapons or multi attack and and least once per encounter i get smacked with a crit due to the sheer number of attacks coming at me
One time I stole all the money from a castle by invisibly entering the vault where they kept their money, putting all their gold into a portable hole and teleporting out with a helm of teleportation after they closed the vault.
Most powerful combo I've run into recently is just the magic missile firing squad. Give a party of 6 a magic missile wand each? And your monsters can take 18d4+18 unavoidably, 7 times a day
This may be my favorite of all your great videos. As a newish DM, there are lessons here that will serve amazingly well. Wish I'd seen this a year ago. :)
That cloak of invisibility/ boots of flying combo... You can make a character with those traits early on; Variant Tiefling - Winged who is a Sorcerer (or other arcane magic class). Once you have greater invisibility it creates this scenario. As a bonus, if it's a shadow magic sorcerer, you can use Sorcery points to cast darkness that you can see in.
The bag of holding/portable hole should also work with two bags of holding. Both are items that create extradimensional spaces. So two artificers with the replicate magic item „bag of holding“ infusion and the magehand cantrip can do this over and over again. 😉
Wouldn't two bags of holding do the same, or an handy haversack and an quiver of ehlonna. Like a ranger with the quiver, who hides in a portable hole to get past a trap. OOPS
Wizard with the planar travel spell (whatever its name is) runs up with the bag and the hole, puts them together as an item interaction or bonus action (DM discretion) then uses their action to cast the spell to get back. Boom, fight over and it just cost you the bag and hole. Also get an artificer in the party so they can MAKE the bags, so you just have to source the holes
As a DM, I love it when the party's defender racks up AC, then starts drawing enemies their way ... means I can throw wave after wave of attacks against them, yielding a few scratches The defender player feels invulnerable (as they should), the other squishier players use him as their shield, and a whole lot of maneuvers & tactics flow from that scenario It's less of a problem and more of an ideal situation ... if the enemies want to hit the high AC tanky defender, they have to target their saves, not their armor.
i got 20 AC and mirror image on my "fighter"/bladelock in a curse of strahd game he front lined 4 revenants on his own and it was good~ cant wait for next level as due to fuckery i get animate dead AND eldritch smite
One thing to do is reflavor ( and even add not super important changes such as changing damage types) so that it’s obvious who the magic item was meant for. It also makes the magic items special to the players .
First post on UA-cam - love your channel. Been playing since 1979. Dming the same campaign since 1997 (several generations of characters). My players, also long term, complained for years that they only get the really cool legendary weapons at the end of their careers. The campaigns usually end shortly after these items are awarded. So, I purposefully broke the rules. Make a long story short, I ran White Plume Mountain as part of my current campaign. Not only did I let them keep the items, but I created similarly powered items to ensure all players got a legendary item. I knew the consequences and planned accordingly. We have been having sooooo much fun (and I'm the DM). We've gone two levels since and it's working. I do not advise unless you have significant experience. Cheers and thanks for the videos.
One possible "solution" to limiting who gets which item is to put some lore behind the items and limit each to a different class or alignment (you can even decide it on the whim: if the fighter sees the +3 weapon and says he wants it before the barbarian, maybe that item can only be attuned by a fighter or maybe the belt has to be attuned to a barbarian)
2 bags of holding works the same way tho. We had wizard and a warlock (me), the wiz had a raven familiar holding an open bag of holding while my owl familiar flew into it while holding a rolled up bag of holding mid combat. Same result but no casualty on our end, as familiars can just be resummoned. And Hydras don't plane shift ;)
I feel that the portable hole+bag of holding rule was put in place to prevent the "stacking" of these items, but it would make more sense just to have "the dimensional forces repel each other and the portable hole is held back by an invisible force as it approaches the entrance to the bag of holding" and it avoids the issue of giving your players a bomb
In the 1E DMG, speaking about trading with NPC wizards, quoted from memory "they may demand a minor magic item, like a girdle of giant strength". This still sticks out in memory as one of the words categorization ever!
Bag of holding + holy water In our game, we found a way for this to potentially deal 2000d6 damage. We just didn’t to spare our dm. (Note our dm declared a vile of holy water is 8oz, but if your dm ruled it to be smaller, it could be so much worse.) This was also in the game where my paladin had 26 AC and averaged over 100 damage a turn, although most of that wasn’t even magic items. Also, the action economy between him and the monk was insane. We must have given our dm a pretty serious headache.
@@utubeiskaren7796 I'd assume they calc the damage for the holy water by multiplying the damage for a vial to match the holy water lake they got stored in that bag, so if the vial amount is smaller for the same damage then the lake would be more potent. Though unsure how they get to fire off the holywater from the bag.
One campaign I was a part of actually completely changed because someone put a portable hole into a bag of holding that didn't know what would happen. It became a quest to escape the astral plane, and was actually one of the more interesting campaigns I've played.
I went through a phase early on when I first started DMing where I very blatantly encouraged players trying to break the game via min maxing and magic items so now many years later nothing feels broken to me because I have learned how to handle the challenge
for long campaigns I usually give magic weapons some kind of durability for the magic to wear off or it completely brakes. Like giving a fire sword some daily charges for it to make extra dice damage. but if the players wants to expend all charges in a single attack there's a possibility that it will brake on impact. Players seen to like it because they have a videogame background and like that kind of resource management.
winged boots - more combat indoors with low ceilings or in a forest. how low is the canopy. it should now be difficult terrain to pass through like heavy foilage. enemies should get the advantage of being covered if they player is to far into the canopy.
I declare this the AC paradox: the harder you commit to the role of the party's tank, eventually the gm decides its easier to have the enemies to just ignore you, making it harder to be the party's tank.
This is why you play a spell caster in addition to having high ac so if they dont focus you to break your concentration your area of affect spells will murder them
@@Anthony-wt3zv like my sorcadin build who when the enemies try to ignore, I just twin spell Haste the party and simply relax if they still want to ignore my character.
As several other people have pointed out, any of the extradimensional storage items (Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, or Handy Haversack), when placed into another, will suck creatures within ten feet into the Astral Plane. You can also eject the contents into the Astral Plane if you destroy the bag-so if you can trick or force your opponent into the container, you can dispose of them that way as well. There are two additional wrinkles. A Bag of Devouring will dump its contents into the Astral Plane when destroyed, but there's no mention of the rift effect when the BoD is put inside another container (though presumably doing it the other way around works). And if you put a Sphere of Annihilation into an extradimensional container (or planar portal) there's a 15% chance it will create a rift and suck through any creature OR OBJECT within 180 feet to a RANDOM plane. (I'm currently running a campaign where the PCs are the crew of an Astral salvage ship that has a way of detecting when and where these spills occur and collecting the bounty, so I needed to read up on all the various items capable of creating such rifts.)
@@LupineShadowOmega Yeah, even if you go with 4E style 1hp minions you give the fighter something to "popcorn" through and you don't overburden the rest of the party.
@@pouncerlion4022 Agreed. And action economy is such that even those 1 hp guys hit hard enough to wear the party down a bit at a time. Resources are also the name of the game.
My party didn't so much get a game breaking combo as a Disc One Nuke, and we dealt with it in an incharacter way: By sheer luck of the draw, our party got a Staff of Frost very early on in Rime of the Frostmaiden, as in second quest. A very are magic item giving access to a fourth, fifth, and sixth level spell before we even got third level spells. Obviously, this could be game breaking. So the party decided to give it to my character (a female Druid), because my character was very cautious and reservered. IE, the member of the party reserved and kind enough not to abuse the Staff because it'd be out of character for her to do so. As a result, up until the endgame, the Staff normally was only used for utility rather than combat, such as making bridges or at one point protecting the party from an avalanche. So one solution is if you've got the agency for it as a DM, award a magic item to a player and character who's shown they're unlikely to abuse it.
My Totem Warrior has a +3 Glaive, Winged Boots, a Cloak of Protection, a Belt of Giant Strength, and the Sentinel feat. Being able to smack a beholder out of the air that is 10 feet from me with Reckless Attack is so much fun.
What’s really sick is you can play a character with a +3 weapon, +3 armor, +3 shield, belt of giant’s strength, and a cloak of displacement. Ignore them at your own peril. The good news is their saving throws suck. Oh wait, they’re a paladin?
I believe the reason for the addition on the bag of holding is that you're not supposed to be stacking bags of holding into each other, just because that forgoes the weight restriction and the party could probably bring an IKEA set for a trebuchet into the next dungeon
We should also note that the use of "ultimate destruction" comes with a 5% chance of a misfire that could/would insta-kill the PC attempting said action.
What Kelly says at 10:10 in, that game-changing combos of magic items are great for high-level play right before a campaign finale but a headache at low or mid levels, was perfectly revelatory for me about 5e's basic assumption about the role of magic items and class features in character advancement. I don't like it, but I think I understand it so much better now!
I gave the party monk two tattoos: Blood Fury and Eldritch Claw Tattoos during UA, which were converted into their official forms when Tasha's came out. This resulted in the following: Not only does the Eldritch Claw give +1 to attack and damage, but you can activate it to give your unarmed attacks 15 ft. range and extra 1d6 force damage for 1 minute. The Blood Fury on the other hand has 10 charges and you can use one to empower your weapon attack (monk fists are considered weapons) to deal an extra 4d6 necrotic damage damage and gain temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt! This means an extra 5d6 + 1 damage per attack, and since monks can use Flurry of Blows they can attack four times, for a potential damage of 4d8 + 20d6 + 24 points of damage, and that's not counting critical hits which double all the dice! That's 112 damage on avarage, btw. It wouldn't be as game breaking as it is now if WotC didn't decide to give the Blood Fury tattoo an insane buff when it came out of UA =/
Most potent combo: Cloak of Billowing + Dread Helm = Instant Batman.
This made my day. Thank you.
Think maybe you are underestimating Batman 😋
@@logancuster8035 absolutely not. I never underestimate Rogue/Monk multi-classers.
@@WolfHreda I'm just imagining Christian Bale batman asking the DM if he can do that as none lethal damage.
Just ask for the eyes to glow white instead of red and I think you have it.
Your bit near the end reminds me of how I accidentally broke my little brother's D&D 3e game. In the setting, there had been a band of great heroes who all died a century or two ago (like they do). Now the great evil was rising again, and a new generation of champions was called.
We had me, a Paladin; a ranger, a barbarian, and a sorceress (iirc. It's been 20 years or so)
We're 1st or 2nd level. Have no magic items. Fighting endless hordes of monsters.
And then we found the grave of one of the ancient heroes-- the Paladin. His spirit led us to it through visions my character had.
Inside, he has a nice stash of magic items. Pretty impressive magical full-plate, very impressive magic shield, warhammer (the main god of this world was the Hammer Lord), bunch of other cool stuff. And the whole party pretty much decided my character should take it all, as CLEARLY I'd been led here by holy visions. (And we all kind of thought we'd be going after the tombs of the other ancient heroes of whom there were curiously exactly as many as our PC group and they had a similar class spread).
My little brother suddenly had a problem. He'd figured we would split the items up and everyone would have one nice thing. Instead, he now had an invulnerable tank paladin and a party slightly underpowered for what he expected. It all came to a head in one adventure where an army of hobgoblins attacked, and there was no way most of them could hit me as I carved my way toward their chieftain and killed him.
The lesson I learned from that is "sometimes it's okay to metagame." If my little bro had said "No, actually if you look there's one item that will help each member of your party. I'm not telling you what to do, but there aren't any more tombs full of helpfully organized magic items in the game," things would have gone differently.
I always thought that the portable hole + bag of holding combination could make for a funny set up to an astral plane adventure
It can also be done with duplicates of the bag of holding or portable holes. I've had a whole side campaign start because of that lol
The village idiot gets a hold of both items and the inn along with 1/3 of the town gets tossed into the astral plane.
Or SpellJammer
The issue is more of the situation being a derailment to the campaign for a linear campaign style. Now, if you give these items knowing this can happen, that cool too.
its also useless against a boss with the planeshift or gate spell
If my party beat the Big Bad with a Portable Hole + Bag of Holding, I get to throw Big Bad 2 Plainstriding Boogaloo at them. (either as a final boss, or during the following game.)
I mean you have a point, it isnt certain death. Time can even be different in there, so just have the party do a side mission or two and suddenly the boss is back, leveled a bit more, and with friends he met on his travels back. Congratulations on your wombo combo you just made the fight harder and delayed his plans a few days :D great plan.
Defeated a humanoid boss once by stuffing him in a portable hole strapped to the side of a portrait. It was supposed to be a hard fight but between the boss rolling 2 nat 1s and our party getting 2 nat 20s it ended up being a episode of loony toons.
As a sidenote I love how it's always portable hole and bag of holding because absolutely everyone forgets the handy haversack exists
UNO reverse:
Have the BBEG send a kamikaze goblin with a bag of holding and a portable hole
I'm just imagining the relief that comes over the party as the Ranger shoots down the goblin.... only to see 10 more Goblins charging towards their fallen comrade to pick up the items to continue the charge
@@mage4242 Wizard: Fireball!
@@mage4242 "Bring him down, Legolas!"
Dear god, that’s real bad.
I might do this as a necromancer
I've been dealing with these "super characters" for decades now. It can be balanced without "cheating up" monster stats, or nerfing my players hard won magic items. It does take some creativity and thinking fast on your feet, but it can be done. Increase number of monsters strategically, don't get frustrated when players one shot one room, they still have many more areas to clear before they're finished, etc. My players usually get into "player godhood" around 14th or 15th level no matter what I try, if the are still having fun we just keep on going. I often start a second campaign with lower level characters, and alternate campaigns week to week., keeps powerful players humble and lets them play those alternate classes they've been wanting to try. Power levels aside, it's about having fun, so shoot for the highest possible fun level and forget about balance .. to some extent. Good video, thanks.
I agree. Sometimes its fine to let players blast through encounters. It lets them feel their power. They shouldnt have to scrape and claw through every encounter and be challenged with every fight.
Sometimes its fun to just run into a small group of relatively easy foes and blow them away. This can also help to make the challenging fights feel all the bigger. because the players are well aware of how easily they deal with basic foes. So the fact this boss is holding his ground makes him seem all the more imposing.
@@TheGoondas87 I had a bunch of characters that had were busting doors and taking names with most of the encounters. My solution was a pair of Bosses one a necromancer and one artificer who made a basically a device that would summon undead (mostly skeletons because why not). the devices would summon 2d6 skeletons every turn, it would do so for 2 rounds then have to recharge for 1 round. so the heroes had to deal with an Artificer of their level, a Necromancer of their level and a metric shit tonne of skeletons. The Paladins and Cleric had their hands full while the others had to figure out how to handle the bosses and mob generator.
As soon as i feel players are ready i just consider them as 1 level = 1 cr, and as a dm I personally like making creatures via player levels to make it feel like I'm playing with the same rules that they're following. A lot of my mini bosses are just funky builds set at high levels, like a Warforged Druid that transforms into a Enormous Tentacle that looks like a tree, or a Lore Bard that uses Melf Minute Meteor alongside Find Steed. Giving them magic items also gives players a way to see the items in action which I think is fun.
Thats not all of my encounters though, sometimes i just make a Large-Huge creature with 30-40 Strength and Siege Creature as a way to have a simple encounter that is just in all terms and purposes mean and difficult whatever there level is, other times I give them lower level encounters so that they get a update on how powerful they are and to let me play up the comedy of how screwed these guys they're facing really are sometimes, making them feel higher on the totem pole so that they don't feel the world is always out to get them.
Theres fun to be had whatever you set the difficulty at, just be conscious of what the difficulty you want is and when to course correct when a fight is easier or harder than what you planned, either by reducing the damage they need to do or by upping the theatrics a bit to match whatever difficulty the fight is currently at.
As a DM now on my second campaign I really appreciate this advice.
While it's possible to strain the narrative to workaround a few of these issues, after having DM-d quite a few high-level high magic session I've got to say it's sometimes pretty implausible to get that to work. What does reliably at least improve matters, and what I would recommend for any DM that intends to give the PCs any kind of ability to trade items or any randomness combined with high-magic, is to reimpose bounded accuracy by (A) simply not having magic items stack, and (B) not having ability score boosting items (or if you do, give them small relative bonuses that cap out at well below 20).
Having even 1 AC boosting item is pretty powerful, but having a few - quite likely even playing by DMG stats if you let the players distribute items as they wish - it's just really easy to get into the unhittable ACs, especially with stuff like shield, shield of faith, and the various defensive tricks all kinds of classes have like imposing disadvantage, or defensive duelist, or lucky, or the college of valor's combat inspiration, etc, etc. etc. All those reactions are kind of balanced only under the assuming that your base AC is pretty commonly hit - but if you have a base AC of even "just" 25, then you'll need those measures less than once a round even if NPCs gang up on you, and that renders a PC so close to unhittable that whatever does hit either just won't matter, or will need to have massively unbalancing consequences. And with item stacking, 25 really isn't even close to a worst case scenario.
So my recommendation here: just ban item stacking and ability score boosts. The rule barely impacts "normal" gameplay, and whenever it does come up, it's almost always a pretty reasonable nerf; the PCs can still distribute items amongst each other to avoid the overlap, and it's a pretty simple rule too.
High level gameplay is still intrinsically unbalanced, but at least that way there's still some level of challenge with normal, non-cherry-picked fights, at least in many cases.
Here’s the counter to the arrow of ultimate destruction; have your bbeg carry a spell scroll of plane shift then play one winged angel as they reappear for the surprise round.
Plane shift only takes you a general location. You couldn’t use it to return to the same place, just the same plane.
@@slaynecarlisle9635 DM has ultimate authority, if it just so happens that the random location on the plane is exactly where they left then so be it.
Surprise round doesn't exist in 5e.
@@Dennis-vh8tz well it does now
@@Dennis-vh8tz No, but the BBEG could impose the surprised condition on the players by appearing unexpectedly and hitting someone in the face
Key thing to remember: portable hole + bag of holding doesn't *kill* anyone, it just planeshifts them, & powerful/important npcs can find ways back
Unless they have planeshift ready, it will end the fight, but you can be certain they'll come crawling back days or weeks later with a vengeance
Depends on the DM. Some of them home rule that portable hole into bag of holding (or vice versa) works like it did in 3.5: The resulting implosion kills everything that it hits/sucks in.
The one time I ever had to deal with this, I made the BBEG come crawling back a month later, heavily corrupted by his time in the Astral Plane with some new abilities and reactive teleportation.
As a dm, I totally am fine with the extra dimension bomb. Chances are they'll save it for a big enough villain that the villain will only wast like a lvl 7 spell to get back. haha.
LoL yeah I was about to say the same thing. Had players use this on a Lich in a high level planewalker campaign once. He Chuckled as he was pulled away, and the party got to enjoy their easy win for a bit till they walked into the next room to find the Lich looking at them like: “Really?”
@@stedmanregester6926 Lich: "DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT I JUST DIDN'T PLAN FOR THAT" As an army of goblins with their own bags of holding and things like that scurry to the party
@@bigloser5104 HAHAHA... Yeah.
Or just level 4
Banishment works
@@prosamis yeah, lv 4 banishment to get back to the home plane, then what ever transportation spells they need to get back to the area they want.
I like creating a "Nemesis" for whoever gets insanely broken. An eldritch monster or a powerful mage hunter NPC , usually linked to the problem magic item, that will actively stalk them to kill or just take the item back.
Really gets some interesting RP, and keeps it mechanically interesting cos the power player now has to deal with a personal enemy built to kill them.
That's some lotr shadows of Mordor shit
I like this idea alot
@@303Thatoneguy how?
@@Chance57 lotr shadow of mordor is a game that has something called the nemesis system, which sometimes makes orcs you kill come back stronger and with a vengeance
This is why DM's invented Rust Monsters and Disenchanters.
Rust monsters can’t destroy magic items. It specifically calls that out in their stat block.
@@talongreenlee7704 That's true but easily changable by the DM
@@talongreenlee7704 They could in older editions
@@talongreenlee7704 i homebrewed a aberration that ate magic that could devour the magic from magic items, really shook up play
@@marcuscrowell6964 Oh my DM let them destroy our magic items, but we were able to repair them later
I like giving the items the party wants to particular enemies so that they are loot and it adds good challenge/flavor (depending on the item(s)) of the encounters. The portable hole + bag of holding combo was used on a BBEG once. Not once did it occur to the party that the villain knew plane shift. Sucked for the rogue who rushed in valiantly and was now stuck in the Astral Sea.
I was just thinking. Well they could just plan shift or come back later the BBEG isn't technically gone.
@@Mary_Studios Yeah they were not happy twelve seconds after their victory when he showed back up and dropped a Meteor Swarm on them all.
This is a case of a previous video where if the DM makes this mistake early on then it's time to have that talk with the player saying, "I messed up as a DM," and work with the player to fix this issue so everyone is having fun.
Yes taking their advice into account maybe the weapon could change to do something else. Maybe lising its plus to hit and damage but adding an extra d6 damage on each hit. Still fun and powerful but avoiding the stacking of attack bonuses.
Too few DMs admit to having made mistakes though - and as a result the group often suffers.
Well I think DMs forget sometimes that they have an entire world at their disposal. If a particular item is too much then there's no reason for a really high level thief to not steal it or for a curse to manifest itself, or for the weapon or item to turn out to be sentient or for the weapon itself to be a legendary quest item with multiple attunement rituals or a combination of these things. Don't get mad at a player for finding creative ways to maximize or abuse their gifts.. that's what we do . Instead use your own creativity and the fact that literally an entire world is at your fingertips to direct or manipulate circumstances as needed. If you can give them ten different ways to find info on a mcguffin you can make a cult after a rogues new dagger because it's their ritual dagger of sacrifice. Etc
@@charlesgargotta23 stealing players items is not a nice way to resolve these issues. Yes you have complete control which is exactly why you shouldn't do it. The player has no agency in that situation amd just feels cheated. Have a grown up conversation with them instead.
@@charlesgargotta23 That's certainly some fun and interesting ways to show the new item is highly desired and keeping it could cause problems along the way, for the group.
The DM used the bag of holding reverse pick pocketed into a party member’s bag of holding, to dump us all into the astral plane for his planned adventure.
That’s hilarious
That's really good 👍🏾
That wouldn't have been @vettethewarlock could it?
BBEG escapes through a portal to the astral plane,
Bard: Oh no he's escaping! What do we do?
Wizard: (takes out portable hole), Fighter give me your bag.
Fighter: What's this about wizard?(Gives Bag)
Wizard: We're going after him...
and then they get sent to a random spot in the astral plane with no way to track the bbeg or get back
@@stevenle9960 certainly there are spells that magically point you in the direction of the spell’s target when on the same plane of existence
@@link090909 bbeg was probably using the astral plane as a pitstop if anything, probably won't be staying in it for too long unless it has a base there or something
@@link090909 No I don't think there is.
@@link090909 Nothing at an indefinite distance. Things like Locate Object are remarkably short distance. I'd say even giving a 1000% chance, so 01 on D100 twice over is generous.
But in fairness, the guy didn't say the wizard had a 'good' plan. Just a plan.
my DM in one of my campaigns gave out way to many magic items, and when my character died we talked about it and he came to realize he kind of regretted it, so i gave him a tabaxi rogue/shadowmonk hybrid build i made, pass without trace, plus 21 to stealth, plus 11 to slight of hand, this cat is slowly stealing magical items, and selling them to pawn shops, great solution imo.
"Magic Items combos to give to the bad guys"
After they die the loot is up for grabs, and the party either has an answer to the combo or they die so the result shall not be good. This is the reason I like to give the bad guys personal abilities that combo with a magic item they have so the party gets a nice (and memorable) item out of the encounter but not the combo.
Just make the big bad boss an artificer so when the magic items hes wearing lose power when he dies.
Give the big bad a Bag of Holding and Portable Hole that he combines when he has lost.
*Put some good loot in a chest nearby that does NOT get sucked into the ensuing vortex
The bad guy is litch and the magic item doubles as a philactory.
Oh no...
The Handy Haversack is also apparently an extradimensional space.
Yep, it's just a slightly reworked Bag of Holding.
It has 3 actually, you can cause the astral rift with just a haversack :)
I was beginning to think I was the only person who remembered it's existence
Laughed aloud at Monty’s term “absolute blender” on overpowered fighters.
The first boss I ever fought was one-shot by our rogue's Ring of the Ram. Shattered every bone in its body and flung it against the wall.
How'd he get 1 shot by 2d10 damage
@@SubKoopa 1: it crit 2: all 3 charges were spent and 3: the DM used a different rule that allowed all the party members to add damage to the final attack
You only needed rule 3, “the GM made up their own rules” 😁
@@cthulwho8197
Okay but that's still (6d10)*2 even without special rules so it's certainly plausible in a rules-as-written game
Not to mention the rogue's sneak attack to add insult to injury if they had advantage
A Gloom Stalker Aarakocra at level 13 will give the same effect as winged boots + cloak of invisibility but with greater invisibility instead
Jesus christ
Of course, by 13th level, any gloom stalker theoretically could find a way to gain flight, though I suppose the aarakocra has the advantage of not needing a spellcasting friend or a magic item.
The cloak of invisibility is like greater invisibility already. In the items description it says nothing about your invisibility breaking if you attack or cast a spell.
Yep, I am banning aarakocra in my games because of the overwhelming advantage of low level flighg.
Id like to point out something that might not sound resonable but might be something you need to enforce if this flying invisibility comes up in your games.
Invisibility and hiding are two different things. When you are invisible, enemies know where you are but have disadvantage to hit you. Hidden is a condition you have when taking the hide action that hides your location to the enemies.
So a flying ranger shooting while invisible would be able to be shot at and their location would be known. Arogue doing this could however take the hide action as a bonus action after each attack forcing perception check if they beat the enemies passive perception trying to hide.
I realize its kinda stupid to say "well enemies know where you are because invisibility as a condition doesnt hide you" but its even worse to be in the situation of having a unkillable god pc.
Rod of the Pact Keeper + Illusionist's Bracers + Eldritch Blast = Everything Gets Melted.
Throw in two levels of Fighter for Action Surge in order to achieve maximum melt.
@@ChunkyTheClown couldn't you take metamagic adept feat and also quicken eldritch blast?
@@izunagi9064 You absolutely could if you're trying to make the meme build with just abilities alone, but it's redundant if you already have the Illusionist's Bracers.
Yup. This is happening in our Curse of Strahd game. So busted, even though she doesn’t use Hex. She outpaced my paladin’s burst (I’m not allowed to smite on both attacks on my Attack action) for a long time
@@elinamauno8833 I personally homebrew a simple nerf to Illusionist's Bracers but simultaneously reduce the rarity: The 2nd cantrip can't be the same cantrip.
Makes the item more interesting since you can't just spam the same spell over and over, and keeps it in line with how the item was meant to be used.
The alternative (if you want to make it fair at Rare rarity) is to make it so the 2nd cantrip can't do damage, so that its specifically a utility item during combat.
How I dealt with the portable hole + bag of holding combo at my table was saying that the rift didn't just simply dissapear, but instead started to grow as the dungeon around them started to shake, and allowed for a cool dungeon escape scenario!
"How To Deliver Barbarian?" is a great puzzle boss.
in my ToA game we did this to ascererak with a broom of flying
I love you dudes so much but you honestly gotta stop showing me how to break the game, I cannot be trusted
None of these break the game this game has players shackled
@@christophercombs7561 Yeah I'm with you on this one buddy. And honestly, if you can't deal with a flying ranged attacker, you just suck as a DM because that means you can't handle quite a few mid level casters either. Wizard - "nice, I can fly now!" GM - "Fuck it! New campaign!" seriously, its hard to take them for serious if that is an issue.
@@christophercombs7561 yea 5e is geared for beginners and those who want a simple pick-up-and-play game. You want unlimited potential, you play Pathfinder, or if you really like insane bizarre power and don't mind extra math play Rifts.
@@shaynecarter-murray3127 yup 5e is fantastic for teaching newcomers and children pathfinder 1ed is my personal preference but ill play 5e
When you get a Belt of Giant Strength, boots of flying, cloak of invisibility, bag of holding, portable hole, and +3 arrows from one encounter, it’s a special combo I like to call,
“Sweat with no friends”
Artificers be like "Thanks for the ideas!"
Considering that you can also make the quiver of elhonna, a single articifer can make the boom
A party with two artificers... they can literally just do this an infinite amount of times at level 2, haha.
@@HexenDarkside one once per day. But yeah.
@@HexenDarkside Or they can just open a hole to the Astral Plane daily using the bags of holding...
Heck! For most monsters you don't need another artificer, at lv9 you can have a 7 Sorcerer 2 Artificer with Metamagic Twinned spell and Polymorph. Use that to transform 2 creatures into baby sea turtles and put them in your bag of holding, let those suckers rest in the bag 20ft away from you and then break concentration. What happens next is that both creatures will expand and most creatures on their own would break the bag from the inside, with 2 you're sure that they will. Ta-da! You can do this once per day...
@@dragonhearthx8369
But you have to know Leomund's secret chest for that...
I’m a war cleric where the gm gave a belt of giant strength and dwarve thrower so now I am hitting things so far at +12, it’s so much fun
And throwing it gives you 2D8
Not to mention the war cleric's '+10' channel divinity. Nothing like being at +22 before you even pick up a die.
Good to see you guys back together. Glad Ontario eased the restrictions, it's always better on one camera.
Nice work guys. Your videos are consistently thoughtful, engaging, and high quality. Here are a couple reactions: on the belt of giant strength, I initially thought "why even have it in the game?" You mentioned one reason (high-level, that is, level-20 play). Another reason would be for a cool story beat (say, for a physically weak character to suddenly become strong).
The third reason, obviously, is if you want to let the fighter BE a wrecking ball. At first glance, it might sound like DDs are saying "DMs, don't give your players these items." They didn't say that. They said be aware. DMs can give powerful combos and abilities to the players AND still challenge players. Maybe how to challenge powerful players would be a good subject for a follow-up video.
Part of the fun for me as a DM is to invent cool items for the players. I also enjoy the follow-up fun of how to continue challenging them when the PCs are "OP" (full disclosure: I like tactical combat). My top 3 tools are minions, environment, and pacing (see below). Warning: the wall of text below is supporting detail from my game that is illustrative but not required reading.
My party of 5 has at least 3 of the OP combinations mentioned in the video: a paladin with +3 armor (AC 23), a ranger with +14 to hit, and a wizard with 19 spell save DC. The PCs are currently level 11 and I'm planning for the campaign to end with them just hitting level 13, after about 1.5 to 1.75 years of total game play. In each case, I've given some thought on how to contain or limit the "problem." I've also experimented with a variety of techniques to continue to challenge the players. The paladin's armor requires attunement (it has some extra abilities) and he has a sentinel shield; I've never made a "plus" shield available to the party. In addition, his weapon requires attunement and his wondrous item requires attunement, so his AC is high but not unmanageably so. (Strategy #1: fill up their attunement slots.) The ranger (longbow wielding sharpshooter) has +5 to hit from DEX, +4 from proficiency bonus, +2 from archery fighting style, +2 from her magic bow, and +1 from magic arrows (provided from a magic quiver that makes 7 per day, noncumulative). Notice that -- without any magic items at all -- she would still have +11 to hit. The wizard has Robe of the Archmagi and a +2 wand of the war mage. Her spell save DC is 19 (but it would still be 17 without any magic items) and her spell attack rolls are at +13 (but VERY few of her spells require an attack roll -- basically only firebolt -- and let's face it, if you're an 11th level wizard, your firebolt should hit). (Strategy #2: embrace the fact that characters should be really good at what they should be good at. Don't worry about making an already large bonus a bit larger, particularly if it will rarely be relevant.)
Here are some of the strategies that I use to deal with "OP" players: 1) outnumber them. The action economy is real. We're playing (right now) Red Hand of Doom so I'm still throwing hobgoblins at the party, even though the party is level 11. When the party was level 8, I ran the opening scene of RHoD with a warband of 40 hobgoblins (20 ranged, AC 16, and 20 melee, AC 18) 2 hell hounds, a 3rd level hobgoblin cleric and a 5th level hobgoblin sergeant. With Martial Advantage, the hobgoblins messed up the party pretty good. I don't care if each PC one-shots two or three hobgoblins per round (or 6 or 7 with a fireball). The mass of enemies limits their mobility and provides some cover for the bigger, badder bad guys in the rear echelons (casters, generally). Even 6 or 8 incoming arrows per round can challenge the wizard's ability to concentrate on a spell. 2) environment -- darkness (shooting in dim light = disadvantage) and cover can make things much harder for the PCs. I'm only now starting to realize how much I wasn't following the rules early on in the campaign. (E.g., darkvision doesn't really mean the party can *see*.) Enemies can pop out, shoot, and duck under full cover again. The party has some trouble with flying enemies, such as manticores, wyverns, and dragons who can strafe them and fly away again. Enemies that grapple, entangle, have high mobility, and/or that can take reactions and opportunity attacks can really make the players think hard about their choices. For example, I made the giants attacking the walls of Brindol based on the Bloodfray Giants from GGR. 3) Get the party to 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. By limiting their ability to rest, I can get them more to their "baseline" damage as opposed to their burst damage potential. So, remind them -- in a variety of ways -- that the clock is ticking. Use "wandering monsters." Right now I'm running the Battle of Brindol and there are 5 or 6 waves of bad guys they'll face in a row without even a short rest. I have the ability to tune (hp and number of enemies) each wave to make it challenging without making it (too) overwhelming.
Lastly, one final story. The party knew, from scouting they'd done in part 1 of RHoD, that a red dragon was coming at them in the Battle of Brindol. They decided to assassinate it before the battle and made a plan to do so. They came in, at night, on giant owls (borrowed from the elves in chapter 2), hit the dragon, and escaped via Transport via Plants. It was a good plan and I felt like they deserved their win. They surprised the dragon ("rolled" 20 for stealth via a portent, but could've used Pass without Trace too) and proceeded to do 435 damage in the first round, which killed the dragon without it having the chance to act at all. Now of that total, only 7% was from their magic items. Mostly it was their skills and abilities used in good combinations (e.g., animate objects + crusader's mantle, for 71 damage). The very next fight, Defend the Walls, the party was back to struggling with hobgoblin minions, a ticking clock, darkness, and enemies that are spaced widely apart. Consequently, the paladin spent most of the fight Banished because they couldn't get to the enemy caster to break her concentration. That fight lasted 6 or 7 rounds (so, quite long) versus the one round versus the dragon.
The high level Belts of Giant Strength are fine UNTIL you also give to-hit bonuses. Then it becomes silly.
Otherwise, it just boosts damage rolls, not attack rolls as well.
(that said, I wouldn't award any that are over 25 STR until theyre like level 17 or something...)
@nGuy1901 only darkness penalizes attack rolls with disadvantage. Dim light penalizes Perception rolls. Not attacks.
A +2 weapon can be easily given to a low strength magic user if a member of a small party and keeps getting chased by minions. Even more important in a low magic setting.
@@Ephsy yes, you're right. I'm prepping for my party to face off against a gloomstalker ranger. They rely on darkvision so he'll be invisible to them. Hence the disadvantage comment.
Here's a fun story related to the arrow of ultimate destruction. Back when artificer was still ua I had a DM that let my artificer learn the medical formula for a bag of holding, so that I could make them myself. He was super cool about it and he was really into letting me modify the bag's formulas so that I could make smaller coin purse sized ones. I could make 4 of them in the time it took to make a bag. You see where this is going, right? I made myself 12 "Bolts of Fuck Off"
My artificer player has a standing AC of 23 through no fault of my own. Level 10 artificer, +2 studded leather armour (enhanced defence infusion), +1 shield (repulsion shield infusion ), +5 dex and a cloak of protection (infusion). He dodges melee attacks all day but went down in three rounds against a compotent spellcaster because his saves weren't quite as monstrous
I'm playing a warforged armorer artificer. At level 10, even if I get no magic items, I'll have plate (18) with Enhanced Defense infusion (+2) and a shield (+2) with the Repulsion Shield infusion (+1) and an infused Cloak of Protection (+1) on top of being a Warforged (+1). So when I walk up and punch someone with Thunder Gauntlets, they have to make the choice between attacking one of my allies at disadvantage or trying to hit my 25 AC.
@@daneshannonsparks take a 1 lvl dip into Wizard (cause Int caster) soley to pick up the shield spell. Attack at disadvantage or try to hit AC 30... if you go for light armor instead of plate and have a good dex, you can take Wiz further and become bladesinger. Add your Int mod to AC and still have Shield spell on tap. Artificer's one of the easiest classes to get stupid broken AC cause you don't need the DM to give you magic items, you just make it yourself
This was a fantastic video, thank you.
I started playing/running games back in 3.0. The logic behind 5e items has been insanely frustrating to what I'm used too. When you go from being decked out like a Christmas tree by level 10 to maybe having 3 magic items at the same level is a big adjustment. Understanding why 5e does thishelps.
You are not alone in that. My group had the same problems going from 3.5 to 5. I had an archer with a magic bow, whatever ion stone gives you a dex bonus and something else. Once I got sharpshooter, it was just silly. I actually ended up talking to my DM and asking him to take some of the items away because it was wrecking our game.
I'm a 3/3.5 baby myself so I really don't like 5 honestly but bad d&d is better than no d&d so I play it, the world of 3.5 is so much more complex and chaotic its vastly superior imo
If you want to make a bard so charismatic he has to fight off assassins send by gods of beauty who are jealous of his looks then you should be able to make the earth quake when you speak damn it
I'm surprised to see they didn't mention Amulet of the Devout from Tasha's being able to work with other classes's spells as long as they multiclass into cleric/paladin.
Pretty sure that was just a misprint
With the armor/cloak of displacement one. Having all the enemies ignore the high armored character and attack the less armored ones is the characters problem. Not the DM's. If you reverse the situation and you as a party run into a group of monsters and one has a huge AC, you'll go after the lesser ones first to clear the field. Its basic tactics. If you want to be the front line tank, you need to give the monsters a reason to want to attack you. If you make yourself virtually invincible, you have failed in that task, and therefor failed as a tank. Sure you may easily survive every fight, but whats the point if your entire party keeps dying around you.
One of my players has just realised this last session. He has gotten his AC to 22 and sometimes 24 using shield of faith. As DM I have low CR creatures attack him for a round or two. They then realise none of them are getting through his armor, even with high rolls, so they give up and go for squishier characters. So he has decided to stick with the high AC but then force creatures to attack him using spells that give the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone but him. Or he finds a bottleneck and puts himself right in it so monsters cant get past him.
This is the trade off with high AC. Youll need to get creative if you want creatures to keep swinging at you. Otherwise, as a DM, I struggle to find a logical reason why my monsters will keep uselessly attacking you.
The tank will need feats like Battlemaster or Swashbuckler for crowd control or find other ways to taunt.
Cloak of displacement also has a clause that it doesnt work if your speed is 0, aka grappled or restrained. So even tho usually PCs with high ac have high athletics and acrobatics you can still swarm them with creatures that grapple and shove causing them to gain advantage against that high ac which might be enough. Another way would be to have a giant creature getting help from minions to grapple them and then have the smaller once attack in groups.
Spells that restrain or paralyze also removes that disadvantage and gives advantage to attack them.
There was a player in the longest-running game I have played in who got their AC up to 23 and wears Adamantine Plate. They specifically tried to be a tank and then they decided to be a Battlemaster fighter instead of a Chavalier, the subclass specifically made to do that. So rather than be a wall between the enemy and the rest of the party, he was just horribly overpowered on his own.
@@rcschmidt668 Or he needs a way to extend his reach and reaction options like Polearm Master or Sentinel or Protection fighting style or Battle Smith Artificer's Steel Defender. A good high AC character should be capable of dealing damage as well as taking it. A great high AC character has resistances and prevents his allies getting hit at all and destroys the enemy's action economy.
My current Fighter / Artificer has a Ring of Protection, Unity Ring, and Belt of Resistance in addition to his Shield and Half Plate, Improved Defense infusion, and Improved Weapon infusion. That's 22AC, and Warding Bond bumps it to 23 AC while also giving an ally +1 AC and Resistance. Full Plate and the Shield spell would make it 29AC. Then Protection Fighting Style and the Steel Defender create Disadvantage to enemy attacks twice per turn at the cost of a Reaction (one his, one the Defender's). Steel Defender attacks on the Bonus Action, so that's three attacks at level 6. Being a half-caster, he can also cast Sanctuary and Aid to further protect allies. I would certainly understand if a DM blocked this combination.
@@AM-hf9kk Wow! That sounds like a little much for some tables, but fun walking around like Iron Man!
For dealing with flying characters, give one enemy a longbow, Martial Adept, and Trip Attack.
Net, bolas, web, faerie fire, etc etc.
And the next encounter do that again? And then again?
And if the boots of flying is what's causing the issue... Put in a rogue while they take their next rest
Heck, have that rogue work for the BBEG!
Flying isn't broken, plenty of enemies have range
Flying enemies, more spells or spell like abilities, casters that can cast dispel magic (cancel flight and drop target), battlemasters that can trip, winged humanoid monks that can stun... spiders shoot web... manticores, medusa gaze... I don't know. D&D is supposed to be a game of creativity. Our characters fly all the time and have most of the items described above and maybe better. DM doesn't seem to mind. We still have a great time and our enemies either die really fast or present a challenge or can kill us really really fast. (My DM is the really creative one)
Are you guys going to do a segment on how spells and magic items work together? I’m relatively new to dnd so I haven’t seen too many potent combos in action. But things like unseen servant with an immovable rod or control water with decanter of endless water sound like they could be potent
An artificer can build the overpowered AC just with infusions. Defense+2 Armor, Repulsion shield +1, Cloak of protection +1 , Ring of Protection +1. If they are a battlesmith or artillerist they get shield spell. If they are an Armorer they get plate, but honestly half plate and shield spell is better. Oh and they can get access to shield of faith
AC 28 meet Heat Metal (assuming metal armor)
My Eldritch Knight lvl 14 with Haste, Boots of Striding and Springing, 25 ac without Shield and a +9 con save will find the caster (See Invisibility included) and Action Surge 7 attacks on them.
@@Ephsy that calls for a wisdom save, perhaps several.
😂👍🏻
@@Ephsy That will still be with disadvantage, all of them (:
As a Druid I caught my DM out with that one. He gave an NPC a bodyguard with AC 25, & the interceptor ability, and assumed we would not be able to hit him enough or be a threat to the NPC. My Druid simply cooked the bodyguard in his armour, leaving the NPC completely unable to dictate the terms he was anticipating to the party. A good lesson for a reasonable new DM that high AC is not everything.
"Your players are going to give you headaches." - This man speaks the truth!
Oh yeah, 3 hours of building custom boss monster to challenge your PC's so you they don't one shot it.
@@savagecabbage8013 Is this hyperbole? I hope it is.
If not what CR are you having these problems at?
I ask because if I take 3 hours to plan a single encounter, my players would really hope it was a social encounter. If you see me working for 3 hours on a combat encounter, just grab another character sheet and get to work, because you current character is about to have a bad day.
I refer to it as monkey wrench +3.
I'm looking forward to seeing this Video, I've always loved the Versitility of magic items and I feel like Rings of spell storing paired with pearls of power are underutilized for how Broken they can be. First I think
My "Instakill" trick is the following:
Prereq Items: Bag of Devouring + Iron Flask
Note: Only works on things that can get sucked into an iron flask.
So, you have an Iron Flask and use it to trap something inside it. You then, go to a bag of devouring. Put your hands inside while holding the flask. If your character doesn't get devoured by the bag, you then open the Iron Flask within the Bag of Devouring.
Because of the wording, the moment whatever is inside the Iron Flask starts its turn within the Bag of Devouring, it is instantly consumed, no saves of any kind nor any time to react.
The only caveats to this working is: Capturing whatever it is with an Iron Flask to begin with and you or whoever decides to perform the task not getting devoured by the Bag.
What about just dropping flask into the bag?
@@MsKeylas Unfortunately doesnt work because the bag of devouring will just poop out the iron flask at some randomly determined time by the GM (once per day) to one randomly determined place across the cosmos meaning whatevers inside is free to be released by something else at some point in the future. So to instantly kill whatevers inside, you need to open it while inside the bag of devouring and releasing whatevers in the flask in the bag.
@@SlipsJDR ohh,ok.
or just a rogue with the bag of devouring
note that a human head fits in the bag~
@@freakyskull516 This trick is mainly for extra-planar non-human sized entities but also, the wording on Bag of Devouring means that, even if you stuff it around someones head, unless the 50% chance occurrence of the target being vacuumed in occurs, it wont decapitate/devour them. This method makes that a guaranteed outcome if you can get them into the Iron Flask.
I love feeling nostalgic watching older videos just from the sponsor that was going around to most D&D channels at the time
Heyward's Handy haversack + either bag of holding or portable hole also works.
I love playing Dwarves, and am always on the lookout for Periapt of Wound Closure, to combo with Dwarven Fortitude. Bonus points if you're a cleric with Beacon of Hope, or a Pact of the Chain Warlock with Gift of the Everliving Ones. The +2 con from Belt of Dwarvenkind is nice too, but not really needed.
I like doing something similar but as a Monk because the bonus action heal is so dumb. Bonus points if you add a level in Barbarian to not only rage as well but also get some of those sweet sweet d12 hit dice.
I have an artificer character with multiple bags of holding, and whenever the party is stuck/frustrated with a puzzle or whatever situation we’re in, we taunt the DM by saying “Well we’ll just put a bag inside a bag and turn campaign into escaping the Astral Sea.” He hasn’t found it very funny yet.
But artificer can only make one replica of the same item... Did you buy multiple bag of holdings?
@@Kino_Cartoon Yes, the fact that I’m an artificer isn’t relevant to how many bags of holding I have, I just mentioned it because most people tend to say what their character is when they tell a story. The campaign is that we’re like special agents of a magical institute so we basically have whatever tools we need at our disposal, including bags of holding. Plus I have a few niche extradimensional spaces that can only be used for storing specific kinds of items like gemstones, but it’s easier to just consider stuff like that a “bag of holding” for the sake of brevity in a UA-cam comment.
@@redstoneraptor8101 your Campaigne sounds really interesting. Like a James Bond version with magic. A lot of really expensive and nearly exclusive stuff which is being used to fullfil a mission. I love it.
From an epic loot drop, my Paladin got a belt of Hill Giant Strength and a +3 Dwarven Thrower because the other Melee character wasn't paying attention when we were dividing the loot. My attack is now +11 at lvl 8, and I'm so happy.
I did this with one item, I let my players keep a Wand of Fireballs. They've nuked nearly every single encounter in the first floor of Undermountain
I haven't heard of the portable hole before, but when I first learned about the bag of holding inside another bag of holding thing, it became my dream to one day dm a game where that happens on purpose because I've set up an adventure in the astral plane because that sounds hella fun
Hypothetically, providing that all the players have these stat boosting items, and the like, a DM could do something similar to the creatures that are going up against they players, especially if the creatures come from a well-funded organization or something.
I made a 20th level character that has a passive perception of 50 with a slight bit of homebrew, without that homebrew it’s “only” a 44. Granted, this is a teacher who is an NPC in a setting, but it still exists.
How did you manage that?
At level 17 my friend's Inquisitive Rogue has a passive perception of 33, no houserules.
Explanation needed.
Wis 20=+5
Expertise =+12
Obervant=+5
Paasive Perception = 32
Luckstone = +1
(Eyes of eagle) Adv = ? +3 - +5
The +1d4 abilities & spells only apply to active checks as far as I know.
@@richardwhaler8717 @Matthew Slade
WIS 18 = +4
Expertise = +12
Observant = +5
Ioun Stone of Mastery = +2 (from expertise)
Eyes of the Eagle: +5
Raven Queen Warlock with a +6 CHA, homebrew Oath of Passion Paladin with same feature as RQW = +12
Passive Perception: 50, 44 without homebrew
13:30 In 3.5e, I was playing a Halfling Sorcerer. Through the course of the game, I gained the Flight spell (with Hover!) and spellcasting feats that let me cast without the Somatic or verbal components... Fireball, lightning (all creatures in the line within range...), etc. Like your Jill, I became an Apache attack helicopter.
I remember one battle encounter, we were assaulting a castle. Party's being harassed by the troops with cover on the battlements. So... I do Fly and go sideways and then up so I'm flanking the guards on the battlement and hit the line with lightning. No more guards.
3.5 is a wild edition that I will always say is the best edition, I had a bard who got his charisma to like 40 and who kept having to fight off assassins from envious gods of beauty
1- Criticism of Belt of giant strength + magic weapon solution: The magic weapon is not the problem with this scenario. The problem is the Belt. No character should be getting such a powerful magic item before high levels such as 18/19/20 with the exception of the Hill giant belt. But a Hill giant belt probably won't help the barbarian/fighter/paladin; it will help the melee cleric.
2- The idea that a player should only have a number of magic items equal to their proficiency bonus... this is not accurate. Attunement restricts you enough. A DM just has to be careful about what specific magic items they give out. A player could have 20 spell scrolls. A Wizard can make those for them-self. They could have numerous common items like the tankard of sobriety or many healing potions. The real problem is magic items with stacking bonuses or strong/unusual powers like flight. Certain magic items are problematic. I don't think its number of items that is the problem.
When referring to magic items almost no one is talking about weak consumables (aka things that don't effect action economy) or common magic items.
@@swiftdragonrider Use of the right terminology is important in logic, rhetoric, and argument. Magic Items by definition includes those common and consumable items. Everyone I've played with has always called consumables and common items as magic items because they are located in the magic item section of the DMG or Xanathar's. If you mean wondrous items or weapons or armor say that. If you mean rare, very rare, legendary, or artifacts then say that. To say magic items when you mean something else in the context of this video makes what you're saying explicitly false.
@@fortunatus1 I know this requires more knowledge of these guys but I remember they game the advice not to count comon magic items and give away 1 a game. And from my experience most players don't refer to scrolls and potions as magic items. Also even if you take them by there word I am a okay with not handing out more consumables until they use the ones I gave them. But unrelated to this the video is clearly talking about power and magic items that might case problems and I don't think any number of common/level fitting consumables will brake a party.
As a level 7 Paladin with a +1 warhammer and a belt of fire giant strength... yes. The belt is absolutely the problem, lol.
Gave my party a belt (can't remember which one) on top of a +2 sword in the first campaign I ran, thinking they would split it across the two martial fighters and everything would be cool. I wanted them to feel and be powerful. Then they stacked them both on the fighter 2/paladin x with GWM and encounter balance for me as a new DM was a disaster. I really should've just given them 2 weapons lmao
I don't really have any predictions since the only magic item combos I can think of are the ones that are explicitly spelled out: the Hammer of Thunderbolts + Belt of Giant Strength + Gauntlets of Ogre Power, or the 5 Dragon Masks.
Let's see where this goes.
Welcome to my beholder dungeon! And remember they need a whole hour to Reattune those attunement items after that anti magic eye hits them in round one.
A beholders anti magic eye gaze suppresses magic effects. Those effects are still active, it’s just muted. A character concentrating on the fly spell will fall within the eye cone but doesn’t lose concentration. If the beholder turns around the character can return to flying. This effect is the same to magic items. A plus 2 weapon isn’t plus two in the eye gaze cone but returns to that outside of the effect area. Attunement to their magic cloak works just like concentration on a spell and doesn’t end but is muted while in the area.
@@ProgramKiraTV heck, with how that works combined with the eye beams, fog cloud can completely gimp a beholder if they don’t have minions or access to a light breeze.
@@williamwontiam3166 Line of sight is important! It's a powerful tactic for monsters and heroes to exploit.
One of the way I was pondering to minimize this would be to "tailor" the item for the character you have in mind. Sure the obvious way to give give a say a weapon that makes sense for a class over the other, like a battleaxe instead of a shortsword if you want your paladin to use it instead of your rogue. The way I'd like to go is describing what the item looks like "the cloak has a flower foliage pattern" and hopefully that goes to the ranger, "the staff has a grim raven head motif" so hopefully the warlock gets it.
Mind you I'm aware this could only ever work on players that give a damn about their character personalities and esthetics.....
I’ve seen a dm get passed a high ac by having a second attack(like multi attack) be a aoe dex save, so the first attack still contest against their ac but the second still brings danger. Of course it wasn’t as repetitive as that but that was just the example to not only using magic users for attacking the ac tank
That’s what my dm is doing for my character. He’s a high ac fighter and my dm keeps throwing things with breath weapons or multi attack and and least once per encounter i get smacked with a crit due to the sheer number of attacks coming at me
One time I stole all the money from a castle by invisibly entering the vault where they kept their money, putting all their gold into a portable hole and teleporting out with a helm of teleportation after they closed the vault.
The quiver of ehlonna also has the extra dimensional issue along with a bag of holding. Both of them are available as artificer infusions.
Most powerful combo I've run into recently is just the magic missile firing squad. Give a party of 6 a magic missile wand each? And your monsters can take 18d4+18 unavoidably, 7 times a day
A total team damage of, on average, 63 shouldn't be a problem when the average fighter or hasted rogue can reliably do that
@@prosamis true, but 63 *unavoidable* damage from up to 120 feet away can do a lot
This may be my favorite of all your great videos. As a newish DM, there are lessons here that will serve amazingly well. Wish I'd seen this a year ago. :)
Winged Boots + Cloak of Invisibility? Pfft. *Laughs in Djiini GenieLock at 7th level*
That cloak of invisibility/ boots of flying combo... You can make a character with those traits early on; Variant Tiefling - Winged who is a Sorcerer (or other arcane magic class). Once you have greater invisibility it creates this scenario. As a bonus, if it's a shadow magic sorcerer, you can use Sorcery points to cast darkness that you can see in.
Creating an astral rift is also possible with the new Warlock Genie Subclass. They get a small extra dimensional space in an item at start.
Wouldn’t a low level artificer work better since they can make 2 bags of holding per day?
The bag of holding/portable hole should also work with two bags of holding. Both are items that create extradimensional spaces. So two artificers with the replicate magic item „bag of holding“ infusion and the magehand cantrip can do this over and over again. 😉
Wouldn't two bags of holding do the same, or an handy haversack and an quiver of ehlonna.
Like a ranger with the quiver, who hides in a portable hole to get past a trap. OOPS
Wizard with the planar travel spell (whatever its name is) runs up with the bag and the hole, puts them together as an item interaction or bonus action (DM discretion) then uses their action to cast the spell to get back. Boom, fight over and it just cost you the bag and hole. Also get an artificer in the party so they can MAKE the bags, so you just have to source the holes
As a DM, I love it when the party's defender racks up AC, then starts drawing enemies their way ... means I can throw wave after wave of attacks against them, yielding a few scratches
The defender player feels invulnerable (as they should), the other squishier players use him as their shield, and a whole lot of maneuvers & tactics flow from that scenario
It's less of a problem and more of an ideal situation ... if the enemies want to hit the high AC tanky defender, they have to target their saves, not their armor.
i got 20 AC and mirror image on my "fighter"/bladelock in a curse of strahd game
he front lined 4 revenants on his own and it was good~
cant wait for next level as due to fuckery i get animate dead AND eldritch smite
One thing to do is reflavor ( and even add not super important changes such as changing damage types) so that it’s obvious who the magic item was meant for. It also makes the magic items special to the players .
Y’all need Rust Monsters, Nishruu’s and Disenchanters.
And oozes and jellies, right, @Kelly? 🤣
First post on UA-cam - love your channel. Been playing since 1979. Dming the same campaign since 1997 (several generations of characters). My players, also long term, complained for years that they only get the really cool legendary weapons at the end of their careers. The campaigns usually end shortly after these items are awarded. So, I purposefully broke the rules. Make a long story short, I ran White Plume Mountain as part of my current campaign. Not only did I let them keep the items, but I created similarly powered items to ensure all players got a legendary item. I knew the consequences and planned accordingly. We have been having sooooo much fun (and I'm the DM). We've gone two levels since and it's working. I do not advise unless you have significant experience. Cheers and thanks for the videos.
Nice to see you back in the room together.
One possible "solution" to limiting who gets which item is to put some lore behind the items and limit each to a different class or alignment (you can even decide it on the whim: if the fighter sees the +3 weapon and says he wants it before the barbarian, maybe that item can only be attuned by a fighter or maybe the belt has to be attuned to a barbarian)
Can't Artificers make both the Bag of Holding and Portable Hole? Does that mean they can mass produce 'Black Hole' arrows for a ranged character?
Only the bag of holding, not the portable hole
2 bags of holding works the same way tho. We had wizard and a warlock (me), the wiz had a raven familiar holding an open bag of holding while my owl familiar flew into it while holding a rolled up bag of holding mid combat. Same result but no casualty on our end, as familiars can just be resummoned. And Hydras don't plane shift ;)
I feel that the portable hole+bag of holding rule was put in place to prevent the "stacking" of these items, but it would make more sense just to have "the dimensional forces repel each other and the portable hole is held back by an invisible force as it approaches the entrance to the bag of holding" and it avoids the issue of giving your players a bomb
Yeah the portable hole and bag of holding thing happened to my party.
We're still working our way back.
In the 1E DMG, speaking about trading with NPC wizards, quoted from memory "they may demand a minor magic item, like a girdle of giant strength". This still sticks out in memory as one of the words categorization ever!
Bag of holding + holy water
In our game, we found a way for this to potentially deal 2000d6 damage. We just didn’t to spare our dm. (Note our dm declared a vile of holy water is 8oz, but if your dm ruled it to be smaller, it could be so much worse.) This was also in the game where my paladin had 26 AC and averaged over 100 damage a turn, although most of that wasn’t even magic items. Also, the action economy between him and the monk was insane. We must have given our dm a pretty serious headache.
How?
@@utubeiskaren7796 I'd assume they calc the damage for the holy water by multiplying the damage for a vial to match the holy water lake they got stored in that bag, so if the vial amount is smaller for the same damage then the lake would be more potent.
Though unsure how they get to fire off the holywater from the bag.
One campaign I was a part of actually completely changed because someone put a portable hole into a bag of holding that didn't know what would happen. It became a quest to escape the astral plane, and was actually one of the more interesting campaigns I've played.
15:15 I had an aarakocra ranger. He just made sure everything had a ranged weapon and we didn't fight outside.
Retaliation auras are a great way to deal with the high AC's of Characters. Breath weapons are also good way to get those PC hit points low.
I went through a phase early on when I first started DMing where I very blatantly encouraged players trying to break the game via min maxing and magic items so now many years later nothing feels broken to me because I have learned how to handle the challenge
In 3.5 I had a bard get his charisma over 40 and it got to the point that gods of beauty kept hiring assassins to try to kill or disfigure him
Our DM gave our bard a music box that allowed us to have a long rest in half the time. We have 2 elves that were basically having long rest in 2 hours
Me who has an artificer in one group and had to have a talk with him so I could still reward cool things to the party XD
for long campaigns I usually give magic weapons some kind of durability for the magic to wear off or it completely brakes. Like giving a fire sword some daily charges for it to make extra dice damage. but if the players wants to expend all charges in a single attack there's a possibility that it will brake on impact. Players seen to like it because they have a videogame background and like that kind of resource management.
winged boots - more combat indoors with low ceilings or in a forest. how low is the canopy. it should now be difficult terrain to pass through like heavy foilage. enemies should get the advantage of being covered if they player is to far into the canopy.
Also easily countered by adding in more archers on the enemy side.
I declare this the AC paradox: the harder you commit to the role of the party's tank, eventually the gm decides its easier to have the enemies to just ignore you, making it harder to be the party's tank.
That's when you take the sentinel feat, because as soon as you have sentinel you become the only character the monsters target.
This is why you play a spell caster in addition to having high ac so if they dont focus you to break your concentration your area of affect spells will murder them
@@Anthony-wt3zv like my sorcadin build who when the enemies try to ignore, I just twin spell Haste the party and simply relax if they still want to ignore my character.
As several other people have pointed out, any of the extradimensional storage items (Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, or Handy Haversack), when placed into another, will suck creatures within ten feet into the Astral Plane. You can also eject the contents into the Astral Plane if you destroy the bag-so if you can trick or force your opponent into the container, you can dispose of them that way as well.
There are two additional wrinkles. A Bag of Devouring will dump its contents into the Astral Plane when destroyed, but there's no mention of the rift effect when the BoD is put inside another container (though presumably doing it the other way around works). And if you put a Sphere of Annihilation into an extradimensional container (or planar portal) there's a 15% chance it will create a rift and suck through any creature OR OBJECT within 180 feet to a RANDOM plane.
(I'm currently running a campaign where the PCs are the crew of an Astral salvage ship that has a way of detecting when and where these spills occur and collecting the bounty, so I needed to read up on all the various items capable of creating such rifts.)
For the heavy hitter, amped up fighter what about minion hoards? A swamped heavy hitter going "weed whacker" can be very satisfying.
Thank you. You only get so many attacks. It can be powerful sure, but a lot of little guys can be scary.
@@LupineShadowOmega Yeah, even if you go with 4E style 1hp minions you give the fighter something to "popcorn" through and you don't overburden the rest of the party.
@@pouncerlion4022 Agreed. And action economy is such that even those 1 hp guys hit hard enough to wear the party down a bit at a time. Resources are also the name of the game.
My party didn't so much get a game breaking combo as a Disc One Nuke, and we dealt with it in an incharacter way:
By sheer luck of the draw, our party got a Staff of Frost very early on in Rime of the Frostmaiden, as in second quest. A very are magic item giving access to a fourth, fifth, and sixth level spell before we even got third level spells. Obviously, this could be game breaking.
So the party decided to give it to my character (a female Druid), because my character was very cautious and reservered. IE, the member of the party reserved and kind enough not to abuse the Staff because it'd be out of character for her to do so.
As a result, up until the endgame, the Staff normally was only used for utility rather than combat, such as making bridges or at one point protecting the party from an avalanche.
So one solution is if you've got the agency for it as a DM, award a magic item to a player and character who's shown they're unlikely to abuse it.
9:25 that is where i one-up the DM and start building myself to a grappler... They can't ignore me if they can't reach anyone else
i have a grappler
its quite effective
i recommend the unarmed fighting style with tavern brawler
My Totem Warrior has a +3 Glaive, Winged Boots, a Cloak of Protection, a Belt of Giant Strength, and the Sentinel feat.
Being able to smack a beholder out of the air that is 10 feet from me with Reckless Attack is so much fun.
The fastest click in the forgotten realms
+200xp
What’s really sick is you can play a character with a +3 weapon, +3 armor, +3 shield, belt of giant’s strength, and a cloak of displacement. Ignore them at your own peril. The good news is their saving throws suck. Oh wait, they’re a paladin?
When you guys doing the Sorcerer Tier List, gotta see what you think.
I believe the reason for the addition on the bag of holding is that you're not supposed to be stacking bags of holding into each other, just because that forgoes the weight restriction and the party could probably bring an IKEA set for a trebuchet into the next dungeon
We should also note that the use of "ultimate destruction" comes with a 5% chance of a misfire that could/would insta-kill the PC attempting said action.
What Kelly says at 10:10 in, that game-changing combos of magic items are great for high-level play right before a campaign finale but a headache at low or mid levels, was perfectly revelatory for me about 5e's basic assumption about the role of magic items and class features in character advancement. I don't like it, but I think I understand it so much better now!
Wait Kelly is in the Roots hoodie? The world is going to invert itself!
That's what happens when you let him run a one-shot on camera.
I gave the party monk two tattoos: Blood Fury and Eldritch Claw Tattoos during UA, which were converted into their official forms when Tasha's came out. This resulted in the following:
Not only does the Eldritch Claw give +1 to attack and damage, but you can activate it to give your unarmed attacks 15 ft. range and extra 1d6 force damage for 1 minute. The Blood Fury on the other hand has 10 charges and you can use one to empower your weapon attack (monk fists are considered weapons) to deal an extra 4d6 necrotic damage damage and gain temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt! This means an extra 5d6 + 1 damage per attack, and since monks can use Flurry of Blows they can attack four times, for a potential damage of 4d8 + 20d6 + 24 points of damage, and that's not counting critical hits which double all the dice! That's 112 damage on avarage, btw.
It wouldn't be as game breaking as it is now if WotC didn't decide to give the Blood Fury tattoo an insane buff when it came out of UA =/
Oh, and the party is at level 12.
Is everything okay, Kelly? Did Monty force you to wear Roots too for once?