Why My DM Banned Me From Using A First Level Spell | Narrated D&D Story
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- Опубліковано 13 лис 2023
- Easily my favorite part of this story is the fact that the DM tried to get out of the situation he put himself in. He rolled with the punches and let his player’s plans happen. That’s what it's all about, the improv the quick thinking and begrudgingly rewriting all of that planned campaign because of the spell Command.
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Story Source: / why_my_dm_banned_me_fr...
Video Editor: Shawn Kadian
Editors: Lonny Foran (written4reddit@gmail.com)
Narration: MyLo (Twitter/VoMylo)
Thumbnail Art & Channel Artwork: NalaFontaine (Twitter/@nala_fontaine)
#dndstories #dnd #dungeonsanddragons - Фільми й анімація
I love how the DM handled this. The party clearly outsmarted him, and in the face of defeat, he eventually accepted it. Your parties do unexpected crap and it's important to roll with those punchea.
I love when you can actually pull of a plan and it works out, it's rare that ever happens with my DM.
ehhhhhhh! Good, but a better solution would have been to step back, give the party rewards due for ingenuity, think it through and write in an escape/counter escape scenario while they transport the new captives still alive for next session.
May even be a time to write in a new underling boss for the bbeg to help her escape? Multi stage plan? High rank Corruption/spy in the good guys army (that is a new char the party hasn't met yet, don't want to retcon to much of existing lore) ? Maybe even have the bbeg sacrifice said new pawn to effect her escape, adding extra evil dimension to the bbeg, adding a boss battle for the party they can defeat so to have minimal impact on the existing campaign lore while at the same time not just hand waving " a mage ports in to grab her and poof" hand waving the previous achievement away, or a railroaded scene that makes the dm look petty to retcon a campaign destroying mistake.
It may still fail, but at the same time it's better (imo) than just "oh crap, you got me!" and dumping the campaign story till you think up a new one.
as a DM you should make the Players worry why the Plan is working, Why do they have the ultra Consciously described plan of the castle and the Guards missing, who profits from the BBEG's death, are you making things better or worse - Nothing happens in a vacuum and all actions have consequences even if its not personal to the player
Casting a spell with a verbal component is OBVIOUS. it cant be hidden in a sentence like that. the command word is not the Verbal Component. sooooo everyone in the camp would have known he was casting the spell.
@@Thenarratorofsecretsthat's *an* interpretation. Not your table, not your game, not your ruling.
You don't ban Command. You ban that sleeping powder.
Don't think it's actually banned but more like a running joke to them if he did he is a bad dm no matter what
Or add limits to it.
Something that OP should be limited in supply and take a while to kick in(so you couldn't just use it against someone who's aware of the trickery).
If they only had enough for 2 people and it took 2 minutes to kick in they'd never have attempted this, while it'd still be useful for the story purpose(knocking out a single commander subtly and getting them out of the camp to interrogate).
It’s like the dust of deliciousness - unintended consequences.
Also, BBeGs need legendary resistances for a reason.
@@robertb6889 Yeah, that is the entire reason Legendary resistances was invented. However, given the BBEG was taken prisoner, the game was far from over. She could have easily escaped.
No you don't! You, (the DM) should reward the players for good role-playing and EXTRA points for improvising on the spot and saving the day for the good guys!
Me: "Uhhh...I cast Command?"
DM: "He failed, what's the command you're giving him?"
Me: "Ah, Shit."
DM: 😐 "He shits himself."
Me: 😮
Oh my God that is hilarious
Pikachu face
Wouldn't he have to Ah?
At least you didn't say come.
Moral of the story: Be careful about giving out stuff that doesn't require a save.
And remember to give your BBEGs Legendary Resistances
@@davidperte62this.
Moral of the story: never dismiss the first-level ability.
Moral of story: don't forget that all BBEG has Legendary Resistance
Where is that written in the rules? It sounded like a good narrative situation.
@@KnicKnac I don't think so?
But it's up to the DM if they want to add something in their BBEG.
what i don't like about the DM in the video, is he ended the campaign early and banned the " Command Spell " just because the DM
did not prepare enough to his BBEG.
There are so many ways to keep the campaign going and without banning the guy to use the command spell..
The question is,
If you were the DM in that campaign,
What would you like to do?
to keep on the campaign going?
@@SnippyVT They probably should have had a DC to that poison/mixture. Maybe add 5 to the DC the more added. I'd end the campaign if my players outsmarted me. If they had fun doing it I'll reward that. Could even have another group of people take over after that one got taken down. As a player or DM I enjoy seeing clever uses of spells/items/etc. Sure they didn't need that second roll, but it sounded like the DM rolled with the punches and it turned out okay. A good learning experience. I wouldn't ban the spell though.
@@KnicKnac Exactly!
In the end of the day it's all about having fun in the table while everyone is making a wonderful story..
That is DND all about!
back when I DM'd a group, I loved when they completely derailed my plans. I took that as an excuse to pull out the half-baked bullshit of a storyline I had been off-handedly considering, so now the BBEG, instead of being an eldritch monstrosity from the void between worlds that was summoned by a group of cultists living in the sewers, is now an old wizard being taken advantage of by a demonically possessed wooden spoon that he can never let go of and forces him to cast spells against his will because the goblin paladin rolled a nat 20 on his suicide charge at aforementioned eldritch monstrosity.
Glad im not the only one that pulls out this kinda bs when party does their thing~ XD
Well... this is more interesting than the "silvery barbs" story I anticipated
I hit play on it and looked at my partner saying "It's gotta be Silvery Barbs" but NOPE! It was great.
I came to the comments to predict "silvery barbs"
This is good to see. Can't wait to see what it was.
Except that the DM essentially pulled it themselves by insisting that they got advantage. "I don't like this, so... The BBEG gets another roll" and they STILL failed.
Mathematically, Silvery Barbs isn't even that bad. It's just that people mindlessly parrot the opinion that it's broken, the same as Lucky.
@@Riddlewizard mathematically, Silvery Barbs is an incredibly powerful spell for first level, and functions better than things that give disadvantage due to the fact you can force them to reroll AFTER seeing their success. It has nothing to do with "mindlessly parroting" anything, it literally forces the same outcome as disadvantage, AFTER you see the roll, and gives advantage to yourself or others.
That means, mathematically speaking, they lose 25% (from 55% to 30% success rate) chance of success, AFTER you've already seen the roll, and you or your ally GAINS 25% (from 55% to 80%, numbers chosen expect a DC10). Those are the actual numbers, which are achieved with a 1st Level Spell.
And it's that reason many people think it's broken.
Hot take- The campaign went phenomenally, no notes. It may have ended 30 sessions early, but what a way to go out! You just know that every player is going to remember that game fondly for the rest of their lives, and what better outcome could a DM hope for?
The thing is that it only really ended early because the DM decided to have the Big Bad in the area that the party infiltrated,so unless the DM was intending for the party to be captured and not killed if they fail to win the encounter it the campaign would have ended 30 sessions earlier anyway
@@calvinmcneil9824DM got cocky.
The sleeping powder didn't have a save.
The game ended epic, you can't ask for a better end.
Exactly, in this case the DM did a TPK for himself. It can happen to the party so why not the DM? Honestly it's just a great way to end it, I've had TPK's that ended as epically and wouldn't have wanted anything else.
Yup. 100%
Didn't even have to end there! You just did something amazing, you just won, Great job!
Too bad the BBEG was just the underling of something else..
They were a symptom, not the disease.
Now the one that was pulling the strings behind the scenes is going to kick over the chessboard..
Or your job, since you're secret agents anyway, is to discover who was the one that lifted the black judge to power.
I really enjoyed this story, I hope we can get more stories of players and DMs working together. The ocasional horror story isn’t the worst, but I miss stories like this
We have been screening it a lot differently, you would have noticed in all of the previous story we covered :')
I feel like the GM did had a good reason to give the BBEG advantage here, but the use of command via the paladins speech was smooth. I'm glad he was a good GM who let it fly and rolled with the failures.
Nah. You get the upvote cause I like that the GM rolled with his L after the fact, but the DM absolutely had NO REASON to give advantage here. BBEG's are to be afforded only the same things you offer to the players. Minions/creeps/mobs/etc. are treated worse than the players. Almost no DM would give advantage to a player for thinking they know what is going on. BBEG made the insight check, but that was only to know that something isn't on the level. Not WHAT wasn't on the level. This is an important distinction a lot of GMs fail at. Insight doesn't tell you what is going on as it is instinct on something is wrong or off. If you want to know exacts (like refusing to drink a toast) the BBEG would have to have detect thoughts running. In other words, the GM was being meta as the BBEG may have figured something was up and that the soldier was acting odd...but even a 20 wis 20 int character wouldn't jump to "this is poisoned and that guy is an imposter."
@@Nempo13 The bbeg could`ve had a full blown legendary resistance for all we know. A singular reroll is perfectly in line with the main antagonist of the camagn, and they just flavored it as her knowing that she is being charmed. It is to be expected from the final boss to have something other than good save modifiers.
no reason to call advantage AFTER the roll failed bet you money he'd never let a player claim a reason for advantage after they know they failed the roll
@@user-fd5nz5lo7mthen DM should just have called legendary resistance, nutting wrong with that, in fact a lot of right
@@Nempo13 well... if we assume that without the command spell the bbeg would have not drank, we are strongly implying that either the paladin's performance was awful or that he had a hunch something was off. in the first case, it would have been unnatural to drink after some cringe soldier raised a toast, which could be represented by giving advantage on the check to resist the command spell. and in the second case, someone you have a bad feeling about tells you to drink something, this is way past simple doubt at this point... which would justify advantage on the check too.
hell, it's even possible that the bbeg put two and two together, and straight up understood that this guy was trying to make people drink and likely had spiked the wine with something, but just didn't suspect the command spell. which once again would definitely be represented as an advantage on the roll.
Dude if I was the GM I would be so goddamn proud of my players. I absolutely love when my players come up with creative solutions, it’s my favorite part of the game
I'd be both proud of my players, and pissed at myself for allowing that amount of that sleeping powder with little to no limitations.
@@benjamindeh873 yeah that was pretty silly. If I was to make an item like this it would be extremely difficult to get so you’d have maybe a small pouch worth of the stuff. Unless you raid a manufacturing plant you’d never be able to reasonably buy enough to do this
It wasn't the Command spell, and there's no reason to ban it. It was the sleeping powder that was way OP. The fact the DM allowed it, and then didn't pin point it as the problem kinda shows he's not very experienced. Glad you had fun though.
I had something like this in a retro BECMI/OSR campaign around 2021.
Except it was a “save vs. poison or die” roll.
DC of 12 on 200 1st level fighters = 110 corpses by our DM’s maths.
Sleep potion has more humanity, I guess.
not only that, he gave them enough of it to affect THOUSANDS of people!?!? smh
Sleeping powder wasn't "OP". You could get that at any apothecary or make it yourself if you were a ranger or druid of high enough skill level. Ever hear of Laudanum? or Opiates? If the players were evil, they could have killed everybody drinking from that mead and or wine supply by poisoning whatever they were drinking from. As it was, it was ONLY a SLEEPING drug that was slipped into what everybody was drinking. It could have been worse......
From this we learn:
1. Always require a save for homebrew items.
2. Anyone above a certain level of importance should have (at the very least) magic items to resist poison, teleport if they hit a certain HP threshold, and to see basic invisibility. As a personal homebrew, I also (after telling/telegraphing that this will be a thing to the players) make it so that enemies above a certain level know to make perception checks against animals or objects that are in the wrong place or are acting unusual. High level enemies should behave in a way that doesn't make you wonder how they got to high level.
Wasn't it a sleeping powder, which is not considered a poison but magic sleep effect?
@@yukkahiro From a 'how do drugs and medications work in real life' perspective, sleeping medications are absolutely poisoning the body into a state of sleep (all medicine is simply the right poison in the right dose at the right time), from a game perspective, any ingestible that causes a debuff should be considered a poison, from a perspective of an in-game noble/VIP, i am absolutely protecting myself from some fucker slipping me a mickey.
@@SuddenlyUpsidedown From dnd perspective aseeping powder and potions are magical effect, elfs resist it
On point 2 - In my game, the BBEG and her officer cadre would have escaped or been rescued in fairly short order absent some truly diabolical off-the-cuff planning by the PC's to secure them all. Subtle casting, magic items, contingencies, and even just competent and loyal underlings who weren't there at the time would _all_ be used, just like they would be if a party member were captured. If you aren't killing an enemy leader the only ways to truly defeat them are to either remove the effective parts of their power base or to change their desire to fight or conquer to some other goal.
That said, there would be some long-term consequences. The BBEG would now consider the organization the PC's are a part of, and the PC's in particular, to be a serious threat. Depending on the psychology of the BBEG in question, the "reward" I gave the paladin and bard would be their recognition by the BBEG as being her peers, regardless of their level. This could mean that she sends the competent assassins after them, or it may mean that she grants them a measure of care and concern based on the fact that they're on her level - and worthy enemies can make a great person almost as well as worthy friends. I may be unusual here, but I would absolutely consider "The BBEG now considers you are your party to be Real People" to be a serious double-edged boon.
It doesnt even have to be that deep. The BBEG knows she shouldn't drink, command isn't supposed to make people do things they know will be harmful to them
I have the exact opposite take on this. If you're going to place your main villain in front of the party early, the villain needs to be prepared for Shenanigans and you need to be able to show that to the party. in advance.
Right... like he could have made his BBEG an Elf/Half-Elf because they're immune to effects that make them fall asleep.
Great fun. Clever plan. Glad the DM ran with the punches. A bit mad they made the villain save twice, but sounded like everyone enjoyed the result.
I genuinely thought this was going to be a horror story. Glad to see I was wrong. Epic moment you’ll remember forever. Great work.
Hope you’ve been enjoying recent stories :’)
Neat story. The DM was lenient in letting him cast Command without getting Counterspelled. Merely hiding the word being Commanded in a sentence won’t hide that it’s a spell being cast; even if you don’t require separate mystical incantation and allow the word itself to be the Command verbal component, it’ll be obvious it’s a Spellcasting and not just another word in the phrase. The word will be spoken with “the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, [that] sets the threads of magic in motion.” Any other spellcaster that heard the paladin speaking would recognize the intonations of that specific word as being a casting of magic, and thus could Counterspell.
Letting the paladin cast his Command with the Subtle Spell metamagic (the tool specifically intended to protect your castings against enemy counterspells) without actually having it was the DMs choice, so he can’t complain about the outcome.
same as guidance. its abused and overused and has a verbal and somatic component. so if your trying to guidance yourself on a deception check they literally watch you cast a spell on yourself 🤣 too many "i quietly cast the spell" that makes sorcerer subtle casting pointless.
This 100% is against RAW. A verbal component is very clearly recognizable as a spell. In this case you'd cast command, and then give the command. That's the whole point of subtle spell, to cast something without it being recognizable as a spell.
My old DM banned Aboleth's Lung from Pathfinder. My friend used it to force a dragon to stop being able to breathe air, only water.
Imagining the bard shrugging and drinking the powder too, was really the icing on the cake. This group sounds so chill lmao
Yeah, the DM literally had no reason to bring the BBEG there, or do most of the things he did after.
Debatable, it was a major victory, great leaders show their faces to their troops to boost morale.
How do you even know? Are you 100% aware of their story, world, positions, and information only the DM ever had and not the players?
Have you ever DMed?
@@benjamindeh873 It's basic story writing. He gave the party a Task of Sissiphus and tried to railroad them to defeat.
@@nocount7517 Well you clearly have no idea about story writing if you fail to see the hundreds if not thousands of different elements and options in which that event could not only be very well justified, but also extremely likely.
For starters there are no elements indicating it to be unlikely or nonsensical at all.
Complaining about it is just complaining with no sense about the DM DMing.
@@benjamindeh873 Bruh. Why the absolute fuck would the BBEG even be there? And how the hell would she be able to pick out the Party from her men? THINK, DAMMIT!
There are indeed shenanigans involving Command. Recently our DM was having us fight the Queen of Air and Darkness due to some shenanigans regarding The Deck of Many Things, and I had the spell Plane Shift ready to go through the Staff of The Magi. She knew I had it and thus casted Command on me and used, "Stay." I failed the save, and our Cleric forgot to Dispel it from my character, however, I had an epiphany. She said "Stay", not "Stop," "Drop," or "Silence." So I still casted the spell, but I classified myself as the unwilling participant. Thus we ended up leaving the Feywild with our friend that ended up there. I would say that I had a very "Fey" answer to her Command Spell.
Definitely some fae shit you pulled there. I bet The Queen was tickled pink for a week after she calmed down.
@@caninelupus8369 Don't know, but considering the fact that my character ended up being the critical thorn in her side with more than one Counterspell sent in her direction along with a taunt(I'm playing as the scariest thing in the multiverse: a Kender Conjuration Wizard), I would like to think she was.
Your DM was generous, then, because "Stay" would include not leaving where you are, which Plane Shift most emphatically causes you to leave where you are, lol. What you _could_ have done, however, is cast an offensive spell at her is you wanted to because "Stay" doesn't prevent you from casting a spell in general, only from moving from your spot (square) or teleporting away. (Hopefully your DM will catch that if it should arise again... 😉)
PS: though you can designate yourself as an "unwilling" target (that's lenient on the DM's part, too, lol), you then wouldn't have the top option of having others plane shift, as well -- it's an either/or situation, with you and other willing participants going *or* you attempting to send away a *single* unwilling creature, but not both with the same casting.
@@tideoftime Fair enough. I'll bring it up to him next time I run into him.
Am I the only one who thinks that because the bbeg knew the drink was tampered with she would have considered it directly harmful and the spell would fail.
Banning a player from ever using a core rules spell because they used it as intended is probably the worst thing I've ever heard...
Someone doesnt gets a joke/figurative speech.
So many players and DMs have no sense of humor -.-
@@benjamindeh873
Explain the joke.
He's probably "banned" from using it in the same way that I am "banned" from having/using consumable items in my DnD group. It's less of a ban and more of a plea of mercy.
@@Lowraith Read the below answer from jimmy. Thats a good example. I am too lazy to educate people on basic human interactions.
@@benjamindeh873
Now demonstrate how you know with certainty that it was in fact meant this way, and not meant literally (you can't, and my interpretation is just as valid as yours - don't try to correct someone when your take is only as likely)
That DM could have said there wasn't enough rope for THAT many prisoners (or time to tie them up), and run the rest of the campaign with the BBEG's heir doing a lesser job from the huge moral hit and the loss of all top officers. It would have been even more fun than a one-off win to know for 30 sessions how much they screwed the enemy BAD.
if you fling crap at the players you need to be prepared for it to be flung back XD
This is why you always give the BBEG at least one charge of legendary resilience. Just in case the party pulls some bs like this😅
Good on the DM for taking the L like a champ though.
He tried to be salty, now he drinking the ocean. At least no hard feelings
Yeah, right now I'm heavily revising a campaign to account for unexpected player actions. See, they'd found a certain black obelisk with immensely powerful time magic. They keep tinkering with it, trying to figure out how to activate it, then start talking about destroying it if they can't figure it out. So I give a hint that it seems to draw power from magic items, but a pretty immense amount is needed. I was trying to nudge them to the activation item.
...Instead, they hotwire the time machine and jumpstart it with an evil artifact they were looking to destroy anyway. Boom. Blew themselves 3,000 years into the past. Later, when I summarized these events in the next session, one replies, "ok, when you put it that way, this was really dumb."
"Genius BBEG" somehow did not predict being poisoned by her enemies.
Command is a powerful spell for sure, but it's harshly limited. This was a very specific case use that it would shine in. I don't think the DM should ban it. In fact the DM shouldn't ban anything if they can help it.
They should just not forget about legendary resistances (and play more elf BBEGs that get resistances to things like this). Or items that make it automatically fail.
Real talk, I went into this expecting Purify Food and Drink. But Command is just as cool.
he made it seem like it was a weird or not normally taken spell, but command as a 1st level should be kept on hand for most spellcasters 🤣 too useful. your spell DC at high levels is the same for 1st level spells so make that ancient dragon think about burning a legendary resistance cuz it was unlucky enough to fail a "flee" command or a "hide" command. burn a legendary resist on a 1st level spell or lose an entire turn ! win win for a level 1 spell. he aint gunna burn it on a ice knife resist 🤣
Kind of weird the BBEG doesn’t have legendary resist
Or a food taster.
This is the best kind of solution. Ive done something similar to this; masking the Command spell to focre an imbibing of a poison. Epic
It is the mark of a truly great DM to let the players have their epic moments even at the cost of the campaign. I have had plenty of (potentially) great moments completely destroyed by the DM for no better reason than he's the DM... it is a world-breaking experience that takes the players out of the game and seats them at the table.
Reminds me of a campaign where PCs were trying to take down a god (cocky bastards). This was in AD&D... part of a god's standard arsenal was the simple Command spell. They never stood a chance as he just commanded them to freeze... 1 round per level... The god just had them stand in place while his priests slit their throats.
Then there was the time the party tried to take on Yeenoghou...(Deities/Demigods version)
...Command is a good spell. Creative uses aside just using "flee !" as a command wast the ennemy turn and can make him take attacks of opportunities. I don't know why OP was mocked for taking it
That was nice of the dm to let that go through, that's not how spell components work, but makes for a cool story. Nice
THANK YOU. god everyone cheering this on has no idea how verbal components work.
I even went to double check if the spell had any components besides the word itself, really off but still really cool
This is what legendary resistances are for.
This is the reason why command and suggestion are my favorite spells.
you cast command on the fleeing enemy "Come!" confused DM: you hear a faint moaning in the distance..
I use command all the time. It's a fantastic spell. With a tiinnyy bit of rules lawyering, I once used it on a BBEG to make them drown towards the start of the campaign.
We walked up to the BBEG for a monologue and some story progression, huge courtyard with a fountain in the center. Lots of tunnels leading to barracks and other parts of the castle. Just us and the BBEG. We were told we had a handful of rounds to basically get out of there before the waves of guards started pouring in. So, midway through the monologue, my excessively aggressive paladin grappled the BBEG. Bear in mind, this guy was way tougher than us, so he didn't fight it, he just laughed. I pulled him to the fountain and shoved him underwater. He calmly smiled through the water, knowing we wouldnt have the time to sit and wait for him to drown. I used command. Told him to scream. He fluffed the save. Then I held him there as he drowned.
The DM handled it like a champ, let him die. But brought in his boss. An evil(ish) themed paladin, he then also resurrected the former BBEG as a mostly sentient undead. It was very cool.
I hate how the DM is like well you see the bbeg knows what up so let me roll again...........and then said my word is law
Every person that angers the DM... "It was the bards idea"
Ooohh this was a MARVELOUS story!
I wonder if I'd gone so far as to ban the spell 😅
Command isn't area effect. "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can affect one additional creature for each slot level above 1st." So he'd need a slot level in the hundreds. The DM needs to refresh his understanding of the spells used in his game.
No, the command spell was only cast on the Black Judge. Only the BBEG had any idea what was going on, the army was celebrating a victory and the party had earlier convinced folks that they had to wait for the BBEGs toast, so *EVERYONE* in the army was just waiting for their chance to get blackout drunk and pig out. Since no one noticed the spell, they went along with their leaders "celebration" and bada bing bada boom, everyone falls asleep.
@@caninelupus8369 yeah but it'd be obvious he was casting the spell. You cannot hide verbal components in a flowery speech as those arent mystical words. also the command word is not a part of the verbal components. yeah she'd drink, but they'd have 3000 soldiers on them that round.
@@Thenarratorofsecrets *All* of that is up to DM discretion, and the DM outright said, "I didn't notice so they don't either." The rules of DnD are meant to be flexible for moments just like this.
At the end of the day, this was a rule of cool situation.
Be very grateful that your GM seems to have forgotten all about spell components, you would have needed subtle casting metamagic in order to get around it being obvious you are casting a spell. Command has a verbal component so in addition to the actual command, "drink", you would have needed to speak the accompany magic words to trigger the magic.
Incorrect. The command word IS the verbal component.
I just looked at the 5e rulings. The Command Spell uses verbal components, in other words a chant or a phrase. Since he gave an awesome speech that made a fool of himself, whose to say he wasn't preparing some sort of spell to get out of the "I am in within Smiting Range of the BBEG" situation?
@@quincykunz3481 so confident and so wrong man. Verbal components are spelled out as mystic phrases. the command word is NOT the verbal component.
Two words would have solved this probelm.
Legendary Resistance.
"You speak a one word command." Not an entire toast.
I really wish ATDnD would do more stories from the perspective of the characters.
lets have next one with that :’)
@@allthingsdnd Yes please 😢
“It wasn’t my idea, but the Bard’s” sounds about right lol
Creative play should be rewarded. It's extra work for the DM, but it brings huge loads of enjoyment for all.
The DM needs to read up on Alvin York lol
Casting a spell with a verbal component is OBVIOUS. it cant be hidden in a sentence like that. the command word is not the Verbal Component. sooooo everyone in the camp would have known he was casting the spell.
Exactly my thought. BS only happens when the DM doesn't know his rules.
Yeah, that is what I was gonna post.
Even stranger - they had a sorcerer with subtle spell and this paladin gets it for free, effectively.
Thats why your BBEG has legendary saves.
Glorious moments like this what makes played D&D so much fun! (for DMs & Players alike)
I actually expected it to be something a Mage Hand spell or something. (to drug the drink) Still, a fun story overall.
Command spell is always on my list if I have access to it. Always!!!
The big gotcha with this story isnt that command is super amazing (its decent especially at lower levels), its that you shouldn't ignore the rules of spell casting and you shouldn't give effects no save.
Command has a verbal component, that is not actually just the commnd itself, its a completely separate incantation that can't be hidden. The paladin would have gone through their speach, then at the very end said a mystical cant, and then said the word drink. The bbeg would normally only roll once since there's no outside forces providing advantege (at least according to the full reddit post) and would have failed to drink. They would drink then fall over because the dm made a no save poison. Unfortunately for the paladin, the second thry start the cant the roughly 2999 other people would notice they were casting a spell and would either counterspell it (if a caster with it were available), initiate combat, or let the spell cast rhen arrest/elimate them once the bbeg collapses.
Thats' fucking lame, shut up.
So i played a cleric in our party. At first i started as tempest cleric (with druid multiclass), but eventually my role in a party shifted and me and DM thought out that in order to switch domain i would need to also switch my faith. Which costed me several sessions where Thor was really angry at me and my spells didnt work correctly. Great fun. Like when i thought he might have already forgotten about me so i tried to cast Thunder wave only to find out it was casted from 9th level spell slot (when i myself had only 3rd) and directed only on me from all directions. I almost died. But the best one was quite some time later when i have earned favor of my new goddess and forgiveness of Thor, when this was all over and we were on a world changing quest to discover what keeps some high level clerics at the temples awake. So we find this suspicious cave which someone is holding down and killing literary anything that enters it. So we roll stealth check all succeed and try to enter as stealthily as possibly, in order to kill the guards without raising any alarms. I fey stepped into the cave right in between the guards, take a look at my AEO spells and cast.... Thunder wave.
I have banned myself to ever prepare this spell ever again.
Additionally, if the BBEG "knew" that the liquid was drugged, then the command spell should have failed since you "cannot something directly harmful" and knowing the liquid was drugged, yet not how, should classify as harmful enough.
Imagine not giving your bbeg legendary resistance haha
The dice are the sign of a god existing and they have a sense of humor.
The dice gods were like “nah, enough of your bs, this is gonna be epic”
I'd laugh my ass off if my table did something like this. Then promptly cancel the next two sessions to rewrite my campaign plans
A better version of the story would be where the GM knows they might pull something like this and doesn't keep trying to 'blue bunny' (surprise answer) their efforts.
First he throws the BBE into the fray to mess up their plans... though maybe he already had that twist planned in advance, but this telling didn't imply that.
Then when the BBE fails a save, surprise 'they get advantage' to try and get the save.
I'm glad they accepted when the advantage still failed.
GMs need to remember three things, if you put a story critical character in front of the players... expect something to happen to that character. And a win for the party is still a win for you. The third thing, is if you keep trying to save the BBE, you might just get a TPK in the process.
In a situation like this, be ready to have a second in command take over the BBE position, or perhaps a shadow BBE that was puppeting the captured one. Army was part of the BBE's plan? Their plan gets delayed as they start raising a new army.
Command is such a good spell! Here two more examples of how amazing it is:
1) I was DMing a lvl 3 Encounter. Sorcerer, Paladin and Fighter. A Green Dragon WYRMLING showed up and their breath weapon knocked out the Sorcerer (only ranged damage in party). The Paladin managed tu use COMMAND with "APPROACH" to make it come to meele range and ends its turn there. Then the Paladin managed to grapple on to it and kept it in meele range, for them to have ANY chance against it.
2) In a Lvl 17 oneshot (3 sessions oneshot) we were in a crazy arena fight. Us four lvl 17 characters vs 3 water elementals, a ship full of CR 3 minions, a powerful caster leader, and suddenly a DRAGON TURTLE appeared. That Dragon Turtle's breath attack hit 3 of us four heroes, and took half of my clerics HP and half of the artificers away, the barbarian didn't care to much lol. The Caster enemy boss on the other ship used some kind of magic to imediatly refresh the breath weapon, and commanded it again to fire it at us next turn. Anyways, we couldn't kill it in one turn, we needed two turns - and it will attack us again twice if it got the chance. COMMAND: HALT put a stop to that. I managed to cast it twice, and we were all spared of that breath attack xD
Command is such an amazing spell.
Thunder wave is another phenomenal first level spell that has so many uses beyond just the standard
So, you guys are the D&D version of Alan York and his buddies, less than a dozen men capturing about 1000 German soldiers.
😁
I came up with a wacky plan once, too, one the DM thought was idiocy, but it worked like, well, like magic.
I was new to a high level party that was about to invade the bowels of hell. We had a great cleric with us, and he had a VERY powerful holy symbol. I had a Decanter of Endless Water. The cleric had a pretty good Strength, as did I (even though I was a wizard).
So here's the idea: Once we reached our destination, I would set the Decanter on geyser, the cleric would place his holy symbol in the jet of water, turning it into holy water as it exited the Decanter. We would then blast any demons, devils, and other hellish critters that came close to the party. We were the distraction while the rest of the party either covered our backs or went after the mission objective. We kept making roll after roll, while the DM kept failing his. The only reason our party survived and accomplished our mission was because of my idea.
Thereafter, the DM was very careful about allowing me to use my imagination in using spells and magic items.
The wisest thing this DM did was pulling the 'has advantage' card here (though it would be smarter to say so before the roll) to weight things the way the DM wanted... and then accepting the results when the dice didn't go the DM's way. Players after that will always remember, when the dice screws them over, how the DM took it on the chin from the dice too.
Awesome story, but can a BBEG get some legendary resistance? 🤣
I would never punish a player for being creative and successful, even if that kills several future play sessions. The risk high enough.
If you want a BBEG to last until later, DO NOT expose them to the PCs. You never know what the players will do and the GM must always remember that no plan survives the actions of the players.
Not DnD, but playing 1st edition Shadowrun. I made a ex government intelligence agent sniper as my character. We made it to the final encounter with a dragon. We walked through the door, I had wired reflexes so I ended up getting first action. We had our firearms out already so I aimed and fired. The sniper rifles at that time did something like 4D6. GM didn't get enough saves on the body roll to knock the damage down to serious. So we burst in, I fired and we walked out.
But the command spell doesn't work if they know it'll directly harm them. Should have used that explanation 😅
The bbeg knew the Pali was the Pali, but would have had no idea about the poison.
Since it was stated earlier it mixed well with alcohol.
To say this would to be to say a command for someone to walk forward would be harmful, yes it could be but unless the person being commanded knew they were walking into a trapped corridor they would still follow through
@@EldenNerd DM just said "she knows" but didn't specify WHAT she knew, so he had some wiggle room, I think. His real mistake was having her be there at all.
It was a sleep powder, it has no harm
@@yukkahiroAgain, enough interpretation there for the DM to wiggle out of it. Definitely better ways to have gotten around it though. It's a BBEG, so simply having a magic item on them that prevented the effects would have been plausible. Not at an unreasonable precaution for someone in that position to take. DM wouldn't even have to explain it. Just "It doesn't seem to be having the expected effect."
@@mournwood or like i said somewhere, a sober bodyguard with teleport scroll to save the bbeg
My DM introduced SpellJamming into the campaign, then he learned that its far easier to kill the crew when most of the players have some form of flight available. We started a battle with one ship and left it with 5.
Maybe make the bodyguards have purify food and drink, maybe have your BBEG have legendary resistances, maybe add a DC to the sleeping powder. So many other things to do rather than ban command.
I hate those botched saving throws. I had a group that had pissed of some pretty dangerous people and ended up with a price on their heads - to capture. The contract was taken up by a high level Sword Dancer. (This was one of those specialty classes part warrior, part caster. They used their sword as a focus for a handful of spells.)
One of those spells was Command. (This wasn't AD&D, but similar enough.)
The command I used - before I thought about what I was saying - "DROP YOUR WEAPON!"
You guessed it. Critical failure in the casting. Result: Backfire. The Sword Dancer dropped his weapon instantly and started to walk around it. Then he proceeded to offer them mercy and a 5 minute head start.
He would later marry one of the characters in the group. You can guess what the favorite bedtime story for their kids was. Yes, it became a running gag.
The problem isn’t the command spell, the problem is a BBEG without legendary resistance.
the problem is giving the players an overpowered homebrew item with no saving throw in a large enough supply to affect thousands of people. they still could have theoretically pulled off the plan without the use of Command, getting around any potential LR, and the result still be the same because of the insanely overpowered homebrew item.
@@herbalt wtf are you going on about. The command spell does have a saving throw. The stupid DM rolled a natural 1
@@justinmichael9043 the sleeping powder they put in the drinks was a homebrew item that worked automatically with no saving throw.
@@herbalt well that explains it; we’re talking about two different things
If I were the DM, I'd start a whole new order of paladins that specializes in Command and makes people drink to join.
I actually had a cantrip banned : mold earth. I used the spell all the time, hiding corpses (I was a *tidy* murderhobo), making stone doors harder to open (it's not arcane lock, but "shaping patterns, for 1 hour" does , reasonably, make doors harder to use during that hour), and - crucially - leaving insulting messages about a specific semi-deity that could only seen from above. And the demon queen took this personally, causing the spell to longer work for just me, uniquely.
And honestly, I earned it. It was a badge of honor, that little ol' me had made a deity level demon to take the time to repeatedly scry on a 5th level character and then eventually curse me for my rude actions. Totally worth it. 10/10, would insult deities with a cantrip again.
(Casts Command spell) "I'll drink to that!"
The sleeping powder with no save? The elves should have been fine.
I think the reason it's banned at the table is because it's an awesome moment and nothing could top what happened that day. So to save that moment and all it's glory the spell is banned
Kind of like the tradition of shattering the glass after the wedding toast!
Your DM is a railroader that got caught.
I am no longer allowed to play a cleric for similar shenanigans
I love casting charm person as a subtle spell. Either it works or they don't know I cast it (others could interpret it differently but it says they know after the spell ends that they were charmed so if it doesn't work, it can't end)
I like that even though the DM banned the spell, he didn't deprive the players of their win. I've seen to many posts on Reddit about DM's who would've seethed at this happening to them and ruined the campaign for everyone. I still feel like banning the spell might be a bit much, especially if the DM can't find a good narrative reason to do so, but I am glad bro rolled with it.
Brilliant.
I had a sorta similar moment long story short me and my party are in a dungeon when we find a treasure cache that when approached has a mind-flayer body guard who teleported in and eventually he put down a wall of force and was just gonna leave with the loot till I hit him with command and just said "flee" then we got our loot and left before he could come back
Always give bbeg legendary resistances
The moral is to have foresight about what you give and don't give to players.
My favorite was a crystal of detect magic. It gave you an acid trip version of it (low magic world). In the last city with magic (the gods collected there to preserve their power when the world was drained of magic to kill a blood witch half a millennia ago), I crushed it into the coffee of a recoving alcoholic. Used that crystal to get money and my own theives guild.
That's why Legendary Resistance exists.
Command is a fun spell. Its so dumb but in the right hands. Fucking brutal.
It's not a war crime the first time.
Unrelated note; the video had captions on when I started watching and I got to the '... old crates and telekinetic feat ...' part of the narration, except in the captions it said 'telekinetic feet'. Lol, thank the Gods for those telekinetic feet, they really saved the day. It's an unusual ability, but really comes through in a clinch.
Okay, I really need to put captions on for these RPG videos. Google caption AI does not know how to deal with some a lot of the specific jargon, and it's good for a laugh. I just got to the Owlbear part of the story, which captions interpreted as 'Al bear', who, I'm guessing, is an apparently legendary NPC who's difficult to put to sleep.
Once our DM tried to kill us after a big fight, we where trying to set up a camp to rest in the ruins of a temple, and for no reason 2 dire minotaurs appear from and underground tunnel which connects the ruin with some catacombs we where supposed to reach, and since i was playing bard i casted grease at their feet, and they both rolled a nat 1, we have a house rule for critical success/failures, you have to roll a second time to confirm, and finally roll a again to see your fate from a chart we all agree to, and our DM rolled nat 1 six times in a row, so both minotaurs fell down and broke their necks. He was mad af
there's no way the bad guy would know it was a trick.
I had acid splash banned in a game because I was using it to get rid of bodies. It kept us out of all kinds of trouble.
I clicked mostly because I was curious which spell it was.
Surprised it was Command. I fully banned Silvery Barbs from my game after one of my players spammed it in a noncombat “encounter”, then acted surprised when the whole town turned hostile after him charm spell wore off.
Dm had us level 4 encounter a small swarm of enemies, then added in a boss.
We never had a chance to see what it would do. I cast suggestion on it.
"Help us then lay down for a nap."
Added silvery barbs.
DM heavily considered saying it just doesn't work but i told him i put myself in more danger than necessary for flavour to do it and am a warlock. This was all in.
Ended up spending one turn to kill one enemy then went prone ending turn and effect.
I was ok with this. My wording wasnt perfect.
Completely took out the biggest threat. And im the only one who put my life on the line, going behind enemy lines to do it face to face (tho i didn't need to just flavour)
But managed to escape and blow open the escape door with EB creep repellent.