@@EclipsisTenebris it doesn’t, you can add your ability mod by default on a dual wield attack, it’s just the damage that you cant (which is why the fighting style exists)
@@EclipsisTenebris No that's wrong too. By default you still add your ability modifier to the attack roll, just not to the damage. The Dual Wielder feat gives you a +1 AC Bonus while holding two weapons, allows you to do two-weapon attacks even if the one-handed weapons you're holding aren't light, and allows you to draw/sheath two weapons in the time you'd be able to do one. Then the Two Weapon Fighting Style lets you add your ability modifier to the damage for the off-hand attack.
@@Cats_on_fire the bit about rule lawyers being annoying? I mean, that's true, but this is a video about all the rules we get wrong and he recommends to send it to people. I think it's important that this kind of video is accurate
3:56 this directly conflicts with what's in the PHB. "When you Attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the Attack roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s Location or you’re targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn’t in the Location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the GM typically just says that the Attack missed, not whether you guessed the target’s Location correctly." You CAN attack a space where you think an opponent is at disadvantage, but if you guess wrong, you automatically miss. I think what was intended for this section was you need to be able to see them to make an OPPORTUNITY attack. You can't against targets you can't see.
On a few other stealth based notes (namely cause 5e's stealth rules are so nebulous)... Surprise rounds don't actually exist in 5e, surprised instead is like a condition that ends after the surprised creature takes its first turn in combat. If surprised, they simply can't act on their first turn or take reactions until they're no longer surprised. (So if you roll first for initiative but are surprised, while you do lose your first turn, you get your reaction back after you go.) (Note that it's not a genuine condition, but it does operate like one.) And in general, for stealth vs perception, perception always has the floor of passive perception. What's actually happening is you basically always have your passive perception going for free, so even when searching, if you roll a 1 on the die, you still have your passive perception that's firing constantly as if you rolled a 10 (or 5 if you have disadvantage). Likewise, stealth rolls to hide are rolled against passive perception. It's one of the few times 5e doesn't encourage contested checks--if someone's hiding from you, you don't roll perception on their turn. You'd only roll perception if you spend an action to search to try and get a better result, and you compare your result to what they rolled for stealth. (You hypothetically could use passive stealth for this as a reverse, but that'd be a house rule.) And remember, you still have passive perception firing off before (and after) you search too.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, when I heard that part. It also says so on the invisible condition, that attacks are made against you with disadvantage, so again you can attack targets you can't see.
Yeah it sounded like they were supposed to be talking about opportunity attacks but intially came accross as any attack, which doesn't make sense. You have to spot an opportunity, that makes sense intuitively, but you don't have to see where you are flailing your arms/weapons/ranged attacks around.
@@Sharkey007x Yep, that's true. Some DMs handwave that a bit and allow spell attack roll spells to target spaces, but I think the intent was for casters to use spells with a even single-square saving throws, like bonfire.
When I heard about Blaine’s sandwich wizard, I immediately got flash backs to my Sandlich, who traded an npc’s soul for a single perfect piece of pepperoni. Ah, the good times
There is a rule that often goes overlooked concerning darkvision. Players and DMs often assume that if the characters have darkvision, then a completely dark setting will not hinder them. However, darkvision only turns a place of total darkness into dim light. Dim light means you have disadvantage on perception checks relying on sight. Therefore, it is still useful for the party to have a source of light even if all the characters have darkvision.
This is doubly important in regards to Passive Perception checks. If you're only relying on Darkvision, your Passive Perception (and Investigation but, like, who's asking for character's passive Investigation scores?) is 5 lower. This means if your GM is *also* using passive Stealth checks for things like Traps, and you aren't actively looking, you could very easily miss things that you could catch automatically if you had a torch.
Unfortunately my DMs homebrewed that darkvision only works if there is at least some light. More realistic maybe and it does go for the monsters as well
The point about not trying to “surprise” your DM with your power build is really good advice. I like when my players have powerful and effective characters in combat, because that lets me push harder and make crazier encounters… but if I want something to be hard, I can make it hard, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The challenge is in proportion to your character.
The big part of knowing this stuff beforehand to me is that I can nudge the party to be on a roughly equal powerlevel. Balancing encounters around an unkillably tank, a dude with 30 HP that does 100 DPR and 3 regular joe schmoes is exhausting.
Im the both dm and a player but even before i was a dm i was the sort of guy who could say to my dm when something is simply to powerful. Even things i would want to do but i know is too strong i warn about. Like moon druid totem barbarian going with bear. Wild shape hp and taking half damage is just too much for our group.
As a DM I am very strict on power builds because it takes away the challenges and severely limits my ability to reward my players in game. As a player I developed an insane monk build that is purely AL legal and does average 50 damage at level 5 and has a 21 AC. I felt so bad about it that I refused to play it, despite the DM wanting to see it in action.
How can you change encounters? Just randomly have an ancient red dragon in the pantry of the abandoned cottage at the end of the road? How does that work? How did the dragon fit? Why was it there? What was it's goal/story? Not sure how you GM but in my games the players decide the encounters not me. You build an OP combat monster and want to kill the whole town? ok. The other players might not like it. Good luck with that.
@@davidbeppler3032 By changing details? Maybe the Kobolds aren't a disorganized mess, but trained ambushers. Maybe they have a powerful leader with them. Your Brigands can be former soldiers with the appropriate gear upgrade that comes with that, or trained in squad tactics with magical backup. There is loads you can do to change encounters to adapt them to the party.
The only two rules every member at the table absolutely should have a clear understanding of are: 1. Don't undercut the other players' fun 2. The DM has final say, not matter what the resurrected Gygax would have to say about it
I feel like #2 is what resurrected Gygax would say, anyway :p Dude was extremely adamant that the rules are guidelines that can be changed by each playgroup, and that the DM has final say as a kind of judge, referee, or arbiter. (E: I will add that D&D has changed a lot since the 70's and 80's, and that the understanding that it is a collaborative game is much better today than it used to be).
@@PlaneShaper2 It is a different game in some ways. The culture then was very different. A DM was literally the master of a Dungeon of one’s creation. The players were trying to unravel it’s secrets. PC groups had meta roles like Mapper & leader. The understanding that the DM could kill you was there but he had to kill you “fairly”. In so many ways it is totally different.
for the second rule, we need to remember that dms need to at least hear their players out if it isn't interrupting anything, this is about respect and making sure everyone is having fun than anything else
Bard's jack of all trades gives you half-proficiency to initiative, but also half proficiency to your spell modifier when casting dispel magic or counterspell
Which in turn means that the Bard has the single strongest counterspell in the game. Sure an abjuration Wizard could still beat them, however the Bard also gets acces to the spell Glibness which makes all your charisma rolls at least 15, and since counterspell is a spellcasting ability check and the Bards spellcasting ability is charisma, you always succed.
@@tiltiege7842 A bard has the best counterspell e.g. their level 3 spells basically always counter any level of spell, however their counterspells can still be counterspelled in turn. A sorcerer can cast counterspells with subtle spell, this means that a sorcerer with subtle spell cannot have their counterspell be counterspelled. Counterspell, counterspell, counterspell. It's no longer a word anymore, I said it too much in too little time.
Remember, while your underwater: "When making a melee weapon attack, a creature that doesn't have a swimming speed (either natural or granted by magic) has disadvantage on the attack roll unless the weapon is a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident. A ranged weapon attack automatically misses a target beyond the weapon's normal range. Even against a target within normal range, the attack roll has disadvantage unless the weapon is a crossbow, a net, or a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart). Creatures and objects that are fully immersed in water have resistance to fire damage." This comes strait from the basic rules for 5th edition and let me tell you as a DM & player, you will forget theses rules at some point unless the DM made a prior ruling change on it.
A few years ago, in a campaign long gone, the party was attacked by a bunch of Merrows (sea ogres). The ogres, not half as stupid as expected, attacked the ships underside instead of climbing aboard. A player started complaining. Player: "But you can't attack underwater precise enough to damage the ship.". DM: "Yes you can, if you have a swim speed." Player: "But the rules don't say you can." DM: "They do actually." Player: "The rules are stupid. They don't make sense. Mimimi." This player continued complaining until the ogres just climbed aboard after a minute and were felled in 2 rounds. I miss that guy. (But I don't miss how he played)
3:16 That one about being harder to hit from range while prone actually makes more sense than you're making it appear. Being prone means you present a smaller profile target. This is why soldiers who are charging an enemy will repeatedly drop prone then jump up to charge and drop prone again. (Stuff I learned in Marine boot camp)
And the other thing the prone condition doesn't say anything about 'ranged' its say anything outside 5 feet has disadvantage so also your reach weapons from 10 feet.
Yeah, a smaller target is harder to hit. Also, being unconcious (the example he gives) gives them advantage, so it actually does cancel out the disadvantage from being prone. Also, the difference between something that's on the ground and can only crawl (not a very fast or responsive way to move) isn't that much harder to hit than something that's on the ground and CAN'T crawl around.
The adventurers league one is outdated or wrong. From the Forgotten realms DDAL Players guide version 12.1 it has another section under create a character for starting play at level 5. You even get a magic item. So you can start at either level 1 or 5.
@@BlaineSimple There is no need to use any of the commercially made adventures friend. You can start games at any level and do anything and still be playing the strict hardcore game of DnD. There is no level or adventure gatekeep to keep you from loving your dnd session! I hope you don't feel pushed to play things you don't want to. That doesn't sound fun :(
8:30 Surprise rounds don't exist in 5e their function got replaced by the surprised condition. (Though it can functionally give a surprise round if every opposing creature is suprised)
Surprised is actually a pseudo-condition. It's not actually a condition listed in the Conditions section of the books but it's easier to explain to people by calling it one. :3
And it's entirely up to the discretion of the DM. If he wants to cancel it after one attack he can so don't pin your hopes on somehow exploiting surprise to stack up huge damage with multiple hits.
@@toshomni9478 Technically, every rule is up to the DM's discretion... But RAW the surprise rules are pretty straightforward and simple, and clearly mention they last until the end of the first turn of combat : "If you're surprised, you can't move or take an aclion on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends."
@@Sephiroth517 and the surprise 'round' is only until their turn so if you surprise the enemies but they all go before you, they have not _done_ anything but are no longer surprised and can take reactions as normal.
The abiity to add your modifier on the off hand attack when two weapon fighting doesn't come from the Dual Wielder feat, but from the Two-weapon Fighting Style. When unconscious, attack rolls made by creatures that are more than 5 feet away from you have disadvantage because you are prone, but also all attacks have advantage against you for being unconscious, so it cancels it out. Great video, anyway!! Edit: The rules for prone give disadvante on all attack rolls made more than 5 feet away from the target, not only on ranged attacks, so weapons with reach suffer from that.
You are correct, but I'd like to tack on that only attacks from within 5 feet become automatically upgraded to crits. I almost lost two different characters because a DM kept trying to pepper downed characters with arrows...
I just looked into it qnd rules and written yeah that is how it works but I believe the intention was packaging the prone condition with it at the same time, it's a little wierd though so I'd say home ruling it as prone is written is valid.
Further elaboration on two-weapon fighting, you can only dual wield with a LIGHT weapon in each hand, unless you have the Dual Wielder feat, in which case you could dual wield longswords or something, however you do still add your ability modifier to the ATTACK roll of the offhand weapon, but you don't add the ability modifier to the DAMAGE on the offhand weapon unless you have Two-weapon Fighting style(or the modifier is negative). This is something that definitely confuses people a lot I find.
@@tsnap4 which is really silly since any sane enemy would switch targets to the others of your party who are a danger and finish you off later. i think that gm simply disliked you.
3:50 The Dual Wielder feat doesn't actually apply your modifier to off hand damage. It just allows you to use non-light weapons and adds +1 to AC when dual wielding. It's the Two Weaponed Fighting fighting style that adds to off hand damage.
*Makes a video to stop, "Um, actually's"* *Gets "Um, actuallied" on the video"* XD Edit: Not trying to start anything. I was gonna say the same thing myself.
3:56 You can attack enemies that you can't see, there's a whole section on Unseen Attackers and Targets that states it only gives disadvantage to your attack rolls. You cannot use attacks of opportunity or cast targeted spells against them, but slashing them with a sword as an attack action on your turn is allowed. They need to be hidden from your character, such as via the hide action, to be totally untargetable.
Even hidden isn't untargetable. Space a creature occupies can ALWAYS be attacked (even if it typically results in hitting cover/auto miss). Aka a magic missile may be personalized letters, but attacks with target being a location (be it a axe swing, firebolt or space railgun shot) is to whomever it may concern.
Many spells require a target you can see, but most attack-roll spells aren't. e.g. Produce Flame: "When you cast this spell, or as an action on a later turn, you can hurl the flame at a creature within 30 feet of you." Similarly Fire Bolt is just attack a creature or object. Eldritch Blast "A beam of crackling energy streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target." If you aren't sure which square your target is in, you have to guess. If you there's no enemy there, the spell is wasted. If there is, you make the attack roll with disadvantage. (Or straight roll if you also had advantage to cancel it out, e.g. if the defender also can't see you.) Some spells like Mass Cure Wounds don't require sight or any roll to target a creature: "A wave of healing energy washes out from a point of your choice within range. Choose up to six creatures in a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on that point." You need a clear path to the target (the point you choose), but you don't actually need to see it, so you can do it in the dark and assume / hope your allies are nearby. Contrast with Mass Healing Word: "As you call out words of restoration, up to six creatures of your choice *that you can see* within range regain hit points..."
Spells like dissonant whispers and command (with words like flee or approach) trigger opportunity attacks if the target fails their save. Just because the enemy was forced to move doesn't mean opportunity attacks are invalid. Anytime you move using your own speed as part of your movement, action (which means bonus actions too), or reaction, you trigger an opportunity attack if you didn't disengage
This is a great one people miss. If you use something to push or pull a creature against their will that doesn't trigger op attacks. But frightened that forces someone to run or any sort of mental commands given that makes them move can trigger op attacks. A lot of effects like this can end though on damage so be careful when you decide to do this. Having a big baddy frightened to buy some time getting ruined cause the fighter can't not attack for 5 seconds can be frustrating and a waste of spell slots.
This _also_ potentially means that if someone lands an AoO on a target affected by a spell that does not work if it considers you and your allies to be hostile (Such as Charm Person), the spell can be broken. Not sure of how exactly that works, though.
@@OGTwist I can't tell if your emoji is a frown, in which case I don't know why it would be something to be upset by, or if you meant it to be a winking face, in which case you are on board :)
6:50 The only time I'll ask them to do a roll for the impossible is if it is something that under normal circumstances would be plausible, but to say it is impossible would leak information. But if they roll a nat 20 and I say you fail, they suddenly get a sense of dread from that realization. It's a fun tool to use in very specific circumstances. Otherwise, don't make them roll to climb a cliff that is impossible because that just wastes time. Just say "you assess the cliff and cannot see any viable handholds to climb" or something like that and move on lol.
Many of my skill checks act on a scale. They can fil in different degrees. This has given my players a sense of "oh that is something I may achieve soon" or "okay maybe we need someone's help or some more information for this". This means the players don't break the game with a nat 20 but they also don't feel cheated. An example of this was a player wanting to scale a high wall, level 2. I gave them the roll, they were never gonna make it. They rolled a 20, they reached the top, clinging by their fingers. I then gave them a choice. Roll Athletics to pull yourself up and over, or roll Acrobatics to safely land and try again. They chose Athletics, fumbled it, and fell. The reward was they had a second skill check to beat. But they then realised that they'd have to roll another nat 20 to reach the top. Afterwards, one of the other players offered to give them a boost. Lowered the DC, since it gave them an extra 3-4 feet of lift.
A few issues: 1) Under the oil item, the phb rules the fire damage as 5 flat per turn 2) the dual welder feat doesn't let you add your mod to the bonus attack, it lets you use non-light weapons. The two weapon fighting style allows for that, though
The readying spells thing kinda blew my mind when I found out about it, but one rule I noticed wasn’t mentioned is how people forget how Disadvantage can cancel out Advantage in any low visibility environment if the attacker and target can’t see, and heavy obscurement causes blindness, making you un targetable for some spells. Fighting someone in a fog cloud has to be one of the most interesting interactions and tons of players I’ve known mistakenly use it to grant advantage. Some DMs made fog work like full cover even when the rules are to shoot with disadvantage at the spot you think they’re at, missing completely if you don’t guess their location.
Dont forget invisibility in all sense and purpose your blind to that creature and tech do not know where they are but some idiots believe that because they are not stealthed they know where the creature is. Even if its a rabbit 600ft away downwind (so making it impossible to smell) and invisible the ranger will autodetect the location of the creature and be able to shoot it. This kind of ruling (Some claim its even RAI) makes all survival games stupid as you wouldnt need to hunt as youd just go "I know theres a deer 1000ft away follow me"
@@kingwildcat6192000 Well...those "idiots" aren't entirely wrong. Being invisible means you can't be seen. You can still be heard, your movement still causes shifts in the air and vibrations on the ground, and you may be carrying an odor strong enough for whatever is around to notice you. That said, you would need to be in range for those other senses to be relevant - a person can see up to a mile away on a clear day with no obstacles blocking their view, but you aren't going to hear footsteps from that far out even if it is a paladin with -4 on their stealth and wearing plate armor. Once they get to about 500 feet away though, if there is no white noise to drown out the sound of your footfalls, you can absolutely be heard because plate armor is NOISY, and it doesn't take much to pin down the source of that kind of noise and know that it is not a squirrel or whatever - you live in a world of magic where invisibility is a thing, most intelligent creatures are going to assume that there is something invisible that is making that noise, while non-intelligent creatures may have wildly different reactions, though a guard dog is still going to start barking if they smell something, even if they can't see it. Your Stealth check affects how much noise you make, how much you disturb the environment around you, how well you mask your scent and how well you can avoid creating a detectable breeze when other characters are close enough to feel it, so it still matters, even when invisible. You are also disturbing the environment around you while moving invisible. That ranger isn't spotting YOU from half a mile away, but if your Stealth check is bad and they are actively looking for threats, they might see some rustling in the bushes, dust getting kicked up from the ground, and other telltale signs of movement. From everything they can see they can absolutely determine that it could only be caused by an invisible person-sized creature, because there is just too much movement for it to be a little field mouse or whatever. Thus they nock an arrow and watch for another disturbance, then loose the arrow in that direction. The attack is made at disadvantage because they can't actually see what they are trying to shoot, but they have every reason to believe that something is there and to try to shoot it if their people don't normally approach while invisible or you get too close without offering up some kind of passphrase. If they hit something, great. If not, they nock another arrow and stay on high alert, at least for a little bit. Invisibility combined with Pass Without Trace, however, removes all of those other senses from the equation. You still technically need to make a stealth check, but that is mostly for the mechanical chance of failure. With a +10 to your stealth and whatever you are trying to move past taking a -5 to their passive perception (due to having disadvantage), it is unlikely you would be noticed even if you roll a 1 in most cases, but the combination of a highly perceptive guard, a bad roll, and a penalty on your Stealth skill before applying the bonus could create the situation where you do get detected. Its an almost implausible situation, but it can happen and if it does, then just take the L and have some fun with the failure - you stubbed your toe and shrieked in pain, revealing your position (though still invisible), or the guard moved unexpectedly and you bumped right into them...either way, the guards know you are there now, so deal with it.
@@kingwildcat6192000 to quote the rules “An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscure. THE CREATURE’S LOCATION CAN BE DETECTED BY ANY NOISE IT MAKES OR ANY TRACKS IT LEAVES.” So yes, you do know where an invisible creature is in combat unless they take the hide action.
@@adamstadick2044 can isnt automatically. So no you do not know where the creature is just because they didn't hide. Learn the definition of words rather shouting or acting like I don't know the spell I am literally talking about. Yes if a creature ran down the hall while being invisible than yes you will hear it, same with fighting an invisible foe in a snowy mountain will leave tracks. The sound from the invisible foe will tell you the direction it went not the where it stopped, same with fighting in a snowy mountain, you will see where it runs if its fresh snow and that will reveal his current spot. Thata besides the point, its not AUTO dection
@@kingwildcat6192000 I was only emphasizing where my point was, I wasn't trying to yell. But you missed the part that says "any noise". By RAW you can detect an invisible creature as long as they are making any noise at all. Only a hidden creature is both unheard and unseen, invisibility only makes you unseen. And because it just says can that means that there is no check or ability needed, and every creature is able to detect an invisible creature based on sound .
@@alienbounty5457 isn't there something in the first few pages of the PHB or DMG for that, like a side note saying, "you can ignore all of this" or something to that effect
Technically: you can hide in the same place. Whether they know you're there or not isn't what hiding is meant to achieve. The point is to make it hard to see what you're doing, or where you will attack from. It's literally in the rules for hiding: "Also, the question isn’t whether a creature can see you when you’re hiding. The question is whether it can see you clearly. " pg 177. If you have an old book you'll need to check the errata. But yes, stealth has always been a mess in 5E, and they removed all the nice stuff in the playtest that made it clear for some reason.
This is doubly true if you are a Wood Elf, have the Skulker feat, or an Invisibility spell. And gods help anyone trying to find someone with all three.
Wrong, there is a difference between hidden and unseen in the game you are mixing up here. You can be unseen but not hidden, but you cant be hidden and not unseen. You have to take the hide action and fulfill the unseen condition to be hidden no matter what. If you are just unseen/invisible/obscured, attacks against you are made with disadvantage, but enemies still know your exact location. If you are hidden, the enemy doesnt even know you are there AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HIDING IS MEANT TO ACHIEVE. dont mix being hidden up with being unseen. If you play on a grid and you want to hit a hidden and unseen creature, you have to guess its location and then also attack with disadvantage still.
@BlackMage No, you are wrong. You only need to guess a targets location if it is hidden and unseen. If it's just unseen (i.e standing in a fog cloud or in magical darkness, but it hasnt taken the hide action, its location is exactly known. Yes, you give away your location after you make an attack, but if you are unseen and take the hide action again, the opponent loses your location again and has to guess again.
If you know where the arrow comes from then you can't be hit by it..? Seems like faulty logic to me. On the other hand. Wanna hit the sneaky ass with a fire ball? He is hiding right over there.
@@faselfasel2864 I don't think they're really disagreeing with you there, they're only explicitly referring to the conditions under which you get the benefits of being an unseen attacker, which hiding provides. But you are correct. You do not need to be hidden to be considered an unseen attacker, but being successfully hidden *always* considers you as unseen until you do something to give away your position, or can be seen clearly by the creature. (so if you're just hiding up against a corner, and a creature comes around the corner looking for you... yeah, they're going to see you regardless of how high your stealth roll was) I think the issue discussions like these tend to have is that there's a bit of a disconnect between an enemy not knowing exactly where a hidden character is, and knowing the hidden character's last revealed location in a fight. The two are not mutually exclusive, and intelligent creatures are perfectly capable of punishing characters who hide against a single tree without moving, or who crouch behind the only large rock in the area. This can include anything from rushing the hiding spot, to casting an AoE spell that doesn't require the caster to see their target. (Fireball is the easy example, but things like Dissonant Whispers and Hypnotic Pattern are other examples that can affect hidden characters so long as the creature has a good general guess of where the character is) Bottom line, if the target can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against the target. If you hide, the target can't see you, and is generally unaware of your exact location, even if you hide in the same spot. However, there are still things that can give away your position, such as attacking or making noise, and creatures can still remember where you _were_ which can make it harder to hide from certain enemies at DM's discretion. So don't be mad if/when the enemy mage drops a Cloud of Daggers on your only hiding spot, despite having succeeded your stealth check to hide from them.
REMEMBER THIS DM’S! All passive checks use this formula: 10+ability modifier (+proficiency IF APPLICABLE) This is actually something my table and I had to look into recently due to non-present information on character sheets.
Loved seeing DnD Shorts on here, lots of fun! Some I can think of: Fall damage is capped at 20d6, seen lots of people get this one wrong. Initiative ties are decided between the players who goes first, nothing else Death saves are made at the beginning of your turn, not the end. So if you roll a nat 20 on a death save, you get back to 1 hp and still have your full round. Cloaks and rings of protection help on Death saving throws. Further, a fighter can use Indomitable on death saves. Lastly, if hitting someone with a melee attack and you reduce them to 0 HP, the attacker can decide to knock them out rather than killing them. Simple. That way the player doesn't have to declare they're going for a non lethal hit or anything like that, just keep attacking until they hit 0, when the DM says they're dead, the player declares "I would like him unconscious, please". Much easier.
I remember I was new dnd player and the dm was also a bit new I chose to be a sorcerer and I was allowed to cast 2 spells using sorcery points and it was crazy it wasn’t until like 18 sessions in we realized what we did wrong but he left it in because he geared a lot of creatures to that ability and counteract it. ( now I just feel bad for my other players who wanted to deal lots of damage.)
When I was a new DM I did the same thing and my player would just spam the shit out of chromatic orb. Was compounded by the fact that they were the most lucky bastard alive and rolled nat 20s like I eat tic tacs.
While it wasn't in D&D 5e, I made a similar mistake in a campaign I recently completed. In that system, spells are cast as 'slow actions,' meaning that when you start casting a spell, your turn instantly ends and the spell goes off at the beginning of your next turn. However, there is a type of property you can get on weapons that shifts this to a standard action, so casting a spell costs no more time then a standard melee attack or class ability. The part we didn't read is that this ability to cast a spell quickly is only usable ONCE per combat. So for an entire three year long campaign, I had accidentally allowed my players to pop off spells as if they were under the effects of the game's 'haste' status condition, and when they WERE under the effects of haste, they became walking nuke dispensers. Sometimes literally near the end. We realized my mistake about a year before we got to the end, but since we'd been running the game with that inaccurate ruling the whole game, we just decided to keep doing it until we were done.
yeah honestly sorcerers could use the buff (not as much as martials but still) and you still have to use a lot of resources so it's less abusable as long as they aren't constantly long resting. honestly I would probably allow it, in my campaigns
Thing is, this is really nice for sorcerer, and honestly a good reason to eliminate the rule entirely. Sorc is a bit under powered and this really helps... Sometimes... It really depends on the style of play and how often short and long rests happen. If your dm throws 1 or 2 big ultra encounters at you for the entirety of the session, then it can seem overpowered. If the dm mixes up many encounters ranging in difficulty or if you are doing a dungeon crawl, then the sorc who can go nova really has to micro manage their resources and decide when and where to go nova. Sort of like a paladin. Games where there aren't many options to short rest and there are few encounters with big threats facilitate long rest classes and classes like the monk and warlock are left at the wayside because they are specifically designed for multiple encounters before a long rest, and they strive in recharging on a short rest. Many times I've played in a game where we disregarded the number of spells per turn. The sorc went Nova very early and used up all their spell slots too quickly. Several combats in, and they were wanting a long rest, meanwhile everyone else was just fine and we needed to strive forward to complete the problem in time. Monk and warlock were great when we short rested, but Sorc was left to casting cantrips and feeling sad because he literally blew his load 20 mins into a 4 hour game session...
Rules lawyers are your best friend if they are neutral. Keep it pertinent but if your dm and lawyer agree it streamlines game play immensely when other players try to do stuff without any mechanical backing to support it.
The trick is finding a rules lawyer who is neutral, but yeah, once you've found one they're great to have around, especially if you've got new players or a new DM running and they're having trouble with something.
There's also an art to it... I am a rules lawyer, but the "rule of cool" can and SHOULD trump rules lawyers. If it's not outright breaking the game, let the cool thing happen. Then, as a player, have a *silent* signal with your DM that says, "I have an 'ummm, actually...' here", but leave it to the DM to allow things to happen at their discretion. If it completely breaks something, then you will likely be asked to chime in. Rules lawyers should be like the god galaxy in Futurama: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
@@KemaTheAtheist absolutely! I'm the rules lawyer at my table and if people are generally confused, I'll explain it for everyone's knowledge, and then usually directly to the DM explain the implications of changing the rule if they so desire, because some rules are more trivial than others. I absolutely will advocate for people having fun, but we also don't need to give the DM extra work rebalancing their campaign because we didn't know what the rules were and broke something XD
ehhhh... sometimes they get annoying even then, I had one who would but in each time, sometimes answering a question that I was about to answer, cutting me off, or vice versa when a I'm asking a player something about their character/class/ability since I want to get them familiar with it, and they would answer for them.
A big rule everyone forgets is spell components. Not just the material but even more verbal and somatic. If you walk up to a crowd and cast a charm spell on one person in there, every NPC will notice that as well as if the person succeeds their save against the charm they'll notice too. Another example is casting invisibility has VSM components, so everyone will notice the casting prior to when you go invisible "But I whisper my verbal components for stealth" is also a common thing, and in truth, because the counterspell range is 60 feet, spellcasting should be noticeable from at least that distance.
I always rule that you just straight up can't "whisper verbal components" or do something similar for the somatic components, because sorcerers have metamagic that explicitly allows them to hide those components. Therefore, if other players were intended to have that ability, they would need access to that metamagic or an equivalent ability. Flavor-wise, I explain that spellcasting tends to require not only the technical components but also the intention of the spellcasting. When you try to hide the components, you aren't giving it your full intention because you are trying to hide it.
I actually rule in favor of allowing whispered and concealed casting, and don't consider it stepping on sorcerer toes. but only of spells that are feasably concealable, ie ones that dont have a very obvious effect. For example ray spells and fireballs all specify that a visual effect originates from the caster and moves to the target. Id even say that less obvious cases like sacred flame and faerie fire do as well, however the notion that charm person or minor illusion or silent image is obvious to everyone around them and demand showy sparkles immediately renders the concept of what the spell achieves moot as well as renders several official scenarios pointless, its hard to sell an illusiory gnoll when the whole room hears you chanting before it appears. And spells like mislead are even more pointless if you cant conceal the casting even slightly. However, concealed spellcasting would be a harder than 'I just whisper and do my somatics under the table' that's a classic slight of hand check, opposing passive perceptions or active depending on situation. Sorcerers arent being stepped on here because get to do silent spell and still spell, which automatically succeed and more importantly have secondary effects overcoming the primary ways of inhibiting spellcasting, being unable to speak or move. Via silence or hold person, or just being gagged and bound. And several classes and races have features that basically equate to "other people can do this, but I automatically succeed at this." Also bearing in mind not many casters have a great slight of hand.
Verbal can mean whispered. The problem is, If all Verbal has to be out loud or a shout, it completely cripples any hope for a Illusionist, Diviner or a Enchanter to interact in social interactions.
@@SgtTeddybear66 They could just get subtle spell metamagic via feats. Spellcasters already have absurd utility when compared to martial classes. We shouldn't give them passes on stuff, especially when it's non-combat
Not a rule I get wrong, but my group's old That Guy maintained these two and argued them as a player and as a DM: 1) You are only able to resist/make one saving throw against an effect per turn. If there's multiple effects, you need to pick which one you resist. 2) Picking up items is acshewally a full action, meaning you can't pick up a locket if you attacked that turn, took the dash action, etc. There's some others like "You shouldn't tell your players 'No' since that takes away agency", "Rolling 25-30 is automatic success since it's the Legendary DC", and "Towns must have shops with whatever the players might be looking for"
2:44 This was so confusing at first. But they're only talking about monsters where it specifically says "attacks" only. Which makes it hard to understand the confusion people are apparently having. (Barbarians, you're still good to jump off stuff)
1. You get the ability to add your ability modifier to your offhand attack with a two-weapon fighting fighting style, the dual-wielder feat just let you use weapon that doesn’t have the light property 2. Getting off from prone cost half your movement, yes, as in, half of your total movement, so if you have 30 feet movement, it will cost you 15 feet of movement regardless of how much you have left, so dnd short is technically correct but the way he come to the conclusion is wrong 3. There is no such thing as surprise round, actually, there are only surprise creatures which can’t take its turn on the first round of combat
1: Came down here to say exactly that xD 2. There is a difference between movement and speed. Speed is the number written on your character sheet, but it can be changed by spells, effects and magic items. Movement is how much you can move in a turn. For example if you have speed 30 the dash action doubles your movement (not your speed) to 60 for the turn, but standing would still only be 15 feet of movement, because your speed is still 30 feet. While if you get hit with a haste spell, your speed is doubled, and it will now be 30 feet of movement to stand up. Okay, so that was mostly just restating what you said, but with the games distinction between speed and movement. But there are many effects that drop your speed to 0. Such as grappling. What they want to point out in the video, is that if your speed is 0, you cannot stand up. They just fail to use the term speed, making it a poor clarification. "You can't stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0." 3: Correct, interestingly the suprised condition ends after their first 'turn' in the initiative, allowing them to use reactions. Meaning you could suprise a wizard. Go to cast fireball on him, only for him to counterspell it, because he beat your initiative, and is no longer suprised. Also kind of a problem for assassins, they need to beat the enemy initative to get their big bonus for suprising people.
"Stop adding your ability modifier to off-hand weapon damage." He absolutely said that correct. You can add your ability modifier and proficiency to the ATTACK roll but the DAMAGE roll is straight dice roll.
@@DragonElixion Two-Weapon Fighting. "When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack." it specifically says that you can do it in the fighting style. Considering that most people who gonna make a dual-wield build will probably pick this fighting style too
If that’s the correct ruling for 2 that’s pretty dumb imo. I had a game today where I was knocked unconscious 3 times in a combat and also had my speed lowered to 10 throughout. With that ruling I would physically have been unable to stand for almost all of the fight
On the point of story burnout, I'm tempted to run a game where there's a periodic break in the story (milestones) that has the players playing the NPCs of the next town they travel to.
Van Richten's Guide is typically meant for horror, but the "Survivors" section detailing using weaker, stand-in stat blocks for players to use to play out enactments of scenes their main characters aren't/weren't there for might work particularly well for that type of story break! Maybe with some of the sidekick rules from Tasha's Cauldron.
When trying to do a skill check with a tool, the tool IS the skill. You don’t dig through the list of skills to see which applies, just the DM decides which stat applies to your tool. For example: a CHA painter’s supplies check.
However, some tools and skills do work together. This can be determined by the DM but a list is in Xanthar. If they work together then you can (dm allowing) get advantage - except for the medical kit (see the feat)
Exactly. Per the DMG, the DM calls for an ability check and then decides whether any of the character's skill or tool proficiencies apply to the check. The listed "skill checks" like Wisdom (Perception) are just the most typical combinations of ability score and skill.
"I can't believe the spellcasters are so much stronger now that I've removed one of the only limiters to some of their best spells! How could WotC have done this?!"
Well, not ignore, just allow to deduct the gold cost directly. Martial equivalent would be allowing to spawn arrows/bolts for an appropriate cost in a campaign that doesn't track encumbrance.
@@Linvael that still removes the limitation that the gold cost is meant to impose on the spellcaster. Take two clerics, both with 1000 gp. One of them deducts cost on cast, the other has to have pre-purchased spell components prior to casting. Who do you think will have more limited spellcasting choices? If they need to revive a 30-day-old corpse or two people who've died in the past hour, the first cleric has the flexibility to do either. The second will be SOL if he needs to revive a month-old corpse and he only brought two 500 gp diamonds. Worse, if the second only planned for Revivify and bought an assortment of diamonds totalling 1000 gp, he can't even revive the two hour-old corpses. By sticking to the spell component rule, you're drastically limiting your casters' ability to choose spells on the fly, and they become more like 3e memorization casters: planning well ahead in advance for spells they may or may not cast.
Casters are better than martials? Disagree. Getting spells is a pain in the ass. Either sucking up to old wizards or finding them in scrolls is a damn hard thing. Picking up a sword and getting someone to train you for a keg of beer is pretty easy. Martials level up so much faster than spellcasters. Imagine having a warlock?! You have to sacrifice a town to level up? The whole thing? Every man, woman, and child? That is hard.
@@davidbeppler3032 most tables also ignore the rules for acquiring new spells, which is another way that casters get hyper powered-up compared to martials. That said, very few DMs insist you find a sensei to train you in the new features of your existing martial class.
My contribution for this: Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation isn't equal to Mind Control. What they do is convince an NPC that your asking is valid, but that doesn't mean that you can force them to do your will. A barkeep won't give you free lodging on his tavern because you asked nicely, but they may give you a discount or allow you to stay if you work a shift on it.
Actually there is a system for Social interactions in the DMG (244) and DMs just don’t read them. You can make characters more willing to do what you like depending on how much they like you and what they have to loose. You can be the most angelic bard with expertise and perfume of the gods and the Fiend pact Warlock tiefling will still take you out - but they will leave your final words with your family.
I've shot bow, crossbow and a sling, sometimes at people, and can assure you - even if you drop unconscious to the ground, you are much, much harder to hit with a ranged weapon, barring some extremely unlikely circumstances. The reason is geometry, you are intersecting a cone of fire with a plane at the right angle to it, and the area of that that overlaps with target 2D slice at that point is how accurate you have to be, or to put it simply - imagine that whatever you are hitting is a cardboard cutout of its silhouette. A standing man is roughly 2 meters by 1 meter, someone lying down on their back sideways to you is 2 meters by half of a metre and someone lying down head/feet towards you is 1 meter by half of a metre. Actual numbers will be very different, since humans aren't squares, but the general idea holds. Necessary area you must put your shots into is 2 for standing guy, 1 for sideways guy and 0.5 for head on guy. So, even lying down on flat ground means you must be twice to four times as accurate. Well, how much more accurate varies because non-fierarms weapons have a cone of accuracy with an ellipse as its base (and it is usually longer than it is wider, so better for hitting standing people), rather than a circle, but again, general idea applies.
Perhaps its due to there also being no high ground rules in 5e, but this logic very much breaks down when striking from an elevated angle, such as the walls of a fort, when flying above the target, or simply just being at a vantage point, and there being no exception for that situation will often bug a lot of people
@@yoshifan2334 I believe there are high ground rules in 5e. Advantage on range if you are 10ft higher than the enemy and disadvantage if you are 10ft lower.
@@crownlexicon5225 There is a super generic advantageous situations grant advantage rule, and that covers high ground(this rule is non-optional and is why flanking should grant advantage even if you are not using the optional flanking grants advantage rule :p). This does lead to the effect that what is the requirements for high ground to be advantageous as unspecified.
You need to pay attention to the creature size however. As a medium creature you can only grapple up to large creatures. You need to either change your size through magic or use some sort of ability that makes you count as if you are one size larger to grapple Huge targets. I think gargantuan creatures are likely out of grappling range for most practical purposes. With that said I have absolutely had players grapple/prone huge creatures before and I struggled to explain how it worked because it made no sense. LOL.
@@dilldwarf3476 Rune Knights have an easy time at least With their ability, if someone knows enlarge/reduce as well, they can become huge Or at 18th level, they can become gargantuan So an 18th level Rune Knight Fairy can spend one turn to be big enough to proceed to grapple other gargantuan creatures at advantage. Not a very conventional build as you say But not super hard to devise either Plus, Fairy suplexing a Tarrasque
"You can also pour a flask of oil on the ground to cover a 5-foot-square area, provided that the surface is level. If lit, the oil burns for 2 rounds and deals 5 fire damage to any creature that enters the area or ends its turn in the area. A creature can take this damage only once per turn." With that as a reference it can be ruled that any persistant, 5×5ft sized fire does 5p of damage per round. As for bonfires and similarly sized fires, perhaps 1, 2 or 1d4 per round might be better.
3:56 "You need to be able to see someone to attack them" is incorrect. The only mentions of "Seeing a target in the attack rules (PHB pp. 192-196) are in the "Unseen attackers and Targets" section, stating that you *can* attack an enemy you can't see, but at disadvantage, and in the "Melee Attacks - Opportunity Attacks" section, stating "you can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature you can see [...]". I believe this is the part you are refering to in the video.
3:54 The Dual Wielder feat doesn't affect the adding ability damage to off-hand attacks. The two weapon fighting-fighting style is what allows you to add ability mod to damage for offhand. Dual Adds +1 to AC while using 2 weapons, lets you use non-light weapons for dual wielding and draw/stow them both with the same object interaction. Obviously you want both of these but just wanted to add the clarity.
and even then, it doesnt add ability mod damage to your off-hand weapon attack, it even SPECIFICALLY STATES that you don't ever add ability mod damage to off-hand attacks, it's meant to be a weaker attack to balance out that you attacked twice. You have to have two weapon fighting to fight with 2 weapons, and you cannot ever add damage mod to that off-hand unless it is a negative, which I doubt you'd ever have as a fighter or barbarian.
@@elijah260 The class Fighter have something called "Fighting Style" If the player choose the "Fighting Style" named "Two-Weapon Fighting" , the added ability mod IS added to the off-hand attack. Just look it up dude
You explained perfectly why I think it's weird that Fizban's Treasury of Dragons gave the mythic dragons Truesight instead of Blindsight. Sure, it has some benefits over Blindsight but that's really only out of combat. They really should have both senses or just Blindsight. I wonder if the designers themselves forgot those rules...
Theres a variant rule where you can give it blindsight. You can also give it rejuvenation, the ability to make tunnels (even through brick) and give it a non tunnel burrow speed, as well as giving it spells
@@leodouskyron5671 I am the DM XD I usually make that Half Dragons are more inclined to be like their parents so they can be differentiated more easily, but if someone plays a dragonborn in my game, I have no problem letting them have tails
@@leodouskyron5671 I am the DM XD I usually make that Half Dragons are more inclined to be like their parents so they can be differentiated more easily, but if someone plays a dragonborn in my game, I have no problem letting them have tails
On your 'Visible Targets' note, it only applies to things that require vision like opportunity attacks and a fair bunch of spells. In my experience, nobody understands that a heavily obscured area (e.g. Fog Cloud) causes those affected by it to have both advantage and disadvantage on attack rolls, meaning all attacks are made at a neutral 1D20. This is the case whether you're inside the heavily obscured area attacking outwards, or outside the heavily obscured area attacking inwards. You can still make attacks if you can hear the target, if you can no longer hear the target (e.g. they took the hide action) you basically start playing battleships where you attack spaces hoping you hit someone.
3:56 You can absolutely attack a character you can’t see- it’s in the PHB. You just have disadvantage. However, most SPELL attacks state you can only target a creature you can see
He kinda biffed the statement. He was talking about the rule, "You can't make a RE-ACTION attack against a target you can't see." His leaving that key word out really made it hard to understand what he meant, but if you add it in, everything he says is EXACTLY true.
One thing I want to point out at 3:55 which is that this is only about the opportunity attack which requires that you can see the target (I'm assuming this is what they meant). You can still attack an unseen target with disadvantage, as long as you: A) are within your weapon's reach from the target B) can guess their location correctly (this is an actual rule, although how it functions isn't explained in further detail).
If you've got ears and/or were attacked by them, you can guess their location correctly, as far as I'm aware. Hits don't come from nowhere, after all, and unless you're in a zone of Silence, you can hear footsteps.
@@kennyholmes5196 Mostly, yea. There are some creatures that hover, have earthglide, or other similar means of locomotion that don't produce noise, though. However, attacking a target does always reveal your position even if the target can't see you, regardless if you hit or miss (which in itself can be kind of strange in some scenarios) unless a specific rule says otherwise.
"You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can SEE moves out of your reach." you need to have some sort of special sight to opp attack a target thats invisible
@@OGTwist but... isn't that what Backon said? The ruling in the video is only right for opportunity attacks, as you can still attack an invisible enemy.
@@SenhorAlien No you cannot. You need to be able to see the target to opp attack them. Because the only way to make an opp attack is to be able to see the enemy through some sort of vision whether its some sort of blindsight or something, you still need some special ability to see them in order to do it
If you’re a cleric/paladin sword and boarding with an emblem on your shield, you can cast spells with S components only if they have an M as well unless you sheath your weapon or have War Caster; the hand holding the M also covering the S only applies if there is an M to the spell
One mistake I realized I was making recently is for the barbarian rage ability: the damage resistance does not apply while wearing heavy armor. I always thought that the damage resistance was while raging (which it is), but I missed the part where it says that it only counts while wearing light or medium armor.
I was going to go "Um actually" but no you are right. I thought you CAN'T Rage but RAW, nothing says that you can't wear heavy armor and rage. You just get none of the benefits of raging. So it does bring up the question of how wearing heavy armor works with subclass features like the Storm Herald or Totem Barbarian. I'm going to say RAI, you shouldn't get any benefits of raging when wearing heavy armor but RAW doesn't seem to say anything about how subclass abilities would work with Heavy Armor.
3:50 - Actually Blaine, that's Two-Weapon Fighting (which is a fighting style available to Fighters and Rangers). Two-Weapon Fighting: When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack. Dual Wield Feat: Add +1 to AC while wielding two melee weapons. You can use two-weapon fighting even when one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light. You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.
I clipped that and sent it to my discord cause its the best player advice I've heard in a D&D video. You can quote rules all day until your blue in the face but if your DM says "No" not much else you can do.
Large sized weapons exist. As per the DMG on page 277, a Large sized weapon deals DOUBLE the damage dice of its Medium counterpart. That means a Large Greataxe is 2d12 damage and THEN has the bonus from Enlarge/Reduce's spell info. (This is key for Rune Knights.) I have been beating this drum for MONTHS and only now is it being noticed
It is also important to remember that any weapon with the Heavy property cannot be wielded by a creature smaller than it is sized for-- Meaning, you can only use that Large Greataxe while Enlarged, whereas if you use a Battle-axe instead (2d10 while wielded with two hands only up to 4 less damage), you can still wield it, but only at Disadvantage (unless you gain Advantage from another source such as Flanking or Reckless Attack from Barbarian) Edit: I'm wrong as shit, play as a teeny little gnome barbarian and fuck shit up with a weapon that is COMICALLY MASSIVE compared to you!!
Keep in mind, though, those rules are under monster creation rules. They were never intended to be applied to PCs. The RAI is that the once-per-turn extra d6 is the damage bonus you get from getting bigger. A level 3 fighter consistently dealing 2d12+d6+strength mod damage with every attack, even without any magic items or outside assistance, would be a bit bonkers, no?
Um actually, I would like to know something for my peace of mind. When I was playing a Wood-Elf Ranger a while back, I understood favored enemy to mean having experience in tracking, hunting, etc a specific race, like you grew up learning how to hunt that specific race, but not meaning you hate them and couldn't be a friend with one. The way my DM's said it worked made it sound like you've sworn to kill them all or something along the lines of basically racism. But nothing about how it's written suggests to me that you hate them, just that when it comes to all the benefits you get in relation to them, you are good at it because you learned their patterns and such. I would love a video that clarifies this.
I jokingly call the Favored Enemy damage “Racist Damage”, but yeah in reality it’s like you said. You’ve studied how to track and hunt that specific type of being, so you have advantage finding them and do extra damage cuz you know how to make it hurt. But you don’t HAVE to hate them, and being friends with your favored enemy sounds like an interesting character
just look at the real version of the ranger: a hunter a hunter knows well how different animals move around and can track them, but usual doesn't hate them, it's even the opposit thing. hunters are often wildlife rangers too, taking care about the animals, like putting sickened animals out of the area and so
That comment just gave me an idea of a detective character who has great tracking skills, particularly for certain races, as he notices slight or subtle differences and general ticks in their behavior.
Nothing about how it's written suggests you hate them? Did you read the name of the ability? Favored ENEMY. Definition of enemy: a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something
Also allies give cover to enemies for ranged attacks. So if you are trying to shoot that goblin standing on the other side of the paladin they likely have at least half cover from the shot. Another neat thing you can do is use your movement to enter an allies square to make an attack and then use your movement to step back. It could trigger an op attack but as long as you don't end your turn in your allies space, perfectly legal. This is useful when fights happen in tight corridors and kind of creates a sort of ranked fighting.
@@Technodreamer "You can move through a nonhostile creature’s space. In contrast, you can move through a hostile creature’s space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Remember that another creature’s space is difficult terrain for you."
@@DragonElixion No their power is: Halfling Nimbleness You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours. Instead of two sizes.
One thing that I feel needs explaining to lots of new players is that, regardless of how your characters interact, you, the player, are working with the DM to tell a story. Your goal is not to beat the DM, but to help them tell a funny, twisted or just awesome story along with your friends.
Readying a spell also means that, rules as written, the spell can be counterspelled before it is cast (triggered). If a creature can see the spell being cast and is in range it can be counterspelled. It's a grey area wether the spell is only cast on the turn of the caster (/casting time) or for the entire duration of the spell being held (until triggering/turn fizzling/concentration loss/ending).
Though usually you'd hold the spell because you can't see the target, hoping they'll move into line of sight - which probably means they can't see you either, meaning they can't counterspell.
@@bjornseine2342 Tactically that is usually the case. That does assume that there is only one potential target and that it is the only one that can counterspell. Sometimes you also want to time a spell after a specific effect to say increase the chances of the target failing. Holding a spell can give you a potential advantage at the cost of becoming vulnerable (to attacks and counterspelles) and potentially wasting the opportunity. Risk reward.
I do not know how this is RAW, but I feel like you can counterspell the readying of the spell, then use dispel magic to try and cancel the spell before the reaction is triggered. Also out of curiosity, do you need to specify what the trigger is beforehand? Or can you just call out you want to use your reaction to use your readied action? At my table we rule the first
you do not have to see someone to attack them. you jsut get disadvantage. lots of spells will specify "target you can see" if it requires you to see them, but melee attacks and ranged attacks do not require you to see them
Any DM that complains about their players having Darkvision are honestly missing quite a bit they can do. Smoke and fog stop Darkvision and Truevision in their tracks. There is no such thing as infravision in 5e (unless you homebrew it). Blindsight is the absolute most powerful version of sight in the game and that's why the radius for it rarely goes above 30 ft and why the only way to get blindsight as a character is a feat and it only has a range of 10 ft. Tremorsense can also be more powerful than Darkvisino or Truevision since you can see behind cover as long as they are in range making taking the hide action against them pretty hard to do.
but you can roll for stealth in the same place. As long as you break their ability to see you, you can re-hide behind that same pillar. They may still know you are there and could walk up to reveal you, the purpose of this mechanically being a thing is for granting advantage on the next rounds attacks (useful for rogues doing sneak attack from total cover in a fight). The idea is the enemy that failed to beat your stealth check even after they previously detected you, you will have advantage when you suddenly 'pop out of cover surprising them' to shoot again. You aren't hidden in the sense that they have no idea you are still (likely) right there behind that same pillar, just hidden in that you are in full cover and they don't know when you might pop out next, or from which side of the pillar etc. Plus escaping, you broke their line of sight, so they don't know you aren't moving back still and are waiting to ambush them right around that corner or retreating down the alley, until they get there or beat your new stealth check to detect you in some other way (like hearing your footsteps retreating). You shoot them from the same bush giving total cover, they don't know you didn't crawl into a new bush unless they beat your stealth check with their perception. And remember advantage and disadvantage, shooting from cover, you have disadvantage on the check to re-stealth. So if you messed up, they are still likely attentive enough when you pop back out to be ready for the next shot (you failed/they beat you and dont get advantage on the next shot).
Note: if you stealth behind the same pillar and they walk around the pillar you loose stealth because you can now be seen, loosing stealth really is that easy. This is a major thing that limits the effectiveness of using the same hiding spot.
We recently had a lot of questions about attacking stuff that isn't living. Long story short, horizon walker (me) and arcane archer (not me) trying to destroy magical energy cristal with pretty high AC and health in a middle of a fight. We decided that neither hunter's mark nor planar warrior can be used on something that isn't creature, but cristal automatically fails all dex saving throws (maybe some else either, but we only targeted dex). Not sure if it's right.
Objects fail all saving throws automatically but are immune to psychic damage and a whole list of conditions. Both hunters mark and planar warrior require targeting a creature so you are correct that they don't work on objects. It sounds like this was ruled correctly to me.
I didn't learn anything, and that's awesome! My DM for my first ever long campaign was so knowledgeable about the game that by the end of it, I (and the other new players at the table) were all basically masters of the game's rules. We also learned proper game etiquette, which is far more important and harder to teach. Thank you, Noble. You're amazing.
6:49: It does make sense. The die roll is random chance acting on your character regardless of their skill. Even if the barbarian gets uncanny luck, he probably can't talk his way out of a fight when he's found in the king's chambers, but the bard might.
Yep. A common complaint about this is that "If there's no chance of success, the DM shouldn't have called for a roll in the first place." But it's worth remembering that skill checks don't have to be simple DC thresholds where you either pass or fail. There can be a whole spectrum of outcomes depending on the roll. The barbarian isn't going to talk his way out of a fight entirely, but the results might be a bit more favorable on a 20 than straightup failing. Maybe the guards will remember his fumbled excuse after the fight is passed and include it in their report to the royal prosecutor, helping your case later on. On a 10, the guards wouldn't have listened at all. And gods forbid, on a 1, your "explanation" might've come off as a full-fledged confession and made things worse.
WotC should just release one Draconic race template with Dragonborn, Half-dragon, Draconian (or Draconid, I don't remember) and Dragonkin as subraces. That would mean nobody will probably play dragonborn ever, but at least there would be no confusion
Missed opportunity to do that in the Fizbin book. Really could have fleshed out all the dragon races more and maybe fixed the stupid Dragonborn origin story.
Half-Dragon isn't a race. It's a humanoid that has undergone a ritual to transform itself and render itself sterile. You literally can't breed Half-Dragons.
For the last point (story burnout), My party has a nice, but easy concept. We have 2 DMs (A and me) and we separate long campains into different arcs (at least for mine). Then, we take turns. When arc 1 on my campain was over, he did a few short one shots. Then it was my second arc, then one of his campain, and I'm starting arc 3 this week. It allows the DMs to be players more often and it gives us more time to plan things in the long term instead of having to rush things out between each session (playing homebrew campains is was harder than pre-written ones, so it takes more time and break are sometimes neeed).
Oooh good, you had it in there. Rule #1: Aksuly, the DM makes the rules, and the rulebooks are merely suggested defaults to expect. ...but "RAW" IS a thing, and unwarned deviations from it definately justifies speaking up.
3:59 - no, sorry, go check pages 193-195 of the PHB. It has a specific section for attacking unseen adversaries. It just imposes disadvantage (otherwise, you know, invisibility would be busted since you could never attack the wizard as soon as they turn invisible). It also states that an unseen foe gives away their location when they attack, so someone darting in to attack you when you can't see them then reveals their presence to you. Whether that reveal "lasts" if they then move away again is kind of poorly defined, but the hide action exists for a reason so I'd assume you'd still know where they are to pursue them afterwards. The section for opportunity attacks does specify that they can only be made when a hostile creature you can see moves away, so if this section was meant to be specifically in reference to opportunity attacks, that would be correct. I personally tend to rule that one the other way because turning invisible doesn't suddenly make your foe unaware of you - if the wizard's shoe squeaks as they try to sneak away, no self-respecting adventurer wouldn't take a swing at them. Also, I don't know, a fair number of the things covered in this video didn't really seem rules-related at all? Things like session length, campaign structure, how to spell rogue - not really what I was expecting from the premise? Just kind of weird. Sorry.
Opportunity attack exclusion makes sense if you conceptualize it differently - it's not that you wouldn't take a swing at them retreating, taking a swing is part of your action, opportunity attack means that the way the enemy is moving away leaves them open to attack in a way they wouldn't be if they stayed put. They can counteract that with Disengage action (so by being extra careful with the manouver), so it's not a stretch to say that being unseen makes it possible for them to have the same amount of safety without the carefulness, since you won't see the opening.
3:56 I'm not sure if that's ENTIRELY true, the invisibility effect implies that you can still be attacked if they target the area you are in, so wouldn't that work if you're blinded?
I was definitely referring to reaction attacks there, but must have forgotten to say! But yeah, you need to be able to see someone to reaction attack them!
Yeah, this is not really well worded and invisibility isn't as strong as people think it is. You cannot make attacks of opportunity against invisible targets since that requires you to see a target to attack it. You can still attack a creature you can't see if you know what space they are in and unless the creature took the hide action you likely heard where they were. Now, you can use passive Perception vs passive Stealth for this too. If a creature has high passive Stealth while invisible they might not be able to be detected without spending an action to roll a Perception check. Invisibility and Surprise are the two rules that I think need serious rewrites because everyone gets them wrong and they aren't very intuitive.
@@DnDShorts That much is true, the section on opportunity attacks specifies "A hostile creature that you can see," but for attacks in general you just have disadvantage if you can't see them, and the DM might force you to pick the tile you think the enemy is on if you don't have some other reason to know where they are.
Was looking exactly for this comment, other people were commenting wrong about the unconscious-prone-interaction and got me a tiny bit triggered. Well, that's enough internet for me today.
Really tempted to send this to my players. Last session, combat ground to a complete halt when I asked what modifiers were giving one of my players a +7 to damage rolls. He was insisting it was his pact weapon feature, but I repeatedly reminded him it just let him use a different stat, and that if he wanted the proficiency bonus damage he had to curse the target first with a bonus action. Turns out DnD beyond was automatically adding his dueling fighting style without him knowing. Honestly the damage didn't matter all that much, but just the discussion brought things to a halt.
So, something about goblins when the Ready Action thing is done: if they ready action to attack, they have forgone their turn and cannot use their Nimble Escape ability since Held/Readied action costs the entire turn by putting the thing on the reaction. Basically, you get one thing to do if you ready or hold your action, it’s not holding your full turn. If it was holding your entire turn, Ready/Hold action would be super busted.
So here's an oversight on the rules though. Extra Attack doesn't work with a held action however most creatures with Multiattack are able to hold all of their attacks as an action and Multiattack is itself an action. I think it is a very common houserule (or mistake) to allow Extra Attack to work with held actions.
Your entirely correct about the ruling, I don't want to give off the false impression that I think you're wrong about how the rules work. However I think being able to hold your turn and take it later would be fine in terms of game balance since it wouldn't change action economy and would help with the concept that this was all happening at the same time. I've run most of my campaigns with the house rules that. A) you can hold any part of your turn and are free to use the rest of it as you see fit. (for example hold movement to run if they lose their reaction and use action to attack) B) you can use a held part of your turn whenever a turn ends in addition to if you meet your trigger. (holding action to shoot if it moves ten feet and it doesn't move okay you can still shoot when it ends it's turn) C) you can willingly lower your initiative to be after someone else but this continues until the end of the encounter. (choosing to have your turn after the bbeg because you need time to think or want to gage the situation but now always go after the bbeg) It makes for more teamwork in my games which i like but if you see an issue with it feel free to let me know
@@aaronmacdonald1370 the only suggestion I would make is that end of turn effects still take place at the end of when your turn should be. For example stunning strike stuns a creature till the end of your turn, but if you held your turn till after the creature went you could stun them for 2 whole turns instead of one.
@@adamstadick2044 I think the result would be closer to they don't get stunned at all in that if they already had their turn and you stun them, the end of your next turn will happen before they have another turn to be stunned. In other words stunning late makes stunning strike worse.
The dragonborn having no tails is something a lot of people know, although there are times people just don't care. One thing however that's pretty obscure is the fact that elves don't have beards.
There's one race of Dragonborn in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount which gets a tail. I think it's just a mutual understanding that we are talking about PHB Dragonborns.
A lot of people get wrong: Darkness isn't just the lack of light, it's full obscurement -- rendering the light cantrip useless as a counter... ergo darkvision doesn't work inside magical darkness.
Dual wield feat does not give ability mod dmg to offhand, it allows dual weilding non-light weapons. Two-Weapon Fighting style gives Str/Dex mod to offhand.
Climbing, jumping, mounting and mounted combat, grappling, and preparing/known/readied spells. Whenever these things come up we always have to pause and look them up. The last one is a bit of a curve ball since every spell casting class is different but it’s amazing how many people don’t know how their spell lists work.
3:05 When I first heard that, I assumed it's just the fact that they have a lower profile and are therefore harder to hit from a distance. Granted my Half-Elf Ranger with Sharpshooter is almost always shooting from far enough away for this to make sense; someone shooting from the minimum 10ft distance (5ft they'd have disadvantage anyway even if the opponent was up) probably wouldn't have this excuse. 6:49 I always believed that a Nat 20 should be the best case scenario that still makes sense, and a Nat 1 the worst. Maximum Lazy: Some smartass tries to convince a King to hand over their kingdom. A Nat 20 just means the King laughs and offers them the position of Court Jester, Nat 1 they're executed on the spot. Basically even if you're doomed to fail the number determines how badly you fail. This is my usual counterpoint when someone claims the DM shouldn't even let the player roll the check if there's no way they'd pass anyway.
Except that in the case of the target being unconscious, all attack rolls against it are made with advantage. Therefore, ranged attacks against a "dying creature" are made with neither advantage nor disadvantage.
On the prone bit; no, they didn't forget. Going prone makes you a smaller target. Just make a silhouette out of someone standing up and another of that's same person laying down. That cross section is what you're trying to hit, no matter why they hit the floor. It's a tiny target to hit.
Although keep in mind that in the case of the target "dying" and therefore being unconscious like in the video, ranged attacks have neither advantage nor disadvantage. This also makes sense because the target can't really do anything to influence the attack hitting them, which counters the advantage brought from being a smaller target on the ground.
As someone that has done archery before, hitting the bullseye is really not that hard from 18m away (about 60 feet). Knowing that someone prone won't be moving much, the disadvantage for being smaller is kinda stupid, but still is what the rules say, and I don't need any more OP ranged attacks to a prone guy
@@MadSwedishGamer This is exactly the sort of "weird" that the PHB and DMG both tell DMs to just make a ruling on and give the player the benefit. DMs in 5e are supposed to be making judgements like this so the ruleset doesn't become incredibly bloated with edge cases.
7:02 To be fair: If a character cannot fail a something with a 1, or cannot do something with a 20 the DM shouldn't even tell them to roll a dice. There are some exceptions, but if the outcome of a dice doesnt matter there is no point in rolling it.
While I agree for the most part, there are things like guidance, flash of genius, etc., that can be on the table that can make it so that a nat 20 would succeed when it normally wouldn’t. Now, it’s up to the player to remember that they have that bardic inspiration or their artificer ally to use their flash of genius, but it’s still possible and I will still let them roll if those are on the table, but I won’t say anything to remind the players.
3:30 You can hold a readied spell for as long as you like, you don't lose if you use your reaction: The errata now reads: Ready (p. 193). The second sentence now reads, “To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.” This wording no longer precludes holding a readied spell for as long as you like, as the Ready action no longer mandates that it must be used by the start of your next turn. Instead the Ready action now enables you to act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.
Contrary to every dnd video I've ever seen, Moon Druids cannot wild shape into T-Rexs, the highest cr they can wildshape into at level 20 is cr 6, while a T-Rex is cr 8, so no druid can RAW turn into a T-Rex
Most things talking about changing into a T-Rex are referring to using the Polymorph spell, which lets you turn the target into a beast with a CR up to the level of the target. You're totally right about the wild shape, Giant Ape FTW!
T-Rex does not exist. Those are dragon bones. You can not polymorph into anything you have not encountered in the wild personally in game, with that character.
@@davidbeppler3032 Dinosaurs exist. Tomb of Annihilation is littered with them. But I agree, the odds that a druid stopped by Chult before starting {insert campaign} are pretty low.
"Werewolves are not immune to fall damage." I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it.
Idk, I think werewolves being immune to fall damage is a pretty dumb-ass decision. although I think that werewolves being immune to being smashed by the flail is stupid too so...
Instead of rules lawyering, I always inform the GM that they are free to hit me up at any time during, before, or after the game if they need rules clarifications on anything. If they get a rule wrong during game I just roll with it. No harm, no foul.
I once read Action Surge and misread it as the multiple action surges have to be on the SAME turn, then watched that weekend as my buddy who plays a high-level fighter used them on different turns and looked at the rules again on my phone.
4:08 I think we have to make a separation here: If you have a hiding spot and the enemy knows you are there, they dont forget that you are there if you stealth, but it can cause them to loose Vision of you until they establish a clear line of sight. If they dont manage to get that, I would say you get the typical stealth bonuses again.
The prone thing is just because it's actually really hard to hit the profile of some of laying down with a bow, being unconscious your profile from range is still much more narrow
1:46 this rule also means that if you cast a spell as an action and someone counterspells it, you can counterspell the counterspell, but if you cast a spell as a bonus action and someone counterspells it, you can't counterspell the counterspell.
I once made a pretty good argument to ignore the handbook in one particular instance and the DM went along with it. I used a smoke spell to blind a giant for a bit, then had my familiar use an illuminate object spell on the giant’s head. Some said what I did was useless because the giant should be able to see through the fog now. I argued that logically, the effect would be more like turning on high beams in fog, but worse, because the giant’s head itself is the light source, the fog would be blinding, meanwhile the glowing head would serve like a lighthouse beacon for us to barrage with projectile attacks. The DM ruled in favor of logic and creativity rather than the handbook, and I appreciate it.
3:53 the dual wielder feat does NOT let you add your ability mod to off hand weapon attacks. you're thinking of the dual wielding *Fighting Style*.
It does however allow yo to add it to the attack roll... so it's half right... kind of.
@@EclipsisTenebris it doesn’t, you can add your ability mod by default on a dual wield attack, it’s just the damage that you cant (which is why the fighting style exists)
@@EclipsisTenebris No that's wrong too. By default you still add your ability modifier to the attack roll, just not to the damage. The Dual Wielder feat gives you a +1 AC Bonus while holding two weapons, allows you to do two-weapon attacks even if the one-handed weapons you're holding aren't light, and allows you to draw/sheath two weapons in the time you'd be able to do one. Then the Two Weapon Fighting Style lets you add your ability modifier to the damage for the off-hand attack.
Stop replay the first part of the video
@@Cats_on_fire the bit about rule lawyers being annoying? I mean, that's true, but this is a video about all the rules we get wrong and he recommends to send it to people. I think it's important that this kind of video is accurate
3:56 this directly conflicts with what's in the PHB.
"When you Attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the Attack roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s Location or you’re targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn’t in the Location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the GM typically just says that the Attack missed, not whether you guessed the target’s Location correctly."
You CAN attack a space where you think an opponent is at disadvantage, but if you guess wrong, you automatically miss.
I think what was intended for this section was you need to be able to see them to make an OPPORTUNITY attack. You can't against targets you can't see.
On a few other stealth based notes (namely cause 5e's stealth rules are so nebulous)...
Surprise rounds don't actually exist in 5e, surprised instead is like a condition that ends after the surprised creature takes its first turn in combat. If surprised, they simply can't act on their first turn or take reactions until they're no longer surprised. (So if you roll first for initiative but are surprised, while you do lose your first turn, you get your reaction back after you go.) (Note that it's not a genuine condition, but it does operate like one.)
And in general, for stealth vs perception, perception always has the floor of passive perception. What's actually happening is you basically always have your passive perception going for free, so even when searching, if you roll a 1 on the die, you still have your passive perception that's firing constantly as if you rolled a 10 (or 5 if you have disadvantage).
Likewise, stealth rolls to hide are rolled against passive perception. It's one of the few times 5e doesn't encourage contested checks--if someone's hiding from you, you don't roll perception on their turn. You'd only roll perception if you spend an action to search to try and get a better result, and you compare your result to what they rolled for stealth. (You hypothetically could use passive stealth for this as a reverse, but that'd be a house rule.) And remember, you still have passive perception firing off before (and after) you search too.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, when I heard that part. It also says so on the invisible condition, that attacks are made against you with disadvantage, so again you can attack targets you can't see.
Yeah it sounded like they were supposed to be talking about opportunity attacks but intially came accross as any attack, which doesn't make sense. You have to spot an opportunity, that makes sense intuitively, but you don't have to see where you are flailing your arms/weapons/ranged attacks around.
follows for Spells though, as they pretty much anything that is targeted and not just AoE stipulates: "that you can see".
@@Sharkey007x Yep, that's true. Some DMs handwave that a bit and allow spell attack roll spells to target spaces, but I think the intent was for casters to use spells with a even single-square saving throws, like bonfire.
When I heard about Blaine’s sandwich wizard, I immediately got flash backs to my Sandlich, who traded an npc’s soul for a single perfect piece of pepperoni. Ah, the good times
Professionals have standards
There is a rule that often goes overlooked concerning darkvision. Players and DMs often assume that if the characters have darkvision, then a completely dark setting will not hinder them. However, darkvision only turns a place of total darkness into dim light. Dim light means you have disadvantage on perception checks relying on sight. Therefore, it is still useful for the party to have a source of light even if all the characters have darkvision.
This is doubly important in regards to Passive Perception checks. If you're only relying on Darkvision, your Passive Perception (and Investigation but, like, who's asking for character's passive Investigation scores?) is 5 lower. This means if your GM is *also* using passive Stealth checks for things like Traps, and you aren't actively looking, you could very easily miss things that you could catch automatically if you had a torch.
They're also seeing in greyscale (or red) so that matters a lot I'm sure in some situations.
Unfortunately my DMs homebrewed that darkvision only works if there is at least some light. More realistic maybe and it does go for the monsters as well
@@theknight1573 That's how 'low light' vision used to be for elves and so on. They left dark vision to dwarves and such.
Yeah, I forgot about that too
The fact that they get rules wrong in this very video just shows how confusing dnd can actually be
and why i stopped watching around 4 minutes in
It’s because they’re fake fans.
Which rules?
@@Paper_Jam200 The important ones.
The point about not trying to “surprise” your DM with your power build is really good advice. I like when my players have powerful and effective characters in combat, because that lets me push harder and make crazier encounters… but if I want something to be hard, I can make it hard, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The challenge is in proportion to your character.
The big part of knowing this stuff beforehand to me is that I can nudge the party to be on a roughly equal powerlevel. Balancing encounters around an unkillably tank, a dude with 30 HP that does 100 DPR and 3 regular joe schmoes is exhausting.
Im the both dm and a player but even before i was a dm i was the sort of guy who could say to my dm when something is simply to powerful. Even things i would want to do but i know is too strong i warn about. Like moon druid totem barbarian going with bear. Wild shape hp and taking half damage is just too much for our group.
As a DM I am very strict on power builds because it takes away the challenges and severely limits my ability to reward my players in game. As a player I developed an insane monk build that is purely AL legal and does average 50 damage at level 5 and has a 21 AC. I felt so bad about it that I refused to play it, despite the DM wanting to see it in action.
How can you change encounters? Just randomly have an ancient red dragon in the pantry of the abandoned cottage at the end of the road? How does that work? How did the dragon fit? Why was it there? What was it's goal/story? Not sure how you GM but in my games the players decide the encounters not me. You build an OP combat monster and want to kill the whole town? ok. The other players might not like it. Good luck with that.
@@davidbeppler3032 By changing details? Maybe the Kobolds aren't a disorganized mess, but trained ambushers. Maybe they have a powerful leader with them. Your Brigands can be former soldiers with the appropriate gear upgrade that comes with that, or trained in squad tactics with magical backup. There is loads you can do to change encounters to adapt them to the party.
The only two rules every member at the table absolutely should have a clear understanding of are:
1. Don't undercut the other players' fun
2. The DM has final say, not matter what the resurrected Gygax would have to say about it
Put another way, DMs and players Characters are all players in the team game called D&D; and we all win if we all are having fun.
I feel like #2 is what resurrected Gygax would say, anyway :p
Dude was extremely adamant that the rules are guidelines that can be changed by each playgroup, and that the DM has final say as a kind of judge, referee, or arbiter.
(E: I will add that D&D has changed a lot since the 70's and 80's, and that the understanding that it is a collaborative game is much better today than it used to be).
@@PlaneShaper2 It is a different game in some ways. The culture then was very different. A DM was literally the master of a Dungeon of one’s creation. The players were trying to unravel it’s secrets. PC groups had meta roles like Mapper & leader. The understanding that the DM could kill you was there but he had to kill you “fairly”. In so many ways it is totally different.
for the second rule, we need to remember that dms need to at least hear their players out if it isn't interrupting anything, this is about respect and making sure everyone is having fun than anything else
@@PlaneShaper2 asking for clarification yes arguing for length of time no
Bard's jack of all trades gives you half-proficiency to initiative, but also half proficiency to your spell modifier when casting dispel magic or counterspell
yep
You also add it to the checks you make to escape things like Web and Maze. Though you don't add it to the initial save to not be trapped in Web.
Yep, same applies to champion's remarkable athlete
Which in turn means that the Bard has the single strongest counterspell in the game. Sure an abjuration Wizard could still beat them, however the Bard also gets acces to the spell Glibness which makes all your charisma rolls at least 15, and since counterspell is a spellcasting ability check and the Bards spellcasting ability is charisma, you always succed.
@@tiltiege7842 A bard has the best counterspell e.g. their level 3 spells basically always counter any level of spell, however their counterspells can still be counterspelled in turn. A sorcerer can cast counterspells with subtle spell, this means that a sorcerer with subtle spell cannot have their counterspell be counterspelled.
Counterspell, counterspell, counterspell. It's no longer a word anymore, I said it too much in too little time.
Remember, while your underwater:
"When making a melee weapon attack, a creature that doesn't have a swimming speed (either natural or granted by magic) has disadvantage on the attack roll unless the weapon is a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident.
A ranged weapon attack automatically misses a target beyond the weapon's normal range. Even against a target within normal range, the attack roll has disadvantage unless the weapon is a crossbow, a net, or a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart).
Creatures and objects that are fully immersed in water have resistance to fire damage."
This comes strait from the basic rules for 5th edition and let me tell you as a DM & player, you will forget theses rules at some point unless the DM made a prior ruling change on it.
A few years ago, in a campaign long gone, the party was attacked by a bunch of Merrows (sea ogres). The ogres, not half as stupid as expected, attacked the ships underside instead of climbing aboard. A player started complaining.
Player: "But you can't attack underwater precise enough to damage the ship.".
DM: "Yes you can, if you have a swim speed."
Player: "But the rules don't say you can."
DM: "They do actually."
Player: "The rules are stupid. They don't make sense. Mimimi."
This player continued complaining until the ogres just climbed aboard after a minute and were felled in 2 rounds. I miss that guy. (But I don't miss how he played)
We once had a underwater boss fight with a giant enemy clam. I just kept that page of my phb open the entire time.
3:16 That one about being harder to hit from range while prone actually makes more sense than you're making it appear. Being prone means you present a smaller profile target. This is why soldiers who are charging an enemy will repeatedly drop prone then jump up to charge and drop prone again. (Stuff I learned in Marine boot camp)
Im up, he sees me, Im down.
This also applies to massive creatures that are still massive while flat on their face.
And the other thing the prone condition doesn't say anything about 'ranged' its say anything outside 5 feet has disadvantage so also your reach weapons from 10 feet.
Yeah, a smaller target is harder to hit.
Also, being unconcious (the example he gives) gives them advantage, so it actually does cancel out the disadvantage from being prone.
Also, the difference between something that's on the ground and can only crawl (not a very fast or responsive way to move) isn't that much harder to hit than something that's on the ground and CAN'T crawl around.
@@andrewgreeb916 True. I don't give my players disadvantage on a prone Huge-sized creature.
The adventurers league one is outdated or wrong. From the Forgotten realms DDAL Players guide version 12.1 it has another section under create a character for starting play at level 5. You even get a magic item. So you can start at either level 1 or 5.
Oh that's neat, glad to hear players can skip some of the introductory adventures now
They must have gotten tired of the fighter until level 4 for survival then respec into a real character at level 5
@@BlaineSimple i like to start at level 3
Sure, but that's not allowed by the rules except the one that basically says "The DM can do whatever they want. These are suggested." Lol
@@BlaineSimple There is no need to use any of the commercially made adventures friend. You can start games at any level and do anything and still be playing the strict hardcore game of DnD. There is no level or adventure gatekeep to keep you from loving your dnd session! I hope you don't feel pushed to play things you don't want to. That doesn't sound fun :(
8:30 Surprise rounds don't exist in 5e their function got replaced by the surprised condition. (Though it can functionally give a surprise round if every opposing creature is suprised)
Surprised is actually a pseudo-condition. It's not actually a condition listed in the Conditions section of the books but it's easier to explain to people by calling it one. :3
And it's entirely up to the discretion of the DM. If he wants to cancel it after one attack he can so don't pin your hopes on somehow exploiting surprise to stack up huge damage with multiple hits.
And it's a much better idea too. They were really awkward in 3.5e. Definitely a great change.
@@toshomni9478 Technically, every rule is up to the DM's discretion... But RAW the surprise rules are pretty straightforward and simple, and clearly mention they last until the end of the first turn of combat : "If you're surprised, you can't move or take an aclion on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends."
@@Sephiroth517 and the surprise 'round' is only until their turn so if you surprise the enemies but they all go before you, they have not _done_ anything but are no longer surprised and can take reactions as normal.
The abiity to add your modifier on the off hand attack when two weapon fighting doesn't come from the Dual Wielder feat, but from the Two-weapon Fighting Style.
When unconscious, attack rolls made by creatures that are more than 5 feet away from you have disadvantage because you are prone, but also all attacks have advantage against you for being unconscious, so it cancels it out.
Great video, anyway!!
Edit: The rules for prone give disadvante on all attack rolls made more than 5 feet away from the target, not only on ranged attacks, so weapons with reach suffer from that.
You are correct, but I'd like to tack on that only attacks from within 5 feet become automatically upgraded to crits. I almost lost two different characters because a DM kept trying to pepper downed characters with arrows...
I just looked into it qnd rules and written yeah that is how it works but I believe the intention was packaging the prone condition with it at the same time, it's a little wierd though so I'd say home ruling it as prone is written is valid.
Further elaboration on two-weapon fighting, you can only dual wield with a LIGHT weapon in each hand, unless you have the Dual Wielder feat, in which case you could dual wield longswords or something, however you do still add your ability modifier to the ATTACK roll of the offhand weapon, but you don't add the ability modifier to the DAMAGE on the offhand weapon unless you have Two-weapon Fighting style(or the modifier is negative).
This is something that definitely confuses people a lot I find.
@@tsnap4 which is really silly since any sane enemy would switch targets to the others of your party who are a danger and finish you off later. i think that gm simply disliked you.
Um actually, while prone only attackers within 5 ft have advantage.
3:50 The Dual Wielder feat doesn't actually apply your modifier to off hand damage. It just allows you to use non-light weapons and adds +1 to AC when dual wielding. It's the Two Weaponed Fighting fighting style that adds to off hand damage.
*Makes a video to stop, "Um, actually's"*
*Gets "Um, actuallied" on the video"*
XD
Edit: Not trying to start anything. I was gonna say the same thing myself.
3:56 You can attack enemies that you can't see, there's a whole section on Unseen Attackers and Targets that states it only gives disadvantage to your attack rolls. You cannot use attacks of opportunity or cast targeted spells against them, but slashing them with a sword as an attack action on your turn is allowed.
They need to be hidden from your character, such as via the hide action, to be totally untargetable.
Even hidden isn't untargetable. Space a creature occupies can ALWAYS be attacked (even if it typically results in hitting cover/auto miss).
Aka a magic missile may be personalized letters, but attacks with target being a location (be it a axe swing, firebolt or space railgun shot) is to whomever it may concern.
From the points phrasing I strongly assume it was juts meant for opportunity attacks
Many spells require a target you can see, but most attack-roll spells aren't. e.g. Produce Flame: "When you cast this spell, or as an action on a later turn, you can hurl the flame at a creature within 30 feet of you." Similarly Fire Bolt is just attack a creature or object. Eldritch Blast "A beam of crackling energy streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target."
If you aren't sure which square your target is in, you have to guess. If you there's no enemy there, the spell is wasted. If there is, you make the attack roll with disadvantage. (Or straight roll if you also had advantage to cancel it out, e.g. if the defender also can't see you.)
Some spells like Mass Cure Wounds don't require sight or any roll to target a creature: "A wave of healing energy washes out from a point of your choice within range. Choose up to six creatures in a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on that point." You need a clear path to the target (the point you choose), but you don't actually need to see it, so you can do it in the dark and assume / hope your allies are nearby.
Contrast with Mass Healing Word: "As you call out words of restoration, up to six creatures of your choice *that you can see* within range regain hit points..."
I love that Blaine chose to animate dnd shorts guy’s beard by just giving him a thanos chin.
Spells like dissonant whispers and command (with words like flee or approach) trigger opportunity attacks if the target fails their save. Just because the enemy was forced to move doesn't mean opportunity attacks are invalid. Anytime you move using your own speed as part of your movement, action (which means bonus actions too), or reaction, you trigger an opportunity attack if you didn't disengage
This is a great one people miss. If you use something to push or pull a creature against their will that doesn't trigger op attacks. But frightened that forces someone to run or any sort of mental commands given that makes them move can trigger op attacks. A lot of effects like this can end though on damage so be careful when you decide to do this. Having a big baddy frightened to buy some time getting ruined cause the fighter can't not attack for 5 seconds can be frustrating and a waste of spell slots.
This _also_ potentially means that if someone lands an AoO on a target affected by a spell that does not work if it considers you and your allies to be hostile (Such as Charm Person), the spell can be broken. Not sure of how exactly that works, though.
this is something i've seen many abuse ;(
@@OGTwist I can't tell if your emoji is a frown, in which case I don't know why it would be something to be upset by, or if you meant it to be a winking face, in which case you are on board :)
That not forced movement, that’s just movement
This is true fact. In the rules Blaine isn't actuall
y allowed.
agree
I also heard in the rules you are not allowed to play a crab (sadness)
@@theclone2155 You can come close as a simic hybrid.
6:50 The only time I'll ask them to do a roll for the impossible is if it is something that under normal circumstances would be plausible, but to say it is impossible would leak information. But if they roll a nat 20 and I say you fail, they suddenly get a sense of dread from that realization. It's a fun tool to use in very specific circumstances. Otherwise, don't make them roll to climb a cliff that is impossible because that just wastes time. Just say "you assess the cliff and cannot see any viable handholds to climb" or something like that and move on lol.
Many of my skill checks act on a scale. They can fil in different degrees. This has given my players a sense of "oh that is something I may achieve soon" or "okay maybe we need someone's help or some more information for this". This means the players don't break the game with a nat 20 but they also don't feel cheated. An example of this was a player wanting to scale a high wall, level 2. I gave them the roll, they were never gonna make it. They rolled a 20, they reached the top, clinging by their fingers. I then gave them a choice. Roll Athletics to pull yourself up and over, or roll Acrobatics to safely land and try again. They chose Athletics, fumbled it, and fell. The reward was they had a second skill check to beat. But they then realised that they'd have to roll another nat 20 to reach the top. Afterwards, one of the other players offered to give them a boost. Lowered the DC, since it gave them an extra 3-4 feet of lift.
A few issues:
1) Under the oil item, the phb rules the fire damage as 5 flat per turn
2) the dual welder feat doesn't let you add your mod to the bonus attack, it lets you use non-light weapons. The two weapon fighting style allows for that, though
1) which only applies to fire damage by that oil
The readying spells thing kinda blew my mind when I found out about it, but one rule I noticed wasn’t mentioned is how people forget how Disadvantage can cancel out Advantage in any low visibility environment if the attacker and target can’t see, and heavy obscurement causes blindness, making you un targetable for some spells. Fighting someone in a fog cloud has to be one of the most interesting interactions and tons of players I’ve known mistakenly use it to grant advantage. Some DMs made fog work like full cover even when the rules are to shoot with disadvantage at the spot you think they’re at, missing completely if you don’t guess their location.
Dont forget invisibility in all sense and purpose your blind to that creature and tech do not know where they are but some idiots believe that because they are not stealthed they know where the creature is. Even if its a rabbit 600ft away downwind (so making it impossible to smell) and invisible the ranger will autodetect the location of the creature and be able to shoot it. This kind of ruling (Some claim its even RAI) makes all survival games stupid as you wouldnt need to hunt as youd just go "I know theres a deer 1000ft away follow me"
@@kingwildcat6192000 Well...those "idiots" aren't entirely wrong. Being invisible means you can't be seen. You can still be heard, your movement still causes shifts in the air and vibrations on the ground, and you may be carrying an odor strong enough for whatever is around to notice you. That said, you would need to be in range for those other senses to be relevant - a person can see up to a mile away on a clear day with no obstacles blocking their view, but you aren't going to hear footsteps from that far out even if it is a paladin with -4 on their stealth and wearing plate armor. Once they get to about 500 feet away though, if there is no white noise to drown out the sound of your footfalls, you can absolutely be heard because plate armor is NOISY, and it doesn't take much to pin down the source of that kind of noise and know that it is not a squirrel or whatever - you live in a world of magic where invisibility is a thing, most intelligent creatures are going to assume that there is something invisible that is making that noise, while non-intelligent creatures may have wildly different reactions, though a guard dog is still going to start barking if they smell something, even if they can't see it. Your Stealth check affects how much noise you make, how much you disturb the environment around you, how well you mask your scent and how well you can avoid creating a detectable breeze when other characters are close enough to feel it, so it still matters, even when invisible.
You are also disturbing the environment around you while moving invisible. That ranger isn't spotting YOU from half a mile away, but if your Stealth check is bad and they are actively looking for threats, they might see some rustling in the bushes, dust getting kicked up from the ground, and other telltale signs of movement. From everything they can see they can absolutely determine that it could only be caused by an invisible person-sized creature, because there is just too much movement for it to be a little field mouse or whatever. Thus they nock an arrow and watch for another disturbance, then loose the arrow in that direction. The attack is made at disadvantage because they can't actually see what they are trying to shoot, but they have every reason to believe that something is there and to try to shoot it if their people don't normally approach while invisible or you get too close without offering up some kind of passphrase. If they hit something, great. If not, they nock another arrow and stay on high alert, at least for a little bit.
Invisibility combined with Pass Without Trace, however, removes all of those other senses from the equation. You still technically need to make a stealth check, but that is mostly for the mechanical chance of failure. With a +10 to your stealth and whatever you are trying to move past taking a -5 to their passive perception (due to having disadvantage), it is unlikely you would be noticed even if you roll a 1 in most cases, but the combination of a highly perceptive guard, a bad roll, and a penalty on your Stealth skill before applying the bonus could create the situation where you do get detected. Its an almost implausible situation, but it can happen and if it does, then just take the L and have some fun with the failure - you stubbed your toe and shrieked in pain, revealing your position (though still invisible), or the guard moved unexpectedly and you bumped right into them...either way, the guards know you are there now, so deal with it.
@@kingwildcat6192000 to quote the rules
“An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscure. THE CREATURE’S LOCATION CAN BE DETECTED BY ANY NOISE IT MAKES OR ANY TRACKS IT LEAVES.”
So yes, you do know where an invisible creature is in combat unless they take the hide action.
@@adamstadick2044 can isnt automatically. So no you do not know where the creature is just because they didn't hide. Learn the definition of words rather shouting or acting like I don't know the spell I am literally talking about. Yes if a creature ran down the hall while being invisible than yes you will hear it, same with fighting an invisible foe in a snowy mountain will leave tracks. The sound from the invisible foe will tell you the direction it went not the where it stopped, same with fighting in a snowy mountain, you will see where it runs if its fresh snow and that will reveal his current spot. Thata besides the point, its not AUTO dection
@@kingwildcat6192000 I was only emphasizing where my point was, I wasn't trying to yell. But you missed the part that says "any noise". By RAW you can detect an invisible creature as long as they are making any noise at all. Only a hidden creature is both unheard and unseen, invisibility only makes you unseen. And because it just says can that means that there is no check or ability needed, and every creature is able to detect an invisible creature based on sound .
The only rule that matters is the rule of cool (also all the other rules are kind of important too tho fr)
“Uhm, actually, the rule of cool isn’t a real rule” 🤓
But nah you are correct, mr famous youtuber.
So glad to see two amazing D&D content creators team up for a great video! 😊
Facts. Also love your content on Tiktok!
So, how do you want to do this?
@@alienbounty5457 isn't there something in the first few pages of the PHB or DMG for that, like a side note saying, "you can ignore all of this" or something to that effect
Technically: you can hide in the same place. Whether they know you're there or not isn't what hiding is meant to achieve. The point is to make it hard to see what you're doing, or where you will attack from. It's literally in the rules for hiding: "Also, the question isn’t whether a creature can see you when you’re hiding. The question is whether it can see you clearly. " pg 177.
If you have an old book you'll need to check the errata. But yes, stealth has always been a mess in 5E, and they removed all the nice stuff in the playtest that made it clear for some reason.
This is doubly true if you are a Wood Elf, have the Skulker feat, or an Invisibility spell. And gods help anyone trying to find someone with all three.
Wrong, there is a difference between hidden and unseen in the game you are mixing up here. You can be unseen but not hidden, but you cant be hidden and not unseen. You have to take the hide action and fulfill the unseen condition to be hidden no matter what. If you are just unseen/invisible/obscured, attacks against you are made with disadvantage, but enemies still know your exact location. If you are hidden, the enemy doesnt even know you are there AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HIDING IS MEANT TO ACHIEVE. dont mix being hidden up with being unseen. If you play on a grid and you want to hit a hidden and unseen creature, you have to guess its location and then also attack with disadvantage still.
@BlackMage No, you are wrong. You only need to guess a targets location if it is hidden and unseen. If it's just unseen (i.e standing in a fog cloud or in magical darkness, but it hasnt taken the hide action, its location is exactly known. Yes, you give away your location after you make an attack, but if you are unseen and take the hide action again, the opponent loses your location again and has to guess again.
If you know where the arrow comes from then you can't be hit by it..? Seems like faulty logic to me. On the other hand. Wanna hit the sneaky ass with a fire ball? He is hiding right over there.
@@faselfasel2864 I don't think they're really disagreeing with you there, they're only explicitly referring to the conditions under which you get the benefits of being an unseen attacker, which hiding provides. But you are correct. You do not need to be hidden to be considered an unseen attacker, but being successfully hidden *always* considers you as unseen until you do something to give away your position, or can be seen clearly by the creature. (so if you're just hiding up against a corner, and a creature comes around the corner looking for you... yeah, they're going to see you regardless of how high your stealth roll was)
I think the issue discussions like these tend to have is that there's a bit of a disconnect between an enemy not knowing exactly where a hidden character is, and knowing the hidden character's last revealed location in a fight. The two are not mutually exclusive, and intelligent creatures are perfectly capable of punishing characters who hide against a single tree without moving, or who crouch behind the only large rock in the area. This can include anything from rushing the hiding spot, to casting an AoE spell that doesn't require the caster to see their target. (Fireball is the easy example, but things like Dissonant Whispers and Hypnotic Pattern are other examples that can affect hidden characters so long as the creature has a good general guess of where the character is)
Bottom line, if the target can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against the target. If you hide, the target can't see you, and is generally unaware of your exact location, even if you hide in the same spot. However, there are still things that can give away your position, such as attacking or making noise, and creatures can still remember where you _were_ which can make it harder to hide from certain enemies at DM's discretion. So don't be mad if/when the enemy mage drops a Cloud of Daggers on your only hiding spot, despite having succeeded your stealth check to hide from them.
REMEMBER THIS DM’S!
All passive checks use this formula:
10+ability modifier (+proficiency IF APPLICABLE)
This is actually something my table and I had to look into recently due to non-present information on character sheets.
It wasn't 8 + normal modifiers?
@@LordofdeLoquendo Nope, it's 10
@@henryisaway Achsuallei…
You are right. I confused with something.
@@LordofdeLoquendo No worries mate :)
@@henryisaway Thx
Edit: The formula I was referring was Saving Throws Formula.
Loved seeing DnD Shorts on here, lots of fun! Some I can think of:
Fall damage is capped at 20d6, seen lots of people get this one wrong.
Initiative ties are decided between the players who goes first, nothing else
Death saves are made at the beginning of your turn, not the end. So if you roll a nat 20 on a death save, you get back to 1 hp and still have your full round. Cloaks and rings of protection help on Death saving throws. Further, a fighter can use Indomitable on death saves.
Lastly, if hitting someone with a melee attack and you reduce them to 0 HP, the attacker can decide to knock them out rather than killing them. Simple. That way the player doesn't have to declare they're going for a non lethal hit or anything like that, just keep attacking until they hit 0, when the DM says they're dead, the player declares "I would like him unconscious, please". Much easier.
I remember I was new dnd player and the dm was also a bit new I chose to be a sorcerer and I was allowed to cast 2 spells using sorcery points and it was crazy it wasn’t until like 18 sessions in we realized what we did wrong but he left it in because he geared a lot of creatures to that ability and counteract it. ( now I just feel bad for my other players who wanted to deal lots of damage.)
When I was a new DM I did the same thing and my player would just spam the shit out of chromatic orb. Was compounded by the fact that they were the most lucky bastard alive and rolled nat 20s like I eat tic tacs.
@@nathancoomber7359 for me it was cloud of daggers
While it wasn't in D&D 5e, I made a similar mistake in a campaign I recently completed. In that system, spells are cast as 'slow actions,' meaning that when you start casting a spell, your turn instantly ends and the spell goes off at the beginning of your next turn. However, there is a type of property you can get on weapons that shifts this to a standard action, so casting a spell costs no more time then a standard melee attack or class ability.
The part we didn't read is that this ability to cast a spell quickly is only usable ONCE per combat. So for an entire three year long campaign, I had accidentally allowed my players to pop off spells as if they were under the effects of the game's 'haste' status condition, and when they WERE under the effects of haste, they became walking nuke dispensers. Sometimes literally near the end.
We realized my mistake about a year before we got to the end, but since we'd been running the game with that inaccurate ruling the whole game, we just decided to keep doing it until we were done.
yeah honestly sorcerers could use the buff (not as much as martials but still) and you still have to use a lot of resources so it's less abusable as long as they aren't constantly long resting. honestly I would probably allow it, in my campaigns
Thing is, this is really nice for sorcerer, and honestly a good reason to eliminate the rule entirely. Sorc is a bit under powered and this really helps... Sometimes... It really depends on the style of play and how often short and long rests happen. If your dm throws 1 or 2 big ultra encounters at you for the entirety of the session, then it can seem overpowered. If the dm mixes up many encounters ranging in difficulty or if you are doing a dungeon crawl, then the sorc who can go nova really has to micro manage their resources and decide when and where to go nova. Sort of like a paladin.
Games where there aren't many options to short rest and there are few encounters with big threats facilitate long rest classes and classes like the monk and warlock are left at the wayside because they are specifically designed for multiple encounters before a long rest, and they strive in recharging on a short rest.
Many times I've played in a game where we disregarded the number of spells per turn. The sorc went Nova very early and used up all their spell slots too quickly. Several combats in, and they were wanting a long rest, meanwhile everyone else was just fine and we needed to strive forward to complete the problem in time. Monk and warlock were great when we short rested, but Sorc was left to casting cantrips and feeling sad because he literally blew his load 20 mins into a 4 hour game session...
Rules lawyers are your best friend if they are neutral. Keep it pertinent but if your dm and lawyer agree it streamlines game play immensely when other players try to do stuff without any mechanical backing to support it.
I play with two other DMs and I love when they can remember a rule I am having trouble conjuring from the depths of my brain.
The trick is finding a rules lawyer who is neutral, but yeah, once you've found one they're great to have around, especially if you've got new players or a new DM running and they're having trouble with something.
There's also an art to it... I am a rules lawyer, but the "rule of cool" can and SHOULD trump rules lawyers. If it's not outright breaking the game, let the cool thing happen.
Then, as a player, have a *silent* signal with your DM that says, "I have an 'ummm, actually...' here", but leave it to the DM to allow things to happen at their discretion. If it completely breaks something, then you will likely be asked to chime in.
Rules lawyers should be like the god galaxy in Futurama: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
@@KemaTheAtheist absolutely! I'm the rules lawyer at my table and if people are generally confused, I'll explain it for everyone's knowledge, and then usually directly to the DM explain the implications of changing the rule if they so desire, because some rules are more trivial than others. I absolutely will advocate for people having fun, but we also don't need to give the DM extra work rebalancing their campaign because we didn't know what the rules were and broke something XD
ehhhh... sometimes they get annoying even then, I had one who would but in each time, sometimes answering a question that I was about to answer, cutting me off, or vice versa when a I'm asking a player something about their character/class/ability since I want to get them familiar with it, and they would answer for them.
A big rule everyone forgets is spell components. Not just the material but even more verbal and somatic. If you walk up to a crowd and cast a charm spell on one person in there, every NPC will notice that as well as if the person succeeds their save against the charm they'll notice too.
Another example is casting invisibility has VSM components, so everyone will notice the casting prior to when you go invisible
"But I whisper my verbal components for stealth" is also a common thing, and in truth, because the counterspell range is 60 feet, spellcasting should be noticeable from at least that distance.
I always rule that you just straight up can't "whisper verbal components" or do something similar for the somatic components, because sorcerers have metamagic that explicitly allows them to hide those components. Therefore, if other players were intended to have that ability, they would need access to that metamagic or an equivalent ability.
Flavor-wise, I explain that spellcasting tends to require not only the technical components but also the intention of the spellcasting. When you try to hide the components, you aren't giving it your full intention because you are trying to hide it.
I actually rule in favor of allowing whispered and concealed casting, and don't consider it stepping on sorcerer toes.
but only of spells that are feasably concealable, ie ones that dont have a very obvious effect. For example ray spells and fireballs all specify that a visual effect originates from the caster and moves to the target. Id even say that less obvious cases like sacred flame and faerie fire do as well, however the notion that charm person or minor illusion or silent image is obvious to everyone around them and demand showy sparkles immediately renders the concept of what the spell achieves moot as well as renders several official scenarios pointless, its hard to sell an illusiory gnoll when the whole room hears you chanting before it appears. And spells like mislead are even more pointless if you cant conceal the casting even slightly.
However, concealed spellcasting would be a harder than 'I just whisper and do my somatics under the table' that's a classic slight of hand check, opposing passive perceptions or active depending on situation.
Sorcerers arent being stepped on here because get to do silent spell and still spell, which automatically succeed and more importantly have secondary effects overcoming the primary ways of inhibiting spellcasting, being unable to speak or move. Via silence or hold person, or just being gagged and bound. And several classes and races have features that basically equate to "other people can do this, but I automatically succeed at this."
Also bearing in mind not many casters have a great slight of hand.
@@Desdemona-XI Raistlin does concealed casting in the books with his slight of hand. He's a Wizard, so yes, it's basically possible.
Verbal can mean whispered. The problem is, If all Verbal has to be out loud or a shout, it completely cripples any hope for a Illusionist, Diviner or a Enchanter to interact in social interactions.
@@SgtTeddybear66 They could just get subtle spell metamagic via feats. Spellcasters already have absurd utility when compared to martial classes. We shouldn't give them passes on stuff, especially when it's non-combat
Not a rule I get wrong, but my group's old That Guy maintained these two and argued them as a player and as a DM:
1) You are only able to resist/make one saving throw against an effect per turn. If there's multiple effects, you need to pick which one you resist.
2) Picking up items is acshewally a full action, meaning you can't pick up a locket if you attacked that turn, took the dash action, etc.
There's some others like "You shouldn't tell your players 'No' since that takes away agency", "Rolling 25-30 is automatic success since it's the Legendary DC", and "Towns must have shops with whatever the players might be looking for"
2:44 This was so confusing at first. But they're only talking about monsters where it specifically says "attacks" only. Which makes it hard to understand the confusion people are apparently having.
(Barbarians, you're still good to jump off stuff)
1. You get the ability to add your ability modifier to your offhand attack with a two-weapon fighting fighting style, the dual-wielder feat just let you use weapon that doesn’t have the light property
2. Getting off from prone cost half your movement, yes, as in, half of your total movement, so if you have 30 feet movement, it will cost you 15 feet of movement regardless of how much you have left, so dnd short is technically correct but the way he come to the conclusion is wrong
3. There is no such thing as surprise round, actually, there are only surprise creatures which can’t take its turn on the first round of combat
I believe it was refferencimg status effects that reduce movement speed to zero
1: Came down here to say exactly that xD
2. There is a difference between movement and speed. Speed is the number written on your character sheet, but it can be changed by spells, effects and magic items. Movement is how much you can move in a turn. For example if you have speed 30 the dash action doubles your movement (not your speed) to 60 for the turn, but standing would still only be 15 feet of movement, because your speed is still 30 feet. While if you get hit with a haste spell, your speed is doubled, and it will now be 30 feet of movement to stand up.
Okay, so that was mostly just restating what you said, but with the games distinction between speed and movement. But there are many effects that drop your speed to 0. Such as grappling. What they want to point out in the video, is that if your speed is 0, you cannot stand up. They just fail to use the term speed, making it a poor clarification.
"You can't stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0."
3: Correct, interestingly the suprised condition ends after their first 'turn' in the initiative, allowing them to use reactions. Meaning you could suprise a wizard. Go to cast fireball on him, only for him to counterspell it, because he beat your initiative, and is no longer suprised. Also kind of a problem for assassins, they need to beat the enemy initative to get their big bonus for suprising people.
"Stop adding your ability modifier to off-hand weapon damage." He absolutely said that correct. You can add your ability modifier and proficiency to the ATTACK roll but the DAMAGE roll is straight dice roll.
@@DragonElixion Two-Weapon Fighting. "When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack." it specifically says that you can do it in the fighting style. Considering that most people who gonna make a dual-wield build will probably pick this fighting style too
If that’s the correct ruling for 2 that’s pretty dumb imo. I had a game today where I was knocked unconscious 3 times in a combat and also had my speed lowered to 10 throughout. With that ruling I would physically have been unable to stand for almost all of the fight
On the point of story burnout, I'm tempted to run a game where there's a periodic break in the story (milestones) that has the players playing the NPCs of the next town they travel to.
THAT'S GREAT IN STEALING IT THX
@@A_Weird_Angel same!
YOINK. Thx 4 th idea k bye
Excellent idea. Truly brilliant 👏.
Van Richten's Guide is typically meant for horror, but the "Survivors" section detailing using weaker, stand-in stat blocks for players to use to play out enactments of scenes their main characters aren't/weren't there for might work particularly well for that type of story break! Maybe with some of the sidekick rules from Tasha's Cauldron.
When trying to do a skill check with a tool, the tool IS the skill. You don’t dig through the list of skills to see which applies, just the DM decides which stat applies to your tool.
For example: a CHA painter’s supplies check.
However, some tools and skills do work together. This can be determined by the DM but a list is in Xanthar. If they work together then you can (dm allowing) get advantage - except for the medical kit (see the feat)
Exactly. Per the DMG, the DM calls for an ability check and then decides whether any of the character's skill or tool proficiencies apply to the check. The listed "skill checks" like Wisdom (Perception) are just the most typical combinations of ability score and skill.
Yes, or a cha music instrument music proficiency check.
“Casters are better than martials”
“I ignore this component rule”
Well, there you go
"I can't believe the spellcasters are so much stronger now that I've removed one of the only limiters to some of their best spells! How could WotC have done this?!"
Well, not ignore, just allow to deduct the gold cost directly. Martial equivalent would be allowing to spawn arrows/bolts for an appropriate cost in a campaign that doesn't track encumbrance.
@@Linvael that still removes the limitation that the gold cost is meant to impose on the spellcaster. Take two clerics, both with 1000 gp. One of them deducts cost on cast, the other has to have pre-purchased spell components prior to casting. Who do you think will have more limited spellcasting choices? If they need to revive a 30-day-old corpse or two people who've died in the past hour, the first cleric has the flexibility to do either. The second will be SOL if he needs to revive a month-old corpse and he only brought two 500 gp diamonds. Worse, if the second only planned for Revivify and bought an assortment of diamonds totalling 1000 gp, he can't even revive the two hour-old corpses.
By sticking to the spell component rule, you're drastically limiting your casters' ability to choose spells on the fly, and they become more like 3e memorization casters: planning well ahead in advance for spells they may or may not cast.
Casters are better than martials? Disagree. Getting spells is a pain in the ass. Either sucking up to old wizards or finding them in scrolls is a damn hard thing. Picking up a sword and getting someone to train you for a keg of beer is pretty easy. Martials level up so much faster than spellcasters. Imagine having a warlock?! You have to sacrifice a town to level up? The whole thing? Every man, woman, and child? That is hard.
@@davidbeppler3032 most tables also ignore the rules for acquiring new spells, which is another way that casters get hyper powered-up compared to martials. That said, very few DMs insist you find a sensei to train you in the new features of your existing martial class.
Man the irony that in a video about common rules misconceptions there are several common rules misconceptions is just too good
My contribution for this: Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation isn't equal to Mind Control. What they do is convince an NPC that your asking is valid, but that doesn't mean that you can force them to do your will. A barkeep won't give you free lodging on his tavern because you asked nicely, but they may give you a discount or allow you to stay if you work a shift on it.
Agreed. I don't care if you rolled a million, you can't trick the barkeep i to thinking they're a chipmunk.
Actually there is a system for Social interactions in the DMG (244) and DMs just don’t read them.
You can make characters more willing to do what you like depending on how much they like you and what they have to loose. You can be the most angelic bard with expertise and perfume of the gods and the Fiend pact Warlock tiefling will still take you out - but they will leave your final words with your family.
I've shot bow, crossbow and a sling, sometimes at people, and can assure you - even if you drop unconscious to the ground, you are much, much harder to hit with a ranged weapon, barring some extremely unlikely circumstances.
The reason is geometry, you are intersecting a cone of fire with a plane at the right angle to it, and the area of that that overlaps with target 2D slice at that point is how accurate you have to be, or to put it simply - imagine that whatever you are hitting is a cardboard cutout of its silhouette. A standing man is roughly 2 meters by 1 meter, someone lying down on their back sideways to you is 2 meters by half of a metre and someone lying down head/feet towards you is 1 meter by half of a metre. Actual numbers will be very different, since humans aren't squares, but the general idea holds.
Necessary area you must put your shots into is 2 for standing guy, 1 for sideways guy and 0.5 for head on guy. So, even lying down on flat ground means you must be twice to four times as accurate. Well, how much more accurate varies because non-fierarms weapons have a cone of accuracy with an ellipse as its base (and it is usually longer than it is wider, so better for hitting standing people), rather than a circle, but again, general idea applies.
Perhaps its due to there also being no high ground rules in 5e, but this logic very much breaks down when striking from an elevated angle, such as the walls of a fort, when flying above the target, or simply just being at a vantage point, and there being no exception for that situation will often bug a lot of people
@@yoshifan2334 I believe there are high ground rules in 5e. Advantage on range if you are 10ft higher than the enemy and disadvantage if you are 10ft lower.
@@BrolysShadow_ that is a house rule I've heard before but I've never seen it written anywhere in any rulebook
@@crownlexicon5225 There is a super generic advantageous situations grant advantage rule, and that covers high ground(this rule is non-optional and is why flanking should grant advantage even if you are not using the optional flanking grants advantage rule :p). This does lead to the effect that what is the requirements for high ground to be advantageous as unspecified.
@@Spikeba11 and what page(s) of what book(s) is this on?
As someone who is currently making a grappler, its good to know I can suplex boss monsters without caring about legendary resistances
You need to pay attention to the creature size however. As a medium creature you can only grapple up to large creatures. You need to either change your size through magic or use some sort of ability that makes you count as if you are one size larger to grapple Huge targets. I think gargantuan creatures are likely out of grappling range for most practical purposes.
With that said I have absolutely had players grapple/prone huge creatures before and I struggled to explain how it worked because it made no sense. LOL.
@@dilldwarf3476 Rune Knights have an easy time at least
With their ability, if someone knows enlarge/reduce as well, they can become huge
Or at 18th level, they can become gargantuan
So an 18th level Rune Knight Fairy can spend one turn to be big enough to proceed to grapple other gargantuan creatures at advantage.
Not a very conventional build as you say
But not super hard to devise either
Plus, Fairy suplexing a Tarrasque
If trains can be suplexed, anything else should be able to be also! 😆
@@dilldwarf3476 Duergar rune knight
@@yalkn2073 wait, we talking about the 'gargantuan creatures are...' or you just bringing up the dual enlarge in general?
"You can also pour a flask of oil on the ground to cover a 5-foot-square area, provided that the surface is level. If lit, the oil burns for 2 rounds and deals 5 fire damage to any creature that enters the area or ends its turn in the area. A creature can take this damage only once per turn."
With that as a reference it can be ruled that any persistant, 5×5ft sized fire does 5p of damage per round. As for bonfires and similarly sized fires, perhaps 1, 2 or 1d4 per round might be better.
3:56 "You need to be able to see someone to attack them" is incorrect. The only mentions of "Seeing a target in the attack rules (PHB pp. 192-196) are in the "Unseen attackers and Targets" section, stating that you *can* attack an enemy you can't see, but at disadvantage, and in the "Melee Attacks - Opportunity Attacks" section, stating "you can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature you can see [...]". I believe this is the part you are refering to in the video.
3:54 The Dual Wielder feat doesn't affect the adding ability damage to off-hand attacks. The two weapon fighting-fighting style is what allows you to add ability mod to damage for offhand. Dual Adds +1 to AC while using 2 weapons, lets you use non-light weapons for dual wielding and draw/stow them both with the same object interaction. Obviously you want both of these but just wanted to add the clarity.
and even then, it doesnt add ability mod damage to your off-hand weapon attack, it even SPECIFICALLY STATES that you don't ever add ability mod damage to off-hand attacks, it's meant to be a weaker attack to balance out that you attacked twice. You have to have two weapon fighting to fight with 2 weapons, and you cannot ever add damage mod to that off-hand unless it is a negative, which I doubt you'd ever have as a fighter or barbarian.
@@elijah260
The class Fighter have something called "Fighting Style"
If the player choose the "Fighting Style" named "Two-Weapon Fighting" , the added ability mod IS added to the off-hand attack.
Just look it up dude
You explained perfectly why I think it's weird that Fizban's Treasury of Dragons gave the mythic dragons Truesight instead of Blindsight. Sure, it has some benefits over Blindsight but that's really only out of combat. They really should have both senses or just Blindsight. I wonder if the designers themselves forgot those rules...
Theres a variant rule where you can give it blindsight. You can also give it rejuvenation, the ability to make tunnels (even through brick) and give it a non tunnel burrow speed, as well as giving it spells
No, they auto-save on visual illusions, so there’s combat bonuses as well
"Dragonborns canonically dont have tails"
WOTC when making Arkhan the Cruel's art for Descent into Avernus: you know what? Screw it
Dragonborn can have tails - because flavor is free. Ask your DM for one if you like or just call him Donar. Lol
@@leodouskyron5671 I am the DM XD I usually make that Half Dragons are more inclined to be like their parents so they can be differentiated more easily, but if someone plays a dragonborn in my game, I have no problem letting them have tails
@@leodouskyron5671 I am the DM XD I usually make that Half Dragons are more inclined to be like their parents so they can be differentiated more easily, but if someone plays a dragonborn in my game, I have no problem letting them have tails
@@leodouskyron5671 Flavor isn't cannon so it's not cannon
On your 'Visible Targets' note, it only applies to things that require vision like opportunity attacks and a fair bunch of spells. In my experience, nobody understands that a heavily obscured area (e.g. Fog Cloud) causes those affected by it to have both advantage and disadvantage on attack rolls, meaning all attacks are made at a neutral 1D20. This is the case whether you're inside the heavily obscured area attacking outwards, or outside the heavily obscured area attacking inwards. You can still make attacks if you can hear the target, if you can no longer hear the target (e.g. they took the hide action) you basically start playing battleships where you attack spaces hoping you hit someone.
3:56
You can absolutely attack a character you can’t see- it’s in the PHB. You just have disadvantage.
However, most SPELL attacks state you can only target a creature you can see
He kinda biffed the statement. He was talking about the rule, "You can't make a RE-ACTION attack against a target you can't see." His leaving that key word out really made it hard to understand what he meant, but if you add it in, everything he says is EXACTLY true.
One thing I want to point out at 3:55 which is that this is only about the opportunity attack which requires that you can see the target (I'm assuming this is what they meant).
You can still attack an unseen target with disadvantage, as long as you:
A) are within your weapon's reach from the target
B) can guess their location correctly (this is an actual rule, although how it functions isn't explained in further detail).
If you've got ears and/or were attacked by them, you can guess their location correctly, as far as I'm aware. Hits don't come from nowhere, after all, and unless you're in a zone of Silence, you can hear footsteps.
@@kennyholmes5196 Mostly, yea. There are some creatures that hover, have earthglide, or other similar means of locomotion that don't produce noise, though. However, attacking a target does always reveal your position even if the target can't see you, regardless if you hit or miss (which in itself can be kind of strange in some scenarios) unless a specific rule says otherwise.
"You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can SEE moves out of your reach." you need to have some sort of special sight to opp attack a target thats invisible
@@OGTwist but... isn't that what Backon said? The ruling in the video is only right for opportunity attacks, as you can still attack an invisible enemy.
@@SenhorAlien No you cannot. You need to be able to see the target to opp attack them. Because the only way to make an opp attack is to be able to see the enemy through some sort of vision whether its some sort of blindsight or something, you still need some special ability to see them in order to do it
If you’re a cleric/paladin sword and boarding with an emblem on your shield, you can cast spells with S components only if they have an M as well unless you sheath your weapon or have War Caster; the hand holding the M also covering the S only applies if there is an M to the spell
This is why War Caster is a high priority feat for combat casters.
One mistake I realized I was making recently is for the barbarian rage ability: the damage resistance does not apply while wearing heavy armor. I always thought that the damage resistance was while raging (which it is), but I missed the part where it says that it only counts while wearing light or medium armor.
Interesting loophole - the bear totem ability does not have that restriction.
@@Holfax this is correct
Yeah, but unless you take a feat, barbarians don't have heavy armour proficiency (only light and medium), so wearing plate wouldn't be ideal anyway.
@@Crazor2000 Or if you start as a class with proficiency in heavy armor then take levels in barbarian, like I did.
I was going to go "Um actually" but no you are right. I thought you CAN'T Rage but RAW, nothing says that you can't wear heavy armor and rage. You just get none of the benefits of raging. So it does bring up the question of how wearing heavy armor works with subclass features like the Storm Herald or Totem Barbarian. I'm going to say RAI, you shouldn't get any benefits of raging when wearing heavy armor but RAW doesn't seem to say anything about how subclass abilities would work with Heavy Armor.
I enjoy both channels often. The collaboration was twice as awesome!
DM: Stop adding your ability modifier to your off-hand attacks.
Player: My ability modifier is negative.
DM: ADD IT! ADD IT!!
This just gave me a stupid/fun idea.
3:50 - Actually Blaine, that's Two-Weapon Fighting (which is a fighting style available to Fighters and Rangers).
Two-Weapon Fighting: When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
Dual Wield Feat: Add +1 to AC while wielding two melee weapons. You can use two-weapon fighting even when one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light. You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.
Good communication between Players & the DM is probably the most important RAI rule for a fun game.
I clipped that and sent it to my discord cause its the best player advice I've heard in a D&D video. You can quote rules all day until your blue in the face but if your DM says "No" not much else you can do.
@@dilldwarf3476 I copied your action and shall likewise share with my D&D group!
Large sized weapons exist.
As per the DMG on page 277, a Large sized weapon deals DOUBLE the damage dice of its Medium counterpart. That means a Large Greataxe is 2d12 damage and THEN has the bonus from Enlarge/Reduce's spell info. (This is key for Rune Knights.)
I have been beating this drum for MONTHS and only now is it being noticed
Ah yes, why I despise rune knight with every fiber of my being
It is also important to remember that any weapon with the Heavy property cannot be wielded by a creature smaller than it is sized for--
Meaning, you can only use that Large Greataxe while Enlarged, whereas if you use a Battle-axe instead (2d10 while wielded with two hands only up to 4 less damage), you can still wield it, but only at Disadvantage (unless you gain Advantage from another source such as Flanking or Reckless Attack from Barbarian)
Edit: I'm wrong as shit, play as a teeny little gnome barbarian and fuck shit up with a weapon that is COMICALLY MASSIVE compared to you!!
@@nucleargoofball8043 The Heavy property just says that small creatures have disadvantage while wielding it, not that they can't use it at all.
@@DuskoftheTwilight Oh shit you right!!
Keep in mind, though, those rules are under monster creation rules. They were never intended to be applied to PCs.
The RAI is that the once-per-turn extra d6 is the damage bonus you get from getting bigger. A level 3 fighter consistently dealing 2d12+d6+strength mod damage with every attack, even without any magic items or outside assistance, would be a bit bonkers, no?
An often overlooked rule is that the person who DMs shouldn't be expected to DM every new campaign.
This was a really fun Collab to see! I love both yours and Dnd Shorts content🥳
Um actually, I would like to know something for my peace of mind. When I was playing a Wood-Elf Ranger a while back, I understood favored enemy to mean having experience in tracking, hunting, etc a specific race, like you grew up learning how to hunt that specific race, but not meaning you hate them and couldn't be a friend with one. The way my DM's said it worked made it sound like you've sworn to kill them all or something along the lines of basically racism. But nothing about how it's written suggests to me that you hate them, just that when it comes to all the benefits you get in relation to them, you are good at it because you learned their patterns and such. I would love a video that clarifies this.
no yeah, its the same thing as being a fisherman. Just because i'm an expert fisherman doesn't mean I hate fish
I jokingly call the Favored Enemy damage “Racist Damage”, but yeah in reality it’s like you said. You’ve studied how to track and hunt that specific type of being, so you have advantage finding them and do extra damage cuz you know how to make it hurt. But you don’t HAVE to hate them, and being friends with your favored enemy sounds like an interesting character
just look at the real version of the ranger: a hunter
a hunter knows well how different animals move around and can track them, but usual doesn't hate them, it's even the opposit thing. hunters are often wildlife rangers too, taking care about the animals, like putting sickened animals out of the area and so
That comment just gave me an idea of a detective character who has great tracking skills, particularly for certain races, as he notices slight or subtle differences and general ticks in their behavior.
Nothing about how it's written suggests you hate them? Did you read the name of the ability? Favored ENEMY. Definition of enemy: a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something
No one ever remembers that moving through your allies square is double movement.
Also allies give cover to enemies for ranged attacks. So if you are trying to shoot that goblin standing on the other side of the paladin they likely have at least half cover from the shot.
Another neat thing you can do is use your movement to enter an allies square to make an attack and then use your movement to step back. It could trigger an op attack but as long as you don't end your turn in your allies space, perfectly legal. This is useful when fights happen in tight corridors and kind of creates a sort of ranked fighting.
I don't recall seeing that cover thing in the rules.
@@Technodreamer "You can move through a nonhostile creature’s space. In contrast, you can move through a hostile creature’s space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Remember that another creature’s space is difficult terrain for you."
And Halflings can move through an allies space for normal movement.
@@DragonElixion No their power is: Halfling Nimbleness
You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours. Instead of two sizes.
One thing that I feel needs explaining to lots of new players is that, regardless of how your characters interact, you, the player, are working with the DM to tell a story. Your goal is not to beat the DM, but to help them tell a funny, twisted or just awesome story along with your friends.
I have met far more DMs that need to hear this than players.
Readying a spell also means that, rules as written, the spell can be counterspelled before it is cast (triggered). If a creature can see the spell being cast and is in range it can be counterspelled. It's a grey area wether the spell is only cast on the turn of the caster (/casting time) or for the entire duration of the spell being held (until triggering/turn fizzling/concentration loss/ending).
Though usually you'd hold the spell because you can't see the target, hoping they'll move into line of sight - which probably means they can't see you either, meaning they can't counterspell.
@@bjornseine2342 Tactically that is usually the case. That does assume that there is only one potential target and that it is the only one that can counterspell. Sometimes you also want to time a spell after a specific effect to say increase the chances of the target failing. Holding a spell can give you a potential advantage at the cost of becoming vulnerable (to attacks and counterspelles) and potentially wasting the opportunity. Risk reward.
I do not know how this is RAW, but I feel like you can counterspell the readying of the spell, then use dispel magic to try and cancel the spell before the reaction is triggered.
Also out of curiosity, do you need to specify what the trigger is beforehand? Or can you just call out you want to use your reaction to use your readied action? At my table we rule the first
you do not have to see someone to attack them. you jsut get disadvantage. lots of spells will specify "target you can see" if it requires you to see them, but melee attacks and ranged attacks do not require you to see them
One word, one rule: Darkvision.
Any DM that complains about their players having Darkvision are honestly missing quite a bit they can do. Smoke and fog stop Darkvision and Truevision in their tracks. There is no such thing as infravision in 5e (unless you homebrew it).
Blindsight is the absolute most powerful version of sight in the game and that's why the radius for it rarely goes above 30 ft and why the only way to get blindsight as a character is a feat and it only has a range of 10 ft. Tremorsense can also be more powerful than Darkvisino or Truevision since you can see behind cover as long as they are in range making taking the hide action against them pretty hard to do.
@@dilldwarf3476 most of my players play characters with Darkvision but still bring a torch or form of light anyway.
I feel better already being the only PC in my group without darkvision but has the light cantrip
but you can roll for stealth in the same place. As long as you break their ability to see you, you can re-hide behind that same pillar. They may still know you are there and could walk up to reveal you, the purpose of this mechanically being a thing is for granting advantage on the next rounds attacks (useful for rogues doing sneak attack from total cover in a fight). The idea is the enemy that failed to beat your stealth check even after they previously detected you, you will have advantage when you suddenly 'pop out of cover surprising them' to shoot again. You aren't hidden in the sense that they have no idea you are still (likely) right there behind that same pillar, just hidden in that you are in full cover and they don't know when you might pop out next, or from which side of the pillar etc. Plus escaping, you broke their line of sight, so they don't know you aren't moving back still and are waiting to ambush them right around that corner or retreating down the alley, until they get there or beat your new stealth check to detect you in some other way (like hearing your footsteps retreating). You shoot them from the same bush giving total cover, they don't know you didn't crawl into a new bush unless they beat your stealth check with their perception. And remember advantage and disadvantage, shooting from cover, you have disadvantage on the check to re-stealth. So if you messed up, they are still likely attentive enough when you pop back out to be ready for the next shot (you failed/they beat you and dont get advantage on the next shot).
Note: if you stealth behind the same pillar and they walk around the pillar you loose stealth because you can now be seen, loosing stealth really is that easy. This is a major thing that limits the effectiveness of using the same hiding spot.
@@Spikeba11 And is why "Steady Aim" is usually a better option in that situation.
We recently had a lot of questions about attacking stuff that isn't living. Long story short, horizon walker (me) and arcane archer (not me) trying to destroy magical energy cristal with pretty high AC and health in a middle of a fight. We decided that neither hunter's mark nor planar warrior can be used on something that isn't creature, but cristal automatically fails all dex saving throws (maybe some else either, but we only targeted dex). Not sure if it's right.
Objects fail all saving throws automatically but are immune to psychic damage and a whole list of conditions. Both hunters mark and planar warrior require targeting a creature so you are correct that they don't work on objects. It sounds like this was ruled correctly to me.
I didn't learn anything, and that's awesome! My DM for my first ever long campaign was so knowledgeable about the game that by the end of it, I (and the other new players at the table) were all basically masters of the game's rules. We also learned proper game etiquette, which is far more important and harder to teach. Thank you, Noble. You're amazing.
Except when 'scam likely' turns into 'well, actually'. Damned deck of many things.
Call lighting with shapeshift.
Good memories.
6:49: It does make sense. The die roll is random chance acting on your character regardless of their skill. Even if the barbarian gets uncanny luck, he probably can't talk his way out of a fight when he's found in the king's chambers, but the bard might.
Yep. A common complaint about this is that "If there's no chance of success, the DM shouldn't have called for a roll in the first place." But it's worth remembering that skill checks don't have to be simple DC thresholds where you either pass or fail. There can be a whole spectrum of outcomes depending on the roll.
The barbarian isn't going to talk his way out of a fight entirely, but the results might be a bit more favorable on a 20 than straightup failing. Maybe the guards will remember his fumbled excuse after the fight is passed and include it in their report to the royal prosecutor, helping your case later on. On a 10, the guards wouldn't have listened at all. And gods forbid, on a 1, your "explanation" might've come off as a full-fledged confession and made things worse.
@@meanwhileinmyhead1877 You rolled a nat 20? Okay, the dragon finds your threats amusing and does not immediately incinerate you.
WotC should just release one Draconic race template with Dragonborn, Half-dragon, Draconian (or Draconid, I don't remember) and Dragonkin as subraces. That would mean nobody will probably play dragonborn ever, but at least there would be no confusion
Missed opportunity to do that in the Fizbin book. Really could have fleshed out all the dragon races more and maybe fixed the stupid Dragonborn origin story.
I mean, the presence or absence of tails is really just cosmetic, so I’m not sure official errata/addenda are needed
@@willieoelkers5568 It's cosmetic until someone tries to take advantage of it's tail...
@@Sephiroth517 At which point the DM can say "no" and things go on
Half-Dragon isn't a race. It's a humanoid that has undergone a ritual to transform itself and render itself sterile. You literally can't breed Half-Dragons.
For the last point (story burnout), My party has a nice, but easy concept. We have 2 DMs (A and me) and we separate long campains into different arcs (at least for mine). Then, we take turns. When arc 1 on my campain was over, he did a few short one shots. Then it was my second arc, then one of his campain, and I'm starting arc 3 this week. It allows the DMs to be players more often and it gives us more time to plan things in the long term instead of having to rush things out between each session (playing homebrew campains is was harder than pre-written ones, so it takes more time and break are sometimes neeed).
Oooh good, you had it in there.
Rule #1: Aksuly, the DM makes the rules, and the rulebooks are merely suggested defaults to expect.
...but "RAW" IS a thing, and unwarned deviations from it definately justifies speaking up.
3:59 - no, sorry, go check pages 193-195 of the PHB. It has a specific section for attacking unseen adversaries. It just imposes disadvantage (otherwise, you know, invisibility would be busted since you could never attack the wizard as soon as they turn invisible). It also states that an unseen foe gives away their location when they attack, so someone darting in to attack you when you can't see them then reveals their presence to you. Whether that reveal "lasts" if they then move away again is kind of poorly defined, but the hide action exists for a reason so I'd assume you'd still know where they are to pursue them afterwards.
The section for opportunity attacks does specify that they can only be made when a hostile creature you can see moves away, so if this section was meant to be specifically in reference to opportunity attacks, that would be correct. I personally tend to rule that one the other way because turning invisible doesn't suddenly make your foe unaware of you - if the wizard's shoe squeaks as they try to sneak away, no self-respecting adventurer wouldn't take a swing at them.
Also, I don't know, a fair number of the things covered in this video didn't really seem rules-related at all? Things like session length, campaign structure, how to spell rogue - not really what I was expecting from the premise? Just kind of weird. Sorry.
Opportunity attack exclusion makes sense if you conceptualize it differently - it's not that you wouldn't take a swing at them retreating, taking a swing is part of your action, opportunity attack means that the way the enemy is moving away leaves them open to attack in a way they wouldn't be if they stayed put. They can counteract that with Disengage action (so by being extra careful with the manouver), so it's not a stretch to say that being unseen makes it possible for them to have the same amount of safety without the carefulness, since you won't see the opening.
they were talking just about opportunity attacks
3:56 I'm not sure if that's ENTIRELY true, the invisibility effect implies that you can still be attacked if they target the area you are in, so wouldn't that work if you're blinded?
There's even a section on page 194 of the PHB specifically about attacking a target you can't see.
I was definitely referring to reaction attacks there, but must have forgotten to say! But yeah, you need to be able to see someone to reaction attack them!
Yeah, this is not really well worded and invisibility isn't as strong as people think it is. You cannot make attacks of opportunity against invisible targets since that requires you to see a target to attack it. You can still attack a creature you can't see if you know what space they are in and unless the creature took the hide action you likely heard where they were.
Now, you can use passive Perception vs passive Stealth for this too. If a creature has high passive Stealth while invisible they might not be able to be detected without spending an action to roll a Perception check.
Invisibility and Surprise are the two rules that I think need serious rewrites because everyone gets them wrong and they aren't very intuitive.
@@DnDShorts That much is true, the section on opportunity attacks specifies "A hostile creature that you can see," but for attacks in general you just have disadvantage if you can't see them, and the DM might force you to pick the tile you think the enemy is on if you don't have some other reason to know where they are.
@@DnDShorts oh yeah you're 100% right on opportunity attacks, it'd be impossible to use those without seeing them lol
3:05 when rolling death saves you are on unconscious, combining that with prone makes all ranged attacks into flat rolls
Was looking exactly for this comment, other people were commenting wrong about the unconscious-prone-interaction and got me a tiny bit triggered. Well, that's enough internet for me today.
Also any attack that's within 5 feet automatically get to advantage and autocrits on a hit.
i imagine dm's are omnipotent, meaning they are a supreme being who cannot be surpassed or matched.
Really tempted to send this to my players. Last session, combat ground to a complete halt when I asked what modifiers were giving one of my players a +7 to damage rolls. He was insisting it was his pact weapon feature, but I repeatedly reminded him it just let him use a different stat, and that if he wanted the proficiency bonus damage he had to curse the target first with a bonus action. Turns out DnD beyond was automatically adding his dueling fighting style without him knowing. Honestly the damage didn't matter all that much, but just the discussion brought things to a halt.
So, something about goblins when the Ready Action thing is done: if they ready action to attack, they have forgone their turn and cannot use their Nimble Escape ability since Held/Readied action costs the entire turn by putting the thing on the reaction. Basically, you get one thing to do if you ready or hold your action, it’s not holding your full turn.
If it was holding your entire turn, Ready/Hold action would be super busted.
So here's an oversight on the rules though. Extra Attack doesn't work with a held action however most creatures with Multiattack are able to hold all of their attacks as an action and Multiattack is itself an action. I think it is a very common houserule (or mistake) to allow Extra Attack to work with held actions.
Your entirely correct about the ruling, I don't want to give off the false impression that I think you're wrong about how the rules work.
However I think being able to hold your turn and take it later would be fine in terms of game balance since it wouldn't change action economy and would help with the concept that this was all happening at the same time.
I've run most of my campaigns with the house rules that.
A) you can hold any part of your turn and are free to use the rest of it as you see fit. (for example hold movement to run if they lose their reaction and use action to attack)
B) you can use a held part of your turn whenever a turn ends in addition to if you meet your trigger. (holding action to shoot if it moves ten feet and it doesn't move okay you can still shoot when it ends it's turn)
C) you can willingly lower your initiative to be after someone else but this continues until the end of the encounter. (choosing to have your turn after the bbeg because you need time to think or want to gage the situation but now always go after the bbeg)
It makes for more teamwork in my games which i like but if you see an issue with it feel free to let me know
@@aaronmacdonald1370
Mind if I steal these house rules? These look like some fun ones and do look like they would encourage teamwork.
@@aaronmacdonald1370 the only suggestion I would make is that end of turn effects still take place at the end of when your turn should be. For example stunning strike stuns a creature till the end of your turn, but if you held your turn till after the creature went you could stun them for 2 whole turns instead of one.
@@adamstadick2044 I think the result would be closer to they don't get stunned at all in that if they already had their turn and you stun them, the end of your next turn will happen before they have another turn to be stunned. In other words stunning late makes stunning strike worse.
The dragonborn having no tails is something a lot of people know, although there are times people just don't care.
One thing however that's pretty obscure is the fact that elves don't have beards.
There's one race of Dragonborn in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount which gets a tail. I think it's just a mutual understanding that we are talking about PHB Dragonborns.
@@lordzaboem I did not know about that race. Seems interesting to look into.
Elves also don't have pudding
@Scott Gastineau I recently discovered them as well, I think they get int bonuses instead of str and cha, so they probably make good wizards.
Pretty sure they can have tails but it's seen as a deformity
At least in the forgotten realms setting
A lot of people get wrong: Darkness isn't just the lack of light, it's full obscurement -- rendering the light cantrip useless as a counter... ergo darkvision doesn't work inside magical darkness.
True otherwise the Warlock Invocation Devil Sight wouldn't have to specify it works on magical darkness as well.
Magical darkness generally comes from a source like the _darkness_ spell anyway, which explicitly shuts down weaker lighting spells.
the darkness spell wouldn't block a spell that creates light unless it says so, which is why it does
Dual wield feat does not give ability mod dmg to offhand, it allows dual weilding non-light weapons. Two-Weapon Fighting style gives Str/Dex mod to offhand.
Climbing, jumping, mounting and mounted combat, grappling, and preparing/known/readied spells. Whenever these things come up we always have to pause and look them up. The last one is a bit of a curve ball since every spell casting class is different but it’s amazing how many people don’t know how their spell lists work.
3:05 When I first heard that, I assumed it's just the fact that they have a lower profile and are therefore harder to hit from a distance. Granted my Half-Elf Ranger with Sharpshooter is almost always shooting from far enough away for this to make sense; someone shooting from the minimum 10ft distance (5ft they'd have disadvantage anyway even if the opponent was up) probably wouldn't have this excuse.
6:49 I always believed that a Nat 20 should be the best case scenario that still makes sense, and a Nat 1 the worst. Maximum Lazy: Some smartass tries to convince a King to hand over their kingdom. A Nat 20 just means the King laughs and offers them the position of Court Jester, Nat 1 they're executed on the spot. Basically even if you're doomed to fail the number determines how badly you fail. This is my usual counterpoint when someone claims the DM shouldn't even let the player roll the check if there's no way they'd pass anyway.
Except that in the case of the target being unconscious, all attack rolls against it are made with advantage. Therefore, ranged attacks against a "dying creature" are made with neither advantage nor disadvantage.
Um, actually, Adventurers League will allow you to spawn in at level 5 and has specific character creation rules for spawning in at level 5...
On the prone bit; no, they didn't forget. Going prone makes you a smaller target. Just make a silhouette out of someone standing up and another of that's same person laying down. That cross section is what you're trying to hit, no matter why they hit the floor.
It's a tiny target to hit.
Although keep in mind that in the case of the target "dying" and therefore being unconscious like in the video, ranged attacks have neither advantage nor disadvantage. This also makes sense because the target can't really do anything to influence the attack hitting them, which counters the advantage brought from being a smaller target on the ground.
As someone that has done archery before, hitting the bullseye is really not that hard from 18m away (about 60 feet). Knowing that someone prone won't be moving much, the disadvantage for being smaller is kinda stupid, but still is what the rules say, and I don't need any more OP ranged attacks to a prone guy
It is a bit weird if you're shooting from above though, since in those cases, a prone creature should be a larger (and much slower) target.
@@MadSwedishGamer This is exactly the sort of "weird" that the PHB and DMG both tell DMs to just make a ruling on and give the player the benefit. DMs in 5e are supposed to be making judgements like this so the ruleset doesn't become incredibly bloated with edge cases.
Thanks for explaining Reckless Attack, I've apparently been reading that one wrong this whole time lol.
7:02 To be fair: If a character cannot fail a something with a 1, or cannot do something with a 20 the DM shouldn't even tell them to roll a dice. There are some exceptions, but if the outcome of a dice doesnt matter there is no point in rolling it.
While I agree for the most part, there are things like guidance, flash of genius, etc., that can be on the table that can make it so that a nat 20 would succeed when it normally wouldn’t. Now, it’s up to the player to remember that they have that bardic inspiration or their artificer ally to use their flash of genius, but it’s still possible and I will still let them roll if those are on the table, but I won’t say anything to remind the players.
Sorry, missed the last sentence. I didn’t bother to click the read more option at first.
3:30 You can hold a readied spell for as long as you like, you don't lose if you use your reaction:
The errata now reads:
Ready (p. 193). The second sentence now reads, “To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.”
This wording no longer precludes holding a readied spell for as long as you like, as the Ready action no longer mandates that it must be used by the start of your next turn. Instead the Ready action now enables you to act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.
Contrary to every dnd video I've ever seen, Moon Druids cannot wild shape into T-Rexs, the highest cr they can wildshape into at level 20 is cr 6, while a T-Rex is cr 8, so no druid can RAW turn into a T-Rex
Most things talking about changing into a T-Rex are referring to using the Polymorph spell, which lets you turn the target into a beast with a CR up to the level of the target. You're totally right about the wild shape, Giant Ape FTW!
T-Rex does not exist. Those are dragon bones. You can not polymorph into anything you have not encountered in the wild personally in game, with that character.
@@davidbeppler3032 Dinosaurs exist. Tomb of Annihilation is littered with them. But I agree, the odds that a druid stopped by Chult before starting {insert campaign} are pretty low.
@@davidbeppler3032 It literally exists? In the monster manual, under the dinosaurs specification...
@@adrher13 You can read? Good for you. Your character been reading the monster manual also?
"Werewolves are not immune to fall damage." I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it.
“The dm has the right to change the rules as they see fit, even rules written in the books”
Idk, I think werewolves being immune to fall damage is a pretty dumb-ass decision. although I think that werewolves being immune to being smashed by the flail is stupid too so...
When I was fresh out of high school D&D sessions were 12hrs with 1-2 hour breaks for MTG and ordering food.
Instead of rules lawyering, I always inform the GM that they are free to hit me up at any time during, before, or after the game if they need rules clarifications on anything. If they get a rule wrong during game I just roll with it. No harm, no foul.
I once read Action Surge and misread it as the multiple action surges have to be on the SAME turn, then watched that weekend as my buddy who plays a high-level fighter used them on different turns and looked at the rules again on my phone.
9:21:
Rule 0: The DM decides what the rules are.
Rule -1: The players decide who the DM is.
if you get blinded with truesight, does that mean you're trueblinded? sorry, I'll go now
That was truly enough to give me a chuckle. :)
@@soultpp happy to help
4:08
I think we have to make a separation here:
If you have a hiding spot and the enemy knows you are there, they dont forget that you are there if you stealth, but it can cause them to loose Vision of you until they establish a clear line of sight. If they dont manage to get that, I would say you get the typical stealth bonuses again.
Fun to have you together and great info. Thanks!
The prone thing is just because it's actually really hard to hit the profile of some of laying down with a bow, being unconscious your profile from range is still much more narrow
See Ender's Game for the full tactical details.
It is worth noting that attacking an unconscious character gives you advantage, so it balances out.
1:46 this rule also means that if you cast a spell as an action and someone counterspells it, you can counterspell the counterspell, but if you cast a spell as a bonus action and someone counterspells it, you can't counterspell the counterspell.
correct
Pitchfork build when. where's the pitchfork build Blaine
I once made a pretty good argument to ignore the handbook in one particular instance and the DM went along with it. I used a smoke spell to blind a giant for a bit, then had my familiar use an illuminate object spell on the giant’s head. Some said what I did was useless because the giant should be able to see through the fog now. I argued that logically, the effect would be more like turning on high beams in fog, but worse, because the giant’s head itself is the light source, the fog would be blinding, meanwhile the glowing head would serve like a lighthouse beacon for us to barrage with projectile attacks. The DM ruled in favor of logic and creativity rather than the handbook, and I appreciate it.
3:56 what if your character uses a form of echolocation to see because they are blind but have heightened senses