The fact that the players immediately resort to “well this is impossible - we are all dead” as soon as they take a fraction of the damage that they can dish out is hilariously spot-on.
Thats intentional game design though. Player characters are all glass cannons with the exception of maybe barbarians. Would you want to be in a 2 hour slogfest where every player has 200+ HP?
@@arcitree9330 Player characters are anything but glass cannons. Sure, they don't have as much HP as the monsters do, but Absorb Elements, Shield and Silvery Barbs easily bridge that gap. There are 8 monsters with an AC of 23 or more in DND 5e, and a 2nd level character can easily reach that same AC.
I guess just fuck characters who dont have access to those spells then, right? And you forget that those spells are only accessible to the squishiest classes in the game. Disregarding multiclassing and the obvious caster/martial power imbalance, lets consider a situation. Lets take the paladin, who has none of that spell list. Assuming an average Con of +2, they have 40 HP at level 5. Lets put him against a CR 2 creature, less than half his level. 95% of the CR 2 creatures in the SRD have at least 40 HP. 50% of them have at least 55 HP. Some have upwards of 90. Assuming the paladin is using an optimized damage build with a greatsword, they will deal 4d6+23+6d8 damage with their attack. Thats an average of 69 (nice) damage. Enough to outright kill himself and most of the CR 2 category, while burning through his resources. Meanwhile, the bandit captain does 20 damage resourceless. Half the paladin's health every turn. Theres some math you can adjust based on AC and to-hit bonus, but suffice to say, the paladin cannot stomach their own DPS, while the bandit captain could go through three turn cycles just hitting himself. @@andreacallegari7137
@@arcitree9330 If only there was a way for the Paladin to get access to those spells. Like a 1 level dip in Hexblade Warlock, or Sorcerer. It's unfortunate that such things aren't allowed. "My paladin wouldn't do that, he wants to grow as a paladin for his whole adventuring career" sure, but that does not mean your paladin can't be better than what you allow it to be. The Paladin and the other casters do have ways to mitigate the damage they take from their enemies. They're called Spell Slots. Even a level 2 paladin could throw a Wrathful Smite on that scary Bandit Captain and reduce it to a scared chunk of HP. Not to mention the spells the rest of the party could throw at their enemies- Web to restrain, Pass without Trace to get a surprise round, Sleep to incapacitate eventual Minions, Levitate, Bless, Command or Dissonant Whispers, Spike Growth... the list goes on. Also, once the Bandit Captain reaches 0 HP, it's gone. Once the PC reach 0 HP, you have 2 rounds at worst to do something about it, or more if someone has access to the Revivify spell. To summarize: don't fear for the squishy Paladin, for the strength of the party will (usually) prevail in the end. And if you rush in combat and swing at your enemies without a care in the world, maybe dying will teach you to play this game better
I think I left at the same level I got Fireball? .... The DM's literally just ... would Double mobs health .... so if I spent all my Spell Points to create an extra 3rd level spell slot ... it'd take 3-4 fireballs to kill a room of goblins.... (We only had one combat per day .... so 'balanced' .... right?) We got rail-roaded constantly, illusion of choice... I quit the group ... I was a warforged ... I learned from a friend that they turned my character into a container to grow a massive tree out of ... and then later forced the characters to carve out my 'heart' for some quest .... DM's must've been angry. XD
I’ve been rolling so poorly lately that I sent a +10 to hit monster against my level three party. Even then it only hit once in three rounds (with extra attack)
@@alexmarkley4103Times like that are why I have three sets of dice. If one isn't playing nice, swap. If both the matching sets don't work, i call upon my emergency set
I love how the part that was the most upsetting to the player, that Rakshasa's are unaffected by lower level spells, was the one thing that Jacob didn't homebrew out of DM rage, that he specifically mentioned earlier in the combat and the player just forgot (which is completely accurate).
They both slipped up. The DM let the paladin use a 3rd level bonus action smite spell to deal damage. Part of what had him break was that damage that wasn’t applicable.
Also they messed up the spell effect for “Contagion”. The target is poisoned and they have to fail 3 saving throws before the (mind fire) confusion takes effect. It’s not instant
@@richarddarma1452 Contagion description: "Your touch inflicts disease. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, you afflict the creature with a disease of your choice from any of the ones described below. [then stuff about the saving throws]" There's no poisoned condition, the disease you choose takes effect immediately. 3 saves means it ends early, 3 failures means it lasts a week.
Underrated sound design at 2:14. GM throws dice over his shoulder, and we still hear them clattering on the floor when Barbooizard is acting. Good continuity
Definitely agree. There’s some excellent editing with this channel. I wonder how often he’s actually outfit swapping, or if he’s managing to act out the entire sketches as each player only once.
Party: "We did it! We killed the boss in one single round with all our spell slots!" DM: *quietly seething as he pulls out his emergency second phase sheet and starts playing Dark Souls music*
In one of my group i have to make a player boss, some of my friends is in the military he cant play regulary so i make him a player boss and when his entrance i play Dark Soul music and that's was so funny to see the reaction of my player
The worst part is, this is all really cool. The monk is using the full amount of his abilities to stun, aided by the wizard to force the roll to be low. This is an entire team effort, and it took all of their cunning and abilities to perfectly counter this boss. I'd be super okay with this encounter, because it took everything to make it function. This is also why stunning strike is so good for legendary action absorbing.
Well, it depends on the narrative. If if this is the culmination of multiple session’s worth of foreshadowing and ominous implications, you gotta deliver or the whole thing falls flat. On the other hand, if the players have been struggling along the journey to make it to this part, then an easier battle might be more cathartic
@@firelordeliteast6750Tbf, if a Rakshasa is your big finish to a questline against a lvl 10+ party, you should really beef up it's hp at the very least. Especially if it has no minions and fights alone.
@@firelordeliteast6750 It's a shared narrative, the DM's job isn't to tell a story to the players, it's to tie all the actions and events together while everyone creates a story together. If the party absolutely destroys the BBEG then that IS the narrative because it's what happened. DM's job at that point is to decide why it worked out that way, was the party lucky, did the prepare extremely well, maybe combination of the two, a bit cliche but you could even pull a "your princess is in another castle" move and have it turn out to not actually be the real boss. though, of course, ever table is different and I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who would rather have the DM fudge numbers on the fly to make it an epic climax but that's all part of the DM's job to tie everything together for the table they're at.
I really feel like the villain here was action economy. Which is why “boss” enemies have legendary actions, they need them to face off against parties 1v4
OH NOOOOOOOO!!! I have two girlfriends, but very few people on YT are happy for my relationship success. They disl*ke all of the videos I make with my 2 girlfriends. Please be kind, dear ama
@@gmacwizard8890 I had a villain rob them and use dimension door to escape. He chased the guy down and pummeled the poor enemy wizard into the concrete before the party caught up
If my players were as inventive as these guys in this situation, I wouldn't care that they speed rushed the encounter. My joy comes from seeing how players use their skills and powers to get through the problems I throw at them.
That’s an attitude I can appreciate. Some games are better when combat encounters end quickly anyway. It leaves more time for RP, preparation, and plot progression.
EXACTLY THIS, i love making my players think, seeing their creative thinking, problem solving, strong and cool builds, ETC is one of my FAVORITE things
While this usually is a good mindset to have, in the context of the encounter Jacob was building this probably wasn't just some random encounter, this was supposed to be an epic confrontation against a villain and in these instances it can go a long way towards upping the tension and excitement at the table to make encounters harder on the fly. Matt Colville once said "Encounter design doesn't stop once you've rolled initiative."
Chad Maneuver Count to determine just how much of a chad Sir Chad is. 1. He went on the ceiling with the wizard. 2. He jumped down from the ceiling expecting to take damage. 3. He verified the Rakshasa was a foul demon before attacking. 4. He got the DM to forget the Rakshasa would be immune to the Branding Smite. 5. He knows exactly what he wanted to do on his turn. 6. He technically took as much time for his turn as the Monk but most of it was taken up by the DM trying to punish him and then not being able to because Sir Chad had all the facts. 7. He only conveyed necessary information like what actions he was taking and how much damage he did. 8. He chose to use Divine Smite before knowing he would hit. 9. He used Great Weapon Master on the hit with Divine Smite. 10. He immediately used his Guided Strike without hesitation. 11. He is clearly a Conquest Paladin which is of course the best Paladin. 12. He remembered that he would have advantage on the Stunned Rakshasa. 13. He rolled and calculated his damage in an instant. 14. He gave a +5 to the Monks Saving Throw. 15. He killed the Rakshasa as the rest of the party panicked over petty things like being charmed and taking damage. With 15 Chad points in the bag I would rate Sir Chad a Gigachad out of Chad.
He also took advantage of the DM not caring about how many bonus actions the monk took so he could use his channel divinity and branding smite in one turn
Sir Chad remembering his abilities without taking 10 minutes for the first half of his turn, before retroactively deciding he wants to do something else? He really is a Chad.
my dm said that after I hit a bunch of these flying fellows that sucked blood they were so tiny that after I hit a shortsword attack DM said "They're dead you don't need to roll damage"
I had a character who could literally point at %90 of the enemies and just say it's dead. Didn't have to roll because the number of dice exceeded their health. The problem being the rest of the party were using two or three d10s so we had to "kill" him off and have him be the bbeg of the next campaign. The GM even let me voice him I was totally fangirling my own character. Till I realized I had to choose who would die. My pc was first to go because the op character always went first. They didn't manage to kill him on the first round, I was told he had all his powers from the old game so I pointed at the next character and said "dead." He then left through a portal flipping them off and giving them the whole bbeg goodbye for the next five to ten sessions where I might cameo but we won't get to fight him again till halfway through the campaign where he'll conveniently make another escape only to be foiled by the party at the last encounter. At least, that was what was going to happen but schedules changed and we didn't meet again after he stepped through the portal.
Only time I ever twinned a chromatic orb (stupid idea) I happened to natural 20 both rolls. 6d8 to two different enemies as a 4th level character was stupid. The DM was like, "yeah don't even roll, they're both just eviscerated..."
In his previous attack, Sir Chad rolled 8d8 and 3d6 for damage. The 3d6 was from the third-level branding smite, the Divine Smite accounts for 6d8 (targeting a fiend), and 1d8 comes from Improved Divine Smite. This means that the weapon Sir Chad is wielding is a 1d8 weapon. Between base damage and Improved Divine Smite, on a crit, we're looking at 4d8 plus modifiers, which are most likely high on account of him being high level and rolling 72 damage on his previous attack (before GWM was applied). Furthermore, by this level, paladins can attack twice each turn; we are to assume only one attack landed last turn, but this turn could well be different. And I haven't even mentioned Divine Smite this turn. There's no need to roll. TL;DR: He's Sir Chad.
2:09 Let's just appreciate the fact that when the DM throws his dice on the wall, you can hear them rolling on the floor on the next shot, Incredible...
This is hilariously accurate. I have a simple gentleman's agreement at my table. It is always assumed players can do absurd shit, and you let them do it because that's what players do. In turn the players never question the design of my monsters, or presume that they always adhere to 5e monster design precedents.
"wait, what monster is this? I don't remember it in the manual" "it's a crypt spider, it's from another manual" "but I can't find it in google" "yeah, I know, too bad" and even when I use normal monsters, I have to change something, maybe lower the number of dices per attack, increase health, change res and vun and everything, because there is nothing I hate more that having someone say to me:"ahh, that's a wight, it will be good, yes, now I'll hit the vunerability without rolling anything and by pure chance. and oh, master, with that attack it's already over max hp for the creature, I think it should be dead". no, I'm the one telling the story, you can't know how it will end before everyone else
We have the agreement of no looking up monsters, and also that even if you know immunities, and can’t quite remember. You don’t ask you roll an arcana or history check. I have learned a lot of things resist lighting as a tempest cleric. Also the rule is, if you min max your character, the monsters min max as well
I love how nearly all effects shocased: Portent, cunning action, wildshape, rage, tabaxi sprint an even the smites are all obtained from under 5th level. They are some silly multiclass though.
Did you know that a lvl 17 warlock-hexblade, sorcerer, fighter multi class can fire 12 eldritch blast beams in one round? And if they are concentrating on 5th lvl spirit shroud and have an enemy 10ft away from them marked with hexblades curse the potential damage if all hit is 12d10+36d8+136. Each of those beams can crit on a 19 or a twenty. Max DPS I had in a round was 391
I love that most of the abilities that the party used weren't even 10th level or higher abilities, but when used well backed up by higher level stats they add up to some very strong combinations.
Not just that but he asked if it was a foul demon before attacking with his smites. He doesn't spam his smites for common enemies he saves it for when it's truly needed. True Chad.
As a player I too have become that person sometimes. There's the feeling of 'man this two year campaign is seriously gonna end to some random fight?' And then you realise mass healing word is busted and you are actually fine and everyone is back up
So mass healing word IS a busted spell, but its players can get upset when their overpowered combo doesn't work the way they have been steamrolling. You want a fight to be hard on players throw lots of enemies at them, if you want them to feel it was a tough fight but let them do all their cool stuff then legendary boss fights are the best. Also yeah, some fights if taken poorly CAN be unwinnable, and it makes for great stories.
honestly when a fight is hard it's the most fun we were in a big room, we just fought a giant naga and we're all almost dead two air elementals suddently appear from nowhere and we're basically screwed but we somehow manage to win without anyone dead and that was like the most fun fight ever hard fights are awesome
@@justcri Fight challenge has nothing to do with the enjoyment of the game. If you have to bend and break rules to challenge your players then you shouldn't dm. I don't Fudge dice rules or anything. Hate when DM's taint the game to be more fun for them.
In all honesty, if my players remembered all their spells/traits, fought cleverly and held information inside their heads for longer that 5 seconds, I'd be happy to give them the kill without so much as a scratch, even applaud. If players are having fun and feel proud of themselves for overcoming obstacles, that's not the DM losing, that's the DM doing a good job.
even then, it's good for immersion if not all monsters of a species have the same abilities, boss encounters should be somewhat surprising, you're fighting an individual with his own history and skills not just a by the book standard for his species..
@@timothypeterson4781 noone's saying they can't lose, only that if players defeat an enemy through perfectly legal means, the DM shouldn't go making up excuses to ruin the kill. Of course, there are lines to be drawn where a mechanic abuse is taking place, for example bards and their infamous seductions, but that's an entirely different rabbit hole.
I understand, in one of my campaigns as a monk, I found out that my DM didn't know that I was surpassing resistance with my unarmed attacks, so I was nerfed for no reason in many fights, at least we found out about it almost in the middle of a boss fight xd
@@BK-hu4qf that's just dumb, the DM is supposed to tell you when the damage you dealt is halved, i usually say something like "your attack didn't seem to be as effective as you would expect" so the players know the enemy has resistance.
@@fall-from-grace1008 eh, you could very easily homerule that as a 'you need to do an arcana or smthn to figure that out', which actually buffs characters that gain info on attack but regardless this is why i never use resistances in the first place.
I want to appreciate the writing of the skit because I so quickly went from rooting for the dm to have a fair battle to wanting the party to defeat the rakasha
@@lukeeatschips6324 you really think after all this drama and heroics the party went through and how engaged the skit showed them that a one round instant kill would be better? 😂
@@StretchtoYourHeart Yes. The DM didn't prepare and cheated, the real party would have know he did and called him out on it. Doing your job well is fun in DnD, the DM will be better at preparing enemies next time.
@@lukeeatschips6324 Improvising is part of being a DM, a real party would expect an experienced DM to do stuff that isn't by the books because action economy is scuffed at later levels. You're right, doing your job well is fun, but is it really a good job if there's no challenge to it? You're completely missing the point of the skit despite it being completely spelt out, sure the DM "cheated" but the Barbarian he hit wasn't knocked to half HP, wasn't dying, and still had all his tools available to him but was whining because he could no longer steamroll the encounter.
Tbh for the first half of this video is was thinking none of these people seem fun to play with. Snobby overleveled PCs and a DM blindly cheating when he made a too weak boss fight to start. Wouldn’t wanna know any of these people
Final session of the campaign, we're fighting 18 of the hardest enemies we've met, Constructs made of adamantine called "peacemakers." Resistances and immunities across the board, weapons out the wazoo, and high ac, Hp, and damage. It was supposed to be a battle we ran away from... The wizard cast Dark Star... they were vulnerable to force damage... it was over in a round...
For the record? This is when, as a GM, you cheat. Exponentially bigger health pools, sudden dragons from nowhere, other complications. Because PCs deserve to be rewarded for good luck and cool tricks, but also fuck that, it doesn't get to be that easy.
Yeah some people giving the DM hell for fudging, but where's the fun in bulldozing every single encounter that easily. Yeah sure the first time players getting to use all these abilities will be very fun for them, but after so many encounters it stops becoming fun because nothing would be challenging anymore. A DM should always strive to make encounters challenging and fun for players even if stats or rolls are being changed on the fly.
@@TimaeusEXE I usually am trying to adjust so I don't accidentally kill PCs. I think I run pre-made modules differently than intended somehow, because they tend more towards a likely TPK than I would think. I think some modules are written assuming I'm running it more like Heroquest, where the enemies don't exist until you are deliberately interacting with the new room they are in. I think I tend to assume that some of the groups of enemies will hear and run towards combat in nearby rooms. Then again, I haven't DMed for a while, and I haven't DMed frequently enough to get a good feel for it.
@@Ralnarene well usually you shouldn't make it too easy either or the players won't feel challenged or will get the feeling that they won't ever have to worry about death. If you want PC deaths at some point I'd definitely wait till the players had some history with their PCs or if they're near or at the end of a dungeon. If you don't want PC deaths but do want them to fear failure then give them a objective that they must carefully or quickly accomplish or some horrid event will happen if they fail.
The best part of this is that the first turn is almost all possible at level 5, level 3 for everything but stunning strike (feather fall, portent, rage, Dhampir spiderclimb at lvl 3), and the way that the players feel like the monster is stupid and broken as soon as it actually gets a turn despite them still winning on the second turn
That also confused me, the title sais group above 10th lvl and all they throw at the dm are low level abilities and the dm cant handle it. ^^ also that sounded like a strategy the players would have used more than once already, cant realy relate to the no fall dm tantrum the dm hat, but as a who had a divination wizard up to 15th lvl in his goup i can relate to the dice swap mechanic ^^
Really, based on my experience, I'm just surprised that the 10th level higher characters actually remember all of their abilities, usually people forget everything they have in their character 'packet' by this point
The portent/super fast monk combo has happened in some of my games in the past and it's hilarious to see you make the exact same facial expressions lmao
Currently rocking Portent in my game, but our Monk unfortunately had to abscond the game for real life reasons, so the DM is spared from one of these possible interactions. =P
imagine speedy monk with super buff legs, and the ever-present 7 attacks per turn fighter with really buff arms, teaming up with like the fighter riding on the monk's shoulders
@@Icemon2705 thats an interesting question, because id argue that the damage still affects him since its bonus damage on the paladins attack (as its a self spell) but the branding effect wouldnt work.
I love that. "Rakshasa's have legendary actions? "He can cast a spell with his Legendary Action?" "This one can!" I can add whatever I want to the stat block. This isn't just a Rakshasa. This is Nabu the Bloodspiller, and he can do this.
The real mistake the DM made was thinking an unmodified lone rakshasa would be a boss fight for a party of level 11 PCs. It says right in their stat block that they're CR 13. DM should have just felt lucky the paladin didn't switch to a spear to capitalize on their vulnerability to piercing damage from good creatures. As is, it was a perfectly effective middle-difficulty encounter that made the party burn some limited resources to weaken them for the true end boss.
And therein lies one of the more boring and tedious parts of 5E's core design which is "the adventuring day" and attrition. It's been so, so long since the vast majority of people have played in a way that is in line with the adventuring day. We're talking literally 3.5e. No one wants this anymore.
This dm seems like shit now what he should have dont is either have backup arrive for the creature mid combat or actually check what his party can do before hand not suddenly give it a bunch of abilities
@@Amrylin1337 I've literally switched to doing one set of resources per session and it's video gamey and silly but it has led to far more tactically satisfying combats
A normal, unmodded rakshasa is kinda shit in a direct fight despite being CR13. It's not an enemy you run as a boss, it's an enemy you harass the party with over the course of an entire campaign. Its only two spells that are good for a direct confrontation are Dominate Person, which is self-explanatory, and Plane Shift, which it can just use to yeet a PC to Hell forever. If that doesn't work, the rakshasa needs to get outta there because two claw attacks for an average of 9 damage is laughable for a party that can deal with CR13
Me: "Alright, roll for stealth" My players: Invisibility Boots of elvenkind (advantage) Pass without trace (+10) Flash of genius (+5) Hide in plain sight (+10) Bardic inspiration (+D12) Guidance (+D4) Bend luck (+D4) Lucky feat (additional roll) Boon of undetectability (+10) So with a nat20 and max rolls, that'll be... *70*
Wow, I feel bad for those PCs. The math there would mean that to get a 70 in that circumstance, they have a Stealth bonus of -5. No wonder they feel the need for all those buffs lol It's okay, though, I'm sure the party rogue with 20 Dexterity and Stealth Expertise (but no hide in plain sight) is enjoying having a stealth of 74 (or 76 if they're at least 17th level) after rolling two 1s and a 2, thanks to Reliable Talent.
The booming "NO" is such a wonderful moment as a DM. I don't experience it often but when I do it makes the players squirm. Sometimes, it doesn't work like that
Well, the wizard must have been at least Barbarian 3 and Druid 2 (if Circle of the Moon, otherwise Druid 8) to pull off the combo, plus Contagion is a level 5 spell.
@@AnadynTheCursed You get access to 5th level spells at caster level 9, so contagion is in (though, like you pointed out it would have to be over level 10 to have that on top of 3 barbarian levels) But the main point is that even if a combo is high level, there are little to no uses of actual high level abilities.
@@MoonPatch I think the point is that they have so many of them at this point that it's their combination that makes them invincible rather than any of them in particular.
@@AnadynTheCursed Fair enough, I was just making an observation that most of DM Jacob's frustrations came from basic class or subclass features rather than high level stuff. Except the speed of sound tabaxi monk with boots of speed, that one's a classic.
I'm a forever DM and I'm currently running for a group of 7 level 15 characters. This hit close to home. I've been playing since 1984 and still, I love this god damn game
7 players at level 15? How do you even deal with that action economy when nowadays everyone seams to be at least a half caster? At level 14 if you have both divination wizard and necromancer they can both once a day combo into turning any single undead into ally, if it's intelligence is under 12 they can chose to keep it forever until they find a better one, that includes CR 20 Nightwalker.
@@AIWARAS619 The party is 1 cleric, 1 cleric/fighter, 2 sorcerers, 1 rouge, 1 ranger/warlock and 1 fighter. It takes some creative DM:ing and I wouldn't have been able to do it unless I had DMed for so long. It helps that my players are experienced as well
@@drefk1973 Do they ever go easy on you? Like choosing not to cast slow on a hydra when it's clearly the final fight or banish half of the enemy fighting force(especially when they are winning anyway) despite being able to? From my experience it takes a lot of time to learn restraint and I myself was guilty of cheep shots like that for a bit when I still played(a.k.a. not playing with the DM instead of against the DM).
@@drefk1973 I guess after 38 years of DM'ing it's hard to trow something at you that would phase you even at these numbers, and with players of similar calibre it's the same for them.
I feel this so hard as a DM. I've also switched to giving any "boss" NPC legendary actions, additional hit points (going with max rolled is a decent start), and allow their abilities to be fungible in combat just so they survive long enough to hopefully have two turns of action.
@@Isometrix116 I have, but they don't do much to prolong the life of the BBEG when the party focuses on BBEG, then cleans up their minions and champions in the following round.
@@sanjaraejour9632 I've given the bosses free movement as reactions before, allowing them to position themselves in better places while ignoring attacks of opportunity. Special actions and reactions can make a boss battle actually interesting. Take for example, an Evil Sorcerer that floats around the battlefield casting a multitude of spells to harass the PC's while also being able to zip around as a reaction to being targeted(5-6 recharge) , then using a legendary action (one per turn) to punish the PC's further, I didn't even have to give the guy crazy damage or HP to make him a tough opponent, I used regular spells at base level from the PHB, and he had 50 HP, up against three level 9 PCs. My PC's won, but it was a hard fight because the BBEG had advantage of the action economy, but was only one guy to target, I also counter spelled a revivify, which caused my players to have a shit and a laugh.
I gave a boss fight legendary actions against my level 3 players, it's necessary if you want to be able to create a balanced party on 1 fight, otherwise it's either "they win because they go first" or "it wins because it goes first"
One of my friends accidentally ran a hag as three monsters because he misunderstood the rules around a hag coven. It was the the best mistake ever. Opened my eyes to the fact that it should be perfectly balanced to break a monster into pieces, or stitch together a monster. Want to give a monster legendary actions? Let it use part of it's multi-attack outside it's turn. Want to have a single boss that the party can't focus? Stitch together the boss and your two lieutenants. If they focus or disable the boss, it losses it's best abilities, but can still use the lieutenants abilities so doesn't sit there like a wet rag while they wail on it.
I love dm'ing for higher level things. I just did a 1 shot of lvl 20 characters that was a blast. It lasted for 4 rounds in total but watching them having so much fun with the power of the demi-gods, so worth it
@@adammackintosh430 That is not how that works. That duration is how long it lasts on the creatures you cast it on Also, unrelated to this, weren't the spells he cast against it below sixth level, and therefore they would not count?
Yeah, by raw feather fall is a pain to use in combat, in that situation everyone would need to ready their actions to jump at the same time the caster does so he can use his reaction to cast it on everyone.
As a DM, I’ve done a campaign from level 5 to level 20, at the end the party was literally fighting a False god and then a madman wizard who served an Eldritch horror and stole the powers of the defeated false god. After a while, nothing phased me. I don’t even keep track of health of anything past CR 20, and just pick a moment that narratively makes sense with the story and the situation for the creature to fall. Makes it more fun.
The way we get around the power keep effect is that we make up encounters with NPCS who use player rules. One of the most memorable Champaigns I DMed I ended up using a level 20 character I made for fun, who was basically a ninja straight of the Naruto cartoon, fight the level 17 party with his gang of dudes. It ended up being loads of fun and kept the campaign fairly well grounded. Which fit with the story I had laid out.
Rule zero of D&D is actually "use the DM screen to convince the party that rules exist as anything other than propaganda to force the suspension of their disbelief."
@@RosscoAW Yeah, I don’t let them win until they’re biting their nails, getting a bit of forehead sweat, and watching each dice roll with bated breath. The exception being if someone comes up with a real clever idea that changes the dynamics of the fight (I.e Rule of Cool) or comes up with a grounded, well thought out argument that directly challenges the villains beliefs or goals. Then I let them verbally spar back and force until they either reach a logic impasse, a fight fight breaks out due to anger, or convinces the big bad to stand down/surrender/retreat/etc. But they must make a solid logical argument in order to get that option (emotional “because it’s evil” arguments get tossed aside with a simple “good and evil are points of view” argument).
Hoo, my DM had two separate groups in the same adventure and diferent places. Then he almost obliterated the second group, spawned a demon out of his ass, corrupted they all into undead and turned them into villains trying to the destroy the plane. And for us, the newer and still a hero party he said" I gotta other set of players hunting for you, u have the option to fight, or die". And that's how he set up pvp of 12 players. Side note, my group was of noobs, theirs strongest mage with 30 intelligence stopped time, set up 2 traps, them casted meteors for 240 damage on my blind and oblivious party. Not enough? The DM aware of power issues, also put another threat on the already loosing battle, just 200m high something like a dragon, and tiamate later to destroy that one. The villain mage became a God, everybody died (also tiamate) and he resurrected all giving his life because his objective was to protect his sister even if he destroyed the world. It was chaotic, insane and epic. (Revived dead characters along with the players current ones and made everybody crie)
As a DM running Tomb for a 10th level party, you can absolutely make encounters that decimate your players even when they're power gaming. I don't like making encounters my players can't win. My job is to give them interesting challenges that allow them to feel the myth and heroism of their characters
Literally this. Don't no-sell your player characters using their powerful abilities just because you failed to prepare a remotely adequate challenge. The video is played up for comedic effect, but if you regularly find yourself doing this sort of thing in a real game then you're a bad DM. Christ, not even a single cultist or supplicant? Just a big empty room? That rakshasa is practically asking to get dusted.
@@anachronity9002 To that I will say that the "one villain vs several heroes" is a fantasy and media staple, and it's expected both by players and DM's. However the game isn't balanced around that. This video is comedically showing the extra steps you need to go through in order to have that sort of final, 1vsMany confrontation. Ideally, you shouldn't do this mid-game, but if you want to homebrew your boss to fight a whole party, then you BETTER pull some crazy things.
I mean, yeah, but, you never just wanted to have an absolutely epic battle with a legendary ancient dragon that was actually as scary as it should be without also having to control their legions of Kobolds and Cultists? Why should a DM always have to swarm the party with a dozen or more minions that they have to keep track of in order for there to be any actual stakes to a fight? Or create some bullshit magical forcefield mechanic for the party to dismantle so that they are appropriately worried about their chances when they finally get to take chunks out of its scaly hide? I'm already tracking lair actions, legendary actions, legendary resistances, making snap rulings, calculating the height of the ceilings, keeping a round counter, tracking initiative, tracking conditions and spell durations, being quizzed on the technical details of the PC's abilities and restraining myself from throwing my dice out the nearest window since for some reason I can't roll above a five. Why do I also have to track six or more other enemies? Why can't Soul Devourer the Wicked, Shadow Dragon of the Bloodied Heart, Scourge of the Western Coast, The Great Wyrm of Desolation stand up to more than eighteen seconds of combat with some tinned snacks without setting the rest of his pantry on them?
@@Bookluver29 Yeah okay but I want you to also think about your players, your players' fun, and whether you're really lying to them like that for their own fun. You're playing a game called Dungeons & Dragons, and that's how the game works. *IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THAT*, you are now a game designer. You need to decide AT THE START, how the boss works differently and you need to stick to this and you need to telegraph it so the players don't waste their actions. You see, to make things up completely on the spot and fiat things like in the video, you are giving lie to the implicit promises you made when you all agreed to play D&D. Promises that, if given words, might go something like "spells and abilities do what they say", "your characters' actions matter", or "all of these numbers and abilities are worth keeping track of". Tell me, what would you do if one of your players went to zero, then on their next turn instead of rolling a death save said "Krog... stands up again. His berserker lineage is too powerful to keep down! He continues to fight!" in absence of any ability allowing this, and then ran up and attacked the monster that downed them? Would it feel unfair? Like the player is cheating and covering it up with some roleplay? Does every party member get to make stuff up now? These are things that need to be written out *beforehand* in the forms of abilities or items a character or creature has to avoid them feeling unfair and arbitrary. This gives rise to the unexpected results and outcomes that are the entire point of the game. If you want things to go exactly the way you envision them every time... why are you even playing Dungeons and Dragons?
I'm gonna be super honest, I love when my players do this kind of thing. I mean yeah, building the encounter is tedious but watching them overcome it and seeing them be super happy with themselves makes me enjoy being a dm
Same! Especially if it was a challenging encounter. Man, when they cheer as the killing blow hits the final enemy (better if it was a boss), I feel fulfilled. It is my joy see my player overcome their trials, just as much as seeing them choose the dumbest way to solve a problem XD
The Song at 4:55 is Called "The Eternal war" by Dream cave If you got that itch where you feel like you heard this before from somewhere it might be from the Rust UA-camr Enardo its the song he plays when the Zerg is coming
I’m currently running a game for level 20+ characters. This was very accurate. Between their proficiency bonuses, magic weapons, and high stats I barely even listen to see if they hit anymore unless the roll was like 3 or lower
You can always just make the DC of your creatures higher, like 25 or 30. Even at level 20 and higher, you're allowed to make things challenging, and encounters can still be hard not to die in. And if there's no creatures with high enough stats, you can always just boost a creature's stats, give it new abilities, or just make a bunch of level 20+ npcs to fight
@@ellies_silly_zoo For boss fights I do. But you can’t go crazy with that stuff. Even an AC of 25 (which, I believe, is the highest that can be found in the MM) would require a roll of about 6 or 7 for most of them to hit. So it isn’t like I can go sticking those kind of numbers on every skeleton and mid tier demon they run across
@@jh-ne4sy AC 30+ then? You can probably find a reason why those creatures are so strong. Or maybe just end the campaign and start again at a lower level if you're _this_ far
@@jh-ne4sy Why would you be limited by the MM? I'm running a campaign where I make 90% of the creatures myself. They are now level 9 and I already threw 30 ac creatures at them. MM works for as long as it works, but if it doesn't, make your own stuff. Or just boost existing stuff.
Maybe I was unclear. I don’t have a problem that my players are hitting so often and have such high bonuses. I was just observing how spot on the joke was. I’m well aware that you can change monsters stats, but why would I go out of my way to buff up minions? Just to make epic level characters feel less epic? I’m happy to save the crazy stuff for the bosses and let the PCs massacre all the henchmen they want
As someone who recently got done DMing campaign of this level, yeah it can feel like this. High level play can actually be really fun, but it's important to keep in mind that you can't run it the same way that you do with low level games. Your players have a lot of powerful abilities, so It's okay to make your monsters more powerful in retaliation. I'm gonna give some tips I have for higher level play since there's not a lot of tips for it: -Have less combat encounters, but make them more impactful. Combat is going to take a while due to how many abilites people have. It's better to have quality over quantity to not bog down the game. -Bring in minions to the fight. Always have more than one target on the field, even if they are a distraction. Plus, having minions can add complications like them buffing the main target. -Sometimes, it's okay to cheat (within reason). If the party is smoking your bad guy, you are allowed to fudge the roll to make the moment more impactful. Don't overuse this as it can turn antagonistic. Also, homebrew is totally okay to make the monsters feel fresh and new -Lean into the spectacle. Higher level D&D is almost like a superhero movie. Lean into the awesome stuff that everyone can do. Even if the fight turns out to be a joke difficulty wise, good descriptions and use of abilities can turn the easiest fight into one of the most memorable! -Add other criteria to fights. This works for low lever as much as it does for high level. Now ever fight has to be to the death. Add some sort of complication to the battle that makes it more stressful. Perhaps there are hostages that need to be saved. Maybe they have to defend the castle gates from being destroyed. Maybe they are on a burning airship falling toward the earth at high speeds! Adding more issue to the encounter will have to make the players think way more about their next move! I know this was a comedy video, but I hope these tips can help someone. Higher level play can be really fun, but it can be hard to run if you don't understand it.
I like the first tip, unless they are doing a dungeon crawl. I think in that case including combats throughout is still important. They are nice because: a. you don't have to worry about balancing them so they aren't too easy. If they're too easy that's ok because... b. Their purpose is to drain the party's resources. Even if the encounter is easy, your players like to expend their cool abilities when they get the chance. c. It gives the party a chance to feel really powerful, before inevitably ripping that confidence away at the boss fight. If all their combats at high levels are basically boss battles the players may not get a chance to feel like the absolute gods they have become over the course of the game. Let the wizard kill 20 minions with a well placed fireball, let the fighter tank the attacks from all 8 enemies guarding the temple, then kill two of them next turn. That's great! By the time the boss comes, the casters will have spent some spell slots, the tanks will be down some health, but still able to dish out just as much damage, and rogues get to feel special that they are always useful at dealing a ton of damage no matter how long the dungeon was. There's a great example of this in campaign 2 of critical role where the party had to fight a literal unlimited supply of skeletons. They were level 9, so skeletons weren't exactly powerful enemies, but the spellcasters were casting some aoe spells to deal with them, and eventually they realized the skeletons were infinite, and that they had to solve the puzzle to get through the room BEFORE finishing the combat. It was still interesting even though the enemies were just weak skeletons, and it served its purpose of expending some of the party's resources to make the boss fight at the end of the dungeon more impactful.
@@rk9sbpro83 Honestly, even in dungeons you can tone down the amount of encounters. Yes you will have more encoutners than usual, but it's important to remember the other aspects of dungeons. the exploration. You can have various traps and puzzles that will drain resources that same way encounters do while being MUCH quicker.
If you have fewer encounters prepare to buff HP on everything you want alive by 2 - 3 times. D&D's adventuring day design makes everything dramatic tedious unless you've burnt their resources out in prior pointlessly boring random encounters like a Final Fantasy game or something.
The very first top is going to screw the balance of the game hard and piss off your fighters. For better or worse dnd is a game of attrition. 6 fight per day minimum to wear down the god tier casters.
The Dominate Person moment is hilarious to me because the idea that a player wouldn’t immediately jump at the opportunity to battle their Party members without repercussion is just not a thing at my table. One combat session we had not 1, not 2, but 3 of our Party Members mind controlled. 2 of them were focused on killing each other and the last person was essentially a giant super werewolf attacking their love interest. Good times
why tho, my friends (key word) have only ever entertained hurting eachother in a non-canon arena situation. I'm down for it even tho I'd be first to die, tfw, bard support.
My table REFUSES to accept mind control for any reason, I’d say that the enemy commands that you attack Sir Chad, and the controlled player would just say “no I’m not letting my character do that”. And they keep trying to find reasons as to why their character won’t attack their allies even though they have no choice
yeah all of my party and DM are friends IRL we have a homebrew where we die but can respawn and are forcibly stopped from attacking one of the party unless it's under circumstances that allow it, e.g they're berserk and cannot determine friend from foe or it's indirect. this has funnily enough ended up making half of our deaths from PVP interactions where one of the party has been "blessed" and then gone berserk and the player is like "lmao it's PvP time"
@@dominustin5926that’s when you just say “you black out for 1d4 minutes” and simply inform them of what’s happened after the fact. They weren’t in control, they weren’t conscious.
I literally had this encounter last Friday. The rakshasa was disguised as a merchant woman and gave a story that the rest of the party bought...except the monk who rolled a really high insight and attacked. monk strikes at that level are magic and she used ki. it was a very one sided fight. Rakshasa planeshifted the hell out of there on his second round.
Rakshasa: "Ow, jeez. I tell one little white lie and you punch me in the face!? You got anger issues to sort. Aw, I didn't even want to be here to begin with. I'm out, I'm out. You're a dick. I'm out."
Uhm, actually (pun intended): Feather fall says that you can choose up to five "falling" creatures, as Chad wasn't falling at the moment of casting feather fall wouldn't work on him.
@@GuardianTactician Yeah, but there's a specified turn order. That's like saying the fighter kills the lich but the lich was able to get off his Power Word: Kill at the same time even though the fighter acted before him.
@@KuonilerariLoufanwald I can see both argument. Only thing I can see to support his is that feather fall is a reaction. So the lich king argument falls on here.
This resonates with my core essence. The last session I ran had a werewolf boss that was totally bullied into submission. Fortunately I buffed him up before the fight happened because werewolves aren’t as tough as I thought and my party is 6 lvl 5’s, so I got some good damage on my players
Well yeah. You set up one werewolf to fight 5 powered individuals. He hits one guy while the 4 others are swinging him. One can use real life logic for that one to see that was gonna the way it was.
2:07 can we just talk about how he throws the dice behind him and then on the next cut where he plays another character in the skit, *you can still hear the dice rolling on the floor?*
@@Matork2100 I wouldn't exactly call it continuity, dice just don't... roll that long. It was like a dice rolling sound effect on multiple loops. Very weird editing.
3:14 - my DM looked exactly like this when my lvl 3 goblin moon druid casted no trace and wildshaped into a nyxborn lynx, getting +16 on stealth, ambush as a bonus action and ability to pass through objects. I obliterated everything in sight and after that encounter I got hit by a rock that fell from the moon and forgot about such creature entirely
@@NSFWTHICC OP even admits that what his dm let him do basically broke the game and forced him to undo his decision. If the dm had put his foot down from the start and kept OP within the bounds of what his character should reasonably be able to do he wouldn’t have had to make any emergency retcon and the campaign would’ve been better for it. Therefore he’s a pushover
This reminds me of a campaign where I had a samurai and I had run out of arrows. So I asked the DM if I could knock, and shoot, my katana instead. They said if I failed the roll, my katana would be destroyed. I rolled a natural 20. That Katana had never flown so true. We were both in shock and then we both laughed and they found a fun way to make the Katana split my opponent and stick in the tree behind them. Was it practical? No. Did my DM make it possible and fun at the same time? God damn right they did.
You have succinctly explained why I really despise higher level campaigns. There's this feeling of "well, instead of telling a story, I have to carefully strategize my opponents build to ensure that *any* of this is going to be the *slightest* bit challenging."
I have four players, one of them exactly like the players in this, the rest are basically roleplayers/normal players. Never felt a quote like that one. Theyre only level 7 if that helps.
This hits hard since i just recently played a lvl 6 oneshot and it was already challenging for my DM to balance the boss fight a homebrew Wyvern (mostly because of the double crit our ranger dealt) but after some health buffs it got pretty interesting since it got a magic absorbtion abillity that stole spellslots to heal and i got to teleport our barbarian on to it to wrestle it to the ground until we could hit it melee. lesson to learn here is that sometimes a simple health buff can prolong and improve the fun of an encounter without letting the players feel like they are helples
Sending 1 monsters vs a group of adventurer, if it had some chaff to take some hit or to bog down some of the party, the wyvern might have stood a chance.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 if the game is too easy it’s not fun. If the game is too hard, it’s also not fun. You as the DM are less of a player and more of a referee to keep things in balance.
@@Solrex_the_Sun_King Eh, I'm pretty sure the fun comes from being surprised and from fantasy fulfillment. My table plays to have fun and unwind. Variety and agency matters way more than difficulty for us. Especially if you're really concerned with roleplay? Like wtf does difficulty have to do with roleplay? I thought you were on a "THIS ISN'T A WAR GAME!" platform?
One word: action economy. Single enemies don't work well at all against high level parties. If I want a challenging encounter I always throw in several minions (or one extremely powerful minion), as well as other distractions such as lair actions, or environmental things like a burning airship crashing towards the players :P
I love how this shows the responsibility of the DM. Like the players can min-max all they want, but at the end of the day, when the DM says "this one can" they have to accept it, that's the game's design. Of course I also appreciate how when he does complain he's still at over half hp because that's just how strong players are at this point.
@@badluckbrian46 yeah, it's the gms job to make the game challenging and fun. If you can't do that without taking away or making useless the PC toys, you're a bad gm.
I love how the players were complaining "it's not fair, how can we ever possibly fight this boss?" Like the dm is supposed to only send one shotable opponents
For real though. My players (5 level 5's) fought a Chimera (CR6) yesterday, they got terrified by the breath weapon's damage.... but they still 2 rounded the darn thing when it was bottom of the initiative. Of course, the paladin double-smiting on a *crit* didn't help... but still.
This reminds me of how my dm spent 3 literal months trying to making a creature that could kill my entire party of 6 players and I managed to kill it in my first turn The things you can do at mid level are crazy
I like how, even when he's trying to _seem_ like the big bad guy, Jacob's DM form still really just wants to be a good DM. It would've been so easy to go "and now he gets another attack" but he didn't. He wants this encounter to be challenging, scary even, but not fatal. I had a similar thing recently, where I'd pitched my Lv1 players up against some creatures they had no business facing yet, fiddling with the stats and abilities as the fights progressed, tuning it juuuust right so that it took some effort but they managed to make it out with minimal damage. They're still convinced that their lives were at the mercy of a single dice roll, which is of course true at 1st Level, but come on I'm not going to kill my party in session one guys don't be silly.
DM I had did just that, threw underpowered and underleveled encounters at us and we just could not beat them. On purpose. To make it “challenging.” No mercy, if we died we died, no DM magic or intervention. We didn’t survive past the second encounter.
I like to just use the "and then reinforcements arrived" tactic. Crushing my encounter to quickly? Uh, looks like more guards heard the noise and came running! But if they're struggling to win, no reinforcements necessary, just use the original boss.
I had a DM ask me what I thought about an encounter once and I had to sit down and tell him that an encounter of 8 bandits, 1 bandit leader, 2 ogres, 3 half ogres, a manticore, and a hill giant all as written, were NOT an appropriate encounter for a 3rd level party. That campaign was a combat nightmare. Lots of near TPKs. As in, only one surviving party member at the end of fights. No one from the origional group was still alive 4 sessions in
This is truly what it means to be a forever DM: just wanting players to win as a function of *their own actions* rather than you eventually just giving up and forcing the world to contort around them in unknown ways. Every now and then a player rises above, and you can convince them to run a one-shot you get to play in, at which point they realize the terrible burden of godhead (lmao) and go back to being just a player. 😂
Damn Jacob's acting skills have grown so much throughout the channel, comparing this to some of the earlier videos, he was always fun to watch but he actually feels like different characters even though its just him and they all look exactly like him.
I dm'ed for my long running campaign and put an enemy that is purposely hard for melee combatants (since my party was half melee half spellcaster for variety and STRATEGIC PLANNING) making a golem with 2 bodies attached and 6 attacks with 2 reactions...the melee fighters basically 2 shot it. They were level 15
yep, sounds like level fifteen martial classes to me, though not accounting for whatever magic items that may or may not have been given, they can be pretty dangerous
@@fallenangeldraco3778 when I first started I gave them magic items way too early and they were effectively glass cannons which made fights super hard to balance lol I figured it out now as they routinely get their butts whooped lol
Druid: I'm going to conjure animals and summon a ton of raptors, which attack the Rakshasa with advantage because of pack tactics. DM: The Rakshasa is immune to all spells below 6th level Druid: Yeah but the spell isn't affecting him. It's raptors attacking him. DM: Oh well he's immune to non-magical-- Druid: I'm a shepherd druid, so the attacks are all magical. Oh and they get a bonus 6 HP each. And they regain hit points every turn. DM: Sigh...okay go ahead and make your 64 attack rolls. ~~2 hours later~~ Druid: okay so a few of them crit, so that's 250 damage. DM: wow...okay well... Paladin: hey did you add my crusader's mantle on each of those attacks? Druid: another 150. DM: so...he's looking...injured...
@@aprilecotton2060 ye, but when a specific and quite frankly ridiculous thing keeps happening in the campaign you run (ie. Players abusing the crap out of a spell such as Feather Fall) you can't help but remember certain rules better. My players honestly thought they could become flying squirrels every time they see something high to climb/jump off of XD
"The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn." I know everything on DnD is up to the DM, but understanding that the turns are theoretically happening at the same, I'd say that Sir Chad was absolutely falling when the spell was cast, they are not actually taking turns in the game universe, that would not make any sense, I could hear this argument if they jumped at "different times" but the two of them fell from the ceiling as their first movement during their turns, I'd say your interpretation of this is just plain incorrect given how turns work in the game universe and needlessly punishing for your players.
@@SpopySpider you're assuming dnd battles are like real time battles in MMORPGs like Elder Scrolls where you simultaneously attack opponents together with other players. That is incorrect. The rounds and seconds are there to force the battle to make sense for the sake of spell durations and casting times. In actual gameplay, players take turns and can't anticipate each other's actions unless they discussed it before engaging in the fight. As you saw, the hypothetical party members in the video didn't, so the caster shouldn't have been able to also extend their reaction by another reaction to another creature. Also, in a DnD battle, there can be as many active opponents as the DM describes. 10, 100, or even 1000 enemies of they so desire (or have the patience) to roll for. In theory, if you stand by your "6 seconds per round rule", if the 1000 people wanted to pass a rock over 5 miles, they could make a 5 mile human canon and that rock would travel at the speed of sound because "each round lasts 6 seconds" if all the humans took their turns within that round. I'm sorry, but does that sound "realistic" to you?
Never have to worry about accidentally defeating the boss in round one if the party doesn’t know the enemy’s hp. You can let the combat go on until you think they’ve fought hard enough
I like the tactical aspect of dnd so I try to avoid that. However, one thing I do is let the boss survive a player turn or two to make their death impactful/climactic.
2:23 I like how the DM gave the benefit of the doubt to the player that their character would have targeted their ally on the ceiling beforehand (Since you're supposed to choose who's effected when you cast it, and the player didn't specify during the cast). (Also, this is why BBEG's should have minions taking a decent amount of the brunt of damage, or at least plan out elevated terrain or illusions or similar hazards to avoid an immediate nuking).
This is how 10+ goes in my experience if you use actual random loot tables. "Alright, so the monster--" "I pull a scroll or wand that contains a spell perfectly suited to kill the monster out of my bag of holding and use it to kill it, or disable the monster rendering it vulnerable to be killed in the next round"
This. I had a character go up to level 20+ and by that point, anytime we didn't have a solution to an issue, I would just look into my bags of holding and pull out the perfect scroll for the situation, looted 10+ levels prior and stockpiled for the rainy days.
A lot of OP Player probelms arises not from their class or builds, but from whatever magic items you gave them along with those things. It leads to an easy fix: Pay attention and think carefully about what magic items you give the players. If it can lead to too many shenigans that you don't want to deal with, don't give it to them. That simple. You can also give your enemies access to magic items as well. That can help bridge difficulty.
I had a DM that was exactly like this; We'd crush his encounters and then he'd just boost the HP and give it random new abilities in combat. I can't blame him though because the CR system in this game is whack. Since then we've all run custom monsters in our party when we DM.
Even on lvl 2 i adjust the monsters, some are stupid strong in numbers, others are absolute push overs. Like i want some acolytes that actually pose somewhat of a challenge and made their spells and weapons better
They did a bad job at measuring monster abilities to PCs, but that is a difficult task considering how complex D&D PCs have become. It's definitely best to just homebrew it, that is the spirit of the game anyway. The DM knows their players and party best, after all.
The fact that the players immediately resort to “well this is impossible - we are all dead” as soon as they take a fraction of the damage that they can dish out is hilariously spot-on.
Thats intentional game design though. Player characters are all glass cannons with the exception of maybe barbarians. Would you want to be in a 2 hour slogfest where every player has 200+ HP?
@@arcitree9330
Looks at my homebrew: *Erm...*
@@arcitree9330 Player characters are anything but glass cannons. Sure, they don't have as much HP as the monsters do, but Absorb Elements, Shield and Silvery Barbs easily bridge that gap. There are 8 monsters with an AC of 23 or more in DND 5e, and a 2nd level character can easily reach that same AC.
I guess just fuck characters who dont have access to those spells then, right? And you forget that those spells are only accessible to the squishiest classes in the game. Disregarding multiclassing and the obvious caster/martial power imbalance, lets consider a situation.
Lets take the paladin, who has none of that spell list. Assuming an average Con of +2, they have 40 HP at level 5. Lets put him against a CR 2 creature, less than half his level.
95% of the CR 2 creatures in the SRD have at least 40 HP. 50% of them have at least 55 HP. Some have upwards of 90.
Assuming the paladin is using an optimized damage build with a greatsword, they will deal 4d6+23+6d8 damage with their attack. Thats an average of 69 (nice) damage. Enough to outright kill himself and most of the CR 2 category, while burning through his resources. Meanwhile, the bandit captain does 20 damage resourceless. Half the paladin's health every turn.
Theres some math you can adjust based on AC and to-hit bonus, but suffice to say, the paladin cannot stomach their own DPS, while the bandit captain could go through three turn cycles just hitting himself.
@@andreacallegari7137
@@arcitree9330 If only there was a way for the Paladin to get access to those spells. Like a 1 level dip in Hexblade Warlock, or Sorcerer. It's unfortunate that such things aren't allowed.
"My paladin wouldn't do that, he wants to grow as a paladin for his whole adventuring career" sure, but that does not mean your paladin can't be better than what you allow it to be.
The Paladin and the other casters do have ways to mitigate the damage they take from their enemies. They're called Spell Slots. Even a level 2 paladin could throw a Wrathful Smite on that scary Bandit Captain and reduce it to a scared chunk of HP. Not to mention the spells the rest of the party could throw at their enemies- Web to restrain, Pass without Trace to get a surprise round, Sleep to incapacitate eventual Minions, Levitate, Bless, Command or Dissonant Whispers, Spike Growth... the list goes on.
Also, once the Bandit Captain reaches 0 HP, it's gone. Once the PC reach 0 HP, you have 2 rounds at worst to do something about it, or more if someone has access to the Revivify spell.
To summarize: don't fear for the squishy Paladin, for the strength of the party will (usually) prevail in the end. And if you rush in combat and swing at your enemies without a care in the world, maybe dying will teach you to play this game better
Changing that health from 7 to 57 is the most on-brand DM joke I've seen in a while
What the players don't know *will* hurt them.
Yeah, half of the time my monsters have floating HP, I just kill them whenever I feel like there was enough battle for everyone to shine lol
@@david6321 Yeah this really shows how terrible D&D 5e is though. I don't remember this ever happening too often in 3.5
@@user-dd9dh9kw5c Bruh.
Also *rolls a 2* "27."
Remember everyone, stuff like this never becomes a problem if the campaign falls apart at level 5!
Min-Maxers and Mechanic Exploiters: “You underestimate my power. **Deals a billion damage at level 2**
@@InquisitorThomas perfectly balanced as all things should be
true
I think I left at the same level I got Fireball? .... The DM's literally just ... would Double mobs health .... so if I spent all my Spell Points to create an extra 3rd level spell slot ... it'd take 3-4 fireballs to kill a room of goblins.... (We only had one combat per day .... so 'balanced' .... right?)
We got rail-roaded constantly, illusion of choice...
I quit the group ...
I was a warforged ... I learned from a friend that they turned my character into a container to grow a massive tree out of ... and then later forced the characters to carve out my 'heart' for some quest ....
DM's must've been angry. XD
I've had one character get to Level 5. One. Out of over a dozen.
*rolls a 2*
"that's a 27 to hit"
as a DM, I felt that one in my soul
I’ve been rolling so poorly lately that I sent a +10 to hit monster against my level three party. Even then it only hit once in three rounds (with extra attack)
@@alexmarkley4103 you need new dice, dawg
@@alexmarkley4103when the dice have malicious intent
@@alexmarkley4103 this reminds me of when i did not roll above a 5 in 12 rolls, at that point i just gave up and started spamming magic missile.
@@alexmarkley4103Times like that are why I have three sets of dice. If one isn't playing nice, swap. If both the matching sets don't work, i call upon my emergency set
This is the same energy that Brennan had in Crown of Candy "aaayyeee aayyeee aaayyeee I GOT A BAD GUY OVER HERE AND I CAN'T DO NOTIN!!"
Yo, you watch Dimension 20? That’s dope. Love your work.
That was my first thought. Also always loved when Emily Axford or Ally Beardsley used they characters doope features.
Finally seeing other people talk about them. It feels great owo
EXACTLY
I think Brendan said somewhere he forgot to level up to the villains
I love how the part that was the most upsetting to the player, that Rakshasa's are unaffected by lower level spells, was the one thing that Jacob didn't homebrew out of DM rage, that he specifically mentioned earlier in the combat and the player just forgot (which is completely accurate).
Well that's why it's upsetting. They finally slipped up and who can they blame but themselves.
They both slipped up. The DM let the paladin use a 3rd level bonus action smite spell to deal damage. Part of what had him break was that damage that wasn’t applicable.
Also they messed up the spell effect for “Contagion”. The target is poisoned and they have to fail 3 saving throws before the (mind fire) confusion takes effect. It’s not instant
@@richarddarma1452 Contagion description: "Your touch inflicts disease. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, you afflict the creature with a disease of your choice from any of the ones described below. [then stuff about the saving throws]"
There's no poisoned condition, the disease you choose takes effect immediately. 3 saves means it ends early, 3 failures means it lasts a week.
Let's not even mention the fact that Barbooizard was raging, so they couldn't even cast
Sir Chad, after the end of that fight:
“That was a challenging fight with an interesting twist. I enjoyed that.”
'cause he a chad!
He wasnt concerned about his character taking damage, just the rest of the party
Yeah I was really wondering what Chad's reaction to all of this would be.
Underrated sound design at 2:14. GM throws dice over his shoulder, and we still hear them clattering on the floor when Barbooizard is acting. Good continuity
r/xptolevel3details
was looking for someone who mentioned this haha
Definitely agree. There’s some excellent editing with this channel. I wonder how often he’s actually outfit swapping, or if he’s managing to act out the entire sketches as each player only once.
The DM's worst enemy: forgetting they're the DM
The DM's greatest strength: being the DM
I love how Sir Chad can add all of his damage after looking at his roll for less than a second.
The reason he's a chad is that he can do basic maths without going comatose during his turn
It's a special ability you gain after Lvl 10
He's just a pro gamer. If you want to do that maybe consider getting good
He's used to this.
@@NotUnymous Wow. I took College Calculus and I still haven't gotten that ability... I guess I picked the wrong subclass or something. :(
Party: "We did it! We killed the boss in one single round with all our spell slots!"
DM: *quietly seething as he pulls out his emergency second phase sheet and starts playing Dark Souls music*
😂😂 underrated comment!!!
*Vordt of the Boreal Valley starts playing*
"You will witness true horror..."
@@Vendacator we already experience horror the moment we fight her
In one of my group i have to make a player boss, some of my friends is in the military he cant play regulary so i make him a player boss and when his entrance i play Dark Soul music and that's was so funny to see the reaction of my player
The worst part is, this is all really cool.
The monk is using the full amount of his abilities to stun, aided by the wizard to force the roll to be low. This is an entire team effort, and it took all of their cunning and abilities to perfectly counter this boss.
I'd be super okay with this encounter, because it took everything to make it function. This is also why stunning strike is so good for legendary action absorbing.
Well, it depends on the narrative. If if this is the culmination of multiple session’s worth of foreshadowing and ominous implications, you gotta deliver or the whole thing falls flat. On the other hand, if the players have been struggling along the journey to make it to this part, then an easier battle might be more cathartic
@@firelordeliteast6750Tbf, if a Rakshasa is your big finish to a questline against a lvl 10+ party, you should really beef up it's hp at the very least. Especially if it has no minions and fights alone.
@@doihavetobeg Right? Any sane Rakshasa would have some minions of some kind, maybe imps or lesser devils
@@firelordeliteast6750 It's a shared narrative, the DM's job isn't to tell a story to the players, it's to tie all the actions and events together while everyone creates a story together. If the party absolutely destroys the BBEG then that IS the narrative because it's what happened. DM's job at that point is to decide why it worked out that way, was the party lucky, did the prepare extremely well, maybe combination of the two, a bit cliche but you could even pull a "your princess is in another castle" move and have it turn out to not actually be the real boss.
though, of course, ever table is different and I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who would rather have the DM fudge numbers on the fly to make it an epic climax but that's all part of the DM's job to tie everything together for the table they're at.
The problem is, every battle becomes that same combo and that is extremly boring extremly fast.
I really feel like the villain here was action economy. Which is why “boss” enemies have legendary actions, they need them to face off against parties 1v4
And that is why we should all back MCDM's kickstarter "Flee, Mortals!" which revamps much of the Monster Manual into ACtion-Oriented monsters. :)
@@kurtoogle4576 I learned my lesson after his last kickstarter to never back his stuff ever again
@@MrGalagoth What happened?
@@joonapukarinen1153 we are still waiting for the phyiscal stuff for quiet a lot of extra time
I think puttong in more enemies is better lets the players feel like they are progressing when they kill them
As a DM who literally just ended a 14 level campaign with a tabaxi gloomstalker shadow monk. I feel this.
OH NOOOOOOOO!!! I have two girlfriends, but very few people on YT are happy for my relationship success. They disl*ke all of the videos I make with my 2 girlfriends. Please be kind, dear ama
I have 2 monks in my table, one being a shadow monk. I'm always wondering ''how tf can you do that?'' lol. Also their turns last sooo fucking long
“Ahh yes there tactical flaw was deploying there cannons 500 feet away easily melee range”
I'm so sorry.
@@gmacwizard8890 I had a villain rob them and use dimension door to escape. He chased the guy down and pummeled the poor enemy wizard into the concrete before the party caught up
If my players were as inventive as these guys in this situation, I wouldn't care that they speed rushed the encounter. My joy comes from seeing how players use their skills and powers to get through the problems I throw at them.
That’s an attitude I can appreciate. Some games are better when combat encounters end quickly anyway. It leaves more time for RP, preparation, and plot progression.
I try to think of it as if it were a movie or a book. And it's probably boring in those contexts and so I play less fanciful rpgs.
Same, I make problems without solutions and just throw them at the party to see what they do.
EXACTLY THIS, i love making my players think, seeing their creative thinking, problem solving, strong and cool builds, ETC is one of my FAVORITE things
While this usually is a good mindset to have, in the context of the encounter Jacob was building this probably wasn't just some random encounter, this was supposed to be an epic confrontation against a villain and in these instances it can go a long way towards upping the tension and excitement at the table to make encounters harder on the fly. Matt Colville once said "Encounter design doesn't stop once you've rolled initiative."
“Are you below half HP?” That got me back on the DMs side
Chad Maneuver Count to determine just how much of a chad Sir Chad is.
1. He went on the ceiling with the wizard.
2. He jumped down from the ceiling expecting to take damage.
3. He verified the Rakshasa was a foul demon before attacking.
4. He got the DM to forget the Rakshasa would be immune to the Branding Smite.
5. He knows exactly what he wanted to do on his turn.
6. He technically took as much time for his turn as the Monk but most of it was taken up by the DM trying to punish him and then not being able to because Sir Chad had all the facts.
7. He only conveyed necessary information like what actions he was taking and how much damage he did.
8. He chose to use Divine Smite before knowing he would hit.
9. He used Great Weapon Master on the hit with Divine Smite.
10. He immediately used his Guided Strike without hesitation.
11. He is clearly a Conquest Paladin which is of course the best Paladin.
12. He remembered that he would have advantage on the Stunned Rakshasa.
13. He rolled and calculated his damage in an instant.
14. He gave a +5 to the Monks Saving Throw.
15. He killed the Rakshasa as the rest of the party panicked over petty things like being charmed and taking damage.
With 15 Chad points in the bag I would rate Sir Chad a Gigachad out of Chad.
Guided Strike is from Conquest Paladin (the other best paladin)
He also took advantage of the DM not caring about how many bonus actions the monk took so he could use his channel divinity and branding smite in one turn
Sir Chad remembering his abilities without taking 10 minutes for the first half of his turn, before retroactively deciding he wants to do something else? He really is a Chad.
How are Rakshasas immune to branding smites again
@@sargesvrge It's a spell below 6th level, which Rakshasa's are immune to.
Sir Chad is simply the greatest. "I crit." "Ah- okay he's dead" didn't even roll damage
Minion HP FTW.
my dm said that after I hit a bunch of these flying fellows that sucked blood they were so tiny that after I hit a shortsword attack DM said "They're dead you don't need to roll damage"
I had a character who could literally point at %90 of the enemies and just say it's dead. Didn't have to roll because the number of dice exceeded their health. The problem being the rest of the party were using two or three d10s so we had to "kill" him off and have him be the bbeg of the next campaign. The GM even let me voice him I was totally fangirling my own character. Till I realized I had to choose who would die. My pc was first to go because the op character always went first. They didn't manage to kill him on the first round, I was told he had all his powers from the old game so I pointed at the next character and said "dead." He then left through a portal flipping them off and giving them the whole bbeg goodbye for the next five to ten sessions where I might cameo but we won't get to fight him again till halfway through the campaign where he'll conveniently make another escape only to be foiled by the party at the last encounter. At least, that was what was going to happen but schedules changed and we didn't meet again after he stepped through the portal.
Only time I ever twinned a chromatic orb (stupid idea) I happened to natural 20 both rolls. 6d8 to two different enemies as a 4th level character was stupid. The DM was like, "yeah don't even roll, they're both just eviscerated..."
In his previous attack, Sir Chad rolled 8d8 and 3d6 for damage. The 3d6 was from the third-level branding smite, the Divine Smite accounts for 6d8 (targeting a fiend), and 1d8 comes from Improved Divine Smite. This means that the weapon Sir Chad is wielding is a 1d8 weapon. Between base damage and Improved Divine Smite, on a crit, we're looking at 4d8 plus modifiers, which are most likely high on account of him being high level and rolling 72 damage on his previous attack (before GWM was applied). Furthermore, by this level, paladins can attack twice each turn; we are to assume only one attack landed last turn, but this turn could well be different. And I haven't even mentioned Divine Smite this turn. There's no need to roll.
TL;DR: He's Sir Chad.
2:09 Let's just appreciate the fact that when the DM throws his dice on the wall, you can hear them rolling on the floor on the next shot, Incredible...
dude, he must have gotten at least ONE max roll on that
better continuity than some blockbusters lol
You know bg3 is a good dnd creation when I can actually understand everything that’s going on here lol
Same before bg3 i got lost in the sauce
True
ikr???
BG3 is also a good simulation for any class ideas you want to try at an actual table too. So there's that
I'm still a little lost, but OMG is this game so good.
This is hilariously accurate.
I have a simple gentleman's agreement at my table. It is always assumed players can do absurd shit, and you let them do it because that's what players do. In turn the players never question the design of my monsters, or presume that they always adhere to 5e monster design precedents.
THIS IS THE WAY
Hard agree. Monster statblock, especially "boss" ones, are more guidelines than hard rules, especially the higher level you go.
This must be an incredible table to play in. You are truly blessed.
"wait, what monster is this? I don't remember it in the manual"
"it's a crypt spider, it's from another manual"
"but I can't find it in google"
"yeah, I know, too bad"
and even when I use normal monsters, I have to change something, maybe lower the number of dices per attack, increase health, change res and vun and everything, because there is nothing I hate more that having someone say to me:"ahh, that's a wight, it will be good, yes, now I'll hit the vunerability without rolling anything and by pure chance. and oh, master, with that attack it's already over max hp for the creature, I think it should be dead".
no, I'm the one telling the story, you can't know how it will end before everyone else
We have the agreement of no looking up monsters, and also that even if you know immunities, and can’t quite remember. You don’t ask you roll an arcana or history check. I have learned a lot of things resist lighting as a tempest cleric. Also the rule is, if you min max your character, the monsters min max as well
"That's not FAIR!"
Says the currently Raging barbarian who just cast a spell.
Hol up
Bardbarian
Multi-classing.
@@AutumnWoodham still can't cast a spell while raging as a barbarian.
@@sekliley7587 yeah you can't but he casted it before and it lasts for a minute and doesn't need concentration.
I love how nearly all effects shocased: Portent, cunning action, wildshape, rage, tabaxi sprint an even the smites are all obtained from under 5th level.
They are some silly multiclass though.
Multiclassing.
From the first moment I thought that this is just "powerplaying".
@@FreedomAndPeaceOnly You say but warlock of the fiend Paladin oath of redemption works really well.
Oh actually wouldn't branding smite not work since it is a spell technically. So only divine smite would be usable
*looking at my old bard/fighter aarakocra that had died and then came back to life as a fiend warlock tripple multiclass * nothing to see here
Did you know that a lvl 17 warlock-hexblade, sorcerer, fighter multi class can fire 12 eldritch blast beams in one round? And if they are concentrating on 5th lvl spirit shroud and have an enemy 10ft away from them marked with hexblades curse the potential damage if all hit is 12d10+36d8+136. Each of those beams can crit on a 19 or a twenty. Max DPS I had in a round was 391
I love that most of the abilities that the party used weren't even 10th level or higher abilities, but when used well backed up by higher level stats they add up to some very strong combinations.
I think all or most of them were multiclassing, so that makes sense
Yep. This video is not a thesis against high level, but rather against multiclassing.
@@corrinthechocolatine4025 More like an endorsement (the DM was just being a bad sport)
I love the implication that Chad is totally okay with everything that's happening.
Like a true chad
I got +6 from his aura
He's a paladin.
Obviously he's ok.
Not just that but he asked if it was a foul demon before attacking with his smites.
He doesn't spam his smites for common enemies he saves it for when it's truly needed.
True Chad.
The precursor to the GigaChad.
I love that the DM forgot every class feature his above level 10 party has, except that Bear Totem Barbarians don't have resistance to psychic damage.
Tbf I would remember that one the most too with how much it would come up
That's a level 3 ability though
That’s why you use Emerald Dragonborn
It's the players fault for not picking a race with natural resistance against psychic damage.
What if the barbarian is a kalasthar using tasha cauldron of everything book to have it's racial features in to con and strenght
One player takes one bit of damage: “so this fight is just unwinnable then?”
That sentiment is very real with players and I find it frustrating.
As a player I too have become that person sometimes. There's the feeling of 'man this two year campaign is seriously gonna end to some random fight?' And then you realise mass healing word is busted and you are actually fine and everyone is back up
So mass healing word IS a busted spell, but its players can get upset when their overpowered combo doesn't work the way they have been steamrolling.
You want a fight to be hard on players throw lots of enemies at them, if you want them to feel it was a tough fight but let them do all their cool stuff then legendary boss fights are the best.
Also yeah, some fights if taken poorly CAN be unwinnable, and it makes for great stories.
honestly when a fight is hard it's the most fun
we were in a big room, we just fought a giant naga and we're all almost dead
two air elementals suddently appear from nowhere and we're basically screwed but we somehow manage to win without anyone dead and that was like the most fun fight ever
hard fights are awesome
@@justcri Fight challenge has nothing to do with the enjoyment of the game. If you have to bend and break rules to challenge your players then you shouldn't dm. I don't Fudge dice rules or anything. Hate when DM's taint the game to be more fun for them.
@@cw3598 >you don’t DM how I do so you’re objectively wrong and bad at DMing
:^)
How it also feels to DM above 10th level "finally, I can stop holding back on my players and start using the funny monsters"
In all honesty, if my players remembered all their spells/traits, fought cleverly and held information inside their heads for longer that 5 seconds, I'd be happy to give them the kill without so much as a scratch, even applaud. If players are having fun and feel proud of themselves for overcoming obstacles, that's not the DM losing, that's the DM doing a good job.
Well said, king. 👑
even then, it's good for immersion if not all monsters of a species have the same abilities, boss encounters should be somewhat surprising, you're fighting an individual with his own history and skills not just a by the book standard for his species..
That'd be the most boring game ever. Might as well just play Gurps. Nothing wrong with Gurps, but a combat I can't lose is just wasted time.
@@timothypeterson4781 noone's saying they can't lose, only that if players defeat an enemy through perfectly legal means, the DM shouldn't go making up excuses to ruin the kill. Of course, there are lines to be drawn where a mechanic abuse is taking place, for example bards and their infamous seductions, but that's an entirely different rabbit hole.
@@MinnIsKill If a "big boss" went down in one round I'd just call it a lame encounter.
The Monk stressing so hard that it's "MAGIC" damage is one of the most accurate things you've ever captured about tabletop gaming.
I understand, in one of my campaigns as a monk, I found out that my DM didn't know that I was surpassing resistance with my unarmed attacks, so I was nerfed for no reason in many fights, at least we found out about it almost in the middle of a boss fight xd
@@BK-hu4qf that's just dumb, the DM is supposed to tell you when the damage you dealt is halved, i usually say something like "your attack didn't seem to be as effective as you would expect" so the players know the enemy has resistance.
@@fall-from-grace1008 Yes, i know, my DM make this in the boss and it was where I realized that
@@fall-from-grace1008 eh, you could very easily homerule that as a 'you need to do an arcana or smthn to figure that out', which actually buffs characters that gain info on attack
but regardless this is why i never use resistances in the first place.
@@AzarthesYeah, say that at session 0 though
I want to appreciate the writing of the skit because I so quickly went from rooting for the dm to have a fair battle to wanting the party to defeat the rakasha
I was expecting the players to call the DM out on his bs and say "either you stop this or we ain't playing with you"... sigh, bad ending reached
@@lukeeatschips6324 Man fr just wrote the word 'sigh'
@@lukeeatschips6324 you really think after all this drama and heroics the party went through and how engaged the skit showed them that a one round instant kill would be better? 😂
@@StretchtoYourHeart Yes. The DM didn't prepare and cheated, the real party would have know he did and called him out on it.
Doing your job well is fun in DnD, the DM will be better at preparing enemies next time.
@@lukeeatschips6324 Improvising is part of being a DM, a real party would expect an experienced DM to do stuff that isn't by the books because action economy is scuffed at later levels.
You're right, doing your job well is fun, but is it really a good job if there's no challenge to it? You're completely missing the point of the skit despite it being completely spelt out, sure the DM "cheated" but the Barbarian he hit wasn't knocked to half HP, wasn't dying, and still had all his tools available to him but was whining because he could no longer steamroll the encounter.
God the
"this isn't fair"
"...is your character dead?"
"...no I'm only at half"
is so good.
Tbh for the first half of this video is was thinking none of these people seem fun to play with. Snobby overleveled PCs and a DM blindly cheating when he made a too weak boss fight to start. Wouldn’t wanna know any of these people
Final session of the campaign, we're fighting 18 of the hardest enemies we've met, Constructs made of adamantine called "peacemakers." Resistances and immunities across the board, weapons out the wazoo, and high ac, Hp, and damage. It was supposed to be a battle we ran away from... The wizard cast Dark Star... they were vulnerable to force damage... it was over in a round...
And that's why so few creatures in d&d have vulnerabilities
Ah yes, the black hole spell
Everything is vulnerable to the Grateful Dead
Actually, what the Wizard cast was called "Fuck Everything in That Particular Direction".
For the record?
This is when, as a GM, you cheat. Exponentially bigger health pools, sudden dragons from nowhere, other complications.
Because PCs deserve to be rewarded for good luck and cool tricks, but also fuck that, it doesn't get to be that easy.
The ONLY thing missing at the end was the players going "THAT WAS GREAT"
Spot on otherwise.
Yeah some people giving the DM hell for fudging, but where's the fun in bulldozing every single encounter that easily.
Yeah sure the first time players getting to use all these abilities will be very fun for them, but after so many encounters it stops becoming fun because nothing would be challenging anymore.
A DM should always strive to make encounters challenging and fun for players even if stats or rolls are being changed on the fly.
"That was great. Same time next week ?"
@@TimaeusEXE I usually am trying to adjust so I don't accidentally kill PCs. I think I run pre-made modules differently than intended somehow, because they tend more towards a likely TPK than I would think.
I think some modules are written assuming I'm running it more like Heroquest, where the enemies don't exist until you are deliberately interacting with the new room they are in. I think I tend to assume that some of the groups of enemies will hear and run towards combat in nearby rooms. Then again, I haven't DMed for a while, and I haven't DMed frequently enough to get a good feel for it.
@@Ralnarene well usually you shouldn't make it too easy either or the players won't feel challenged or will get the feeling that they won't ever have to worry about death. If you want PC deaths at some point I'd definitely wait till the players had some history with their PCs or if they're near or at the end of a dungeon. If you don't want PC deaths but do want them to fear failure then give them a objective that they must carefully or quickly accomplish or some horrid event will happen if they fail.
@@TimaeusEXE And this is why bounded accuracy exists. Besides, what's worse -- one hydra-sized cockatrice or a hundred cockatrice-sized hydras?
The best part of this is that the first turn is almost all possible at level 5, level 3 for everything but stunning strike (feather fall, portent, rage, Dhampir spiderclimb at lvl 3), and the way that the players feel like the monster is stupid and broken as soon as it actually gets a turn despite them still winning on the second turn
That also confused me, the title sais group above 10th lvl and all they throw at the dm are low level abilities and the dm cant handle it. ^^ also that sounded like a strategy the players would have used more than once already, cant realy relate to the no fall dm tantrum the dm hat, but as a who had a divination wizard up to 15th lvl in his goup i can relate to the dice swap mechanic ^^
@@wretchedegg5170 4th level divine smite and 3rd level branding smite are not 5th level abilities.
@@insertlaughter4436 These shouldn't even apply anyway since the Rakshasha is immune to spells lower than 6th level and would be unaffected by them.
Really, based on my experience, I'm just surprised that the 10th level higher characters actually remember all of their abilities, usually people forget everything they have in their character 'packet' by this point
The portent/super fast monk combo has happened in some of my games in the past and it's hilarious to see you make the exact same facial expressions lmao
Currently rocking Portent in my game, but our Monk unfortunately had to abscond the game for real life reasons, so the DM is spared from one of these possible interactions. =P
imagine speedy monk with super buff legs, and the ever-present 7 attacks per turn fighter with really buff arms, teaming up with like the fighter riding on the monk's shoulders
Love how everyone forgot about the monk’s sister mid fight.
Also NEVER give a tabaxi monk boots of speed.
If my player wanted to make the fastest character alive, im enabling it.
ALWAYS give a tabaxi monk boots of speed.*
I fixed your typo
@MonsterCraft Tabaxi jokes aside... Imagine a world of only Tabaxi 😂
You could have an order of assassin monks as villain npcs
Give the Tabaxi Monk five different items of Speed that all stack!
Let alone a tabaxi monk/rogue
The Chad dropping his dice, giving a slight glance, and saying "That's 82 damage" I CAN'T STOP REWATCHING IT IT'S SO FUCKING FUNNY
I did about 40 damage at level 2
@@devinohanlon5501 i did 163 damage at level 6
@@Ruffy-d9b I DID 1029385720 damage at level 0 HAHAHAH IM SO COOL
@@grantschade2072 I did your mom at level 1
I think he's referring to counting quickly, not dealing impossible damage. That or just the comedic circumstance/style (maybe more likely)
"that's 82 damage"-button: 3:40
Wonder if that included the bonus action Branding Smite, considering that's a spell below 6th level.
@@Icemon2705 thats an interesting question, because id argue that the damage still affects him since its bonus damage on the paladins attack (as its a self spell) but the branding effect wouldnt work.
Player: "You can't do that, you're breaking the rules!"
DM: "Silence! I am the rules."
“Then you too, must be broken.”
@@droman608 Those players broke him with those insane abilities.
Screw the rules I have snacks!
Player: "You can't do that, you're breaking the rules!"
DM: "Silence! I am the rules."
Dice: "Let me introduce myself"
Player:
"Not. Yet."
*lightsaber dices activate *
I love that. "Rakshasa's have legendary actions? "He can cast a spell with his Legendary Action?"
"This one can!"
I can add whatever I want to the stat block. This isn't just a Rakshasa. This is Nabu the Bloodspiller, and he can do this.
is there anything more cringe than a dm trying to make their characters seem impressive
@@mrosskne you
@@Severezz cope
@@mrosskne is there anything more cringe than someone thinking the dm is their opposition?
@@Azarthes nobody here thinks that, idk what the point of your comment is
The real mistake the DM made was thinking an unmodified lone rakshasa would be a boss fight for a party of level 11 PCs. It says right in their stat block that they're CR 13. DM should have just felt lucky the paladin didn't switch to a spear to capitalize on their vulnerability to piercing damage from good creatures. As is, it was a perfectly effective middle-difficulty encounter that made the party burn some limited resources to weaken them for the true end boss.
That's supposed to be a hard encounter, by the book. That's closer to a speed bump.
My party of level 14s can probably take on a dragon with no issue.
And therein lies one of the more boring and tedious parts of 5E's core design which is "the adventuring day" and attrition. It's been so, so long since the vast majority of people have played in a way that is in line with the adventuring day. We're talking literally 3.5e. No one wants this anymore.
This dm seems like shit now what he should have dont is either have backup arrive for the creature mid combat or actually check what his party can do before hand not suddenly give it a bunch of abilities
@@Amrylin1337 I've literally switched to doing one set of resources per session and it's video gamey and silly but it has led to far more tactically satisfying combats
A normal, unmodded rakshasa is kinda shit in a direct fight despite being CR13. It's not an enemy you run as a boss, it's an enemy you harass the party with over the course of an entire campaign. Its only two spells that are good for a direct confrontation are Dominate Person, which is self-explanatory, and Plane Shift, which it can just use to yeet a PC to Hell forever. If that doesn't work, the rakshasa needs to get outta there because two claw attacks for an average of 9 damage is laughable for a party that can deal with CR13
the "2" and a pause then say "27" yeah... thats relatable
Me: "Alright, roll for stealth"
My players:
Invisibility
Boots of elvenkind (advantage)
Pass without trace (+10)
Flash of genius (+5)
Hide in plain sight (+10)
Bardic inspiration (+D12)
Guidance (+D4)
Bend luck (+D4)
Lucky feat (additional roll)
Boon of undetectability (+10)
So with a nat20 and max rolls, that'll be... *70*
And then there's the Cleric, who rolled a 4
Wow, I feel bad for those PCs. The math there would mean that to get a 70 in that circumstance, they have a Stealth bonus of -5. No wonder they feel the need for all those buffs lol
It's okay, though, I'm sure the party rogue with 20 Dexterity and Stealth Expertise (but no hide in plain sight) is enjoying having a stealth of 74 (or 76 if they're at least 17th level) after rolling two 1s and a 2, thanks to Reliable Talent.
75. You accidentally left out Flash of Genius.
Got to add in the bardic inspo
Enter my Fighter in Full Plate going BONK BONK BONK on your every attempt.
"this one can" really fucking sent me with the music lmao
The booming "NO" is such a wonderful moment as a DM. I don't experience it often but when I do it makes the players squirm. Sometimes, it doesn't work like that
The part where the DM is subtracting 82 damage from the monster's HP and the player's voice is muffled...so spot on!
I love how half of these are like, early to mid level abilities.
Featherfall is literally a level 1 spell.
I'm pretty sure none of this is past 10th level, except for the Paladin's higher level smite slots and possibly some multiclassing involved.
Well, the wizard must have been at least Barbarian 3 and Druid 2 (if Circle of the Moon, otherwise Druid 8) to pull off the combo, plus Contagion is a level 5 spell.
@@AnadynTheCursed You get access to 5th level spells at caster level 9, so contagion is in (though, like you pointed out it would have to be over level 10 to have that on top of 3 barbarian levels)
But the main point is that even if a combo is high level, there are little to no uses of actual high level abilities.
@@MoonPatch I think the point is that they have so many of them at this point that it's their combination that makes them invincible rather than any of them in particular.
@@AnadynTheCursed Fair enough, I was just making an observation that most of DM Jacob's frustrations came from basic class or subclass features rather than high level stuff.
Except the speed of sound tabaxi monk with boots of speed, that one's a classic.
I'm a forever DM and I'm currently running for a group of 7 level 15 characters. This hit close to home. I've been playing since 1984 and still, I love this god damn game
7 players at level 15? How do you even deal with that action economy when nowadays everyone seams to be at least a half caster?
At level 14 if you have both divination wizard and necromancer they can both once a day combo into turning any single undead into ally, if it's intelligence is under 12 they can chose to keep it forever until they find a better one, that includes CR 20 Nightwalker.
@@AIWARAS619 The party is 1 cleric, 1 cleric/fighter, 2 sorcerers, 1 rouge, 1 ranger/warlock and 1 fighter.
It takes some creative DM:ing and I wouldn't have been able to do it unless I had DMed for so long. It helps that my players are experienced as well
@@drefk1973 Do they ever go easy on you? Like choosing not to cast slow on a hydra when it's clearly the final fight or banish half of the enemy fighting force(especially when they are winning anyway) despite being able to? From my experience it takes a lot of time to learn restraint and I myself was guilty of cheep shots like that for a bit when I still played(a.k.a. not playing with the DM instead of against the DM).
@@AIWARAS619 They do NOT pull punches. I don't expect them to and I plan encounters accordingly
@@drefk1973 I guess after 38 years of DM'ing it's hard to trow something at you that would phase you even at these numbers, and with players of similar calibre it's the same for them.
I feel this so hard as a DM. I've also switched to giving any "boss" NPC legendary actions, additional hit points (going with max rolled is a decent start), and allow their abilities to be fungible in combat just so they survive long enough to hopefully have two turns of action.
Have you tried giving the bosses minions? 1-2 lieutenants + 6 or so trash mobs can make an easy encounter into a deadly, dramatic one.
@@Isometrix116 I have, but they don't do much to prolong the life of the BBEG when the party focuses on BBEG, then cleans up their minions and champions in the following round.
@@sanjaraejour9632 I've given the bosses free movement as reactions before, allowing them to position themselves in better places while ignoring attacks of opportunity.
Special actions and reactions can make a boss battle actually interesting.
Take for example, an Evil Sorcerer that floats around the battlefield casting a multitude of spells to harass the PC's while also being able to zip around as a reaction to being targeted(5-6 recharge) , then using a legendary action (one per turn) to punish the PC's further, I didn't even have to give the guy crazy damage or HP to make him a tough opponent, I used regular spells at base level from the PHB, and he had 50 HP, up against three level 9 PCs.
My PC's won, but it was a hard fight because the BBEG had advantage of the action economy, but was only one guy to target, I also counter spelled a revivify, which caused my players to have a shit and a laugh.
I gave a boss fight legendary actions against my level 3 players, it's necessary if you want to be able to create a balanced party on 1 fight, otherwise it's either "they win because they go first" or "it wins because it goes first"
One of my friends accidentally ran a hag as three monsters because he misunderstood the rules around a hag coven. It was the the best mistake ever. Opened my eyes to the fact that it should be perfectly balanced to break a monster into pieces, or stitch together a monster. Want to give a monster legendary actions? Let it use part of it's multi-attack outside it's turn. Want to have a single boss that the party can't focus? Stitch together the boss and your two lieutenants. If they focus or disable the boss, it losses it's best abilities, but can still use the lieutenants abilities so doesn't sit there like a wet rag while they wail on it.
I love dm'ing for higher level things. I just did a 1 shot of lvl 20 characters that was a blast. It lasted for 4 rounds in total but watching them having so much fun with the power of the demi-gods, so worth it
One thing about feather falling, it can only target falling creatures, so sir chad would've taken the fall damage.
They mean that Sir Chad wasn't falling yet when Feather Falling was cast, so Sir Chad couldn't have been included in the targets of the spell
The duration of feather fall is one minute so you can continue to add creatures to the spell until it ends.
@@adammackintosh430 That is not how that works. That duration is how long it lasts on the creatures you cast it on
Also, unrelated to this, weren't the spells he cast against it below sixth level, and therefore they would not count?
Yeah, by raw feather fall is a pain to use in combat, in that situation everyone would need to ready their actions to jump at the same time the caster does so he can use his reaction to cast it on everyone.
@@Khaons since it's all "simultaneous," I allow targets to be added until the start of the caster's next turn
I love how sir chad didn’t even check his die when he rolled, he just declared that he dealt 82 damage.
My favorite part was when his aura gave +5 to saving throws, confirming that this Chad maxed out CHA as a paladin
Some tables just got that one guy who does such ridiculous numbers you stop questioning how much they say they do.
As a DM, I’ve done a campaign from level 5 to level 20, at the end the party was literally fighting a False god and then a madman wizard who served an Eldritch horror and stole the powers of the defeated false god. After a while, nothing phased me. I don’t even keep track of health of anything past CR 20, and just pick a moment that narratively makes sense with the story and the situation for the creature to fall. Makes it more fun.
The way we get around the power keep effect is that we make up encounters with NPCS who use player rules. One of the most memorable Champaigns I DMed I ended up using a level 20 character I made for fun, who was basically a ninja straight of the Naruto cartoon, fight the level 17 party with his gang of dudes. It ended up being loads of fun and kept the campaign fairly well grounded. Which fit with the story I had laid out.
I just campaigned a 3-20 campaign and yeah by the end I never kept track of health either lmao. The fight goes on until I feel it's over
Rule zero of D&D is actually "use the DM screen to convince the party that rules exist as anything other than propaganda to force the suspension of their disbelief."
@@RosscoAW Yeah, I don’t let them win until they’re biting their nails, getting a bit of forehead sweat, and watching each dice roll with bated breath. The exception being if someone comes up with a real clever idea that changes the dynamics of the fight (I.e Rule of Cool) or comes up with a grounded, well thought out argument that directly challenges the villains beliefs or goals. Then I let them verbally spar back and force until they either reach a logic impasse, a fight fight breaks out due to anger, or convinces the big bad to stand down/surrender/retreat/etc. But they must make a solid logical argument in order to get that option (emotional “because it’s evil” arguments get tossed aside with a simple “good and evil are points of view” argument).
Hoo, my DM had two separate groups in the same adventure and diferent places. Then he almost obliterated the second group, spawned a demon out of his ass, corrupted they all into undead and turned them into villains trying to the destroy the plane. And for us, the newer and still a hero party he said" I gotta other set of players hunting for you, u have the option to fight, or die". And that's how he set up pvp of 12 players. Side note, my group was of noobs, theirs strongest mage with 30 intelligence stopped time, set up 2 traps, them casted meteors for 240 damage on my blind and oblivious party. Not enough? The DM aware of power issues, also put another threat on the already loosing battle, just 200m high something like a dragon, and tiamate later to destroy that one. The villain mage became a God, everybody died (also tiamate) and he resurrected all giving his life because his objective was to protect his sister even if he destroyed the world. It was chaotic, insane and epic. (Revived dead characters along with the players current ones and made everybody crie)
As a DM running Tomb for a 10th level party, you can absolutely make encounters that decimate your players even when they're power gaming. I don't like making encounters my players can't win. My job is to give them interesting challenges that allow them to feel the myth and heroism of their characters
This feels like a case study in why you shouldnt have a final boss fight with only 1 enemy
Literally this. Don't no-sell your player characters using their powerful abilities just because you failed to prepare a remotely adequate challenge. The video is played up for comedic effect, but if you regularly find yourself doing this sort of thing in a real game then you're a bad DM. Christ, not even a single cultist or supplicant? Just a big empty room? That rakshasa is practically asking to get dusted.
@@anachronity9002 To that I will say that the "one villain vs several heroes" is a fantasy and media staple, and it's expected both by players and DM's. However the game isn't balanced around that. This video is comedically showing the extra steps you need to go through in order to have that sort of final, 1vsMany confrontation. Ideally, you shouldn't do this mid-game, but if you want to homebrew your boss to fight a whole party, then you BETTER pull some crazy things.
@@lukeari9890 Fuckin absolutely. It's why legendary actions are a thing I guess, tilt the action economy back to a semblance of fairness in a 1v4
I mean, yeah, but, you never just wanted to have an absolutely epic battle with a legendary ancient dragon that was actually as scary as it should be without also having to control their legions of Kobolds and Cultists?
Why should a DM always have to swarm the party with a dozen or more minions that they have to keep track of in order for there to be any actual stakes to a fight? Or create some bullshit magical forcefield mechanic for the party to dismantle so that they are appropriately worried about their chances when they finally get to take chunks out of its scaly hide?
I'm already tracking lair actions, legendary actions, legendary resistances, making snap rulings, calculating the height of the ceilings, keeping a round counter, tracking initiative, tracking conditions and spell durations, being quizzed on the technical details of the PC's abilities and restraining myself from throwing my dice out the nearest window since for some reason I can't roll above a five. Why do I also have to track six or more other enemies? Why can't Soul Devourer the Wicked, Shadow Dragon of the Bloodied Heart, Scourge of the Western Coast, The Great Wyrm of Desolation stand up to more than eighteen seconds of combat with some tinned snacks without setting the rest of his pantry on them?
@@Bookluver29 Yeah okay but I want you to also think about your players, your players' fun, and whether you're really lying to them like that for their own fun.
You're playing a game called Dungeons & Dragons, and that's how the game works. *IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THAT*, you are now a game designer. You need to decide AT THE START, how the boss works differently and you need to stick to this and you need to telegraph it so the players don't waste their actions.
You see, to make things up completely on the spot and fiat things like in the video, you are giving lie to the implicit promises you made when you all agreed to play D&D. Promises that, if given words, might go something like "spells and abilities do what they say", "your characters' actions matter", or "all of these numbers and abilities are worth keeping track of".
Tell me, what would you do if one of your players went to zero, then on their next turn instead of rolling a death save said "Krog... stands up again. His berserker lineage is too powerful to keep down! He continues to fight!" in absence of any ability allowing this, and then ran up and attacked the monster that downed them? Would it feel unfair? Like the player is cheating and covering it up with some roleplay? Does every party member get to make stuff up now?
These are things that need to be written out *beforehand* in the forms of abilities or items a character or creature has to avoid them feeling unfair and arbitrary. This gives rise to the unexpected results and outcomes that are the entire point of the game. If you want things to go exactly the way you envision them every time... why are you even playing Dungeons and Dragons?
"You said we could be on the ceiling"
This is why you must always be careful about what you say
I'm gonna be super honest, I love when my players do this kind of thing. I mean yeah, building the encounter is tedious but watching them overcome it and seeing them be super happy with themselves makes me enjoy being a dm
awww 🥺🥺
Wish i could participate in a campaign run by a dm with that mindset
What i do when an encounter ends too easily i just reuse the character sheet for a different enemy later down the line
Same! Especially if it was a challenging encounter. Man, when they cheer as the killing blow hits the final enemy (better if it was a boss), I feel fulfilled. It is my joy see my player overcome their trials, just as much as seeing them choose the dumbest way to solve a problem XD
Same here. I mean I enjoy making a challenge for my party but its always a challenge that can reasonably be overcome and I'm happy when they do.
The Song at 4:55 is Called "The Eternal war" by Dream cave
If you got that itch where you feel like you heard this before from somewhere it might be from the Rust UA-camr Enardo its the song he plays when the Zerg is coming
Thank you so much! Been wanting to know this for years now!
I’m currently running a game for level 20+ characters. This was very accurate. Between their proficiency bonuses, magic weapons, and high stats I barely even listen to see if they hit anymore unless the roll was like 3 or lower
You can always just make the DC of your creatures higher, like 25 or 30. Even at level 20 and higher, you're allowed to make things challenging, and encounters can still be hard not to die in. And if there's no creatures with high enough stats, you can always just boost a creature's stats, give it new abilities, or just make a bunch of level 20+ npcs to fight
@@ellies_silly_zoo For boss fights I do. But you can’t go crazy with that stuff. Even an AC of 25 (which, I believe, is the highest that can be found in the MM) would require a roll of about 6 or 7 for most of them to hit. So it isn’t like I can go sticking those kind of numbers on every skeleton and mid tier demon they run across
@@jh-ne4sy AC 30+ then? You can probably find a reason why those creatures are so strong. Or maybe just end the campaign and start again at a lower level if you're _this_ far
@@jh-ne4sy Why would you be limited by the MM? I'm running a campaign where I make 90% of the creatures myself. They are now level 9 and I already threw 30 ac creatures at them. MM works for as long as it works, but if it doesn't, make your own stuff. Or just boost existing stuff.
Maybe I was unclear. I don’t have a problem that my players are hitting so often and have such high bonuses. I was just observing how spot on the joke was. I’m well aware that you can change monsters stats, but why would I go out of my way to buff up minions? Just to make epic level characters feel less epic? I’m happy to save the crazy stuff for the bosses and let the PCs massacre all the henchmen they want
As someone who recently got done DMing campaign of this level, yeah it can feel like this. High level play can actually be really fun, but it's important to keep in mind that you can't run it the same way that you do with low level games. Your players have a lot of powerful abilities, so It's okay to make your monsters more powerful in retaliation. I'm gonna give some tips I have for higher level play since there's not a lot of tips for it:
-Have less combat encounters, but make them more impactful. Combat is going to take a while due to how many abilites people have. It's better to have quality over quantity to not bog down the game.
-Bring in minions to the fight. Always have more than one target on the field, even if they are a distraction. Plus, having minions can add complications like them buffing the main target.
-Sometimes, it's okay to cheat (within reason). If the party is smoking your bad guy, you are allowed to fudge the roll to make the moment more impactful. Don't overuse this as it can turn antagonistic. Also, homebrew is totally okay to make the monsters feel fresh and new
-Lean into the spectacle. Higher level D&D is almost like a superhero movie. Lean into the awesome stuff that everyone can do. Even if the fight turns out to be a joke difficulty wise, good descriptions and use of abilities can turn the easiest fight into one of the most memorable!
-Add other criteria to fights. This works for low lever as much as it does for high level. Now ever fight has to be to the death. Add some sort of complication to the battle that makes it more stressful. Perhaps there are hostages that need to be saved. Maybe they have to defend the castle gates from being destroyed. Maybe they are on a burning airship falling toward the earth at high speeds! Adding more issue to the encounter will have to make the players think way more about their next move!
I know this was a comedy video, but I hope these tips can help someone. Higher level play can be really fun, but it can be hard to run if you don't understand it.
Fudging really is a great way to spice things up, unless you're an asshole lol
I like the first tip, unless they are doing a dungeon crawl. I think in that case including combats throughout is still important. They are nice because:
a. you don't have to worry about balancing them so they aren't too easy. If they're too easy that's ok because...
b. Their purpose is to drain the party's resources. Even if the encounter is easy, your players like to expend their cool abilities when they get the chance.
c. It gives the party a chance to feel really powerful, before inevitably ripping that confidence away at the boss fight. If all their combats at high levels are basically boss battles the players may not get a chance to feel like the absolute gods they have become over the course of the game.
Let the wizard kill 20 minions with a well placed fireball, let the fighter tank the attacks from all 8 enemies guarding the temple, then kill two of them next turn. That's great! By the time the boss comes, the casters will have spent some spell slots, the tanks will be down some health, but still able to dish out just as much damage, and rogues get to feel special that they are always useful at dealing a ton of damage no matter how long the dungeon was.
There's a great example of this in campaign 2 of critical role where the party had to fight a literal unlimited supply of skeletons. They were level 9, so skeletons weren't exactly powerful enemies, but the spellcasters were casting some aoe spells to deal with them, and eventually they realized the skeletons were infinite, and that they had to solve the puzzle to get through the room BEFORE finishing the combat. It was still interesting even though the enemies were just weak skeletons, and it served its purpose of expending some of the party's resources to make the boss fight at the end of the dungeon more impactful.
@@rk9sbpro83 Honestly, even in dungeons you can tone down the amount of encounters. Yes you will have more encoutners than usual, but it's important to remember the other aspects of dungeons. the exploration. You can have various traps and puzzles that will drain resources that same way encounters do while being MUCH quicker.
If you have fewer encounters prepare to buff HP on everything you want alive by 2 - 3 times. D&D's adventuring day design makes everything dramatic tedious unless you've burnt their resources out in prior pointlessly boring random encounters like a Final Fantasy game or something.
The very first top is going to screw the balance of the game hard and piss off your fighters.
For better or worse dnd is a game of attrition. 6 fight per day minimum to wear down the god tier casters.
The Dominate Person moment is hilarious to me because the idea that a player wouldn’t immediately jump at the opportunity to battle their Party members without repercussion is just not a thing at my table. One combat session we had not 1, not 2, but 3 of our Party Members mind controlled. 2 of them were focused on killing each other and the last person was essentially a giant super werewolf attacking their love interest. Good times
Did those people hate eachother in RL too?
why tho, my friends (key word) have only ever entertained hurting eachother in a non-canon arena situation. I'm down for it even tho I'd be first to die, tfw, bard support.
My table REFUSES to accept mind control for any reason, I’d say that the enemy commands that you attack Sir Chad, and the controlled player would just say “no I’m not letting my character do that”. And they keep trying to find reasons as to why their character won’t attack their allies even though they have no choice
yeah all of my party and DM are friends IRL we have a homebrew where we die but can respawn and are forcibly stopped from attacking one of the party unless it's under circumstances that allow it, e.g they're berserk and cannot determine friend from foe or it's indirect. this has funnily enough ended up making half of our deaths from PVP interactions where one of the party has been "blessed" and then gone berserk and the player is like "lmao it's PvP time"
@@dominustin5926that’s when you just say “you black out for 1d4 minutes” and simply inform them of what’s happened after the fact. They weren’t in control, they weren’t conscious.
This is one of my favorite videos on youtube ever because its my life every week
I literally had this encounter last Friday. The rakshasa was disguised as a merchant woman and gave a story that the rest of the party bought...except the monk who rolled a really high insight and attacked. monk strikes at that level are magic and she used ki. it was a very one sided fight. Rakshasa planeshifted the hell out of there on his second round.
I just came here to say ... I'm the Monk, and I regret nothing.
Rakshasa: "Ow, jeez. I tell one little white lie and you punch me in the face!? You got anger issues to sort. Aw, I didn't even want to be here to begin with. I'm out, I'm out. You're a dick. I'm out."
lucy Rakshasa got a second round :D
@@mlwlundeen1525 Noice job !
Uhm, actually (pun intended): Feather fall says that you can choose up to five "falling" creatures, as Chad wasn't falling at the moment of casting feather fall wouldn't work on him.
Counterargument: Everyone's turns are happening in the same 6 seconds.
Good eye, but also NERD!
@Hunter Initiative is really there to determine what order players go in, not characters which are acting all at the same time
@@GuardianTactician Yeah, but there's a specified turn order. That's like saying the fighter kills the lich but the lich was able to get off his Power Word: Kill at the same time even though the fighter acted before him.
@@KuonilerariLoufanwald I can see both argument. Only thing I can see to support his is that feather fall is a reaction. So the lich king argument falls on here.
This resonates with my core essence. The last session I ran had a werewolf boss that was totally bullied into submission. Fortunately I buffed him up before the fight happened because werewolves aren’t as tough as I thought and my party is 6 lvl 5’s, so I got some good damage on my players
Well yeah. You set up one werewolf to fight 5 powered individuals. He hits one guy while the 4 others are swinging him. One can use real life logic for that one to see that was gonna the way it was.
did you take into account werewolf immunity to non silvered magic weapons/damage?
This is why legendary actions/resistances are important
2:07 can we just talk about how he throws the dice behind him and then on the next cut where he plays another character in the skit, *you can still hear the dice rolling on the floor?*
Immediately paused to look for this comment, yes. That was some top-tier continuity.
Things like that just elevate stuff to a whole other level. 👌
@@Matork2100 right? lmao
@@Matork2100 I wouldn't exactly call it continuity, dice just don't... roll that long. It was like a dice rolling sound effect on multiple loops. Very weird editing.
@@whitevii1533 They would if they fell onto a hard floor from that high up.
commenting instead of liking cause B^) 69 nice
3:14 - my DM looked exactly like this when my lvl 3 goblin moon druid casted no trace and wildshaped into a nyxborn lynx, getting +16 on stealth, ambush as a bonus action and ability to pass through objects. I obliterated everything in sight and after that encounter I got hit by a rock that fell from the moon and forgot about such creature entirely
Goblin... turning into a Nyxborn Lynx..?? There are no goblins in Theros?
@@Vallinen92 well, I specifically asked my DM before the game if I can do that and he said sure, so I guess it make sence... somewhere
@@markedforstrike nice pushover dm lmao
@@lolihitler4198 or maybe someone that just wants to let the party have some fun?
@@NSFWTHICC OP even admits that what his dm let him do basically broke the game and forced him to undo his decision. If the dm had put his foot down from the start and kept OP within the bounds of what his character should reasonably be able to do he wouldn’t have had to make any emergency retcon and the campaign would’ve been better for it. Therefore he’s a pushover
I love that Jacob probably had to make multiple characters and a bunch of research for this video 😂
Although it was super neat to see that they all worked as written. Dude knows his stuff.
For real. This video was an excuse to test some crazy theory crafted builds. Props to Jacob!
90% of these features/spells are granted below level 8 lol
If I watched this before playing Baldur's Gate 3, I wouldn't understand anything here. Now I understand practically everything.
“Yeah, you said we could be on the ceiling.”
Jacob sounds like a fun guy to have as DM
*Rolls a 2* "27", had me DYING. I immediately sent this to my players.
Rule zero: DM screen. 😂
This reminds me of a campaign where I had a samurai and I had run out of arrows. So I asked the DM if I could knock, and shoot, my katana instead. They said if I failed the roll, my katana would be destroyed. I rolled a natural 20. That Katana had never flown so true. We were both in shock and then we both laughed and they found a fun way to make the Katana split my opponent and stick in the tree behind them.
Was it practical? No. Did my DM make it possible and fun at the same time? God damn right they did.
You have succinctly explained why I really despise higher level campaigns. There's this feeling of "well, instead of telling a story, I have to carefully strategize my opponents build to ensure that *any* of this is going to be the *slightest* bit challenging."
I have four players, one of them exactly like the players in this, the rest are basically roleplayers/normal players. Never felt a quote like that one. Theyre only level 7 if that helps.
why do you use level based systems?
@@mrosskne My players this far insisted on DND
@@comment-chan8750 Get better players.
@@mrosskne I don't anymore. If the question was directed at me. If at @comment-chan8750, same question.
The dm: you can’t do that
Players: no, no this isn’t how your supposed to play the game
This hits hard since i just recently played a lvl 6 oneshot and it was already challenging for my DM to balance the boss fight a homebrew Wyvern (mostly because of the double crit our ranger dealt) but after some health buffs it got pretty interesting since it got a magic absorbtion abillity that stole spellslots to heal and i got to teleport our barbarian on to it to wrestle it to the ground until we could hit it melee. lesson to learn here is that sometimes a simple health buff can prolong and improve the fun of an encounter without letting the players feel like they are helples
Sending 1 monsters vs a group of adventurer, if it had some chaff to take some hit or to bog down some of the party, the wyvern might have stood a chance.
Rolls a 2. “27”
When the DM has the screen so they can fudge the roll to facilitate a good game and get a +25 to their attack if needed.
Eh, not my thing. If the players get lucky, they get lucky. I open roll.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 I mean, if you want less roleplay and more combat, go play Warhammer.
@@Solrex_the_Sun_King Wat
fudging rolls has nothing to do with roleplay. It's just cheating lol. If you wanted a certain outcome, just don't roll.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 if the game is too easy it’s not fun. If the game is too hard, it’s also not fun. You as the DM are less of a player and more of a referee to keep things in balance.
@@Solrex_the_Sun_King Eh, I'm pretty sure the fun comes from being surprised and from fantasy fulfillment. My table plays to have fun and unwind. Variety and agency matters way more than difficulty for us.
Especially if you're really concerned with roleplay? Like wtf does difficulty have to do with roleplay? I thought you were on a "THIS ISN'T A WAR GAME!" platform?
The very last second of the video makes the whole thing. Perfect
One word: action economy. Single enemies don't work well at all against high level parties. If I want a challenging encounter I always throw in several minions (or one extremely powerful minion), as well as other distractions such as lair actions, or environmental things like a burning airship crashing towards the players :P
Action economy do be 2 words tho
@@abdulazizmohammed8797 I'm so sorry, I'll be more specific next time and say "one term" or "one concept", would that satisfy you? :P
@@collegeoffoliage6776 wait you didn't just delete the space I'm between them? Thats what I would use
@@falxblade1352 compound words aren't really used in English unfortunately (unless they're established exceptions).
@@collegeoffoliage6776 ...well there goes my joke, ig
I love how this shows the responsibility of the DM. Like the players can min-max all they want, but at the end of the day, when the DM says "this one can" they have to accept it, that's the game's design.
Of course I also appreciate how when he does complain he's still at over half hp because that's just how strong players are at this point.
There's a degree to that...
DM v PC is not fun.
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 DM making super easy Encounters and there being no danger to the PCs isn't either (for most parties)
@@badluckbrian46
True... The players are supposed to win and continue on the story. Not to end the campaign in one second or to be "too easy".
@@badluckbrian46 yeah, it's the gms job to make the game challenging and fun. If you can't do that without taking away or making useless the PC toys, you're a bad gm.
fudging rolls in order to accomplish that is bullshit and i dont blame players for leaving the table at that point.
"Encounter design doesn't end at initiative."
- Matt Coville
Two months I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about, and now I’m just like “yep” following along just fine. Thanks Boulders Gate 3.
I love how the players were complaining "it's not fair, how can we ever possibly fight this boss?" Like the dm is supposed to only send one shotable opponents
One-Shot Man: hold my shots.
Because they do? If a dm dares to damage pc hes a bad dm.
For real though. My players (5 level 5's) fought a Chimera (CR6) yesterday, they got terrified by the breath weapon's damage.... but they still 2 rounded the darn thing when it was bottom of the initiative. Of course, the paladin double-smiting on a *crit* didn't help... but still.
The DM has every sourcebook and homebrew to draw from or conjure to throw at the party at their discretion. The party has only what the DM allows.
The real question is he shouldve used a legendary save on the stunning strike at the start.
This reminds me of how my dm spent 3 literal months trying to making a creature that could kill my entire party of 6 players and I managed to kill it in my first turn
The things you can do at mid level are crazy
How did he manage that i find it harder creating monsters that wont actually kill the party
I mean, it sounds like your DM should just throw 6 tarrasques at ya.
@@shadowlord1418 Same lol, what i think is balanced end up fucking up my players and I have to nerf it mid fight to not party wipe..
@@shadowlord1418 Same actually. I feel like killing my party of SEVEN is actually easy if i wanted it to be. Lol
I like how, even when he's trying to _seem_ like the big bad guy, Jacob's DM form still really just wants to be a good DM. It would've been so easy to go "and now he gets another attack" but he didn't. He wants this encounter to be challenging, scary even, but not fatal.
I had a similar thing recently, where I'd pitched my Lv1 players up against some creatures they had no business facing yet, fiddling with the stats and abilities as the fights progressed, tuning it juuuust right so that it took some effort but they managed to make it out with minimal damage. They're still convinced that their lives were at the mercy of a single dice roll, which is of course true at 1st Level, but come on I'm not going to kill my party in session one guys don't be silly.
DM I had did just that, threw underpowered and underleveled encounters at us and we just could not beat them. On purpose. To make it “challenging.” No mercy, if we died we died, no DM magic or intervention. We didn’t survive past the second encounter.
@@game-enjoyer13 what a fucked up day huh
@@LuckyTragedyVods Yeah, was not fun
I like to just use the "and then reinforcements arrived" tactic. Crushing my encounter to quickly? Uh, looks like more guards heard the noise and came running! But if they're struggling to win, no reinforcements necessary, just use the original boss.
I had a DM ask me what I thought about an encounter once and I had to sit down and tell him that an encounter of 8 bandits, 1 bandit leader, 2 ogres, 3 half ogres, a manticore, and a hill giant all as written, were NOT an appropriate encounter for a 3rd level party. That campaign was a combat nightmare. Lots of near TPKs. As in, only one surviving party member at the end of fights. No one from the origional group was still alive 4 sessions in
and this is as tame as it gets. that's a trio of martials
if a wizard had been there it'd just be, 'okay, force cage, encounter done'.
If my players knew their abilities this well, let alone the rules of the game, I would weep with joy
LOL true.
I would shit bricks and enjoy the chaos
This is truly what it means to be a forever DM: just wanting players to win as a function of *their own actions* rather than you eventually just giving up and forcing the world to contort around them in unknown ways. Every now and then a player rises above, and you can convince them to run a one-shot you get to play in, at which point they realize the terrible burden of godhead (lmao) and go back to being just a player. 😂
This has to be the best skit you've done. Absolutely hilarious and as a DM I relate to my monsters needing some "help" from time to time.
Damn Jacob's acting skills have grown so much throughout the channel, comparing this to some of the earlier videos, he was always fun to watch but he actually feels like different characters even though its just him and they all look exactly like him.
Tightly packed cavern, pitch-black darkness, adult cave dragon. Nuff said.
I dm'ed for my long running campaign and put an enemy that is purposely hard for melee combatants (since my party was half melee half spellcaster for variety and STRATEGIC PLANNING) making a golem with 2 bodies attached and 6 attacks with 2 reactions...the melee fighters basically 2 shot it. They were level 15
yep, sounds like level fifteen martial classes to me, though not accounting for whatever magic items that may or may not have been given, they can be pretty dangerous
@@fallenangeldraco3778 when I first started I gave them magic items way too early and they were effectively glass cannons which made fights super hard to balance lol I figured it out now as they routinely get their butts whooped lol
@@Whybotherme190 hmm, well considering that I don't have much experience in dming I can't say I have advice for you
Druid: I'm going to conjure animals and summon a ton of raptors, which attack the Rakshasa with advantage because of pack tactics.
DM: The Rakshasa is immune to all spells below 6th level
Druid: Yeah but the spell isn't affecting him. It's raptors attacking him.
DM: Oh well he's immune to non-magical--
Druid: I'm a shepherd druid, so the attacks are all magical. Oh and they get a bonus 6 HP each. And they regain hit points every turn.
DM: Sigh...okay go ahead and make your 64 attack rolls.
~~2 hours later~~
Druid: okay so a few of them crit, so that's 250 damage.
DM: wow...okay well...
Paladin: hey did you add my crusader's mantle on each of those attacks?
Druid: another 150.
DM: so...he's looking...injured...
ah yes, 64 velociraptors. My favorite 9th level spell
@@8-bitsarda747 as a shepherd druid it's really good. Also your 14th level feature can get you a free cast of it at 9th level
I felt this..
this is exactly why i don't allow mass summons at my table....not the damage they do. but the time they take. terribly designed spells imo
Druid best class
2:25 feather affects up to 5 FALLING creatures. Sir Chad was not falling at the time it was cast, Damage ensues.
Exactly, that's been bothering me the entire video. It's also a reaction which they shouldn't have been able to cast to save Sir Chad.
@@arealhuang9710 well good thing no one can remember every rule when there’s a billion of them
@@aprilecotton2060 ye, but when a specific and quite frankly ridiculous thing keeps happening in the campaign you run (ie. Players abusing the crap out of a spell such as Feather Fall) you can't help but remember certain rules better. My players honestly thought they could become flying squirrels every time they see something high to climb/jump off of XD
"The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn."
I know everything on DnD is up to the DM, but understanding that the turns are theoretically happening at the same, I'd say that Sir Chad was absolutely falling when the spell was cast, they are not actually taking turns in the game universe, that would not make any sense, I could hear this argument if they jumped at "different times" but the two of them fell from the ceiling as their first movement during their turns, I'd say your interpretation of this is just plain incorrect given how turns work in the game universe and needlessly punishing for your players.
@@SpopySpider you're assuming dnd battles are like real time battles in MMORPGs like Elder Scrolls where you simultaneously attack opponents together with other players.
That is incorrect.
The rounds and seconds are there to force the battle to make sense for the sake of spell durations and casting times. In actual gameplay, players take turns and can't anticipate each other's actions unless they discussed it before engaging in the fight. As you saw, the hypothetical party members in the video didn't, so the caster shouldn't have been able to also extend their reaction by another reaction to another creature.
Also, in a DnD battle, there can be as many active opponents as the DM describes. 10, 100, or even 1000 enemies of they so desire (or have the patience) to roll for. In theory, if you stand by your "6 seconds per round rule", if the 1000 people wanted to pass a rock over 5 miles, they could make a 5 mile human canon and that rock would travel at the speed of sound because "each round lasts 6 seconds" if all the humans took their turns within that round. I'm sorry, but does that sound "realistic" to you?
Never have to worry about accidentally defeating the boss in round one if the party doesn’t know the enemy’s hp. You can let the combat go on until you think they’ve fought hard enough
Just don’t tell them that
_Shhhhhh…_
I like the tactical aspect of dnd so I try to avoid that. However, one thing I do is let the boss survive a player turn or two to make their death impactful/climactic.
2:23 I like how the DM gave the benefit of the doubt to the player that their character would have targeted their ally on the ceiling beforehand (Since you're supposed to choose who's effected when you cast it, and the player didn't specify during the cast).
(Also, this is why BBEG's should have minions taking a decent amount of the brunt of damage, or at least plan out elevated terrain or illusions or similar hazards to avoid an immediate nuking).
This is how 10+ goes in my experience if you use actual random loot tables.
"Alright, so the monster--"
"I pull a scroll or wand that contains a spell perfectly suited to kill the monster out of my bag of holding and use it to kill it, or disable the monster rendering it vulnerable to be killed in the next round"
This. I had a character go up to level 20+ and by that point, anytime we didn't have a solution to an issue, I would just look into my bags of holding and pull out the perfect scroll for the situation, looted 10+ levels prior and stockpiled for the rainy days.
A lot of OP Player probelms arises not from their class or builds, but from whatever magic items you gave them along with those things.
It leads to an easy fix: Pay attention and think carefully about what magic items you give the players. If it can lead to too many shenigans that you don't want to deal with, don't give it to them. That simple.
You can also give your enemies access to magic items as well. That can help bridge difficulty.
I had a DM that was exactly like this; We'd crush his encounters and then he'd just boost the HP and give it random new abilities in combat. I can't blame him though because the CR system in this game is whack. Since then we've all run custom monsters in our party when we DM.
dnd and its CR is absolute joke, it is not even close to creating anything semi-ballanced
As a 90% improv-DM, I approve of this
@@histkontext Stop using cookie-cutter enemies then, and adjust the templates to a boss worthy of a fight.
Even on lvl 2 i adjust the monsters, some are stupid strong in numbers, others are absolute push overs. Like i want some acolytes that actually pose somewhat of a challenge and made their spells and weapons better
They did a bad job at measuring monster abilities to PCs, but that is a difficult task considering how complex D&D PCs have become. It's definitely best to just homebrew it, that is the spirit of the game anyway. The DM knows their players and party best, after all.
"This is a game where you roll dice anuwuwu- roll the dice, you just wanna kiiiilll EEEEVERYTHING!" Absolutely slayed me