One of the things I absolutely love about how Matt DMs is how he can make even "easy" monster fights feel epic. It's something I try to incorporate into my game. Just because it's a CR 1 (or less) doesn't mean it has to be boring or feel easy; it can still be an amazing encounter and feel incredible when the party defeats it.
I once tore a group of 3 level experienced players apart and ran them out of a cave with a group of Kobolds and some giant rats. Its in the way that you use it...
Some good overall lessons; a "sub-lesson" regarding the Duergar General: as a "boss" or "special/unique" it could be rationalized that he has so much experience with the ability that it doesn't cost him an action.
Whilst I think the specific issue with heavy armour in this case is a holdover from Pathfinder and the group being new to 5E rules, rather then Matt just choosing to penalise Pike, I think generally the point in the video still stands. Players should not be penalised for trying to be creative, and if the rules don't restrict it then usually it's better to roll with the players suggestion rather then impose random checks out of nowhere. One of the key reasons stated for keeping to the rules is that it allows players to set expectations what they can and can't do, giving them at least some certainty on what they can try (though the dice can always be fickle) and letting them plan ahead. The DM randomly coming up with checks that they players don't expect or are not flagged sufficiently ahead of time can cause uncertainty and lead to the decision paralysis that is mentioned in this video too. Basically, so long as what the player is suggesting is logical and doesn't break any rules it's usually a good idea to give them free reign, and only call for checks when there is a chance of failure with consequences .
History time! Pathfinder 1e is based directly on D&D 3.5e using the Open Game License that was around for people to make 3rd party content (and their own games in the case of Pathfinder) using the d20 system of the time. As such, Pathfinder inherited a ton of mechanics from D&D 3.5e, some of which you touch on here. Daylight in 3.5e creates bright enough light to trigger the effect of Light Sensitivity, a special quality of certain nocturnal and subterranean monsters (notably Kobolds, Orcs, and Duergar) that makes them dazzled in bright light (so -1 to attack rolls and the system's equivalent of Perception and Investigation). I don't think either the condition or the racial quality even exist in D&D 5e but from a 3.5e perspective the strategy makes sense. Also in 3.5e is the concept of the armour check penalty. Heavier armour, and carrying heavier loads, imposes a penalty on skill checks that involve physical activity, such as Climb, Jump, and Move Silently. I believe Matt was just so used to there being some sort of penalty for heavy armour and stealth that he chose to give Pike disadvantage to make up for the lack of penalty to her rolls that 5e streamlined out of the game. I don't know whether the group were playing Pathfinder 1e or 2e before they switched to D&D 5e, but if it was 1e then there's definite reason for the rulings he made in these regards. I don't know much about PF 2e but I'd be willing to bet these things carried over into the system too and thus further reinforce why Matt would make those rulings.
@@theyellowninjadude Good to know, thank you! :D I don't know too much about Pathfinder so I'm not sure when the editions released and what was changed between them.
they'd been playing Pathfinder since their second session, back in 2013, up until their first streamed episode in March 2015, and yeah, Matt had edition bleed going on.
@@theyellowninjadude I've stuck with 3.5e all these years, personally. 5e is TOO streamlined for my tastes and leaves 90% of the work to the DM's homebrewing and house ruling. I also think it's really hard to actually die in 5e unless the DM sends way overpowered things at you for your level, which takes a lot of tension out of it.
I've learned that the key to being a good DM is knowing when to twist the rules and when to stick to them based on the situation. That's a skill that takes some practice at paying attention to what every player is doing and how all the factors at play are effecting each other.
While you talk about the importance of continuing eye contact while reading/referencing notes, I think it's an important lesson for those who run games over voice, as well. I know I've made this mistake GMing from a module (non-D&D) but also see/hear this problem in news interviews, etc., where a person focuses too much on reading exactly what's written that it comes off dry, stilted, and unengaging. As you suggest, it's important to know pretty well what you're talking about, and have the ability to improvise a bit and adapt to slight mistakes - it's one thing to correct yourself if you slip up and say "castle" but mean "temple" (or "elf" instead of "orc") but it's another to try to correct the exact phrasing (unless it's a riddle or something that requires that specific language).
Part of the reason I use milestone advancement in my game is so the players do not feel as though they need to kill everything they encounter to go up in levels. In the last session they actually avoided a combat that looked like it would be kind of dicey. Also it is one less thing they have to keep track of. CR avoiding the encounter with stealth is an example. They don't feel as though they need to kill every monster in every encounter.
RE missing players: I was once DM-ing a seven-player campaign, where they were on a mission to sneak into an enemy city and free some prisoners. Weekend one about half the players were free and on weekend two the other half of the players were free, so they ended up splitting the party. On the first weekend half the party caused a diversion, and weekend two was a "meanwhile" as the other half of the party rescued the prisoners. Weekend three, when I had everyone back, they quickly reunited and escaped. It ended up working out pretty well.
I had to miss a session for work reasons. for reasons, my dm ruled that my character was overcome by a sickness. I thought this was great for theming. problem is, he made me roll a con save to see if i recovered when i returned and i rolled a nat 1. My character was out for half that session as a result of this, which really freakin sucked. lesson here: you dont always need to roll for things.
I love that you go back and givr credit to the early days of the show which I feel many people over look and ignore due to the admittedly many flaws in the early time
Hey man just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this series! Seems like you're getting a lot of ribbing for taking so long to upload episodes but honestly man you do you sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes you need to take extra time to make sure the finished product is something you can be proud of. Looking forward to the next one!
I love the idea that because there is a reason for a character's absence, they should come back with some benefit of being absent. If they leave while the party stays in a city, perhaps the absent player's character went to the library and happened upon some weakness or other piece of information about the next enemy you plan to throw at them. Or maybe they took the other path of a split path you just plopped in and have camp ready for them when you're ready to end the session, giving the party a bonus to their long rest at the start of the next session, and the missing player would get some unique loot or, again, information from taking the road less travelled. This does remind me of something from my first campaign that I'm still not sure was the right call or not. In a Ravnica campaign, right before we trekked off into wilderness to continue the story, I leveled up my rank in the Boros Legion enough to get a guild ability. I was able to request 1d4 soldiers to accompany me on any Legion-approved mission. I rolled a four, and Arryl, Barryl, Cherryl, and Darryl were born into my care. They came with us for a good while, until my DM came to me and said "hey, it's getting a bit tough to run combat with your soldiers, can I kill them off?" and, being in my first campaign, I just agreed. So, I sent them down a split path with an absent player, and they all died off-screen. Then, a few weeks later, we gained 3 players to a 4/5 player table (it varied week to week, it was college), and he had no problems with adding them in. I wish I had the experience I do now, so I could have proposed alternatives like me handling their turns, just keeping them out of battle, or just killing off 1-2 of them, but here we are.
Years of Toast Masters and meeting presentations have always helped me with speaking to my notes in a session and just use minimal notes to state a full thought.
Just as a note regarding the heavy armor. While I can't say that this is what Matt had in mind when giving Ashley disadvantage, it should be noted that Pike initially didn't use heavy armor during their Pathfinder sessions before the series. She started to wear it after she died to a demon they were fighting. Now, rules as written, yes Pike shouldn't have to have disadvantage on her role since she's a war cleric, but it can make sense in the context that she's still relatively new to wearing heavy armor. Again this is just speculation, I don't know what exactly goes through Matt's head, so it could just be that he wanted to have disadvantage on more acrobatic movements in larger armor. An argument can also be made that Pike shouldn't have disadvantage anyway, since she already trained with heavy armor for a in-game year during a time skip.
@@ahmeeklegend7393 they do. Now, we would see guests or NPCs in heavy armor - Kerrek in his chain, or Lady Kima in her plate. And I'm pretty sure they clarified that it was just stealth later, when Pike tried to order special armor that didn't clank along. It's just they almost always play sneaky parties, and their strength based characters seem to always be barbarians, who don't use armor.
I really love this series; you find great lessons from the show and share them in an easy to follow way, particularly with the lesson recap at the end. The sticky notes are cute. The point of the heavy armor is a good one, and I hadn't really thought about how nobody's used heavy armor since.
Loving these videos! Its great for reminding me what happened in the episodes I was able to watch. 14:00 as always, my favorite thing in D&D is "flavor trumps rules"- or in this case, making the combat more interesting is worth bending the rules a little bit.
My favorite part of this episode was one of the top comments on the video saying something along the lines of "since Matt said to roll strength or dex, a bucket of shit is considered a finesse weapon"
At 12:48 when he talks about not giving them a surprise round I think is great, I (a pretty new DM) did a similar thing where whilst the party knew there was a minotaur skeleton about to bust through a wall and were prepared to attack it, in my head it also knew a fight was coming. So to me there was no surprise round just what everyone had planned to do, so I'm kinda glad my decision wasn't awful
I've just discovered this series and I love it! I've watched C1 up to around ep 50 but I'm inexperienced with D&D so I could never pinpoint WHY the various things that occur work so well. I'm sure your series will prove invaluable when I'm preparing to DM as I already know it's something I want to do 😊
If you watch a bunch of Dimension 20 content and post show stuff one of the things Brennan Lee Muligan brings up often is his 10 year long running 3.5 game. For all intents and purposes 3.5 and pathfinder 1e are the same game. Brennan still uses 3.5 for that play group because up until covid they only got together to play once every few months, the characters are nearing level 20 and the players are almost finished with their insane 3.5 20 level builds, and because it would be impossible to replicate their builds in 5e thanks to how insane the prestige class system was. But after listening to Brennan talk about "Mathfinder" it's obvious why he and many others only stream 5e. These early games feature a lot of pathfinder 1e rulings popping up while Matt learns the 5e system. Cut to later games and campaign 2 and he plays 5e pretty much by the book in comparison.
Just found your channel and I’m impressed you use a script because it is not apparent at all. Your narration seems so extemporaneous and off the cuff. Really enjoying your content!
Re: reading off and engaging players I feel like this sort of thing might be more difficult when you play remotely and only use voice chat. Because there’s no one to make eye contact with you’d get into the habit of just reading
Rules-as-written, on skill checks, nat 1's aren't automatic (much less critical) failures and nat 20's aren't automatic (or critical) successes. Those are just for attacks and saving throws. However, Sam famously enjoys roleplaying nat1 penalties. Later in the campaign, they tighten up that rule as well as others - you even see Matt pushing for them to tell him actual post-bonus total after someone claims a nat20 on a skill check, because he does take that (non-)rule seriously. But that's later on. This isn't universal practice, especially on live-streamed campaigns. Dimension20 campaigns, adjudicated by Brennan Lee Mulligan very much do critical fails/successes on skill check nat1's/20's. Often to Brennan's chagrin: Ally (dying): "can I just roll a D20 and if I get a 20, I'm alive?" Brennan (distracted): "yeah, sure." Ally (rolls): "nat20." Brennan: (goes total blue-screen while he figures out how to work with this) Love this as a series - IMO, for every good RPG tip one can think of, there's an example somewhere in Critical Role's play. Both because it's very good, and that there's so much of it. But you can see them doing things right, and using good ideas that anyone can learn and incorporate in their game.
But in your D20 example it’s a death save, not a skill check, so the critical success/fail is the actual 5e rule. You regain one hit point and return to consciousness.
I think he could split Trial of the Take into two episodes rather than four. Cover parts 1 and 2 in one video and parts 3 and 4 in another Or just cover all four in one video. Same with other episodes that got split into two parts in the UA-cam VODs (probably due to technical issues)
13:33 So yeah there are rules for doing that now, since the Metamagic Adept feat would give Quickened Spell once per long rest as an option for sticking onto NPC template statblocks. However, I recognize it wasn't a thing (Without adding Sorcerer levels to the block, a more involved process) back then; And more importantly that it's probably not what Matt was going for since he flubs the rules a lot early on and still does a bit to this day. It's definitely a better enemy this way, but technically a blunder that could be problematic in the wrong situations. Thankfully, this isn't one such situation this time.
Soooo many people simply cannot read text out loud. They read too fast, or too slow. They completely ignore punctuation (especially clauses inside the main sentence). They drop into a monotone, not realizing that natural speech puts stress on certain words. A bad read can completely destroy a session as players disconnect. The suggestion to practice reading out loud is vital (at Lee as t at first).
I'd like to point out that he could have just made getting bigger a legendary action. Do it at the end of the players' turn, at the start of the general's turn take an attack. We already know Matt homebrew's monsters to make them weaker or stronger all the time, but that would be an in rules explanation
Great video. At this point in the campaign, I don't believe that Pike had the strength required to wear plate mail without a penalty to her movement so it's understandable why Matt felt Pike should be more penalized when climbing something in combat. I think the stealth penalty has more to do with why Critical Role and many players tend to avoid using heavy armor. Later on, she gets the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, and it makes a big difference for her.
unless a player leaves for a long time i don't even acknowledge in world that they are not there or that they are back. works perfectly fine and keeps everything flowing.
While I do love the point about heavy armor I feel the need to point out that Taryon Darrington also wears heavy armor, but yeah it's usually only used in oneshots
I actually have a player coming back this week, and now I plan to have her be the one to tell the party that the Dwendalian Empire is going to declare them Kryn marauders and outlaws across the empire.
I mean... disadvantage on acrobatics with heavy armor sounds reasonable. I would say even that some limits like that make cool moments more cool. You can't emphasize them if there are no ordinary things. And btw that's why adventurers form parties - u can't be good or well-prepared to everything as single person
It *sounds* reasonable... until you start actually looking at what is possible in full plate armor (most of what we have been told about plate -- hard to move, had to be hoisted into a saddle with a crane, too heavy to do many things -- have been disproven, but still hang around) like these things: ua-cam.com/video/qzTwBQniLSc/v-deo.html
About Pike having disadvantage on that Athletics check: In Pathfinder a suit of Full Plate had a pretty hefty skill check penalty. I think that Matt actually didn't know that this had been done away with in 5e and ruled that the penalty would translate into disadvantage. His DM brain was still working with the Pathfinder rules.
That makes a lot of sense! Even if he knew it was not “the rule,” that approach could still heavily (hah) inform gif approach to armor, especially before he’s had a chance to really experience 5e and see what it does well and where it would still need to be homebrewed to get the effect he wanted.
@@SupergeekMike I also think he didn't fully grasp Bounded Accuracy yet. As proven by the fact that he gave Scanlan an item that gives +2 to his spell DC. And Bounded Accuracy is pretty much balanced around Advantage/Disadvantage. Your chances of failing your rolls really go up if you have disadvantage in 5e. But in 3.5 and Pathfinder a 'small' penalty of -5 would have less of an impact. IIRC it was quite normal for someone to have a +11 in Jump or Climb, pretty early on.
I must say, campaign 1 gave me a bad view of heavy armor. The disadvantage on stealth seemed crippling for Pike where as the heavy armor didn’t really provide much protection when it seemed her foes constantly rolled in the mid 20s for attacks.
Not making it feel like you're just "reading the box text" is a public speaking skill that is key and not always easy, but if you can do it, it will connect you better.
Even now days Matt plays fast and loose with monster action economy. I can’t remember what the monster was, but he used a monster in campaign 2 that I recognized and noticed he will use any and all actions in their stat block in a single turn. Now he has seven players now days, so I’m not saying he shouldn’t, but it definitely seems strange to be bending that rule as often as he does.
He finally addressed this in C3, when they fought a plant creature with legendary actions. The cast was shocked and horrified, and he said, “Listen, legendary actions doesn’t mean it’s a legendary creature. It’s what I have to do sometimes because there are seven of you.” And everyone at the table nodded and went, “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.” I don’t envy the work he has to do to make fights entertaining every week for 7 people (and also for a few million extra people).
18:56 I think this is a misattribution. Ain't no one being like "Damn, remember that one time early on, Matt said Pike had disadvantage on a random Acrobatics Check 6 years ago? Man, better not take Heavy Armour"
I think you're jumping a long way to a wrong conclusion regarding your discussion of the heavy armor. You're talking about episode 4 where they're still all very, very new to the 5e ruleset. I highly doubt Matt purposefully added a penalty to heavy armor vs. just not knowing the rule, and going with past edition/momentary gut on a call (as all DMs have to do from time to time). And to think that the single ruling has anything to do with characters since then not wearing heavy armor... that's just laughable.
I don't think it's laughable, exactly. Pike failed A LOT of stealth rolls. To the point where later she tries to find ways to enchant it to not give her disadvantage. It's possible the players remember that and don't want to deal with that themselves in future games. It's absolutely possible Matt just missed the acrobatics call. He's wrangling 8 PCs and tons of NPCs, and rules for all of them, that are fairly new to all of them. He may have just made a call that he thought he remembered a rule for, or couldn't remember the rule so just made a decision on the spot to keep the game moving. It's easy for us to sit here on a thursday night with our pizza and beer and pick over every decision, but it can't be easy to be in Matt's shoes.
@@piperbird7193 I completely agree. And it's not likely that players are making the conscious choice of heavy armour = bad because of Pike, but more likely hmm, heavy armour doesn't seem to balance the higher AC at the cost of disadvantage on stealth for my character/playstyle. I'm not at campaign 3 yet, but both Vox Machina and Mighty Nein roll a lot of stealth checks. Having that disadvantage would have a much bigger effect in these campaigns than in one that involves a lot less stealth.
It's not "laughable" to suggest it as a possibility. And it is completely reasonable to, when a series is spending loads of time dissecting what makes Matthew Mercer's DM'ing effective and admirable, also acknowledge a small moment where he made an error. You see this all the time in art, sports and even the medical profession. There's tons of value (and respect) in analyzing a skilled person's performance and pondering what could have been done better.
Why is this the last comment in this comment section? It needs to be up top. The link you shared here is amazing. I knew that plate armour wasn’t as restrictive as popular believe made it out to be, but I had no idea it allowed for somersaults without issue.
The sticky note over the chat is the best running joke/not joke in this series!
Giving the absent player a vision so they'd have info to contribute is god-tier DM-ing. Way to go, Matt.
One of the things I absolutely love about how Matt DMs is how he can make even "easy" monster fights feel epic. It's something I try to incorporate into my game. Just because it's a CR 1 (or less) doesn't mean it has to be boring or feel easy; it can still be an amazing encounter and feel incredible when the party defeats it.
I once tore a group of 3 level experienced players apart and ran them out of a cave with a group of Kobolds and some giant rats. Its in the way that you use it...
Some good overall lessons; a "sub-lesson" regarding the Duergar General: as a "boss" or "special/unique" it could be rationalized that he has so much experience with the ability that it doesn't cost him an action.
Or you could give him action surge like a fighter.
Whilst I think the specific issue with heavy armour in this case is a holdover from Pathfinder and the group being new to 5E rules, rather then Matt just choosing to penalise Pike, I think generally the point in the video still stands. Players should not be penalised for trying to be creative, and if the rules don't restrict it then usually it's better to roll with the players suggestion rather then impose random checks out of nowhere.
One of the key reasons stated for keeping to the rules is that it allows players to set expectations what they can and can't do, giving them at least some certainty on what they can try (though the dice can always be fickle) and letting them plan ahead. The DM randomly coming up with checks that they players don't expect or are not flagged sufficiently ahead of time can cause uncertainty and lead to the decision paralysis that is mentioned in this video too.
Basically, so long as what the player is suggesting is logical and doesn't break any rules it's usually a good idea to give them free reign, and only call for checks when there is a chance of failure with consequences .
History time!
Pathfinder 1e is based directly on D&D 3.5e using the Open Game License that was around for people to make 3rd party content (and their own games in the case of Pathfinder) using the d20 system of the time. As such, Pathfinder inherited a ton of mechanics from D&D 3.5e, some of which you touch on here.
Daylight in 3.5e creates bright enough light to trigger the effect of Light Sensitivity, a special quality of certain nocturnal and subterranean monsters (notably Kobolds, Orcs, and Duergar) that makes them dazzled in bright light (so -1 to attack rolls and the system's equivalent of Perception and Investigation). I don't think either the condition or the racial quality even exist in D&D 5e but from a 3.5e perspective the strategy makes sense.
Also in 3.5e is the concept of the armour check penalty. Heavier armour, and carrying heavier loads, imposes a penalty on skill checks that involve physical activity, such as Climb, Jump, and Move Silently. I believe Matt was just so used to there being some sort of penalty for heavy armour and stealth that he chose to give Pike disadvantage to make up for the lack of penalty to her rolls that 5e streamlined out of the game.
I don't know whether the group were playing Pathfinder 1e or 2e before they switched to D&D 5e, but if it was 1e then there's definite reason for the rulings he made in these regards. I don't know much about PF 2e but I'd be willing to bet these things carried over into the system too and thus further reinforce why Matt would make those rulings.
PF 2e wasn’t released yet. Campaign 1 pre stream was 2012-2015.
@@theyellowninjadude Good to know, thank you! :D
I don't know too much about Pathfinder so I'm not sure when the editions released and what was changed between them.
they'd been playing Pathfinder since their second session, back in 2013, up until their first streamed episode in March 2015, and yeah, Matt had edition bleed going on.
I did too, I played 3.5, 4e, and PF all before I started 5e. And haven't looked back as I love it the most.
@@theyellowninjadude I've stuck with 3.5e all these years, personally. 5e is TOO streamlined for my tastes and leaves 90% of the work to the DM's homebrewing and house ruling. I also think it's really hard to actually die in 5e unless the DM sends way overpowered things at you for your level, which takes a lot of tension out of it.
"Falling" you say... I think I know one moment that Critters and Critical Role will never forget 🐟
why would you even tempt that shit....
I mean they're basically god's :P
@@D33dums snrk
I've learned that the key to being a good DM is knowing when to twist the rules and when to stick to them based on the situation. That's a skill that takes some practice at paying attention to what every player is doing and how all the factors at play are effecting each other.
I really like this series. It's a great breakdown and I love seeing highlights from the early CR episodes.
While you talk about the importance of continuing eye contact while reading/referencing notes, I think it's an important lesson for those who run games over voice, as well. I know I've made this mistake GMing from a module (non-D&D) but also see/hear this problem in news interviews, etc., where a person focuses too much on reading exactly what's written that it comes off dry, stilted, and unengaging. As you suggest, it's important to know pretty well what you're talking about, and have the ability to improvise a bit and adapt to slight mistakes - it's one thing to correct yourself if you slip up and say "castle" but mean "temple" (or "elf" instead of "orc") but it's another to try to correct the exact phrasing (unless it's a riddle or something that requires that specific language).
Part of the reason I use milestone advancement in my game is so the players do not feel as though they need to kill everything they encounter to go up in levels. In the last session they actually avoided a combat that looked like it would be kind of dicey. Also it is one less thing they have to keep track of. CR avoiding the encounter with stealth is an example. They don't feel as though they need to kill every monster in every encounter.
RE missing players: I was once DM-ing a seven-player campaign, where they were on a mission to sneak into an enemy city and free some prisoners. Weekend one about half the players were free and on weekend two the other half of the players were free, so they ended up splitting the party. On the first weekend half the party caused a diversion, and weekend two was a "meanwhile" as the other half of the party rescued the prisoners. Weekend three, when I had everyone back, they quickly reunited and escaped. It ended up working out pretty well.
I had to miss a session for work reasons. for reasons, my dm ruled that my character was overcome by a sickness. I thought this was great for theming. problem is, he made me roll a con save to see if i recovered when i returned and i rolled a nat 1. My character was out for half that session as a result of this, which really freakin sucked. lesson here: you dont always need to roll for things.
I've got a couple new players coming into my campaign soon. Gonna take the tip on incorporating "the join" early
Wise decision, one of my groups has players not able to come every session. I add them to the group as soon as possible, within 5 minutes usually.
I love that you go back and givr credit to the early days of the show which I feel many people over look and ignore due to the admittedly many flaws in the early time
Hey man just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this series! Seems like you're getting a lot of ribbing for taking so long to upload episodes but honestly man you do you sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes you need to take extra time to make sure the finished product is something you can be proud of. Looking forward to the next one!
Thank you!
I love the idea that because there is a reason for a character's absence, they should come back with some benefit of being absent. If they leave while the party stays in a city, perhaps the absent player's character went to the library and happened upon some weakness or other piece of information about the next enemy you plan to throw at them. Or maybe they took the other path of a split path you just plopped in and have camp ready for them when you're ready to end the session, giving the party a bonus to their long rest at the start of the next session, and the missing player would get some unique loot or, again, information from taking the road less travelled.
This does remind me of something from my first campaign that I'm still not sure was the right call or not. In a Ravnica campaign, right before we trekked off into wilderness to continue the story, I leveled up my rank in the Boros Legion enough to get a guild ability. I was able to request 1d4 soldiers to accompany me on any Legion-approved mission. I rolled a four, and Arryl, Barryl, Cherryl, and Darryl were born into my care. They came with us for a good while, until my DM came to me and said "hey, it's getting a bit tough to run combat with your soldiers, can I kill them off?" and, being in my first campaign, I just agreed. So, I sent them down a split path with an absent player, and they all died off-screen. Then, a few weeks later, we gained 3 players to a 4/5 player table (it varied week to week, it was college), and he had no problems with adding them in. I wish I had the experience I do now, so I could have proposed alternatives like me handling their turns, just keeping them out of battle, or just killing off 1-2 of them, but here we are.
Years of Toast Masters and meeting presentations have always helped me with speaking to my notes in a session and just use minimal notes to state a full thought.
Just as a note regarding the heavy armor. While I can't say that this is what Matt had in mind when giving Ashley disadvantage, it should be noted that Pike initially didn't use heavy armor during their Pathfinder sessions before the series. She started to wear it after she died to a demon they were fighting. Now, rules as written, yes Pike shouldn't have to have disadvantage on her role since she's a war cleric, but it can make sense in the context that she's still relatively new to wearing heavy armor. Again this is just speculation, I don't know what exactly goes through Matt's head, so it could just be that he wanted to have disadvantage on more acrobatic movements in larger armor. An argument can also be made that Pike shouldn't have disadvantage anyway, since she already trained with heavy armor for a in-game year during a time skip.
I could be wrong, but I thought even people profient in heavy armor still have disadvantage on stealth rolls.
@@ahmeeklegend7393 they do.
Now, we would see guests or NPCs in heavy armor - Kerrek in his chain, or Lady Kima in her plate.
And I'm pretty sure they clarified that it was just stealth later, when Pike tried to order special armor that didn't clank along. It's just they almost always play sneaky parties, and their strength based characters seem to always be barbarians, who don't use armor.
I really love this series; you find great lessons from the show and share them in an easy to follow way, particularly with the lesson recap at the end. The sticky notes are cute. The point of the heavy armor is a good one, and I hadn't really thought about how nobody's used heavy armor since.
Cant wait till you do mighty nein, thats where i develop my DM style. I use alot of his techniques but added the players play styles too.
Watching the vox machina show and then watching these videos I'm more and more impressed with Matt as a storyteller and GM
These are excellent videos. Glad to have seen your channel pop up.
Loving these videos! Its great for reminding me what happened in the episodes I was able to watch.
14:00 as always, my favorite thing in D&D is "flavor trumps rules"- or in this case, making the combat more interesting is worth bending the rules a little bit.
My favorite part of this episode was one of the top comments on the video saying something along the lines of "since Matt said to roll strength or dex, a bucket of shit is considered a finesse weapon"
At 12:48 when he talks about not giving them a surprise round I think is great, I (a pretty new DM) did a similar thing where whilst the party knew there was a minotaur skeleton about to bust through a wall and were prepared to attack it, in my head it also knew a fight was coming. So to me there was no surprise round just what everyone had planned to do, so I'm kinda glad my decision wasn't awful
I really love these recap breakdowns!. I. On ep 93 now!
I've just discovered this series and I love it! I've watched C1 up to around ep 50 but I'm inexperienced with D&D so I could never pinpoint WHY the various things that occur work so well. I'm sure your series will prove invaluable when I'm preparing to DM as I already know it's something I want to do 😊
I’m so glad! 😁
This series is now the slowest way iv rewatched cr
Re: reading from the page. I run games over zoom and I can just bring my notes up and it still looks to the others as if I'm looking into the camera.
If you watch a bunch of Dimension 20 content and post show stuff one of the things Brennan Lee Muligan brings up often is his 10 year long running 3.5 game. For all intents and purposes 3.5 and pathfinder 1e are the same game. Brennan still uses 3.5 for that play group because up until covid they only got together to play once every few months, the characters are nearing level 20 and the players are almost finished with their insane 3.5 20 level builds, and because it would be impossible to replicate their builds in 5e thanks to how insane the prestige class system was.
But after listening to Brennan talk about "Mathfinder" it's obvious why he and many others only stream 5e. These early games feature a lot of pathfinder 1e rulings popping up while Matt learns the 5e system. Cut to later games and campaign 2 and he plays 5e pretty much by the book in comparison.
Just found your channel and I’m impressed you use a script because it is not apparent at all. Your narration seems so extemporaneous and off the cuff.
Really enjoying your content!
Thank you so much!
Re: reading off and engaging players
I feel like this sort of thing might be more difficult when you play remotely and only use voice chat. Because there’s no one to make eye contact with you’d get into the habit of just reading
Stealth lesson were a major problem in c1
Pike: Cla-clang
Rules-as-written, on skill checks, nat 1's aren't automatic (much less critical) failures and nat 20's aren't automatic (or critical) successes. Those are just for attacks and saving throws. However, Sam famously enjoys roleplaying nat1 penalties. Later in the campaign, they tighten up that rule as well as others - you even see Matt pushing for them to tell him actual post-bonus total after someone claims a nat20 on a skill check, because he does take that (non-)rule seriously. But that's later on.
This isn't universal practice, especially on live-streamed campaigns. Dimension20 campaigns, adjudicated by Brennan Lee Mulligan very much do critical fails/successes on skill check nat1's/20's. Often to Brennan's chagrin:
Ally (dying): "can I just roll a D20 and if I get a 20, I'm alive?"
Brennan (distracted): "yeah, sure."
Ally (rolls): "nat20."
Brennan: (goes total blue-screen while he figures out how to work with this)
Love this as a series - IMO, for every good RPG tip one can think of, there's an example somewhere in Critical Role's play. Both because it's very good, and that there's so much of it. But you can see them doing things right, and using good ideas that anyone can learn and incorporate in their game.
But in your D20 example it’s a death save, not a skill check, so the critical success/fail is the actual 5e rule. You regain one hit point and return to consciousness.
1 recap every 2 weeks means it's going to be 4-5 years before we get to Campaign 2.
I think he could split Trial of the Take into two episodes rather than four. Cover parts 1 and 2 in one video and parts 3 and 4 in another
Or just cover all four in one video. Same with other episodes that got split into two parts in the UA-cam VODs (probably due to technical issues)
13:33 So yeah there are rules for doing that now, since the Metamagic Adept feat would give Quickened Spell once per long rest as an option for sticking onto NPC template statblocks. However, I recognize it wasn't a thing (Without adding Sorcerer levels to the block, a more involved process) back then; And more importantly that it's probably not what Matt was going for since he flubs the rules a lot early on and still does a bit to this day. It's definitely a better enemy this way, but technically a blunder that could be problematic in the wrong situations. Thankfully, this isn't one such situation this time.
You managed to find a legitimate flaw mat mercer's DMing and the serious consequences of said flaw.
Wow man. That's impressive!
Heavy armor gives you disadvantage on skills if you don't have a high enough strength score which didn't at the time.
Soooo many people simply cannot read text out loud. They read too fast, or too slow. They completely ignore punctuation (especially clauses inside the main sentence). They drop into a monotone, not realizing that natural speech puts stress on certain words. A bad read can completely destroy a session as players disconnect. The suggestion to practice reading out loud is vital (at Lee as t at first).
Please make these weekly!!!
I'd like to point out that he could have just made getting bigger a legendary action. Do it at the end of the players' turn, at the start of the general's turn take an attack. We already know Matt homebrew's monsters to make them weaker or stronger all the time, but that would be an in rules explanation
Yeah that post-it note is a big improvement.
Great video.
At this point in the campaign, I don't believe that Pike had the strength required to wear plate mail without a penalty to her movement so it's understandable why Matt felt Pike should be more penalized when climbing something in combat. I think the stealth penalty has more to do with why Critical Role and many players tend to avoid using heavy armor. Later on, she gets the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, and it makes a big difference for her.
unless a player leaves for a long time i don't even acknowledge in world that they are not there or that they are back. works perfectly fine and keeps everything flowing.
great video!
Obligatory comment for the algorithm. Loving these videos, as someone who recently did an entire campaign 1 and talks rewatch
Thank you!
While I do love the point about heavy armor I feel the need to point out that Taryon Darrington also wears heavy armor, but yeah it's usually only used in oneshots
I actually have a player coming back this week, and now I plan to have her be the one to tell the party that the Dwendalian Empire is going to declare them Kryn marauders and outlaws across the empire.
Perfect!
I personally assumed the Duergar General had fighter class levels and used Action Surge
That’s almost certainly how Matt would handle something like that today.
I mean... disadvantage on acrobatics with heavy armor sounds reasonable. I would say even that some limits like that make cool moments more cool. You can't emphasize them if there are no ordinary things. And btw that's why adventurers form parties - u can't be good or well-prepared to everything as single person
It *sounds* reasonable... until you start actually looking at what is possible in full plate armor (most of what we have been told about plate -- hard to move, had to be hoisted into a saddle with a crane, too heavy to do many things -- have been disproven, but still hang around) like these things: ua-cam.com/video/qzTwBQniLSc/v-deo.html
About Pike having disadvantage on that Athletics check: In Pathfinder a suit of Full Plate had a pretty hefty skill check penalty. I think that Matt actually didn't know that this had been done away with in 5e and ruled that the penalty would translate into disadvantage. His DM brain was still working with the Pathfinder rules.
That makes a lot of sense! Even if he knew it was not “the rule,” that approach could still heavily (hah) inform gif approach to armor, especially before he’s had a chance to really experience 5e and see what it does well and where it would still need to be homebrewed to get the effect he wanted.
@@SupergeekMike I also think he didn't fully grasp Bounded Accuracy yet. As proven by the fact that he gave Scanlan an item that gives +2 to his spell DC.
And Bounded Accuracy is pretty much balanced around Advantage/Disadvantage. Your chances of failing your rolls really go up if you have disadvantage in 5e. But in 3.5 and Pathfinder a 'small' penalty of -5 would have less of an impact. IIRC it was quite normal for someone to have a +11 in Jump or Climb, pretty early on.
Point 1 has been putting me off the Legends of the Multiverse show -- the guest stars have to wait SO LONG before their characters appear!
the fact that daylight doesn't produce sunlight is the dumbest shit I can think of in DnD.
I must say, campaign 1 gave me a bad view of heavy armor. The disadvantage on stealth seemed crippling for Pike where as the heavy armor didn’t really provide much protection when it seemed her foes constantly rolled in the mid 20s for attacks.
Isn't Percy the other Character who can actually wear heavy armor?
Or did I forget someone?
Not making it feel like you're just "reading the box text" is a public speaking skill that is key and not always easy, but if you can do it, it will connect you better.
Love the shirt
Thanks!
Even now days Matt plays fast and loose with monster action economy. I can’t remember what the monster was, but he used a monster in campaign 2 that I recognized and noticed he will use any and all actions in their stat block in a single turn. Now he has seven players now days, so I’m not saying he shouldn’t, but it definitely seems strange to be bending that rule as often as he does.
He finally addressed this in C3, when they fought a plant creature with legendary actions. The cast was shocked and horrified, and he said, “Listen, legendary actions doesn’t mean it’s a legendary creature. It’s what I have to do sometimes because there are seven of you.” And everyone at the table nodded and went, “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”
I don’t envy the work he has to do to make fights entertaining every week for 7 people (and also for a few million extra people).
@@SupergeekMike completely agree. I only DM for two people now, it was three, but scheduling conflicts suck.
18:56 I think this is a misattribution. Ain't no one being like "Damn, remember that one time early on, Matt said Pike had disadvantage on a random Acrobatics Check 6 years ago? Man, better not take Heavy Armour"
I think you're jumping a long way to a wrong conclusion regarding your discussion of the heavy armor. You're talking about episode 4 where they're still all very, very new to the 5e ruleset. I highly doubt Matt purposefully added a penalty to heavy armor vs. just not knowing the rule, and going with past edition/momentary gut on a call (as all DMs have to do from time to time).
And to think that the single ruling has anything to do with characters since then not wearing heavy armor... that's just laughable.
I don't think it's laughable, exactly. Pike failed A LOT of stealth rolls. To the point where later she tries to find ways to enchant it to not give her disadvantage. It's possible the players remember that and don't want to deal with that themselves in future games.
It's absolutely possible Matt just missed the acrobatics call. He's wrangling 8 PCs and tons of NPCs, and rules for all of them, that are fairly new to all of them. He may have just made a call that he thought he remembered a rule for, or couldn't remember the rule so just made a decision on the spot to keep the game moving. It's easy for us to sit here on a thursday night with our pizza and beer and pick over every decision, but it can't be easy to be in Matt's shoes.
@@piperbird7193 I completely agree. And it's not likely that players are making the conscious choice of heavy armour = bad because of Pike, but more likely hmm, heavy armour doesn't seem to balance the higher AC at the cost of disadvantage on stealth for my character/playstyle. I'm not at campaign 3 yet, but both Vox Machina and Mighty Nein roll a lot of stealth checks. Having that disadvantage would have a much bigger effect in these campaigns than in one that involves a lot less stealth.
It's not "laughable" to suggest it as a possibility. And it is completely reasonable to, when a series is spending loads of time dissecting what makes Matthew Mercer's DM'ing effective and admirable, also acknowledge a small moment where he made an error. You see this all the time in art, sports and even the medical profession. There's tons of value (and respect) in analyzing a skilled person's performance and pondering what could have been done better.
"acrobatics in heavy armor is unrealistic" meanwhile IRL level 0-1 commoners ua-cam.com/video/qzTwBQniLSc/v-deo.html
Why is this the last comment in this comment section? It needs to be up top. The link you shared here is amazing. I knew that plate armour wasn’t as restrictive as popular believe made it out to be, but I had no idea it allowed for somersaults without issue.