"I eldritch blast the door" DM: "that can only target creatures" "OK, I kick it open" DM: "alright, then what?" "I eldritch blast all the furniture" DM: "Like I said, that can only target creatures" "OK guys, we're safe, no mimics in here!" DM: ".... I hate you."
"DM: Cool, clever dick, you metagame and exploit, so I will, too. The glyph of warding on the backside of the wall sets off when somebody casts eldtrich bast. The fireball explodes. Since none of the stuff inside the room is carried, it is now all destroyed, but sure, there are no mimics. Congrats!
Was running a Star Wars game once and told my players that I wasn't going to bother with encumbrance rules so long as they kept it within reason. Next session, one player had a suit of heavy armor with 5 rifles, one of which was as long as she was tall, and the player with the lowest STR possible had 30 grenades strapped to their chest. We now use encumbrance rules.
As the GM you should have immediately applied encumbered . Players are like children they will constantly test boundaries to see what you will let them get away with.
My friend got around encumbrance by inventing the "Banking Hobbits." When we ran into a cache of treasure, we simply summoned them with a magic device, they came and hauled away the treasure to their vaults, and we were off to the next encounter. Of course, the Banking Hobbits had a minimum summoning fee and took a percentage of the haul, but it made everything flow more smoothly.
The mercantile Mercanes - 3.5 lore - do all that Plus have numerous magic items available for mid-to - high level PCs to purchase..the Boss Mercane rides on a Planar Behemoth living ship, with vast magical resources at his command..
We use a similar system where the DM allows us to sell everything for 50% of cost (because cleaning the blood out of armor is icky) and we all have bags of holding. We also don't track ammo except for magical ones.
I have done that since 3.0/3.5. Usually whatever god is the god of mercantile has a follower that meets the party fairly early on and gives them a coin. This coin, once given to the party, can only stay among them and will always be on one person any given time, they always know where it is at. Summoning the merchant requires a single coin flip, and then I roll to determine the merchant's influence among the party, affecting the price of his or her wares. When the party is finished, the merchant disappears in a puff of smoke with all their wares, and the coin flips back into the possession of the one who flipped it.
We had a Tomb of Annihilation game where the DM awarded literal tons of gold, so making decisions about “should I take this jeweled goblet back or grab more handfuls of coins” became fun, if agonizing, choices. It got really interesting when one of the PCs fell in the water and couldn’t swim out without dropping his treasure laden pack.
Yes! This is the right way to handle this situations, only if they have a dramatic meaning. Otherwise, rules for the sake of rules is playing lawyers, and that ain't fun. Let characters hold a lot of treasure, and when the situation emerges where treasure is obviously a problem, then turn it into a problem.
Had a DM who never let up on variant encumberance, always mentioned it before picking up things, applied coin and ammo weight, no Bag of Holding. In the final battle against Tiamat, my 306 lb Warforged Rune Knight climbed atop Tiamat and went Huge, then was hit by Enlarge. Tiamat was sat on by 19584 lbs of metal. "Ooh, I think you're overencumbered there."
Legit way to use encumbrance, I was actually a loot goblin to the point I got cursed with encumbrance rules because I kept looting everything. So I sold my magic gear for loads of bags of holdings.
as a DM i have completely ignored the "once per day" use limit on Sending Stones. I just let my players have full on conversations with whoever is on the other side. We've started affectionately calling them "rocky-talkies"
That is good buuut when the party gets the message meet at the bridge and the player has to guess the north or south bridge, lack of communication can be comical lol
With regard to the material components with values (and things like arrows and bolts): Our DM basically says, paraphrasing, "You are professional adventurers, it is assumed that you would have stocked up on those things" or something to that effect. If you cast Revivify, for example, the assumption is that you already have the diamonds - so the DM just simply asks you to subtract 300gp from your inventory at the time of casting. It's a nice middle ground.
Yeah, but where did they buy the diamonds or other really expensive components from? like the Hallow spells costs 1500g worth of inks, incense, herbs, etc. . .Not every small town or village your players walk into is going to have access to thousands of golds worth of often very specific material components and magical goods.
My DM made fun of me at first because I kept track of my food rations, my arrows, and minor spell components. Until we both realised it was an ADHD thing for me. Since then, he made sure to let me know I don't HAVE to let him know every single time we finish combat that I spend a minute to collect half of my arrows I used, or that I go and purchase common spell components every time we hit town. Heck, we spent like 2-3 weeks in game far from civilisation and he didn't really bother checking if the party had enough food rations anyway (the logic being there are two characters in the party, one being my ranger, who knows how to hunt and forage). He just said "look, if this is something that makes you feel better to track these down, I trust you to do it without telling me. My one rule is if you have to do something major, like purchase something less common such as new armor or weapons, or gemstones, that you let me know what you intend to do."
Stockpiling commonly used materials like diamonds is one thing, but I doubt adventurers stockpile on some of more ridiculous materials, like gilded flowers or undead eyes encased inside a gem.
Way long ago in 3.5 edition I actually did play a wizard who actually used spell components. It was actually pretty fun. I particularly loved the reaction everyone had when I roleplayed him casting acid breath by stuffing a handful of live ants into his mouth before spewing out a blast of formic acid.
I had an AD&D DM in the 80s that required my wizard to obtain each component. It was fun at first, but it got old quick. Especially since each component was expended at the time of casting. I do like what you described though... describing to the other players what it looks like to cast a new spell can be great. I also like when creative players flavor their spells within the boundaries of the spell description.
20:07 The two-handed property is actually lenient toward spellcasters. "Two-Handed. This weapon requires two hands *when you attack with it.*" Emphasis mine. You can hold a two handed weapon in one hand, you just need two to make attacks with it.
Being nit-picky, that still means for this turn for free action you need to let go with one hand and move it to the side with the other to then cast, so no opportunity attacks this round. Next round, free action to re-grasp and set yourself to use the weapon. Gives flexibility, but does limit some potential reactions for using the spell.
@@cycleboy8028 Why would he have no opportunity attacks for using a free action? He would still have a reaction to use. Free action and Reaction are not the same. I also think letting go of a weapon with one hand post attack wouldn't even cost a free action. Looking at baseball players, letting go of the bat with one hand is naturally part of our swing.
@@frostbound If he "free actioned" to remove a hand from a two-handed weapon, the weapon is no longer "wielded" and he couldn't use it until both hands are back on. Your statement about a baseball player is apt, to let go is pretty easy, but then to re-wield the bat, a player takes some time (geez... those guys take FOREVER to regrip) to get proper grasp in a fighting/hitting position.
@@cycleboy8028 I see your point, and yes it is nitpicky but I can't refute it, if as a table we decided that letting go with one hand used your free action. For my table personally I wouldn't rule it like that, but that's what's great about this game.
They actually made a whole video specifically about the weird rules interactions regarding light sources and areas of darkness/dim light a while back! It’s called “Darkness, Light, and Vision,” if you’d like to watch it.
Yea, I actually use everything mentioned in this video but perception with darkvision/dim light is often something I just handwave. Sometimes I'll just raise the DC to see the thing behind the scenes.
I know this is an old video by this point, but for somatic components (18:10 ) I've always run it by asking the player how they might perform a cinematic somatic action while their hands are full. For example, if a Warlock is casting Shield while dual wielding axes they might smash the heads together so that they scrape against each other, the resulting sparks flaring up/out to create the magical runes or energy that becomes the visual cue that they've cast the spell.
I am actually largely comfortable with the components rules as it is. It makes sense to me that if a spell requires both materials and somatic, they are incorporated together. You need to have the salt in your fingers as you "make it rain" as part of Gentle Repose (after placing the two copper pieces over their eyes, which also naturally requires an open hand to do). It makes sense that somatic requires particular hand gestures, which just can't be done with an item in that hand. You can't "finger gun" your Magic Missle if your hand is closed on a sword's hilt. The fact that you CAN use the same hand for components as gestures is actually a kindness, rather than the perception of being a hindrance by viewing it the other way around. Not to mention, as you pointed out, that's exactly the point of the feat War Caster! Just like allowing casting in secret via Subtle Spell for Sorcerers! If a player wants either of those capabilities, they should HAVE to actually take them. Otherwise delete the Feat/Metamagic (whichever) and allow it for free to everyone.
Some classes should just innately come with the component part of warcaster, it doesnt detract from the feat since the other 2 parts are very powerful. Sure make the wizard work for it but someone like an Eldritch Knight whose entire identity is being a Knight with magic should probably have been educated how to actually do his job.
It's mostly an issue for bards, because most bards spellcasting focuses are two handed instruments. Some dms are assholes about it and won't let you cast spells if you have any weapons in either hand because you need both free to play your instrument.
Item interaction is one of the reasons why my group plays potions as a Bonus Action to drink, an Action to feed to another. Realistically we felt that a person could pop a potion in their mouth and chug it while still swinging a sword, whereas getting (usually an unconscious) person to drink a potion a bit more challenging.
Meanwhile, my players are mostly nurses who actually feed dying people... let's just say they'd question even trying to get an unconscious person to drink 🤣
@@probablythedm1669 There's a Weekly Roll comic where Trevor adminsters a potion by pouring it into Becket's wound to heal him because he has a helmet on.
In our game, it is a bonus action to drink the potion yourself and roll how much you heal If you use an action to drink potion yourself, then you heal max hp of potion. it is an action to force feed another character a potion and you have to roll how much character is healed.
@@LastoftheMofreakins No, per DMG p 141, magic items are excluded from the Use an Object action. Magic items require the Activate an Item action. That includes potions of healing, which are magical.
When it comes to swapping weapons in combat, I use a house rule called “holsters” A player has 3 holsters, one on each hip, and one on their back. As a free action a player can draw or sheath one of the three weapons they have holstered. If they wish to use a weapon that isn’t in a holster, they must use a bonus action to retrieve it from their bag. (A shield also takes up a holster)
As a DM I have consistently been ruling things as if my players had been doing this type of thing without even thinking about it, if you don't mind I will likely add this to my house rules list.
I actually use a similar, but more lenient, houserule as a DM. If you can reasonably store an item in an easily accessible spot without interfering with something else in your equip setup, you can grab it or swap to it at a moment's notice. For example: I would let a player get away with storing a dagger in a sheath that's placed on the outer thigh or in a vambrace.
RE: Eldritch Blast through a window. Since the spell is a ray-like effect (a beam of crackling energy streaks towards a creature within range), it starts at your fingertip. This means the beam would strike the window. This doesn't mean you couldn't still target the carriage, but the window would take some of the damage, break, and alert everyone around where it came from. I would subtract the window's hit points from the damage done to the carriage, since some of that energy was transferred into the window.
I assumed it was an open style castle window or at least that the window would be open. I didn't even think for a second that it was traveling through a glass window unscathed.
@@XanderHarris1023 but unless the setting is implied that the window is open by the DM or the player stating they opened the window it would be safe to say inherently the window is closed too
Giving a window HP makes me think of the scene in Top Secret where Deja Vu can’t break the window to shoot out of it and destroys his gun and a sledgehammer while trying.
One of my favorite modification to cover, if the creature your attacking has cover from another creature, if you miss by the the cover modifier, you then apply the attack roll to the creature that's giving cover.
I really enjoy this alternate take to cover. I use the same thought process to things like Armor. If you miss from the 10 + Dex you straight up miss but if you miss because of the Armor + Dex then you bounce of the armor. It matters if you decide to use this in situations where if you are attacked then the attacker takes damage when they hit. I use it so it still causes the effect even if they technically miss but make physical contact even if it dealt no damage. It makes the spell/item more effective and the players like that it validates the investment more while still being in the realm of believability.
@@SvviftDeath To me, this simply sounds like an application of "Flatfoot" and "Touch" ACs from previous systems. Flatfoot is just 10 + Armor bonus while Touch is 10 + Dex bonus. You may find it useful to actually note those down on the sheet for your own reference at the table; I personally like to also use these in 5e, using Flatfoot for attacks the target's unaware of and Touch for spells such as Shocking Grasp or Firebolt.
@@bloodsmithgamermusic92 It's more based off systems like 3.5 and Pathfinder where armor was added to AC instead of replacing the value. I started with these concepts so they made more sense to me. I use the same additive functions in the RP that I am developing from scratch. I have a lot done just need to finish some minor public testing and I might try to get it published afterwards.
@@SvviftDeath how do you adjudicate this each and every time...? seems like this would bog the game down, but this time in FAVOR of the PC's does the math just come faster with seat time, because truly i like this variant??
The designers have clarified that just because a weapon may require 2 hands to wield (ie. bow), that doesn't mean it takes 2 hands to hold. So like in your example where your shooting your bow and get charged by an enemy, you can draw your one handed weapon and attack, while still holding your bow in your other hand. Then next turn you could sheath your sword, and still shoot your bow again.
This also applies to spellcasting. A Paladin with a greatsword only needs to wear an amulet holy symbol "prominently" to cover the material components of a spell, and they can *at any time* use one of their hands to cover somatic spells without dropping their weapon or being unable to attack using two hands.
@@AnaseSkyrider Yup. It's literally in the rules. *Two-Handed.* "This weapon requires two hands when you attack with it. This property is relevant *only* when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it."
That was what I raced to the comment section to see if anyone already posted LOL. Since I haven't finished the video yet, I am assuming they "rule of cool" to let other cantrips damage things, so they don't realize fire bolt is the only one that actually does damage things, by the rules.
The question is what specific damage types do to inanimate objects. Fire damage is something you can easily imagine destroying objects, but what are force, necrotic or radiant damage?
@@schwarzerritter5724 force would be exactly that physical force. I'd say radiant would be like using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight on a bit of Wood. It would blacken and scorch depending on the power of the magic. As for necrotic? Not sure, probably some fusion of the rapid passage of time and rotting/withering away.
@@schwarzerritter5724 as far as I'm concern, arcane damage on object, if it doesn't stated like Disintegrate spell, is worse version of blunt damage, you technically can break the lock with Eldritch Blast and Magic Missile but you better off to just use a stick to break it instead
For ignored rules, I often find the "passive" skills being ignored. Like calling for active perception checks versus a stealthing enemy. I usually allow the player the option to elect not to roll and use passive instead. I also want to run a game at some point where the multiclassing minimums are explicitly ignored. I think that might allow for interesting builds, experimentally.
I have a few passive skill written down for my players, I'll make my roll vs their passive and only call for their check if it beats the passive. It kinda streamlines things a bit, especially if the rogue's passive stealth beats the enemy's passive perception (unless they're actively searching then it becomes a contested roll).
This! This always annoys me so much. When I play a character that perhaps has a high passive perception and the party is looking for something. And after a while of no one finding anything someone does something that triggers the DM to have them make a perception roll, and they roll below my passive perception, yet it's succesfull... I'm like.. my character is perceptive enough to have instantly spotted that without even trying. Why didn't you just tell me DM? Or at least heavily hint at it? I genuinely think the only time(s) I've seen DMs remember passive perception is when an NPC/enemy is stealthing or hiding nearby. If a character is very perceptive, let them perceive things!
@victorbarros3736 - No, not really. That's what passive means. I don't know when there's something hidden nearby that I'd be able to passively notice. And if I ask the DM if there is.. well then its just become a regular perception check, hasn't it?
@@TheMrVengeance Because you weren't looking for the right thing, or in the right place, whereas they were. If one player with a high PP says "I survey the room, what do I notice" and another one says "I search the desk, looking out for any false drawers", would you give them the same DC to find the treasure hidden in the false drawer of the desk? High passive perception might get you a "the floor around the desk looks less dusty than the rest, as if it's been moved recently" but it won't find the treasure for you. Yes, this is a deliberately extreme example that probably isn't what you were describing, but it makes the point that perception DCs should be situational - being in the right place, or openly stating that you're looking out for something specific, should make you more likely to notice something than merely being a generally perceptive kinda guy.
An archer doesn’t need to put away the bow! If he is right-handed, he is holding the bow in his left. He can draw his sword with his right and attack. A rule often missed is that it takes an action to equip or doff a shield (PHB page 146, Donning and Doffing Armor table)
While you're generally correct, it's not a hard and fast rule. I am cross-dominant, meaning I do one-handed activities right-handed and two-handed things favoring my left.
Shield taking an action to don/doff is a rule that’s worth following. In my first campaign we didn’t know about it and it allowed the fighter to always use a shield against ranged combatants and then quickly switch to a greataxe once they made it to melee range.
Dominant hands isn't even an issue in 5e; RAW everyone is perfectly ambidextrous. As long as you have _a_ hand to hold a one-handed weapon, you can make an attack with it without penalties.
@@dtsazza That’s not entirely true, since you don’t get proficiency bonus on 2nd weapon with two-hand fighting unless you have the fighting style/feat. I pass this off as not being effective with their weaker hand.
@@Qydra1 Exactly. It's one of those RAW items that actually makes it worse to play. They always say they do these things for balance and gameplay purposes. Well, this time they played themselves. Making certain spells only target creatures makes it so that players can use those abilities to 'scan' for Mimics at will. Jokes on them, that makes the game worse, hahaHAHA. Sorry, sometimes some of these rules that are 'just for balance' make me so frustrated that being able to point out how awful or nonsensical they are gives me great joy.
At our table, we have a sort of house rule about spells with costly components; that you don't necessarily have to go out and buy the material/s, you can just crunch that amount of gp from your total if you have it, it eats it, and boom, you have that component now. Sort of like transmuting the gold into the desired object.
When it comes to a spellcasting focus, i would rule that since you are focusing the magic through it, it would become an extension of yourself in terms of magic casting thus manipulating with your hand counts as the somatic component of the cast. Example: if you (a warlock) had to draw a rune in the air with your fingers, drawing it with an improved pact weapon (the invocation makes the pact weapon a spell focus) would count as its a part of your "spellcasting self"
On tracking ammunition: I have a gunslinger in my homebrew campaign and I wanted to make guns seem rare and new. I had my player track his ammo for the first while of the campaign. Then the players found a cache of supplies in a mine that he could use to craft ammo, so I told him he had effectively infinite supplies now and didn’t need to purchase things, but still needed to craft new ammunition. Then the players got a keep and the gunslinger recruited his own riflemen and I told him he no longer needed to track ammunition at all as he has a ready supply.
This is the way, Jokes aside yeah this is how I do it at my tables especially since it allows for me to give some truly interesting arrows, like spell storing arrows.
Most often characters who use ammunition just declare they are restocking on every stop or after combats, even picking up used ammunition whenever possible.
9:50 the Attack Action allows you to draw a weapon as part of the attack, so drawing two swords in a turn is possible if you are attacking that turn. Also works for stowing a bow and drawing a sword.
@@RedJackz The line of text I am referencing can be found on pages 193 and in the table on page 190 of the phb. It says "You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of an attack." Which is the essentially the rule they are reminding people of in this video, but i am applying it to both the attack and movement instead of just movement.
@@Killerharpy101 Reference the Dual Wilder feat for explanation as to why drawing or showing two weapons in one turn, without taking the Use an Object action, is not normally the case. You are normally only able to freely interact with one object (p.190, Other Activities on Your Turn) during a turn, a second object interaction (drawing or stowing a second weapon, for instance) requires the Use an Object interaction. A Thief with Fast Hands may use their bonus action to do this OR swap one weapon (if only one is drawn) for another, such as a bow or crossbow. A Thief with both Dual Wielder and Fast Hands may stow both weapons and draw another.
Thanks for mentioning that. At our table, you can draw >1< weapon as part of your attack, drawing 2 just requires your object interaction as well. Stowing bows when forced into melee? Technically interaction again, but it's a lot more fun when they need to drop the bow and deal with their weapon being in a square on the battlefield if they want it again, or a fireball goes off 😈 EDIT: Typo
This was very helpful. I am a new DM (first game next week) and there are a lot of things I wanted to put aside or change for my (also) new players. Makes me more confident to discuss house rules with the group and change them as needed. Explaining that the rules are for enhancing the experience of the journey, not diminishing it.
Encumbrance actually stems from the earliest editions of D&D. Back then the XP you got was based on the amount of gold you looted from the dungeons, which often lead to characters avoiding as many fights as possible, but it also meant that tracking what the characters could carry was incredibly important.
I came here to comment the exact same thing. As someone who played Basic then Advanced D&D, I experienced that issue first hand. Sneaking through "Keep on the Boarderlands" was always our goal. The "Temple" and "Kolbold" caves were a real challenge!
Encumbrance is good for when the party wants to carry coin and treasure away from the dungeon. Yes, you killed the dragon and his 20' x 20 ' x 1' bed of gold is there, but how will you carry all of those coins? That's over 9 million coins (9,676,800) which weigh almost 97 tons (193,536 lbs). :) :) In 5e, 50 coins are 1 lb, which comes out to slightly over 9 grams per coin. The specific gravity of the various metals is ignored. So if the coin is 1 inch in diameter (slightly larger than a US quarter or slightly smaller than a US dollar coin or 2 Euro coin) and is 1.27mm (1/20") thick (slightly thinner than a US dime or almost half as thin as a 2 Euro coin), then they stack nicely. You get 20 stacked coins to the cubic inch and 14 to the cubic inch when loosely stacked. So that 5gp chest in the PHB that holds 12 cubic feet of gear (3' wide, 2' deep, & 2' high), holds 290,304 loose coins (5,806.1lb) or 414,720 stacked coins (8,294.4lb). Since the chest can hold a max of 300lb of gear, you can't move the chest without the bottom breaking. So a chest of coins that you can carry, would have 15,000 coins, stacked (0.87 inches high) or loose (1.24 inches high). An iron or steel chest of the same dimensions would be able to carry more. Large sums of money are then difficult to move. The old 3.5e, used a coin roughly the size of an Eisenhower half dollar, which comes out to 10 coins to a 1.5" by 1.5" by 1" high volume and 10 coins to a pound. You get 4 coins to the cubic inch with that arrangement. That measurement was worked out by David F. Godwin in the article "How many coins in a coffer", in issue #80 of Dragon Magazine Dec 1983. I used his work, to come up with the 5e coin above. For my games, I use that 3.5e coin size as a Trade Coin (TC), as it is almost exactly 5 times the mass of the 5e coin. So a 5e gold trade coin (GTC) is 5 gp. A trade bar (TB) is 1 pound each and is 2" by 3" by 1/3" thick and has a 50 coin value. Bullion Bars (BB) are are the trapizoidal bars that you see in movies and are 1,000x the coin value. They weigh 20lb and are 3" wide by 10.5" long and 1.5" high, with the smaller top part of the trapizoid being 2" wide. Moving large amounts of money doesn't change the weight, but the number of items you have to count goes down. So that chest that holds 15,000gp, holds 3,000gtc, 300gtb, or 15gbb. Much less to count for trading houses, merchants, nobles, and the like.
A big one for me was a slight home rule someone mentioned one time. You can take a potion as a bonus action and roll for it. If you choose to take a full action, and take your time making sure you drink the whole thing, you just get the maximum back etc. I like this, as you sacrifice a full turn of damage to heal up.
My favorite cleric charater to play has a lot of flavor text on his casting. He's a cleric of the goddess of song, dance, and swordwork. His verbal components must be sung, his somatic components require him to dance, and he can aim spells by pointing with his sword. He was intended to be a front-line cleric and runs the War Caster feat so not much is ignored with him but he has absolutely no chance to hide his casting given it usually involves a whole song and dance routine. His friends also sometimes make fun of how he casts cause it doesn't seem so magical until the spell takes hold or se seems like a bard lol.
I played D and D from near the beginning. (Math = I'm 55 years old, first remember throwing a twenty sided die, (included in the playing Basic D and D Box set, as far as I can remember) when I was 11 or 12? (1977 to 1978) I'm just getting back into the game. The firs thing I thought of when I read the introduction to this video (Rules that are Often Ignored) was encumbrance. I struggled for a few sessions as a DM with the calculations. I soon went beyond your solution of giving a bag of holding early in the game, to having the closest to lawful good aligned character (which was a challenge in the 1970's, which, in real life, often seemed to be a mix of Lord of Flies and The Warriors Move), inherit a bag of holding as a starting point!
26:48 I just recently re-read the spellcasting rules in the PHB. There's a section that I think needs to be explicitly mentioned in these kinds of discussions: "A Clear Path to the Target To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction."
The point they were trying to indicate with that is the specification of a window. And the ways in which the spells text can be confusing. Does it count as an obstruction if you only need line of sight and the spell doesnt originate from the caster? Can the spell hit an object, if not, why? For example sacred flame does not specify an origin point implying the flame simply manifests in the target space, while eldritch blast does. Other spells create the point of origin at a location that is neither the target nor the caster, like call lightning, the origin is the storm above the target. Its the same kind of concern with a wall of force, something that stops things from passing through but doesn't affect line of sight gets very fiddly There isnt specifically a sensible reason that eldritch blast cant hit an object, since it is literally a ray attack dealing force damage. Which unlike poison and psychic damage does affect objects normally. But at the same time the text says it targets a creature you can see. For that situation as a DM I'd rule: you can cast eldritch blast on the wagon wheel, but in so doing the blasts will shatter the window on the way out, and give like a +1 AC bonus since its not really even partial cover.
Yeah, something that is often ignored with AoE-spells is that you CAN'T put the target point around which it centers behind a wall in order to not hit your allies.
Usually it specifically says "a point you can see within range" so as long as you can see the point, it doesn't matter if there is like a window there or whatever.
@@Desdemona-XI According to RAW to target something you need a "Clear Path to the Target". So if the spell description doesn't negate that rule, then it must still follow it.
@@Desdemona-XIThe issue comes with Targeting. Sacred Flame's "target" says it's a creature. However, according to the rules, you can't target something without a "Clear Line of Path to the Target". Clear Line of Path has nothing to do with sight, it's about obstacles. You can not cast Sacred Flame without a target.
Not strictly speaking a rule, but I’ve found the concept of a session zero is missed a lot of the time. I’ve found it invaluable in my games and feel like you can kind of feel it in games, certainly at the beginning of the campaign, when you don’t have one.
I've never had one. I'm not even certain what all it's for. OK, maybe I had one recently, but that was more to get one player used to Avrae in Discord than doing anything in character.
We don’t have session zeros, we just have discussions on discord throughout like the 2 weeks leading up to the start of the campaign talking about shit in it
As a DM, I start with the barest essentials of a campaign in mind, but I build the campaign based on the characters, their background, the role they'd like to take in the party, and the fantasy of what each player wants to experience. For me, an in-depth session 0 is essential. It helps me gauge the tone that the party is after, and since it's an open discussion, every player will be aware of what the other players are after. The best players take these ideas as partial inspiration for their own characters as well, and help forge pre-campaign relationships with the other party members. Stuff like race and class selections tend to come pretty naturally when all that has been discussed. The worst players also kinda stand out with it. They might be wishy-washy about their character ideas, don't want to involve their characters with the other party members, and might be bossy or demanding of other players, like making - for the lack of a better-suiting word for it - demands or forceful suggestions over what the other players should play, while making no alterations to their own ideas. There have been a few times where we've had to disband the game on session 0 simply because it's become apparent that these people are simply incompatible as players with each other (or one person is - in which case another session 0 is set up a month or so later - with "a smaller group", if necessary).
I had a session zero for my campaign, we rolled a communal stat array, then it ended up being exactly standard array so I just went "sod it, point buy." Then they tried to negotiate dropping 8 to 6 for extra points, so I said "have one point for that," positing that in a world where the minimum was 6, going from 6 to 8 would likely only cost one point. And then yes, there was a full extra week of messages discussing the characters with me anyway :P
usually have a .5 session in my in person group. usually start with a zero session, but typically start the adventure on the same day. but we can only align our schedules like every other month or so so we really have to take advantage of the time we're together.
For the Spell Components part, there's very few spells that actually require a gold cost. It's only really a worry early on, as the party might not have enough gold to afford that 100gp pearl to cast Identify. Also, most of the spells that have a monetary cost can't be cast mid-combat, as they have a cast time of 1 minute or longer. The only common spells cast mid-combat that require a cost are Chromatic Orb (50gp diamond, not consumed) and Revivify (300gp diamond, consumed).
a 2-hand weapon actually does allow you to cast shield. It only needs two hands to actually attack so you can hold with one hand and use the other to do somatic components but, yes, it's a rule that can be easily ignored if you are holding your focus.
Had a good experience with inventory management as a short arc: having to cross country through a difficult mountain range while undercover. They had to manage rations and water and supplies. Most of the inventory was going to gathering a week of firewood to survive above the snowline in storms... It's fun for that few sessions, and then the rest of the time we ignore limits. Basically it was a plot device...A we ignore it when it's not plot significant
The rule where ranged attacks (including ranged spells attacks) are at disadvantage when engaged with enemy is very often ignored. Many times people will simply target a different creature that's not within 5ft to not have disadvantage on the attack, however, where as they should have disadvantage against ANY target while engaged with any hostile creature (within their reach) . I think that's a fair rule to govern given that many ranged attacks often cover the majority of the battle map. It also helps to protect backline characters along side with the cover rules.
Yep RAW is disadvantage on attack rolls made when in melee so if you have an enemy next to you it is still disadvantage to attack the guy 50ft away. Consider it the extra stress of avoiding the pointy end while trying to loose or cast.
I agree that the rule should be kept in place like 90 & of the time. But I make exceptions if the character in melee range isn't actually interfering with the players doing the ranged attack. For example rules as written if you point a crossbow at somebodies back who is right in front of you, you should have disadvantage at shooting him because it is a ranged weapon attack and he is in melee range, but I would ignore that because it would make sense that you wouldn't have disadvantage shooting somebody in the back from point blank range.
@@achimsinn6189 in the situation you just presented you should have Advantage because he is unaware of the attack so it would make the end result a straight roll anyway.
I house rule that my players can choose to roll the attack without disadvantage, but if they do so they open themselves to an attack of opportunity. It’s similar to moving away and then attacking, except you get to make the ranged attack before the opportunity attack is made.
On encuberance: It can matter if a character has a low strength score but nonetheless carries heavy items, or lots of them (especially if you include coin weight). It probably won't matter in a party where characters are perfectly optimised, but there are certainly situations in which it can be a hinderance, especially if a low strength character is wearing a heavier piece of armour. With variant rules, it can even be an issue for higher strength players with heavy items. In most parties the people carrying heavy things like plate armour or large weapons like mauls are going to be the highest strength characters but it isn't always the case.
Speaking on how obvious spellcasting is to onlookers, I also liked how the Villain's Code novels discuss magical super-powers. There's a girl with the alias "Cliche" who basically turns trite phrases into magical spells that alter reality. At one point, she tells someone "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and then kicks him several times, and suddenly he has super-human strength because he survived all those attacks, and became stronger. She can only have one such phrase in effect at a time, and it has to be one that has common meaning to enough people, she can't just make up phrases. When she speaks, she's normally super bubbly (she's a barista), but there's is a weight to her words when she's invoking an edict. Like the sound of the words has a lasting, oppressive change in the air around her. You can tell something weird happened, even if you don't know what or why. Her voice almost echoing in your head, with the air feeling heavy while the words take effect. Hearing her speak magic words is like listening to a god dictate reality. It's oppressive and overwhelming. There is no hiding it, lol. I always felt this was similar to how spellcasting in DnD works. Which is why someone whose magic is instinctive and inherent (sorcerers) are the only ones who can circumvent this, but it takes effort (sorcery points).
I quite like to get creative with how all my spellcasters cast spells. I've got a wizard enchanter for example who uses a wand and the way he does it is he draws magical runes in the air, so if he wants to cast charm person he draws that rune and then propels it towards the target. Hiding spellcasting is pretty situational. There are a few spells that are explicitly made to be cast subtly, but spells like fireball should always be pretty obvious. Sleight of hand to cast a spell without being seen doing it IS possible, but you're not gonna pull it off with anything that has a blatant effect stemming from you, such as lightning bolt. Illusions are an example of spells where subtly should be a big feature. Of course a subtle cast spell from a sorcerer is the best form of this and never fails.
Holy shit, someone else who's read Villain's Code! That and Super Powereds are some of my favorite books of all time, I used to listen to them religiously.
I had a great use of the free "interaction with an object" in a recent game. My gnome wizard (Str score of 8) drank a potion of storm giant strength and, while the effect was active, I told my DM that I was trying to use the free interaction to flip a table (since I temporarily had 29 Str) so I could use it as partial cover. I also had fun holding a door closed against the efforts of two hobgoblin warriors long enough for our cleric's Dawn spell to kill everything in the room (picture a 3ft tall gnome holding onto a doorknob with his feet braced against the wall and doorframe).
With Item Interaction: sheathing/drawing: we run it as either letting a character swap weapons as a free action or drop the current one held and draw a new one as a free action. In my games I usually allow the drinking of a potion as a bonus action, giving it to another as a free action, administering it to an unconscious character as a full action
A note on the item interaction section: - On the "put away a bow and draw a sword" front, two handed weapons need two hands to *wield*, not two hands to *hold*. You don't have to put away the bow, just hold it in the hand that's not using the sword. - You also mentioned "it takes your item interaction and an action to draw two swords", that's literally what the Dual Wielder feat was made for. - The answer to "if I can chug a flagon of ale as an item interaction, why can't I chug a potion as an item interaction?" is "because the Use a Magic Item action exists for that specific reason."
Darkvision makes total darkness dim light. Therefore, a darkvision PC in a cave has disadvantage on perception checks. It's definitely not a big deal, but also definitely done "wrong" more often than not.
If the DM is not making the same disadvantage checks on the opposing creatures (90% of which also rely on darkvision to see), then it doesn't make a great deal of difference I reckon.
We ignore material (except gold depending on the spell). Verbal is always used and somatic is 50/50 depending on the skill. Ones that do grand things or damage always have somatic but small things like druidcraft and thamaturgy ignore somatic. My favorite time is when we are asked to perform the somatic part irl. Gets really exciting in the heat of battle seeing your friends wave their arms like maniacs but imagine fire or bluish arcane flow around them.
Encumbrance / Inventory Management - With VTTs like roll20 it is easier to keep track of the weight of stuff and have the effect auto enable. My group uses it just because it is easy to use. It is rare that any of us hit our limit before getting encumbered but my character has a STR of 8 so I do have to be careful as to what all I carry. We also track ammo and rations and such. Though we don't track water which I find odd but it is a good thing as water is heavy. Everyone forgets about water even when they remember rations. I also tracked all of my ammo on my ranger before she died this last sunday, but now my Druid/Lock is coming back and is no longer stuck in the sky in a time bubble. Item Interaction - When it comes to weapons I have always seen it ok to drop a weapon to draw and use a weapon as you have to eventually pick it back up as to draw two weapons there is a feat called Dual Wielder that allows as part of it for you to draw two weapons already. When it comes to crossbow expert who says you are stabbing, dropping your weapon, and then loading the crossbow to fire it. I would imagine it is already loaded. Yes it does mean the reload after the shot is a bit awkward though as you would then have to sheath the weapon, however assuming you have not done any other free actions already then you can sheath your melee weapon for free to reload the crossbow later with a free hand or even you sheath the blade then load and fire. Spell Components - Any spell with a component with a cost more then a couple gold should never be forgotten but some of the cheep ones can be aloud to slip by so long as the party has the kind of gold levels that it could be assumed they just buy those things when they are getting any other supplies such as food or ammo or what not and perhaps tack in a little extra gold from time to time to just make up for it when they go shop for things. For verbal and somatic yes unless you have subtle spell you are not hiding the spell but perhaps a slight of hand check might let you hide the gestures for lower level magic and some cantrips could be whispered or said softly as some of them are more of an every day kind of thing a wizard may just use around the house. For the free hand and holding your focus thing that is why I avoid staves, wands, and orbs and prefer crystals and totems or sometimes a tattoo as those are things you could imagine being around your neck or hanging from your wrist allowing it to be present and through RP you either touch it as part of your gestures or allow it to swing around such as with the gem around the wrist. Though you still have to treat the hand as "full" for reasons of holding anything else when you need to use the focus. Spell Targets - I agree with everything in this section. Cover / Line of Sight - This one really comes down to the DM's judgement. In our game cover is 100% a thing and it comes up all the time. Even more so that my Druid/Lock has spell sniper and so she gets to ignore a lot of cover. Character story time: My ranger was a beast master shifter that died to a sea monster by being eaten by it, and then because she was 'blessed' with lycanthropy (of the raven kind) we had her "not die" and come back in as a reborn swarm master ranger. That was until one of the party finally cast greater restoration on her on this past sunday. The DM and I agreed when she came back that the only thing keeping her together was the spirt of her former animal companion and the lycanthropy curse and her actual soul had already passed on. So when the spell was cast (and after a little PVP because the curse did not want to die) she went limp in their arms. Only the DM and I knew this would happen and it had been like 8 to 10 sessions between her becoming a reborn and finally finding peace. The party had no idea. [12 Levels Swarmkeper Shifter Reborn] My Druid/Lock that will be coming back was my original character and three of the party got shot to another world (her included) but I wanted to try the ranger for a while so two of the players characters made it all the way to the surface where my druid got stuck in some kind of time anomaly in the sky and has been stuck there for like two or three in game months and now that the ranger has found her final peace the druid is falling back to the ground. [2 Levels Stars Druid / 10 Levels Pact of the Tome Celestial Warlock Half Changling Half Wood Elf (uses the rules for Wood Elf but is the niece of one of the player characters who is a Changling also older then her now because of some time in the Fey Wilds alone for 150 years when she had to marry a Fey King to save her Aunt)]
I feel like it's fair to say "you need War Caster to do somatic components if you're wielding a shield or two weapons." It makes sense to me that you'd be able to drop a hand off your greatsword to cast a spell, but less if that hand is holding onto an object of its own, outside of War Caster. Plus it forces the player to make a decision, Defense or Magic, and they can equip for either but have to commit to one or the other on their turn. That's just my opinion tho, and I have an affinity for Hexblades and Paladins wielding Greatswords in any event
Imo, if something is covered in a rule or a feat, that means it can't really be circumvented by rule of cool. That means, you always need a free hand unless you have the feat to cast somatic spells, and so on
100%. The hand economy rules are there for a reason. A feat/ability score increase is a big deal. Just allowing people to cast with full hands is a massive buff to caster classes, which are already pretty damn strong.
Remember yoi can great feats or mini feats as rewards for players in appropriate situations. Maybe a lvl 8 spellcaster character that has trained with their martial friend, and that trhough the narrative is more like a fighter, "jock" mage, learns the ability to use somatic components using weapons they are proficient with. Not the full warcaster feat, just one little perk that is cool and makes sense
but then that brings it back to teh question of strapped shields and how they'd work in dnd 5e, after all irl you could actually use a 2h weapon and a shield with them.
About Costly components: As a Cleric of my group I reached the agreement with my DM. Once in a while I go and refuel my "Bag of Holly Shit". So in my inventory I have written "Bag of Holly Shit worth 500g", and when I cast Ceremony, Revivify or Greater restoration I just take the worth from my bag. The idea is as a trained cleric I would know what stuff I might need so I just go shopping and buy things I might need in the future.
If I ever DM that's kinda what I am thinking of doing, if you have to use a material component that is worth something such as needing 300GP worth of Diamonds, I'll just let you spend 300GP to cast and just pretend you had the Diamonds the whole time.
@@derrinerrow4369 Unless your game really cares so little about actually roleplaying then that seems like a really boring and unbalanced system. I mean a lot of high level spells are balanced around the idea that their material components are hard to get or just generally pretty specific. Having to make an effort to find said materials can often be a small adventure of it's own and helps balance things in the game world. I mean i'd love to just be able to spam Forcecage without having to worry about carrying around some very expensive ruby dust for example.
On the concealing spell casting, without the subtle spell, it could be ruled that you can hide the movement but but beings that have some connection to magic can sense the magic being cast.
As for hiding verbal/somatic components! A character a while back was a mute jester type (satire bard) eventually he got a magic mask and magic gloves (both attunement) that let him *attempt* to hide a spell's casting. Often combined with pass without trace, and you had quite the stealthy caster (We thought this was fair because the items were attunement)
One of the most fun characters I've played was a mute Cleric. We decided that he had no verbal components since he literally couldn't speak, but that also meant he literally couldn't speak lmao.
Why would a warlock carry 190 pounds of daggers? I mean, I guess that way, the warlock get get more out of Hex, before Eldritch Blast gets a second ray. But you only throw daggers every second turn and they have a lower hit chance than Eldritch Blast.
@@Thisone109 So does my warlock. She is a jester. But not one of those evil stabby stab jesters. A genuinely nice jester who wants to put a smile on that face... look, she is not evil, okay?
On the subject of somatic components and free hands and all that, don't forget the stuff you mentioned earlier about being able to swap out a weapon as a free action. You can put a weapon away, cast the spell, then on your next turn, take it out again and attack with it. The only thing it would probably affect would be bonus actions and reactions, but I think even that you can play fast and loose on a case by case basis.
I've noticed most DMs ignore that a torch lasts 1hr. So carrying enough torches for a dungeon crawl can be near impossible. From an encumberance POV, it would require 16lbs/day of dungeon delving, and the space those torches would take might make an adventurer look like a Treant. 😄
I've actually really enjoyed needing to drop weapons to draw other weapons. We're enforcing it in a very low-loot Ravenloft campaign. We've had to retreat from tough fights before and have lost some weapons because we had to drop them. Adds some good tension.
I heard a cool idea that may be expensive for the party but would act as work around for lost weapons or specifically thrown weapons like spears javelins, daggers etc. So the idea is an NPC or shop keep with enchantment capabilities, would fuse a magic gem stone or tassle or such, that would allow you once a day to take a moment to teleport or track the weapon.
As a dm I've found players dropping their items to be an excellent opportunity for an enemy wizard to cast shatter. The first time it happens it's a great oh shit moment, just be sure not to do it all the time.
You still gotta realize that every round happens in 6 seconds, so in the heat of battle, yeah someone might just drop a weapon so they can pull out another one quickly. It's like dropping a gun and drawing another you can fire instantly instead of needing to eject then swap out the mag and then cock/rack.
The main exploit with dropping objects involves dropping your 1 handed object for free (like releasing a grapple), use your free hand for whatever you need with your action, and then pick it back up with your free object interaction. So the end result is that dropping an object and picking it back up FROM THE GROUND is more efficient than stowing the object and drawing it FROM YOUR PERSON. It looks clunky as hell.
Regarding using actions to swap out your weapons: D&D 5e Basic Rules ch. 9 under Other Activity on Your Turn states "[...] or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack." which makes sense if you think about ranged weapons because otherwise you'd need to use your object interaction every time you retrieve an arrow from your quiver. This means we don't need to bend the rules for swapping weapons at all unless we're talking about dual wielding. Just use your object interaction to put one weapon away and then pull the other weapon as part of your attack action.
THIS is such an under-rated video!! My 1st time DMing I couldn't figure out spell material components and simple didn't really wanna track weight. Since both my players and me were new. Come to find out I'm not the only one lol AND some great tips for other stuff to ingore or not.
Remember that in truly old school D&D, encumbrance had another very serious impact on the game: You got experience based on the treasure you were actually able to bring out of the dungeon, so tracking how much you could actually haul out mattered so much more than we see in more recent editions of the game.
I allowed bucklers to give a base +1 and still allow them to use that hand for somatics, and I also like the inscribing a holy symbol to circumvent. I also had a DM allow me to circumvent it because I had established at level 1 that my earring was my spell focus, so I only needed one hand free as long as my earring was on and I wasn't wearing headgear (like in a blizzard)
@@jasonrichter9079 ! That's odd, some kind of mistake I guess. Firebolt is notoriously one of the only spells (and cantrip in particular) that can damage creatures and objects.
we handle ready weapons as follows~ if we have a ranged or melee option to switch to : we use the "Free drop item" option to drop the "Current weapon" and use the "Free draw weapon" option to draw the other weapon and use it that turn (we either finish battle fast and pick the other weapon up for free, or use an action to pick it up if needed again)
My kind of go to is "I'm not saying no, I'm just going to ask how?" because if it is shooting through glass, that makes sense, putting a grandfather clock in your inventory? sure, where are you putting it? your back pocket? if they stick a 6ft tall grandfather clock in their backpack sure, but do imagine that this would make stealth harder, you know with it being big and a gong going off every once in a while
I personally like the Variant Encumbrance rules. As much as I love 5e, it's skewed pretty heavily towards high Dex/Cha characters, with Con/Wis being secondary and Str/Int being common dump stats. Anything that levels the playing field a bit and incentivises you to invest in your Str is a good move in my book.
I've found that dex wisdom and con are the most important usually, tho I agree with str and int being a dump depending on if your a big boi or a smort boi, but my big question is why would cha be higher then wisdom? Con is almost always your third highest stat but unless your a charisma caster it's purely a roll play stat like int so I don't see why it would be considered skewed towards Any way I really wish there where more int based barbarians in the world
Playing in a game using these rules, i hate it. My dwarf cleric can carry NOTHING other than weapon, shield, and armor (chainmail) unless i want to drop down to 15ft of movement. With a 16 STR..., thus no backpack to carry around anything else you might need on your adventure, unless you want to get into having to deal with pack animals.
A lot of this reminds me of my "no stupid BS" houserule, which basically sais that I can overrule rules as written, if they don't make sense or if they create a game mechanic that is not fun and not important for game balance. The last part implies that I might take my decision back once I find out that ignoring a rule leads to even worse BS than using it.
@@michaelstoffel9668 I know there is a passage in the rule book that basically sais the DM has the last word on rules and can even overrule rules as written. But I still put it this way to prevent rule lawyers from starting huge discussions because of this.
My players (my three kids and a nephew) are all in their first ever D&D game. I told them they didn't have to specifically track ammunition as long as they periodically stocked up, but they decided they wanted to track it anyway! I can't argue because when I'm a player I track mine as well.
I learned a lot about what spells can affect creatures vs affect any target from playing an Echo Knight. It's important to know those differences in order to maintain your Echo on the field
The Echo Knight's Echo (by design) is something that is greatly effected by the wording of things like spells and traps. Since it is considered a magical Object, it isn't effected by things like Eldritch Blast and Fireball, and can move away from enemies without provoking Attacks of Opportunity.
My problem with playing Echo Knight is when a DM doesn't have any experience with them. I keep becoming the annoying guy rule checking the DM because the echo isn't a creature and isn't affected by fireball, EB, charms, etc. I hate being that guy. So I end up saying fuck it and letting it happen.
@@clarkkent163000 I get that, but the only way they will get that experience is if you let them know. The other alternative is treating them as a creature in all respects, but I feel that actually makes them stronger (anything triggered by a creature would be set off by it, and you have an infinite supply; it could interact with objects, doors, etc.; would give flanking). Given the options, they'd probably prefer the former.
The Echo knight echo is crazy strong already. If they don’t provoke opportunity attacks, that would be insane. They have an Ac and a Hit point, in my books that makes ‘em valid targets for anything that deals damage. It’s actually why I rule that the fighter can only summon a number of echos per short rest equal to their proficiency bonus. I’ve never liked how insanely powerful it is to have an infinite number of summonings, and that was before reading this post and hearing that they don’t provoke opportunity attacks or take damage from fireball.
Monty: “I think encumbrance is an artifact of inventory management from video games.” Players, such as myself, who were using encumbrance rules in some of the earliest editions of D&D when playing video games meant going to an arcade: 🤨
Encumbrance just makes sense as a rule, and it prevents players from being even bigger loot monkeys. But it's easy enough to handwaive it most of the time unless players try to cheese it.
@@NecromancyForKids Loot Management is an artefact of games design to create a false sense of scarcity. It has never been something to do with balance. If you players are role play Loot Vacuums that's an issue with the progression of your world. Meaning players will only do it if it is beneficial to do so. A solution to that mindset is to say all mundane items are worthless to sell. An for the DM/GM to control party/player wealth with *commodities.* What I think is the most amazing thing as they are given a FIXED value by the DM/GM. This then allows the players to purchase the next shiny as they progress. Without having to hoard large amounts of trash items. The latter is again an issue of bad games design practice in some video games, an is known as "Vendor Trash."
When I DM I do keep track of ammunition that players have, however if they take a long rest I let them replenish d6 bolts or arrows as I assume part of their downtime is making new ones. At the end of an adventure or while resting in a town, I obviously let them replenish as much as they want.
17:00 Honestly I'd love for Suggestion to specify if the Suggested part is the Verbal component or not. On one hand it seem to step onto Subtle Spell as well as Whisper bard, on the other hand I see Suggestion to be close to a Jedi Mind Trick where the save is the target recognizing that a thought is being planted into their mind, otherwise they'd be aware that a spell is casted on them, so why listen. As for concealing somatic components, depends on if the spell describes those. For example Message says that you point a finger and whisper - so that one I allow to be somewhat secretive depending on situations.
As a DM I don't enforce encumbrance on my players, though I do regularly look over the characters sheets and/ask what they all carrying. But as a player I do my best to keep under the 5x STR of encumbrance just for myself. I do hiking myself and know how difficult it would be to actually deal with large quantities of stuff.
Funny enough, weight and ammunition management came up first time when I played halfling with 10 str in Curse of Strahd. It actually led to interesting roleplay between myself and player on a goliath barbarian.
Encumbrance comes online pretty much instantly for all my players and I feel it brings more realism and greater need for spells like tenser's floating disk
I'm in a medieval-cowboy campaign and I play a gunslinger, at around session 11 ammunition came up and I commented that I was running out soon if I didn't find more soon, they gave me an inspiration for keeping track of it and the next session we found a box of 400 bullets
I remember spells having specific target requirements being covered way back in an earlier edition of D&D. The point was, magic is very powerful, but very specific. This is its weakness. Tools and weapons can be used in creative ways. Magic has very specific uses. This is an important balance philosophy, ignore it and be prepared for the consequences.
As per the rules you can't shoot someone with a longbow or stab with a halberd trough a window even though a powerful shot definitely breaks a glass window, so that isn't really the point. Also magic is one of the most creative tools in a fantasy setting (depending on the spell of course)
Use a free action to open the window first. Not that hard to avoid in my opinion. Else I would just say that the person needs to stand next to the window to get a clear view of the target anyway.
For spell materials, the groups I've been a player in, and the games I've run, it's on the player to purchase any gold cost items, but material components a focus is good enough. As a DM, I'll gently remind a player who might have access to a spell like that, before they get into a scenario where casting it will make me look like the jerk. I don't need to know every spell, but knowing some key ones, like revivify, is important to remind a player before the need for it arises.
A lot of people need to remember spell components is how spells get BALANCED. Banishment stops being totally overpowered once you realize you REQUIRE a component that the target dislikes. Hero's Feast is a really strong spell, but you NEED a jewel encrusted bowl, you can't just say "Oh yeah here's the gold cost, I'll just take that off" Cause it's really strong so you need to think AHEAD and get the bowl crafted for you before you can use this really powerful spell. It's also how the DM can limit revival spells. Where are you going to get a big ass diamond in a small fishing village? Magic isn't quite as broken when you actually follow the rules.
@@haku8135 Find Familiar is a ritual, so you can cast it without a spell slot by taking 70 minutes for the ritual, but it also needs 10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier. So if you want to change your familiar or it 'died', you need to have some on hand to cast the spell again.
@@steveaustin2686 Yep, ignoring spell components, or misunderstanding them alla Banishment, is probably the biggest mistake DMs make in terms of the spells in DnD. For players it's usually the fact that they DON'T READ THEIR FUCKING SPEEEEEEELLS! Always read your spells kids.
some spells stipulate that the verbal component is what you say, such as "Hey friend, why dont you drop your sword and walk into that store over there" would be the verbal component of an enchantment spell, so there are workarounds to the whole "booming voice full of feeling" thing, at least in terms of spells with verbal components. Not to mention Subtle spell lets you completely ignore either the verbal or somatic component entirely, whereas waving your hand under your cloak would typically call for a sleight of hand check, or trying to hide the verbal compent as part of seemingly normal speech would require either a Deception check or a striat Charisma check depending on the situation
New DM here. Following all the rules at once was OVERWHELMING. So, initially I ignored almost anything that I couldn't easily recall, in favour of story progression and keeping things smooth. As I've had more experience, I've brought things in more and more. I still ignore Encumbrance. I seem to get around this by handing out very little in terms of loot. A critter only has so much on them, most of it (aside from their weapon) is small. I found these awesome loot tables for critters from LadyTeifling, I infer variants from size and shape if needed. I also currently ignore Cover almost entirely. I haven't provided too much opportunity in the encounters to need cover or use it, PCs don't seem to mind. I also ignore the Loot Tables in the DMG... those things are CONFUSING as all heck. Before my sessions I just prep a list of available items that I dole out with a dice roll... may not be as varied but they are customizable for the campaign and far more easily followed that sorting it by level, then a roll, then another roll... ick. I've been thinking of dropping spell components altogether in favour of spells just being totally verbal and somatic. I love the role play flavour of each spell having a unique set of words and actions. Components, while valid, also feel like a bit of a gate. If you have reached the level to cast the spell, then cast it... I do need you to go on a fetch quest to find a dragon's toenail so you can cast Thunderwave.
New dm here too! I'm defacto dming for a small group bc I am the only one who has ever played. I am certainly not a rules master person myself, and none of my players know any better, so I wing a lot of rules atm. Cover is normally gets advantage/disadvantage just cause thats easier for my brain than +2/+5. I'm sure I'll get a better hang on things as we go but largely I don't think its that important. We are all here to have fun and tell interesting stories so that is what we will do. I'm not going to let rules get in the way of our flow.
@@leahwilton785 Aye, I think flow trumps rules in most cases. I would rather bend the rules, or ignore needless tediousness in spot checking numbers for a decent engagement in the content.
In regards of the change of weapon, when I or some of my friends DM we usually allow to drop the current weapon as "no action" because is just opening your hands, and get the new one as a free action and if they don't want to drop it but just put it away it will take just a bonus action instead of a normal action. I think it's a good compromise and adds tactical moments in your fights where instead of someone that just keeps changing between long bow and short sword as soon as someone is more than 5 feet from him, he might consider to attack at disadvantage with the bow or run towards the enemies because they want use their bonus action but they still have the option to do it and attack at least once in the same turn. In all games I've played or mastered where we used this rule it worked great! Also creates some tension an more tactical thinking. I suggest trying it, just make sure that all players knows this before the battle. Sorry for my english, it's not my first language
To be honest, for most weapons, it is actually more difficult to sheath or put away a weapon(not just drop it) compared to draw it. To sheath it quickly would require the use of both hands. Of course from a gaming perspective, such considerations can be changed for "fun factor", and many martial(especially melee) classes should not be penalized for the sake of following the rules to the letter. As for the rules themselves, you can draw a weapon as part of the attack. So if you use a long bow on your turn, you can sheath it as your free item interaction, then draw your melee weapon as part of the attack of your next action(either as an Opportunity attack reaction or as part of your attack on your next turn). It is only if you want to use both weapons in the same turn that you need "something extra".
re: Encumbrance with mundane items. I have a homebrewed Inspiration system, where everybody starts each session with at least 1 inspiration, and inspiration can stack to work like Bless or Bardic Inspiration on a die roll. (1 Inspiration = +1d4, 2 = +1d6, etc). In addition, I allow my players to spend one inspiration to say they prepared any sort of mundane item that they might need in that moment, whether it be a pry bar, a ladder, a rope, a lantern, etc. Whatever they need in the moment. It's a little like how this is handled in Blades in the Dark. I find that it gives my players the flexibility they need in the moment without having to track every single mundane item on their character sheet.
I feel like the odd one out, I use all three of the first rules on this list. None of those rules are particularly complicated (I will admit the free action rules is a little vague) and a lot of these rules help with balance, roleplay and strategizing. One such example you gave, dropping a weapon to free up a hand, can add an extra level of depth to a dangerous fight. Is your character willing to disarm themself in order to save time and perform a quicker action. I remember one of my favorite moments as a player was when I was holding off a narrow alleyway from a horde of undead while some villagers caught up in the fighting escaped. There were still some undead behind me, but none so many that they couldn't make it past. Well, one of the villager was caught in a grapple by an already injured zombie, and I had to make the choice of standing my ground to keep the rest of the undead at bay, or risk being overran and rescuing this one person. I took the risk of dropping my sword and drawing a hand-axe instead, using my attack to throw it back at the zombie and killing it while still holding my ground. The next round, I was unarmed but the villagers escaped, I used my action to make a sleight of hand check to try and kick up and catch the sword with my foot. Those interactions would have never happened if I didn’t have to worry about that rule. Encumbrance and Ammunition are a tactical consideration. Now I've neber gone so far as to manage backpacks and the like, figuring out how to fit items into three different backpacks is simply put, tedious. Generally I rule that if it can fit in the backpack, you can carry it in there regardless of what's already inside. However, managing weight is a good thing. Should I sacrifice food and my rope to bring an grab some extra loot, at the risk of my odds of survival lowering? Or should I play it safe and decide to come back at a later time, risking having the loot moved, taken, or going missing while I'm away. And ammunition makes it so that a martial long range character plays different than a spell caster flinging cantrips. You have to consider whether you want to use your pool of arrows in this fight to give you a safety net, or take the risk getting up close with the enemy with a dagger or a shortsword instead. Not to mention, a dungeon master can provide all sorts of special ammunition to ranged characters to make the fights more fun and interactive. As for spell components, I generally don't see the issue. Most spell casters aren't supposed to be Frontline combatants, having a weapon or a shield isn't somethingto be considered for most spell casters. Those that do, like Paladins and Clerics, are allowed to wear their focuses instead of holding them, giving them a free hand. Hell, if you have an emblem, you can put it on your shield or the hilt of your sword, making that item your new spellcasting focus. Money costs for materials and consumable materials are there to balance more powerful or useful spells, and are part of planning for your adventure. Casters are uber powerful already, giving them small handicaps like materials is not an issue. Spell casters _should_ take a little planning to use. That's part of the draw, they aren't just a fighter or a barbarian who are always prepared as long as they have a weapon at the ready, and they shouldn't always be prepared like those two classes are, thats not part of the spellcaster identity.
I do the same. Encumbrance plays the same role as attunement in adding tactics to the game. We use Roll20 so no one needs do teh calc themselves. I also like ever stats to have some use to every class. Not equal use, but still playing a part. So when the greedy conartist wizard want to run around stealing everything, that 8 str is going to come into play.
I don't quite agree with a few things I do agree with the use an object rules though if someone runs at an archer and that archer wants to make a melee attack they're gonna be dropping that bow but I had a DM who did ammunition and I hated it so after I found out mid dungeon I went to town and bought 10000 arrows for as an adventurer a pittance and told him to shove it since I have the str to carry it. Also for spellcasters I need a hand free to do your components or focus but only 1 if your weapon or shield is a focus your good but I do one slight modification if it costs a component worth gold then I say you just pay the gold cost then and there and if it's something that doesn't consume said component you now cast it like that forever. That's just for convenience though I don't usually wanna deal with it but spells that cost gold need to be balanced accordingly
a cool thing i've seen a brand new DM due for encumberance is give us a 30-slot backpack along with some extra slots to attach stuff to the sides, and generous definitions for what can fit, with some bulky items taking multiple slots like a set of platemail takes 3 slots, weapons that can be one-handed are one slot (even spears or longswords) and two-handed weapons were two-slots, a pack of 30 arrows or bolts was a slot, kit's of stuff were their own slot since it's assumed the items within were small, all the starter kits with basic survival supplies were two slots so you typically had 25 or so slots of free space at the start and you could still carry a considerable amount of stuff but it removed the math of weight calculations and stopped people from picking up every useless thing or use clever ways to carry more stuff like carts or prisoners.
Food/water/rations I just don't care enough. I've run it in survival-based games, but in typical beer and pretzels games I let it go. Eat it, goodberry. A note on encumbrance: gold has weight, which is the aspect that most drives carried weight.
Hard agree. I was in a Dragonheist campaign that was so focused on inventory management and grocery shopping that it literally just turned into a Cheers-style bar sim. Fun if that's your jam I guess, but not what I signed up for.
I actually like tracking ammunition after a fashion, since it makes ammo feel significant, and lends legitimacy to other mechanics to either create ammo (artisan's tools or services) or bypass the need for it (throwing weapons, artificer infusions, and the like). But I borrow an idea from the World of Darkness games and run it scene-by-scene. I.e. you have enough arrows/bolts/bullets for a certain number of combats, that only goes down if you use that ranged weapon a significant amount in a given combat. It's possible to run out of ammo, but it's strictly an off-combat, narrative consideration. Also, that fiddly interaction between material and somatic components is why I'm personally more permissive about foci and gestures. Also because it simplifies the lives of Artificers, who technically ALWAYS have material components, even for spells that otherwise lack them. Oh, and kudos to you for not charging your Eldritch Knight player's character the War Caster feat tax.
For object interaction, I've done a house rule on that which splits the difference between the punishing action economy and outright ignoring it ever since before 5e and have adapted it into 5e as well. - Dropping anything is free, always. - First object interaction done with intent to properly handle the item (such as sheathing/stowing instead of dropping) is a swift action (3.5/PF) or also free (5e). - Second interaction is a move action (3.5/PF) or bonus action (5e) - More than that is a standard action (3.5/PF) or regular action (5e) - When logical, both hands can do the same action as part of the same interaction (sheathing/unsheathing two weapons, stashing two held items in a bag, pulling out two items, etc). Possessing feats or features like Quickdraw still supersedes this house rule. Having played this way with several groups, most tend to find it agreeable and to feel more in-line with the fantasy feeling without going into video game interaction speeds. An archer can properly stow their bow and pull their melee weapon(s) while still making their full attacks in a round, but if they're badly hurt and wanted to pull and drink a potion before pulling their melee gear it's going to eat up their entire round, even if they are simply dropping the bow to make it happen.
When it comes to using objects and things as a free action, I always think about the fast hands class feature for the thief. If I think in any way letting a player do something that diminishes a class feature, I upgraded to a full action or not at all. Nothing feels worse than seeing other people use your class features for free.
No matter how much i like 5e but i get always this feeling like many rules arent really well thought out or pretty botched which the DM must homebrew/houserule it to actually make it work . Sometimes there were moments when i thought that maybe i should switch to pathfinder 1e because D&D 5e made some stupid rules that is generalized for all classes but some things are class-specific which could every class use if it is just a feature. I love 5e but its sometimes backwards thinking with the rules.
I do the exact same thing with Mage Hand Legerdemain. If someone who isn't an Arcane Trickster wants to use their Mage Hand for any precise interactions, I always check whether doing so would diminish the Trickster's features.
We feel that many class features which let characters get around holding objects aren't worth the ink spent on them. The rules should just be more flexible about this stuff at the basic level for all characters, and these "class features" should be replaced with something more useful and specific to the class.
I agree with this: there's gotta be a downside for trying to improvise replicating a class feature, for the sake not stepping on the toes of the player who's playing that class. Imagine the wizard constantly trying to pressure the DM to cast spells unnoticed while the sorcerer is right there with subtle spell. Or if the sorcerer talked their way into obtaining a spellbook that they can cast from to gain more spells without multiclassing while the wizardstill has to find/prepare/juggle prep slots.
That's even a part of the rules for material components "A spellcaster must have a hand free to hold a spell's material components -- or hold a spellcasting focus -- but it can be the same hand they use to perform somatic components."
@@Pancakeli Which would have been done to make sure spellcasters weren't nerfed with this action economy, "what's in which hand" nonsense. Did we just correct the @DungeonDudes?
@@schemage2210 no they actually mentioned it. Later on they talk about how that particular rule is weird when your hands are full, one with a material component or focus, and you're trying to cast a spell that requires somatic, but not material, components. It may or may not be possible I believe that has been clarified at one point by Jeremy Crawford that you can perform somatic components anytime you're holding a spellcasting focus you can use regardless of if it has material components or not, but I can't look that up right now to be 100% sure.
@@Pancakeli It also suggests that a paladin's shield with a holy symbol engraved on it will be able to be used to cast spells or a sword with a holy symbol painted on it. For an arcane one, you can incorporate the focus into a weapon.
After selling my players on the power of Goodberry in my campaign i was running for them in terms of its slot efficiency for guaranteed healing, we needed to have a conversation about the action economy of popping magical blackberries that heal wounds into their mouths. I ended up ruling that feeding an incapacitated creature a goodberry required at least an action due to the individual not being able to chew on their own but as long as the berries were already there than a character can use an action to eat as many of the berries as they had on their person, up to 10. The logistics of noshing on 10+ berries in 6 seconds aside, from a game balance perspective i saw it as unfair to dedicated healers and paladin type characters that the Rangers and Druids could essentially trade their Level 1 spell slots for what could essentially be seen as the Lay On Hands Feature that could also be used to almost entirely subvert the idea of properly supplying your party with food and water.
Good berry as a way to keep a party fed is not a huge issue. The fact that the Ranger or Druid is dropping a 1st level spell everyday for survival is okay in my book.
Not sure if this is an official rule or not, but I think it's totally fine to use greater resources to do a thing. Use an action to do a bonus action? Totally. Spend a 2nd level spell slot to shield? No problem.
With shield that is a thing. On spells it tells the player if it has a greater effect when using a higher level slot, but it is definitely allowed to use one even when it doesn't change the spell.
As to the quaffing a potion as a free action vs the said mug of ale, I always tell them that the potion has a tight stopper on it to keep it from spilling which isn't easy to remove vs the mug being wide open. Also, we have house rules that potions can be used as a bonus action for it's normal effects, but in the case of a healing potion or one that hase a rollable maximum effect, the character can still quaff it normally as a bonus action, or if they wish the maximum effect as in a healing potion, it will take a full action on their turn.
also, drinking the healing potion most likely involves grabbing it from your belt/backpack/wherever it is stored, as a mug of ale wouldn't. And cool idea on the bonus/main action for potions! In case you had a thief rogue w/ fast hands, they'd be able to have the max healing as a bonus action?
I generally think encumbrance is fine if you use dnd beyond or something equivalent. If you have a program that more or less tracks everything for you, you don't ever need to think about it unless your players are super mega hoarders, in which case you definitely should be thinking about it. Also, even if you are handling everything completely pen and paper, then it is still better to keep track of encumbrance so that you can be more fair in situations like them disassembling siege engines and so on. That said, it is still a major hassle to try to deal with the volume limitations of things like backpacks, so I believe in handwaving that away whenever possible. I don't think it is unreasonable to enforce the item interaction rules, specifically because there is a feat that let's you draw two weapons per turn rather than the standard one. And, ranged weapons are just better than melee weapons, so the fact that ranged characters suffer in melee situations also seems fair. And yeah, the fact that drinking ale is a free action but a potion is an action does create a weird gameplay/common sense disconnect, but I think every player would understand the difference. They should be able to suspend their disbelief at least that much if they are trying to play pretty much any rpg. There are a couple of complaints about components that I think are valid. I think an Arcane Focus should be able to be used for somatic components, even if the spell doesn't have material components, but maybe that should be included in warcaster. I also think that Protection from Evil and Good should have a gold cost. To my knowledge it is the only case where a spell has a material component that must be provided, but which isn't given a gold cost and it will inevitably create an argument in every game it's used in as a result. Everything else I think is fine. I actually think it's cool that some spells work on objects and others don't. I have never found it to be a buzzkill or whatever, but clearly your mileage may vary. I see cover essentially the same way I see inspiration. It's a cool tool that the DM can use to reward certain types of play, but which no DM will ever actually remember to use. I also fall into this trap and it saddens me. Artificers can create half cover though, so that's kinda cool.
As someone that is new to the D&D I find that I like how my DM allows spells with components to operate. If it is verbal with hand jesters, then obviously i need a free hand and the ability to speak. when there is, say, 25 gold worth cost for a spell we have to have the require materials ready, which means going into town and exchanging gold for said material. As far as the material requirements go such as a thin piece of copper wire, as long as we haven't been robbed we pretty much ignore that requirement unless we want to use it in our description when we cast the spell.
Yep we pretty much always ignore spell components, sometimes the dms dont bother checking for somatic either, we ignore encumbrance (though we do eventually acquire things like wagons as sort of a nod to us being packrats), we also ignore food and water (except in dark sun) and lodging.
In terms of the weapon readying, I have a rule in my games. You can have up to weapons readied a day, kinda like a spell casters spells, that you can swap between freely in combat. Any other weapon will take an action to retrieve from their bag of holding (I also give them out extremely early. Carry weight is bs)
"I eldritch blast the door"
DM: "that can only target creatures"
"OK, I kick it open"
DM: "alright, then what?"
"I eldritch blast all the furniture"
DM: "Like I said, that can only target creatures"
"OK guys, we're safe, no mimics in here!"
DM: ".... I hate you."
Let a spell fizzle every once in a while
Nail dead creature to door.
"I, Eldrich, blast the dead creature!"
DM: "OK."
Problem solved.
@@TheIntimidat3r according to Jeremy Crawford, dead bodies are objects and thus, that still doesn't work
"DM: Cool, clever dick, you metagame and exploit, so I will, too. The glyph of warding on the backside of the wall sets off when somebody casts eldtrich bast. The fireball explodes. Since none of the stuff inside the room is carried, it is now all destroyed, but sure, there are no mimics. Congrats!
If they want to metagame like that, the let them Eldritch Blast objects and it does nothing. Eventually, they will get tired of that.
Was running a Star Wars game once and told my players that I wasn't going to bother with encumbrance rules so long as they kept it within reason. Next session, one player had a suit of heavy armor with 5 rifles, one of which was as long as she was tall, and the player with the lowest STR possible had 30 grenades strapped to their chest. We now use encumbrance rules.
One would hope that "within reason" would not let them do that.
@@lordchrispo1439 are you sure the players had the ability to think reasonably?
@@sr71silver One would hope they do. But I a curse of strahd game I am in, the cleric's idea of distracting the guards was to hit one of them......
As the GM you should have immediately applied encumbered . Players are like children they will constantly test boundaries to see what you will let them get away with.
@@lordchrispo1439 well getting smacked DOES tend to be distracting.
My friend got around encumbrance by inventing the "Banking Hobbits." When we ran into a cache of treasure, we simply summoned them with a magic device, they came and hauled away the treasure to their vaults, and we were off to the next encounter. Of course, the Banking Hobbits had a minimum summoning fee and took a percentage of the haul, but it made everything flow more smoothly.
The mercantile Mercanes - 3.5 lore - do all that Plus have numerous magic items available for mid-to - high level PCs to purchase..the Boss Mercane rides on a Planar Behemoth living ship, with vast magical resources at his command..
We use a similar system where the DM allows us to sell everything for 50% of cost (because cleaning the blood out of armor is icky) and we all have bags of holding. We also don't track ammo except for magical ones.
@@Comicsluvr couldn’t you just use Burning Hands to heat up the armor and cook off the organic bits and pieces?
This is just a bag of holding with extra steps.
I approve.
I have done that since 3.0/3.5. Usually whatever god is the god of mercantile has a follower that meets the party fairly early on and gives them a coin. This coin, once given to the party, can only stay among them and will always be on one person any given time, they always know where it is at. Summoning the merchant requires a single coin flip, and then I roll to determine the merchant's influence among the party, affecting the price of his or her wares. When the party is finished, the merchant disappears in a puff of smoke with all their wares, and the coin flips back into the possession of the one who flipped it.
We had a Tomb of Annihilation game where the DM awarded literal tons of gold, so making decisions about “should I take this jeweled goblet back or grab more handfuls of coins” became fun, if agonizing, choices. It got really interesting when one of the PCs fell in the water and couldn’t swim out without dropping his treasure laden pack.
Yes! This is the right way to handle this situations, only if they have a dramatic meaning. Otherwise, rules for the sake of rules is playing lawyers, and that ain't fun. Let characters hold a lot of treasure, and when the situation emerges where treasure is obviously a problem, then turn it into a problem.
Also can randomly roll pick pocket rolls/well sleight of hands, as they walk though town.
Had a DM who never let up on variant encumberance, always mentioned it before picking up things, applied coin and ammo weight, no Bag of Holding. In the final battle against Tiamat, my 306 lb Warforged Rune Knight climbed atop Tiamat and went Huge, then was hit by Enlarge. Tiamat was sat on by 19584 lbs of metal.
"Ooh, I think you're overencumbered there."
Legit way to use encumbrance, I was actually a loot goblin to the point I got cursed with encumbrance rules because I kept looting everything. So I sold my magic gear for loads of bags of holdings.
Square-Cube Law can be an absolute bitch, can't it? :)
Wielding physics as a weapon can work both ways.
You would also crush yourself, because your body is not made to handle that kind of weight.
@@schwarzerritter5724 Nah, it's magic, that part's handwaved.
@@schwarzerritter5724 Nah doesn't work that way. Otherwise those abilities would be pointless.
as a DM i have completely ignored the "once per day" use limit on Sending Stones. I just let my players have full on conversations with whoever is on the other side. We've started affectionately calling them "rocky-talkies"
ROCKY TALKIES
I love it
"rocky-talkies" could be the best thing ive heard in a while
Yo! We do the same at my table!
That is good buuut when the party gets the message meet at the bridge and the player has to guess the north or south bridge, lack of communication can be comical lol
With regard to the material components with values (and things like arrows and bolts): Our DM basically says, paraphrasing, "You are professional adventurers, it is assumed that you would have stocked up on those things" or something to that effect. If you cast Revivify, for example, the assumption is that you already have the diamonds - so the DM just simply asks you to subtract 300gp from your inventory at the time of casting. It's a nice middle ground.
Yeah, but where did they buy the diamonds or other really expensive components from? like the Hallow spells costs 1500g worth of inks, incense, herbs, etc. . .Not every small town or village your players walk into is going to have access to thousands of golds worth of often very specific material components and magical goods.
My DM made fun of me at first because I kept track of my food rations, my arrows, and minor spell components. Until we both realised it was an ADHD thing for me. Since then, he made sure to let me know I don't HAVE to let him know every single time we finish combat that I spend a minute to collect half of my arrows I used, or that I go and purchase common spell components every time we hit town. Heck, we spent like 2-3 weeks in game far from civilisation and he didn't really bother checking if the party had enough food rations anyway (the logic being there are two characters in the party, one being my ranger, who knows how to hunt and forage). He just said "look, if this is something that makes you feel better to track these down, I trust you to do it without telling me. My one rule is if you have to do something major, like purchase something less common such as new armor or weapons, or gemstones, that you let me know what you intend to do."
@@Noobie2k7 I guess that would be to the specifics of the campaign.
my DM has this component pouch that essentially anything below like 15 gold, it just gives it to you, anything above that you have to buy
Stockpiling commonly used materials like diamonds is one thing, but I doubt adventurers stockpile on some of more ridiculous materials, like gilded flowers or undead eyes encased inside a gem.
Way long ago in 3.5 edition I actually did play a wizard who actually used spell components. It was actually pretty fun. I particularly loved the reaction everyone had when I roleplayed him casting acid breath by stuffing a handful of live ants into his mouth before spewing out a blast of formic acid.
I had an AD&D DM in the 80s that required my wizard to obtain each component. It was fun at first, but it got old quick. Especially since each component was expended at the time of casting.
I do like what you described though... describing to the other players what it looks like to cast a new spell can be great. I also like when creative players flavor their spells within the boundaries of the spell description.
I'm playing artificer and my DM has me role play components but most are dirt cheap or RP-only. It's fun for a tinkerer
20:07 The two-handed property is actually lenient toward spellcasters. "Two-Handed. This weapon requires two hands *when you attack with it.*"
Emphasis mine. You can hold a two handed weapon in one hand, you just need two to make attacks with it.
Had a warlock dwarf once that used to shoulder his two-handed waraxe when wanting to cast a spell in order to free one hand.
Being nit-picky, that still means for this turn for free action you need to let go with one hand and move it to the side with the other to then cast, so no opportunity attacks this round. Next round, free action to re-grasp and set yourself to use the weapon. Gives flexibility, but does limit some potential reactions for using the spell.
@@cycleboy8028 Why would he have no opportunity attacks for using a free action? He would still have a reaction to use. Free action and Reaction are not the same. I also think letting go of a weapon with one hand post attack wouldn't even cost a free action. Looking at baseball players, letting go of the bat with one hand is naturally part of our swing.
@@frostbound If he "free actioned" to remove a hand from a two-handed weapon, the weapon is no longer "wielded" and he couldn't use it until both hands are back on. Your statement about a baseball player is apt, to let go is pretty easy, but then to re-wield the bat, a player takes some time (geez... those guys take FOREVER to regrip) to get proper grasp in a fighting/hitting position.
@@cycleboy8028 I see your point, and yes it is nitpicky but I can't refute it, if as a table we decided that letting go with one hand used your free action. For my table personally I wouldn't rule it like that, but that's what's great about this game.
I was a bit surprised that darkvision and perception in different lighting levels was not in the list
They actually made a whole video specifically about the weird rules interactions regarding light sources and areas of darkness/dim light a while back! It’s called “Darkness, Light, and Vision,” if you’d like to watch it.
Also it was mentioned in their video of rules often gotten wrong. As its more commonly just mistaken than ignored.
"My drow has been in the overworld for two hundred years... sunlight wouldn't bother him anymore" ... ...
@@nickrafuse984 "I've been pale white but living in the overworld all my life, so I shouldn't get sunburn anymore."
Yea, I actually use everything mentioned in this video but perception with darkvision/dim light is often something I just handwave. Sometimes I'll just raise the DC to see the thing behind the scenes.
I know this is an old video by this point, but for somatic components (18:10 ) I've always run it by asking the player how they might perform a cinematic somatic action while their hands are full. For example, if a Warlock is casting Shield while dual wielding axes they might smash the heads together so that they scrape against each other, the resulting sparks flaring up/out to create the magical runes or energy that becomes the visual cue that they've cast the spell.
I am actually largely comfortable with the components rules as it is.
It makes sense to me that if a spell requires both materials and somatic, they are incorporated together. You need to have the salt in your fingers as you "make it rain" as part of Gentle Repose (after placing the two copper pieces over their eyes, which also naturally requires an open hand to do).
It makes sense that somatic requires particular hand gestures, which just can't be done with an item in that hand. You can't "finger gun" your Magic Missle if your hand is closed on a sword's hilt.
The fact that you CAN use the same hand for components as gestures is actually a kindness, rather than the perception of being a hindrance by viewing it the other way around.
Not to mention, as you pointed out, that's exactly the point of the feat War Caster! Just like allowing casting in secret via Subtle Spell for Sorcerers! If a player wants either of those capabilities, they should HAVE to actually take them. Otherwise delete the Feat/Metamagic (whichever) and allow it for free to everyone.
Some classes should just innately come with the component part of warcaster, it doesnt detract from the feat since the other 2 parts are very powerful.
Sure make the wizard work for it but someone like an Eldritch Knight whose entire identity is being a Knight with magic should probably have been educated how to actually do his job.
It's mostly an issue for bards, because most bards spellcasting focuses are two handed instruments. Some dms are assholes about it and won't let you cast spells if you have any weapons in either hand because you need both free to play your instrument.
Item interaction is one of the reasons why my group plays potions as a Bonus Action to drink, an Action to feed to another. Realistically we felt that a person could pop a potion in their mouth and chug it while still swinging a sword, whereas getting (usually an unconscious) person to drink a potion a bit more challenging.
Meanwhile, my players are mostly nurses who actually feed dying people... let's just say they'd question even trying to get an unconscious person to drink 🤣
@@probablythedm1669 There's a Weekly Roll comic where Trevor adminsters a potion by pouring it into Becket's wound to heal him because he has a helmet on.
In our game, it is a bonus action to drink the potion yourself and roll how much you heal If you use an action to drink potion yourself, then you heal max hp of potion. it is an action to force feed another character a potion and you have to roll how much character is healed.
Doesn't that kind of cut the rogues fast Hands ability though? Not arguing, just curious how you squared it.
@@LastoftheMofreakins No, per DMG p 141, magic items are excluded from the Use an Object action. Magic items require the Activate an Item action. That includes potions of healing, which are magical.
When it comes to swapping weapons in combat, I use a house rule called “holsters”
A player has 3 holsters, one on each hip, and one on their back. As a free action a player can draw or sheath one of the three weapons they have holstered. If they wish to use a weapon that isn’t in a holster, they must use a bonus action to retrieve it from their bag. (A shield also takes up a holster)
Solasta Video game, has a similar system that is better than RAW 5e.
As a DM I have consistently been ruling things as if my players had been doing this type of thing without even thinking about it, if you don't mind I will likely add this to my house rules list.
@@qiae By all means go ahead!
Honestly brilliant
I actually use a similar, but more lenient, houserule as a DM. If you can reasonably store an item in an easily accessible spot without interfering with something else in your equip setup, you can grab it or swap to it at a moment's notice.
For example: I would let a player get away with storing a dagger in a sheath that's placed on the outer thigh or in a vambrace.
RE: Eldritch Blast through a window. Since the spell is a ray-like effect (a beam of crackling energy streaks towards a creature within range), it starts at your fingertip. This means the beam would strike the window. This doesn't mean you couldn't still target the carriage, but the window would take some of the damage, break, and alert everyone around where it came from. I would subtract the window's hit points from the damage done to the carriage, since some of that energy was transferred into the window.
I assumed it was an open style castle window or at least that the window would be open. I didn't even think for a second that it was traveling through a glass window unscathed.
@@XanderHarris1023 but unless the setting is implied that the window is open by the DM or the player stating they opened the window it would be safe to say inherently the window is closed too
Giving a window HP makes me think of the scene in Top Secret where Deja Vu can’t break the window to shoot out of it and destroys his gun and a sledgehammer while trying.
One of my favorite modification to cover, if the creature your attacking has cover from another creature, if you miss by the the cover modifier, you then apply the attack roll to the creature that's giving cover.
I really enjoy this alternate take to cover. I use the same thought process to things like Armor. If you miss from the 10 + Dex you straight up miss but if you miss because of the Armor + Dex then you bounce of the armor. It matters if you decide to use this in situations where if you are attacked then the attacker takes damage when they hit. I use it so it still causes the effect even if they technically miss but make physical contact even if it dealt no damage. It makes the spell/item more effective and the players like that it validates the investment more while still being in the realm of believability.
I generally do this, as does Brennan in Dimension 20
@@SvviftDeath To me, this simply sounds like an application of "Flatfoot" and "Touch" ACs from previous systems. Flatfoot is just 10 + Armor bonus while Touch is 10 + Dex bonus. You may find it useful to actually note those down on the sheet for your own reference at the table; I personally like to also use these in 5e, using Flatfoot for attacks the target's unaware of and Touch for spells such as Shocking Grasp or Firebolt.
@@bloodsmithgamermusic92 It's more based off systems like 3.5 and Pathfinder where armor was added to AC instead of replacing the value. I started with these concepts so they made more sense to me. I use the same additive functions in the RP that I am developing from scratch. I have a lot done just need to finish some minor public testing and I might try to get it published afterwards.
@@SvviftDeath how do you adjudicate this each and every time...? seems like this would bog the game down, but this time in FAVOR of the PC's does the math just come faster with seat time, because truly i like this variant??
The designers have clarified that just because a weapon may require 2 hands to wield (ie. bow), that doesn't mean it takes 2 hands to hold. So like in your example where your shooting your bow and get charged by an enemy, you can draw your one handed weapon and attack, while still holding your bow in your other hand. Then next turn you could sheath your sword, and still shoot your bow again.
This also applies to spellcasting. A Paladin with a greatsword only needs to wear an amulet holy symbol "prominently" to cover the material components of a spell, and they can *at any time* use one of their hands to cover somatic spells without dropping their weapon or being unable to attack using two hands.
@@AnaseSkyrider Yup. It's literally in the rules.
*Two-Handed.*
"This weapon requires two hands when you attack with it. This property is relevant *only* when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it."
@@TheHornedKing To be fair, that had to be errata'd in. That wasn't there originally.
@@AnaseSkyrider It wasn't?
@@TheHornedKing Correct. Originally, it just said "This weapon requires two hands to use."
Fire Bolt is actually one of the few spells that specifically DOES allow you to target objects.
That was what I raced to the comment section to see if anyone already posted LOL. Since I haven't finished the video yet, I am assuming they "rule of cool" to let other cantrips damage things, so they don't realize fire bolt is the only one that actually does damage things, by the rules.
The question is what specific damage types do to inanimate objects. Fire damage is something you can easily imagine destroying objects, but what are force, necrotic or radiant damage?
@@schwarzerritter5724 Most objects are immune to psychic and poison damage, and that's it. You can find it written on a lot of items.
@@schwarzerritter5724 force would be exactly that physical force. I'd say radiant would be like using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight on a bit of Wood. It would blacken and scorch depending on the power of the magic. As for necrotic? Not sure, probably some fusion of the rapid passage of time and rotting/withering away.
@@schwarzerritter5724 as far as I'm concern, arcane damage on object, if it doesn't stated like Disintegrate spell, is worse version of blunt damage, you technically can break the lock with Eldritch Blast and Magic Missile but you better off to just use a stick to break it instead
For ignored rules, I often find the "passive" skills being ignored. Like calling for active perception checks versus a stealthing enemy. I usually allow the player the option to elect not to roll and use passive instead.
I also want to run a game at some point where the multiclassing minimums are explicitly ignored. I think that might allow for interesting builds, experimentally.
I have a few passive skill written down for my players, I'll make my roll vs their passive and only call for their check if it beats the passive. It kinda streamlines things a bit, especially if the rogue's passive stealth beats the enemy's passive perception (unless they're actively searching then it becomes a contested roll).
This! This always annoys me so much. When I play a character that perhaps has a high passive perception and the party is looking for something. And after a while of no one finding anything someone does something that triggers the DM to have them make a perception roll, and they roll below my passive perception, yet it's succesfull...
I'm like.. my character is perceptive enough to have instantly spotted that without even trying. Why didn't you just tell me DM? Or at least heavily hint at it?
I genuinely think the only time(s) I've seen DMs remember passive perception is when an NPC/enemy is stealthing or hiding nearby.
If a character is very perceptive, let them perceive things!
@@TheMrVengeance you gotta remember them too!
@victorbarros3736 - No, not really. That's what passive means. I don't know when there's something hidden nearby that I'd be able to passively notice. And if I ask the DM if there is.. well then its just become a regular perception check, hasn't it?
@@TheMrVengeance Because you weren't looking for the right thing, or in the right place, whereas they were.
If one player with a high PP says "I survey the room, what do I notice" and another one says "I search the desk, looking out for any false drawers", would you give them the same DC to find the treasure hidden in the false drawer of the desk? High passive perception might get you a "the floor around the desk looks less dusty than the rest, as if it's been moved recently" but it won't find the treasure for you. Yes, this is a deliberately extreme example that probably isn't what you were describing, but it makes the point that perception DCs should be situational - being in the right place, or openly stating that you're looking out for something specific, should make you more likely to notice something than merely being a generally perceptive kinda guy.
As an Arcane Trickster, I love the component pouch on the belt. Using the mage hand against a wizard to take off his belt is extremely satisfying.
An archer doesn’t need to put away the bow! If he is right-handed, he is holding the bow in his left. He can draw his sword with his right and attack.
A rule often missed is that it takes an action to equip or doff a shield (PHB page 146, Donning and Doffing Armor table)
While you're generally correct, it's not a hard and fast rule. I am cross-dominant, meaning I do one-handed activities right-handed and two-handed things favoring my left.
I did not know about the shield action. I've seen the chart before but didn't realize shield was on it. Good find
Shield taking an action to don/doff is a rule that’s worth following. In my first campaign we didn’t know about it and it allowed the fighter to always use a shield against ranged combatants and then quickly switch to a greataxe once they made it to melee range.
Dominant hands isn't even an issue in 5e; RAW everyone is perfectly ambidextrous. As long as you have _a_ hand to hold a one-handed weapon, you can make an attack with it without penalties.
@@dtsazza That’s not entirely true, since you don’t get proficiency bonus on 2nd weapon with two-hand fighting unless you have the fighting style/feat. I pass this off as not being effective with their weaker hand.
DM: you can’t eldritch blast a door. It’s not a creature!
Player: Oh sorry. I thought it was a mimic!
That's the easiest and fastest way to check for mimics, man! Target the chest/door/whatever with Eldritch Blast, if it actually goes off, MIMIC!
Absolutely every room from then on:
Player: I attempt to Eldritch Blast every door and piece of furniture in sequence.
Nah. I'd say you can target... But just no damage gets done. Makes much more sense
@@Qydra1 Exactly. It's one of those RAW items that actually makes it worse to play. They always say they do these things for balance and gameplay purposes. Well, this time they played themselves. Making certain spells only target creatures makes it so that players can use those abilities to 'scan' for Mimics at will. Jokes on them, that makes the game worse, hahaHAHA. Sorry, sometimes some of these rules that are 'just for balance' make me so frustrated that being able to point out how awful or nonsensical they are gives me great joy.
You're in a dungeon.
You could also firebolt everything for the same effect. It doesn't change anything.
At our table, we have a sort of house rule about spells with costly components; that you don't necessarily have to go out and buy the material/s, you can just crunch that amount of gp from your total if you have it, it eats it, and boom, you have that component now. Sort of like transmuting the gold into the desired object.
When it comes to a spellcasting focus, i would rule that since you are focusing the magic through it, it would become an extension of yourself in terms of magic casting thus manipulating with your hand counts as the somatic component of the cast. Example: if you (a warlock) had to draw a rune in the air with your fingers, drawing it with an improved pact weapon (the invocation makes the pact weapon a spell focus) would count as its a part of your "spellcasting self"
On tracking ammunition: I have a gunslinger in my homebrew campaign and I wanted to make guns seem rare and new. I had my player track his ammo for the first while of the campaign. Then the players found a cache of supplies in a mine that he could use to craft ammo, so I told him he had effectively infinite supplies now and didn’t need to purchase things, but still needed to craft new ammunition. Then the players got a keep and the gunslinger recruited his own riflemen and I told him he no longer needed to track ammunition at all as he has a ready supply.
Here is how we did tracking ammunition.
Regular arsenels don’t need to be tracked
Special Ammunition, however, do need to be tracked.
This is the way,
Jokes aside yeah this is how I do it at my tables especially since it allows for me to give some truly interesting arrows, like spell storing arrows.
Most often characters who use ammunition just declare they are restocking on every stop or after combats, even picking up used ammunition whenever possible.
My campaign takes place primarily on a ship, and I told my players that the sides of the ship have quivers filled with regular ammo.
Used the rule of. As long as you buy ammo here and there, then don't think about it
What is special ammunition though?
Thrown daggers? Do you loose half your thrown daggers after every battle?
9:50 the Attack Action allows you to draw a weapon as part of the attack, so drawing two swords in a turn is possible if you are attacking that turn. Also works for stowing a bow and drawing a sword.
Can you quote that from somewhere cause I’m reading the PHB but I don’t see that listed under attack actions?
@@RedJackz The line of text I am referencing can be found on pages 193 and in the table on page 190 of the phb. It says "You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of an attack." Which is the essentially the rule they are reminding people of in this video, but i am applying it to both the attack and movement instead of just movement.
@@Killerharpy101 Reference the Dual Wilder feat for explanation as to why drawing or showing two weapons in one turn, without taking the Use an Object action, is not normally the case. You are normally only able to freely interact with one object (p.190, Other Activities on Your Turn) during a turn, a second object interaction (drawing or stowing a second weapon, for instance) requires the Use an Object interaction. A Thief with Fast Hands may use their bonus action to do this OR swap one weapon (if only one is drawn) for another, such as a bow or crossbow. A Thief with both Dual Wielder and Fast Hands may stow both weapons and draw another.
Thanks for mentioning that. At our table, you can draw >1< weapon as part of your attack, drawing 2 just requires your object interaction as well.
Stowing bows when forced into melee? Technically interaction again, but it's a lot more fun when they need to drop the bow and deal with their weapon being in a square on the battlefield if they want it again, or a fireball goes off 😈
EDIT: Typo
This was very helpful. I am a new DM (first game next week) and there are a lot of things I wanted to put aside or change for my (also) new players. Makes me more confident to discuss house rules with the group and change them as needed. Explaining that the rules are for enhancing the experience of the journey, not diminishing it.
How did thatcirat game go? Im also DMing ny first one in 2 weeks lol
Encumbrance actually stems from the earliest editions of D&D.
Back then the XP you got was based on the amount of gold you looted from the dungeons, which often lead to characters avoiding as many fights as possible, but it also meant that tracking what the characters could carry was incredibly important.
I came here to comment the exact same thing. As someone who played Basic then Advanced D&D, I experienced that issue first hand. Sneaking through "Keep on the Boarderlands" was always our goal. The "Temple" and "Kolbold" caves were a real challenge!
Isn't that's why tenser's floating disc was so strong? Because it could carry so much stuff out of dungeons?
Encumbrance is good for when the party wants to carry coin and treasure away from the dungeon. Yes, you killed the dragon and his 20' x 20 ' x 1' bed of gold is there, but how will you carry all of those coins? That's over 9 million coins (9,676,800) which weigh almost 97 tons (193,536 lbs). :) :)
In 5e, 50 coins are 1 lb, which comes out to slightly over 9 grams per coin. The specific gravity of the various metals is ignored. So if the coin is 1 inch in diameter (slightly larger than a US quarter or slightly smaller than a US dollar coin or 2 Euro coin) and is 1.27mm (1/20") thick (slightly thinner than a US dime or almost half as thin as a 2 Euro coin), then they stack nicely. You get 20 stacked coins to the cubic inch and 14 to the cubic inch when loosely stacked.
So that 5gp chest in the PHB that holds 12 cubic feet of gear (3' wide, 2' deep, & 2' high), holds 290,304 loose coins (5,806.1lb) or 414,720 stacked coins (8,294.4lb). Since the chest can hold a max of 300lb of gear, you can't move the chest without the bottom breaking. So a chest of coins that you can carry, would have 15,000 coins, stacked (0.87 inches high) or loose (1.24 inches high). An iron or steel chest of the same dimensions would be able to carry more.
Large sums of money are then difficult to move. The old 3.5e, used a coin roughly the size of an Eisenhower half dollar, which comes out to 10 coins to a 1.5" by 1.5" by 1" high volume and 10 coins to a pound. You get 4 coins to the cubic inch with that arrangement. That measurement was worked out by David F. Godwin in the article "How many coins in a coffer", in issue #80 of Dragon Magazine Dec 1983. I used his work, to come up with the 5e coin above.
For my games, I use that 3.5e coin size as a Trade Coin (TC), as it is almost exactly 5 times the mass of the 5e coin. So a 5e gold trade coin (GTC) is 5 gp. A trade bar (TB) is 1 pound each and is 2" by 3" by 1/3" thick and has a 50 coin value. Bullion Bars (BB) are are the trapizoidal bars that you see in movies and are 1,000x the coin value. They weigh 20lb and are 3" wide by 10.5" long and 1.5" high, with the smaller top part of the trapizoid being 2" wide. Moving large amounts of money doesn't change the weight, but the number of items you have to count goes down. So that chest that holds 15,000gp, holds 3,000gtc, 300gtb, or 15gbb. Much less to count for trading houses, merchants, nobles, and the like.
@@Cheesusful bingo
A big one for me was a slight home rule someone mentioned one time. You can take a potion as a bonus action and roll for it. If you choose to take a full action, and take your time making sure you drink the whole thing, you just get the maximum back etc. I like this, as you sacrifice a full turn of damage to heal up.
Only just started doing this
I like that!
My favorite cleric charater to play has a lot of flavor text on his casting. He's a cleric of the goddess of song, dance, and swordwork. His verbal components must be sung, his somatic components require him to dance, and he can aim spells by pointing with his sword. He was intended to be a front-line cleric and runs the War Caster feat so not much is ignored with him but he has absolutely no chance to hide his casting given it usually involves a whole song and dance routine. His friends also sometimes make fun of how he casts cause it doesn't seem so magical until the spell takes hold or se seems like a bard lol.
I played D and D from near the beginning. (Math = I'm 55 years old, first remember throwing a twenty sided die, (included in the playing Basic D and D Box set, as far as I can remember) when I was 11 or 12? (1977 to 1978) I'm just getting back into the game. The firs thing I thought of when I read the introduction to this video (Rules that are Often Ignored) was encumbrance. I struggled for a few sessions as a DM with the calculations. I soon went beyond your solution of giving a bag of holding early in the game, to having the closest to lawful good aligned character (which was a challenge in the 1970's, which, in real life, often seemed to be a mix of Lord of Flies and The Warriors Move), inherit a bag of holding as a starting point!
26:48
I just recently re-read the spellcasting rules in the PHB. There's a section that I think needs to be explicitly mentioned in these kinds of discussions:
"A Clear Path to the Target
To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction."
The point they were trying to indicate with that is the specification of a window. And the ways in which the spells text can be confusing.
Does it count as an obstruction if you only need line of sight and the spell doesnt originate from the caster? Can the spell hit an object, if not, why? For example sacred flame does not specify an origin point implying the flame simply manifests in the target space, while eldritch blast does. Other spells create the point of origin at a location that is neither the target nor the caster, like call lightning, the origin is the storm above the target. Its the same kind of concern with a wall of force, something that stops things from passing through but doesn't affect line of sight gets very fiddly
There isnt specifically a sensible reason that eldritch blast cant hit an object, since it is literally a ray attack dealing force damage. Which unlike poison and psychic damage does affect objects normally. But at the same time the text says it targets a creature you can see.
For that situation as a DM I'd rule: you can cast eldritch blast on the wagon wheel, but in so doing the blasts will shatter the window on the way out, and give like a +1 AC bonus since its not really even partial cover.
Yeah, something that is often ignored with AoE-spells is that you CAN'T put the target point around which it centers behind a wall in order to not hit your allies.
Usually it specifically says "a point you can see within range" so as long as you can see the point, it doesn't matter if there is like a window there or whatever.
@@Desdemona-XI According to RAW to target something you need a "Clear Path to the Target". So if the spell description doesn't negate that rule, then it must still follow it.
@@Desdemona-XIThe issue comes with Targeting. Sacred Flame's "target" says it's a creature. However, according to the rules, you can't target something without a "Clear Line of Path to the Target". Clear Line of Path has nothing to do with sight, it's about obstacles.
You can not cast Sacred Flame without a target.
Not strictly speaking a rule, but I’ve found the concept of a session zero is missed a lot of the time. I’ve found it invaluable in my games and feel like you can kind of feel it in games, certainly at the beginning of the campaign, when you don’t have one.
I've never had one. I'm not even certain what all it's for. OK, maybe I had one recently, but that was more to get one player used to Avrae in Discord than doing anything in character.
We don’t have session zeros, we just have discussions on discord throughout like the 2 weeks leading up to the start of the campaign talking about shit in it
As a DM, I start with the barest essentials of a campaign in mind, but I build the campaign based on the characters, their background, the role they'd like to take in the party, and the fantasy of what each player wants to experience. For me, an in-depth session 0 is essential.
It helps me gauge the tone that the party is after, and since it's an open discussion, every player will be aware of what the other players are after. The best players take these ideas as partial inspiration for their own characters as well, and help forge pre-campaign relationships with the other party members. Stuff like race and class selections tend to come pretty naturally when all that has been discussed.
The worst players also kinda stand out with it. They might be wishy-washy about their character ideas, don't want to involve their characters with the other party members, and might be bossy or demanding of other players, like making - for the lack of a better-suiting word for it - demands or forceful suggestions over what the other players should play, while making no alterations to their own ideas.
There have been a few times where we've had to disband the game on session 0 simply because it's become apparent that these people are simply incompatible as players with each other (or one person is - in which case another session 0 is set up a month or so later - with "a smaller group", if necessary).
I had a session zero for my campaign, we rolled a communal stat array, then it ended up being exactly standard array so I just went "sod it, point buy." Then they tried to negotiate dropping 8 to 6 for extra points, so I said "have one point for that," positing that in a world where the minimum was 6, going from 6 to 8 would likely only cost one point.
And then yes, there was a full extra week of messages discussing the characters with me anyway :P
usually have a .5 session in my in person group. usually start with a zero session, but typically start the adventure on the same day. but we can only align our schedules like every other month or so so we really have to take advantage of the time we're together.
For the Spell Components part, there's very few spells that actually require a gold cost. It's only really a worry early on, as the party might not have enough gold to afford that 100gp pearl to cast Identify. Also, most of the spells that have a monetary cost can't be cast mid-combat, as they have a cast time of 1 minute or longer. The only common spells cast mid-combat that require a cost are Chromatic Orb (50gp diamond, not consumed) and Revivify (300gp diamond, consumed).
a 2-hand weapon actually does allow you to cast shield. It only needs two hands to actually attack so you can hold with one hand and use the other to do somatic components but, yes, it's a rule that can be easily ignored if you are holding your focus.
Had a good experience with inventory management as a short arc: having to cross country through a difficult mountain range while undercover. They had to manage rations and water and supplies. Most of the inventory was going to gathering a week of firewood to survive above the snowline in storms... It's fun for that few sessions, and then the rest of the time we ignore limits. Basically it was a plot device...A we ignore it when it's not plot significant
I've had success with that in the past also, but now my players tend to take goodberry and create/destroy water early on, so it's become pointless.
The rule where ranged attacks (including ranged spells attacks) are at disadvantage when engaged with enemy is very often ignored. Many times people will simply target a different creature that's not within 5ft to not have disadvantage on the attack, however, where as they should have disadvantage against ANY target while engaged with any hostile creature (within their reach) . I think that's a fair rule to govern given that many ranged attacks often cover the majority of the battle map. It also helps to protect backline characters along side with the cover rules.
That i think is less of a case of the rule being ignored as much as just usually gotten wrong
Yep RAW is disadvantage on attack rolls made when in melee so if you have an enemy next to you it is still disadvantage to attack the guy 50ft away. Consider it the extra stress of avoiding the pointy end while trying to loose or cast.
I agree that the rule should be kept in place like 90 & of the time. But I make exceptions if the character in melee range isn't actually interfering with the players doing the ranged attack. For example rules as written if you point a crossbow at somebodies back who is right in front of you, you should have disadvantage at shooting him because it is a ranged weapon attack and he is in melee range, but I would ignore that because it would make sense that you wouldn't have disadvantage shooting somebody in the back from point blank range.
@@achimsinn6189 in the situation you just presented you should have Advantage because he is unaware of the attack so it would make the end result a straight roll anyway.
I house rule that my players can choose to roll the attack without disadvantage, but if they do so they open themselves to an attack of opportunity. It’s similar to moving away and then attacking, except you get to make the ranged attack before the opportunity attack is made.
On encuberance: It can matter if a character has a low strength score but nonetheless carries heavy items, or lots of them (especially if you include coin weight). It probably won't matter in a party where characters are perfectly optimised, but there are certainly situations in which it can be a hinderance, especially if a low strength character is wearing a heavier piece of armour. With variant rules, it can even be an issue for higher strength players with heavy items. In most parties the people carrying heavy things like plate armour or large weapons like mauls are going to be the highest strength characters but it isn't always the case.
"We're all basically Link from Legend of Zelda anyway" that game defined the whole open world genre for so many of us.
Speaking on how obvious spellcasting is to onlookers, I also liked how the Villain's Code novels discuss magical super-powers.
There's a girl with the alias "Cliche" who basically turns trite phrases into magical spells that alter reality. At one point, she tells someone "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and then kicks him several times, and suddenly he has super-human strength because he survived all those attacks, and became stronger. She can only have one such phrase in effect at a time, and it has to be one that has common meaning to enough people, she can't just make up phrases. When she speaks, she's normally super bubbly (she's a barista), but there's is a weight to her words when she's invoking an edict. Like the sound of the words has a lasting, oppressive change in the air around her. You can tell something weird happened, even if you don't know what or why. Her voice almost echoing in your head, with the air feeling heavy while the words take effect. Hearing her speak magic words is like listening to a god dictate reality. It's oppressive and overwhelming. There is no hiding it, lol.
I always felt this was similar to how spellcasting in DnD works. Which is why someone whose magic is instinctive and inherent (sorcerers) are the only ones who can circumvent this, but it takes effort (sorcery points).
I quite like to get creative with how all my spellcasters cast spells. I've got a wizard enchanter for example who uses a wand and the way he does it is he draws magical runes in the air, so if he wants to cast charm person he draws that rune and then propels it towards the target.
Hiding spellcasting is pretty situational. There are a few spells that are explicitly made to be cast subtly, but spells like fireball should always be pretty obvious. Sleight of hand to cast a spell without being seen doing it IS possible, but you're not gonna pull it off with anything that has a blatant effect stemming from you, such as lightning bolt. Illusions are an example of spells where subtly should be a big feature.
Of course a subtle cast spell from a sorcerer is the best form of this and never fails.
You a genius
Holy shit, someone else who's read Villain's Code! That and Super Powereds are some of my favorite books of all time, I used to listen to them religiously.
Villain's Code is AMAZING, and I love Cliche and her poor umbrella related trauma. Can't wait til book 3 comes out
I had a great use of the free "interaction with an object" in a recent game. My gnome wizard (Str score of 8) drank a potion of storm giant strength and, while the effect was active, I told my DM that I was trying to use the free interaction to flip a table (since I temporarily had 29 Str) so I could use it as partial cover. I also had fun holding a door closed against the efforts of two hobgoblin warriors long enough for our cleric's Dawn spell to kill everything in the room (picture a 3ft tall gnome holding onto a doorknob with his feet braced against the wall and doorframe).
With Item Interaction: sheathing/drawing: we run it as either letting a character swap weapons as a free action or drop the current one held and draw a new one as a free action. In my games I usually allow the drinking of a potion as a bonus action, giving it to another as a free action, administering it to an unconscious character as a full action
A note on the item interaction section:
- On the "put away a bow and draw a sword" front, two handed weapons need two hands to *wield*, not two hands to *hold*. You don't have to put away the bow, just hold it in the hand that's not using the sword.
- You also mentioned "it takes your item interaction and an action to draw two swords", that's literally what the Dual Wielder feat was made for.
- The answer to "if I can chug a flagon of ale as an item interaction, why can't I chug a potion as an item interaction?" is "because the Use a Magic Item action exists for that specific reason."
Y’all are really good at this and I love your carefully crafted brand and your personal camaraderie. Keep up the great work, dudes.
Darkvision makes total darkness dim light. Therefore, a darkvision PC in a cave has disadvantage on perception checks. It's definitely not a big deal, but also definitely done "wrong" more often than not.
If the DM is not making the same disadvantage checks on the opposing creatures (90% of which also rely on darkvision to see), then it doesn't make a great deal of difference I reckon.
Also they cannot see colour
We ignore material (except gold depending on the spell). Verbal is always used and somatic is 50/50 depending on the skill. Ones that do grand things or damage always have somatic but small things like druidcraft and thamaturgy ignore somatic.
My favorite time is when we are asked to perform the somatic part irl. Gets really exciting in the heat of battle seeing your friends wave their arms like maniacs but imagine fire or bluish arcane flow around them.
Encumbrance / Inventory Management - With VTTs like roll20 it is easier to keep track of the weight of stuff and have the effect auto enable. My group uses it just because it is easy to use. It is rare that any of us hit our limit before getting encumbered but my character has a STR of 8 so I do have to be careful as to what all I carry. We also track ammo and rations and such. Though we don't track water which I find odd but it is a good thing as water is heavy. Everyone forgets about water even when they remember rations. I also tracked all of my ammo on my ranger before she died this last sunday, but now my Druid/Lock is coming back and is no longer stuck in the sky in a time bubble.
Item Interaction - When it comes to weapons I have always seen it ok to drop a weapon to draw and use a weapon as you have to eventually pick it back up as to draw two weapons there is a feat called Dual Wielder that allows as part of it for you to draw two weapons already. When it comes to crossbow expert who says you are stabbing, dropping your weapon, and then loading the crossbow to fire it. I would imagine it is already loaded. Yes it does mean the reload after the shot is a bit awkward though as you would then have to sheath the weapon, however assuming you have not done any other free actions already then you can sheath your melee weapon for free to reload the crossbow later with a free hand or even you sheath the blade then load and fire.
Spell Components - Any spell with a component with a cost more then a couple gold should never be forgotten but some of the cheep ones can be aloud to slip by so long as the party has the kind of gold levels that it could be assumed they just buy those things when they are getting any other supplies such as food or ammo or what not and perhaps tack in a little extra gold from time to time to just make up for it when they go shop for things. For verbal and somatic yes unless you have subtle spell you are not hiding the spell but perhaps a slight of hand check might let you hide the gestures for lower level magic and some cantrips could be whispered or said softly as some of them are more of an every day kind of thing a wizard may just use around the house. For the free hand and holding your focus thing that is why I avoid staves, wands, and orbs and prefer crystals and totems or sometimes a tattoo as those are things you could imagine being around your neck or hanging from your wrist allowing it to be present and through RP you either touch it as part of your gestures or allow it to swing around such as with the gem around the wrist. Though you still have to treat the hand as "full" for reasons of holding anything else when you need to use the focus.
Spell Targets - I agree with everything in this section.
Cover / Line of Sight - This one really comes down to the DM's judgement. In our game cover is 100% a thing and it comes up all the time. Even more so that my Druid/Lock has spell sniper and so she gets to ignore a lot of cover.
Character story time:
My ranger was a beast master shifter that died to a sea monster by being eaten by it, and then because she was 'blessed' with lycanthropy (of the raven kind) we had her "not die" and come back in as a reborn swarm master ranger. That was until one of the party finally cast greater restoration on her on this past sunday. The DM and I agreed when she came back that the only thing keeping her together was the spirt of her former animal companion and the lycanthropy curse and her actual soul had already passed on. So when the spell was cast (and after a little PVP because the curse did not want to die) she went limp in their arms. Only the DM and I knew this would happen and it had been like 8 to 10 sessions between her becoming a reborn and finally finding peace. The party had no idea.
[12 Levels Swarmkeper Shifter Reborn]
My Druid/Lock that will be coming back was my original character and three of the party got shot to another world (her included) but I wanted to try the ranger for a while so two of the players characters made it all the way to the surface where my druid got stuck in some kind of time anomaly in the sky and has been stuck there for like two or three in game months and now that the ranger has found her final peace the druid is falling back to the ground.
[2 Levels Stars Druid / 10 Levels Pact of the Tome Celestial Warlock Half Changling Half Wood Elf (uses the rules for Wood Elf but is the niece of one of the player characters who is a Changling also older then her now because of some time in the Fey Wilds alone for 150 years when she had to marry a Fey King to save her Aunt)]
I feel like it's fair to say "you need War Caster to do somatic components if you're wielding a shield or two weapons." It makes sense to me that you'd be able to drop a hand off your greatsword to cast a spell, but less if that hand is holding onto an object of its own, outside of War Caster. Plus it forces the player to make a decision, Defense or Magic, and they can equip for either but have to commit to one or the other on their turn. That's just my opinion tho, and I have an affinity for Hexblades and Paladins wielding Greatswords in any event
Imo, if something is covered in a rule or a feat, that means it can't really be circumvented by rule of cool. That means, you always need a free hand unless you have the feat to cast somatic spells, and so on
100%. The hand economy rules are there for a reason. A feat/ability score increase is a big deal. Just allowing people to cast with full hands is a massive buff to caster classes, which are already pretty damn strong.
Yeah thats the main reason I consider war caster as a spellcaster. Skipping the requirement entirely doesnt do well for balance.
Remember yoi can great feats or mini feats as rewards for players in appropriate situations. Maybe a lvl 8 spellcaster character that has trained with their martial friend, and that trhough the narrative is more like a fighter, "jock" mage, learns the ability to use somatic components using weapons they are proficient with. Not the full warcaster feat, just one little perk that is cool and makes sense
but then that brings it back to teh question of strapped shields and how they'd work in dnd 5e, after all irl you could actually use a 2h weapon and a shield with them.
About Costly components: As a Cleric of my group I reached the agreement with my DM. Once in a while I go and refuel my "Bag of Holly Shit". So in my inventory I have written "Bag of Holly Shit worth 500g", and when I cast Ceremony, Revivify or Greater restoration I just take the worth from my bag. The idea is as a trained cleric I would know what stuff I might need so I just go shopping and buy things I might need in the future.
If I ever DM that's kinda what I am thinking of doing, if you have to use a material component that is worth something such as needing 300GP worth of Diamonds, I'll just let you spend 300GP to cast and just pretend you had the Diamonds the whole time.
bro thank you this is good i will use it.
@@derrinerrow4369 With my method I still have to remember to go shopping from time to time
@@derrinerrow4369 Unless your game really cares so little about actually roleplaying then that seems like a really boring and unbalanced system. I mean a lot of high level spells are balanced around the idea that their material components are hard to get or just generally pretty specific. Having to make an effort to find said materials can often be a small adventure of it's own and helps balance things in the game world. I mean i'd love to just be able to spam Forcecage without having to worry about carrying around some very expensive ruby dust for example.
Love the Dresden Files mention, my favourite series
On the concealing spell casting, without the subtle spell, it could be ruled that you can hide the movement but but beings that have some connection to magic can sense the magic being cast.
As for hiding verbal/somatic components! A character a while back was a mute jester type (satire bard) eventually he got a magic mask and magic gloves (both attunement) that let him *attempt* to hide a spell's casting.
Often combined with pass without trace, and you had quite the stealthy caster
(We thought this was fair because the items were attunement)
One of the most fun characters I've played was a mute Cleric. We decided that he had no verbal components since he literally couldn't speak, but that also meant he literally couldn't speak lmao.
Encumbrance don't matter till your warlock is carrying 190 pounds of daggers on him
Why would a warlock carry 190 pounds of daggers?
I mean, I guess that way, the warlock get get more out of Hex, before Eldritch Blast gets a second ray. But you only throw daggers every second turn and they have a lower hit chance than Eldritch Blast.
His love of daggers has no logical reason, he doesn't use them all that often. He has a collection
@@Thisone109 So does my warlock. She is a jester. But not one of those evil stabby stab jesters. A genuinely nice jester who wants to put a smile on that face... look, she is not evil, okay?
On the subject of somatic components and free hands and all that, don't forget the stuff you mentioned earlier about being able to swap out a weapon as a free action. You can put a weapon away, cast the spell, then on your next turn, take it out again and attack with it.
The only thing it would probably affect would be bonus actions and reactions, but I think even that you can play fast and loose on a case by case basis.
I've noticed most DMs ignore that a torch lasts 1hr. So carrying enough torches for a dungeon crawl can be near impossible. From an encumberance POV, it would require 16lbs/day of dungeon delving, and the space those torches would take might make an adventurer look like a Treant. 😄
This is the virtue of the lantern
I've actually really enjoyed needing to drop weapons to draw other weapons. We're enforcing it in a very low-loot Ravenloft campaign. We've had to retreat from tough fights before and have lost some weapons because we had to drop them. Adds some good tension.
I heard a cool idea that may be expensive for the party but would act as work around for lost weapons or specifically thrown weapons like spears javelins, daggers etc.
So the idea is an NPC or shop keep with enchantment capabilities, would fuse a magic gem stone or tassle or such, that would allow you once a day to take a moment to teleport or track the weapon.
As a dm I've found players dropping their items to be an excellent opportunity for an enemy wizard to cast shatter. The first time it happens it's a great oh shit moment, just be sure not to do it all the time.
You still gotta realize that every round happens in 6 seconds, so in the heat of battle, yeah someone might just drop a weapon so they can pull out another one quickly. It's like dropping a gun and drawing another you can fire instantly instead of needing to eject then swap out the mag and then cock/rack.
The main exploit with dropping objects involves dropping your 1 handed object for free (like releasing a grapple), use your free hand for whatever you need with your action, and then pick it back up with your free object interaction.
So the end result is that dropping an object and picking it back up FROM THE GROUND is more efficient than stowing the object and drawing it FROM YOUR PERSON. It looks clunky as hell.
Regarding using actions to swap out your weapons: D&D 5e Basic Rules ch. 9 under Other Activity on Your Turn states "[...] or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack." which makes sense if you think about ranged weapons because otherwise you'd need to use your object interaction every time you retrieve an arrow from your quiver.
This means we don't need to bend the rules for swapping weapons at all unless we're talking about dual wielding. Just use your object interaction to put one weapon away and then pull the other weapon as part of your attack action.
DING DING DING. I was gonna post this but yeah, the item interaction has never been an issue for my games.
THIS is such an under-rated video!! My 1st time DMing I couldn't figure out spell material components and simple didn't really wanna track weight. Since both my players and me were new. Come to find out I'm not the only one lol AND some great tips for other stuff to ingore or not.
Remember that in truly old school D&D, encumbrance had another very serious impact on the game: You got experience based on the treasure you were actually able to bring out of the dungeon, so tracking how much you could actually haul out mattered so much more than we see in more recent editions of the game.
RAW, shields do prevent using that hand for a Somatic component. The War Caster feat specifically removes this restriction.
I allowed bucklers to give a base +1 and still allow them to use that hand for somatics, and I also like the inscribing a holy symbol to circumvent. I also had a DM allow me to circumvent it because I had established at level 1 that my earring was my spell focus, so I only needed one hand free as long as my earring was on and I wasn't wearing headgear (like in a blizzard)
It's interesting that you brought up firebolt when giving an example of having to target a creature. Firebolt explicitly says creature or object.
Ya... very irking mistake.
in the german rulebook only creature is mentioned. im confused^^
@@jasonrichter9079 ! That's odd, some kind of mistake I guess. Firebolt is notoriously one of the only spells (and cantrip in particular) that can damage creatures and objects.
we handle ready weapons as follows~
if we have a ranged or melee option to switch to : we use the "Free drop item" option to drop the "Current weapon" and use the "Free draw weapon" option to draw the other weapon and use it that turn (we either finish battle fast and pick the other weapon up for free, or use an action to pick it up if needed again)
My kind of go to is "I'm not saying no, I'm just going to ask how?" because if it is shooting through glass, that makes sense, putting a grandfather clock in your inventory? sure, where are you putting it? your back pocket? if they stick a 6ft tall grandfather clock in their backpack sure, but do imagine that this would make stealth harder, you know with it being big and a gong going off every once in a while
I personally like the Variant Encumbrance rules. As much as I love 5e, it's skewed pretty heavily towards high Dex/Cha characters, with Con/Wis being secondary and Str/Int being common dump stats. Anything that levels the playing field a bit and incentivises you to invest in your Str is a good move in my book.
I've found that dex wisdom and con are the most important usually, tho I agree with str and int being a dump depending on if your a big boi or a smort boi, but my big question is why would cha be higher then wisdom? Con is almost always your third highest stat but unless your a charisma caster it's purely a roll play stat like int so I don't see why it would be considered skewed towards
Any way I really wish there where more int based barbarians in the world
They start raging cause they cant solve an equation or a student starts disrupting class XD
Playing in a game using these rules, i hate it. My dwarf cleric can carry NOTHING other than weapon, shield, and armor (chainmail) unless i want to drop down to 15ft of movement. With a 16 STR..., thus no backpack to carry around anything else you might need on your adventure, unless you want to get into having to deal with pack animals.
This wouldn’t really incentivise me into investing more into strength, it would just make me hand more stuff to the fighter to carry.
@@Nikoli420 With 16 STR? 15 * STR SCORE = 240 carry weight. What Weapons /Armor are you wearing?
A lot of this reminds me of my "no stupid BS" houserule, which basically sais that I can overrule rules as written, if they don't make sense or if they create a game mechanic that is not fun and not important for game balance. The last part implies that I might take my decision back once I find out that ignoring a rule leads to even worse BS than using it.
This is actually in the rule book. Not as lengthy but it's there
@@michaelstoffel9668 I know there is a passage in the rule book that basically sais the DM has the last word on rules and can even overrule rules as written. But I still put it this way to prevent rule lawyers from starting huge discussions because of this.
My players (my three kids and a nephew) are all in their first ever D&D game. I told them they didn't have to specifically track ammunition as long as they periodically stocked up, but they decided they wanted to track it anyway! I can't argue because when I'm a player I track mine as well.
I learned a lot about what spells can affect creatures vs affect any target from playing an Echo Knight. It's important to know those differences in order to maintain your Echo on the field
The Echo Knight's Echo (by design) is something that is greatly effected by the wording of things like spells and traps. Since it is considered a magical Object, it isn't effected by things like Eldritch Blast and Fireball, and can move away from enemies without provoking Attacks of Opportunity.
My problem with playing Echo Knight is when a DM doesn't have any experience with them. I keep becoming the annoying guy rule checking the DM because the echo isn't a creature and isn't affected by fireball, EB, charms, etc. I hate being that guy. So I end up saying fuck it and letting it happen.
@@clarkkent163000 I get that, but the only way they will get that experience is if you let them know. The other alternative is treating them as a creature in all respects, but I feel that actually makes them stronger (anything triggered by a creature would be set off by it, and you have an infinite supply; it could interact with objects, doors, etc.; would give flanking). Given the options, they'd probably prefer the former.
The Echo knight echo is crazy strong already. If they don’t provoke opportunity attacks, that would be insane. They have an Ac and a Hit point, in my books that makes ‘em valid targets for anything that deals damage. It’s actually why I rule that the fighter can only summon a number of echos per short rest equal to their proficiency bonus. I’ve never liked how insanely powerful it is to have an infinite number of summonings, and that was before reading this post and hearing that they don’t provoke opportunity attacks or take damage from fireball.
But on the other hand, you can't cast most buff spells on them
Which is (part) of why it’s overtuned.
Monty: “I think encumbrance is an artifact of inventory management from video games.”
Players, such as myself, who were using encumbrance rules in some of the earliest editions of D&D when playing video games meant going to an arcade: 🤨
Encumbrance just makes sense as a rule, and it prevents players from being even bigger loot monkeys. But it's easy enough to handwaive it most of the time unless players try to cheese it.
Yeah, nothing to do with video games... Some video games use it and some don't. It's a rule to prevent cheese when the DM doesn't want it.
Yeah, encumbrance in video games pretty much comes straight from D&D, not the other way around xD
@@NecromancyForKids Not "unless", "until". And it usually gets needed quite quickly.
@@NecromancyForKids Loot Management is an artefact of games design to create a false sense of scarcity. It has never been something to do with balance. If you players are role play Loot Vacuums that's an issue with the progression of your world. Meaning players will only do it if it is beneficial to do so. A solution to that mindset is to say all mundane items are worthless to sell. An for the DM/GM to control party/player wealth with *commodities.* What I think is the most amazing thing as they are given a FIXED value by the DM/GM. This then allows the players to purchase the next shiny as they progress. Without having to hoard large amounts of trash items. The latter is again an issue of bad games design practice in some video games, an is known as "Vendor Trash."
When I DM I do keep track of ammunition that players have, however if they take a long rest I let them replenish d6 bolts or arrows as I assume part of their downtime is making new ones. At the end of an adventure or while resting in a town, I obviously let them replenish as much as they want.
17:00 Honestly I'd love for Suggestion to specify if the Suggested part is the Verbal component or not. On one hand it seem to step onto Subtle Spell as well as Whisper bard, on the other hand I see Suggestion to be close to a Jedi Mind Trick where the save is the target recognizing that a thought is being planted into their mind, otherwise they'd be aware that a spell is casted on them, so why listen.
As for concealing somatic components, depends on if the spell describes those. For example Message says that you point a finger and whisper - so that one I allow to be somewhat secretive depending on situations.
As a DM I don't enforce encumbrance on my players, though I do regularly look over the characters sheets and/ask what they all carrying. But as a player I do my best to keep under the 5x STR of encumbrance just for myself. I do hiking myself and know how difficult it would be to actually deal with large quantities of stuff.
Funny enough, weight and ammunition management came up first time when I played halfling with 10 str in Curse of Strahd. It actually led to interesting roleplay between myself and player on a goliath barbarian.
Encumbrance comes online pretty much instantly for all my players and I feel it brings more realism and greater need for spells like tenser's floating disk
I'm in a medieval-cowboy campaign and I play a gunslinger, at around session 11 ammunition came up and I commented that I was running out soon if I didn't find more soon, they gave me an inspiration for keeping track of it and the next session we found a box of 400 bullets
I remember spells having specific target requirements being covered way back in an earlier edition of D&D. The point was, magic is very powerful, but very specific. This is its weakness. Tools and weapons can be used in creative ways. Magic has very specific uses. This is an important balance philosophy, ignore it and be prepared for the consequences.
I try and shoot all the objects to see if they are mimics
As per the rules you can't shoot someone with a longbow or stab with a halberd trough a window even though a powerful shot definitely breaks a glass window, so that isn't really the point. Also magic is one of the most creative tools in a fantasy setting (depending on the spell of course)
Use a free action to open the window first. Not that hard to avoid in my opinion. Else I would just say that the person needs to stand next to the window to get a clear view of the target anyway.
Legit strategy in my opinion, but you'll just be annoying the group more often than not. Mimics aren't that common in most campaigns anyway.
@@Proxoa I was trying to show the absurdity of the original commenter's comment
For spell materials, the groups I've been a player in, and the games I've run, it's on the player to purchase any gold cost items, but material components a focus is good enough. As a DM, I'll gently remind a player who might have access to a spell like that, before they get into a scenario where casting it will make me look like the jerk. I don't need to know every spell, but knowing some key ones, like revivify, is important to remind a player before the need for it arises.
A lot of people need to remember spell components is how spells get BALANCED.
Banishment stops being totally overpowered once you realize you REQUIRE a component that the target dislikes.
Hero's Feast is a really strong spell, but you NEED a jewel encrusted bowl, you can't just say "Oh yeah here's the gold cost, I'll just take that off"
Cause it's really strong so you need to think AHEAD and get the bowl crafted for you before you can use this really powerful spell. It's also how the DM can limit revival spells. Where are you going to get a big ass diamond in a small fishing village?
Magic isn't quite as broken when you actually follow the rules.
@@haku8135 Find Familiar is a ritual, so you can cast it without a spell slot by taking 70 minutes for the ritual, but it also needs 10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier. So if you want to change your familiar or it 'died', you need to have some on hand to cast the spell again.
@@steveaustin2686 Yep, ignoring spell components, or misunderstanding them alla Banishment, is probably the biggest mistake DMs make in terms of the spells in DnD.
For players it's usually the fact that they DON'T READ THEIR FUCKING SPEEEEEEELLS!
Always read your spells kids.
@@haku8135 I agree. With a spell component pouch and/or spell focus, material components are easy to handle. You only have to track the GP ones then.
some spells stipulate that the verbal component is what you say, such as "Hey friend, why dont you drop your sword and walk into that store over there" would be the verbal component of an enchantment spell, so there are workarounds to the whole "booming voice full of feeling" thing, at least in terms of spells with verbal components.
Not to mention Subtle spell lets you completely ignore either the verbal or somatic component entirely, whereas waving your hand under your cloak would typically call for a sleight of hand check, or trying to hide the verbal compent as part of seemingly normal speech would require either a Deception check or a striat Charisma check depending on the situation
New DM here. Following all the rules at once was OVERWHELMING.
So, initially I ignored almost anything that I couldn't easily recall, in favour of story progression and keeping things smooth. As I've had more experience, I've brought things in more and more. I still ignore Encumbrance. I seem to get around this by handing out very little in terms of loot. A critter only has so much on them, most of it (aside from their weapon) is small. I found these awesome loot tables for critters from LadyTeifling, I infer variants from size and shape if needed. I also currently ignore Cover almost entirely. I haven't provided too much opportunity in the encounters to need cover or use it, PCs don't seem to mind. I also ignore the Loot Tables in the DMG... those things are CONFUSING as all heck. Before my sessions I just prep a list of available items that I dole out with a dice roll... may not be as varied but they are customizable for the campaign and far more easily followed that sorting it by level, then a roll, then another roll... ick.
I've been thinking of dropping spell components altogether in favour of spells just being totally verbal and somatic. I love the role play flavour of each spell having a unique set of words and actions. Components, while valid, also feel like a bit of a gate. If you have reached the level to cast the spell, then cast it... I do need you to go on a fetch quest to find a dragon's toenail so you can cast Thunderwave.
New dm here too! I'm defacto dming for a small group bc I am the only one who has ever played. I am certainly not a rules master person myself, and none of my players know any better, so I wing a lot of rules atm. Cover is normally gets advantage/disadvantage just cause thats easier for my brain than +2/+5. I'm sure I'll get a better hang on things as we go but largely I don't think its that important. We are all here to have fun and tell interesting stories so that is what we will do. I'm not going to let rules get in the way of our flow.
@@leahwilton785 Aye, I think flow trumps rules in most cases. I would rather bend the rules, or ignore needless tediousness in spot checking numbers for a decent engagement in the content.
In regards of the change of weapon, when I or some of my friends DM we usually allow to drop the current weapon as "no action" because is just opening your hands, and get the new one as a free action and if they don't want to drop it but just put it away it will take just a bonus action instead of a normal action. I think it's a good compromise and adds tactical moments in your fights where instead of someone that just keeps changing between long bow and short sword as soon as someone is more than 5 feet from him, he might consider to attack at disadvantage with the bow or run towards the enemies because they want use their bonus action but they still have the option to do it and attack at least once in the same turn.
In all games I've played or mastered where we used this rule it worked great! Also creates some tension an more tactical thinking. I suggest trying it, just make sure that all players knows this before the battle.
Sorry for my english, it's not my first language
To be honest, for most weapons, it is actually more difficult to sheath or put away a weapon(not just drop it) compared to draw it. To sheath it quickly would require the use of both hands.
Of course from a gaming perspective, such considerations can be changed for "fun factor", and many martial(especially melee) classes should not be penalized for the sake of following the rules to the letter.
As for the rules themselves, you can draw a weapon as part of the attack. So if you use a long bow on your turn, you can sheath it as your free item interaction, then draw your melee weapon as part of the attack of your next action(either as an Opportunity attack reaction or as part of your attack on your next turn).
It is only if you want to use both weapons in the same turn that you need "something extra".
re: Encumbrance with mundane items.
I have a homebrewed Inspiration system, where everybody starts each session with at least 1 inspiration, and inspiration can stack to work like Bless or Bardic Inspiration on a die roll. (1 Inspiration = +1d4, 2 = +1d6, etc).
In addition, I allow my players to spend one inspiration to say they prepared any sort of mundane item that they might need in that moment, whether it be a pry bar, a ladder, a rope, a lantern, etc. Whatever they need in the moment. It's a little like how this is handled in Blades in the Dark.
I find that it gives my players the flexibility they need in the moment without having to track every single mundane item on their character sheet.
I feel like the odd one out, I use all three of the first rules on this list. None of those rules are particularly complicated (I will admit the free action rules is a little vague) and a lot of these rules help with balance, roleplay and strategizing.
One such example you gave, dropping a weapon to free up a hand, can add an extra level of depth to a dangerous fight. Is your character willing to disarm themself in order to save time and perform a quicker action.
I remember one of my favorite moments as a player was when I was holding off a narrow alleyway from a horde of undead while some villagers caught up in the fighting escaped. There were still some undead behind me, but none so many that they couldn't make it past. Well, one of the villager was caught in a grapple by an already injured zombie, and I had to make the choice of standing my ground to keep the rest of the undead at bay, or risk being overran and rescuing this one person. I took the risk of dropping my sword and drawing a hand-axe instead, using my attack to throw it back at the zombie and killing it while still holding my ground. The next round, I was unarmed but the villagers escaped, I used my action to make a sleight of hand check to try and kick up and catch the sword with my foot. Those interactions would have never happened if I didn’t have to worry about that rule.
Encumbrance and Ammunition are a tactical consideration. Now I've neber gone so far as to manage backpacks and the like, figuring out how to fit items into three different backpacks is simply put, tedious. Generally I rule that if it can fit in the backpack, you can carry it in there regardless of what's already inside. However, managing weight is a good thing. Should I sacrifice food and my rope to bring an grab some extra loot, at the risk of my odds of survival lowering? Or should I play it safe and decide to come back at a later time, risking having the loot moved, taken, or going missing while I'm away. And ammunition makes it so that a martial long range character plays different than a spell caster flinging cantrips. You have to consider whether you want to use your pool of arrows in this fight to give you a safety net, or take the risk getting up close with the enemy with a dagger or a shortsword instead. Not to mention, a dungeon master can provide all sorts of special ammunition to ranged characters to make the fights more fun and interactive.
As for spell components, I generally don't see the issue. Most spell casters aren't supposed to be Frontline combatants, having a weapon or a shield isn't somethingto be considered for most spell casters. Those that do, like Paladins and Clerics, are allowed to wear their focuses instead of holding them, giving them a free hand. Hell, if you have an emblem, you can put it on your shield or the hilt of your sword, making that item your new spellcasting focus. Money costs for materials and consumable materials are there to balance more powerful or useful spells, and are part of planning for your adventure. Casters are uber powerful already, giving them small handicaps like materials is not an issue. Spell casters _should_ take a little planning to use. That's part of the draw, they aren't just a fighter or a barbarian who are always prepared as long as they have a weapon at the ready, and they shouldn't always be prepared like those two classes are, thats not part of the spellcaster identity.
I do the same. Encumbrance plays the same role as attunement in adding tactics to the game. We use Roll20 so no one needs do teh calc themselves. I also like ever stats to have some use to every class. Not equal use, but still playing a part. So when the greedy conartist wizard want to run around stealing everything, that 8 str is going to come into play.
I don't quite agree with a few things I do agree with the use an object rules though if someone runs at an archer and that archer wants to make a melee attack they're gonna be dropping that bow but I had a DM who did ammunition and I hated it so after I found out mid dungeon I went to town and bought 10000 arrows for as an adventurer a pittance and told him to shove it since I have the str to carry it. Also for spellcasters I need a hand free to do your components or focus but only 1 if your weapon or shield is a focus your good but I do one slight modification if it costs a component worth gold then I say you just pay the gold cost then and there and if it's something that doesn't consume said component you now cast it like that forever. That's just for convenience though I don't usually wanna deal with it but spells that cost gold need to be balanced accordingly
a cool thing i've seen a brand new DM due for encumberance is give us a 30-slot backpack along with some extra slots to attach stuff to the sides, and generous definitions for what can fit, with some bulky items taking multiple slots like a set of platemail takes 3 slots, weapons that can be one-handed are one slot (even spears or longswords) and two-handed weapons were two-slots, a pack of 30 arrows or bolts was a slot, kit's of stuff were their own slot since it's assumed the items within were small, all the starter kits with basic survival supplies were two slots so you typically had 25 or so slots of free space at the start and you could still carry a considerable amount of stuff but it removed the math of weight calculations and stopped people from picking up every useless thing or use clever ways to carry more stuff like carts or prisoners.
Food/water/rations
I just don't care enough. I've run it in survival-based games, but in typical beer and pretzels games I let it go. Eat it, goodberry.
A note on encumbrance: gold has weight, which is the aspect that most drives carried weight.
Hard agree. I was in a Dragonheist campaign that was so focused on inventory management and grocery shopping that it literally just turned into a Cheers-style bar sim. Fun if that's your jam I guess, but not what I signed up for.
My usual take on encumbrance is "So long as you're not bringing your lucky cinderblock collection along, you're probably good."
But I need all 40 of them so the lucky charm works properly!
@@lordchrispo1439 how else can you build the replica stone henge for the spell?
I actually like tracking ammunition after a fashion, since it makes ammo feel significant, and lends legitimacy to other mechanics to either create ammo (artisan's tools or services) or bypass the need for it (throwing weapons, artificer infusions, and the like). But I borrow an idea from the World of Darkness games and run it scene-by-scene. I.e. you have enough arrows/bolts/bullets for a certain number of combats, that only goes down if you use that ranged weapon a significant amount in a given combat. It's possible to run out of ammo, but it's strictly an off-combat, narrative consideration.
Also, that fiddly interaction between material and somatic components is why I'm personally more permissive about foci and gestures. Also because it simplifies the lives of Artificers, who technically ALWAYS have material components, even for spells that otherwise lack them.
Oh, and kudos to you for not charging your Eldritch Knight player's character the War Caster feat tax.
For object interaction, I've done a house rule on that which splits the difference between the punishing action economy and outright ignoring it ever since before 5e and have adapted it into 5e as well.
- Dropping anything is free, always.
- First object interaction done with intent to properly handle the item (such as sheathing/stowing instead of dropping) is a swift action (3.5/PF) or also free (5e).
- Second interaction is a move action (3.5/PF) or bonus action (5e)
- More than that is a standard action (3.5/PF) or regular action (5e)
- When logical, both hands can do the same action as part of the same interaction (sheathing/unsheathing two weapons, stashing two held items in a bag, pulling out two items, etc). Possessing feats or features like Quickdraw still supersedes this house rule.
Having played this way with several groups, most tend to find it agreeable and to feel more in-line with the fantasy feeling without going into video game interaction speeds. An archer can properly stow their bow and pull their melee weapon(s) while still making their full attacks in a round, but if they're badly hurt and wanted to pull and drink a potion before pulling their melee gear it's going to eat up their entire round, even if they are simply dropping the bow to make it happen.
When it comes to using objects and things as a free action, I always think about the fast hands class feature for the thief. If I think in any way letting a player do something that diminishes a class feature, I upgraded to a full action or not at all. Nothing feels worse than seeing other people use your class features for free.
No matter how much i like 5e but i get always this feeling like many rules arent really well thought out or pretty botched which the DM must homebrew/houserule it to actually make it work .
Sometimes there were moments when i thought that maybe i should switch to pathfinder 1e because D&D 5e made some stupid rules that is generalized for all classes but some things are class-specific which could every class use if it is just a feature.
I love 5e but its sometimes backwards thinking with the rules.
I do the exact same thing with Mage Hand Legerdemain. If someone who isn't an Arcane Trickster wants to use their Mage Hand for any precise interactions, I always check whether doing so would diminish the Trickster's features.
Interesting, my gut instinct is to buff the one whose feature is getting used for free if using it that way feels natural
We feel that many class features which let characters get around holding objects aren't worth the ink spent on them. The rules should just be more flexible about this stuff at the basic level for all characters, and these "class features" should be replaced with something more useful and specific to the class.
I agree with this: there's gotta be a downside for trying to improvise replicating a class feature, for the sake not stepping on the toes of the player who's playing that class. Imagine the wizard constantly trying to pressure the DM to cast spells unnoticed while the sorcerer is right there with subtle spell. Or if the sorcerer talked their way into obtaining a spellbook that they can cast from to gain more spells without multiclassing while the wizardstill has to find/prepare/juggle prep slots.
You never saw Harry Potter having troubles making somatic "components" when casting a spell! A wand is just as articulate as a hand should be.
That's even a part of the rules for material components
"A spellcaster must have a hand free to hold a spell's material components -- or hold a spellcasting focus -- but it can be the same hand they use to perform somatic components."
@@Pancakeli Which would have been done to make sure spellcasters weren't nerfed with this action economy, "what's in which hand" nonsense.
Did we just correct the @DungeonDudes?
@@schemage2210 no they actually mentioned it. Later on they talk about how that particular rule is weird when your hands are full, one with a material component or focus, and you're trying to cast a spell that requires somatic, but not material, components. It may or may not be possible
I believe that has been clarified at one point by Jeremy Crawford that you can perform somatic components anytime you're holding a spellcasting focus you can use regardless of if it has material components or not, but I can't look that up right now to be 100% sure.
@@Pancakeli It also suggests that a paladin's shield with a holy symbol engraved on it will be able to be used to cast spells or a sword with a holy symbol painted on it. For an arcane one, you can incorporate the focus into a weapon.
@@tompatterson1548 Yup, that's why emblems specifically can be placed on shields
After selling my players on the power of Goodberry in my campaign i was running for them in terms of its slot efficiency for guaranteed healing, we needed to have a conversation about the action economy of popping magical blackberries that heal wounds into their mouths. I ended up ruling that feeding an incapacitated creature a goodberry required at least an action due to the individual not being able to chew on their own but as long as the berries were already there than a character can use an action to eat as many of the berries as they had on their person, up to 10. The logistics of noshing on 10+ berries in 6 seconds aside, from a game balance perspective i saw it as unfair to dedicated healers and paladin type characters that the Rangers and Druids could essentially trade their Level 1 spell slots for what could essentially be seen as the Lay On Hands Feature that could also be used to almost entirely subvert the idea of properly supplying your party with food and water.
There's a reason the rules say "you can use an action to eat 1 berry" specifically in the spell description lol
Good berry as a way to keep a party fed is not a huge issue. The fact that the Ranger or Druid is dropping a 1st level spell everyday for survival is okay in my book.
Item interaction is my favorite thing which I always bring up. Opening a door not costing an action is massive
Not sure if this is an official rule or not, but I think it's totally fine to use greater resources to do a thing. Use an action to do a bonus action? Totally. Spend a 2nd level spell slot to shield? No problem.
With shield that is a thing. On spells it tells the player if it has a greater effect when using a higher level slot, but it is definitely allowed to use one even when it doesn't change the spell.
As to the quaffing a potion as a free action vs the said mug of ale, I always tell them that the potion has a tight stopper on it to keep it from spilling which isn't easy to remove vs the mug being wide open.
Also, we have house rules that potions can be used as a bonus action for it's normal effects, but in the case of a healing potion or one that hase a rollable maximum effect, the character can still quaff it normally as a bonus action, or if they wish the maximum effect as in a healing potion, it will take a full action on their turn.
Who drinks ale in the middle of battle anyway?
@@schwarzerritter5724 captain Jack Sparrow has been known to stop and down an available ale. :)
also, drinking the healing potion most likely involves grabbing it from your belt/backpack/wherever it is stored, as a mug of ale wouldn't.
And cool idea on the bonus/main action for potions! In case you had a thief rogue w/ fast hands, they'd be able to have the max healing as a bonus action?
I generally think encumbrance is fine if you use dnd beyond or something equivalent. If you have a program that more or less tracks everything for you, you don't ever need to think about it unless your players are super mega hoarders, in which case you definitely should be thinking about it. Also, even if you are handling everything completely pen and paper, then it is still better to keep track of encumbrance so that you can be more fair in situations like them disassembling siege engines and so on. That said, it is still a major hassle to try to deal with the volume limitations of things like backpacks, so I believe in handwaving that away whenever possible.
I don't think it is unreasonable to enforce the item interaction rules, specifically because there is a feat that let's you draw two weapons per turn rather than the standard one. And, ranged weapons are just better than melee weapons, so the fact that ranged characters suffer in melee situations also seems fair. And yeah, the fact that drinking ale is a free action but a potion is an action does create a weird gameplay/common sense disconnect, but I think every player would understand the difference. They should be able to suspend their disbelief at least that much if they are trying to play pretty much any rpg.
There are a couple of complaints about components that I think are valid. I think an Arcane Focus should be able to be used for somatic components, even if the spell doesn't have material components, but maybe that should be included in warcaster. I also think that Protection from Evil and Good should have a gold cost. To my knowledge it is the only case where a spell has a material component that must be provided, but which isn't given a gold cost and it will inevitably create an argument in every game it's used in as a result. Everything else I think is fine.
I actually think it's cool that some spells work on objects and others don't. I have never found it to be a buzzkill or whatever, but clearly your mileage may vary.
I see cover essentially the same way I see inspiration. It's a cool tool that the DM can use to reward certain types of play, but which no DM will ever actually remember to use. I also fall into this trap and it saddens me. Artificers can create half cover though, so that's kinda cool.
As someone that is new to the D&D I find that I like how my DM allows spells with components to operate. If it is verbal with hand jesters, then obviously i need a free hand and the ability to speak. when there is, say, 25 gold worth cost for a spell we have to have the require materials ready, which means going into town and exchanging gold for said material. As far as the material requirements go such as a thin piece of copper wire, as long as we haven't been robbed we pretty much ignore that requirement unless we want to use it in our description when we cast the spell.
You had me at "inventory management and bookkeeping"
The very first game of DnD I ever played involved my friend summoning a badger inside the bbeg's force field. The DM was speechless.
Yep we pretty much always ignore spell components, sometimes the dms dont bother checking for somatic either, we ignore encumbrance (though we do eventually acquire things like wagons as sort of a nod to us being packrats), we also ignore food and water (except in dark sun) and lodging.
In terms of the weapon readying, I have a rule in my games. You can have up to weapons readied a day, kinda like a spell casters spells, that you can swap between freely in combat. Any other weapon will take an action to retrieve from their bag of holding (I also give them out extremely early. Carry weight is bs)