Thats intentional game design though. Player characters are all glass cannons with the exception of maybe barbarians. Would you want to be in a 2 hour slogfest where every player has 200+ HP?

@@arcitree9330 Looks at my homebrew: *Erm...*

@@arcitree9330 Player characters are anything but glass cannons. Sure, they don't have as much HP as the monsters do, but Absorb Elements, Shield and Silvery Barbs easily bridge that gap. There are 8 monsters with an AC of 23 or more in DND 5e, and a 2nd level character can easily reach that same AC.

I guess just fuck characters who dont have access to those spells then, right? And you forget that those spells are only accessible to the squishiest classes in the game. Disregarding multiclassing and the obvious caster/martial power imbalance, lets consider a situation. Lets take the paladin, who has none of that spell list. Assuming an average Con of +2, they have 40 HP at level 5. Lets put him against a CR 2 creature, less than half his level. 95% of the CR 2 creatures in the SRD have at least 40 HP. 50% of them have at least 55 HP. Some have upwards of 90. Assuming the paladin is using an optimized damage build with a greatsword, they will deal 4d6+23+6d8 damage with their attack. Thats an average of 69 (nice) damage. Enough to outright kill himself and most of the CR 2 category, while burning through his resources. Meanwhile, the bandit captain does 20 damage resourceless. Half the paladin's health every turn. Theres some math you can adjust based on AC and to-hit bonus, but suffice to say, the paladin cannot stomach their own DPS, while the bandit captain could go through three turn cycles just hitting himself. @@andreacallegari7137

@@arcitree9330 If only there was a way for the Paladin to get access to those spells. Like a 1 level dip in Hexblade Warlock, or Sorcerer. It's unfortunate that such things aren't allowed. "My paladin wouldn't do that, he wants to grow as a paladin for his whole adventuring career" sure, but that does not mean your paladin can't be better than what you allow it to be. The Paladin and the other casters do have ways to mitigate the damage they take from their enemies. They're called Spell Slots. Even a level 2 paladin could throw a Wrathful Smite on that scary Bandit Captain and reduce it to a scared chunk of HP. Not to mention the spells the rest of the party could throw at their enemies- Web to restrain, Pass without Trace to get a surprise round, Sleep to incapacitate eventual Minions, Levitate, Bless, Command or Dissonant Whispers, Spike Growth... the list goes on. Also, once the Bandit Captain reaches 0 HP, it's gone. Once the PC reach 0 HP, you have 2 rounds at worst to do something about it, or more if someone has access to the Revivify spell. To summarize: don't fear for the squishy Paladin, for the strength of the party will (usually) prevail in the end. And if you rush in combat and swing at your enemies without a care in the world, maybe dying will teach you to play this game better

I’ve been rolling so poorly lately that I sent a +10 to hit monster against my level three party. Even then it only hit once in three rounds (with extra attack)

@@alexmarkley4103 you need new dice, dawg

@@alexmarkley4103when the dice have malicious intent

@@alexmarkley4103 this reminds me of when i did not roll above a 5 in 12 rolls, at that point i just gave up and started spamming magic missile.

'cause he a chad!

He wasnt concerned about his character taking damage, just the rest of the party

Same before bg3 i got lost in the sauce

True

ikr???

BG3 is also a good simulation for any class ideas you want to try at an actual table too. So there's that

I'm still a little lost, but OMG is this game so good.

Min-Maxers and Mechanic Exploiters: “You underestimate my power. **Deals a billion damage at level 2**

@@InquisitorThomas perfectly balanced as all things should be

true

I think I left at the same level I got Fireball? .... The DM's literally just ... would Double mobs health .... so if I spent all my Spell Points to create an extra 3rd level spell slot ... it'd take 3-4 fireballs to kill a room of goblins.... (We only had one combat per day .... so 'balanced' .... right?) We got rail-roaded constantly, illusion of choice... I quit the group ... I was a warforged ... I learned from a friend that they turned my character into a container to grow a massive tree out of ... and then later forced the characters to carve out my 'heart' for some quest .... DM's must've been angry. XD

I've had one character get to Level 5. One. Out of over a dozen.

What the players don't know *will* hurt them.

Yeah, half of the time my monsters have floating HP, I just kill them whenever I feel like there was enough battle for everyone to shine lol

@@david6321 Yeah this really shows how terrible D&D 5e is though. I don't remember this ever happening too often in 3.5

@@user-dd9dh9kw5c Bruh.

Also *rolls a 2* "27."

I did about 40 damage at level 2

@@devinohanlon5501 i did 163 damage at level 6

@@user-ku2vx9fh4c I DID 1029385720 damage at level 0 HAHAHAH IM SO COOL

@@grantschade2072 I did your mom at level 1

I think he's referring to counting quickly, not dealing impossible damage. That or just the comedic circumstance/style (maybe more likely)

Well, it depends on the narrative. If if this is the culmination of multiple session’s worth of foreshadowing and ominous implications, you gotta deliver or the whole thing falls flat. On the other hand, if the players have been struggling along the journey to make it to this part, then an easier battle might be more cathartic

​@@firelordeliteast6750Tbf, if a Rakshasa is your big finish to a questline against a lvl 10+ party, you should really beef up it's hp at the very least. Especially if it has no minions and fights alone.

@@doihavetobeg Right? Any sane Rakshasa would have some minions of some kind, maybe imps or lesser devils

@@firelordeliteast6750 It's a shared narrative, the DM's job isn't to tell a story to the players, it's to tie all the actions and events together while everyone creates a story together. If the party absolutely destroys the BBEG then that IS the narrative because it's what happened. DM's job at that point is to decide why it worked out that way, was the party lucky, did the prepare extremely well, maybe combination of the two, a bit cliche but you could even pull a "your princess is in another castle" move and have it turn out to not actually be the real boss. though, of course, ever table is different and I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who would rather have the DM fudge numbers on the fly to make it an epic climax but that's all part of the DM's job to tie everything together for the table they're at.

The problem is, every battle becomes that same combo and that is extremly boring extremly fast.

Hol up

Bardbarian

Multi-classing.

@@AutumnWoodham still can't cast a spell while raging as a barbarian.

@@sekliley7587 yeah you can't but he casted it before and it lasts for a minute and doesn't need concentration.

The reason he's a chad is that he can do basic maths without going comatose during his turn

It's a special ability you gain after Lvl 10

He's just a pro gamer. If you want to do that maybe consider getting good

He's used to this.

@@NotUnymous Wow. I took College Calculus and I still haven't gotten that ability... I guess I picked the wrong subclass or something. :(

r/xptolevel3details

was looking for someone who mentioned this haha

Definitely agree. There’s some excellent editing with this channel. I wonder how often he’s actually outfit swapping, or if he’s managing to act out the entire sketches as each player only once.

Literally this. Don't no-sell your player characters using their powerful abilities just because you failed to prepare a remotely adequate challenge. The video is played up for comedic effect, but if you regularly find yourself doing this sort of thing in a real game then you're a bad DM. Christ, not even a single cultist or supplicant? Just a big empty room? That rakshasa is practically asking to get dusted.

@@anachronity9002 To that I will say that the "one villain vs several heroes" is a fantasy and media staple, and it's expected both by players and DM's. However the game isn't balanced around that. This video is comedically showing the extra steps you need to go through in order to have that sort of final, 1vsMany confrontation. Ideally, you shouldn't do this mid-game, but if you want to homebrew your boss to fight a whole party, then you BETTER pull some crazy things.

@@lukeari9890 Fuckin absolutely. It's why legendary actions are a thing I guess, tilt the action economy back to a semblance of fairness in a 1v4

I mean, yeah, but, you never just wanted to have an absolutely epic battle with a legendary ancient dragon that was actually as scary as it should be without also having to control their legions of Kobolds and Cultists? Why should a DM always have to swarm the party with a dozen or more minions that they have to keep track of in order for there to be any actual stakes to a fight? Or create some bullshit magical forcefield mechanic for the party to dismantle so that they are appropriately worried about their chances when they finally get to take chunks out of its scaly hide? I'm already tracking lair actions, legendary actions, legendary resistances, making snap rulings, calculating the height of the ceilings, keeping a round counter, tracking initiative, tracking conditions and spell durations, being quizzed on the technical details of the PC's abilities and restraining myself from throwing my dice out the nearest window since for some reason I can't roll above a five. Why do I also have to track six or more other enemies? Why can't Soul Devourer the Wicked, Shadow Dragon of the Bloodied Heart, Scourge of the Western Coast, The Great Wyrm of Desolation stand up to more than eighteen seconds of combat with some tinned snacks without setting the rest of his pantry on them?

@@Bookluver29 Yeah okay but I want you to also think about your players, your players' fun, and whether you're really lying to them like that for their own fun. You're playing a game called Dungeons & Dragons, and that's how the game works. *IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THAT*, you are now a game designer. You need to decide AT THE START, how the boss works differently and you need to stick to this and you need to telegraph it so the players don't waste their actions. You see, to make things up completely on the spot and fiat things like in the video, you are giving lie to the implicit promises you made when you all agreed to play D&D. Promises that, if given words, might go something like "spells and abilities do what they say", "your characters' actions matter", or "all of these numbers and abilities are worth keeping track of". Tell me, what would you do if one of your players went to zero, then on their next turn instead of rolling a death save said "Krog... stands up again. His berserker lineage is too powerful to keep down! He continues to fight!" in absence of any ability allowing this, and then ran up and attacked the monster that downed them? Would it feel unfair? Like the player is cheating and covering it up with some roleplay? Does every party member get to make stuff up now? These are things that need to be written out *beforehand* in the forms of abilities or items a character or creature has to avoid them feeling unfair and arbitrary. This gives rise to the unexpected results and outcomes that are the entire point of the game. If you want things to go exactly the way you envision them every time... why are you even playing Dungeons and Dragons?

Well that's why it's upsetting. They finally slipped up and who can they blame but themselves.

They both slipped up. The DM let the paladin use a 3rd level bonus action smite spell to deal damage. Part of what had him break was that damage that wasn’t applicable.

Also they messed up the spell effect for “Contagion”. The target is poisoned and they have to fail 3 saving throws before the (mind fire) confusion takes effect. It’s not instant

@@richarddarma1452 Contagion description: "Your touch inflicts disease. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, you afflict the creature with a disease of your choice from any of the ones described below. [then stuff about the saving throws]" There's no poisoned condition, the disease you choose takes effect immediately. 3 saves means it ends early, 3 failures means it lasts a week.

Let's not even mention the fact that Barbooizard was raging, so they couldn't even cast

Minion HP FTW.

my dm said that after I hit a bunch of these flying fellows that sucked blood they were so tiny that after I hit a shortsword attack DM said "They're dead you don't need to roll damage"

I had a character who could literally point at %90 of the enemies and just say it's dead. Didn't have to roll because the number of dice exceeded their health. The problem being the rest of the party were using two or three d10s so we had to "kill" him off and have him be the bbeg of the next campaign. The GM even let me voice him I was totally fangirling my own character. Till I realized I had to choose who would die. My pc was first to go because the op character always went first. They didn't manage to kill him on the first round, I was told he had all his powers from the old game so I pointed at the next character and said "dead." He then left through a portal flipping them off and giving them the whole bbeg goodbye for the next five to ten sessions where I might cameo but we won't get to fight him again till halfway through the campaign where he'll conveniently make another escape only to be foiled by the party at the last encounter. At least, that was what was going to happen but schedules changed and we didn't meet again after he stepped through the portal.

Only time I ever twinned a chromatic orb (stupid idea) I happened to natural 20 both rolls. 6d8 to two different enemies as a 4th level character was stupid. The DM was like, "yeah don't even roll, they're both just eviscerated..."

In his previous attack, Sir Chad rolled 8d8 and 3d6 for damage. The 3d6 was from the third-level branding smite, the Divine Smite accounts for 6d8 (targeting a fiend), and 1d8 comes from Improved Divine Smite. This means that the weapon Sir Chad is wielding is a 1d8 weapon. Between base damage and Improved Divine Smite, on a crit, we're looking at 4d8 plus modifiers, which are most likely high on account of him being high level and rolling 72 damage on his previous attack (before GWM was applied). Furthermore, by this level, paladins can attack twice each turn; we are to assume only one attack landed last turn, but this turn could well be different. And I haven't even mentioned Divine Smite this turn. There's no need to roll. TL;DR: He's Sir Chad.

is there anything more cringe than a dm trying to make their characters seem impressive

@@mrosskne you

@@Severezz cope

@@mrosskne is there anything more cringe than someone thinking the dm is their opposition?

@@Azarthes nobody here thinks that, idk what the point of your comment is

OH NOOOOOOOO!!! I have two girlfriends, but very few people on YT are happy for my relationship success. They disl*ke all of the videos I make with my 2 girlfriends. Please be kind, dear ama

I have 2 monks in my table, one being a shadow monk. I'm always wondering ''how tf can you do that?'' lol. Also their turns last sooo fucking long

“Ahh yes there tactical flaw was deploying there cannons 500 feet away easily melee range”

I'm so sorry.

@@gmacwizard8890 I had a villain rob them and use dimension door to escape. He chased the guy down and pummeled the poor enemy wizard into the concrete before the party caught up

Yo, you watch Dimension 20? That’s dope. Love your work.

That was my first thought. Also always loved when Emily Axford or Ally Beardsley used they characters doope features.

Finally seeing other people talk about them. It feels great owo

EXACTLY

I think Brendan said somewhere he forgot to level up to the villains

My favorite part was when his aura gave +5 to saving throws, confirming that this Chad maxed out CHA as a paladin

Some tables just got that one guy who does such ridiculous numbers you stop questioning how much they say they do.

Did those people hate eachother in RL too?

why tho, my friends (key word) have only ever entertained hurting eachother in a non-canon arena situation. I'm down for it even tho I'd be first to die, tfw, bard support.

My table REFUSES to accept mind control for any reason, I’d say that the enemy commands that you attack Sir Chad, and the controlled player would just say “no I’m not letting my character do that”. And they keep trying to find reasons as to why their character won’t attack their allies even though they have no choice

yeah all of my party and DM are friends IRL we have a homebrew where we die but can respawn and are forcibly stopped from attacking one of the party unless it's under circumstances that allow it, e.g they're berserk and cannot determine friend from foe or it's indirect. this has funnily enough ended up making half of our deaths from PVP interactions where one of the party has been "blessed" and then gone berserk and the player is like "lmao it's PvP time"

@@dominustin5926that’s when you just say “you black out for 1d4 minutes” and simply inform them of what’s happened after the fact. They weren’t in control, they weren’t conscious.

And that is why we should all back MCDM's kickstarter "Flee, Mortals!" which revamps much of the Monster Manual into ACtion-Oriented monsters. :)

@@kurtoogle4576 I learned my lesson after his last kickstarter to never back his stuff ever again

@@MrGalagoth What happened?

@@joonapukarinen1153 we are still waiting for the phyiscal stuff for quiet a lot of extra time

I think puttong in more enemies is better lets the players feel like they are progressing when they kill them

Like a true chad

I got +6 from his aura

He's a paladin. Obviously he's ok.

Not just that but he asked if it was a foul demon before attacking with his smites. He doesn't spam his smites for common enemies he saves it for when it's truly needed. True Chad.

The precursor to the GigaChad.

Tbh for the first half of this video is was thinking none of these people seem fun to play with. Snobby overleveled PCs and a DM blindly cheating when he made a too weak boss fight to start. Wouldn’t wanna know any of these people

😂😂 underrated comment!!!

*Vordt of the Boreal Valley starts playing*

"You will witness true horror..."

@@Vendacator we already experience horror the moment we fight her

In one of my group i have to make a player boss, some of my friends is in the military he cant play regulary so i make him a player boss and when his entrance i play Dark Soul music and that's was so funny to see the reaction of my player

THIS IS THE WAY

Hard agree. Monster statblock, especially "boss" ones, are more guidelines than hard rules, especially the higher level you go.

This must be an incredible table to play in. You are truly blessed.

"wait, what monster is this? I don't remember it in the manual" "it's a crypt spider, it's from another manual" "but I can't find it in google" "yeah, I know, too bad" and even when I use normal monsters, I have to change something, maybe lower the number of dices per attack, increase health, change res and vun and everything, because there is nothing I hate more that having someone say to me:"ahh, that's a wight, it will be good, yes, now I'll hit the vunerability without rolling anything and by pure chance. and oh, master, with that attack it's already over max hp for the creature, I think it should be dead". no, I'm the one telling the story, you can't know how it will end before everyone else

We have the agreement of no looking up monsters, and also that even if you know immunities, and can’t quite remember. You don’t ask you roll an arcana or history check. I have learned a lot of things resist lighting as a tempest cleric. Also the rule is, if you min max your character, the monsters min max as well

I think all or most of them were multiclassing, so that makes sense

​Yep. This video is not a thesis against high level, but rather against multiclassing.

​@@corrinthechocolatine4025 More like an endorsement (the DM was just being a bad sport)

As a player I too have become that person sometimes. There's the feeling of 'man this two year campaign is seriously gonna end to some random fight?' And then you realise mass healing word is busted and you are actually fine and everyone is back up

So mass healing word IS a busted spell, but its players can get upset when their overpowered combo doesn't work the way they have been steamrolling. You want a fight to be hard on players throw lots of enemies at them, if you want them to feel it was a tough fight but let them do all their cool stuff then legendary boss fights are the best. Also yeah, some fights if taken poorly CAN be unwinnable, and it makes for great stories.

honestly when a fight is hard it's the most fun we were in a big room, we just fought a giant naga and we're all almost dead two air elementals suddently appear from nowhere and we're basically screwed but we somehow manage to win without anyone dead and that was like the most fun fight ever hard fights are awesome

@@justcri Fight challenge has nothing to do with the enjoyment of the game. If you have to bend and break rules to challenge your players then you shouldn't dm. I don't Fudge dice rules or anything. Hate when DM's taint the game to be more fun for them.

@@cw3598 >you don’t DM how I do so you’re objectively wrong and bad at DMing :^)

if all your warlock does is edtrich blast then he will have limits until he gets that lv 6 spell

​@@CaptnJackA very late reminder that Pact slots max out at 5th level. Warlock's have a Devil of a time fighting Rakshasha.

@@Ivaneus27 they have Mystic Arcanums that are 6th-9th level.

As a 10 lvl ranger 5 lvl warlock, eldritch blast is my best spell but I still got a sick ass bow equipped, plus a medium shield and a bastard sword on my back and waist. So I can just close in really fast using my wood elf speed and darksight, plus my limited reach of 15 ft truesight from my pact, to deal plenty of damage while only taking half due to my uncanny dodge. I still got my ranger spells too and my armor class is 19 when I equip my shield with my best armor. Or I can just sneak and attack the enemy from about 200 ft.

Warlocks get a Mystic Arcanum per level spell from 6 to 9 (nice), meaning they'd have to use the one they have for a respective spell slot. Since the video is about playing past 10th level, and Warlocks get their first Mystic Arcanum at 11th (a 6th level spell), they have literally one shot to use it. Full casters have one spell slot for their biggest spells, but they at least get two for their 6th and 7th level spells.

dude, he must have gotten at least ONE max roll on that

better continuity than some blockbusters lol

I understand, in one of my campaigns as a monk, I found out that my DM didn't know that I was surpassing resistance with my unarmed attacks, so I was nerfed for no reason in many fights, at least we found out about it almost in the middle of a boss fight xd

@@BK-hu4qf that's just dumb, the DM is supposed to tell you when the damage you dealt is halved, i usually say something like "your attack didn't seem to be as effective as you would expect" so the players know the enemy has resistance.

@@fall-from-grace1008 Yes, i know, my DM make this in the boss and it was where I realized that

@@fall-from-grace1008 eh, you could very easily homerule that as a 'you need to do an arcana or smthn to figure that out', which actually buffs characters that gain info on attack but regardless this is why i never use resistances in the first place.

​@@AzarthesYeah, say that at session 0 though

If my player wanted to make the fastest character alive, im enabling it.

ALWAYS give a tabaxi monk boots of speed.* I fixed your typo

@MonsterCraft Tabaxi jokes aside... Imagine a world of only Tabaxi 😂 You could have an order of assassin monks as villain npcs

Give the Tabaxi Monk five different items of Speed that all stack!

Let alone a tabaxi monk/rogue

Yeah some people giving the DM hell for fudging, but where's the fun in bulldozing every single encounter that easily. Yeah sure the first time players getting to use all these abilities will be very fun for them, but after so many encounters it stops becoming fun because nothing would be challenging anymore. A DM should always strive to make encounters challenging and fun for players even if stats or rolls are being changed on the fly.

"That was great. Same time next week ?"

@@TimaeusEXE I usually am trying to adjust so I don't accidentally kill PCs. I think I run pre-made modules differently than intended somehow, because they tend more towards a likely TPK than I would think. I think some modules are written assuming I'm running it more like Heroquest, where the enemies don't exist until you are deliberately interacting with the new room they are in. I think I tend to assume that some of the groups of enemies will hear and run towards combat in nearby rooms. Then again, I haven't DMed for a while, and I haven't DMed frequently enough to get a good feel for it.

@@Ralnarene well usually you shouldn't make it too easy either or the players won't feel challenged or will get the feeling that they won't ever have to worry about death. If you want PC deaths at some point I'd definitely wait till the players had some history with their PCs or if they're near or at the end of a dungeon. If you don't want PC deaths but do want them to fear failure then give them a objective that they must carefully or quickly accomplish or some horrid event will happen if they fail.

@@TimaeusEXE And this is why bounded accuracy exists. Besides, what's worse -- one hydra-sized cockatrice or a hundred cockatrice-sized hydras?

Aaaaaand stealing

@@CapnShades Go right ahead!

@@CapnShades same thought, just copy-pasted that into my ideas document :)

“Then you too, must be broken.”

@@droman608 Those players broke him with those insane abilities.

Screw the rules I have snacks!

Player: "You can't do that, you're breaking the rules!" DM: "Silence! I am the rules." Dice: "Let me introduce myself"

Player: "Not. Yet." *lightsaber dices activate *

Tbf I would remember that one the most too with how much it would come up

That's a level 3 ability though

That’s why you use Emerald Dragonborn

It's the players fault for not picking a race with natural resistance against psychic damage.

What if the barbarian is a kalasthar using tasha cauldron of everything book to have it's racial features in to con and strenght

I have four players, one of them exactly like the players in this, the rest are basically roleplayers/normal players. Never felt a quote like that one. Theyre only level 7 if that helps.

why do you use level based systems?

@@mrosskne My players this far insisted on DND

@@comment-chan8750 Get better players.

@@mrosskne I don't anymore. If the question was directed at me. If at @comment-chan8750, same question.

Multiclassing. From the first moment I thought that this is just "powerplaying".

@@FreedomAndPeaceOnly You say but warlock of the fiend Paladin oath of redemption works really well.

Oh actually wouldn't branding smite not work since it is a spell technically. So only divine smite would be usable

*looking at my old bard/fighter aarakocra that had died and then came back to life as a fiend warlock tripple multiclass * nothing to see here

Did you know that a lvl 17 warlock-hexblade, sorcerer, fighter multi class can fire 12 eldritch blast beams in one round? And if they are concentrating on 5th lvl spirit shroud and have an enemy 10ft away from them marked with hexblades curse the potential damage if all hit is 12d10+36d8+136. Each of those beams can crit on a 19 or a twenty. Max DPS I had in a round was 391

Guided Strike is from Conquest Paladin (the other best paladin)

He also took advantage of the DM not caring about how many bonus actions the monk took so he could use his channel divinity and branding smite in one turn

Sir Chad remembering his abilities without taking 10 minutes for the first half of his turn, before retroactively deciding he wants to do something else? He really is a Chad.

How are Rakshasas immune to branding smites again

@@sargesvrge It's a spell below 6th level, which Rakshasa's are immune to.

And that's why so few creatures in d&d have vulnerabilities

Ah yes, the black hole spell

Everything is vulnerable to the Grateful Dead

Actually, what the Wizard cast was called "Fuck Everything in That Particular Direction".

For the record? This is when, as a GM, you cheat. Exponentially bigger health pools, sudden dragons from nowhere, other complications. Because PCs deserve to be rewarded for good luck and cool tricks, but also fuck that, it doesn't get to be that easy.

I was expecting the players to call the DM out on his bs and say "either you stop this or we ain't playing with you"... sigh, bad ending reached

@@lukeeatschips6324 Man fr just wrote the word 'sigh'

@@lukeeatschips6324 you really think after all this drama and heroics the party went through and how engaged the skit showed them that a one round instant kill would be better? 😂

@@StretchtoYourHeart Yes. The DM didn't prepare and cheated, the real party would have know he did and called him out on it. Doing your job well is fun in DnD, the DM will be better at preparing enemies next time.

@@lukeeatschips6324 Improvising is part of being a DM, a real party would expect an experienced DM to do stuff that isn't by the books because action economy is scuffed at later levels. You're right, doing your job well is fun, but is it really a good job if there's no challenge to it? You're completely missing the point of the skit despite it being completely spelt out, sure the DM "cheated" but the Barbarian he hit wasn't knocked to half HP, wasn't dying, and still had all his tools available to him but was whining because he could no longer steamroll the encounter.

Just don’t tell them that

_Shhhhhh…_

I like the tactical aspect of dnd so I try to avoid that. However, one thing I do is let the boss survive a player turn or two to make their death impactful/climactic.

That also confused me, the title sais group above 10th lvl and all they throw at the dm are low level abilities and the dm cant handle it. ^^ also that sounded like a strategy the players would have used more than once already, cant realy relate to the no fall dm tantrum the dm hat, but as a who had a divination wizard up to 15th lvl in his goup i can relate to the dice swap mechanic ^^

@@wretchedegg5170 4th level divine smite and 3rd level branding smite are not 5th level abilities.

That’s an attitude I can appreciate. Some games are better when combat encounters end quickly anyway. It leaves more time for RP, preparation, and plot progression.

I try to think of it as if it were a movie or a book. And it's probably boring in those contexts and so I play less fanciful rpgs.

Same, I make problems without solutions and just throw them at the party to see what they do.

EXACTLY THIS, i love making my players think, seeing their creative thinking, problem solving, strong and cool builds, ETC is one of my FAVORITE things

While this usually is a good mindset to have, in the context of the encounter Jacob was building this probably wasn't just some random encounter, this was supposed to be an epic confrontation against a villain and in these instances it can go a long way towards upping the tension and excitement at the table to make encounters harder on the fly. Matt Colville once said "Encounter design doesn't stop once you've rolled initiative."

Well said, king. 👑

even then, it's good for immersion if not all monsters of a species have the same abilities, boss encounters should be somewhat surprising, you're fighting an individual with his own history and skills not just a by the book standard for his species..

That'd be the most boring game ever. Might as well just play Gurps. Nothing wrong with Gurps, but a combat I can't lose is just wasted time.

@@timothypeterson4781 noone's saying they can't lose, only that if players defeat an enemy through perfectly legal means, the DM shouldn't go making up excuses to ruin the kill. Of course, there are lines to be drawn where a mechanic abuse is taking place, for example bards and their infamous seductions, but that's an entirely different rabbit hole.

@@MinnIsKill If a "big boss" went down in one round I'd just call it a lame encounter.

I'm pretty sure none of this is past 10th level, except for the Paladin's higher level smite slots and possibly some multiclassing involved.

Well, the wizard must have been at least Barbarian 3 and Druid 2 (if Circle of the Moon, otherwise Druid 8) to pull off the combo, plus Contagion is a level 5 spell.

@@AnadynTheCursed You get access to 5th level spells at caster level 9, so contagion is in (though, like you pointed out it would have to be over level 10 to have that on top of 3 barbarian levels) But the main point is that even if a combo is high level, there are little to no uses of actual high level abilities.

@@MoonPatch I think the point is that they have so many of them at this point that it's their combination that makes them invincible rather than any of them in particular.

@@AnadynTheCursed Fair enough, I was just making an observation that most of DM Jacob's frustrations came from basic class or subclass features rather than high level stuff. Except the speed of sound tabaxi monk with boots of speed, that one's a classic.

That's supposed to be a hard encounter, by the book. That's closer to a speed bump. My party of level 14s can probably take on a dragon with no issue.

And therein lies one of the more boring and tedious parts of 5E's core design which is "the adventuring day" and attrition. It's been so, so long since the vast majority of people have played in a way that is in line with the adventuring day. We're talking literally 3.5e. No one wants this anymore.

This dm seems like shit now what he should have dont is either have backup arrive for the creature mid combat or actually check what his party can do before hand not suddenly give it a bunch of abilities

@@Amrylin1337 I've literally switched to doing one set of resources per session and it's video gamey and silly but it has led to far more tactically satisfying combats

A normal, unmodded rakshasa is kinda shit in a direct fight despite being CR13. It's not an enemy you run as a boss, it's an enemy you harass the party with over the course of an entire campaign. Its only two spells that are good for a direct confrontation are Dominate Person, which is self-explanatory, and Plane Shift, which it can just use to yeet a PC to Hell forever. If that doesn't work, the rakshasa needs to get outta there because two claw attacks for an average of 9 damage is laughable for a party that can deal with CR13

Counterargument: Everyone's turns are happening in the same 6 seconds.

Good eye, but also NERD!

@Hunter Initiative is really there to determine what order players go in, not characters which are acting all at the same time

@@GuardianTactician Yeah, but there's a specified turn order. That's like saying the fighter kills the lich but the lich was able to get off his Power Word: Kill at the same time even though the fighter acted before him.

@@KuonilerariLoufanwald I can see both argument. Only thing I can see to support his is that feather fall is a reaction. So the lich king argument falls on here.

Currently rocking Portent in my game, but our Monk unfortunately had to abscond the game for real life reasons, so the DM is spared from one of these possible interactions. =P

imagine speedy monk with super buff legs, and the ever-present 7 attacks per turn fighter with really buff arms, teaming up with like the fighter riding on the monk's shoulders

They mean that Sir Chad wasn't falling yet when Feather Falling was cast, so Sir Chad couldn't have been included in the targets of the spell

The duration of feather fall is one minute so you can continue to add creatures to the spell until it ends.

@@adammackintosh430 That is not how that works. That duration is how long it lasts on the creatures you cast it on Also, unrelated to this, weren't the spells he cast against it below sixth level, and therefore they would not count?

Yeah, by raw feather fall is a pain to use in combat, in that situation everyone would need to ready their actions to jump at the same time the caster does so he can use his reaction to cast it on everyone.

@@Khaons since it's all "simultaneous," I allow targets to be added until the start of the caster's next turn

Although it was super neat to see that they all worked as written. Dude knows his stuff.

For real. This video was an excuse to test some crazy theory crafted builds. Props to Jacob!

90% of these features/spells are granted below level 8 lol

Rule zero: DM screen. 😂

Eh, not my thing. If the players get lucky, they get lucky. I open roll.

@@monsieurdorgat6864 I mean, if you want less roleplay and more combat, go play Warhammer.

@@Solrex_the_Sun_King Wat fudging rolls has nothing to do with roleplay. It's just cheating lol. If you wanted a certain outcome, just don't roll.

@@monsieurdorgat6864 if the game is too easy it’s not fun. If the game is too hard, it’s also not fun. You as the DM are less of a player and more of a referee to keep things in balance.

@@Solrex_the_Sun_King Eh, I'm pretty sure the fun comes from being surprised and from fantasy fulfillment. My table plays to have fun and unwind. Variety and agency matters way more than difficulty for us. Especially if you're really concerned with roleplay? Like wtf does difficulty have to do with roleplay? I thought you were on a "THIS ISN'T A WAR GAME!" platform?

And then there's the Cleric, who rolled a 4

Wow, I feel bad for those PCs. The math there would mean that to get a 70 in that circumstance, they have a Stealth bonus of -5. No wonder they feel the need for all those buffs lol It's okay, though, I'm sure the party rogue with 20 Dexterity and Stealth Expertise (but no hide in plain sight) is enjoying having a stealth of 74 (or 76 if they're at least 17th level) after rolling two 1s and a 2, thanks to Reliable Talent.

75. You accidentally left out Flash of Genius.

Got to add in the bardic inspo

Enter my Fighter in Full Plate going BONK BONK BONK on your every attempt.

7 players at level 15? How do you even deal with that action economy when nowadays everyone seams to be at least a half caster? At level 14 if you have both divination wizard and necromancer they can both once a day combo into turning any single undead into ally, if it's intelligence is under 12 they can chose to keep it forever until they find a better one, that includes CR 20 Nightwalker.

@@AIWARAS619 The party is 1 cleric, 1 cleric/fighter, 2 sorcerers, 1 rouge, 1 ranger/warlock and 1 fighter. It takes some creative DM:ing and I wouldn't have been able to do it unless I had DMed for so long. It helps that my players are experienced as well

@@drefk1973 Do they ever go easy on you? Like choosing not to cast slow on a hydra when it's clearly the final fight or banish half of the enemy fighting force(especially when they are winning anyway) despite being able to? From my experience it takes a lot of time to learn restraint and I myself was guilty of cheep shots like that for a bit when I still played(a.k.a. not playing with the DM instead of against the DM).

@@AIWARAS619 They do NOT pull punches. I don't expect them to and I plan encounters accordingly

@@drefk1973 I guess after 38 years of DM'ing it's hard to trow something at you that would phase you even at these numbers, and with players of similar calibre it's the same for them.

Immediately paused to look for this comment, yes. That was some top-tier continuity. Things like that just elevate stuff to a whole other level. 👌

@@Matork2100 right? lmao

@@Matork2100 I wouldn't exactly call it continuity, dice just don't... roll that long. It was like a dice rolling sound effect on multiple loops. Very weird editing.

@@whitevii1533 They would if they fell onto a hard floor from that high up.

commenting instead of liking cause B^) 69 nice

awww 🥺🥺

Wish i could participate in a campaign run by a dm with that mindset

What i do when an encounter ends too easily i just reuse the character sheet for a different enemy later down the line

Same! Especially if it was a challenging encounter. Man, when they cheer as the killing blow hits the final enemy (better if it was a boss), I feel fulfilled. It is my joy see my player overcome their trials, just as much as seeing them choose the dumbest way to solve a problem XD

Same here. I mean I enjoy making a challenge for my party but its always a challenge that can reasonably be overcome and I'm happy when they do.

Thats what I was thinking!!

LOL true.

I would shit bricks and enjoy the chaos

This is truly what it means to be a forever DM: just wanting players to win as a function of *their own actions* rather than you eventually just giving up and forcing the world to contort around them in unknown ways. Every now and then a player rises above, and you can convince them to run a one-shot you get to play in, at which point they realize the terrible burden of godhead (lmao) and go back to being just a player. 😂

The way we get around the power keep effect is that we make up encounters with NPCS who use player rules. One of the most memorable Champaigns I DMed I ended up using a level 20 character I made for fun, who was basically a ninja straight of the Naruto cartoon, fight the level 17 party with his gang of dudes. It ended up being loads of fun and kept the campaign fairly well grounded. Which fit with the story I had laid out.

I just campaigned a 3-20 campaign and yeah by the end I never kept track of health either lmao. The fight goes on until I feel it's over

Rule zero of D&D is actually "use the DM screen to convince the party that rules exist as anything other than propaganda to force the suspension of their disbelief."

@@RosscoAW Yeah, I don’t let them win until they’re biting their nails, getting a bit of forehead sweat, and watching each dice roll with bated breath. The exception being if someone comes up with a real clever idea that changes the dynamics of the fight (I.e Rule of Cool) or comes up with a grounded, well thought out argument that directly challenges the villains beliefs or goals. Then I let them verbally spar back and force until they either reach a logic impasse, a fight fight breaks out due to anger, or convinces the big bad to stand down/surrender/retreat/etc. But they must make a solid logical argument in order to get that option (emotional “because it’s evil” arguments get tossed aside with a simple “good and evil are points of view” argument).

Hoo, my DM had two separate groups in the same adventure and diferent places. Then he almost obliterated the second group, spawned a demon out of his ass, corrupted they all into undead and turned them into villains trying to the destroy the plane. And for us, the newer and still a hero party he said" I gotta other set of players hunting for you, u have the option to fight, or die". And that's how he set up pvp of 12 players. Side note, my group was of noobs, theirs strongest mage with 30 intelligence stopped time, set up 2 traps, them casted meteors for 240 damage on my blind and oblivious party. Not enough? The DM aware of power issues, also put another threat on the already loosing battle, just 200m high something like a dragon, and tiamate later to destroy that one. The villain mage became a God, everybody died (also tiamate) and he resurrected all giving his life because his objective was to protect his sister even if he destroyed the world. It was chaotic, insane and epic. (Revived dead characters along with the players current ones and made everybody crie)

I just came here to say ... I'm the Monk, and I regret nothing.

Rakshasa: "Ow, jeez. I tell one little white lie and you punch me in the face!? You got anger issues to sort. Aw, I didn't even want to be here to begin with. I'm out, I'm out. You're a dick. I'm out."

lucy Rakshasa got a second round :D

@@mlwlundeen1525 Noice job !

There's a degree to that... DM v PC is not fun.

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 DM making super easy Encounters and there being no danger to the PCs isn't either (for most parties)

@@badluckbrian46 True... The players are supposed to win and continue on the story. Not to end the campaign in one second or to be "too easy".

@@badluckbrian46 yeah, it's the gms job to make the game challenging and fun. If you can't do that without taking away or making useless the PC toys, you're a bad gm.

fudging rolls in order to accomplish that is bullshit and i dont blame players for leaving the table at that point.

You can always just make the DC of your creatures higher, like 25 or 30. Even at level 20 and higher, you're allowed to make things challenging, and encounters can still be hard not to die in. And if there's no creatures with high enough stats, you can always just boost a creature's stats, give it new abilities, or just make a bunch of level 20+ npcs to fight

@@ellie_silly_zoo For boss fights I do. But you can’t go crazy with that stuff. Even an AC of 25 (which, I believe, is the highest that can be found in the MM) would require a roll of about 6 or 7 for most of them to hit. So it isn’t like I can go sticking those kind of numbers on every skeleton and mid tier demon they run across

@@jh-ne4sy AC 30+ then? You can probably find a reason why those creatures are so strong. Or maybe just end the campaign and start again at a lower level if you're _this_ far

@@jh-ne4sy Why would you be limited by the MM? I'm running a campaign where I make 90% of the creatures myself. They are now level 9 and I already threw 30 ac creatures at them. MM works for as long as it works, but if it doesn't, make your own stuff. Or just boost existing stuff.

Maybe I was unclear. I don’t have a problem that my players are hitting so often and have such high bonuses. I was just observing how spot on the joke was. I’m well aware that you can change monsters stats, but why would I go out of my way to buff up minions? Just to make epic level characters feel less epic? I’m happy to save the crazy stuff for the bosses and let the PCs massacre all the henchmen they want