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Jim Davis: I’m actually looking for 4th edition stuff. Pruitt: It’s like I don’t even know him anymore... 😂

"I caught the skeleton of a fish, and then it bit me." is an amazing tagline for a campaign. It perfectly sums up what the campaign is about in a clever and unexpected way, I love it.

My campaign's Lich sacrificed a city, Full Metal Alchemist style. He's now sitting pretty in the palace at the heart of the dead city. I like the aesthetic and lore I have behind it, but prepping that for encounters will be a massive undertaking

Imagine the Jim and Pruitt lair actions capable in that garage. Honey biscuits, miniature swarms and the armor of quality facial hair. Dragons and Beholders are cool, but that's real power folks.

Honestly, this is my favorite channel. The quality is too high.

I had a Necromancer once whose lair was a hospital, and he was the chief of surgery. Once the party discovered his shenanigans, not only did they have to deal with the Necromancer and his minions, they also had to deal with the people who worked with him as doctors and the townsfolk around the hospital because he was beloved for saving so many lives.

An idea I had for a lair was for a high level Rogue Mastermind. A big room that is riddled with rectangular columns spaced at regular intervals, in a grid pattern. So wherever you are in the room, you can only see in the four cardinal directions. Your maneuverability is decreased because you're forced down these narrow lanes, and the columns make it so you have limited sight lines. Unless you're a high level Rogue, who has the benefit of blindsight. So the whole battle just involves this Mastermind using the environment to her advantage. She knows where the party is at all times. She can pull off really effective hit and fade tactics. Constantly getting sneak attacks, because she can slip into and out of hiding. The guys with bows or spells are useless, because they can't get line of sight. All the while, the Mastermind is working with a crack team of melee minions - champions and veterans and such, with big heavy shields that basically turn them into walls. They keep the party in place, while she runs around columns, using bonus actions to give them advantage. As a boss encounter, she's got legendary actions, like the ability to run and disengage in between player turns, or the ability to throw poison smoke bombs or flashbangs. For lair actions, I'm imagining that the room itself is riddled with traps and mechanisms that she can set off at a moment's notice. Steel ball bearings rain from the ceiling and cover the floor, turning the ground into difficult terrain. (And she's got a ring of free movement, so it doesn't affect her). Trap doors that become active, that party members can fall through. (Also good for making her escape, if things get too hairy). Vents that open up in the columns and spray fire, damaging anyone in a 15 wide line. Maybe even something as simple as portcullises dropping down, potentially trapping people or at least limiting their movement.

Onions have lairs, Ogres have lairs

"OR YOU'LL DO WHAT!? RELEASE THE DOGS? OR THE BEES? OR THE DOGS WITH BEES IN THEIR MOUTH AND WHEN THEY BARK THEY SHOOT BEES AT YOU!? WELL GO AHEAD, DO YOUR WORST!"

The articles Jim mentions can be found on the Wizards archive by searching Wyrms of the North. It includes a territory map of the Sword Coast showing the areas dragons lay claim to. It covers big obvious dragons like Klauth as well as Voaraghamanthar (the twin black dragons mentioned in the vid). The twin is actually Waervaerendor and the pair hide out in the Mere of Dead Men (Halfway between Waterdeep and Neverwinter). It also covers the good dragons such as Nymmurh. There is tons of lore in the articles of both evil and good dragons, their lairs, their interactions within 'human' society, their motivations, the power they have at their disposal, etc... A must read if you're planning on including dragons in a campaign.

I think the Overlord anime is a perfect example of a powerful necromancer, powerful servants, and a legendary lair. Also, the giant goat-things in season 3 are insane. He killed/sacrificed like 15,000 enemy soldiers to summon 5 giant, legendary multi-headed goat monsters. They were basically unkillable and unforgettable, lol.

After reading Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, I had an idea where a young/adult dragon turns up in a setting and starts wreaking havoc. It's way smarter than its age would suggest and has dangerous amounts of magic and magical items, as well as the know-how to gather powerful slaves... Because it spent a few centuries or more serving its required tour in the Astral Plane as a mount for a Githyanki, as demanded by Tiamat. It hated it at first, now not only are they far more powerful for it, but they're set to outlive any potential dragon rivals that could be feasibly strong enough to kill it through their legit age. Basically, a Young (or Adult?) dragon with a variable number of levels in Wizard or Sorcerer and possibly Fighter, kitted out with magic items and a slew of slaves inordinately powerful compared to its biological age.

“Let’s make him a duke. A kick ass duke. Or leader formally known as king!”

I love Pruitt's expression at "The Kingdom of Whateverdonia".

Bowser making the area shaped into a star on Mario 64 by stomping was a liar action. Also great game.

Okay, so can we all just agree that WebDM has the best intros on all of KZfaq?

Someone has to make a top 10 WebDM intros and this one definitely has to be at least in the top 3!

Lair actions and environmental effects are the perfect way to run a haunted house adventure. I’m working on something involving mimics as the basis for a structure along this line...

Jim is hardcore channeling Gob Bluth in this episode’s intro

The Lich/big bad having the other mages take the concentration of the spell sounds like a really cool idea. Totally gonna keep that in the bag-o-tricks.

Using terrain to foreshadow is something I'm taking away from this video, and something I could do a lot more in my own game, love learning something new, great job.

Idea: A necromancer lair that is accesed through a deep corpse pit full of bodies that part for the necromancer but rip their foes asunder. The town nearby has no idea the lair is even there, they just throw the bodies into a pit and don't go near it 'cause of the smell or the grossness of it.

When I heard necromancer physician, my mind went right to The Void. Pretty good movie and has a lot of inspiration for both a dungeon environment as well as a CoC adventure

Here' a rando idea for a random regional effect encounter that help foreshadow: As the characters trek across the open plains of the hex map they see up ahead not a flock of carrion birds circling something, but rather a thick cloud of carrion birds. Whatever it is its something big to have drawn that many. A the character approach and try to travel by they get attacked by 'Vulture Men' (use any Birdman race). These bird men are jut protecting their flock and they massive carcas. The Bird men are using weapons and items they have taken off others who have been scavenging from the giants corpse. If the character make it past they see that the carcass is a dead giant. If they investigate they can determine that the giant was killed by an . This also sets up that later in town they encounter people using stuff obviously stolen from the giant carcass, and the Vulture Men are in town as NPCs.

YES, webdm just makes my day a better day every time

Nice Tenacious D reference, Pru. Really snuck that kick ass duke in there.

“Denis Leary is down there stealing Bill Hicks’s bit.” Brilliant!

I like the idea of a martial based lair action being war drums pounding; buffing the bad guys (bonus action attack, +2 to hit etc) and debuffing the party (fear effect, forced concentration check)

So the Bat Cave could be an example of Dangerous an counter in a Lair can be .

So for a fun twist on Lair Actions, I had my party's secret resistance hideout get raided/ambushed (because they RP walked into that situation). So they defended it against a few waves of enemies but I decided to give them friendly lair actions. So the Resistance Leader was running around fighting but also on Lair Action initiative count 20 doing a special lair action. Worked and meshed well for story purposes because naturally the party only got the beneficial lair actions if the Resistance Leader was alive to do them so they had to kind of naturally protect said leader.

Thanks for another great video! This one really got me thinking of unique ways to interpret villains and now I’m drawing up an underdark necromancer who has access to a city’s cemetery above, so the minions aren’t rising out of the ground, they’re falling from the ceiling!

I used magic items to create these effects in fourth edition. For example I had an ideal that created an area effect the undead continued to rise in the area. A giant spider had took over a manner house. As it killed people they would then rise as undead protecting the ideal. The spider treated the undead as its web.

I caught that Tenacious D refrence Pruitt. I'm so glad im not the only one who thinks of city hall when I hear duke.

I had my character grapple a beholder the turn it came into the area where the fight started. Keeping it on the ground helped the group so much.

As an Edinburgh local, I loved the shout out to the city's undercity!

The two lairs that my players hated the most: the Vast Oblivion from OotA and Cyrog's lair, an undead elder brain that worked for Orcus. The beholder just did what he's good at (using flight, ranged attacks and the antimagic cone), but the elder brain was a mess: bunch of minions that could paralyze and that had a psychic link with the elder brain, using the PCs to form more links, spamming legendary action psychic pulse using the PCs and the minions to deal a bunch of psychic damage in area, locking in place the dangerous PC with wall of force so my minions live a bit more, etc. The PCs were basically dead before they even got to the elder brain

I keep coming back to this one because I get different inspiration each time I need it. Big monster fight coming up.

Three words: pet cemetery necromancer. Army of skeletal and zombie pets attacking their former masters.

And everyone didn't even notice JRR Martin strolling around in the background at the end!

"He could be a kick ass duke, but" Still makes me laugh a year later

I can't fathom what anyone's boggle with Demolition Man would be.

Im so glad you guys talked about death frost doom, its such an amazing adventure to actually spook your party with.

So I made a lair for Baphomet from MTOF and what I did was make it underground like 20ft in a Maze, then when he reversed gravity the roots of the maze above grabbed at the PCs if they tried to cross them so they have to fight upside-down in a Maze while Baphomet ran over the roots freely.

Currently have my level one players assisting a one-armed, vengeful hag to slay her sister hag on the other side of the forest to reclaim her missing arm. Lairs would be an awesome way to depict the struggle between the two and see how the power struggle effects the forest around them.

Really great that you have a sponsor for this video btw. Proud of the channel and what it's become. I really like these longer/more content videos far better than little snippets.

That moment when the camera zooms in at the start and you momentarily believe the two burly DMs are pants-less. POGGERS

I have been helping a new DM learn the ropes. He is running Princes and we jokingly made the comment about the Necromancers Cave, which is a fairly boring scenario... and he re-worked it as the "Necroromancers Cave"... a Necromancer pimp that runs a brothel of undead.... and business was good... lol

Rambo: Last Blood is a great example of how dangerous a lair can be.

I have been listening to you two for a minute now and Pruits Hicks vs. Leary comment was absolute gold! Keep it up guys! Love your channel! if you ever need a fifth...

Concept: A game where your players make a boss monster and minions, using rigorous mechanics to set up their dungeon, leading to a final fight where they have legendary actions and lair actions, to fight against a DM-controlled party of adventurers.

Always nice to have another video from Web DM!

Waterdeep has dragons living in it. Their mostly hiding out as humanoids. Its mostly only certain types of dragons though. Off the top of my head though i can't recall which ones. Maybe the Song Dragons.

Thanks for this. I've always been very interested in lairs, lair actions, and the like, and it's helpful to have a well-made and comprehensive discussion to draw from.

The aforementioned goblin duel occurred within Mordor, from The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

You guys deserve so many more sponsors, I hope that keeps up!

Dang, I haven't watched this channel in a couple months, and the quality has gotten a lot better in the last 2 vids. 👍

The beholder in the vast oblivium didn't do so well against our party. It rolled low on initiative, the ranger critted his lightning arrow, and we tore through it. One round, one dead beholder

Loving Jim's impression of George Oscar Bluth there!

I've actually been wanting this sort of topic to be covered more extensively as I'm a big fan of "Boss Encounters" and I think Lairs are a great way to feed into that, though I have only actually used stuff similar to the mechanics of 5e in completely different games. I'm hoping with my current campaign I can come up with a cool BBEG that will allow me to utilize those mechanics more, but this video has definitely got my creation juices a flowin. Thanks once again, guys! :D

Super inspiring stuff guys! I have a sudden and mighty need to go and re-read the monster manuals

My favourite spell component of all for bad guys: handwavium. Oooooh yeah.

Thank you for mentioning Dennis Leary's joke theft. He ripped off Bill Hicks for that role in Demolition Man, and he ripped off Louis CK's "I'm an Asshole" too.

One fun way to use lair actions I've used is when the players are in a pit fight or Coliseum. The crowd acts on the lair action, doing stuff like cheering to give the opponent advantage, throwing things to alert monsters of any hiding PCs, etc.

Watch Goblin Slayer (1st episode is exceptionally brutal; you have been warned), is one of the best examples of Goblin Lair design... caves/castles/ancient catacombs/abandoned villages; in short, goblins have numbers and cunning so if they need to they could fortify a location. If they have watched carefully as people use boats or carrages they can learn... What I am getting to is THEY LEARN. What have they learned and what was there before the goblins took over; are they being lead by a goblin that has survived multiple adventurerer raids or have they been involved in any wars; How smart is the leader.

Web DM making that sponsorship bread

Pru is a total pro at reading ads!

I really love you guys. Currently I am not in a position to really support you well but I plan to if I can get more fully employed. Thanks for all the free content

6:12 - "Your rules don't apply to me. Mechanically, I'm playing a VERY different game than you." Care for a conversation about what those differences are and why they're fun?

Web DM intros are my reason to live !

13:50 that Tenacious D reference!

I have found realistic lava to be a more insteresting and fun environmental hazard than the standard fantasy hot-water. Medium-sized humanoids could actually walk on real lava, if they can somehow manage the searing heat. Lava has the same density as stone, very few things actually sink in it.

I like the idea of a necromancer making its lair near a tar pit. It could use a lair action to raise the skeleton of something that long ago got caught in the tar.

I have mild dyslexia. Pruitt's opening confused me even more than the title. Whoops.

Great episode! Love the D reference!! He could be a kick as Duke.

been waiting, awesome job

Thelonian dragons (my world is called Thelanos) were decendants from the primordials (the ancestors of the gods) who decided to linger in the material plane, as opposed to leaving to the astral plane to preserve their power. They evolved to absorb the energy from their environments, which is why they are so absurdly powerful, and have breath weapons that would be ineffective in their region (fire against vulcano-dwelling creatures probably not gonna be super-effective) because their metabolism includes absorbing the elemental energies of their surroundings, which is what gives them their type. This process is a called dracosis, and it binds a dragon to it's domain. Should a dragon ever leave, it begins to lose it's breath weapon, colour, hardyness, and even shrinks, and looks malnurished, in addition to aquiring a confused, anxious and almost depressed disposition, as it's mind too is formed in part though dracosis. When a dragon has completely lost the pwoers it gained from it's terrain, being in a vulnerable state of fatigue, confusion, and softness, it begins to adopt the properties of it's new territory. the older a dragon is, the slower this process is, therfore only wyrmlings and quite young dragons seriously considdder relocating outside of emergencies. Dragons took a liking too humans as their culture begun to emerge, and eventually the dragon became rulers and guides for the human race. They taught them magic, writing and music. This lasted for eons untill the giants, banished from the feywild, came into the prime material plane and decided to conquer it. Due to dragons only being powerful in their domains, and the fact that destroying a dragons domain weakens and distresses it, the giants begun to slaughter the dragons who eventually fled along with those humans that had been so close to them that they had altered over generations to bear traits from their masters (Dragonborn). This begun the tyranny of the giants who, being bred for war by the archfey, were better suited as bullies and opressors than rulers. After the giant opression had lasted for millenia, an event that would change the fate of Thelanos for ever occured, as the sun which had up untill then emitted only dim light, suddenly lit ablace with exuberant splendor, in the form of golden radiance. The children of the primordial gods had opened their gate to the prime material plane, which was the sun, and now as their influence could tough the lands and peoples of Thelanos for the first time, things would change, and not only by plants becoming green, and monsters retreating underground, but by humans devoting themselves to these gods, who in turn gave them the gifts they needed to overthrow the giants. half a dozen to a dozen decades later is usually when I start campaigns. You can still go to Drakenheim, the northern continent which the giants couldn't get too, where the dragons retreted, and where dragonborn natively reside (their ancestrial features fade after only a few generations not living near dragons, so a human might have a dragonborn as a great great grandfather and not know). Most of this came from the starting point of "Damn, I think it's annoyingly unbelievable for adragons to be so powerful, given how considderably less energy investment would still allow for them to be apex predator, and how the breath weapon would be ineffective against creatures native to the dragons home" If you read all that, damn, thanks! Hope you got something out of it.

More of this please

First of all, great episode as usual, y'all! I really appreciated the comments about how fighting a creature in its own lair is supposed to be EXTREMELY difficult. It makes sense! If a creature has a long time to prepare defenses that compliment its fighting style, of course it will make things difficult! I do have a question: how are you supposed to deal with the direction of the beholder anti-magic eye-beam? As in, in combat, how do you fairly have the cone move around? This question applies for medusas and Umber Hulks as well. I was thinking that it gets to shift its gaze to one spot on its turn, then as a legendary action rotate to face a new direction. I don't recall this being discussed in the Monster Manual as for what you're officially supposed to do.

Always here, Always watching

I used a dragon called a salamander in the underdark, it was like a behir but with more dragony abilities and lore. It made giant tunnels and earthquakes under a dwarf city.

Man Deck of Many sponsoring EVERYONE nowadays XD

Love that Tenacious D reference Pruitt XD

Reminds me of Superfly from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's a telephone tower that bonded to someone's soul. It can reflect all incoming attacks, strives to keep the person that it's bonded to alive and traps people in it if they try to leave. The actual person isn't much of a threat, but he understands how to angle the energy blasts and traps people inside before running away

Speaking of Dragons (in a dungeon), I have always assumed that they just dug their way down there, to be left alone and await some unknowable date when they would rise again and take action for any reason. Furthermore, It seemed that the implied structure of D&D was that creatures who worshiped similarly aligned deities to the embedded dragons, often found their way into the catacombs of its lair because Dragons are able to provide wealth and knowledge in exchange for the protection and service of lesser creatures. I realize that this has always been my own conjecture, but, did no one else seriously consider this?

How to survive the cold. LAYYYYYERS.

4:44 I made this the ability "Following Lair" that makes the court that follows the BBEG a sort of lair, giving it Lair Actions & stuff

The idea of a Physician Necromancer, Would be kind of funny if he actually was a decent physician and operates with the approval of the town counsel.... Maybe he uses his undead servants as nurses to do menial tasks around the hospital.... (And the undead are dressed up as plague doctors to help make the patients feel more at ease, with the logic being that a plague doctor is a less upsetting sight than a skeleton....)

But I don't want web dm to have a lair then adventurers will get rid of them.

A Liar action rule would be pretty cool too, though.

Demolition Man! I love that movie

You guys should do a show all about Goblinoids

There are a lot of layers to this lair video.

awesome stuff as usual guys! Any chance we can get some videos on Numenera?

I just finished a homebrew campaign where there is a sense of doom that is going to take over the world. We may hold it off a few times but evil always finds a way. When I was playing my monk, I had managed to get the all so hostile Gith fight against some cultists that were planning to summon an Atropal. By the end of it the Gith are all died & the Atropal gained a planar traveling ship. We were way too under-leveled back then so when we came back to strike down the Atropal we had noticed the ship was gone. Had no idea where it went. With my monk retired I was now playing a barbarian & lord behold on our final session for the campaign there is the ship... along with a flying black blob that kinda resembles a dragon but has some tendrils sticking out of it with the ship now having similar features. We had learned from the dm that creature came from the far planes (personally I don't know anything on the far planes) & the ship turned into a lair.Every turn as a lair action it could summon something called star something mage. Anyway it didn't matter as we turned it into an Awakened Tree. If anyone wants I can expand on the story of how I got the Gith to fight some cultists.

[SPOILERS FOR MY CURSE OF STRAHD PLAYERS, NOT THAT ANY OF YOU ARE LIKELY TO READ THIS] ---------------------------------------- I love Lair Actions as a concept for both tactical and roleplaying opportunities. I kinda wish I had thought of the idea as a general rule (instead of one-off things for very specific encounters, which I'm sure I or my friends have done at some point) way back when I started DMing back in the mid-90s because of the how much such actions offer. In my current Curse of Strahd game, I decided to get a little creative with Strahd's Lair Actions in Castle Ravenloft. He has the usual ones that can be applied anywhere (which includes one I added where Strahd simply regains a Superiority Die, since I gave Strahd 7th level Battle Master abilities - not the main Fighter stuff like Second Wind or Action Surge, but just the archetype's Battle Maneuvers), but he also has one lair each for each section of the castle that is unique to that area alone. For example: in the *Main Floor* section, a single Specter (with only 1 HP) appears within 30 ft of Strahd that acts immediately, then completely vanishes after its "turn" is completed. In the *Rooms of Weeping* section, the sounds of crying can be heard throughout the area; all creatures (except Strahd and his minions) must make a Charisma save DC 17 or begin weeping uncontrollably, which causes them to be Incapacitated until the next Lair Action occurs. In the *Spires of Ravenloft*, powerful gusts of wind blast through the area, blowing out torches, causing ranged weapon attacks to suffer Disadvantage, and turning everything into Difficult Terrain for every creature except Strahd (even his minions are affected). In the *Dungeons and Catacombs*, shadows flicker and slither at the edge of peripheral vision for all living creatures. Such creatures must make Intelligence saves DC 17 or Strahd and his allies gain Advantage on attacks against them until the next Lair Action; a successful save renders a creature immune for one minute. I also did one for each of the other sections (a one-round wall of shadow for the Court, and screams that cause disadvantage to attacks and ability checks, but successful saves also immunize for one minute), but I figured this was enough to show the breadth of the concept. :) In all the unique Lair Action cases, once one has been used, I roll 1d4 at the beginning of the next Lair Action (adding a cumulative +1 for each additional round after), and the unique action can be used again when a total of 6 or more is rolled. None of them are crazy overpowered, but this way the PCs can have a little breathing room since all of them are essentially the very castle's own evil working against them to a degree. And yes, I gave Strahd Battle Master abilities specifically for _Commander's Strike_ and _Know Your Enemy_ since it makes sense considering his background as a commander of soldiers; he also got _Disarming Strike_, _Evasive Footwork_, _Menacing Strike_, and _Riposte_ to round him out. Obviously, he only uses them if he's collected enough to fight as a soldier. If the PCs do anything to get him angry, he'd devolve to what he truly is: a monster.

Aninteresting setting for dragon-lovers is the 2nd edition Council of Wyrms boxed set. All dragons all the time.

Where are those giant figures on the shelf behind Pruitt from? Those are 10x bigger than any D&D mini and they would make a good titan/primordial/etc.

I literally thought this was Liars and Liar actions, discussing deception moves as well as possible in-party lying which can lead to good and bad moments in a game, until Pruitt dropped the punchline and now i feel like an idiot but also jipped cuz id like to see an episode discussing deception in D&D lol

Those thumbnails. They get me. Every time. How about an episode for the Top 10 Web DM thumbnails... voted on by the viewers???