I can't be the only one who would actually love to see the Mystara license in Mr Welch's hands, anybody got a sturdy crowbar to pry it out of WOTC/Hasbro's Cryptkeeper-esque Claws?

I once played a Magus from Pathfinder 1st edition where I decided to get into resource management between gold, gems, and monster parts, as one of the main spells I used required me to have a piece of that specific monster in order to turn into it. The DM even gave me a go-ahead to just say I already had the parts in the component pouch, but I was adamant to stick to that particular requirement as it meant I had to go hunting for that monster or hire someone else to do it form me and I might of ended up getting some NPC hunters into the stomach of a troll or two. Heck, spellbook management was rather fun as well. The look of shock on my DMs face when I told him I was buying another spellbook as I had to tell him the waterproof travelers spellbook I had had less room than a standard one even telling him just how many pages each spell was actually taking in one book and when that campaign ended the second book was near full as well.

10:37 my father is a Vietnam veteran, and he stayed in the National Guard after the war... When I was a kid we went to a military wax museum, don't remember where... A bunch of the wax figures head on dress uniforms... And my dad is going from statue to statue going like yeah those medals are right those medals are right those medals are wrong.. and the wax mannequin for General Eisenhower had the medals in the wrong order 🙂. That was probably 35 years ago and I still remember it.

"You will casually pick up clues as you walk by like they were quarters on the floor because of the passive perception rules." this is easily the most misunderstood rule in 5e. Rules as written, the only thing passive perception actually does is provide a DC for opposing stealth checks. It's even given counter-examples advocating that players should have to actually look somewhere to see something

PSA: Leomund's Tiny Hut can be dispelled. I played in a game where the players are taking part in a war to retake a city from goblins & orcs, but we had another problem to deal with: a former PC, now NPC, was turned into a vampire. Said vampire wanted his old friends to join him in undeath, and the master vampire that turned him seemed to agree. During one play session, we had just reclaimed part of the city from the orcs & 'blins only to realize the sun was getting low. My wizard character had Leomund's Tiny Hut so I cast it & figured we'd be safe. When night fell, we got a nasty surprise when the vampires came around & one of them cast dispel magic on the hut. We only barely survived because we had a paladin in the group & my character had one of the two wizard spells that deal radiant damage. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to counter goodberry, it should just be a higher level spell. Just keep in mind that if the players can do it, the bad guys should be able to do it too.

Interesting ideas. I remember one of my first games in 4E, my best friend's Wizard used Tiny Hut all the time for us, and he had an invisible golem that could carry all the loot for us and run back and forth to town to tell it for us and bring back the gold (we rationalized it as the golem holding up a sign to the vendor when we realized a silent, invisible gopher might face some logistics problems). No worries there! My thoughts on fixing the Ranger (if your game needs harder survival rules) is to borrow from Jacob from XP to Level 3. Rule that the Ranger's "spells" aren't magic; they're just applications of the Ranger's wilderness and survival training. That means the Ranger isn't conjuring food with "Good Berry;" they're just doing a better job foraging or preparing rations. That means the DM can nerf it by saying the party is in a bad foraging location (say a desert or the arctic) and/or low on rations. Personally, I prefer that because it gives the DM a mental slider to use depending on the situation and it makes the Ranger cool without resorting to magic (to that I have problems with magical characters or magical subclasses for combat characters, but I do have to ask why EVERY Ranger has magic).

In the Post-OGL Scandal time-line, the only relevant TTRPG content is game design and lore. The secret sauce is making it relevant for tonight's game session. Mr. Welch delivers in spades ♠️

I think Forbidden Lands does resource management well for food, water and arrows. It's a resource die from D6 all the way up to D12 and if you roll a 1 or 2 you downgrade that resource die. No need to keep track of each individual ration or water.

Finding Winona Rider in your videos is a game for me now.

I remember that Twilight Zone episode. Turns out he wasn't in heaven or hell. He was on an aeroplane!

Blink Honey Badgers!?!? Oh yeah! THAT'S gonna' happen.

There's something better at running exploration than the ranger, the outlander background straight up negates the need to search for food and water (as long as you aren't in a straight up completely dead desert) and they don't even get lost as long as they have been to a place before

Yeah no kidding. Mr Welch, you are doing GOD'S WORK here...

"that should've been caught during playtest" incredibly generous of you to assume WotC playtest literally anything they release

I can't help but wonder sadly if 4th edition didn't pave the way for 5e's nerfing of exploration. Whilst there were no immediate anti-exploration spells like Tiny Hut in 4e to my admittedly somewhat shaky memories, it did give us such rituals as Traveler's Feast (creates enough food for a party of 5, but anything not eaten or drunk immediately disappears), Create Campsight (creates a campsight and tries to disguise it from outside view), Purify Water (self-explanatory) and Explorer's Fire (creates a campfire that can't be seen unless you're really close)...

Well, this was, again, a very interesting and realistic video. Whenever you fix something in D&D5e it is an obvious problem and a well-thought-out, useful solution. Good job! The thing that bugs me a bit is that quite often I know of other systems which already have those mechanics or limitations etc. This always makes me think of the foolishness of having system-specific settings. Stuff like Mystara is great and if it were more system-agnostic it would widen the customer base...

Gary Oldman is sooo underused its criminal, him and Jeremy Irons.

This are all really cool tip for a problem I never run into in my games. I basically play in a death world like setting where the world is trying to kill you all the time.

There is a downside to using a ranger to negate exploration difficulties: You have to take 5e ranger levels.

I can't wait for more, thanks Mr. Welch

I remember in 2nd and 3rd Edition, your character dying was par for the course. For instance in Tomb of Horrors you were pretty much guaranteed to have to make another character. Don't get too attached.

I'll keep this video in mind for next campaign! Thanks!

A useful video even when taken entirely out of the context of D&D. Well done.

Wizards may not thank you, but I do. I cccertainly do, a concise list of expressive factors that are required for a good experience shall be used. By the true darkness of All story masters we shall prevail !

Excellent advice Mr Welch

@Mr_Welch I got a kick out of the pompadour bear. Thanks! :D :D Also, good video on the subject. Q: Can the druid turn into a cow that you can milk for liquid refreshment as a water substitute in the desert?

I have a simple fix for passive perception. Treat it for what it is. Passive. It's like, passive perception lets you notice something but you have to make an active perception check to find it. Have you ever been actively searching for something but couldn't find it even when it was right on the coffee table? For some reason you had a mental blindspot and the item was all but invisible to you. When I DM, passive perception means alerting the player to something amiss in the environment. Something significant. After they know there is something to look for they have to roll perception actively to get a better idea of where it is. If they pass then I let then I make them roll investigation to actually find it. I also have them tell me where there looking and how they are searching for it.

One observation, when you mention that this should have been caught during play testing I paused that it did and that this was by design. I've seen more than a few articles and interviews where they seem to make it clear that they were trying to make it more of a collaborative storytelling effort, Allah critical role, than anything else

there's an easy solution to goodberry: a strict reading of the spell's RAW. the spell specifies that it can feed a creature for A DAY the RAI is that you can eat it every day for food, you just need to say screw RAI, this is my game, and you will starve with a full stomach eating goodberries.

Romans you go home!!! 14karat advice!!! enjoyed all the videos watch this far but this one really taught me some new ground

I’d love for you to make a video or 2 on running Mystara with Shadowdark. The system seems to be a good potential fit with the setting. Way better than 5e in my opinion

Bill Hicks outta nowhere! 😂

Where is that Ranger picture from. My god, I need that for a character.

Mr. Welch isn't allowed Bolt Cutters, even though the Blood Ravens steal every thing that isn't bolted down.

Okay, so *not* Twilight 2000.

Bit off topic but thought Id just drop this here given the numerous reference's in your list. Will you be reviewing the Transformers RPG from Renegade studios? Best regards

I'm stealing all of this.

@Mr. Welch, I'm curious if you think there's any way to house rule away the excesses and weird limitations of magic in DND5E, without switching gaming systems altogether? My preference is low magic settings, where wizards are rare and powerful, magic items are both rare and extremely powerful, and people can't just cast spells to solve every problem they have... but the counter to that is that spells like Hold Person or Stinking Cloud are nearly useless now in 5E, even while they've become more commonplace.

I would rule that your body can't sustain itself on Goodberries and magical water alone for more days than your CON modifier (minimum 1)

So my solution for making players actual track spell components without grinding minutia? The caster figures out the gold cost of all of their known spells in components. Then they take an index card or something and when the party is shopping before heading out on an adventure the caster "buys" however many casts worth of each spell they want in components. For basic stuff like "a stick" or "a small, round stone" you can safely ignore it, but say a bit of sulfur or a small piece of quartz? Maybe set the price as 1g per spell level or something like that. As they cast the spell they mark a use off, when they run out they have to assemble the components the old fashioned way by hand or go shopping again. It's bookkeeping, but power has a price....often in multiple installments. It's never much, but when the wizard realizes he's spending more gold overall on components than the fighter is on magic gear to even stay relevant, you're gonna see the party screaming for downtime to ply a trade and earn some grocery money.

Good Berry shouldn't include water, also should require bushes that make berrys.

1:20 -- I don't recognize this Winona Ryder role. A little help plz?

I only run 5e for my show becomes for a show it is streamlined. I have to find creative ways to make it challenging without bogging down. For my home games, I run 2e.

what about changing Goodberry to create only sustenance for 1 not 10, small gold amount and limit to only once per day or 1 days ration for 5 only cast able 1 once a week with gold cost. ., you have a 6 member party you are still rationing, the food will spoil if not taken care of or prepared properly, Just my thoughts.

I support payment by Mystara license!

woot

I have a player who's character has comprehend languages. Actually uses it to.

Why fix 5E? wotc doesn't want you in the hobby anymore according to their second in command. Honestly id say its time the community says good bye to wotc and rightly so.

So, with Passive Perception, I think something that a lot of people miss is that only part of the problem with a trap or hidden door is finding it. Just because you notice that trap door in the floor doesn't mean you've disarmed it so that you can pass over it safely. If they rig up some way to cross like a rope bridge, give it a 1:6 chance of failure or something. Just like finding a secret message is only the first part of uncovering the plot, the same is true of secret doors and traps. As for goodberry and all of that? Banned at my table since 3.5 days. I hate magical food, water, etc. Maybe I'll allow a magic item to do it, but not one they can buy, only find or make

I have a suggestion for the goodberry bit. It sustains the body, but your characters are still utterly miserable because there's nothing in their gut. They still feel the pain of starvation and hunger even though they're fed. Make sense? Then you can use that logic to apply penalties to the characters for just using Goodberry. Say... every day after the first of using Goodberry to eat you have to save a flat roll VS exhaustion as your mind and body are at war. The body is sustained, but it's telling the brain we're dying and the brain is going into OH SHIT mode.

Mr. Welch, do you believe that Mystara cannot be separated from D&D?

I wanna note that people keep misusing passive perception. As it's only meant to be used as a DC for other' to roll against, not a magical I win button. The game however does not make this clear enough.

I dont like 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons because its so easy and bare that it has to be Homebrewed to expand on every concept. Everyone will disagree on what should be changed? Im a powergamer and Its fun to solve problems so "No Challenges Equals No Satisfaction". Its boring how characters gets things so easy in 5e, sort of like being in a plastic/rubber ball pit. I learned to avoid going to any D&D5e groups because I upfront ask them to change things to be more like 1st-3rd edition. Give enemies stronger spells. Make spellcasters prepare individual spell slots. Raise the number of magic items and force players to manage them all.

But I don't like spam.

Ban Goodberry!

Geezer here... Yep, no real risk makes rewards meaningless. Exploration? The issues your talking about has always been around. The solution is truly simple in my experience. But then again, my experience for 5e is only a few dozen sessions. Hated every bit of it. No offense to anyone that cares for it. Exploration can be a great time. Evidently 5e has made it worthless. Gaming on.

Forget perception checks. Forget rolling. You describe the room or area, hopefully with a map or visual aid, and then let the players tell you what they want to investigate, and how. Whether or not someone finds a vital clue should never depend on a check. If a DM wants to use checks for everything, he should just roll up 4 or 5 characters, and play by himself. That's essentially what he's doing anyway.

I'm disappointed that you've chosen to support WoTC after everything. D&D doesn't need to be fixed, it needs to be abandoned, for all our sake.