I always say, "The most deadly foe in any encounter is the enemy's action economy." And by "always say" I mean that I think it on the drive home alone after the game and forget it by the next session.

As a DM, the biggest mistake I see, with newcomers in particular, is falling into the mindset that damage is everything, and underestimating the power of battlefield control abilities and spells.

How epic that even in a video like this, on this subject, BARDIC INSPIRATION is forgotten.

Don't forget about the Help and Dodge actions. In some situations they can be better than attacking or casting a spell.

I played 4E with a very Tactical-minded group and we actually worked out a code our characters would use in combat to communicate target priorities and other actions so the enemy couldn't understand what we were saying.

Biggest mistake I've ever seen: Assuming every encounter must be a battle to the death. I have DMed exactly one TPK, and it was an encounter that wasn't balanced for combat, because it was intended to be a friendly encounter. There were indications that they were potentially friendly, which the players ignored. (Example: The creatures tried to communicate before attacking, although there was a language barrier. The players ignored the communication attempt and launched the first blow.) Up until the last blow, the players could have surrendered, thus avoiding the TPK, but the thought never occurred to them, even when it became obvious that the encounter was unwinnable.

I think the biggest mistake you can do in dnd is not bring your dm a candy bar, so then he's nice that day.

I've found that if you always ask about things in the environment eventually the DM will get better at putting them in before combat happens, if for no other reason that it makes it easier to say no to the request that there is something that gives you a huge advantage.

I think one thing you missed is keeping your place in the initiative order in mind. If you push a creature prone with a shove and its their turn next, they are just going to stand up. Any benefit from being prone is lost immediately. But if their turn is right before yours they are going to spend the whole round lying prone and receiving a bunch of attacks at advantage.

The biggest mistake I see is players, upon falling to low hp, spending their turn fleeing and healing with whatever they have- spells, items. Theoretically a sound response, but this is 5e, and the healing is usually less than one round of attacks from an enemy. It does not save them, and that action could have been used to down an enemy and reduce the incoming damage.

I have straight up had a person leave a group because we weren’t efficient in combat because we didn’t “focus fire.” Unless there’s an obvious boss, we were kinda all over the place and hitting what was hitting us. It felt really chaotic but true in a way that was really fun. The funny thing is, after he left, it felt like we tightened up a lot. We started understanding each other’s abilities and thinking beyond the immediate threat. I look back fondly on those first encounters because it felt like genuine character development both on and above board.

Regarding Target Priority: Old Shadowrun Adage is "Geek the Mage." Casters get priority in targeting because they are a force multiplier. They can drop a lot of damage on multiple targets that is hard to mitigate. Getting them off the field is always a priority.

"Check in with your meatshields and ask them if they are okay being fireballed." -The Dungeon Dude

One thing I would add, on the subject of prioritizing who to focus on, sometimes you might NOT want to focus on the biggest guy right away. If the big thing is doing a lot of damage but also has a lot of hit points, you could all be focusing on him while a there are still other enemies hurting you too. You might be able to pick off some of them first, and then you're dealing with less damage coming at you. It's all really situational.

I think the hardest one for me is forgetting my own abilities. We rotate through several campaigns with totally different characters, and every game session I realize towards the end of the game session that I had an ability that would have been incredibly useful, but I never used it.

12:08 this is something I love with my fighter with a rogue dip. Run in, so a butt tonof damage to one enemy and draw all the minions to me. As my spellcaster going before me in initiative, you can go ahead and ready your action for that fireball. Because My very next turn is going to be to throw a couple more attacks and then disengage as a bonus action and book it out of the AOE

Biggest life-threatening mistake I ever made was undervaluing the importance of the dodge/ disengage actions and foregoing damage dealing when you’re surrounded and up a creek 😂

Knowing is half the battle. The other half is extreme violence 👍

I think forgetting options, especially for new players, is a function of how the player sheets are organized. I think skills should be at the end of the sheet, cause the DM is going to ask for those rolls anyway. Put a section for actions at the top. Start with universal action like dodge, hide, dash, etc. Then have custom areas for class, race, and feats. Put the things the player is most likely to forget front and center. And I have been toying with the idea of consumable bandoliers. Have an accessible storage item for potions or scrolls, that the players could prep in advance. I think it's kind of immersive and it could encourage players to move some of their consumables to the front of their mind. Plus if there is a limit on what they can make reasonably accessible, you can give potions and scrolls more freely with less of a worry that they will down them all in one fight

12:00 I can definitely relate. Also this for me is the perfect counter argument for all DMs who demand that when your turn starts you have have your actions planned so it doesn't slow down the game. When both your allies and the enemies do their thing on their turns, you need to rethink it every time the situation changes and sometimes you need to completly change your plans last second. Yes, you need to think about what you want to do, but NO, you don't have to have a perfect plan of action as if it's a turn-based rpg.

Shorter section 5-7: You gotta know when to hold 'em Know when to fold 'em Know when to walk away And know when to run... :) Also: Knowing is half the battle. the other half of the battle is 40% superior firepower, and 10% cool nicknames. :)

One game I was in, the party liked to "bait" the enemy hordes by sending the monk or rogue straight into the middle of them then having the wizard drop a fireball on top of them. Thanks to evasion ( and good rolls) they almost never suffered damage.

Honestly, AoE positioning is why I really love the evoker wizard and think it's underrated. I play a wizard in a very chaotic group and everyone is in melee all the time, but I don't let that bother me. I especially love putting down Sickening Radiance and carving my friends out.

Solid video. Another mistake I see at the table is forgetting to take into account other turns when planning ahead, and having a backup plan. Kind of the reverse of the Spoiling AoE positioning, players will make a plan, be ready to implement it, and then the person before them moves in an unexpected direction or blocks a certain spot and "all is lost" and they don't have a backup plan.

Just saying, if you have Mage Armor, that should be a spell you cast at the BEGINNING of the day. And if you can cast it at will, cast it at least three times a day.

I have one for AOE Positioning and Environment. It’s situational awareness. I missed my last session and another player played my character. What happened was that my character got surrounded by cultist while protecting a caravan and he decided to thunder wave. (I’m an Artificer) And he was not aware of the cart full of innocent civilians in the path of the thunder wave. So my character became a murder hobo without me.

Don’t forget the biggest tactical advantage you can get. Simply bribe the DM

I often forget about my feats and abilities, especially those I took at early levels. For example, I have a Paladin with heavy armor mastery, and it was not until level 12 that I started using the damage reduction (which by then did not mean much). Another easy-to-forget thing is using the Bardic Inspiration my teammate gave me.

11. Don't ignore opportunities to use cover.

One very important addition I'd like to make is that tactics are a group responsibility. As Kelly mentioned, if someone is targeting the "wrong" enemy, it is often better to focus fire on that enemy, than to split damage - but there's more to it. Even if you're not the cause of a problem, you can often still contribute to solving it. - If you're a sorcerer pick up Careful Spell. This will make your control party-agnostic. For every control caster that has access to it: pick up Slow. Druids and clerics have the most OP party agnostic spells in Conjure Animals and Spirit Guardians that can exert a ton of control also. You can't expect your martials to always be playing tiefling devotion paladins. - If you've got a very SR reliant party with monks and warlocks, something like Dreams Druid or Genie Warlock, or Tiny Hut, all help making a SR safer. - Adjust your resource pool. If you've got 2 monks in your party, that hexblade 1 dip (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry) will get any character a 1/SR Shield spell. Anyone loves action surge and War Cleric is amazing for power attack builds. If you're that monk in a party full of full casters, consider playing a rogue instead. Many DM's will let you flavour a shortsword like a tabaxi claw swipe, and you can flavour a sneak attack as a series of blows. Just ask about it. - If you're a melee martial, pick up ranged options. Carry a bow if you didn't dump DEX. Grab Toll the Dead from Blessed Warrior or Magic Stone from Druidic Warrior otherwise. Many enemies need to be in melee, and if you can spend your action on a suboptimal attack while they need to spend theirs on a dash: you win. Not to even mention the positioning advantage. But most of all; talk to your group. Plan stuff out in a session 0. Ask people what they wanna play as, strategise around, etc. Building a team together is incredibly rewarding - and can make for great story moments too.

1v1ing is hilarious to me as a DM. My monsters will absolutely use focus fire on the party, typically as soon as the healer reveals themselves. BUT, if the party will 1v1 the bad guys? OH I will leave that play running as long as the party is willing. My other favorite error is when players blow their entire resource wad on the session's opening encounter. "You swing mightily, but this goblin is a shifty one. It slides to the left ever so slightly and avoids your attack." "I use a lucky." "On a to hit roll? On a goblin?" "Yes" "OK? Go ahead and mark the lucky off....." "Dang, a 1! OK lets use another lucky." "...... Mark it off?"

For target priority, you can use a colour change or rooting spell to identify a target, message spell to tell others who to target, or follow the leader or crowd who engages first and when there decide together while fighting who the next target is.

Another big one in my experience is not unnecessarily closing with enemies, especially if they’re in some kind of control effect. So many enemies only have melee attacks that sometimes keeping distance is the best move, even on a melee character. The number of times I’ve put a melee enemy in a web, or frightened them, or hit them with a mind whip, effectively removing them as a threat until they can break out, only for the barbarian or fighter to run up to them and make themselves an available target.

The upcoming game from MCDM seems like it might be solving some of the issues with players sequencing their actions during a turn; with players getting to chose who goes next on the fly. They look to be coming up with mechanisms to avoid players hoarding their resources and not getting to use their big, impressive, limited-use abilities. The Dusk Wardens and Drakken Force continuingly forgetting their useful loot is one of the many funny running gags in the series.

Rune Knight with Shield Master is one of my favorite builds for abusing the environment. Bonus Action push with a shield and advantage for being a size larger (against most creatures) makes being next to ledges and traps such a fun time.

9:47 Leaders/controllers can also be a priority, as taking them out can also defeat other enemies. After all, you don't need to kill all your enemies, just get them to stop attacking (keeping in mind potential future conflicts).

Ive been running a campaign for a few months now with many newer characters. A huge thing I see is a lack of coordinating their attacks. But the most memorable fight was when the enemy was immune to all damage and spread poison debuffs that duffered depending on the enemy. The party had to collect some antidotes and mix together a potion in order to stop the source. My rogue (who never takes any damage whatsoever because of uncanny dodge) was taking 8d6 per turn and had half speed. If a party member hadnt helped him out he wouldve absolutely been a goner. Not only that but they were passing ingredients around between themselves and the cleric was using greater restoration. As a DM there is nothing more satisfying and amazing to watch than a party who is working together and crushing a combat encounter you place before them.

Funnily enough, while I did recently play a typical Greatsword fighter, i always carried Caltrops and tanglefoot bags to help direct the flow of combat in our favor if necessary. They were not always used, but during one engagement the party was huddled in a bottleneck and to heavily delay the enemy, i had a large glass bottle filled with lamp oil and caltrops. I flung the bottle into the doorway and chucked a torch to light it on fire. The ambush that was planned for us was stoppwd dead in its tracks, because if they had gotten too close they would have ignited, moved half speed, and then had to either use an action to power through, at which point they cant act because their turn is over, or they hung back and were picked off by our ranged attacks and egregious use of caltrops. I should add we were securing a lesser artifact and needed to buy time to escape.

Knowing the rest of the party's abilities is also super helpful. Not just for staying out of their AOE, but also for thinking of ways that you can use your abilities together in ways that multiply their effectiveness. An idea like holding a turn until later in initiative to let a comrade tee up some extra damage, like a rogue laying down some grease before your wizard throws that fireball, is also something that a group can RP around the campfire between battles. It's not metagaming if you & your party come up with combo moves in game, it's teamwork. Also, if you can come up with names for the combos, you can call them out on the battlefield without enemies knowing what to expect.

One thing about AOE issues that isn't often brought up is using verticality. It's not super useful for smaller foes (curse you swarms of little minions!) but if your foes are a size larger than your allies who got in too close to them, asking the DM if you can place the center of your AOE spell 'higher' to only scorch the enemies heads is a pretty handy trick to keep in mind. Made my tebaxi cleric/wizard much scarier with fireball usage than she had any right being with all her allies being the 'runs in without thinking' types~ XD Often times my biggest issue in combat though is that sometimes I forget what passive abilities my enemies might have. Probably the funniest moment of this was when I had my Tebaxi cleric/wizard try to Shocking Grasp a Phoenix... At the time I blamed it on 'bird got too close to cat and cat's brain went out the window in her need to catch it' (it was very on brand for her honestly; being a 'former heroic caster who keeps forgetting she's nowhere near as OP as she used to be' and 'mad scientist who loves to try new things out while actively under in combat' only kept out of 'actively a risk to herself' range due to not wanting her infant child to be an orphan leads to a lot of fun stupid) but like, you'd think the bird being made of LITERAL FIRE would've been something of a deterrent~ XDDD

Loving Kelly's AFI hoodie. Used to be my favorite band, I still like them. great music. another amazing video, glad to see you two on my recommended again!

In a D&D game year ago, I was the tank of the party, using a literal tank. The cannon had a cool-down period which actually made the tank more effective. Rather than sit in one spot and shoot at enemies the entire encounter, the cool-down forced the tank to move between attacks. The tank would zip across the map to find new angle to attack the enemy, using the cannon's line-of-effect attack to hit three or four targets at once.

Another great video, Dudes! Saw you at PAX w/ Ginny Di! Keep up the excellent work!

I have issues with the concept of focus fire. When you watch the Avengers, every avenger takes on their own Ultron bot. When you watch an anime about pirates, each crew member squares up against an opponent on the enemy crew. The phrase “you take the one in the left, I’ll take the one in the right” just feels good to say. Yes, it’s not as tactical, but this is a fantasy game about cooperative story telling. And sometimes, the fantasy is for each member of your 4 party team to take on their own ogre

you guys make great videos keep it up been watching for three or four years now excellent stuff 😊

One great thing about lists like this is as DM... these tactical mistakes are like a list of things to do to prevent a TPK if it looks like the players are doing unexpectedly poorly in the fight.

My biggest bugbear as a spell caster is that the party never scout out opposition first. So I cannot select the most effective spells for the situation and have to stick a standard all purpose selection as they just charge headlong into every situation.

Good video! Would love one of these for DMs as well.

Thank you for including a summary at the end. This is the number 1 mistake KZfaq list-makers constantly make. I want to watch your video once. But I don't want to have to watch the whole thing again and again to find the key information!

This is so good and I’ve got a few house rules that allow tactics to be better incorporated into battle such called ‘knowledge of the opponent’ (a way for any class to use their bonus action to use skills to know a variety of information about their opponents w/ a DC check) and a pre-initiative ‘strategy’ turn’ to discuss tactics (timed) and even to use a bonus action to assess how difficult this encounter may be (CR). One thing I find missing from many groups is the power of a leader in encounters (one mind) so I’m coming up with an idea of how to incentivize the idea akin to how a battle master’s abilities but it’s still a WIP

A big mistake I often see happen is one player crossing the battlefield to meet the enemy where the rest of the party can't follow. In a game where I was a player, a barbarian with winged boots kept engaging enemies in the air, way out of range of the rest of the party, and the player didn't understand why they were the ONLY one getting targeted. In a session I recently GMed, the Monk ran up the wall to meet the bad guy, who was a Salamander with a grapple/restrain on a hit; the rest of the party had to use the paths encircling the room and wouldn't have made it up in time to save her, except that the Druid had Spider Climb active and managed to knock the Salamander back/break the grapple with a spell.

I know this advice was mostly for the players but as a DM for so long I realized I haven't really been using the environment for my enemies' best opportunities as well. Thanks, guys, for going over this love almost every video you do.

Omg the “strength of the grave” had me dead 😂

8:20 How is "Hey guys we should be taking the spellcaster out first" metagaming? It's something that could easily be shouted in combat ("Get the wizard!"). If you are worried about the enemies hearing you, it could even be a code ("Plan Alfa!" or "Remember that battle under Negron's Keep? Same thing!"). Plus, we have to assume that our party has had hours and hours of "off camera" time while resting or traveling. Surely they would discuss tactics and strategies? What do we do if faced with a caster supported by a lot of minions? What do if the caster has a big strong bodyguard like a fire giant? What if the caster is a healer vs a nuker vs a charmer? Who buffs and who attacks and who controls? Talking about that in the battle seems perfectly reasonable to me. Edit: I see Monty addressed this a few minutes later.

Another time for me was playing my paladin defensively for a Level 4 siege adventure. Focusing on this support playstyle had me being on high alert the whole time, paying attention to positioning and turn order, which is tiring but rewarding! She did not attack/smite once in that siege, and instead prioritized concentrating on Bless and using the Help Action to benefit our party's rogue and monk. She also made sure to be within 5ft. of as many party members as possible for the Interception fighting style. Reduced damage per turn was invaluable in the battle of attrition.

looking forward to the dm mistakes vid :D

Those glasses look great! You guys both look really sharp.

Awesome video. As a DM I often am guilty of forgetting some of the monster/bad guy's abilities

My biggest problem is trying to not be overly conservative. VERY simple example - I use my Action Surge and then later in the battle a situation comes up where I wish I would have waited because I sure need it now. Then next encounter you hold off on using it until the right time and then a party member rolls both a Nat 20 and Max damage to finish off that last troublesome monster and then you're cussing at yourself for not using it sooner. Got to love the "Damned if you do - Damned if you don't" situation. I'm 73 and play every week with my son and his friends and this type of situation happens all too often for me. ROFL

Starting the vid, but one of the things I saw in your campaign and in mine is "don't fly if you're low on HP. If you go down to 0, you're giving yourself a free failed death save when you fall down" lol. A player of mine lost a character in this way, because she fell right next to the monster and it still had their second attack. The hit gave her another 2 fails to her death saves and she died right there

Love the channel ❤️

Another one to remember and it falls under Target Prioritization: sometimes taking out the highest damage dealing enemy first is best, sometimes taking out the enemy arcane caster who is preparing a nasty spell first is best, but all of that is for naught if the enemy has a healer who can pop back up the target you just dropped. Often, taking out the enemy healer is the best thing to do first. I didn't hear that mentioned during the segment on target prioritization but it is important to remember.

Favorite tactical Mistake - Don’t get tunnel vision. In one campaign, we were being attacked Helmsdeep Style and we were holding the line and I had everyone that could move Helping man the wall, even my Drow ward was going to town tossing my Javlins as I was shooting at the mass of enemies trying to get to and up the Wall. We had barely beaten them back off the wall when the DM rolled to see if I noticed that mayor of the town had opened the door and the horde was coming in the side gate! The DM said, hey you are so good at tactics, how did you not protect your back? I had tunnel vision and was looking at what was in front and not using my people resources well. He had expected me to have the Drow girl and her very good dark vision keeping an eye on our back and not tossing Javelins but I had gotten so focused on holding the wall that I had no one in reserve or watching out behind where we could not see (Drow girl was a actual girl fyi but she can see things around the corner)

Solid list that I've either made myself or have seen made. I'm probably most guilty of being conservative with spells, I always have the mindset that no matter what we're fighting right now, there could be something far worse in the room next door. Also I guess I'm very guilty of meta-gaming because I'm often discussing who we should target and throwing out ideas on how to proceed. My thinking is 4-6 actual combatants in a party would definitely be doing that so I think it's ok?

I like the new Intro. Very smooth.

Thinking of this in a more positive light (Do's instead of Don't's), I've edited this list for myself thus: 1 - Communicate and strategize with other players 2 - Establish target priority and focus attacks 3 - Respect area of effect targeting 4 - Buff before combat 5 - Balance use of resources and conservation of resources 6 - Take advantage of abilities, feats, class features 7 - Remember magic items, potions, consumables 8 - Take advantage of the environment

"I blame Joe on that one" -The most forgetful "luckiest" rogue. 😂 Haha love you guys.

Loved seeing you guys at PAX!

Nice AFI hoodie!! My pal plays guitar for that band… and we used to have all night D&D seshs!!

Aid and Mage Armor are those spells you just cast at the start of the day

I have a few key principles that address most of these, though admittedly they're more about build optimization (aka strategy) to enable good tactics than being good tactics in and of themselves. 1. Play a caster. Casters unilaterally have more resources to throw at problems (even at level 1), and are the only classes to ever get class features stronger than 4th level spells. Spend those resources in combat rather than spending HP. 1a. In general, your highest level spells should go toward your encounter-winning concentration spells, and your lowest level slots toward defensive reactions like Shield, Absorb Elements, and Silvery Barbs. Your mid-level slots, when your budget frees up, are for useful utility effects and non-concentration spells to replace your cantrips. 1b: If your enemy might have Legendary Resistance (which can start happening at way lower levels than you might think, especially if your tactics are good enough to trivialize level-appropriate CR encounters), don't allow your enemies to make saves. Targeting ability checks or AC, or casting buffs, or summoning minions, or using spells like Sleet Storm or Spirit Guardians that have a useful effect regardless of whether a save succeeds or fails, is a far better and more reliable use of resources than trying to burn through LRs (especially in that it will affect the enemy right now instead of in a few rounds). 1c. Blasting spells have really bad damage scaling, and instantaneous effects are generally a really inefficient use of spell slots. That's not to say Fireball and Synaptic Static aren't good spells that are very efficient against hordes of mooks, just that you're going to want to use them very sparingly until high levels when you have more spell slots than you know what to do with and are in need of a stronger action than Dodge or your cantrip of choice. 2. Stay out of melee. Attacking from range pretty much guarantees you don't spoil AoEs, prevents loss of HP (and spell slots used to recover it) thanks to cover and most enemies being melee only, reduces the number of rounds spent not attacking as you move between enemies (ie you'll deal more damage), and makes it far, far easier to focus fire. While it's not *quite* accurate to say melee is unilaterally a trap in 5e, the exceptions are rare enough to be far outside the scope of this margin (no, not even Paladin smites are worth the danger of melee, especially not when Aura of Protection could instead be used to protect the other casters' concentration on the backline). 2a. This isn't to say having a front line isn't extremely useful. It's just that there's zero good reason to risk a valuable PC in the role when disposable (and generally more effective) frontlines like Web, Sleet Storm, Conjure Animals, the Steel Defender, Animate Dead, and hired/Dominated goons exist. 3. Invest heavily in defence. 5e makes it very cheap and easy (especially for spellcasters, who generally only need a 1-2 level dip and a couple of feats to far exceed what's possible as a non-caster), good AC and saves will save you a lot of resources in the long run (that you can in turn use to deal more damage), and protecting concentration is of paramount importance. While it remains true that the best defence is a good offence (the best condition is dead, and other aphorisms about action denial), in 5e the best offence is frequently a good defence (due to how offensively impactful protecting concentration usually is).

In my LMoP game, the PCs were in Wave Echo Cave and when dealing with Bugbears, the front liner was down and doing death saves. Two characters wanted to end it with AOE attacks and the downed player was fine, cause it would leave him with one throw to spare. Not only did the two attacks not end the conflict but the ranger, whose turn was last, forgot she had prepped hail of thorns, which never triggered for lack of hits. So she forgot, I remembered, and I told her to roll the extra die, which freaked everyone out as their forgetfulness lead to killing a teammate.

My fighter went first on initiative while my party was in a tight hallway with an ongoing trap effect that nullified magic of spellcasters. We knew the switch to deactivate the trap was in the next room, so instead of attacking the monsters that appeared, my character dashed to the end of the hallway then used action surge to deactivate the trap. It was really helpful for the casters in my party and it let them use their crowd control AOE spells, which then ended the fight quickly.

I would love advice on how to deal with players that front take combat seriously. I warned my party that a head on assault against this target would likely be deadly. They did exactly that, but then got indignant when someone actually died. They even got downed, brought back up, and the bbeg warned they would put them down for good, and they didn't flee. After which they killed the fighter.

As a DM I allow some out of combat talk as I find it does help speed up play plus if it was RL the party would be more effective as a team in combat.

Thanks for this. I love it!

Love your content, thanks!!

At 15:50 Had a variant Human barbarian with Shield Mastery in DDAL. When introducing my character I would always tell the casters that I hald Shield Mastery and that if they dropped dex-based AOEs that they could aim for my shield. We never had any problems. But yeah, the Clerics sometimes complained...

Yooooooooo, that AFI hoodie! Black Sails in the Sunset is still my favorite album from that band.

I just TPKd my players last session due to bad tactics and worse rolls. I hope this video will help them prevent another disaster 😅

Great hoodie Kelly!

At higher levels for me, it’s remembering casting times. I’m so used to 1 action spells that I forget some more powerful, yet really useful situational spells come with a loading time. It’s like, “I finally get to use magic circle!”, but oh yeah, it’s designed for defending a place ahead of time, not combats.

In my most recent game (lvl 13 in a 5e wrath of the righteous conversion) me cleric and the ranger we trapped in a prismatic wall, and we were racking our brains on how to get out and ranger had the best cartoon idea, he conjured a bunch of giant badgers and they dug a tunnel for us to get out, most of our party was getting beat to hell by a couple of pit fiends and a devil general, I held my turn till after the badgers so I could get out and heal my team that had two ppl already unconscious so with my magic robes that let's me do some sorcerer meta magics so I twin upcasted heal for 80 hp to each of my downned teammates and this combo from me and ranger turned the whole fight around and we rallied and won the day loosing no one... :)

I would love to see a video on making an engaging environment for your encounters. I think one of the things that gets really under-utilized that is environment related is the use of cover.

There was a campaign that i was always forgetting favored by the gods it was insane i always remembered the turn after it mattered

Love the AFI sweater, they were awesome in concert 😁👍.

My husband's first character was a variant human rogue who had the telepathic feat ftom level 1, and *completely* forgot about it until we were in our 2nd or 3rd campaign with that group of characters. The rest of us hadn't looked at his character sheet (Apart from our DM, we were all brand new to D&D) so one day, (after the DM reminded him) he jumpscared the party with sudden telepathy. Our half-orc barbarian still doesn't know that our rogue is the voice he sometimes hears in his head. 😂

This ties into several of the points regarding resource usage, target priority, and forgetting features, but another big mistake a lot of players make is *misusing* resources. The meme examples are the Wizard that casts Fireball at single targets or Paladins that only ever use their spell slots for Divine Smite, but misusing resources can take several forms. For example, consider a Wizard, Sorcerer, or Warlock that gets hit by an attack. If the attack is coming from a single minion, and the player is in good enough shape that they aren't going to be dropped by it, blowing their reaction casting Shield can be a massive mistake if the Lich's turn is coming up next and they're likely going to be casting a devastating spell. Or if you are a heavily armored Fighter or Paladin, taking the Dodge action while blocking a hallway can actually be a more efficient use of your action than attacking if it gives the casters room to use their resources on their big control or damage spells instead of needing to use them on mitigation or healing. Or if you are a character capable of healing, your front liner is low on health, and some big scary enemy that's not about to die is going to go next, it can be better to heal the front liner to ensure they survive the next attack rather than having them get knocked out, since that would result in them missing their next turn and *also* use up your next turn healing them to bring them back up. A good question to keep in mind as a player is how using your resources can help the rest of the team better use their resources. If you can use a minor resource to enable another player to maximize the effectiveness of one of their major resources, or even not need to use their major resources, that's usually a pretty good return on your investment.

At my table I have a frenzy barbarian who uses his frenzies in the first two encounters of every single adventure day and then complains about being totally useless because of the exorbitant levels of exhaustion he’s carting around because he wanted to get that extra attack against stuff that has half the points he has. And if I have extra monsters because they had to take a long rest, and the monsters had chance to regroup, or if I don’t give them a chance to take a long rest because they’re in a large dungeon with a lot of other things that aren’t gonna wait eight hours for them to have all the abilities again, suddenly I’m a bad DM and I’m not letting him play the game he wants to play.

Loving those red frames! Always lookin fine!

That AFI hoodie is amazing!

I had a game VERY recently where two of the biggest damage dealers in the party (the Fighter Cavalier and the Rogue Thief) were wasting their attacks on two "enemies" that had no interest in joining the fight (until they were attacked...before that they were simply maintaining the library the party was in) while letting the Twilight Cleric, the Gloom Stalker Ranger, and the Paladin/Warlock take on the ACTUAL enemy by themselves (and it was moping the floor with them). The party managed to survive...just...but the Cleric, Ranger, and Paladin were all down to about 1/4 hp with no spells/resources left while the Fighter and Rogue were nearly unscathed and had full resources. If the two non-enemies' had been ignored, nothing negative would have happened. If all of the party had ganged up on the actual enemy, they would have likely dropped it in no time whatsoever. Like the guys said: Pick your target(s) tactically, concentrate fire on them, then move on to the next threat. Action economy is king, and disrupting it is the way to win encounters. (I can see a good tactic where a tank with Misty Step as a racial feature rushes in, draws all the melee attackers to it, then on their next action attacks then bonus teleports 30' away as the Wizard/Sorcerer drops the 20' radius fireball on the group of foes left behind. 😈)

My first character is a warforged necromancy wizard i had just picked up the spell MELF'S MINUTE METEORS (meteors that swirl around you, and as a BA can send 1-2 flying in a 120ft line then explode on impact dealing damage to everyone in a 5ft AOE) I had this spell up and kept trying to get an enemy that was away from any friendly but one monk in particular would not give me the space for my spell so i finally just kicked a couple at an enemy hitting the monk in the process. The characters then had a talk once the combat had ended. Got some things cleared up between them and they have been good since.

For much of our campaign, I played a Tiefling Cleric, and she was the most heavily armored, and so the most capable taking a beating. Our other PCs were a Wizard, Bard, and a Monk. So I would often be the one trying to draw the most targets onto me, and it took quite a few encounters before I convinced the Wizard player (who happened to be my son), that he could hit me with AOEs.. Tiefling fire resistance, and also electricity resistance, so I would try to group enemies in optimal fireball or lightning bolt formations... And since as a Life Cleric, she had healing abilities that would heal her when she healed others, as well as the channel divinity heal.. so yeah, taking some damage in return for taking some enemies out was almost always worth it.

Greatest moment in a dnd campaign about forgetting how abilities work. We had a cleric that did not heal (warlock lying down making survival checks), did not use turn undead (quite desperate moment) and than used Sanctuary on our raging Barbarian - next in iniative order. Hell, that was a mess

Telekinetic Feat not for moving the enemy, but to push willing allies out of immediate danger or incoming danger. In theory you can grapple and pull back an ally, but that is an Athletics contest that can't be auto-failed.

I know that conventional wisdom is the Oath of Vengeance is the best Paladin subclass, but I really felt like Oath of Enmity was almost a waste. I played from level 1 to level 12 and I used it....maybe 6 or 7 times. We didn't have that many really crucial combats with an enemy I couldn't just beat down normally. I did use it on boss encounters, but otherwise I really felt like my oath was a waste. Channel Divinity more to regain spellslots for extra smites WAY more than I ever did for Oath of Enmity.

Just started the video, but I wanted to mention. I'm strait, but you gentlemen are looking good. Alright, back to DnD.

*TEAMWORK.* Best. Advice. Ever. Thanx, guys!

Note that "fireball your fighter" is a real life tactic. One of the ways tanks deal with enemy infantry too close to or on top of another friendly tank is to spray machinegun fire into the friendly tank. It might damage a sensor or something but it will certainly get enemy infantry off the tank.