aka, the DM who doesn't remember their characters abilities, or players who make powerful characters 2 electric booglaoo. ARORA: ghostfiregaming.com/XPT3_AR01... Merch, Discord, and everything else: linktr.ee/XPtoLevel3
The fact that the players immediately resort to “well this is impossible - we are all dead” as soon as they take a fraction of the damage that they can dish out is hilariously spot-on.
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 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 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 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)
@@alexmarkley4103Times like that are why I have three sets of dice. If one isn't playing nice, swap. If both the matching sets don't work, i call upon my emergency set
The worst part is, this is all really cool. The monk is using the full amount of his abilities to stun, aided by the wizard to force the roll to be low. This is an entire team effort, and it took all of their cunning and abilities to perfectly counter this boss. I'd be super okay with this encounter, because it took everything to make it function. This is also why stunning strike is so good for legendary action absorbing.
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.
@@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.
I love how the part that was the most upsetting to the player, that Rakshasa's are unaffected by lower level spells, was the one thing that Jacob didn't homebrew out of DM rage, that he specifically mentioned earlier in the combat and the player just forgot (which is completely accurate).
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.
Underrated sound design at 2:14. GM throws dice over his shoulder, and we still hear them clattering on the floor when Barbooizard is acting. Good continuity
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.
Party: "We did it! We killed the boss in one single round with all our spell slots!" DM: *quietly seething as he pulls out his emergency second phase sheet and starts playing Dark Souls music*
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
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
@@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
I love that. "Rakshasa's have legendary actions? "He can cast a spell with his Legendary Action?" "This one can!" I can add whatever I want to the stat block. This isn't just a Rakshasa. This is Nabu the Bloodspiller, and he can do this.
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.
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?
If my players were as inventive as these guys in this situation, I wouldn't care that they speed rushed the encounter. My joy comes from seeing how players use their skills and powers to get through the problems I throw at them.
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.
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."
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.
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
This is hilariously accurate. I have a simple gentleman's agreement at my table. It is always assumed players can do absurd shit, and you let them do it because that's what players do. In turn the players never question the design of my monsters, or presume that they always adhere to 5e monster design precedents.
"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
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.
I love that most of the abilities that the party used weren't even 10th level or higher abilities, but when used well backed up by higher level stats they add up to some very strong combinations.
Chad Maneuver Count to determine just how much of a chad Sir Chad is. 1. He went on the ceiling with the wizard. 2. He jumped down from the ceiling expecting to take damage. 3. He verified the Rakshasa was a foul demon before attacking. 4. He got the DM to forget the Rakshasa would be immune to the Branding Smite. 5. He knows exactly what he wanted to do on his turn. 6. He technically took as much time for his turn as the Monk but most of it was taken up by the DM trying to punish him and then not being able to because Sir Chad had all the facts. 7. He only conveyed necessary information like what actions he was taking and how much damage he did. 8. He chose to use Divine Smite before knowing he would hit. 9. He used Great Weapon Master on the hit with Divine Smite. 10. He immediately used his Guided Strike without hesitation. 11. He is clearly a Conquest Paladin which is of course the best Paladin. 12. He remembered that he would have advantage on the Stunned Rakshasa. 13. He rolled and calculated his damage in an instant. 14. He gave a +5 to the Monks Saving Throw. 15. He killed the Rakshasa as the rest of the party panicked over petty things like being charmed and taking damage. With 15 Chad points in the bag I would rate Sir Chad a Gigachad out of Chad.
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.
I really feel like the villain here was action economy. Which is why “boss” enemies have legendary actions, they need them to face off against parties 1v4
So... Rakshasa being immune to spells below a certain level... does this mean our Warlock is completely out of luck, because he put everything into perfecting his eldritch blast?
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.
Player > "I run at 450 mph." GM > "Your speed has caused so much friction with the air that you now have third degree burns and blisters on the entire front half of your body. You take 10d10 damage. And you're naked now."
2:09 Let's just appreciate the fact that when the DM throws his dice on the wall, you can hear them rolling on the floor on the next shot, Incredible...
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.
My first time running Curse of Strahd I didn't pay attention to the leveling of my characters and I had them meet Strahd before knowing who he was, but my murder-hobos just attacked him because he looked rich and just...killed him right there. I decided to just go with it, stitch Innistrad onto it because I thought it would be funny, and it ended up being one of the most fun campaigns I've ever had.
Really, based on my experience, I'm just surprised that the 10th level higher characters actually remember all of their abilities, usually people forget everything they have in their character 'packet' by this point
I love how nearly all effects shocased: Portent, cunning action, wildshape, rage, tabaxi sprint an even the smites are all obtained from under 5th level. They are some silly multiclass though.
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
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.
@@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.
As a DM running Tomb for a 10th level party, you can absolutely make encounters that decimate your players even when they're power gaming. I don't like making encounters my players can't win. My job is to give them interesting challenges that allow them to feel the myth and heroism of their characters
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 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.
This reminds me of a situation I got into in a campaign once. We were working for a god and had to ask a dragon turtle about some things (forgot the details). The DM said that the next battle would be either very hard or nigh impossible. If the dragon turtle took any damage, super powerful elementals would be summoned based on what was in the area. So, water, air, and i think earth, were guaranteed. However, fire was not, that is until some jerkwod NPC blew our boat up, thus making the fire elemental appear. The nigh impossible fight began, aaaaand. My bard used telekenesis to move the fire elemental into the water, instantly killing it as the party quickly finished off the rest.
As someone who's experienced an adversarial DM AND player once, my advice Build encounters that force the party to fight in a unique way An example: one party I'm in absolutely DEMOLISHES enemies. Just shreds them. No matter how much HP they might have, they rarely survive long. So our DM later had us fought a group of enemies with a special little ability Upon hitting a player, the enemy would form a circle under them. Any damage they take is then transferred to the player they hit originally. So we couldn't just rush the boss and use our big attacks, because we'd end up killing our friend. So our focus then became to get the boss out of the circle. Was legitimately nail biting and thrilling
In all honesty, if my players remembered all their spells/traits, fought cleverly and held information inside their heads for longer that 5 seconds, I'd be happy to give them the kill without so much as a scratch, even applaud. If players are having fun and feel proud of themselves for overcoming obstacles, that's not the DM losing, that's the DM doing a good job.
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..
@@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.
Final session of the campaign, we're fighting 18 of the hardest enemies we've met, Constructs made of adamantine called "peacemakers." Resistances and immunities across the board, weapons out the wazoo, and high ac, Hp, and damage. It was supposed to be a battle we ran away from... The wizard cast Dark Star... they were vulnerable to force damage... it was over in a round...
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 love dm'ing for higher level things. I just did a 1 shot of lvl 20 characters that was a blast. It lasted for 4 rounds in total but watching them having so much fun with the power of the demi-gods, so worth it
You have succinctly explained why I really despise higher level campaigns. There's this feeling of "well, instead of telling a story, I have to carefully strategize my opponents build to ensure that *any* of this is going to be the *slightest* bit challenging."
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.
I want to appreciate the writing of the skit because I so quickly went from rooting for the dm to have a fair battle to wanting the party to defeat the rakasha
@@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.
The best part of this is that the first turn is almost all possible at level 5, level 3 for everything but stunning strike (feather fall, portent, rage, Dhampir spiderclimb at lvl 3), and the way that the players feel like the monster is stupid and broken as soon as it actually gets a turn despite them still winning on the second turn
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 ^^
The Song at 4:55 is Called "The Eternal war" by Dream cave If you got that itch where you feel like you heard this before from somewhere it might be from the Rust RU-vidr Enardo its the song he plays when the Zerg is coming
The real mistake the DM made was thinking an unmodified lone rakshasa would be a boss fight for a party of level 11 PCs. It says right in their stat block that they're CR 13. DM should have just felt lucky the paladin didn't switch to a spear to capitalize on their vulnerability to piercing damage from good creatures. As is, it was a perfectly effective middle-difficulty encounter that made the party burn some limited resources to weaken them for the true end boss.
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
Uhm, actually (pun intended): Feather fall says that you can choose up to five "falling" creatures, as Chad wasn't falling at the moment of casting feather fall wouldn't work on him.
@@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.
Never have to worry about accidentally defeating the boss in round one if the party doesn’t know the enemy’s hp. You can let the combat go on until you think they’ve fought hard enough
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.
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.
Me: "Alright, roll for stealth" My players: Invisibility Boots of elvenkind (advantage) Pass without trace (+10) Flash of genius (+5) Hide in plain sight (+10) Bardic inspiration (+D12) Guidance (+D4) Bend luck (+D4) Lucky feat (additional roll) Boon of undetectability (+10) So with a nat20 and max rolls, that'll be... *70*
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.
@@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.
The portent/super fast monk combo has happened in some of my games in the past and it's hilarious to see you make the exact same facial expressions lmao
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
I'm gonna be super honest, I love when my players do this kind of thing. I mean yeah, building the encounter is tedious but watching them overcome it and seeing them be super happy with themselves makes me enjoy being a dm
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
@@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 this is why you build combat and the rest of the campaign around the party's level and abilities. It makes it a lot more fun. Feeling op and having a challenge!
I'm a forever DM and I'm currently running for a group of 7 level 15 characters. This hit close to home. I've been playing since 1984 and still, I love this god damn game
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).
@@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.
The Dominate Person moment is hilarious to me because the idea that a player wouldn’t immediately jump at the opportunity to battle their Party members without repercussion is just not a thing at my table. One combat session we had not 1, not 2, but 3 of our Party Members mind controlled. 2 of them were focused on killing each other and the last person was essentially a giant super werewolf attacking their love interest. Good times
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.
As a DM, I’ve done a campaign from level 5 to level 20, at the end the party was literally fighting a False god and then a madman wizard who served an Eldritch horror and stole the powers of the defeated false god. After a while, nothing phased me. I don’t even keep track of health of anything past CR 20, and just pick a moment that narratively makes sense with the story and the situation for the creature to fall. Makes it more fun.
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.
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 feel this so hard as a DM. I've also switched to giving any "boss" NPC legendary actions, additional hit points (going with max rolled is a decent start), and allow their abilities to be fungible in combat just so they survive long enough to hopefully have two turns of action.
@@tyler1107 I have, but they don't do much to prolong the life of the BBEG when the party focuses on BBEG, then cleans up their minions and champions in the following round.
@@sanjaraejour9632 I've given the bosses free movement as reactions before, allowing them to position themselves in better places while ignoring attacks of opportunity. Special actions and reactions can make a boss battle actually interesting. Take for example, an Evil Sorcerer that floats around the battlefield casting a multitude of spells to harass the PC's while also being able to zip around as a reaction to being targeted(5-6 recharge) , then using a legendary action (one per turn) to punish the PC's further, I didn't even have to give the guy crazy damage or HP to make him a tough opponent, I used regular spells at base level from the PHB, and he had 50 HP, up against three level 9 PCs. My PC's won, but it was a hard fight because the BBEG had advantage of the action economy, but was only one guy to target, I also counter spelled a revivify, which caused my players to have a shit and a laugh.
I gave a boss fight legendary actions against my level 3 players, it's necessary if you want to be able to create a balanced party on 1 fight, otherwise it's either "they win because they go first" or "it wins because it goes first"
One of my friends accidentally ran a hag as three monsters because he misunderstood the rules around a hag coven. It was the the best mistake ever. Opened my eyes to the fact that it should be perfectly balanced to break a monster into pieces, or stitch together a monster. Want to give a monster legendary actions? Let it use part of it's multi-attack outside it's turn. Want to have a single boss that the party can't focus? Stitch together the boss and your two lieutenants. If they focus or disable the boss, it losses it's best abilities, but can still use the lieutenants abilities so doesn't sit there like a wet rag while they wail on it.
2:07 can we just talk about how he throws the dice behind him and then on the next cut where he plays another character in the skit, *you can still hear the dice rolling on the floor?*
@@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.
3:14 - my DM looked exactly like this when my lvl 3 goblin moon druid casted no trace and wildshaped into a nyxborn lynx, getting +16 on stealth, ambush as a bonus action and ability to pass through objects. I obliterated everything in sight and after that encounter I got hit by a rock that fell from the moon and forgot about such creature entirely
@@NSFWTHICC OP even admits that what his dm let him do basically broke the game and forced him to undo his decision. If the dm had put his foot down from the start and kept OP within the bounds of what his character should reasonably be able to do he wouldn’t have had to make any emergency retcon and the campaign would’ve been better for it. Therefore he’s a pushover
I love how the players were complaining "it's not fair, how can we ever possibly fight this boss?" Like the dm is supposed to only send one shotable opponents
For real though. My players (5 level 5's) fought a Chimera (CR6) yesterday, they got terrified by the breath weapon's damage.... but they still 2 rounded the darn thing when it was bottom of the initiative. Of course, the paladin double-smiting on a *crit* didn't help... but still.
I literally had this encounter last Friday. The rakshasa was disguised as a merchant woman and gave a story that the rest of the party bought...except the monk who rolled a really high insight and attacked. monk strikes at that level are magic and she used ki. it was a very one sided fight. Rakshasa planeshifted the hell out of there on his second round.
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."
The booming "NO" is such a wonderful moment as a DM. I don't experience it often but when I do it makes the players squirm. Sometimes, it doesn't work like that
I love how this shows the responsibility of the DM. Like the players can min-max all they want, but at the end of the day, when the DM says "this one can" they have to accept it, that's the game's design. Of course I also appreciate how when he does complain he's still at over half hp because that's just how strong players are at this point.
@@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.
This is honestly one of the funniest videos you've made, every couple of weeks I just come back to watch it even though I've never gotten a party past 6th level hahahaha