We had a barbarian in a one-shot who named his character "The Muscle Wizard", and when we first entered a dungeon, we were attacked by giant rats. We killed them, and Muscle Wizard decided to just carry one of the rats around by the tail. Uhhh, okay, bro, you do you. We open the main door into a long corridor, and he says, "I cast detect traps!" and throws the rat so it skids and bounces across the floor in a straight line. It triggered a pit trap with a zombie in the bottom, which turned that trap into a fish-in-a-barrel moment instead, lol.
Very possible that there wasn't a trap before this happened. If i was the DM and one of my players did this, I would make damn sure a trap magically appeared.
Simple! Just have your Cleric, Druid, or Ranger cast Find Traps! As said in the spells name, the spell will help you find and locate… wait what? The spell does what? Oh, nevermind, don’t do that.
Artificers are amazing. They get expertise at level 6, great investigation scores, flash of genius to add your int mod to the roll, they can cast guidance or enhance ability on themselves, even can make their own gloves of thievery with infusions. There are more that help in this regard but with these at your disposal you can make that 24 from the rogue look like child's play.
A 14 dex / 20 int Artificer (at level 7) could have available to them (from just themselves) the below for a lock picking check: d20 +d4 (guidance) +8 (tool expertise) +5 Flash of Genius +5 (gloves of thievery infusion) The bare minimum you can get with all of that active is a 20, the max is a 42, with the average being 31 or 32 (if my math is right). You can technically FoG + Guidance + Gloves of Thievery a rogue and their range will be 23-45 (assuming a +5 dex mod) but.. do you really need to? The numbers are so close that it's essentially inconsequential for a Rogue to be present. If you rolled stats, did point buy, started with a non-standard array or generated stats some other way you might even have ended up with a higher dex than 14 anyways which narrows the gap even more.
Rune knight :) Fire Rune. This rune's magic channels the masterful craftsmanship of great smiths. While wearing or carrying an object inscribed with this rune, your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with a tool. In addition, when you hit a creature with an attack using a weapon, you can invoke the rune to summon fiery shackles: the target takes an extra 2d6 fire damage, and it must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be restrained for 1 minute. While restrained by the shackles, the target takes 2d6 fire damage at the start of each of its turns. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, banishing the shackles on a success. Once you invoke this rune, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
The Dudes don't seem to consider the Rune Knight much besides being a damage dealer or tank. Which is too bad, because while it is still a fighter, I've seen it bring some neat utility to the table that can help to round out the player skills.
I really like the idea of a “myth buster” series for 5e, and I love that you’re starting with this topic. I feel like a lot of people assume that certain classes are meant to be the only answer to certain problems, like the rogue and traps. It’s nice to see other suggestions on handling this stuff. I don’t know if this would count as a myth, but I’ve seen a number of people think that you have to be a high charisma character to contribute to negotiations or conversation-based encounters. I’d be interested in seeing a video addressing that. I know it may sort of be covered in “who is the best negotiator”, but if you guys ever consider making a full video on that topic, I’d definitely watch it.
@@dinomichalopoulos1517 In general, preventing the damage in the first place is more efficient than trying to heal it, especially with lower level healing spells. Players can learn to craft their own healing potions in their downtime with a herbalism kit, there's short rests, and enough classes can act as off-healers to cover up small damage. Where a dedicated healer matters is if your party does a lot of fighting without any time to rest, someone has to be revived from dying, or if you get to higher levels where clerics can actuall get good spells like Heal.
That’s definitely a good topic as well. My dm runs healing items differently depending on if there is a good healer class (like stars druid or a cleric) in the party. If the group has no access to healing spells, we may find potions more, or they’re cheaper in shops. Stuff like that. It should also be brought up that some subclasses have a heal that isn’t magic based, like second wind, and there are feats like healer or inspiring leader. Not to mention the “kill the bad guys to prevent damage in the first place” strategy. Having a healer is nice, but it is nowhere near required.
This isn't quite a trap, but one of my first times DMing, I ran Sunless Citadel. The party comes to a corridor littered with caltrops and there are two goblins stationed behind a low wall at the far end. The idea is for the party to have to move slowly up the corridor to avoid the caltrops while the goblins take potshots with their shortbows. In my game, though, the barbarian just dropped her bedroll on the ground and charged up the hall, pushing the bedroll in front of her and sweeping all the caltrops away. Sure, she took an arrow or two, but she made up and over the wall to engage the goblins and cleared the hallway for the rest of the group.
I recently played a campaign where my sorcerer was the one who opened locks and occasionally disabled traps. A 16 dex, proficiency in thieves tools, gloves of thievery, and the ability to spend a sorcery point to reroll an ability check worked wonders.
I like to occasionally set challenges for myself in making some characters. I wanted to make a Barbarian who was not a traditional Barbarian with a typical background... So I saw the "Criminal" background and I was like... A Barbarian could totally be an Enforcer, breaking legs for a criminal outfit to collect debts... And that also comes with giving a Barbarian proficiency with Thieves' Tools... meaning I had the Barbarian who could pick a lock without breaking it down... But it would also make sense that a Barbarian like that would also know about traps and have some capacity to deal with them... Especially with Danger Sense to help deal with the failure to disarm one.
Bonus points, the Artificer might be able to manipulate the trap to turn it against the enemy. For instance, trapped and locked door, trap triggers on lock getting wrong key. Artificer disables trap. Artificer unlocks door. Then, since they have access to the whole mechanism now, they could CHANGE which key is the "right" key, and lock the door and re-set the trap behind the party. I have the most fun when I can turn the obstacles in my path into obstacles in the enemy's path.
Funny you mention a locksmith. I have homebrewed an Arcane Smith class and 6he Arcane Locksmith is one of the options available. It is kind of like the lovechild of rogue and artificer.
Druid: _Misty steps through a crack_ Wizard: _Flips through their notes looking for the Knock spell_ Bard: _Casts the Knock spell_ Wizard: HEY! That's my thing! Rogue: ...
So I am going to argue a point about skills I feel is under-rated. We keep saying "rogue's must play by the rules" vs spell casters, but technically spells only do what is written. You have to have the right spells. Skills cover a category of abilities and you don't run out of slots. They don't do what is written, their limits are imagination, logic and the roll of the die.
What's meant is that Rogues only have bonuses to things everyone can do. Here an example scenario: A dangerous guard is guarding a locked door - DC 15 stealth check or DC 15 persuation/deception/intimidation to bypass the guard, followed by a DC 15 thieves' tools check to open the door. The rogue can beat those checks, as can any other character, but the rogue is usually more likely to succeed. However the spellcaster don't have to play by those rules (of course they still literally play by the game's rules), as the druid turned into a spider and snuck past the guard and through the door slit.
When Monty said “DnD Mythbusting” I immediately realized that the Dungeon Dudes are absolutely the Adam and Jamie of the DnD world, and nothing will convince me otherwise. Kelly is obviously Jamie, and Monty is very very much Adam!
I remember in 3rd edition the writers reminded everyone that although an invisible servant couldn't directly activate traps, they CAN haul a sack of something through a hallway and trigger traps that way.
4:23 Rune Knights have Fire Rune which grant expertise in all tool proficiencies and a Rune Knight doesn't have to be the one with the tool proficiencies in question, they can just hand the person in question the item with the Fire Rune to benefit.
@@mattbriddell9246 looks like, yeah. I'll admit, I'm not as familiar with 5e as i am with previous editions or Pathfinder., so i didn't know that spell. Thanks for the heads up!
One myth in DND 5e I'd love to see taken down is the prevalent idea that Monks are bad. I'll forfeit that monks don't have any subclasses that really blow it out of the water the almost every other class has that one (or 2 in some cases) subclass(es) that are just completely bonkers. But I really think that the misconception around Monk being bad stems from a misunderstanding of people thinking that monks are meant to be tanky frontliners with a high dpr, rather than a highly mobile striker that pops in, breaks concentration with a Flurry of Blows or lands a Stunning Strike, and gets out, not dissimilar to how a melee rogue is intended to be played as someone who goes in, lands the Sneak attack, and uses their disengage to get back out. Monks aren't meant to face tank things, and if you get in a situation where you have to tank, you have Patient Defense. I definitely feel this would be more obvious as the intent of the monk if Step of the Wind was something they could do for free like the Rogue, but it isn't so people see the melee-oriented monk and think (dpr frontline).
Advice for DMS: 1- Highlight traps. It sounds counterintuitive but hidden traps are RNG kills while highlighted traps become a challenge to overcome. 2- Never have a correct solution. Do not even create a solution. How the trap is overcome depends on the player's choices. 3- Traps should be optional. And hence, the reward to overcome it should be clear and deserving. 4- Add traps to your fight encounters.
There’s some good options available to PCs for traps and locks without necessarily invoking thieves tools. A portable battering ram, a crowbar, and an unseen servant rolling a 30 or 60 pound log in front of the party can go a long way. Similarly, just recognizing why and where a trap might have been placed can tell you how to bypass it. An enemy base with a magical trap on the gate isn’t going to go off every time they send folks traveling, so check those outfits for some uniform piece of equipment they’re wearing that lets them pass through without setting it off.
I really like this idea of a DnD "Mythbusters"! You have addressed this in a few videos but I feel "How to Heal Without Being a Cleric" would be a good one
I once played in a one-shot where the party had to recover an artifact from a sunken temple. Very cliche, Indiana Jones style run. Fun though, except we almost didn't make it past the first room. I was playing a conjuration wizard, and managed to spot a pressure plate on a hallway floor. So I conjured up a big rock to just leave on the pressure plate. My plan was to let it sit there until the trap finished shooting off all its ammo. But the DM said that the trap doesn't run out of darts, ever. So I proposed an alternate plan to the other players. I suggested we collect the darts that keep coming out of this trap. We could scrap the poison off each one, remove the feathers, and refine the raw steel from the body of the darts. Since the darts never run out, we could make and sell goods with an infinite supply of free raw material. The DM just didn't want me to easily solve the first trap, so he said it had infinite ammo. No way was I letting that ruling go to waste.
The easy solution to this on the DM's end would be to say that the ammo appears to be infinite because it's being conjured by a magic powering the trap, and that the ammo dissipates an hour after being conjured by the trap. That said, still definitely a clever play to make lemons out of lemonade. ^^
Thank you for debunking a common party-role myth at last. I heavily appreciate this format and highly encourage you to continue with it. On the other hand, though, I hold the opinion that once you acknowledge that the only true boundary for problem-solving in dnd is the players' creativity, the concept of party roles itself becomes obsolete. Moreover, as much as you do not need a rogue to deal with traps, a barbarian or paladin can be competent at infiltration, contrary to the stereotypes you advocated in the party role ranking videos. You should not root out superstitions and prejudices only to sow them elsewhere.
Some simple wrong myths: Fighters are basic and boring. Barbarian are brutes. Clerics only heal. Background are only good for the proficency bonusses. Meele cantrips on a spellcaster are useless. Wizard is the best class. Idea for a video: - Vehicle proficency. One of the rarest thing used in 5e.
The funniest way i witnessed a Druid picking a lock was maybe influenced by the Rule of Cool BUT it was a good Idea and here is what he did: He took out a little branch he picked up in the Woods a little earlier and put it into the keyhole and influenced the branch with druidcraft so that he slowly made a fitting key out of it and opened the locked door, the DM ruled it took him essentially 10 minutes to do so but he let it happen.
Monty- your note about Detect Traps not actually being able to detect traps made me realize I'd love to see a kind of "Broken Spells" video. I actually had no idea about that particular spell. Would love to hear others like it and your thoughts on them!
Oh man, watching Monty casually handle that 3.5e PHB makes me nervous. Do you have ANY IDEA how expensive those are now? And that one looks like it's in great condition!
I haven't looked up the price because I want to keep the 5 I have in case I want to run another 3.5 game and not have character creation be split by books. I kept getting them for 15 bucks.
There's so many ways to deal with a locked door. Our rougeless party has used "Silence" & and a crowbar for a sneaky entrance, "Reduce" to shrink a gate of its hinges, as well as "Enhance Ability" on our Loxodon member to quadruple his strength and rip open a literal vualt. As for traps. Instead of trying to disarm a trap with the help of guidance, you could always assume you will fail and instead replace it with the resistance cantrip.
I can answer this before even watching the episode. Have an Artificer on the party. High INT for investigation, and expertise in Thieves Tools from lvl6. A bunch of other utility options as well, like ritual casting Detect Magic, and creating a Wand of Secrets.
Love the idea for a Myth-buster series! My suggestion would be reviewing the different classes ways to be an archer as the Ranger seems to be 'defaulted' to only using them
I know you've busted the myth via your actual live play. However pointing out that clerics do not need to be healers, thanks to Hit Die, feats and other class abilities would be a good one. Still an archetype that won't die.
I had a small rant about that today before the session started because a usual DM was playing and we couldn't decide on a character. We landed on a Divination Wizard that had 30HP +7 for false life. 😂 And yes, it was the "tank/Paladin" that kept going down.
In my home game, i usually lock a specific skill challenge behind a class, a proficiency, a feature,... so it's going to be a disadvantage with a different DC or just impossible and need convincing to have a roll in the first place. I want players' choices to have more impact than their luck/minmaxing
Thank you for putting this video together. I like this idea of a series of typical assumptions - some assumptions that come to mind are - a "perfect" party or you need to have a healer in the party. Another is that everyone has to agree on what their version of fun in order to be playing together.
Great video as always! I only want to argue on one point. I've been playing almost exclusively 3.5 for nearly 7 years, though you are absolutely right about the trapfinding ability that was required to find and disable advanced or magical traps, there are other classes besides the rogue that get access to it. One in particular is called the Beguiler who was also a full caster (pretty powerful). Other than that I agree with everything else you pointed, keep doing a great job!
Our rogue never rolled higher than a 10 when looking for traps so we gave up on him and started tossing a goblin corpse down the hallway in front of us. The fighter, barbarian, and Paladin took turns and competed to see who could toss it the farthest.
17:50 inside the bag of holding while the thief is bypassing the traps, the party finds a few well preserved bodies from a previous party that was left inside the bag of holding when the holder of the bag met his unfortunate end....probably to a trap
Hey dudes! Since you have produved SO many high quality videos about all kinds of useful things in D&D 5e, how about a video about the best ways to use reactions when playing different classes? Action economy makes a character interesting as well as effective in combat, and reactions (and bonus actions too) don't come easy to all classes, I'm sure a lot of subscribers feel like me about that. Thanks for your great work, and keep on going!
Recently a party I ran a game for bypassed a trap I made. Trap was an obvious series of grates in the floor with a mechanism behind letting off a dangerous amount of heat, walking on them would deal damage. The party backtracked a couple rooms to retrieve some large washtubs they'd seen and made a bridge. No rolls needed, on you go.
@@arcturuslight_ The thief Rogue with a spell scroll or one of the many spellcasting classes that could know or prepare the spell for emergencies without dedicating themselves to a healer support role.
@@TheHandgunhero There's actually only three classes that learn Revivify naturally: Artificer, Cleric, and Paladin. Artificer and Paladin won't get it until level 9, while Cleric gets it at 5. Sorcerer and Warlock can pick it as one of their very limited spells if they go Divine Soul/Celestial, Bard can pick it up at level 10 with Magical Secrets (or 6 as a Lore Bard), and Thief Rogue can use the scroll at level 13. So out of your 'tons of options', two need a specific subclass, two can get it at double the normal level, one can go either way, and one can wait until a level which most players won't ever get to and pray it has an extremely rare item to do so.
@@Dramatic_Gaming Bard, Druid and Ranger all got Revivify added to the Additional granted spells list as per the rules of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which as of the recent Legacy carryover and changes are the official RAW rules for D&D now. This is demonstrated by the fact they are the mandatory interpretation of rules in all official D&D play such as Adventurer's League, and have been adopted as the rules by the vast majority of DMs. So now almost half of the official classes (6 out of 13) have guaranteed potential to get Revivify and then tonnes of subclasses such as you mentioned. It's quite unlikely your party will not be able to access it due to party composition and honestly it's for the better as is all the content in Tasha's.
I like the idea of a series busting myths about the game. Here are several common ones. Myth #1: fighters are basic, boring, and outclassed by other martial characters. Myth #2: clerics are healers (a.k.a. every party needs a healer). Myth #3: spellcasters are always squishy. Myth #4: rangers are underpowered (maybe in the past, but not so much anymore). Myth #5: optimized play and good roleplay are mutually exclusive. Myth #6: doing damage is the most important thing to do in combat.
I'd like to see a video on when to use Investigation and when to use Perception. For me Investigation is used when there is active effort to find hidden things that may not be noticed by passive perception. Like locating a secret trap door beneath a rug, or finding what floor tiles are actually pressure plates. Perception for me is more for when there are already visual cues to notice, like the corner of the rug is folded over (from the last time the trap door was used), or there are blood stains on the walls of a trapped room. So they offer different information with Perception being more limited to things that are, well perceptible, and Investigation requiring deliberate effort, but finding things that aren't immediately perceptible.
Wilhelm’s Rules #26 Expect everything is a trap. It probably is. Without a rogue, we could just have the barbarian tank the damage, bash the door, etc. Edit: Kelly chose a different rule, LOL. More can be said about charismatic visitor such as James Bond. He walked in the front door and gave his real name. That is a highly skilled character, and thinking about how viable Bond would be as a character in 5e.
It tickles me that Bond isn't a spy; he's a moving target. M, "Okay, Bond, we think something is up in Monte Carlo. We want you to go over there and see who tries to kill you."
bond is an awful spy, by the VERY SECOND MOVIE the ussr has a picture of his face and spectre is able to create a full replica rubber mask of him dog they know what you look like you’re sacked
I joined a campaign with a bunch of martial characters and a cleric. I made a Vedalken wizard. Vedalken's Tireless Perfection allows you to be proficient with a tool set of your choice and when you use it you can add a d4 to the result. Sure, I only get a +2 from my Dex, but between Tireless Perfection and the Cleric's Guidance spell I can add 2d4 to the roll which makes a big difference.
My party doesn't have a rouge, but I was pretty happy with solving this issue with seals locked with acid by using mage hand to manipulate a dagger to break the seals from a range. We are a table of mostly newer players.
Dex-based artificer with infusions for gloves of thievery and headband of intellect can roll d20 + 2xPB + 5 + 5 + 1d4(guidance) + 4(flash of genius), possibly with advantage (per XGtE if other tool proficiencies apply).
A magical weapon you can provide from a trap is the magical drive gear. As the trap falls apart one of the axles with gears attached at eather end one larger than the other. It's clearly a different material than the rest of the trap. You find there's two different ways to attune to this "thing" You can shift its power to a three times a day polymorph motorcycle or a one handed great club instead. If however you have spent one of its charges it's only a club until you finish a long rest even if you change your attunement by re attunement. (Artificers can recharge it with level two spell slots as a free action.)
Fun fact: in the game I run our tempest cleric is the rogue. We have a ranger, a barbarian and 2 wizards, but our cleric who has a criminal background (she was a smuggler) is the one that deals with traps and locked doors. It's wonderfully hilarious whenever it comes up and she usually does well to disarm traps.
Love the point about how rogues don't need to be the Sole Arbiters Of Trap-Finding to be relevant any more, too. (One of my players I DM for plays a scout rogue who took the Skilled feat at 4th level, which means she has proficiency in more ability checks than I want to think about. I don't think she's joking about taking it again at level 8. Reliable Talent _terrifies_ me. Rogues are POWERFUL -- and so is every other class, which was the point of this episode!) Love the idea of more mythbusting episodes, and I look forwards to seeing more! Most of the myths I can think of have more to do with RP than mechanics (paladins _have_ to be uptight jerks or their powers stop working, a bard's charisma _always_ manifests as flirty seduction, etc), which might be harder to do an episode on but I'd be keen to watch if you did. There's also the perennial standby, "darkvision is awful, everybody has it nowadays, stealth is useless now because you can't hide in the shadows if every single enemy henchman can always see through them!", but that hardly seems like a whole episode. The one I keep coming back to as a DM I think is the pervasive idea that _death_ is the only threat in D&D that has any meaning. "If I don't think the characters could die at any minute, there are no stakes," I hear people say, and that's...not how stakes work. (...of course, if you really want to open a D&D Myths can of worms, you can always give your take on the Matt Mercer Effect, but maybe _don't_ bring that comments section upon yourselves.)
Death definitely isn’t the only threat in D&D that has any meaning. It often isn’t even the hardest to remedy. Drop a few thousand gold at the right temple and death can be overcome. A lot of times even things like captivity are way harder to deal with.
TL DR: There's no need for a rogue when you have spells! i think moving forward WOTC needs to find ways to make rogues more relevant given that everybody and their mother has spells now and they keep releasing more and better spells with each book. sneak attack isn't enough as other strikers have similar options that scales as well as sneak attack or better (especially with sneak attack being limited to one attack and rogues having 1 attack). i'd like to see the return of a trapmaster type where a rogue (or a ranger) who specializes in inflicting conditions without resorting to spells. my top 5 myths: 1. you need a wizard to have an effective controller (or the wizard is the best controller) 2. you need a cleric to have an effective healer (or the cleric is the best healer) 3. you need a tank/frontliner to have an effective party/mitigate enemy offense 4. you need a charisma based class to be an effective face (is succeeding at social challenges really a product of the numbers or good RPing and player intelligence?) 5. ALL direct dmg spells are inferior to control spells
@@1dbvvdb1 for the exploration aspect sure i can see that. for combat though both classes are still useful. the stealth/ambush playstyle really works best when the whole party is doing it (instead of sending a scout up ahead) and contributing towards it. for example: ranger: casts pass without trace to boost party stealth warlock: casts misty visions to provide the party mobile obscurement sorc: spams minor illusion to make the illusion more believable or control flames to turn off torches cleric: spams guidance for the party member with the lowest stealth or thaumaturgy for distraction
I seem to recall a spell bases on the Bigby's hand spells created by Harkel Harplell in one of the Drizzt books called Bigby's Flicking Digits. Using that spell on skeletons into a trap area can deal with traps pretty easily. Especially if you have a good sense of humor.
You forgot about Rune Knights during your discussion of how to get expertise in tool proficiencies, as the Fire Rune’s passive just gives you expertise in all of your tool proficiencies. Since they gain access to this feature from as early as level 3, a Dex based Rune Knight who takes thieves tools as one of their background proficiencies is probably just as good as a Rogue - or better since many rogues don’t put their expertise in thieves tools - at disarming traps. Granted, they may not be the best at FINDING traps, but Perception is a far more common skill for a party to have in spades, so I feel like it’s not a big deal.
On the evolution: the original Tomb of Horrors (which the version in Tales of the Yawning Portal is a fairly 1:1 reprint of, or close to, the original adventure. It doesn't have the feature I've seen in Tomb of Annihilation and also Dungeon of the Mad Mage, which is, the dungeon designer has thought of all the ways a modern party can bypass it all with magic, and made it so that that simply doesn't work. The walls, floors, ceilings etc are all shielded against transmutation magic, so you can't shape them, glide through them, or teleport through past them, nor can you teleport in or out, and will probably get sent to the mage-killing room specially designed to deal with teleporters and summoned help. Scrying and divination magic is also useless to the means of getting extraplanar answers. I don't recall if Darkvision, True Seeing, Blindsight or any of those "sight" spells are affected or not. But they have these lists front-and-centre for when you are ready to head into the dungeon. These countermeasures certainly weren't necessary in the earliest days of the game, that's for sure. But each book that introduces a new spell, a new way of solving problems, means the game has to ultimately change to reflect that, at least when it's a meaningful addition to the fundamental way D&D simply is.
I agree with the Design section, bc when you have a Rogue with expertise & reliable talent in thieves tools & stealth, most times you see the party default to the rogue instead of trying a useful way themselves
I'm watching dungeons of Drakkenheim right now, and I love it! I feel like o have to watch all the way through before moving to the other adventures in Drakkenheim, but Monty seems unsure of how to pronounce the proper title of the murder holes. 😅 the correct pronunciation, as I understand it, it meh-chick-yew-lay-shuns or mer-ter-ear. The machicolations is the hole that pokes out past the walls to pour down upon assailants at the base of the wall. meurtrières are the holes that are on the floor of the walkway and ceiling of a passageway, such as walking through the gate and through the wall. Hope that helps!
I was playing a swashbuckler rogue and a party member was a fairy cleric. My rogue have her pitons to jam the gears of a wall crushing trap. DM wasn't expecting that
Finally thank you. I've run into a few groups that think only rogues can disable traps when anyone can get a set or two of thieves's tools and do it or be a barbarian and walk through it
The story I always tell to people is about a one shot where I played a half-orc barbarian in 3.5 We started in a prison with no equipment, no gear or anything. To open the door, my barbarian just repeatedly bashed at the cell door until it made so much noise that guards came in, then I grabbed one to hold him against the door while the other players bashed at him until he died and we got the keys. After that, there was a long spiraling stair case, my barbarian stepped down first and triggered a trap that sent a dart into his stomach. After that, he went brute force again and, ripped a door out from the cells, smashing each step with it to trigger traps while going down the stairs, making quite an hilarious moment as the rest of the group were discussing the situation and in the background they could hear "Bang! Bang! shit!" as there were some gas sprays as well. When they were done talking, my guy was waiting for them down the stairs. There was also the part where, to find a hidden passage, we grabbed large vials of acid and threw them at the walls until we found something that lead further. And just to say, the scenario did have our gear available in the prison, it's just that none of us thought to go up the stair case to find what was there and find the weapons and gear that would have been taken from us. We beat the scenario with improvised weapons and smart plays (like beating the final boss magician with my barbarian restraining him in a grapple again and preventing him from making any somatic components while the team beat him up again.)
I ran a 7th lvl barbarian in my first dnd campaign that ended up being called the locksmith with a +1 resistance to trap dmg. My maul was the master key, and the world was my treasure chest 🙏🏾 It took some creative design by the DM after he just realized I was going to try to break everything. He would send ambushes and rust monsters after me
I got hit by so many damn poison needle traps and shot in the face with so much fire lmaoooo Thats where the +1 originated from as kind of a joke, but it stuck
I made a high Con hill dwarf Barbarian/Monk with Tough and Rage reflavored as Drunken Fighting. He dealt with traps by triggering them. This was the preferred method since only one character in the party had Intelligence higher than 8. 🙂 Side note on Kelly's shirt: "That's not fair. That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was... was all the time I needed. That's not fair. *sob* That's not fair."
A huge myth to busy would be clerics are only healers. Most new people look at the classes as basic cut and paste abilities like rogue is thief, cleric is healer. So many other classes are better healers, like rogues with the healer kit and potions zipping across the battle
In 3-3.5 Objects had Hardness, Iron/steel had 10 hardness and 35 HP per inch of thickness. Well an Adamantine weapon, ignores the hardness of 19 or lower. I had a fighter with a two-handed Adamantine hammer he lovingly called "Door Knocker", 1-2 "knocks" and the door wasn't there anymore, he also noticed that often when a door is magically hardened to resist such tender caresses, the wall next to the door wasn't. Where there was a will, there was a fighter with an Adamantine Hammer, making a way.
As I read the rules, Rogues should typically be best at finding traps (assuming they took the relevant proficiencies) because, the fact that they have proficiency in thieves tools should give them advantage on insight or perception checks to find traps (as per Xanathar's Guide). Of course, this would apply to anyone with proficiency with Thieve's Tools.
What to do without a rogue? Make a barbarian with a custom background that gives proficiency in both thieves tools and woodworking/carpenters tools. Whenever you come to a locked door use your tools to carefully remove both the locks and the hinges from the door. Then pull out your giant axe, rage, and marvel at how far the doors you kick in fly when you detach them from the doorway first.
Send in the fighter with his hammer. I was the fighter, locked in a room, and there were two side doors. Behind each door was a key. One would let you out, the other would explode. My fighter went straight to the main door and used his hammer until it opened. Our ranger nearly died because she rolled the exploding key. A good time was had by all.
I one time had the party druid use mold earth on the stone around the door as the rogue was trying to pick the lock then just pushed the door over. Later summoned a herd of elk to stampede through a trap filled hall. The barbarian already said no to stealth.
I was in a campaign where we found an indestructible 6ft diameter sun disk (permanent daylight spell). The barbarian ripped it from it's display, and would roll it down hallways to detect traps.
5e myth: All Rangers are ranged! Don't play a Ranger, play a Fighter with bow instead! Show us how many spells and abilities that Rangers have work with melee builds. Exploit synergies that work better with melee than with ranged (Guardian of Nature, Zephyr Strike, Nature's Veil, Colossus Slayer Opportunity attack, Beast of the Land synergy, Swarm knocking enemy prone,...).
I've been playing a Ranger/Rogue multiclass that uses the Close Quarters Shooter fighting style to be a melee-ranged ranged weapon user, benefitting from/granting flanking and getting sneak attacks with relative ease. Works great!
4:27 i know it is not called expertise, but rune knight's fire giant rule lets you add double your proficiency modifier to checks with tools you are proficient in
It feels great to be back, as we are going back to life as usual for the most part. My D&D group are talking about getting back together so here I am looking into D&D content again. 🙂 What I came up so far to handle traps for our group who has no rogue : Our barbarian will be putting his highest stats score in dexterity, constitution and then wisdom. He will put his lowest score in strength planning to use a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power to set his strength at 19 and replace those at one point for a Belt of Giant Strength. His current lowest stats score being 10 I believe right now mean he will be getting an effective +9 to his total stats right at the beginning of the game; up to +19 to his total stats later in the game if he were to find the best version of the Belt of Giant Strength. We are supposed to start from level 5 this time around. Therefore his wisdom will also be really high, combined with his proficiency in Perception provided by his class means he should have about a +5 or a +6 for his Perception rolls. More over, he dexterity should be about around 18 giving him +4 to dexterity ability checks and + 3 by being proficient in Sleight Of Hands for a total of +7. If he fails to disarm a trap despite his decent score, Danger Sense will provide him Advantage on Dexterity saving throws against Traps; in total, he will have +7 and Advantage on those rolls. Barbarian starts with proficiency in Strength and Constitution saving throws but he will be taking the feat Resilient (Dexterity). Wheter he takes damage or not, if he does, it will likely be a minor threat to him as he's a barbarian with a good constitution (Good HP) and will also have the Periapt of Wound Closure to recover more and way easier from those damage caused by traps. His background will be Bounty Hunter for those Thieves Tools proficiency. He might not have the expertise in Thieves Tools but with everything else, he will be a major help with traps in our group without sacrificing too much of his ressources as a barbarian; as high dexterity will helps him avoid damage easier by having a higher dexterity saving throw but also a higher AC, a higher Wisdom will help him to avoid being surprised and notice his enemies easier and quicker but will also help for those Wisdom saving throws which are usually more about control and throwing the target out of the battlefield per se. Persistent Rage could also comes into play later on to have his Rage on through the traps taking half damage on almost everything on top of possibility reducing the damage already by half because his good saving throws, being a totem warrior barbarian but it comes online only at level 15 so it's pretty much end game. Our bard will also be getting proficiency in thieves tools through the Urchin background combined with her Expertise in Sleight Of Hands and a 20 in dexterity; she already has proficiency in Dexterity saving throws but she'll be getting Resilient (Constitution) which will helps for her concentration and her HP. I have still a lot of work to do before we start a game if we actually do but I'm hyped for it.
Session 1: a fire trap did a number on both my paladin and the off-tank wizard until my paladin “disarmed” it by whacking it with her warhammer like she was chopping down a tree and she bent the spout inwards enough to effectively disable it. Our rogue was to high-class for picking locks or disarming traps. P.S. She also dealt with locked doors in that dungeon by picking up the wizard and throwing them through the door (he was a tortle and it was his player’s idea, taking advantage of my paladin’s powerful build racial feat)
Strangely, I rarely see typical traps come up in our campaign. Between our observant gunslinger spotting everything in the verse he also has thieves tools with his tinkers tools. And to make that even more fun I did what I usually do with characters and also became proficient in thieves tools, and because I knew he would be a gunslinger, tinker's tools. So just about every roll is advantage through assistance.
If you want a myth busting series I got your next suggestion: that if a character in your party has heavy armor, they can't help out in a sneaking mission except for being a distraction. Multiple ways to tackle this I feel. Obvious answer is Pass Without a Trace but there's options beyond that. For bonus points/really driving home the point, is there a way for a full party in heavy armor to sneak around an encounter/situation they really don't want to get into?
I haven’t watched the video yet (I will) but my favorite thing to do is ritual cast unseen servant to walk ahead setting everything off and having a tiny spider familiar scout ahead.
Something you missed, just hire an NPC thief to pick locks and disarm traps. That used to be a standard part of D&D. Sure it costs money, but so do healing and antidote potions.
Another way to get that double proficiency is with the fire rune for the rune knight. With that in mind, since neither the artificer or the rune knight is explicitly granting expertise, I think these abilities stack, and in fact, would stack with expertise, potentially granting a level 1 rogue, level 3 fighter, level 6 artificer 8x proficiency? At high level, that would be a +48 on top of your actual modifier. And here I thought a rogue/ranger with pass without trace was rolling absurd numbers.... One fun build: With a dwarf, you can customize all the proficiencies you gain, replacing all the martial weapons, etc, and gain 4-5 different tool proficiencies, and both the fire rune rune knight and artificer double your proficiency with tools... just sayin. Add in a phantom rogue that can switch proficiencies every short or long rest, plus the artificer's tool for the job, and now you are (to quote Monty) cooking with gas. Add in 2 levels of bard, and jack of all trades grants you half proficiency, which you quadruple, so you have functional expertise in every tool, hell make it 3 levels so you are a college of creation bard... yeah, I have a MacGyver build I need to create.
A barbarian in a group I was playing in would throw big-ass rocks at a chest until it got cracked open so either the trap went off or we just turned it upside down and emptied it out. Had a few darts and sprays of acid put chips in some floors, but damn it was a good way to do it lol.
18:00 lol we had to infiltrate a prison to grab a prisoner with an important item we needed and we decided to have the rogue stay outside for some reason, and have my wizard cast invisibility on the monk with a broom of flying and a bag of holding. As soon as we got down the stairs and into the cell area, hugging the ceiling and avoiding the guards and dogs, we went through an archway that was outfitted with an anti magic field. Instantly the broom stopped flying, the monk became visible, and the bag of holding spat out my wizard and *everything else we owned* all over the ground😂 It wasn’t pretty 😬
