I am quite bad at explaining stuff, so I hope this was somewhat useful. DECK OF MANY: grabify.link/J48LMM PATREON: / xptolevel3 TWITTER: / xptolevel3 DISCORD: / discord
Jacob: "Let's pretend you've come to my house and we're about to play d&d" Also Jacob: "Oh? Hey, I didn't see you there" Me: "Dude you invited me, we're already inside your house"
#1 After each long rest clerics and paladins roll a d8. On a 1 they get the shabbat effect. Players with shabbat have disadvantage on spell casting and opponents have advantage on saving throws against spells from players with shabbat. #2 Clerics and paladins with the orthodox feat roll a d4 instead for the shabbat effect. They have advantage/impose disadvantage on spells while not having the shabbat effect. They can't use any spells while having shabbat.
Honestly, the people who say “who are you” are so rude, like I’ve been in their house at least 50 times to eat their snacks and they have the audacity to say that.
rightt! and when you let them go on they say like "is that my t-shirt?" "why is there blood on my t-shirt?" "is that a gun?" like shit I thought this was gonna be fun you know
@@marshalltodt6805 Lol, literally. Extra time to maneuver, because you can't only physically turn and move in 4 cardinal directions. Extra time to 'explain' how one is flanking... Now extra time to roll, if the explanation was good enough. "I don't like war game D&D. It's too fast. But I want combat to be fast cause it's supposed to be,"
I'm late, but I think the "fast" is referring to the planning phase. He wants the game to be more about roleplay and less about crunching numbers. In that respect, the added rules make more sense.
What you said about attuning to magic is interesting, and while I’m going to stick to normal rules for attunement, I’m gonna start making my players roleplay how their characters attune to magic items. Maybe the monk meditates, but the barbarian just screams at it for an hour.
I've always interpreted as either meditation for high WIS characters, study for high INT characters and martial practice for physical-focused characters.
Maybe it's just me, but I always interpreted it less as "the character is attuning to the item" than "the magic of the item is getting used to and attuning to the character". Magic items are weird, they have a mind of their own in some cases. Having to attune an item to you feels like an intermediate progression between "random magic item" and "sentient aware magical artifact". There's a will or some other "presence" there that becomes used to the character to let them use it. If that makes any sense.
i always saw attuning as a combination of essentially creating an account and fully understanding the enchantment so that you cant set it off accidentally or use it use it improperly for example a wand with a button could just be used by brute forcing the magical activation mechanism, but you'd have no idea how far it goes, how big the explosion is, how powerful it is, or if it self destructs after a number of uses. It's just not worth the potential risks and is about as dumb as drinking a mysterious vial of green liquid.
@@hugofontes5708 A bit of crazy plans and terrible rolls. She's also my first real D&D character, so she's the OPPOSITE of minmaxed. I took a 6 in Constitution for the "Roleplay Opportunities." It's been an absolute pleasure playing her for just those said opportunities, but sickly bards do tend to be, as I've coined, chronically dead. :D
Agreed. I would never be comfortable placing my characters fate into another person's hands in that sense. Because if they did die, I wouldn't feel as though they died as much as the other person killed them. Even if no fudge was involved, I would feel cheated of that character. There are other ways to produce suspense. Making a player who is already in a stressful situation unable to know their own self condition just makes it worse.
I like the principle of secret death throws simply because it lets the DM fool around more. *rolls in secret, face turns sorrowful before slowly turning to look you in the eyes.* "Get back up, you're at 1."
One of my personal favorites is “Final Stand” as a variation on the Pathfinder rule. If damage results in you falling to EXACTLY 0 hp, you are placed in final stand. You fall prone (half speed) and on your turn, you can take either an action or movement. You cannot take both and doing so will cause 1 point of damage at the end of your turn, putting you in death saves, and you cannot stand up. It gives players a moment of desparation they can use to act before they fall unconscious and has created some great moments.
Actually, doesn't seem that bad to me. Iirc, Usain Bolt's top speed was like 21-22 MPH (correct me if I'm wrong). Monks already get the ability to tap into their chi to do whacky stuff with their movements. It makes sense to me that they'd be able to imbue their legs with their energy or something to run faster.
Ive only once played a “secret” character. But it was only the class that was secret. His name was Eric O’Clant who in-game believed he was a cleric but had actually accidentally maid a contract with an old forgotten great evil who pretended to be god. So it ended up fitting overall cause role play wise there was a sense that something was off but nobody else knew what. Sadly the campaign fell off early and nobody was able to release that Eric O’Clant was an anagram for not a cleric. :(
@@fanana6193 yeah I hope to find a campaign which he’ll fit in again because he was really interesting to rp and his class choices ended up being really interesting for combat too.
Hey I ran something super similar, though because wild magic she died, met the God who in the setting grew more powerful based on the number of followers and evil actions done and so offered her to be revived for taking a blood oath. You ever try and play a good character who has to become a cultist without a cult? It's a trip.
I was gonna play a secret changeling. Always in the form of an elf that was "really good at mimicry" and he would keep it secret due to his history of pursecution
"Hello, I'm Dave. I'm a neutral evil Human. I will bring prosperity to humanity by exterminating the dwarves so we can take over their mines and forges and rapidly expand our industrial capacity. The elves must be purged so we can gain access to the vast lumber resources they've been monopolizing too. To do this I will upset diplomacy and foment quarrel between the races leading to all out war. To accomplish that, I must rule this kingdom. I am adventuring to gather capital for this. Let's go!"
@@limboprime5926 Tell that to 22K likes. Variant encumberence can be fun and it feels more nitty-gritty and realistic to the characters physical strengths. Obviously a meat raging goliath barbarian can carry more than a anorexic weak bodied wizard.
@@philswiftdestroyerofworlds1988 This guy became popular because he screams haha funny and he whines. He's entitled to his opinions, but half of the shit he says he either contradicts himself or it doesn't make alot of sense. For example, he says he wants combat to be quick, but adds a special Flanking rule that increases the amount of dice rolled. Any mildly experienced DnD player knows just a regular fucking combat can take super long, adding more rules that add very little to the mechanical part of the game.
My favorite home brew rule, is that every time a character is brought down to unconscious and then healed for a revive, they gain a stack of exhaustion. It's a punishment and makes it actually bad to go down
Mine is similar, when you get back up from 0 HP, you take a permanent, but healable, penalty to one random ability score. Say the blow that took you down hit you in the shoulder, your arm is weakened so you take a -2 to Strength until you have the fracture healed (either by a healer or a special potion). I should probably mention that this isn't for D&D or Pathfinder, so it's far harder to have that type of wound healed than just "lol cleric can you un-break my shoulder please?".
Ive played with this rule , it sucked when you get at 3 exhaustion would take 3 long rests to clear that up, in a dungeon crawl doing 5-6 encounters / long rest ... it just not how the game is meant to be played and seriously nerfs any frontline character
@@Binsto I have to be careful about difficulty with this rule. Get a feel for what players can reasonably take, and make it a good fight without killing them. Plus, exhaustion as a regular thing is likely to make players take restoration spells! Or perhaps short rests could remove exhaustion!
I do the same, but only with magical healing while they are still unstable. It forces the players to either stabilize the character first, find nonmagical healing, or take the point.
From the PHB: "Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a short rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can't be the same short rest used to learn the item's properties). This focus can take the form of weapon practice (for a weapon), meditation (for a wondrous item), or some other appropriate activity." I think I saw an interview with Crawford where he explained it's basically you spending an hour with the item, using it and getting used to it, testing it's limitations, working out what it can do. Like 'Ok so if I flourish the wand like this what does it... oh shit it casts fireball. Sorry party member resting by the campfire, I'm sure your eyebrows will grow back" kinda thing :)
A barbarian with the intelligence of a rock ( like grog) wouldnt know how to meditate. So that barbarian then wouldnt be able to attune to a wondrous item, since it requires meditation according to the PHB. I agree with Jacob on this, since most items that require attunement, have an extra ability that should come natural to the player using it ( not including things like boots of spiderclimbing). Just because it does an extra 1d8 cold damage or whatever, doesnt mean you have to meditate to unlock it. the weapon should just do that.
@@antrosatheant7036 which is still an arbritary amount of time. when it comes to immersion, it makes no sense to say that every attunable item, be it common or wondrous, takes an hour to attune to (even if the manner of attunement differs per item). it's a game mechanic that barely makes sense. and before you say " well otherwise you can just switch between epic items whenever you want", why not make a rule that says you cant attume during combat or you can only attune X amount of times per day.
@@jasaadduthane Because then you are just taking away one rule to add several more? IT may not be perfect, but at least it's efficient. And let's be real, how many short rests are more than just "we are gonna short rest" "okay" "we shall now continue exploring"
@@jasaadduthane Attunement shouldn't be a free action but what is wrong with letting people swap out items during combat or while exploring? My rule is attuning requires just one additional action beyond what would be necessary to don/doff the item. So if its a weapon - free action to draw it, action to attune it - if it is a piece of armour then it takes 5-10minutes to put it on then action to attune it. If it's a cloak/boots/jewellery etc.. then it's one action to put it on and a second action to attune it. And it goes both ways so swapping items between two players requires the first to spend an action to unattune it, an action to give it to another player and that other player has to spend an action to attune it. This actually makes the thief subclass cool because they can use a bonus action to attune an item.
If a dm tells me a spell can only be used in combat, I ask a party member to start fist fighting me so I can concentrate on my spell better. Makes sense to me
It doesn't even make sense to me in the first place. Healing spirit isn't that good of a spell. Healing Prayer is the same level of spell, and can do the entire healing of healing spirit per person on up to six people. And since we're out of combat, the long casting time isn't really a factor.
@@seigeengine That's because Healing Spirit was nerfed a few years ago. There used to be no limit on how many times it could heal, meaning that outside of combat everyone could just step in and out of the aura every 6 seconds = everyone would get healed for 10d6.
@@themageofcontext7071 I think it was best described as wizards always feel frail at the beginning but then completely dominate the field with a lack of care for their health because of the spells they learn to protect and keep enemies from even closing in. If playing a wizard is always detrimental in combat I would assume its the dm acting based on stats rather than roleplay. Or your wizard keeps provoking every single attack, somehow.
One rule that i put in every single one my games is that if a player wants to take the help action (this doesn't apply to familiars or bonded animals) they have to be able to justify it. For example, if a fighter wants to help the monk in combat they cant just say "I help the monk attack this guy" instead they have to come up with exactly what they are doing. Since the help action doesn't really come up often this usually doesn't matter, but it ALWAYS makes for a better narrative when it happens. My favorite example of this so far was when my player's fighter was disarmed and all they had was a shield. They knew the minotaur still had an opportunity attack and their weapon was out of reach so they took the help action. They called the monk's name and tapped their shield. The monk's turn was next and she jumped onto the fighter's shield while they boosted her up into the air. She leaped over the minotaur and got the benefit of the help action. She rolled a natural 2 and a natural 20. The minotaur was low and the attack ended up finishing him off. It was the single most fun turn of combat I've ever been a part of.
@@elgatochurro my players are almost always drama nerds. I know my table and I know they love cinematic combat. I'm not saying that this is a good rule for everyone, just that it makes our combat better
@@elgatochurro well, why are you "wasting" time playing a *ROLE PLAYING* game then? It's literally in the name, and the objective is not just do an action, but to describe the action. Go play Final Fantasy.
So i actually had a feind/tome warlock who grabbed find familiar as one of their rituals (i went tome over chain for not needing to sleep) and his familiar was a feindish owl who had an eye pattern at the end of each of her feathers. She aided on attacks and perc checks by being able to shut her owl eyes and open *all of her feather eyes* and transfering the knowledge of that sight to whomever's shoulder she sat on.
"If you ever think a spell is rediculous, double-check if it's concentration!" ah, okay. *checks mirror image* hmmmmm... *checks blur* ... but... they're the same level...?
blur is typically more powerful. Especially for any sort of gish or medium/high AC builds. Mirror image is only preferable if your AC is so low that whatever is trying to hit you likely hit you with disadvantage anyways, and that only has one or 2 attacks at most to use on you. For a higher AC character you can easily go through all the images before any of those lost images wouldn't even have hit you in the first place.
@@Agarwaen mirror image is better I'd say, mostly because it doesn't require concentration and therefore is still useful at higher levels, but also it stacks with other effects that give enemies disadvantage.
@@luiswi Sorry, but you really need to understand how it works. While it doesn't take concentration, it only works to at most stop 3 attacks, and less or none if your AC is high enough to cause attacks that would easily take down a mirror image to have missed you (and mirror images are going to have low AC). At higher levels you're going to face monsters with more attacks even more often, further reducing the value of it. Thus it really is most useful for those with low AC who wants to avoid the odd attack coming their way, while being fairly unsuited for frontlining.
@@Agarwaen well but turning 3 hits into misses is actually quite good, at least when compared to blurr in my opinion. Blurr only imposes disadvantage which can be achieved by different abilities too and doesn't stack. When you're getting hit, there's a good chance that you'll loose concentration and most importantly, you cannot concentrate on anything else which is a huge downside. Mirror images doesn't turn you into a tank but it's actually pretty good because you just have to worry less about defense and with a decent AC they can last a couple of rounds which can be the entire combat. They also help protecting your concentration spell which is pretty important as mentioned.
@@luiswi Except again, you're assuming all those would have been hits, when the difference between your AC and your mirror images AC should be sizeable, and could be huge (for some it could easily be 10 points or more), meaning, as I keep having to restate, you can easily lose a mirror image to an attack that wouldn't have hit you in the first place. Mirror image has it's use, but it is in no way strictly better.
Jacob: "Oh? Hey, I didn't see you there. So you wanna play Dungeons & Dragons?" Me: "Ummm... I'm a thief." Jacob: "Great! Did you bring your own dice? Otherwise you can borrow mine."
I am so confused now. I thought you were referring to a thief/burglar in real life but judging from your reply, it seems like you're referring to a rogue in the game.
My favourite little homebrew, recently added by my dm, has been to give my pc's dog companion expertise on insight checks for whether or not she likes someone (she gains levels as a sidekick). He now trusts his dog's judgement over his own or the party's - but I don't get told if the roll succeeded or failed. This has already led to us being betrayed by a corrupt city official who always managed to slip her treats, and another who helped us out because she was a dog person (rolled a nat 20 to assist my persuasion check with big puppy eyes). Thinking I should somehow train her to recognise and refuse bribes, or maybe get some kind of magical resistance against being charmed.
My only thing with this is if someone with the Lucky feat is rolling death saving throws, how will they know if they want to reroll unless they know it's a fail?
I run something similar. I use Roll20 for my games and my players print a /gmroll death save rather than a public roll and keep the result to themselves. Everyone knows they've made death saves, no one knows if they've died yet or what state they're in until they try to pump healing into them. It caused a rather shocking situation when I ran lost mines; the party changeling rogue went down, took a failed death save from being caught in an ally aoe and the turn after they rolled a one. It wasn't until the dust settled and the healer could cross a chasm to reach them did they find out they weren't coming back. No meta burning everything to get them back up, people thought they had more time and only when the fight was over did it hit them like a tonne of bricks.
As a DM, I am fervently against this one, honestly. I think it takes a way from player agency to not give them control of the rolls that could see their character live or die. It'd feel really bad for a player to know their character died on a death saving roll behind a DM screen that they didn't even get to observe, much less roll. It's their character, and the fate of their character should be in their hands, not the DM's. It also puts the burden on the player to trust that the DM didn't fudge their rolls, and is complicated further by the introduction of things like luck or divine intervention from patron deities in higher level campaigns.
Timestamps (click to see reasoning/explanation for each one): 1:46 intro (end of promo) 2:29 CHARACTER CREATION RULES 2:45 Homebrew/UA on approval of DM 3:09 HP gain per level: always roll instead of taking average. Reroll 1s. 3:30 Level 1 racial feats, depending on the campaign 3:48 Always variant encumbrance (PHB) 4:53 No Mystics, period 5:00 No evil characters unless the DM knows you can handle it 5:31 No secret characters: everyone knows everyone else's race/class/background 6:03 INT mod becomes "points" that add/remove skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, or languages; or spend three "points" to get one expertise 6:29 Milestones (DMG) 6:37 Alt. attunement: 1 action to attune, 10 minutes to un-attune 7:36 COMBAT RULES 7:40 Flanking skill checks. Meant to encourage more descriptive combat actions from players? 8:18 Diagonals (PHB), not the variant (DMG) 8:50 Bloodied for NPCs 8:57 Massive damage 9:41 Lingering injuries, can be as bad as loss of limb, eye, etc. 10:16 Secret death saves, rolled by DM, never fudged 11:22 DC 10 Medicine check on downed ally that acts as another death save. Healer feat and healer's kits still usable as normal 11:56 Sprint: forgo all non-movement actions in a turn to move 5x normal movement speed. Straight line only, provokes opportunity attacks, which are at advantage. Also usable by enemies. 13:08 Massive damage also applies to enemies, especially big/important ones. 13:31 "Cardic" Inspiration, replaces default Inspiration (PHB/DMG) 14:48 SPELL RULES 15:08 Healing Spirit (XGE): in-combat only 15:38 ROLEPLAYING RULES 15:39 Insight vs. Deception, when used by one player on another, has an outcome at the players' discretion 16:29 Discourage Insight as a lie detector 16:36 Letting players take narrative control 17:10 EXPLORING RULES 17:11 No "taking 20"? 17:48 STR/DEX/CON checks can be rerolled for a second attempt, but a blown INT roll means you don't know that information, so you can't reroll it 18:07 Must be proficient in a skill you are trying to Help another player with 18:23 Countercharm buff. Just cures the status instead of granting advantage. Paladins can do it? It's called 21 homebrew rules, but I count 29. But I was confused on a few things.
I used to be a hardcore "Roll hitpoints" DM but when we had a level 6 wizard with 20 hitpoints who died in one hit and walked out of the game, I relented to get him to come back because, yeah its a bit bullshit
override367 if you don’t mind me asking could you give some more details about that story of the 20 hit point wizard? I ask because i just started dm’ing and i’d love some advice.
Joseph LaBlanc wizards have to a roll a d6 for hitpoints, the lowest any class rolls, it makes wizards usually have very low hp without the ability to reroll or take average for a bit higher health. This results in higher end creatures being able to one-shot or two-shot them most of the time
Taking average hitpoints with no con for a wizard would land them at 21 hp at level 6. If he's complaining about having shit health, shouldn't have played a wizard then.
Therefore you always go mountain dwarf with +4 CON mod rolled. Get heavy armor whenever possible, don it, grab martial weapon, fizzle every second spell and bash the enemy with some 2hander for it. Also you get a beard.
With the Attunement, I've always considered it to be semi-passive, and is the character getting used to the item. Wizards or druids might meditate with a wand, a fighter would practice with a sword or a ranger takes practice shots with a bow.
@@ruenvedder5921 Same thing he'd do with the sword? My thought process was you'd do basically whatever would help you appropriately center yourself while concentrating on the item.
I always imagined attunement to be like when you get a new prescription for eyeglasses. every time my prescription changes and I get new lenses, it takes me any where between an hour or a whole day for my eyes to adjust to the new correction, until then my vision is blurry. applying this to magic items, it takes a player character's body time to acclimatize and adjust to the innate magical aura of the item, having to get used to the item by having it near them, play in with it and staying near it to adjust to the magical aura that wasn't there before.
In the mid 80's my friends and I also amended and expanded the set rules and incorporated other board games and real world maps. We altered minor aspects of the DM guide to suit logic, and we used topographic maps of the Grand Canyon, and the board game, Feudal. Recently my four, mostly teen daughters rolled characters and played a night with me. That's true sorcerery.
For my group the PC rolls death saving throws and only the dm and PC know the number, being that there character is out they are prohibited from voicing the results. It kinda gives off the same effect as Jacobs method and lets my players feel they are controlling there characters fate.
3 dice method is great. Player takes 3 dice, & DM secretly decides which color will be the actual roll - then player rolls all 3. "Oh no, a 1! But I also rolled a 12 & a 17..." DM smiles knowingly as he sits back down behind the screen...
I'm always in favour of the players having as much agency in their characters fates as possible. Even though death saving throws are literally just the luck of the roll, having the DM make them in secret would stress me out, in a not-good way.
runesmith: Deck of many! Me: no Dingo: Deck of many! Me: no Puffin forest: Deck of many! Me: no All the D&D youtubers: DECK OF MANY! Me: no! XP2lvl3: Deck of many Me: on second thought
Seriously though, I ordered 2 decks with the Kickstarter, the cantrips and the Deck of Many Things. No joke, that has probably been my favorite thing to come out of Kickstarter. Just, the Deck of Many Things (Animated!) is so awesome, and I highly recommend it. Edit: The Cantrips deck (and the rest of the spells) are also awesome too, but they did such a good job with the Deck of Many Things that it's head and shoulders above the rest. The actual art, the animations, everything about it is so awesome.
The 15 mph is a bit misleading, considering you also have to accelerate during those 6 seconds, and compensate for the time spent accelerating. Adventurers are not average humans though.
Actually, it's more realistic than you think on acceleration. You do have to accelerate, but you can output enormous effort for short durations. In fact, the 50 m (164 ft~) record is under 6 seconds, and, for men, is around 20 mph.... but by the time you're hitting 1000 m, the world record speed is 17 mph, at 5000 m it's 15 mph. Of course, 50 m is a bit short. The 100 m record is over 23 mph, but, to be fair, the 100 m seems to be a far more popular distance, so it's possible lack of competition is what's lead to a low 50 m record, though it's likely also just too short to reach those peak speeds. Of course, the world record sprinter at 100m peaked at nearly 28 mph, but considering the 200m record, by the same guy, also is only about 23 mph... those intense speeds clearly can't be sustained. By 500m it's down to nearly 19 mph, then, as I said, 1km is down to 17 mph. The unrealistic part is that those world record level athletes are specialists in sprinting, often with access to state of the art performance optimization and the advances of modern science, optimal diets, etc. For the 5 km for instance, 100 years ago the record was more like 12 mph. And that those sprinters do it basically wearing nothing except good modern footwear. In contrast, our adventurers may be very fit, but they are not specialists in sprinting, they don't have access to modern science or optimal diets, they have medieval level footwear, and they're likely carrying loads of bulky heavy equipment.
Most animals/humans reach full speed well before 6 seconds. Cheetahs, scary enough, reach full speed in just under 3. Horses a bit faster than that. The muscles in the legs are extremely strong. Especially in adventurers/people that do that sort of thing a lot. I'd imagine that a Monk/Rogue/Ranger probably use their legs for movement far more than, say, a wizard (who relies on magic). So trying to add "but they have to accelerate" is dumb.
Ignoring ones when rolling HP should be in the official rules. It brings the average roll to exactly the default (half a point higher than a straight roll).
@@KJLock66 If that is his concern then in all honesty either his players are not using their abilities correctly or they are playing the wrong game for them and should look at another rule system or switching to 4th edition.
@@shadowsofdawn3871 i actually started on 4th edition, so i mean thats kinda cool. believe it or not, the fighting is absolutely grueling, so long, and you basically have to do the same cycle of things over and over, so much so, that you actually stop caring about adding cool dialogue to your attacks. you just want the fighting to be over with. (just my opinion, not sure if anybody else thinks it was like this but uh..)
Fast and interesting. Taking the idea of "Move with a purpose" to the game table for combat that is interesting but doesn't take longer than it need to.
Aye thanks for making these videos bro I started dming my first section with a group who has played many games before and they seem to like these rules a lot amd it def helps me!
Jacob: I don't like you pretending to be a paladin when you're actually a warlock the celestial warlock: -_- the oathbreaker palading: -_- Edit: I’ve never gotten this many likes and I was completely unaware of it, thank you so much.
5:43 One of my players is a half-giant and the other player know that, but the characters have never seen a giant and to them, he just looks like a buff and taller human, so they think he's just human. Honestly its a fun feature when they have to introduce him (He's a silent character and doesn't talk to the other players speak for him) as a human.
"What are you doing with the item, are you poking it or just staring at it" I have 2 trains of thought on this matter. 1) Powerful magic items have a safety deliberately so if disarmed an opponent can't use it against the wielder, kind of like those guns with the built in finger print scanners. You spend an hour setting up a new "user profile" or "magic hacking" the admin account. 2) For weapons what does a +2 feel like? I think it would feel like the weapon equivalent of mouse acceleration so a +2 Great sword, it swings faster than it should, you want to do a half cut and you do a full cut or you raze to guard and it ends up over your head, so you need to relearn aim so you don't overshoot the mark and lop your own leg off or a +2 bow would have recoil and you need to learn to control it.
If your players like XP, just calculate the XP needed to the next level, and divide it in the amount of sessions you will take to level you players up, and give them some portions of it after each encounter, and they will level up exactly when you want. That's how you hide something from your players in a healthy way.
k so here's what you do, you can open the transcript of the video. remove the timestamps and then you have literally everything he said. I know it's kinda a jerky response, it's late but, really you can do that. it's like 8 seconds and boom you have your document. good luck.
Man, I legit wanted to get me some of those 'animated' spell cards until I saw how expensive they were. $100+ and you don't even get every spell come on.
@Francisco Ciruela They don't have the same hp. It's based off constitution still, and each class has a different hit die. Barbarians have a d12s, Fighters and Paladins have d10s, Bard has a d8 and Sorcerer and Wizard- I assume that's what you mean by mage- has a d6.
@@brandondennis5166 What he means, I think, is he doesn't like manually rolled HP because someone with a character that is supposed to be beefy like a Barbarian could totally whiff on a roll and end up with the same or less HP as a Wizard that high rolled.
It's the ol "We like to roll (but not actually take on any risk) metalitiy". If you want to roll, have a spine and stick to your result. D&D is already random enough of as it is, their is no need to randomize such a key stat such as HP aswell.
The normal method gives you a 50% chance of getting less than 3 Ignoring 1s takes that down to 40%, which is not actually much of a decrease Using averages makes it a 0% chance
This actually helped, thank you. I just started DMing again, and I love playing D&D when I can. I still like 3.5 from when I was a kid, but 5th edition is just easier to build a game quickly.
Players taking narrative control of their attacks. I see some DMs including on CR, describing characters attacks, after they roll and it's confirmed a hit. Mercer will sometimes say things like "You lunge forward and drive your sword deep into it's chest as blood erupts". Things to add a bit of flavor over "You hit. Roll damage" "You miss". Instead I recommend letting the players know the AC (unless it's one of those rare circumstances where you want them to continue attacking until they figure it out, usually do to spell protections). So you let them know the AC they are aiming for. They roll their attack and damage rolls together (to save time) and if it hits, they see how much damage it did and can then describe the attack to you based on those.
I found the whole, dm rolls death saves from another dm, i cant remember where, but I tried it, like literally next session. I described it to my players, got their consent (always a must for me, I dont just throw rules at my players, they always have to agree) Same session one of them went down, I rolled the save, then moved on, my players freaked out, the whole mood shifted. Usually what would happen: player goes down, "Ok well, Ill finish guy X off, then when we have some time to clear I will go over and stabalize, assist, w/e." Player rolls, 18. "Oh sweet so your good then? nice." fight continues. This time? Player went down, parties entire strategy shifted, suddenly, this was important, suddenly, someones life was on the line and there was FEAR, urgency, and strategy. Also a homebrew I love, is the DMG's varient profieciency, where you roll a die, based on lvl, and add the result to your roll. there are still things where you need static, like passive perception. but it adds a sense of randomness, and makes it a bit more exciting for my players.
Jacob, thank you for sharing your XP. Some great tips 👍 awesome I will apply some 😀 I love your delivery and yes those cards look great so I will check them out. Your camera dying made it even more genuine. You might consider doing it every time 😂
I had to sub for the transparency when the camera cut out, it felt very relatable. As a DND virgin/critter, I really liked how easy your ideas were to understand. I've seen some of your other vids too, and I just REALLY like how accessible you make the game. I'm thinking about finding a group now that I feel a bit more equipped!
I just have one comment on the "no taking 20" rule. We allow taking 20, essentially if it is a check you can do over and over with no consequence until you hit a 20, using an hours as a thumb rule for how long it takes. So, you can search a room, meticulously turning over everything slowly and eventually find everything, but as you said, no casual re-rolling of knowledge checks.
Yeah that's an actual rule in Pathfinder; for a skill check that has no negative consequence for failure, that realistically you could keep trying until such point as you succeed, you can just take a 20 on it (though some DMs will just say it succeeded in such a case, unless there's some reason it matters specifically how well you succeeded). Like for opening a heavy door when it's assumed you're strong enough to eventually get it open, and there's no time pressure, I have a DM that won't even bother making the players roll if they have enough combined strength to eventually open it to save time. Two basic rules for (not) rolling skill checks: 1. If it's inevitable they'll succeed eventually, and there's no negative consequence for failure, just say they succeed and don't bother with the roll. 2. If it's impossible anyway, or the character attempting it can't possibly succeed, just say they fail and don't bother with the roll. Dice should only be rolled when it's necessary to resolve an uncertain outcome. If a given outcome is inevitable, just say it happens.
Okay, so as a Barbarian you roll a d20 strength check to break down a door, gets a 1 "welp guess that's the best I can do" so what are they supposed to do? Get the puny wizard to make a strength check? They'll almost certainly do better even with far worse stats. A d20 on a strength check is your instantaneous burst of strength, not "well this door magically caps my strength as 5% because my first attempt was at my lowest 5%" no, you just keep trying until you do your best. And if it takes a roll of 20 to do it why does everyone have to sit there watching until you get a 20?
I DM’ed my first session yesterday with limited personal playing experience and my players had a lot of fun and they said i was a great dm, i feel like thats mostly because you were such a big influence on me, so thanks!
I fkn love these, I'm mostly a new dm, I love the world building aspects but I'm slow on the combat and little rule details. This will be a massive help!
"I like combat to be fast" requires skill check for flanking, adding in another roll and calculation to see if a move ny the player was even worth the effort...
Plus, it strategically makes sense that a person that is being attacked from in front, and behind would have a difficult time with it. Unless you are just fighting toddlers, which I don't endorse but I'm just throwing that out there........cause toddlers are easy to throw.
@@CADAN8888 which annoys me because it literally makes flanking less than half as effective as it is with advantage. The game wants advantage to be easy to get because 1. you still need to roll high to hit and the game isnt made to assume you have magic items at all times and 2. certain class features are based on advantage and disadvantage
@@donb7519 Even by early mid-game, you don't need to roll high to hit. And by level 10, even if you start off with the basic standard array, you're going to be on a +10 average to hit something. The thing my group find is that for the most part, after the first 4-5 levels, armour class becomes practically pointless. If you don't have 22-23 AC, you're practically going to be hit 75% of the time. If you do, then it ends up being the other way round and you maybe hit 25%.
Jacob: "I want combat to be fast-paced" Also Jacob: "I have a lot of rules for combat" Also, also Jacob: "I want players to be creative and describe what they do". You should play a session with my best friend. If he ever plays a wizard, his name will be Analysis Paralysis. That guy is awesome at tactics, but at the same time you need to indicate the pressure of the combat situation
I got a new sword and spent the day playing with it. Just kind of going through different guards and swings, and just kind of bonding with it. That's in real life! I really did attune to my new sword in real life! You've probably had a similar experience with a new shiny you were excited about.
Your channel makes me want to play DnD, or some sort of game like it. It seems really fun to play with friends. Come to think of it, I just realized why I've never played it before....
@@awesomesauce_3516 Chapter 10: Spellcasting. Section: Casting Times. *_Bonus Action._* A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. *_You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action._* Also, unless the feature explicitly states that you can choose to do something as an action or a bonus action (such as Cunning Action), you can’t just flip between the two.
My medicine check homebrew rule for unconscious PCs is different. Anything below a 10 is no effect. 10 or higher is one success for the unconscious PC. 15 or higher is stabilized but still unconscious. Nat 20 is awake with 1 hp. Nat 1 is a failure.
This is better because otherwise it isn't worth it unless you have high medicine, because if you do fail then you might kill them before the healer can do something.
the death save one is a really good idea. as a DM, i love that- it'll really make my players invested in the campaign because of the suspense. as a player? aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Jacob: "It's a Pigeon" Later Jacob: "It's a Dove. I'm a fool" He's not too far off. Pigeons and Doves are technically both in the Columbidae family, which contains over 300 other birds too. Though colloquially Pigeons and Doves tend to be used to refer to any of the birds in the family with "pigeon" being used for all the larger ones and "dove" for the smaller one
Depends on the species whether they were classified as pigeons or doves, but there is no actual difference between doves and pigeons, hence being in the same Columbidae family and "rock pigeon" being an accepted name for "rock dove". Generally I'd say pigeons are larger and thought of more as a gamebird that is shot and eaten. Doves are smaller, faster and usually thought of as the kind of birds you race or use as messengers rather than eat.
I love so many of these, I love the immersion they add, especially the massive damage + lingering injury ones. The first thing that popped into my mind was when I broke my arm IRL. It happened in a split second, like a powerful attack, and I was staggering and hyperventilating afterward, I would not be firing a bow, swinging a battle axe, or casting a spell right away on my turn, especially if there isn't time for a healer to get to me by then. Maybe for added flavor (again just me thinking off the top of my head, although I realize that it starts to become overcomplicated/possibly unbalanced at this point) there would be some type of injury table to roll on. Using my broken arm as an example, it may not hinder spellcasters too much if they have a component pouch, or they shift their arcane focus to their non-dominant hand. Whereas for a fighter, maybe they broke the arm that carries their shield and since they can't really lift it to defend themselves, they lose that +2 to their AC. Or if they broke the arm that wields their weapon, they can switch it to their non-dominant hand, but they get disadvantage or a handicap on their attack roll (possibly something similar for two-handed weapons, but just being unable to wield them at all I think would be more realistic but that could be too unbalanced)
@@BJGvideos This was over 6 years ago, so I've got my range of motion back and can carry weight on/with it again. It does get sore quicker than my other arm when I've been using it for a while.
If you’re good at roleplaying, you can let the *players* know you’re really a warlock, but the *characters* think you’re a paladin! Also my simple home brew would be that rage only gives a level of exhaustion when you don’t make a con save, and more shield variants. And also anything that adds more fun and makes things more concise
