he just likes to jump BIG BADS: www.kickstarter.com/projects/hitpointpress/big-bads?ref=dh2kgy Merch, Discord, the Quest-O-Nomicon, and everything else: linktr.ee/XPtoLevel3
I am glad that Jacob is using his platform to talk about what he loves. Also those other Jacob clones were rude by casting invisibility on themselves when Jacob was sweeping his camera and saying that he was alone. They are trying to make Jacob look like a crazy person.
@@XPtoLevel3 Hey, Jacob! Love your content, my guy. Wanted to get your take on a trait that I plugged into a Pathfinder campaign that could probably be adapted to 5E: LEGENDARY CELERITY Whether by powers divine, profane, or otherworldly, [INSERT BOSS NAME HERE] draws from their innermost wells of might to move and act at speeds that defy reason. After determining the starting initiative order for this combat encounter, roll an additional initiative check. This character performs their turn on both of these turns in the initiative. This additional turn in initiative cannot be performed before the initiative determined for this character at the start of the combat encounter. At the start of each subsequent round, reroll the additional initiative check to determine the new order of the second turn for that round.
And I think that would make more sense when you are healead in battle. I hate when you fall unconscious, is healed and can instantly do whatever you were doing, and have "know" what happened while you were unconscious.
@@LucasStraub Yeeeep. Back from the dead with 1 HP? Great! I will now unload at my full killing potential, same as usual, just with a higher chance of going down again with zero consequences unless I die die.
I’m not a fan it makes any fight past 5th level just a bunch of gods who don’t need to fear death. Imagine a Druid who is level 7 and is currently at 0hp. With the dying condition they can bonus action healing word themselves using a 1st level slot then wild shape into an owl to fly away. That sounds fun in theory but being at 0hp in 5e isn’t even that bad since they can just be healed. If the party was fighting an adult red dragon and this Druid went down from its breath weapon it no longer feels dangerous just more of a mild inconvenience. This rule will make combat’s favor players even more making the game less of a game and more of a spell slot draining simulator. The ideal strategy with it now is going to 0hp then cast healing word and an attack cantrip. Big spells are literally suboptimal to an aggressive degree so much so anyone who understands how valuable of a resource spell slots are now will limit all the actual cool spells they can cast just to avoid true death.
Conspiracy Theorist. It's very clear to me that the DM is trying to confuse us with his magic and make us believe that all these other people are secretly just one man. Preposterous! Perception Roll (Nat 1, -3 from Abilities, -/+1d4 from ADHD Feat)
Next you are gonna tell me that Eddie Murphy played all the members of his family in The Nutty Professor, minus the kid. Well I am not falling for it. ORRR or or Nikko Ortiz plays Army Guy, Navy Guy, Coast Guard Guy, Marines Guy, Air Force Guy, and Space Force Guy....
Don't be fooled! Jacob has perfected the art of flash cloning and memory transfer; the pan was a red herring designed to make you believe there is only one Jacob. Meanwhile, the Council of Jacob pulls society's strings from the shadows, occasionally stepping into the light to right some egregious wrong, before melting back into the inky blackness.
I love that dying condition rule. It also encourages that dramatic scene of the villain who thought he took care of the hero, only for the hero to be holding their chest, summon their strength, and grab a gun to finish off the villain before collapsing.
Every version of D and D and a few other similar games either seems to want to ban psionicists and mystics or not ban them but make them poorly designed and imbalanced (I've seen both ways too strong and too weak, usually too strong). ~ Some other guy, not the same Jacob's friend, but someone else.
Had a couple PCs go down for the first time in last week’s session, and one of my players sent me this video in response. I go out of my way not to stun or prevent my players from playing but didn’t know how to handle “going down”. This video really sparks my brain on how to allow them more agency when they’re “down” while still keeping it challenging. Fantastic video!
@@BigDaddyWes Thank god I'll never have the misfortune of being a player for you as a DM. One of the worst takes someone can give in regards to DnD or any game in general.
@@rylace You can't imagine any narrative reason or mechanical reason where it would be good for a player to lose agency? That seems kind of shallow minded.
Maybe for the dying mechanic you go for something like Darkest Dungeon's death's door? You get something like -3 on every roll (also, this retroactively affects your initiative roll), and everytime you take damage you have to roll a d6 and die on a 5 or 6. People can still act and heal themselves if possible, but you can also just keep swinging and hope for the best when everyone is close to death.
Oh I can't play for the next 10 minutes? Okay, hey where is your bathroom. I just had some Taco Bell before coming over. Chaotic Evil and cackling towards the bathroom.
He makes a joke of it near the end, but honestly he does such a good job portraying other characters and personalities that I forget that they're all just him with different camera angles and hair styles
Boss monsters with multiple initiatives and different available abilities depending on which initiative they're currently on is actually a really engaging way to play. Speaking as both a long term player and DM of that style of combat
Stun is used when that one party member is out of control at events. I.e. the barb trying to fight all the knights at the banquet cause he wants a challenge. “Oh no looks like the king has arch wizards that stunned you”
This is like strapping a kid to a table if they misbehave. You either give real consequences, (the barb killed or they get away with it, but later are tracked down and hanged for murder.) Or you tell the player correct themselves if you really don't want them to do it. It's easy to just stop the player from doing bad things, but you should also make sure they understand why they shouldn't do it and don't do it later.
Based on the 20 minute video I just watched, I think stun is considered a real consiquence by some people. It's like the dnd community is split into dozens of gatekeeping sub-factions who hurl their backseat advice at eachother like "IF YOU STUN YOUR PLAYERS AS A PUNISHMENT YOURE FUCKING TOXIC BRO"
I think that sounds like a really great roleplaying opportunity that would go to waste if you just stun them for trying to be in character. Nothing wrong with them getting overwhelmed by other means though. Maybe even the party could turn on them and help restrain the barbarian if they felt like it (DM could give a nudge with an NPC ordering them to help stop their barbarian before things get ugly). Things could go a few ways, the party could agree and the barbarian gets restrained and sent to jail (maybe a prison break ark could be planned in the future (also drives home consequences of your actions)) OR maybe the party would rather fight right then and there with their barbarian and it gets chaotic. I could also see the knights taking the challenge up and fighting the lone barbarian to uphold their honor. Pretty much "Alright you wanted 30 on 1 you've got it."
@@Lady-V Getting stunned *is* the roleplaying opportunity. If they've been rejecting self-control and sharing the table with their peers then stunning them effectively forces them to develop self-control and share the table with their peers. It's a moment of "You're being punished for your behavior. You can roleplay out the stun properly, maybe even toss in some muffled grunts here and there, and allow others at the table to actually play the game or you can refuse to roleplay and storm off, leaving the table until such time that we allow you back in." Sometimes shutting up and sitting down *is* roleplaying. As a (reasonably used) penalty, it's good. As a combat tactic, especially if there are multiple foes who can use it against the party repeatedly, is bad.
Stun could be broken down to disoriented and actual stun. Where you have to disorient and then go for stun. You could throw in other factors that might allow you to bypass disoriented and go straight into stun, like exhaustion level or already suffering from other debilitations. I also just like hammer and nail combos, where one player hits for a setup and another player drives it home.
I disagree, stunning doesn't destroy choice. It's your choice to fight the enemy, if you do that there's consequences. It's like saying dying gets rid of choice, you shouldn't have run into traffic then, you DID choose death. Also, obviously it's bad, it's not fun, it's a bad feeling. It shouldn't be good. Having a game where only the bad things you WANT to have happen is not truly bad, what kind of game is that? What kind of game would it be if we didn't allow something frusterating to happen? Plus it doesn't make sense, you can be stunned in reality, stunning is an actual mechanic that makes sense so it just doesn't make sense for it to just not be in the game. Also, you CAN get out of it. You can probably have dispel magic or greater restoration but you. Yes your team has to do it but so? Why are we acting like that means it's bad? This game requires teamwork and that's a good thing to have something where your friends NEED to save you. Stun isn’t the only time this happens, should we get rid of that? Should we get rid of falling off a cliff unless you personally have featherfall? Even if you jump off? I think it makes sense to have the ability to make multiple saves for every stun, each time you fail you lose that turn.
@@HelloThere..... well, the beauty of d&d is that you can make your own campaign the way you want if you don't want stun, you can rework it or remove it if you want it, you can keep it the way it is choose whatever gives you the most enjoyment!
@@HelloThere.....So you think it's a good idea for party members, or even entire parties, to just sit out of all combats & confrontations just in case stun might happen, rather than just modifying the rule? Also, if you think everyone actively chooses to die irl (and that accidents or unavoidable things never happen), you're really naive. Or like 8 years old.
Jacob seemed a little TOO eager to get charmed and murder his allies. He's definitely the kind of guy to go full nova when he gets mind controlled and try to kill his party as hard as possible.
@@idiotcube The basic "charmed" condition doesn't do that, but the majority of charm effects against players usually have additional modifiers, ie "On a fail, the creature is charmed. While charmed, they are under the control of this creature" or whatever. While its not the charmed condition itself that's doing it, it is true for most context in which player characters are charmed.
Holding back while dominated and told to fight your previous allies is hella metagaming, and it would really sour the mood (at least at my table). If you would go all out and nova the enemy, then while dominated you better go all out and nova your allies just the same, no preferential treatments for anyone just because you have out-of-game knowledge and allegiances.
@@Orillion123456 There would still be, on a more instinctual level, an idea that the people you are fighting are good guys. Kinda like how people are lenient to their friends even when they know that something they did was bad and they should be reprimanded for that. Why, in fantasy, people are so much more reluctant fighting former allies even when they know that their actions are irredeemable.
Jacob: Personally I’m not a big fan of just making up the health Also Jacob: Gigachad DMs wait until someone just does something cool and then pronounce the monster as dead
@@XPtoLevel3 I've been thinking about it... for the... 10 minutes since I heard it in the video... How about waiting until the boss is under a certain HP threshold, and THEN when someone does something really cool, pronounce it as dead? I had a moment where I could have done this in 2 different groups, and I severely regret not doing it like that...
@@XPtoLevel3 What I do is I basically have a range of "this is the actual HP to chew through" and then past that, the coolest blow (or if it would be a narratively satisfying kill for a certain PC) gets the HDYWTDT
@@JJ24x7 In a way: yes this is cool In another way spiritual weapon has now become sort of a meme within our group because I keep killsniping with it most extreme example was when my buddies 12th level paladin just UNLOADS like 150+ damage into the BBEG, and then next turn my clerics spell does nothing, but my floating trident (which I almost forgot) pokes him for 6 damage and he keels over dead its stupid, yes, but its also hilarious. and since our campaign was kind of silly anyway it seemed to strangely fit
My house rule about stun and similar abilities is that the enemies and allied NPCs (Aka anything the DM has😂) make the save at the end of their turn. But players make it at the start of their turn. That way it feels rewarding for players who build a character around putting conditions on enemies, but it also doesn’t feel too punishing or boring if an enemy do it to them.
I like the dying condition, usually in a D&D game you can't have that last moments scene where a character is dying and saying their last words or doing their last act since you just get knocked unconscious before you die.
I like zero is dead and that’s it. But I’m more than willing to let the player narrate last words. Players behave so differently when zero means death.
@@jenningscunningham642 Might be best to adjust balance accordingly if zero hp is death cause otherwise people are gonna be dropping left and right from enemy crits at moments that aren't very interesting to die in anyways
@@jenningscunningham642 personally I'd reason it's a lot more fun to die at a climactic moment to the main villain than to die through no fault of your own to kobold #6 because they rolled 10 damage with their sling against your 9 hp wizard. given the goal of playing games is having fun, I'd rather leave room for players to be healed later in those circumstances, as is the default in the game. High-threat monsters often even have that zero hp clause built in past a certain CR in a similar fashion to Disintegrate, with the exact intention to ensure when players do die it'll be to big threats rather than to lucky goons.
I've been using a fun effect I call "numbness" in a recent game. Basically, when under this condition, the DM tracks their hit points behind the screen. You know when you are hit, but not how much damage. It was really fun and added a lot of tension to the encounter.
Yeah, that's how _Unknown Armies_ RPG does it: The gamemaster runs everyone's HP, and the rulebook spends time stating the GM should never say "you get hit for [n] damage" but instead to vividly describe the injury. But the authors also encourage the GM to fudge enemy rolls or enemy/player character HP if it makes for a better scene, or allow PCs to survive if it's in the middle of the adventure and it would be a pointless death. Although, I must add, _Unknown Armies_ is an Urban Fantasy Psychological Horror Game, with elaborate yet intuitive rules mechanisms for a sanity/trauma system better than Call of Cthulhu's, and combat _is_ meant to be realistically deadly, as you play mostly-normal humans with limited HP, and modern weapons or even swords can potentially kill someone on first hit... so the system differs massively from D&D in that players are meant to try and _avoid_ combat when possible, and injury penalties apply. The vibe of D&D's heroic High Fantasy combat is very different.
Utilizing some form of Aid Other action I find takes most of the sting out of 'stuns". If a party member has fallen asleep, another player can use their action(s) to rouse them by throwing a rock at them, running over and slapping them awake, dumping water on them, etc. If they're feared, other players can use some part of their action to shout encouragement or orders to try and snap them out, allowing an immediate new save with a bonus depending on conditions, etc. Paralysis and magical forms of locking down a target are trickier, but for D&D and pathfinder specifically I allow for counterspell and dispel type spells to immediately end the effects, and usually include relatively cheap magical rings/amulets that have 1 or more charges that allow a player to immediately end a magical "stun" effect at any point at the cost of some part of their actions.
In Curse of Strahd, our gnome wizard was at 3 exhaustion for about half the campaign. One hag lived from the mill and did their hag things to us every night. Our DM lined up our tokens and rolled to see who was afflicted every night. Out of about 10-15 nights, our poor gnome wizard was rolled about 70% of the time. It was actually pretty hilarious and fun for all of us to plan around and roleplay with so I do like it as an affliction.
Yeah, a wizard can get away with it. It'll be painful to move half and have crappy saves but it's doable. Someone like a melee oriented fighter though, you're fucked.
Tbh, this is why I love running life clerics and other support. The ability to go "don't worry about going down, I got you homie, now go up there and tear the BBEG a new one" is the coolest feeling especially when the group shows appreciation for you, just as much as they would a tanking paladin or hard hitting barbarian
I also love playing Life Cleric. Best part about that is the panic that sets in when the BBEG Is actually tactical and focuses you down on the second encounter, then watching the sheer panic set in among the other party as they're no longer invincible.
yeah i've found that people that complain endlessly about getting CC'd are ones that NEVER play with a utility player (like a radiant servant of pelor with all util spells). and then you get magic items to make sure that player can't be stunned/etc
@@Gunbudder That's off base from what they were talking about, you're just putting blame on people for making choices which is the entire point of Jacob's video. The other person was just glad as someone who enjoys playing a healer, that they get recognized for what they provide to the group. You're inverting that, and suggesting that people should play certain characters and use certain abilities whether they want to or not. We all complain at times, especially when we're inconvenienced while trying to have fun, I wouldn't hold it against them unless they were really being unreasonably hysterical about it all.
I'm relatively new to your channel, and D&D in general. I really appreciate your videos and content. Thankyou for uploads and the countless hours of effort for each upload.
Thanks! The dying condition is precisely what I’ve been waiting for. It’s so much more cinematic and narratively interesting. Unconscious is boring because it skips over that dramatic moment where you are aren’t dead yet. You’re dying but you can still talk and move a little. I think a lot of people would enjoy RPing that scene. “I’ll hold ‘em off here. You go on with out me. Remember me, kid.“
You should check out Gurps! It uses a really cool mechanic for "death saving throws." I will explain in dnd terms: Characters do not immediately fall unconscious upon reaching 0hp, but roll CON checks every turn to see if they fall unconscious. I really love this mechanic because it extends the life of the heros, and gives them those cinematic moments. "As blood pours from his wounds, and his vision begins to close in... just one more attack to kill the witch.. ~attack roll succeeds~ And with his blade plunged through the heart of evil, the warrior finally falls." Yes, this would severely imbalance health pools in dnd, but I'm sure you can figure something out 😉😊
As a PC, I had a fight recently where I got paralyzed for 1 minute on my first turn but our DM forgot to tell me that I could save at the end of each of my turns. I was paralyzed for 7 rounds before he realized I wasn't making any saves. I had even mentioned to him at one point how I was actually kinda annoyed that I couldn't break out of it and he still didn't realize. To put it in perspective: We had 6 PC's, and it was a big boss fight so turns were extra long for people to decide what they wanted to do. I had to sit there for over an hour just watching my friends play our D&D game without me.
That's fucking awful. Getting paralyzed for an entire combat was the second-to-last drop that made me leave my previous DnD group, and at least we remembered to roll saves. I just kept failing them. (To be clear, my list of gripes was already _extensive_ by that point.) Nothing makes a player stop having fun faster than making them unable to act for no good reason. Like, a single round of stun? Still not great but manageable. Several rounds of being unable to act? No. Fuck that. Never do that to a player. No, not even to control the one problem player. It's just gonna piss them off and escalate matters.
@@Tengila Eh, depends on the party make up. Lesser Restoration is a 2nd Level spell that completely negates Paralysis, but is only on Divine spell lists.
@@slayeroffurries1115 It's actually quite obviously the games fault that it's even an option to "roll badly". Don't get me wrong, variance is fun. Horrible consequences as a result of random chance is not fun (...depending on the players, obviously. No one size fits all.).
Just had a great idea - let the players take damage or some sort of debuff like exhaustion in order to keep acting through the stun. They can then choose to conserve their hit points, making a strategic decision, or more likely they get to feel like a badass pushing through the effects forced on them!
That reminds me of some good ideas Warhammer Age of Reckoning had. It was an MMO that's mostly forgotten as a failed WoW killer, but I think it did a lot right, like some ideas they had about CC. There was an ability that was a 2 second damage over time but its duration reset if you were moving. So it wasn't a hard immobilize. The victim had to choose if and when it was worth stopping to stop the damage. Also, the way taunt worked in PvP was that the target's damage was reduced by a certain percentage until they had attacked the taunter a fixed number of times. So control was never taken away, but they were mechanically encouraged to attack the person using taunt, if they wanted to maximize damage. Compelled Duel is kind of similar in DnD, but why not use that philosophy for more abilities to add, rather than remove, combat decision-making? Why not have a similar soft taunt ability available as a bonus action to martial classes? Taunt: Bonus Action: Target has disadvantage on attack rolls against other targets until they attack the caster. Only one target can be affected at a time.
I just started running a one on one campaign for my gf and I and I was really stumped on what happens if she goes down, that exhaustion mechanic is really thought provoking
Kinda an idea I have that when PCs are charmed against their party, the charm takes underlying issues the character might have with their fellow party members and amplifies them ten fold. Like “You ate the last sweet roll and now I have to kill you!” Or it could even bring up underlying narrative tensions in the party such as maybe a Paladin secretly blames the Rogue for the death of his brother even thought it might not have been that simple. It becomes that simple. Secret resentments boil to the surface with murderous intent
I was thinking of this too. How nice it would be to air that stuff out finally and be all, I was charmed I don't know what you mean... Especially nice to put in the face of a player who pulled a "I'm chaotic neutral it's what I would have done" a little while ago on you. It's not a good Idea mind you, it'll just put logs on that fire, but it's FUUUUNNNN. So screw that guy. he needs his medecine.
Pathfinder 2e has a concept of stun with a number. That number reduces your actions per round. You've inspired me to change "Stunned X" To have a max of 2 per round. We get three actions per round. This means stun will last for longer, but they will never have all their actions taken from them. Thanks!
This was really great to watch and it solidified how I'll be doing combat and trauma in the game I'm writing. Thank you so much for the amazing content you produce!
I personally found content creation so hard when I tried it because I wasn't actually talking to anybody! Its like talking to a hypothetical future person you can't see the reaction of it is nerve wracking! Twitch streams sound like a good way to connect and see that your audience really is real and really does like what you do! Thanks for doing what you do!
I played one DND session where our party of 5 was fighting 3 constructs who were immune to charm and he cast hypnotic pattern, covering the whole room...
@@Kingohel skeletons cannot swim and would therefore be dealing with difficult terrain, also, depending on how high the ceiling is, the skeletons will eventually just be standing at the bottom while the players swim around above their heads
I definitely agree that losing agency is the worst thing that can happen to a player When I'm not DMing and get stunned or held, instead of disassociating until my next turn I like to get caught up in everyone else's turn, basically shifting from an actor mindset to an audience mindset
That's cuz you understand that you are not a main character, and that you are a member of a party and not a critical role stan that cries at the first sign of difficulty
@@ShugoAWayAnd you are what? A bitter judgmental ass. Being bitter and judgmental doesn’t make people who don’t act like you think they should any better. Meaning you are stuck. You’ll get worse and more bitter and frustrated, and they’ll not be better or learn anything, and rightfully dislike you more the worse you get.
@@nojusticenetwork9309because they treat the game more like a tv show and not a normal game and in the same way people will play skyrim and try to play d&d like it I imagine critical roll fans try to play like the people from the show. Also you just need to step out of the spotlight and let other players do stuff sometimes.
I really love this video. I recently played a game where my character was stunned and I couldn't think out what was different compared to other conditions. This video put it into words perfectly! And thank you so much for your thoughts on not just "stun" but exhaustion and the dying condition. Hopefully if I ever DM, I can put these into practice.
20:41 “I’M JUST A GUY!” I was stirred by how honest you were when you said your piece here. And I’m just some stranger who never comments on RU-vid videos as a rule - but I had to drop what I was doing and say something, for once. After all, you’ll never know what a great job you did if people don’t let you know! Dude, you’re so genuine. Your opinion matters to you, it shows, and it’s backed by hours and hours of work. And it’s presented in a way that’s so funny! That meta-humour at the end there came out of nowhere. Your humour has this distinct improv-group feel to it, and I don’t usually smile at my screen but there I was, grinning. And your video’s set??? I wanna play MY campaign in that atmospheric room. The globe, the curtains, the books! I guess I really wanted you to know that your effort and your stress has resulted in real, tangible connections with strangers like me. I was already subscribed, but now I’ve hit the notification bell. Sorry for the long comment. You’re appreciated, so keep doing what you enjoy and keep saying your piece. I speak for the strangers: we love ya, man.
As far as the dying state is concerned, I love this alternative that makes it seem more straining on the characters. It's like they're pushing themselves past their limit to keep fighting with a team. The "stun" condition on the other hand should stay unchanged. I feel like that's why good supporting classes will take certain spells that are meant to counter those effects.
Unless it's the support that gets hit by it. Then you're reliant on hoping you have the right saving throw proficiency to make the save in less than 3 turns.
The “dying” condition is also more cinematic. It emulates what happens in the movies: character on the ground, leaning against a wall, hand over their grievously wounded abdomen, speaking through a wincing grimace, “I don’t think I’m gettin’ outta this one. You go on without me. Don’t worry. Just go. GO!” And then they use their last turn making a tripping attack against the bad guy that’s chasing them, or caving in the roof by casting shatter.
Why not just change the stun condition to you roll a dice save or lose only one turn. And the next time you get stunned you're more immune to it than before. And just give players the option to wear things that resist or immunize them from the stun status while wearing it.
being forced to do absolutely nothing on your turn I imagine sucks what about something like "dazed" instead where you can take actions, but they are distorted in some way like while dazed you can't move in a straight line (have to change direction every 5 feet) and are slower or a "stagger" effect, where if you're hit by a particularly powerful strike, you can choose to move away from the attacker (following through with the recoil) or spend your turn "resisting" in order to stay put.
You are welcome Jacob. I enjoy your videos mate. Keep em coming! You always make good points and points I might add that I have always thought too and I'm glad Im not the only one.
I think paralysis and stuff have a good place in a fantasy setting. your rule is interesting because it adds a phase between completely fine and unconscious, wich, to me, seems more realistic but also only shifts the problem. but maybe shifts it enough to be more fun.
@@nicholaspitti8171 maybe have it build up exhaustion levels ? since they already simulate slowed movement and limited mobility? sorta like you failed that saving throw against the basilisk, so now instead of not getting to play the game, you are at a serious disadvantage until next rest. but if you fail again the penalty gets much worse until eventually it kills you
I love how natural it feels to see multiples of you in the video. The editing is so seamless I forget that you're just one person. Keep up the amazing work!
yeah feels like exhaustion is sorta underused becuase dms give their players frequent rests and players are like SUPER carefull about not getting it applied becuase the peneltys are huge
It is not a tradeoff, sleeping off a level of exaustion is not hard, but hos system makes any party with a cleric literally immortal, because befor you could target the cleric so they would need protection, because if they go down your support is down so you cant leave your cleric to 1v3. With this idea? Cleric can heal themselves while being at 0 hp, it removes risk from the party because now no matter what their cleric literally cant die while he has spellslots.
A very light and simple version of Jacob's rules that I've run for a while was just to have each failed death save grant one level of exhaustion. This limits them to only a couple near-death bounces at 0hp. But, as a tradeoff, they don't go unconscious at 0hp unless they have that 5th level of exhaustion.
@Graine I don't know. You're right it could be min maxed abhorrently, it only takes 6 levels of exhaust to die, at 2 your speed is halfed. And for the adverage party dungeon crawling having half speed or half ability checks could certainly hurt, you only get 1 level back so unless they bunker for weeks on a dungeon it can slap a little, and mostly I just never interact with exaust so it'd be nice to goof around with it. (Plus the circles I play in don't really worry about "having supports" because they thought having 5 sentient rock barbarians would be a funny party.)
I love the dying condition rule, I would add that if you recover from the dying condition but then your hit points drop back to 0 again during the encounter you immediately gain 1 point of exhaustion. This means that you can’t just healing word the fighter out of the dying condition over and over again without it taking a toll on their abilities.
@@zooker7938it actually doesnt work that well, because then if you are already pretty exhausted from say, frenzy, then it fucks your ability saving throws
At our table, whenever you receive healing while dying, you suffer one level of exhaustion. This means that the party has to make a choice about whether it's better for the downed player to get up and take another level of exhaustion, or to be stabilized and sleep it off. Typically, this means our party hangs out around 0-2 levels of exhaustion, or maybe 3-4 if we're pushing through a serious series of encounters we can't avoid, and it makes everything feel a bit more desperate and gritty.
i had a DM do karma dice where its u role vs the stun if u fail u gain +1 to the next role vs it (refreshes with -1 to this every other turn so u can try and multi stun and even if u get 1 turn u still have some bonus if its happens the next turn) and its a good way to do it in smaller groups (bigger then 4 players u might want +2 -2 has to make the more players doing turns feel better) and makes it less horrific while not killing the effect (has it works to a lesser extent for the enemy has well where its +2 for bosses and +1 for non bosses and its full reset insted of a -1 or 2 for the bonus vs the stuns)
I feel this so much. My groups Cleric was fighting a vampire, and first got paralysed by them, failing a wisdom save (DC 18, +8 bonus). Then he got charmed into attacking the party instead. Same save. Three separate casts, three saves with a 50% chance each to succeed, and failed all three. This really sucked for him. In another game, we were fighting a big boss and my Level 13 monk got hit by Power Word Stun. No save, you are stunned. That took me out of the fight for the entire combat.
Certain conditions like paralysis you can put a limit on. Like if a player fails to break out of it in two turns then they automatically break free of it on the third turn. This also helps prevent monsters from completely stun-locking the party since by the time they get to the third target the first will be back up.
I tend to implement a "taking damage gives you another save" rule for these things, plus allowing other players to attempt to help each other break out of the status effect.
@@solosynapse yeah that usually goes a long way, Tho I often also add a creature specific way to break the effect Either giving the target advantage on the save or ending the effect without needing to succeed a save. Usually this means getting hit with a specific damage type and/or amount, But if casting Vicious Mockery guarantees the fighter to wake up, That might just be worth it.
I had to make a rule like that but for restraining-type things due to a certain player of mine who shall not be named. It works quite well! In my case, due to it being for kind of manual restrain-grapple type things (the player kept trapping people under sheets of various fabrics, but it'd apply to things like holding an oven door closed as well), it's based off of the difference between the perpetrator's and the victim's STR.
Alternative to complete removal of stun and such, limit them. Stun might stop you from moving, but not attacking. Incapacitated might stop you from attacking, but not moving or could limit your movement to half speed. I do like adding options to unconscious though!
Starfinder has an interesting system where you have something called resolve points which effectively act as your death saving throws. Everyone has a limited number of these per long rest and you can expend them to overcome some status effects like stun. The downside being that if you use them too much and enter a downed state with no resolve points left, you die. It is an interesting system to where the player has a choice of doing something now at the risk of dying later, or play it safe and wait for the status effect to wear off.
The downside to this is that if you don't use your RP during encounters and save them up, PCs are extremely hard to kill. As a GM designing encounters, it's nearly impossible to create resource attrition, and usually if I want to challenge my player in a fight I have to go all out with a deadly encounter. I love the system don't get me wrong.
That sounds dumb. Seems like something you’d either never use cuz you’d be afraid of dying instantly the moment you go down, or something that would fuck you over cuz you never go down so you use all your points, then you end up taking like 1 damage from stepping on a Lego brick and instantly dying
@@jules3484 As a GM, I would create situations where players could expend RP. Like giving the players a choice between becoming exhausted or expending a RP to push through a situation without any penalties. Or giving a player an option to expend an RP to boost an attack kinda like Goku increasing his Kaio Ken to boost his Kamehameha.
I think Stuns could be used more cleverly outside of combat, like triggering a trap in a puzzle, or drinking a random potion a stranger gave you. But in combat, it's never fun.
I'm really happy I found this channel I don't have anyone to play DnD with so I read the books and learn about it for the day I can finally play again, I also may be DMing soon and its really helped me learn a lot especially this video I feel thanks again Jacob
I’m the cases where it’s caused by a spell or someone in the party can remove the condition, I think it builds good teamwork or shows who may or may not care for your character (as their characters). If nobody has such abilities, it RU-vid 🏀
I've never played DnD, but I've been a fan of your content for a long time simply because of the passion you put into these videos. This one was especially good, well written, researched, developed, performed, and edited.
A couple of sessions back our group was exploring Undermountain, and as we were exploring one room about 8 or so modified ghouls pop out of barrels. Rolled low initiative and was paralyzed round 1 before my turn. Spent the entire session rolling low saves, staying paralyzed, going unconscious thrice, and dying at the end of session. Unfortunate string of bad luck, but that means the party had to fight my character’s corpse (in the possession of his abyssal patron) the following session. Thinking back on it, it does feel really bad to lose your character, not out of avoidable mistakes, but out of poor initiative and bad luck. (Like, REALLY bad luck. +4 Con modifier from Amulet of Health and I don’t think I rolled above a 13 all night on the paralyze save.)
I came to a similar conclusion myself over the year Ive been DMing.I only use stun/paralyze on VERY specific and very dangerous monsters because it's so annoying, and I've found that when it is that rare the players do stay engaged because they start to panic in fear. I think them not being desensitized to it helps as well. Love the idea of the dying condition
When I played a LARP (35+ years of play!) a common "rule" regardless of what version of rules the LARP was up to was that no spell or monster effect could take a player out of play involuntarily for more than 10 minutes. This applied to things like paralyze, sleep, hold person, and poisons that temporarily took away your ability to move or just use skills. resurrected - There were rules where you could OPT to be out of play for up to an hour, but the ten-minute maximum was otherwise a hard rule. Some examples would be being willing to contest a formal ritual and being "in jail" for a minor offense. And if you chose to commit the crime that led to you being jailed, you could opt to go play a monster for that jail time. - The point, I guess, was that the rules were designed to never take away player agency for a long period of time.
Yeah in our campaign we are currently going up against some mind flayers which of course have their stun, grapple, big damage combo. Our DM also reached the conclusion that stun is too long so they have just changed it to a 1 turn stun.
Certain monsters revolve around their incapacitation ability. I often play Ghouls (who paralyze) this way. The players knows as soon as they succeed a save what it was for. And when a ghoul paralyzes someone, they immediately stop fighting and drag the paralyzed player away if they can. The implication is to eat them. Makes them slightly less of a threat while giving the party a clear goal. Doesn't stop the paralyzed player that's repeatedly failing saves something to do, which is still the issue. But at least it's very few monsters that have it.
I think another good alternative is stuff like slow and tasha's mind whip. Similar effects that can limit the amount the players can do in the turn, while still letting them make choices
Plus if you limit what they can do without taking their turn away they can get creative and come up with something clever. Which is just a joy to watch.
I actually really like your rule on dying. I’ve always had an issue with immersion when a player goes down, it always takes them out of the game. I think that letting them have actions while dying while also giving them consequences and trade offs for using those actions is amazing. Thank you!
I actually really like your dying rules, and I will be bringing it up to my players at my next session to see if they want to try it out. I know I have one player at my table who's complained on multiple occasions about stun effects and how they aren't fun for him, so I've been sort of phasing them out of my game already.
Got into trying to sketch out my own rule set for a table top gameish (i got lost, so props on making a Fallout variant :'x) So honestly love these videos offering ideas/rants with D&D or such edits
Building on your dying condition idea: Could it also be an idea to let a player 'expend' 2-3 points of exhaustion to gain advantage or a flat bonus on their saving throw? maybe even 5 points to auto-succeed? That way exhaustion becomes more important and you give player agency back and that way it could give a dm more tools ( or keep the same amount of tools) to direct/narrate the story.
Jacob, this video was absolutely stunning. I'll have to restrain myself from being too optimistic, but I really think that these homebrew rules are a real knockout! This has been a revelation, and I'll be sure to incorporate some of these changes into my games. Thanks a bunch, man!
I really like how PF2 handles save or suck. Since most statuses are numerical debuffs the turn ending stuff is much rarer. Even Stun comes with a number and you lose an action (you have 3 normally) for every level of Stun so it's hard to completely end someone's turn.
that's an ever faster fix than jacob's dying condition in case anybody doesn't feel like fitting 10 levels of exhaustion into the game - every stun gets nerfed but still functional
@@hugofontes5708 I like the idea that first you cannot use an action and a bonus action in the same turn, Then one level later you can only use a bonus action or movement. And finally you cannot move or take (bonus) actions for 1 turn. (This is a fairly direct translation of the Pathfinder condition, but adjusted to acknowledge the differences in power between the action types in D&D) These rules would allow you to pull shenanigans such as Inflicting 2 levels of stun on a failed save or 1 on a successful one, reducing it by 1 at the end of the target's next turn.
Ran the Dying condition for the first time in my group’s Session 1 for Phandelver and Below. Was super badass having our Paladin go down and then take three levels of exhaustion to take out one of the boss monsters in the Cragmaw Hideout with his halberd.
I was thinking about "stun" in the tactical board game Gloomhaven, and why that "sucks" but isn't "boring" like in dnd, and your analysis of choice really nails it down. In Gloomhaven, you play two cards a turn (this is slightly reductive, but whatever) and those cards are discarded. WHEN YOU ARE STUNNED this does not change that. You still have to play two cards, they have no effect, though, and are discarded. So the stun leads to an interesting gameplay moment where you think about your choice "what two cards will I not need?" Also stun lasts exactly 1 turn unless SUPREMELY unlucky, and even with all of that, it is STILL the rarest effect for enemies to have.
btw, just have fun and enjoy making your content. do what you enjoy and people will follow. don't ever do things you don't enjoy, even if it does well. that can cause some real negative burnout. people will always have fun and enjoy watching if you're having fun and enjoying doing you! ty for being you!
I really like your Dying Condition homebrew! I've heard a lot of homebrew rules for Dying to try to effectively do the same thing, but I feel like yours is actually balanced and engaging, while keeping Dying as a threatening effect.
Had a session recently where I got stunned at the start of combat. I never rolled higher than a 5 to get out of it, and my party had to carry me out as we fled from the battle. I ended up falling asleep afterwards and missed a few important things (sorry DM). Definitely captured the feeling perfectly at the start.
I'm a huge fan of the Death's Door ruleset. It's so much fun and gives the player control of their fate. Will they risk it all to try and save their team/turn the fight, or crawl away? etc.
I think the afore mentioned status effects are okayy mechanics wise and and narratively. Because when you have a totem barbarian whos immune to everyone, a fighter who can attack 70 thousand times, and massive damage from a spellcaster, sometimes it makes sense to level the playing field
i definitely agree with all of this and it gives me some ideas. i particularly like the idea to use the exhaustion system or the fight for your life from borderlands.
Thank you for all the content you make. Being a creator is a difficult job, and it can be easy to forget as a viewer how stressful that can be. Thank you for always providing me with a chuckle and a smile!
We have a character in our campaign who is under the control of his warlock patron. He has a special ability to enter an “abyssal rage” in which he draws energy from the abyss (his patrons domain) to enter a rage state where 2d6 is added to each attack. However, when he enters the rage, he makes a wisdom saving throw, and if failed, the abyssal energy overcomes him and he attacks everything in sight. It’s a great way to introduce a new issue in a fight.
I guess I'm crazy because I like sitting back and watching the party panic and figure out how to help me while also dealing with the thing that caused the effect.
the dying condition sounds incredible - opens up so many options for players and DM alike - there are lots of possible feats that could make use of the mechanic
I agree with you about charm Jacob. My character recently died but he was charmed before that and tried killing the party so the party had to kill him. And it was a character who was really attached to mine that had to finally put him down. The despair was real… and it was incredible!!!! It felt so real even though just a bunch of numbers weren’t going to be used again.
Your situation is more a problem with a general lack of understanding of "charmed" in DnD than anything else. Charming isn't mind control. A charmed person just views the caster as a "friendly acquaintance;" the quote is directly from the spell. If your character wouldn't start attacking his party mates because he was asked to by any person he kind of knows and is on good terms with, then a person casting Charm Person (or equivalent magic) isn't going to get you to do that, either. Now, the higher level Dominate Person can attempt that, but if used in combat, the subject will almost certainly have advantage on the saving throw, and any time the subject takes damage, he gets a new save.
@@saldiven2009 I mean charm is sorta super varied on what the effect is. Yes, that's how the charmed condition works, but a charm effect is typically decided by what causes it. For example, Crown of Madness, Hypnotic Pattern, Dominate Beast, and Geas are all technically charms and bonuses against getting charmed apply to them, but none of those inflict the charmed condition. It really isn't that simple, and it could be a monster ability that did it, we don't really know without context 🤷♂️
@@saldiven2009 Or, and hear me out here. The narrative called for a full mind control charm that was set up in the plot. Which led to an amazing sequence and an impactful death of a character.
I'm a little of two minds on this one. I do like the idea of the dying condition and desperation maneuvers but I also see stun/incapacitated/charmed/etc. as a point that engages the OTHER players into interestingly dire situations that necessitate that players assist eachother. Many a player (myself included) can build a highly efficient damage output machine of a character for combat and I do think it is good to have them in situations where they need to assist their allies and make a team feel more like a "hand", as opposed to "3-5 fingers." as for rules on these "stuns" I think the team dynamic is worth considering: like how able are party members to help each other? how many players can be incapacitated by the stun (the more people in the stun the more unfair it is). as well as thought put into encounter designs to avoid knocking the same player unconscious every turn.
the problem is that you can put the players into dire situations that necessitate players assisting each other without excluding one or more of them from that situation, which is what stuns do. You put a player in time out so that the other players get a challenge, which may be fun for the other players, but the one in time out may as well just go do something else until they are allowed to play the game again.
Remember that your death saves are still normal. If you're unlucky you can still die in two or three turns, and if you have no healing options you can use on yourself, well, you better hope a teammate comes to the rescue!
This is a great video. I always appreciate your work and effort you put in to your videos and streams. I especially liked this video because recently I watched the finale to a long running TTRPG campaign where the DM kept one of the players stun locked AND/OR possessed (so the DM 100% controlled them) for 80% of the finale stream. I was SO miffed. Seriously. I can't believe the DM did that to their player. That was the players first time playing DnD too. Now the last memory they'll ever have of a TTRPG is "oh, that game where I sit at a table for 3+ hours in silence while everyone else has fun? Yeah nah, I'm not gonna play that again."
