Did you consider the alternative is Gms quitting their own game. Its about your Gm getting to actually have a game. Nevermind the unfair comparison that is calling Silvery Barbs the same thing as dogpiling one player to death
@@vortraz2054 It was also suggested to talk it out as not only players and dm, but as people lol. Afterall this is a collaborative experience, not a competition.
In the section about players having fun, you somewhat undercut your initial argument, especially the Silvery Barbs example. "Understanding and respecting peoples aims is critical to being a good game master/human being"
I personally don't give a shit about "fair". I've always viewed DMing and ttrpg's in general as improv theater, with me (the DM) as the director the acting troupe, and my players as the actors. I'll give them a framework of what the scene is, they improvise whatever their crazy little hearts desire, and I provide direction tips here and there. But what I DON'T do, is decide that I should just remove all the actors from the freaking play because of some weird stage direction "rule" that theater kids live by. Sorry but if the actors are gone, the play is over. And I'm not there to provide part of a play. I'm all for letting the players have advantages and upper hands pretty much whenever. I'm there to see what story of heroics and triumph they come up with, not track death saving throws before they spit out blood while unconcsious and die
I love the Pokémon analogy, not every trainer uses healing items but some do and pretty much every gym leader does. Same in D&D, not every monster cheeses fights but some can use cheesy tactics and the BBEG almost always can and would just add to their evilness/fun.
It's a really good analogy. The honorable fighter/barbarian guard captain will _not_ cheese fights and do OP stuff just because he can. The BBEG wizard very well might. And the adult red dragon, while very intellgent, might still not focus fire all the time. Just because that'd suck for the dead player. (And also because it just wouldn't fit their character, perhaps.)
And I feel like that would be fair game, if the BBEG or the big final boss of the dungeon they've been trekking through had Silvery Barbs themselves. It would give the party that taste of their own medicine lots of DMs seem to crave for some reason while also being rare enough that it won't annoy the players by it being used all the time. Plus most players wouldn't even question that the boss would have such a powerful ability as it makes sense, of course they would. This might be the best path for power hungry DMs to take I think. Even then it shouldn't happen at *every* big boss encounter either
Even the trainers who do use healing items won't be able to do what some trainers do (that is: "I can't beat Cynthia's Garchomp, so I bought enough revives for me to revive my party over and over until it runs out of PP and beats itself with Struggle"). They're limited to 2 Full Restores at most. Pokémon games are supposed to be challenging enough that it's satisfying to win battles, instead of steamrolling your way through, and the opponents by definition don't do what you can do. Gym Leaders can't level grind. The forbidden strategies enemies use have to be different. They can pull dirty tricks (looking at Ghetsis and his underleveled Hydreigon) but not the same tricks players can use.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 the dragon wants to have some fun after the fight, and it'd be awful inconvenient to have to warm up the body while it's so far away from his mouth
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 Pride. That could be a reason. A giant, proud dragon thinks it below them to use cheese tactics on those flightless tiny creatures. It's only when they are pushed into a corner aka too far into the low HP that their survival instinct overtakes their pride and they steep to cheap tactics and then the party could in worst case bargain for a truce or find a way to chase the enemy away.
I'm confused. As a DM, I always thought that "if the players can do it, the monsters can, too" was a caveat to remind us to create the odd compelling encounter - one fight where they face for example a small group of magi that do use silvery barbs to disadvantage them, to keep things fresh on occasion. That's at least how I have been using the caveat - giving 'boss' characters to challenging dungeons able to do things like Action Surge, or the evil sorcerer who just fucks off when the fight turns bad, using Dimension Door. However, I never considered ANYONE using that advice to mean "every single enemy you fight will now do the thing", because that doesn't keep things fresh. It just changes the difficulty celing. And I can't understand DMs that want to try and make their players die. Like, you're the force of reality itself. You can just... rocks fall, everyone dies, if you want. Any talentless hack can kill them. It's our job to make them sweat on occasion, but make them feel GOOD about it too.
That's a good point. A lot of monsters could use more flavor, but could make interesting fights with little tuning. And maybe even simulating "pvp" could be fun. As long as the game is fun and interesting with proper challenge (depending what's appropriate for your players) I guess anything goes, that's the point anyway.
I always liked using the term whenever the players would do something RAW, like the peasant cannon. I always prepared them for it, though, and used it extremely sparingly. But things like that, where random rules can be used for a laugh and appear more like a final boss than an annoyance.
I see killing my players as something I actively avoid as it’s not fun for them and it makes my life harder. Enemies that fight smart offer a unique challenge, but they shouldn’t always have a well planned out strategy. The random group of goblins may just attack whatever is in front of them, while a group of knights or mercenaries may try to take out the casters first. It’s all a matter of situation.
I just made a comment that killing PC's shouldn't feel "taboo." When designing encounters PC's already have an innate high chance of success (assuming the CR is correct and you don't have to make adjustments on the fly because it isn't). So extremely bad decisions and poor roles shouldn't bind the DM further. There is some gray area for the DM to work within this approach because defining "extremely bad" and "bad rolls" is a case-by-case subjective analysis. I've seen players "rag" on the premise that they "all wake up in a prison cell" after what they thought was a TPK. Maybe this is the "bone" the DM threw them after said bad design or rolls but the DM shouldn't have to justify it to the player's. Or maybe the DM allows the TPK to "stand" and the player's feel the repercussions of the characters failures through their newly created Pc's?
I agree with your feelings 962%. The DM that taught me literally everything I know about DM-ing told me something that has stuck with me for 16 years. "At the end of the day, I WANT to see your characters WIN. I want them to work for it, I want them to have to EARN it, and I want to see the characters grow and develop. I want to beat blast them to deaths door, to the point that you sweat and are terrified. I want to see your characters tortured physically and mentally but ONLY because I want to see them bounce back, recover and triumph."
@@RonRon1772 i once used call of cathulhu to make a session like Phasmopobia or similar Ghost hunter series or games. and the all dies out of fear and terror AND THE LOVE IT!!!!
The dirty secret of DnD is the good DM is on the players side... If he wasn't the players lose immediately as 20 Tarrasque appear to challenge first levels. But the DM must make it challenging not impossible and not too easy. Anything that becomes boring change/remove it's your game.
I like the rule "The monsters have rules they follow, they will consistently follow those rules, but they won't necessarily be the same as the rules the players follow."
Yeah, and that's why I tell my players if a spell has text, it does what the text say(in combat) and can be used creatively outside of combat if it makes sense for the situation. Example: my player was wondering if it's okay to cast Rope Trick and use it mid combat, I said that it wouldn't be the best idea because of how it would break everything mid combat, but say using it to lay an ambush, I'd be cool with that. It's mainly because I want to tell an epic story and abusing the mechanics like that is lame, and the table agreed. So, moral of the story, talk about the rules and why you're ruling that way, and have a discussion after the session to see if the table agrees. My table likes a challenge, so they didn't wanna do it.😅
@@cdnamy8832 in combat it doing a specific thing and out of combat being able to experiment with it works in universe, because in combat you're using it as it's intended, in a way you know will aork
@@jaydavis9717 Did you watch the video? You're toxic, just talk out your issues, it's not hard. I've talked it out with players, other dm's have talked it out with players, you can too.
@@jaydavis9717 Valid, but fundamentally flawed lol. I agree with the vid in just talking it out, or trying too. Rather than say nothing and potentially nuking your table so that no one is playing DnD anymore.
As a forever DM, I'm currently playing a 5e character for the first time in my roommates campaign and I hate it, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't having fun and why all the other group members have asked me to DM the next campaign. And then I saw this video and I understand .
Absolutely. At the same time, the players will need true challenges for the story to be epic. I don't play 5th, but that spell does sound like it trivializes major opponents.
I love this advice, but am afraid of the warped version of it where the DM tells their story and you have to sit and watch their self insert save the world effortlessly.
That's the job of the whole table I think the DM can and should facilitate an epic story. But it's not my story. Things happen, and that's the story, how the players react and change the things that are happening. Reminds me of the old saying about how it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Yeah. Life happens between you achieving your dreams or whatever.
I find it strange that the DM “winning” is such a widely perpetuated notion. I don’t think players usually view themselves as “winning D&D,” and I sure hope they don’t come to the table with the express intent of “Let’s screw over the DM as hard as possible.”
The better solution, if the DM absolutely HAS to show the player first hand how frustrating Silvery Barbs spam is would be to build an encounter around the idea “every enemy has silver barbs,” not making the game about their revenge god fantasy. But talking is much more conducive
I don't think the DM dislikes the spell. Put yourself in their shoes for a second. If you've been in the DnD community long enough, you should know about the infamous case of everyone picking the Lucky feat. The problem was how much dice rerolling it causes to a point that the game gets constantly interrupted, like a game of YuGiOh in which a trap takes effect every time someone places a card on the field. *But Silvery Barbs being a lvl 1 spell means as you grow in lvl, you can cast it exponentially more times than use Lucky.* It's a fun spell, but in moderation. Let me add that I have Silvery Barbs on my wizard in our Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I rarely use it. Most people are gonna spam it every combat because it's fun to make enemies miss and sh%&, but I find the most value in it in saving it to make a big monster fail an important save or to give advantage to someone about to take a big swing. It's not worth the spell slot to burn it every single turn just to give advantage or troll the DM.
@@mak31589 There is nothing players HATE more than something being banned. Using it against the players is literally the lesser of two evils in the minds of a player. Its a no win situation for the DM.
@@themasterseye this is literally what the video you're commenting on warns against. If your games are being dominated by a single spell, then remove it from your game. A limited spell pool can actually open up creative gameplay, which everyone will remember, rather than someone saying "I cast Spell X" for the hundredth time
By the logic of “If the players can do it so can the monsters” then if you truly want a 2-way street then the players should also have legendary resistances, lair actions, the ability to get stats over 20, innate spellcasting, etc.
"If the players can do it, so can the monsters" is usually meant to be a kind of - "Yeah, you can do this cool thing this time, but be careful, cause the world around you evolves and you can set a precedent." But it doesn't really mean - oh, every encounter is this from now on. It means - oh, in a cool moment, a monster can pull off that move too and make things interesting. That's how I see it.
That's how I interpret it too. It's a that's neat trick to add to my own bag of tricks kind of thing where, if the circumstances align, I can pull it off myself for this one encounter. And that's the trick. *One encounter* is the best way because it throws your players a curve ball if they don't see it coming
But then that rule doesn’t go the other way. PCs can’t learn the abilities of Humanoid Monsters that have special spell-like attacks. PCs can’t have legendary actions/resistances. etc. etc. Players and monsters are not the same AND the effect this spell has on PCs vs DMs is not the same. DMs control several creatures, and usually have the means to act multiple times per turn. Silvery Barbs is barely useful for players (you’ll know this if you’ve ever actually used it) and is just demoralizing when used against them out of spite.
@@AnimatingClass101 1: Tieflings are literally in the PHB and can use some of the spell-like abilities you're describing 2: Normal enemies aren't going to have legendary actions/resistances unless you're running legacy 3: It isn't always about spite
@@AnimatingClass101 Not to mention, DMs always have the option to just fudge rolls anyway. Or throw in more monsters. Or decide to buff people with magic items. If a DM wants to be mean, they don't need Silvery Barbs to do that. DMs and players are not equal and shouldn't be treated thus. Good video, DnD Shorts
As a experienced DM, I agree. The best way to avoid the DM vs player mentality and retributive gameplay is to discuss the problem with your players as the issue is arising. If your players are always cheesing an encounter with something like silvery barbs or counterspell, sitting down with your players and coming to a gentleman's agreement is way better than being passive aggressive.
I always take a worldbuilding approach to DMing. I don't care if the players steamroller encounters, they have fun that way and I have fun workdbuilding. When it comes to boss encounters. I use the information I get about the party in the small encounters to make the boss battle challenging, and I never try to "counter" the players abilities.
Talking always leads to the problem being solved and 100% is the encouraged solution; when the goal is for everyone to have fun. Sadly, there are people who think a DM vs Players mentality is the correct one to have, but those people are only interested in their own enjoyment, never anyone else's, so are never people I'd want to have as DMs, Players, friends, coworkers, or just associate with in general. And for those who think the "If Players can, enemies can" concept makes things fair, then it should apply in the reverse as well. DM throws a blue dragon, beholder, or Marilith at the party? Then wouldn't it be fair that every single party member now can breathe lightning, cast rays of disintegration, can freely teleport, make 7 melee attacks and/or can cast spells, and has legendary actions and resistances. That's fair, right? "If Enemies can, Players can" after all. Nobody who uses the concept "If Players can, enemies can" would ever allow it to be applied in reverse because they aren't interested in other people having fun; only their own. It's good for a bit of chaos, but it doesn't satisfy the power and control fantasy these people want to experience at the expense of others. Good DMs talk to the players about problems that arise and figuring out a solution, regardless of if that means banning a spell or changing the way it works or running a different type of campaign entirely, so everybody can get back to having fun and look forward to the next session, knowing their time will be well spent. Bad DMs see the players as obstacles to be overcome, taking satisfaction in the players' suffering, and spend their time thinking up how to torment their players, while the players are miserable and view the session time as worthless and wasted. And if you are a player who thinks such thoughts, leave that group immediately, because NO! Bad DnD IS NOT BETTER THAN NO DnD! NO DnD IS INFINITELY BETTER THAN BAD DnD! Because that time you don't spend in Bad DnD can be spent on things you do find enjoyable AND you could find some GOOD DnD to join in the meanwhile. True, the Bad DMs won't be having fun without anyone to torment...but at least it's fair...
@@timdrugge907 This is… interesting. And a good idea for a kirby-like ability. (I am not missing the point, my home-brew brain just started up when you mentioned monster abilities for the players) But you’re right, GM vs Player mentality is the game killer.
Precisely the right solution to this debate. Banning spells gets a bad rap from things like r/dndhorrorstories etc. but if a spell or feature has gained the status of “if you think about it, if a caster doesn’t take silvery barbs, they’re shooting themselves in the foot,” then ban the spell. If it would break immersion for the spell to exist and not be taken by any caster, then that spell was poorly designed, and can be either banned or altered in your game. Do whatever allows your table to have fun.
Really like the focus fire argument, it feels really bad as a player when an entire mob specifically targets you for no reason. I have had some bosses target a player to knock them down, but the boss is already losing in terms of action economy so it feels much fairer and adds to the stakes, its not like the boss is going to have enough actions to kill them outright before they get healed anyways.
Honestly, I think it's just a matter of expectations. I think if a party goes into a fight knowing that enemies WILL try to focus PCs down, they will be much less eager to get into fights. On the contrary, they'll be wary and think twice about rushing headfirst into battle. The way I see it, as long as the DM isn't being adversarial and actually out for revenge, there are no right and wrong answers, only different expectations as to how you'd like a game to unfold.
I like the argument, except when I am DMing my own world and the players choose to go after a dragon. Most encounters, I will often have enemies choose targets that I know can take a hit for various spells, and if I can, make it a close fight with my combat choices for the foes, and single target attacks only happen when something got messed up, like a wizard jumping infront of a barbarian to shoot a fireball at the backline, when the frontline of foes are within range of move and attack. That wizard got ganked.... My players are warned that Dragons are "like players" and they will not have a hostile encounter with one, unless they royally mess up, or chase after one. My players also know i can be devious...
Being targeted for no reason is BS, being targeted because you're a wizard that just fireballed the enemy and they don't want that happening again, perfectly valid.
I had a game where bandits are extorting people on the street. Rogue and Cleric do not want to cause a scene, but Monk and Barbarian attack. Barbarian goes first, activates Rage but is too far away to reach melee range, so Barbarian throws a handaxe instead. The bandits are next, completely ignore the deranged fairy throwing axes at them and instead focus fire on Cleric. Cleric goes down, picks up a permanent injury that gives disadvantage on all charisma checks and quits the game.
My mindset on that phrase is that. Yes, if the players can have silvery Barbs. Enemies can too. That doesn’t mean every Caster will have it. Maybe like 1 member of a group will have it prepared, possibly 2. But they won’t cast it every round, maybe they want to keep some power for Absorb Elements, Shield, or some other spell.
My mindset is that every time players use silvery barbs, that's one fewer spell slots for them to use. I also track time on a daily level - every 3 in-game days or so (unless the plot and geography forces the players to "waste time" for things like long-distance travel) either the bad guys make progress on their goals or the players suffer a setback, such as their favorite tavern getting arsoned or a major NPC gets killed/kidnapped/otherwise inconvenienced. YMMV, but that's worked great for me these past two decades or so. My players have come to consider spell slots quite a valuable resource.
If you as a player are casting barbs everytime you can, that is a lot of spells and a lot of reactions that could be used for other things and now leave you quite open. Hard to barbs and shield same turn lol
Whenever I heard the advice "if the players can do it, so can the monsters", I always just took that to mean that the monsters/villains could *access* those spells or abilities - it really opened up gameplay possibilities. Like if the party wanted to use flour or paint to find an invisible enemy, they could, but that would inevitably change how invisibility works and that mechanic would apply to the party as well. Not in a mean way, just in a 'we made the rules together' way. As for spells like Counterspell or Silvery Barbs, it makes sense to me that some enemy mages would have it, and would use it, but it seems clear that giving those spells to every caster would get incredibly boring incredibly quickly, bogging down gameplay and turning the battle into a slog - after all, there's likely a reason that most premade encounters do not have monsters with healing spells. It should be a rare thing, to make it more effective. I also don't agree that *every* caster would take those spells. Look at the people around you and the weird choices they make. How many people go for flashy over functional, even when they really shouldn't? Are you telling me that my frogman shaman is really going to take something like Counterspell over Hypnotic Pattern or Lightning Bolt? What would be the point in learning something that doesn't put the fear or awe of fishthulu into the hearts of their people? Self defence? I have lightning mofo, come at me - aw sh*&, the strangers can warp time. Save me fishthulu! No! Why have you forsaken me?
My biggest problem with "so can the mosters" is the far fetched assumption that all these mosters have access to all those things, from what I know, in most D&D settings you won´t find complete spellbooks beying sold on the street market right next to cucumbers and apple juice. Many spellcasters might have never even heard about Silvery Barbs, let alone know how to cast it
@@baronvonbrunn8596 yep was my first thought silvery barbs in my head seems like a very hard spell to learn possible also rare and kept a secret for it could be a secret trump card
This is exactly how I understood it. I have a critical success/failure chart for attack rolls, I shared it with my players and said that if we implement this for you guys, I will also use it for my NPCs and they agreed. It led to some pretty funny moments and amazing successes for both sides. It's hilarious to watch an NPC roll a Nat 1, and then drop their weapon because the swing was so bad. But I also have a player who is in love with the spell Kinetic Jaunt. So does this mean I make all my casters have it, or counter spell to stop it? Well, no. We're playing a low magic setting and it would break immersion if all of a sudden every NPC they fight knows how they've been fighting and are prepared to counter it. Now will returning NPCs be prepared? Most likely, but there's reasons for that. I never understood the mindset of DM VS Player. We're all here to make an awesome story together, and that should be the main focus. Not nitpicking the fact that the players found something they enjoy that you don't.
I think it’s perfectly fine to have silvery barbs turned against the players every so often in the same way that saying “the monster uses its legendary action” causes that “OH NO” moment for players, and makes their victory over a powerful enemy all the more satisfying
"I rolled a natural 20 on my attack." "No, you did not." Silvery Barbs does not make the enemy feel powerful, it makes the players feel weak. Those are not the same thing.
@@schwarzerritter5724 It does not if it is rare and comes at a significant cost. _But let's say it does:_ Logically, it also makes the monsters feel weak, thus cheapening any victory against it. And if what would make sense to do on both side makes the game less fun for any reason, _which includes being an overpowered option,_ it should be banned. And if the ban is resisted, it should be allowed AND blanket-used. And we're speaking *"Have a campaign revolving around an opposing specie/phenomenon that allows arcane spellcasting and have an entire faction tutor each others to cast that one spell, among others, because it is so good"* blanket use. Which is a way that's a bit passive-aggressive, but effective, of making a point. *That's why I suggest the ban first.*
@@fovarberma752 It is not the power of Silvery Barbs that makes the players feel weak, but that it turns successful roles into failures, like I said in my example. If Silvery Barbs just gave the monsters advantage on their rolls, that would be fine, even giving the player characters disadvantage would be fine, but specifically turning successes into potential failures makes it bad. Or take the more extreme examples stated in the video: Banishment and Force Wall. Taking a character out of the entire fight will surely increase the challenge, but it will also force a player to sit there and watch everyone else play the game.
@@schwarzerritter5724 *"It is not the power of Silvery Barbs that makes the players feel weak, but that it turns successful rolls into failures (...)"* In many games, some of these options being core to D&D since AD&D, you can achieve similar results with Block / Parry / Catch Arrows / Concealment / Mirror Image Spells, etc. Never caused a problem of "feeling weak". In facts, Silvery Barbs is one of the milder offenders in this as it still expend resources your opponent has in limited supplies: Spell Slots. Silvery Barbs is bad design, but only because it is too good an option for its spell level. There are workarounds to it. Summons come to mind. Summon a couple of spiders or other critters with a nasty effect, specifically on spellcasters, and watch your DM squirm not to silvery barb 1d4+2+poison. Henchmen, pets (buy guard dogs lol), multitarget and low damage spells are all ways to wear down a target with that spell, never truly worth the slot. And I'd look into counterspelling the barbs too. In other words, if it negates that one super big attack from your party's brute... maybe your party should not feel "weak", but rather "stupid". I otherwise agree that save-or-suck like "Banishment", "Sleep", "Hold Person", "Petrify" are a bad design. If I was to DM D&D (lol), I would houserule that for a save-or-suck effect, you can choose to pass the save if you sacrifice [Margin of Failure] * 10% of your max HP; rounded up. *But there is a major difference between having one action countered, and be effectively taken out of an encounter.* Barbarian failed a roll versus petrification by 3? Immediately spend the 37 HP and succeed the roll! *Disclaimer: I strongly dislike D&D, spells slots, the idea spells can basically do anything and the d20. But argument still holds.*
Agreed. Spells like Silvery Barbs, Counterspell and Shield shouldn't be used by every enemy. They are best used by bosses to ensure they survive a bit longer and make the fight a bit tougher. Make it so the boss feels like they are more skilled than the average foe, like they are on the same level as the players.
Or give out such support abilities to some fairly tough goons, so that the players have to decide on a strategy on dealing with the encounter. Do they take out the supporting elements first, or do they dispose of the big damage target first?
I had one fight scene, I think it was DRW-16 Against the Machine, where one turn the players and Red Wizards they faced off against had a 6-counter-spell stack going. It was a wild encounter where the players, dealing head-on with the Red Wizards, had to recognize that there was going to be an absurd amount of magic flowing. But that was a climatic battle at the end of the adventure, in a scenario where the players were anticipating a huge battle with mages. Outside of that, I'll sprinkle a counterspell here or there, just to give players an opportunity to try some shenanigans (like subtle casting or casting without direct line of sight).
This. This is the way to do it. Minions should be weak and easy to kill, just a way to waste a couple minor resources. The end dungeon boss should be a challenge.
While I do agree with that statement; The players shouldn't be spamming it too, especially if it was a boss fight (as a dm, spent hours working on). Granted I would just ban silvery barbs since it's not in one of the main core rule books or core addons. But even if it was. I would just talk to my players about it. Simply asking them to take another spell, or I'll make it third level. Giving something disadvantage and then an ally advantage on a reaction it up there with fireball level spells. So it's more of an impactful choice for taking and then using the spell, also preventing spaming.
Yes I tell my players "Most of my monsters don't min/max" With a raised eyebrow to say, some will. Bosses and such. I had a group came up with a great shorthand question "Is it One Of Us?" Most of the time, no. But, sometimes...
There is definitely a difference between dm vs player and a dm challenging their players. If your players are married to a tactic then throw in some stuff where that tactic may be less viable every so often. Are your players soloing down enemies to efficiently take over the turn economy, maybe an encounter against the bbeg's minions that have a lower stat line but a higher body count than usual may be in order to get them back on their toes and thinking.
the problem there, from experience, is that players double-down on the tactic and slow the game to a crawl trying to find ways to win the fight with the tactic they want to use. 'Winning all of the fun out of the game' (I can't remember who said it but it's true)
My golden rule for TTRPGs: It's everyone's job, including the DM, to make sure everyone is having as much fun as possible at the table, including the DM. If you just talk to each other and tell the others when you're unhappy in a friendly and reasonable manner, you'll be amazed at how much better it goes, as long as you're willing to do the same for the others when they want something. It's not always easy to solve some things when different players want different things, but so worth it. You may even end up being better friends because of it. Give a little, get a lot!
Fun is the one thing you can not guarantee. There is nothing you can do to make another person feel fun. You can set up the atmosphere the best you can, have the best props, narrate the best descriptions, use the best voices, have the best snacks, etc... None of that will guarantee fun. It just allows for the possibility of fun, but unless the individual is willing to enjoy things there is nothing you can do.
Great video. I appreciate it when someone actually advocates for common sense, communication, and common decency. The loudest voices get heard. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, those are rarely the voices of common sense or reason
This is a lesson I learned early on as a DM, unfortunately. It's much better to talk with the players than to be cryptic and passive-aggressive, trying to get back at one of the players I viewed as slightly problematic ended up with them quitting without a word mid campaign and I had to scramble together to fix this mess I made. They still haven't talked to me since, but hey, that's a lesson learned.
And simply talking to them doesn't always solve the problem. I've had many players do dumb shit repeatedly regardless of it pisses of the party or the me as the DM. The party would talk to them, I would talk to them, and they would just do the same things in different ways trying to claim they aren't doing it on purpose. 100% of the time why they have to face the consequences of their actions they cry about it and get pissed. If you think of something out of the box, don't cry when something out of the box is returned to you.
@@jaydavis9717 if you've talked it out and it is still unacceptable, the ONLY option is to have some balls and KICK them, not be a whiney zoomer DM and try to "get back" at them. That's just pure childish toxicity.
@@gethriel actually simply kicking someone who is being a problem is a pretty pussy method. You can avoid all your problems and ignore them. I'll actually have the balls to stand up to them and make my point. After that, if it is still an issue then kicking them might be on the table. I wasn't raised to run from my problems like a coward.
@@jaydavis9717 no one actually does anything in a game of D&D. They tell the DM what they want their character to do, and the DM makes a ruling. So if someone dies something that everyone hates, and you talk to them, and they ATTEMPT to do it again, you just tell them “no.” If they pitch a fit, then they aren’t cut out to play games with people.
I needed to hear this. I'm reaching the end of another arc in my campaign and I'm trying to make sure my players are getting what they enjoy. One player (the Barbarian) asked that their character doesn't keep getting their ass handed to them. They win almost every combat (except for the boss saved at the end), but it's always a challenge. I'm gonna have to give them some easy ones to help them feel better. I'm hoping that by the end, an easy victory will feel earned. Thank you.
I think counterspell and antimagic shell are another good example. Maybe those spells are your fighter's time to shine, but if every mob has those spells, your offensive spellcaster starts to wonder if they picked the right class.
@@szymonlechdzieciol Where are you pulling that information from? That's simply untrue. In Forgotten Realms there are a myriad of high level spell casters, including entire cities full of them. Waterdeep has an entire guild with nothing but spell casters to deal with magical threats. If you choose to make magic rare that's your choice but by default, magic is not rare in the default setting of D&D 5e.
@@DioxJXD you can make magic common, but you can also make knowing how to counterspell a rare spell that is hard to learn and few individuals know how to do it. Magic being prevalent doesnt have to mean that counterspell is obvious to everyone even if the concept of it is and everyone wished they could do it
I'm dming a campaign for my brother and sister, both of whom are new to D&D, and I'm constantly making adjustments and changes to prevent the lunatics getting themselves killed by angry mobs. Does it make the game less "realistic?" Absolutely. But my god is it hilarious. We have an absolute blast because y'know what? Following the rules and maintaing realism is secondary to making sure my players have fun
Not to mention it's a game with...dragons and magic. It already isn't realistic. The best part is pulling off cool things that wouldn't be possible in real life! It's a fantasy game after all. I think being able to make changes on the fly in a way that ensures your party has the most fun the can is what makes a good DM!
Finding solutions to potential boredom is an important DM skill. Sometimes, you know the rules as written will just result in bad storytelling. The merman character is bad at climbing and would require in-game hours of attempts to succeed, and we need to get over this wall to continue the plot? Let the others try to throw him over! Never mind that I have yet to find the rule that lets people throw other people.
I think they key word should be if the players can do it, the enemies CAN, too. It doesn't mean that every fight players are going to go up against enemies with silvery barbs, but that the players could come to find that some of the enemies do have it, and use it.
I mean every humanoid enemies should have potions... Because if not they are just shooting themselves... But no... Hell they even hardly use potions... Or any item whatsoever...
The first time I encountered this advice was like 20 years ago, back then it was worded to me as "If you use poison, then I can use poison." by my DM. And I've grown to respect what I've gotten from that. Because, in the line of thinking I was introduced to, it was not about fairness or anything like that, it was about the DM explaining that I as the player was forming what kind of experience I wanted, and if I was gonna start poisoning NPCs and doing shady shit, then that campaign would start filling up with skulduggery. But as always intend matters a lot, and doing stuff like that just to try and get back at your players is dumb. Also, again, like half of all comments online are by people who talk about D&D online because they can't get a group or keep one for long.
2 simple solutions: Just because you CAN give every enemy something, doesn't mean you should, and if you do you're a bad DM. Not every enemy can do everything, and trying to give an enemy everything is unfair and makes you a bad DM. This does not destroy the point, but makes it clear that overusing such things is not the way to go. The idea of the advice that I believe is fair is that it can happen and throwing something at your players once or twice that has similar capabilities as something they do can do a lot for them. It can show them things about their builds or abilities they possibly hadn't considered, how potentially annoying certain things they're doing are from a combat setup standpoint as the DM and get them to tone it down and it can potentially provide an interesting challenge for the party to overcome. However giving everything every little thing that even slightly annoys you, such as giving every enemy Silvery Barbs and Counterspell, isn't fair, fun and it will absolutely kill your game very quickly.
Im willing to bet the DM did it more to prove a point and wouldn't normally do something like that. People who think a DM should throw BS back at their players just want to do whatever they want with 0 consequences which is just a bad player mindset to have. Bravo to DM that are willing to stand up to be players and throw it right back at them. You don't want bs, don't start bs
@@jaydavis9717 Making choices that will make the game crumble is still an unintelligent choice though. I'd rather do it in a way that can keep things fun, make things a little more fair so combat doesn't just get steamrolled and keep the game in general going so we can finish the story some day. If the players can see why something they did was broken along the way than all the better.
@@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemon so making choices that makes the DM not want to DM is ok? Again y'all only ever think of the players and never the DM's. It's a selfish mindset and simply crying over consequences to your actions isn't enough to sway my opinion.
@@jaydavis9717 How about once an issue arises where it feels like the DM is against the players or the players are against the DM, we normalize talking to each other like grown adults and not try to ruin fun for each other. If the DM feels like they don't want to DM anymore because of the group, they need to verbalize that. If they did and it are still being ignored then they need to leave that group. Anybody who is purposefully ruining the fun for others, especially as a form of revenge for the actions of another, need to seriously take a step back and think who about who they want to be as a person. D&D is supposed to be fun and unless you're some sort of sadist who enjoys making others feel miserable, then doing so defeats the purpose. The saying "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." exists for this very purpose
@@jaydavis9717 players "BS" can be annoying but if the DM can't have fun that is not the players fault your supporting players vs DMs and your ignoring tpk if monsters die ok so but players it's way to toxic to make a player not get to play for hours because your not having fun in the end dnd is not a meat grinder but a roleplay game also the mind set of this spell book is universal and every one has it is so wrong not every enemy is going to have silvery barbs or counter spell why well an example not every soldier knows advanced first aid maybe they should but they don't because other things also have importance some may take the time to learn advanced first aid but why when it takes away from other skills they could learn. this is a game npcs aren't gonna start out as blank slates players are so they can customize everything about them selves, DMs aren't have fun because players are cheeseing fights then don't be toxic make them harder and depending on the group the higher the level the more fights they should cheese
when i wanted to start a DnD campaign i pretty much sat with my players (who are pretty much new to DnD) and said "DnD is not about winning or losing, is about us having fun and creating our own little world, shaping history to our will. I'll be the hand, you guys will be the Pencil and the world will be the paper. (my players seems very satisfied with my very first DM-ing)
To be honest we banned Silvery Barbs in the game, however I do remember in my first campaign I had Polymorph, and wanted to use it on a creature but was warned by the DM that if 'you gimmick my encounters' that there would be consequences... So I kind of haven't used it like that in fear of repercussions. I think this video made me realise some stuff from that group I wasn't even really aware of. Thanks for the great video!
For me this swings back to Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Just because you could, doesn’t mean that you should. I think the advice is fine, but as usual it’s all in the application. Want to give one enemy silvery barbs for an encounter or possibly a foil? Sure! Should every character in every battle have silvery barbs, of course not. Anything the players CAN do, an enemy COULD do.
@@paprickachicken5277 My thing is that if it's official, unless it is just stupidly overpowered- which SB is not, it shouldn't be banned. Nothing official is really that overpowered. Maybe it needs to be modified- that's what we did at my table, though I still don't really feel like that's necessary (we made it so saving throws require a 2nd level spell slot or higher). That being said, the encounter balance is different on the DM side. For one thing it doesn't matter how against metagaming you are, you still- as the DM know what your PCs are capable of. You can find out how many of what spell slots they have and you know how close to death they are. That and you have access to things like legendary actions, and you can be like "you are attacked by 50 goons, roll initiative." I agree it shouldn't be done just because the players can, but I would suggest that there is still a place for it, for just about everything.
Honestly I disagree, I've gotten these toxic attitudes from DMs and players who have been playing for decades. This mentality, in my view, stems from elitism, looking down on these new peasants that wanna come into your game and make changes because they're precious feelings get hurt!~ It seems like it comes from a place that distains change to your way, what you were taught so you lash out on these soyboys trying to argue "fairness."
This is an issue with basic humanity. The current state most people are in pushes them to the most animalistic part of their brain that deals in binary decisions: win/lose, good/bad, right/wrong. A higher level adds lose/lose and win/win options and awareness. An ideal interaction between people, everywhere, would be win/win. Typically it's all lose/lose as people try to get something over on each other through a misguided view that that's all that exists to life.
@Mark Brereton I think I have Seen this a little bit with stuff like vampire the masquerade. I think the main reason we don't see it in a lot of GMs That run other games is because well they don't know The game system as well in order to be able to do this and also the kind of people who do that seem to come from a very old mentality. That are very stuck in their ways which means they mostly play Dungeons & Dragons. And vampire the masquerade because those are 2 of the oldest Games out there and the ones that they have Gotten that mentality from because they play it a lot.
@@rockassassin64 I run a club that introduces a lot of first-time roleplayers. The ones who play dnd first get scared to try anything else because they think the on-boarding will be as onerous for everything else. The ones who play modern games go on to play *everything* because the other games are so much more intuitive and in-line with what first-timers expect an RPG will feel like. Those games don't need prep. I mean the Apocalypse World rules literally ban the GM from preparing anything at all.
I always saw the "If the players can do it, the monsters can too" as more a opportunity for interesting roleplay. Like if the party swindles a humanoid NPC with a successful heist, maybe they'll encounter some enemies who used a similar tactic because they learned from the party and it works well with rivalries and things like that. Definitely not some weird revenge quest against your own players lol. Something that happened in my game was a player using a beadof force and instead of trapping an enemy they used it as a shield. And when they encountered that enemy again, I had her use the same tatic with some beads of force she was able to steal. It kinda backfired on her but that's the fun of it, and it was pretty interesting too because no one ever thinks to try to purposely fail a saving throw so my players instinctively tried to suceed against it which unknowingly gave her a chance to protect herself from their attacks.
Yeah I got confused by this video at first. I mean the monsters "CAN" doesn't mean they should or that rats can make complex plans. Seems a lot of people took this the complete wrong way and decided to Metagame against the players out of spite.
I absolutely love that you're calling people out on their bullshit. If you're consistently not having fun with your friends doing an activity that's supposed to be fun and help you set aside your real-world problems for a few hours, you might need to reevaluate your choice of friends. Thank you, DnD Shorts, for advocating for people who are trying to be good people. Watching your videos always restores a little bit of my faith in humanity. Also, the Ginny Di video you referenced at the beginning is one of my favorite ones she's posted.
My personal favorite way to twist this advice is instead saying "if the monsters can do it the players can too." The former has a connotation of hostility. A players vs dm mentality. But this twist on the phrase (I hope, at least) gives the idea of giving your players hints on new tricks they can use on their enemies. A subtle nudge to new players telling them "you can be a lot more creative. You're not limited like in a videogame. You can turn your enemy's power against them!" Or if you're really clever with it, ways on hinting solutions to certain problems by demonstrating parts of that solution in the enemy's behavior.
Yeah, that's something I like to do. Some of newer players need to be shown what they actually can do. Like using the terrain, shoving instead of attacking, some of the basics as well. When stuff gets used on them, it stays a lot better in their minds compared to... just reading the manual. Or for my other pasttime: Homebrewing some ridiculous items. I show how the enemy uses them, and sometimes how the use can go wrong, before the players get it as a prize for beating that enemy.
I feel like people forget that it isn't the DM vs the Players. It's everyone working together to tell a story and play a game. A Sorcerer in my campaign as Silvery Barbs, and sure I like to joke about how he ruins all my plans, but it's really cool to see him save his allies from critical hits by using Silvery Barbs at key parts in the battle. I don't /want/ my players to die, I want them to have fun. Yes, I'm playing enemies who want them dead, but what is more exciting than seeing the party figure out how to survive a deadly encounter and celebrate when they get that last hit, or save an ally for otherwise certain death?
Yeah the DM is a player as well, just happens to the one making the core of the story you are playing. With my own DM we are just agreed to save Counterspell for major moments not just trying to tell the DM's casters you aren't doing anything before we kill you. We trust them to not Power Word Kill/disintegrate ect in a random fight. Boss fight sure lets go ham, random Tom down the street, no...let's not
Also, from the standpoint of a player that played sorcerer through tomb of annhiliation, taking silvery barbs isn't always the best option. I already had shield and counterspell, taking a third reaction based spell would clog up my action economy. On top of this, using shield or silverybarbs uses up spell slots, which you will eventually run out of. Most enemies have multiple attacks anyway, so one silvery barbs isn't going to derail a campaign. Salty DMs for sure.
Good comment. A good dm gives players an opportunity to shine and using silvery barbs is definitely one of them. And it's not like silvery Barbs is unbeatable. A level 6 sorceror can cast 4 level 1 spells a day. So: 1. 6-8 encounter days mean we can only use silvery Barbs around every other combat unless we wish to give up higher level spell slots (or sorcery points) 2. For every silvery Barbs we use that's one less use of grease or burning hands or whatever your level 1 spells of choice are. 3. You must be within 60ft of the attacker to cast silvery Barbs. Introduce ranged fighters, spread out combats, introduce combats with say 8 weak enemies where crits will be more common. Not for every combat but insert them in to make players have to meet challenges in different ways. 4. Just because You use silvery Barbs doesn't mean the enemy won't hit (and there is still a 5% chance of a crit)
Exactly! The DM essentially has unlimited uses of every spell in the game. If DnD was about the DM “beating” the players, the DM would always “win”. When you make decisions as a DM, you shouldn’t be thinking; “my players used this annoying thing, now I’m going to use to against them to annoy them”, you should be thinking about how to make the encounter more fun for the players.
A way for a dm to "solve" the silvery barbs situation that is used as an example would be to talk to the players about a potentional nerf to the power, like only allowing everyone to use it once or twice per person per fight or something like that, with the argument being that you as dm want to have some fun as well since the constant use of the spell slows their turn and because it feels terrible when a good roll gets rerolled. This could be a great compromise so they can use their strategy without you banning it. The key to using powerful spells like Silvery Barbs or counterspell as a dm is to thinly sprinkle them throughout your encounters for flavor but never going to the point it could very well endanger your player's lives/fun.
I have an easy rule at my table that fixes this. Silvery Barbs is treated as a 2nd level spell, otherwise you're only able to use it once per Short/Long Rest as though you gained it from Magic Initiate. It's worked well for our table, and I obviously sat and talked with my players before we came to this ruling.
I'm so glad that you covered this topic. It may be one of the most helpful things for DM's, especially if they are new or with a new group. While having a boss or unique encounter is fun to have custom abilities or spells that you don't usually see on NPC's or monsters, but it should be the exception, not the rule.
DM: "don't take feats because then the enemies can do those things as well." Player: "I take the chef feat" DM: "ok, now all the enemies will use heat metal on you." true story.
Thats fucking stupid what? dont take feats because then i will punish you for doing so by making the enemies say "anything you can do i can do betteeeerr!" this is not how you DM, this is how you piss off your players because you werent creative enough to challenge your players even with feats in play
I could see adding one extra enemy that is hiding and casting counter spell once just to mess with the party could be a bit fun every once in a while. “As you cast your spell you watch and see that it has no effect for some reason.” Adds a bit of surprise to the campaign that helps keep the players on their toes
I can see adding a single enemy caster who knows Silvery Barbs as their only trick in order to both add to their character and be very gratifying for the players to beat.
Used sparingly, I think this could work. Though if the party had ever used Counterspell, I would definitely give them hints that this is what happened instead of just saying "for some reason". Maybe have them roll Arcana or Perception or something.
Kinda reminds me of the Demons Souls boss The False Idol, where one shitty nobody is up in the rafters reviving it and you have to take him out beforehand to actually beat the boss.
I am starting my session 1 today on a campaign, and in the session 0 I said silvery Barbs will not be allowed in this campaign, nor would the Lucky Feat. Everyone is fine with this. Setting expectations is one of the underused tips for new DM's. If you arent trying to "Win" DnD and instead focus on working together to make a cool story, your gonna have a good time!
This is still trap for new DMs. Game should be playable RAW without homerules - and it should be shining example of game design (that is open to adjustments). Instead the game is unplayable broken mess and every single gaming table uses its own set of specific exceptions and additions to rules that spans several pages.
@@Fionor01 I always ban a set of spells and class archtypes depending on the world I'm running. For example I wanted to run a permadeath setting, can't do that with all those resurrection spells running around so out the door they go. No single system can run everything.
I told my players straight up that as a DM, I hate the lucky feat. But I also didn't want to just make it unavailable, so I proposed a compromise: one member in the parti can take it, and they can decide amongst themselves who it should be. They were pretty cool with that.
Sure, but if you remove feats, somebody like your fighter who has tons of skill increases suddenly is castrated from a flavor and utility/fun perspective.
honestly, I ask my players not to take it sometimes not because I can't live with the mechanic, but because it slows down the game so much... Every single roll, every dramatic moment can be interrupted and wound back to be rerolled at any time. It breaks up the flow of the gameplay and the storytelling real hard. If one of my players really really wants it, my compromise is always that they have to call it's use before I narrate the result of the roll they'd like to redo.
@Daniel Cusumano Oh, 100%. Its right in the spell they decide to use it BEFORE the outcome is determined. They can look at their roll and then use it, but not wait for you to tell the result. Ideally give them a little time to decide before you speak though, a solid short pause, otherwise you might accidentally cut their chance to even use it off.
I wouldn’t necessarily argue that the “if you can do it, so can your enemies“ rule is toxic in and of itself, but the examples in the video clearly illustrate how easily and horribly it can go wrong. It’s a prime example of why Session Zero and clear standards of communication are so important.
That's because it isn't toxic But like anything in DnD (or any other tabletop) it comes down to how it's interperted And the examples above clearly chose "petty arms race" over "organic worldbuilding"
In the end, forever and always; past, present, and future: 'Being a bad player ruins the game for the other players.' Has nothing to do with Silvery Barbs, or D&D, or being a GM or not. Evasion vs ranged weapons works like Silvery Barbs does in Cyberpunk Red and I simply said 'If you have evasion: tell me what DC you want to not evade at.' and when asked why they couldn't just treat it on a case-by-case basis I explained that because it would make us roll roughly five hundred million times per encounter and triple the length of combat. This was not contested beyond wanting to figure out the math of when it was optimal. In D&D, though it has luckily not come up, I don't use Silvery Barbs on either side because I want everyone to have fun and that involves not slowing down combat unnecessarily. I request the same of everyone else at the table. If we really wanted to break it down further we could say that 'If the players can make the game unfun, so can the monsters.' and showing a test combat of what that looks like might help someone realise that antagonistic gaming is not fun for anyone in the long run. Just don't be a jerk. Be nice, try to have fun, try to make it so everyone else has fun too. It really is that simple.
@@ClothesCat Damn right bro. Honestly a lot of the more toxic opinions and mentalities in my experience come from the older players or dms that have been doing this for a bit, often getting kinda elitist and "gatekeepie" against the new players who wanna change things. Obviously a little bit of gatekeeping is healthy for a community, look at r/cursedimages. But these guys take any possible change almost personal and shoot it down, usually by mockery and spite.
I dont think the advice itself is toxic in general(Reddit sure is at times tho), it only becomes toxic if you take it to an extreme (giving every single caster silvery barbs/counterspell/hold person etc.) but mixing in the odd curveball for dramatic purposes and/or a challenging fight every now and then is absolutely fine in my book and I have always assumed this advice to mean just that.
It also depends on how intelligent your monsters are. Silvery barbs don't exist in my world, so I don't care about them. That said, if you want to build up interesting tactical encounters, then yes, the monsters or NPC baddies are going to be doing things that will frustrate and screw up and kill the player characters. So yes, they very well may target spell casters, especially if they have a pretty bright or experienced commander in charge who has seen just how dangerous enemy spell casters can be. It's called combat for that reason. The players need to outwit and out fight the monsters, or lure them into a trap where the PC's have the advantage. Fighters might need to make a shield wall around the mage--or engage enemy archers as quickly as possible. Mages might take precautions, like casting shield or mirror image. And make players think beyond their character sheets--how can they use the environment. As a DM, I'm always rooting for the PCs to succeed, but I'm not going to pull punches either. They're going to bleed for every experience point, every gold piece, and each magic item they get. If they reach zero hp, they're down on the ground bleeding out, and they reach -10, they're rolling up a new character. And for a lot of DMs, death happens at zero hit points. If character death isn't a real possibility--why are we playing? It's not about it being DM vs. the players--it's about having a game where there are real stakes. Bad things can happen. Where you're one failed saving throw away from death, depending on the type of attack.
I think the advice is actually good as far as like house ruled rule changes go. Like if you’re going to change a rule, then sure “if the players can do it the enemies can too” is actually great advice because it tests whether a rule is balanced or not. Like if I allow my players to get a free surprise attack if they interrupt a conversation, it’s only fair that that house rule also applies to enemies right? Otherwise it kind of doesn’t make sense and is a bit reality breaking
@@Wynneceptioni completely agree but i think something like this should be used sparingly when it comes to certain things like silvery barbs from this video which personally i just ban at my tables
@@MsKeylas Nods--it's why I don't used death saves or things like that. Two sessions ago, one of the pc's got his neck snapped by a giant's bolder---a second level mage took 18 points of damage in one shot. It wasn't a surprise encounter either. They knew hill giants were in the area, but they got in a fight with bandits--the bandits used a horn to call for reinforcements, and the giants came looking to see what all the commotion was about. I'm not of the school of thought that advances the balanced encounter as the pinnacle of game design. Balanced encounters are only one type of encounter that needs to be in a DM's tool box. Sometimes the party needs to have a pretty easy encounter, where they trounce their enemies, and sometimes they need their asses handed to them on platter--it's the variety of encounters that keeps things interesting. They needs to use everything on their character sheet, and also think beyond their character sheet, taking in environmental factors, whether that's kicking over caldrons or leaping down on their enemies from trees--or getting down to fighting with iron spikes for things like lesser demons or lycanthrope like wererats or the like.
@@MsKeylas Right on. I grew up very old school, having thrown my first set of dice in 1982--games were more lethal, where if you failed a save that frequently meant you'd die, and that meant you were rolling up a new character. But I do get what you're saying. There are many Many non lethal outcomes you can use where it can throw a twist into the narrative and the party has to figure their way out. A very basic rule I have is that if a player comes up with something that makes sense to me, I'll give it a chance to work, even if it's not a really good chance, they've got a shot. Roll a D:20 and we'll see what happens. That helps keep my players from only thinking about what is on their character sheets---for instance, right now there is a town that is being plagued by insane wild boars---we've got a barbarian with animal empathy, and a ranger with the ability to speak with animals. So they are concocting a scheme where they are going to capture a boar by digging a pit and jumping on top of it with a blanket so they can question it---it's a plan that could work (if everything goes their way) or it could go horribly wrong, especially if they happen to jump the bewitched wereboar that is responsible for the attacks. But hey, I'm going to let them try it--I've heard much worse ideas than this--so depending on how describe it to me, I'm going to give them 10-25% chance they'll capture a boar and that it won't be able to rip the blanket open with it's tusks.
I still use this, and will probably continue using this in my games. But my thing is that it doesn't apply to all scenarios. It applies to scenarios that are unique. Like a player asking that his attack to the legs impose the incapacitated condition to the enemy. This would mean in the future, they may get an arrow to the leg and may get incapacitated on a crit.
Seems better to just not allow that kind of thing in first place. Dungeon dudes did an episode on some of the worst homebrew rules, and the idea of targeting a specific Body part is one of them and I think they make VERY good points about why it's a bad rule to allow. Check it out
@@ryangerfen7489 it was an example not a genuine experience. If the players want to bend the rules then in the interests of FUN and Rule of Cool they can, if they keep doing it then the enemies will use it against them because it has stopped being cool and is just cheese.
@@ryangerfen7489 JRWI allows it sometimes, but you have to roll higher or with disadvantage or something to have a successful hit. I don't think the enemies ever use it back, but the PCs don't use it very often, either, because of the increased costs. I think also the DM added an enemy where a specific body part was a weak spot or the only way to win or something. It was cool.
So I'd like to play an Illusion wizard, I have this really great idea for a character and... Walks through a village and every random villager and their dog is suddenly, suspicious about that paper document I have and wants to roll for blah, blah, blah... Every enemy is suspicious of THAT particular wall of fire... THAT one over there and wants to roll... Thanks DM for helping me live out my fantasies and enjoy my Thursday nights...
There should be a large discussion in the DMG about Illusions. As the rest of the game is so strictly codified, the looseness of Illusions makes some DMs uncomfortable. Many tend to miss the part about having to interact with the illusion in order to make the save.
Yeah, that's incredibly bad DMing. I'm sorry you've had to go thru this. tbh as a DM, I've never had a player play an illusionist, and I'd really like to see it.
I feel like so many people over estimate the value of silvery barbs, it’s statistically different from disadvantage and sorta just asks you to roll again once you’ve guaranteed success, it’s much more of a feels bad man spell than like an actually effective spell and gives players that last little line of defense when all else truly fails, if you think about it compared to disadvantage, it’s rolling disadvantage but you have one dice that’s a guaranteed success, so rolling normally. I think it a great tool for players who’re pushing limits in some resource and need that last shot to get over the finish line for the epic success or know that they failed despite their best efforts, then when enemy casters are throwing it at players, it’s just taking away cool moments from players, when one solution to players being too strong is finding alternative or more intense ways to challenge them instead of ripping success from their hands.
I think the worst advice is when people say “don’t railroad”. To many people don’t actually understand what railroading is, and often see anything other than a 100% sandbox game as “railroading”. The players have a responsibility to play the game the group agreed to, don’t half way through the game be like “chult has dinosaurs, so let’s go there instead of fighting this undead horde we agreed to deal with”. This is why lots of groups have trouble finding DMs, the players deliberately try to make the DM angry.
"Not railroading" is allowing the players to come with creative solutions to the problems not having something prepared for when the players intentionally ignore story hooks just to "see what happens".
Yeah people not understanding the difference between 'on rails' and 'railroading' is something I see a lot. They sound the same, and can kind of look the same if you squint, but there's a world of difference between 'Event A was always going to happen for narrative purposes' and DMs actively vetoing or blocking whatever the players try to do because it doesn't make the story they want.
So I'm a 50/50 player dm who has developed a lot as a dm and think I'm pretty good at allowing player agency within a storyline and am currently creating a sandbox style world ... but I understand 2 things. Firstly it is really hard to prepare and roll with the punches when players do unexpected things (and as a player I am 100% a culprit of this). Secondly you may have an idea of something really cool - for example our dm came up with an awesome prison scenario but to be able to carry it out we had to end up in prison which you could argue was railroading. In reality we supported our friend with his dming and the prison session was genuinely very fun and got us thinking alot about our characters morals and motivations (and my level 5 character was killed by goblins ... Will never live that down). Dms are only human and as we don't pay our dms we cannot expect them to always create perfect games. If I feel I haven't been able to complete an action I wanted to take because of railroading it will always irk me and if it happens too often I have the option to leave the group but if you get annoyed every time your dm gets a rule wrong, takes player agency or seems to work against you then honestly d&d is probably not a good fit for you.
One of my favorite encounters I've been in as a player used "the enemies focus fire" in a fun and interesting way. We were fighting a group of monks, the leader of whom could use his bonus action to play a flute and command all of the other monks. They would surround him to provide total cover for him whenever possible, and focus all of their attacks on one player that the leader picked. The leader, however, was pretty flimsy, so it became a race of finding a way to knock him out before the monks could pick us off one by one. After that leader went down, the monks all acted individually, making it easier to focus fire each of them until none were left.
This is a very good video. I used to have a group of 'anti heroes' (kinda like gary from pokemon) who would keep re-meeting the party. They were the most tactically aware fighters (using focus fire, magic items etc.) and that change in combat style always upped the ante a little. I used them sparingly, maybe 3-4 times over. year's campaign!
Thank you for bringing this up and talking about it. I didn’t even think about not bringing certain spells and abilities against my players until XP to Level 3’s video on stun effects. Now when I design encounters I just don’t use any stun effects because players just sitting there not having fun is obviously not enjoyable to anyone involved
I love this. New players and DMs need solid counter-arguments to toxic ideas, and videos like this need to be more common to spread awareness and prevent bad practices later on.
If my players were using silvery barbs I'd have a way of dealing with it that is a little more fun than just every other monster has silvery barbs. Throw in a few halflings in with the enemies, and give them the halflings lucky ability. Rolling with the forced disadvantage of silvery barbs guarantees higher amounts of ones on a d20 roll. The first time you crit doing this will have the table roaring.
The thing to shoot for is fun, not fairness. I think the best session of D&D I ran ended with the player characters all bruised and battered to their last legs, breathing hard, looking at each other with wide eyes asking, "Did we make it?" and all the bad guys defeated utterly. The players turned to me and stated, that was the scariest and coolest thing I ever went through. Being able to create an emotional link between the players and their characters, and what their characters are going through, turns into fun when they can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. They feel accomplished and like nothing was given to them; they also feel that they earned every accolade and coin and magical item they found. I did have to fudge a little but did not let the players know that I had pulled a punch that would have insta-killed one of them. I merely acted as if the hit had almost killed him and that he "looked like he was in bad shape" letting the healer know what needed to be done to save him and bring him back into the fight. You have to use those DM acting skills to make the players think that everything is as it should be and that you are not throwing a couple of extra hit points on an enemy they are trouncing easily or pulling that insta-kill punch so that a player character is not outright killed randomly.
If you really don't want your players to find out about fudging, you might want to be wary of even this comment. Your players could find it, and if they do, it'll be hard to win back that trust.
Most game outcomes can be fun and satisfying if they feel fair and every PC gets to do at least one cool, memorable thing. Surviving by the skin of your teeth can be amazing, but so can an effortless massacre in the right context. In one game I play in, the first enemy we encountered at level 1 was a terrifying steam-powered helicopter robot. First encounter, it abducted someone we knew and flew off. Second encounter, we saw one go into full-on battle mode, and it was TERRIFYING. We spent the next few levels running from them whenever we could. We're level 10 now, and the last time we ran into some of them, we dropped them all in a single round. It felt like a well-earned walkover that showed us just how far we'd come. Even a loss against an over-powered enemy can make for a great story, as long as the players get a chance to narrowly escape to fight again another day.
@@jamesdominguez7685 There are different aspects of fairness and fun and they are not diametrically opposed. In the context of the enemy that was scary at first level and an easy defeat at 10nth level; there always should be variation in the encounter levels with some feeling fairly easy and a few being the Boss encounters regardless of the PC level. Previous encounters in that same adventure were easy or moderately difficult with the last encounter being the Boss that almost reduced the party to ashes, but not quite.
I've been playing DnD for about 20 years now, and one thing I've noticed is the "one up" cycle between players and DMs. This is when the DM and the PCs feel like they need to "one up" the other. I feel like "if the players can do it so can the monsters" is a symptom of this larger issue. You're right DnD Shorts, it becomes toxic really fast. Both players and DMs should see the signs when this becomes an issue and talk it out before it ruins the game.
Even before that video, I realised how bad giving the monsters player traits is a bad idea because one day I tried to make an encounter harder by giving a CR 30 monster action Surge... The moment I realised how bad that was I really never used it
As a DM I can honestly say I do use the “if players can do it, so the monsters” rule, but only as a way to make interesting encounters out of great ideas that players have had. It is a GREAT advice, but some people just take it too literally. Also, I do get how frustrating it feels to have what you believe to be a harrowing encounter be easily toppled by the players’ creative use of the game, but hey, just be creative yourself (you know, by taking their ideas and using them against them…). Make ‘em sweat, make ‘em squirm, and then let them win if the dice say they win
This sort of reminds me of the "shoot your monks" paradox. Where being "optimal" as a dm is to never shoot at a monk. But that player is playing a monk to catch those arrows and throw them back. Its fun and cool for them. Shoot your monks
@@WestOfEarth I would only have it come into play on a 2nd encounter...like bad guys and party fight, brains of the bad guys gets away...3 levels later they fight again and the brains starts yelling at the archers not to shoot at the one in pajamas. Its part of the reason I prefer my normal bad guys to not be of high int so I can reason why they are trying to hit the big muscle guy with swords rather than pincushioning the fire ball throwing lady in the bath robe.
@@WestOfEarth I have seen some DMs giving their creatures int checks if they find out if some actions are bad. Sometimes it even means a good int check result is realizing running away is the best course of action. e.g the last goblin alive sees it has no chance beating the players anymore.
The greatest feeling as a DM is when after a session my players go home yelling down the street how awesome their game was, and yea they'll complain about some challenge or another but they always say the same thing: "I cannot wait for the next game."
In order to keep things fresh, I try to have one enemy using some interesting tactic if it makes sense to do so. It keeps battles from degenerating to 'Fireball, three shots with Sharpshooter, and you all miss with your Passive Perception so the one at the back gets backstabbed.' Sure, once in a while there will be an Invisible enemy, a Darkness spell, or a well-planned ambush. The players are adventurers, after all. But if every day of travel was ambush after ambush, the characters would never leave the city!
I kinda do something similar, where I try to have my players not just do whatever is "Optimal", but rather come up with an actual strategy for whatever I give. like, if I throw a Red dragon at them, I'm not having the solution be "true Polymorph" or "just have the bard seduce it", its more " hop into the dragons horde in order for it to not use its fire breath due to its kleptomania and it not wanting to melt the gold in its horde" or something like that
To be fair, that would mean the monsters could do it and the players could not because the players have all of the statistical and metaphysical advantages so equity would have them receive more nerfs and the monsters more buffs until the monsters had an equal KDR to the players. This would continue without regard to player level/CR, play style, tactics, luck on rolls etc. All that would matter is the monsters getting parity of kills in game.
That reminds me of that one time where the dm took this one step further, "even if you don't allow the players to do it, you can". Banned all strixhaven content for players, we were absolutely fine with that. Until the enemies started silvery barbs spam on us.
This is a surprisingly good summary. I have to say I am usually skeptical when it comes to online "this is bad D&D advice" content, but this is golden. Thank you.
As always, right on target. You even perfectly dissect the toxic psychology of the vengeful DM types. I'm a 0e grognard. Perhaps the biggest issue in modern DMs is too many aren't there for the enjoyment of their players. A DM is there to create great stories and facilitate the hero within their players.
I would just qualify that and say that facilitating heroism isn't the only fun part, giving your players a challenging, thought provoking, and limit-pushing encounter is also an incredible source of fun. I caution those reading your comment to not just let your players do whatever they want to feel heroic, bc no challenge means no game which means no fun.
@@optimistprime3192 Trying to use the MADE UP theory that "every single monster and NPC from thereforth is spamming it constantly" multiple times to justify and back up their points. Which was never ever implied in the main story, but still uses those words as legitimate facts as if they were there at the table themselves.
"if the players can do it, the dm can do it" can also be seen as "if the dm can do it, the players can do it" and that would more obviously break stuff. The dm already has so many op things at their disposal. the strongest enemies in the monster manual have abilities and strength unheard of for players. a 30 in strength instead of the max 20, automatic regen, legendary actions, lair actions...
I usually go by the rule of the players are only semi special. A large majority of what a player can do specific monsters or NPC are also capable of doing. I tend to avoid things that cause players to lose turns like hold person and NEVER give a caster hypnotic pattern. That being said I always make this fact very known to my players during session 0 so we can discuss how it looks like and what to expect.
having a monster or npc that can do what the players can makes sense, having every enemy or npc have the same abilities the player does would suck. the players should feel their characters are special but not that they are unique.
One thing i learned going from player to watching D&D DMs to becoming a DM is learning to introduce a situation and giving the players the opportunity to figure out a solution. Works well in combat situations. I dont want my monsters to do the same thing as a PC. I want my monsters to introduce a different tactic to challenge them.
But D&D monsters (including humanoids) are incredibly limited. Letting them have player abilities instantly fixes that. There are two kinds of bugbear. Or there are an infinite variety in bugbears, just like there are an infinite variety of players. Is that bugbear a fighter? A cleric? Both? Does this tribe have rangers? Are they getting levels as they fight? is this group full of barbarians? Do they have scouts and outriders with better perception? That makes fun encounters. A fuck-ton more interesting than: "You see a bugbear village". "I sneak up and deliver two fireballs." "Well, I guess that's all of them then." "Well, I guess we've exhausted the ability of bugbears to ever be a threat to us. How much loot did they have?"
@thanesgames9685 I agree to a certain extent. Yes having enemies that are more than what's provided is key to changing it up. I guess I interpreted the video as DMs punishing the players for using what is provided to them by using the same tactics against them. Although I am still new to DMing so I'm willing to be wrong.
@@thanesgames9685 the argument isn't that player abilities shouldn't be available for monsters, the argument is that many player tactics shouldn't be used by npcs.
@@TheKnoXmancommith That is the strawman he set up, conflating the stated issue with other issues that don't have to be relevant. If the DM is dedicated to making the game unfun for players, if they are intentionally antagonistic, then it is unfun. But that is true with or without giving creatures player abilities. You can give enemies player abilities without wanting anything more than to make the game better, which is what the majority of good DM's do.
@@yamiyomizuki That is not at all what his argument was limited to. He specifically calls out enemies having access to Silvery barbs and counter spells. Those aren't tactics. Those are common magical abilities for players to have.
Reminds me of a story of a D&D group that sounded like they were going through the motions because every combat was then followed up with the group somehow being chastised that they were somehow the real monsters even if they were always attacked by the monsters first.
Your example about focused fire is my counterpoint when GM's say they don't fudge things to help the players. Well, they do. Otherwise, every fight against enemies capable of tactics would take out the cleric first, every time. I hope the cleric likes rolling up new characters!
hmmm, I don't know that this would be the fate. If the cleric goes down once or twice due to focus fire, that might be a hint that the PC should a) find cover from archers. b) other PCs should be protecting the cleric. c). the cleric or other casters should be taking protection spells. If the cleric is going down repeatedly, I would say that is on the players. Also, targeting the cleric first isn't always the optimum play. Often it's taking out the high damage dealer.
I should add that if the cleric loves using Guardian of Faith...well then they should be the sort of cleric who's heavily armored to withstand frontline attacks. Just as any tank.
@@Damianweibler The last character that died at our table was a cleric. Ran off to chase the BBEG down while the rest of the party was still busy cleaning up minions. One on one vs the BBEG - it did not go well for the cleric.
Great video, and excellent point. It's why monsters have stat blocks and DMs aren't just told to create the villains using standard character generation.
10:00 - Sounds a lot like... a : 'You seem upset.' b : 'It's your fault.' a : 'What did I do?' b : 'If you don't know, I'm not telling you.' That never solves the problem. 'a' just gives up because 'b' has already given up. Then the whole campaign (or relationship) gets flushed down the toilet.
It hasn't been a problem in my groups. My players usually try to strategize with their spell lists. At one point, they spammed silvery barbs like it's been said, however I didn't give the monsters/enemies the same. Instead I give it some spice by having an enemy that they aren't focusing set traps occasionally, and they fall for it everytime so it's become a meme in the group.
One of my friends is a great DM and uses "If you can do it, the monsters can too" in the best way. If he's interpreting a rule, he'll sometimes toss the final decision back to the players. We then make the decision with the understanding that an interpretation that helps us now could bite us later--not because the DM is vindictive, but because the situation has changed. Example: One PC had a laser gun. He got mind-controlled and shot at my monk. The question: does that count as a missile for Deflect Missile? We went with yes. Later when we fought against a monk, we had to deal with the fact that he could deflect the laser shots. The key is that there was no animosity. The DM wasn't getting revenge on the players for using an exploit. "The monsters can do it too" was a warning about rule consistency. No one had less fun because of it. Very different from the silvery barbs situation.
The argument about silvery barbs reminds me of when someone said whatever strategy you're using works because the DM allows it to work. Because at any moment the DM can make an encounter that goes very badly for the party, if they so choose.
The goal of this video is to avoid being a toxic GM. As someone else said, the goal is to create a memorable experience. I have been a player and a GM. Some of my worst experiences as a player have helped to form who I am as a GM. Plus I am willing to talk with my players and find out what is working for them and what is not. For us, we took a break from D&D 3.5 and started playing "Lancer" for a few months. The game set up was great as it helped to re-educate all of us on how to play TTRPG. My players learned about better teamwork and I learned how to balance encounters better. In the end, we all walked away happier and started playing Pathfinder 1st Ed.
You know, thinking about it, the players stumbling upon an area where death isn't permanent and they just re-spawn elsewhere when they die could make for an interesting mystery for them to investigate. A sorta Groundhog's Day scenario for the party.
Related point, and I'm not sure it's meant to work like this, but there seems to be an underlying mechanic in d&d that says dying while away from your home plane causes you to respawn in your home plane. I think that could be used to good effect.
I have tackled this concept before and it's a tricky mechanic for sure. You have to be clever and careful not to make your players feel like they're not making progress, otherwise their interest will tank. I would do it as a 1 time thing, if they die they lose something valuable, like time or a valuable opportunity. Don't bother with 1 use items, your players will never use them
Completely agree with you on this. The DMs only real job is to make sure everyone is having fun. There are many ways to do this, but that's job number 1.
"If the player can do it, the monster can do it" really means, any spell/action you can learn can be known by an enemy (probably a specific one) and it could even be their only spell.
The problem is while some spells are fun to use they aren't fun to be used against you and are normally absent from NPC spell lists for that reason, power word kill being one I almost personally experienced as a high level caster with low con, my max HP was
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 it would bog down play unnecessarily because player classes are not meant for NPC use, Fighter is relatively harmless as generally most things can be accomplished via magic instead Wizards you have to be careful as certain spells either bog down play excessively or have unfair mechanics towards player that only can act in the world via the perspective you are attempting to kill. Banishment comes to mind as unfun against players but perfectly reasonable against monsters. Against players that fail the save you are literally telling them they don't get to play for x number of rounds, against a monster you are removing one of many tools a DM has not to mention a player and DM should have an open conversation about the players spell list and DM noting powerful options such as banishment so they don't single handedly break encounters (or if they do roll with it which is my approach to it as a DM and another DM buddy of mine)
@@LumenFox777 Why should a rival wizard/warlock/sorcerer/whatever that hates the guts of your PC and wishes them dead not use Power Word: Kill if they can?
The only thing Ive ever used the "monsters = players" thing for is like, whether or not we wanna use flanking, or optional rules or something. Thats what I always thought everyone meant by it lmao
Disparities between player abilities and monster abilities is part of what makes encounters interesting. Players rarely, if ever, get a burrow speed, truesight, or abilities that can recharge mid-fight. There are so many ways a DM can creatively handle players overly relying on Silvery Barbs, if necessary. Have creatures that can turn invisible, creatures that passively deal damage without needing to roll, or just let the players use all of their spell slots on casting Silvery Barbs and add more encounters if you want them to ration their spells more.
I will add cheesing a big encounter can take the wind out of my sails as a DM, especially if I didn't get much prep time before hand. There's always sadness that I didn't get to show off how that homebrew monster was cool. I also get some imposter syndrome feeling as if I made things too easy and my players will get bored etc. I know it isn't the case since I've spoken to them about it but it's why a good amount of dms hate Silvery Barbs and personally it's banned at my table, most of strixhaven is to be honest.
Eh, if the party is finding a fight too easy and you want to challenge them, you can always tweak the monster's stats on the fly. This is easy to abuse, though, so I always make sure I'm doing it for a good reason that makes the game experience better.
Man, thank you so much for saying this-you shared exactly how I feel as a player. And now I understand why it bothers me so much. Like you said, it’s like an abusive relationship
I agree with "if the players can do it, the monsters can too" but what I think that means is if your players use a mirror to peak around corners then a rogue or assassin NPC can too. If they do something creative that seems like common sense for people in that world, and I need to make a ruling on it right then, I tell them if you do this just know that the monsters may do that as well in the future.
Our DM basically asked us nicely that if we were planning on taking silvery barbs, could it at least just be one of us instead of everyone who could. Which seemed like a fair compromise.
@@Natt_Skapa I think we would have accepted it being banned. But this seemed like a nicer compromise, and I don’t think we abuse it often. I don’t think we’ve ever used it more than once per long rest and only on line really clutch spells that we ‘need’ to work.
@@Natt_Skapa tbh i don’t understand banning it Some bosses have legendary actions that can choose to succeed anything, i prefer the simple balance of “It cannot give advantage unless you upcast it” That or make it a 2nd level spell
I do follow this rule somewhat. "If you have access to it, so can your enemies". This includes spells like silvery barbs. But just because they CAN, doesn't mean they do, I treat it as a lesser known spell in the world, maybe a new spell that few people have learnt yet. But if they choose to have that spell, it means that spell exists int he world and has a chance to be in an encounter. Giving it to every spell caster through is not something I do
Yeah! It only makes sense for every spell not to be accesible to everyone. There's not like a magic-user internet or something, so really if you were a random wizard you'd probably just know the ones in your library and the ones taught to you by fellow spellcasters. Information is not so easily accesible in a semi-medieval world. Likewise, gods and patrons do not grant every spell to every follower, and sorcerers don't all come up with the exact same ways and techniques to channel their magic. Some spells might just not mesh with certain people's minds, just like athletes who can perform one task but not another of roughly equal difficulty. Etc, etc.
What to do if you GM sucks: Simply get all players on the same page, agree that it needs to change, have the conversation. If its only you: quit the group and find another. If its half the group: discuss and fix the situation. If its only the DM: Cause a TPK at the very start of a thing he spend hours and hours preparing and tell your DM you only have lvl 1 characters as backup so you cant do whatever he came up with, he can either roll back the TPK and make it into a fun event for you, or come up with something fit for lvl 1 characters. The worst punishment you can give a railroading and dice-tilling DM is simply not playing their game.
When the abuse inevitably becomes out of game, everyone realizes they made a bad friend. So many people use "it's just a game" as an excuse to do this kind of thing. Basic communication is not the games problem, it's a real life skill issue.
Great advice. One of my most frustrating campaigns as a player turned into one of the best campaigns I've been in when we sat down with the DM and discussed what everyone wanted. A bit of voluntary disarmament to remove overly exploitive tactics and combos and the results were epic and inspiring. If the DM won't talk about it, you can always walk away and find a better one.
The old adage is actually sound advice, but is more applicable to situations when a player wants to do something outside of the standard rules, or otherwise would like to suggest an alternate interpretation of a ruling. Can I get flanking if I have an enemy backed into a corner? Yes, but that assumes that being backed into a corner grants flanking, therefore would apply to all such situations. Is the web spell flammable? Perhaps, but if that is true then it is likely known by anyone who uses the spell, and NPCs might use that strategy against you. Essentially "yes, you can get away with this as long as it's fair play when the enemies do it". It's a great way to stop silly arguments in their tracks and prevent rules exploits.
DMs have infinite resources the players have finite resources, that’s what makes them different, giving every caster silvery barbs is much worse against the players than it ever would be towards the monsters because there’s effectively no limit to your monsters casts while the players will eventually run out of casts due to spell slots being long rest dependent and pact slots short rest dependent. Except level 18 wizards but if you’ve made it that far i doubt any DM is gonna complain.
lol. What nonsense on Silvery Barbs being some great equalizer. Players: ~1-7 Enemies: sideways 8 Both having identical capabilities all the time is not remotely "fair." PCs are literally the main characters. They're gonna be more powerful sometimes.
An enemy should only attack a downed player if it’s an animal or hungry (usually both). Surprised creatures don’t have time for strategy. Enemies should run more often than fighting to the death. I’m guilty of this one: Not every caster of a type should have the same spell list. If you give anyone a magic item and someone knows about it, someone will try to steal it. Not everyone has even seen a magic item, and very rarely some have never been witness to magic. Most unintelligent creatures cannot comprehend what magic is, just be scared of it. Don’t make your base tight quarters unless you plan to fight close quarters, or not fight at all.
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Did you consider the alternative is Gms quitting their own game. Its about your Gm getting to actually have a game. Nevermind the unfair comparison that is calling Silvery Barbs the same thing as dogpiling one player to death
@@vortraz2054 It was also suggested to talk it out as not only players and dm, but as people lol. Afterall this is a collaborative experience, not a competition.
Where do you get those shirts? Seriously, they look so comfy.
In the section about players having fun, you somewhat undercut your initial argument, especially the Silvery Barbs example.
"Understanding and respecting peoples aims is critical to being a good game master/human being"
I personally don't give a shit about "fair". I've always viewed DMing and ttrpg's in general as improv theater, with me (the DM) as the director the acting troupe, and my players as the actors. I'll give them a framework of what the scene is, they improvise whatever their crazy little hearts desire, and I provide direction tips here and there. But what I DON'T do, is decide that I should just remove all the actors from the freaking play because of some weird stage direction "rule" that theater kids live by. Sorry but if the actors are gone, the play is over. And I'm not there to provide part of a play. I'm all for letting the players have advantages and upper hands pretty much whenever. I'm there to see what story of heroics and triumph they come up with, not track death saving throws before they spit out blood while unconcsious and die
I love the Pokémon analogy, not every trainer uses healing items but some do and pretty much every gym leader does. Same in D&D, not every monster cheeses fights but some can use cheesy tactics and the BBEG almost always can and would just add to their evilness/fun.
It's a really good analogy.
The honorable fighter/barbarian guard captain will _not_ cheese fights and do OP stuff just because he can. The BBEG wizard very well might. And the adult red dragon, while very intellgent, might still not focus fire all the time. Just because that'd suck for the dead player. (And also because it just wouldn't fit their character, perhaps.)
And I feel like that would be fair game, if the BBEG or the big final boss of the dungeon they've been trekking through had Silvery Barbs themselves. It would give the party that taste of their own medicine lots of DMs seem to crave for some reason while also being rare enough that it won't annoy the players by it being used all the time. Plus most players wouldn't even question that the boss would have such a powerful ability as it makes sense, of course they would. This might be the best path for power hungry DMs to take I think.
Even then it shouldn't happen at *every* big boss encounter either
Even the trainers who do use healing items won't be able to do what some trainers do (that is: "I can't beat Cynthia's Garchomp, so I bought enough revives for me to revive my party over and over until it runs out of PP and beats itself with Struggle"). They're limited to 2 Full Restores at most.
Pokémon games are supposed to be challenging enough that it's satisfying to win battles, instead of steamrolling your way through, and the opponents by definition don't do what you can do. Gym Leaders can't level grind.
The forbidden strategies enemies use have to be different. They can pull dirty tricks (looking at Ghetsis and his underleveled Hydreigon) but not the same tricks players can use.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 the dragon wants to have some fun after the fight, and it'd be awful inconvenient to have to warm up the body while it's so far away from his mouth
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 Pride. That could be a reason. A giant, proud dragon thinks it below them to use cheese tactics on those flightless tiny creatures. It's only when they are pushed into a corner aka too far into the low HP that their survival instinct overtakes their pride and they steep to cheap tactics and then the party could in worst case bargain for a truce or find a way to chase the enemy away.
I'm confused.
As a DM, I always thought that "if the players can do it, the monsters can, too" was a caveat to remind us to create the odd compelling encounter - one fight where they face for example a small group of magi that do use silvery barbs to disadvantage them, to keep things fresh on occasion.
That's at least how I have been using the caveat - giving 'boss' characters to challenging dungeons able to do things like Action Surge, or the evil sorcerer who just fucks off when the fight turns bad, using Dimension Door.
However, I never considered ANYONE using that advice to mean "every single enemy you fight will now do the thing", because that doesn't keep things fresh. It just changes the difficulty celing.
And I can't understand DMs that want to try and make their players die. Like, you're the force of reality itself. You can just... rocks fall, everyone dies, if you want. Any talentless hack can kill them.
It's our job to make them sweat on occasion, but make them feel GOOD about it too.
That's a good point. A lot of monsters could use more flavor, but could make interesting fights with little tuning. And maybe even simulating "pvp" could be fun.
As long as the game is fun and interesting with proper challenge (depending what's appropriate for your players) I guess anything goes, that's the point anyway.
Then you are using it correctly. But there are lazy and vindictive DM's that feel pleasure in screwing their players over.
I always liked using the term whenever the players would do something RAW, like the peasant cannon. I always prepared them for it, though, and used it extremely sparingly. But things like that, where random rules can be used for a laugh and appear more like a final boss than an annoyance.
I see killing my players as something I actively avoid as it’s not fun for them and it makes my life harder. Enemies that fight smart offer a unique challenge, but they shouldn’t always have a well planned out strategy. The random group of goblins may just attack whatever is in front of them, while a group of knights or mercenaries may try to take out the casters first. It’s all a matter of situation.
I just made a comment that killing PC's shouldn't feel "taboo." When designing encounters PC's already have an innate high chance of success (assuming the CR is correct and you don't have to make adjustments on the fly because it isn't). So extremely bad decisions and poor roles shouldn't bind the DM further. There is some gray area for the DM to work within this approach because defining "extremely bad" and "bad rolls" is a case-by-case subjective analysis.
I've seen players "rag" on the premise that they "all wake up in a prison cell" after what they thought was a TPK. Maybe this is the "bone" the DM threw them after said bad design or rolls but the DM shouldn't have to justify it to the player's. Or maybe the DM allows the TPK to "stand" and the player's feel the repercussions of the characters failures through their newly created Pc's?
I agree with your feelings 962%. The DM that taught me literally everything I know about DM-ing told me something that has stuck with me for 16 years.
"At the end of the day, I WANT to see your characters WIN. I want them to work for it, I want them to have to EARN it, and I want to see the characters grow and develop. I want to beat blast them to deaths door, to the point that you sweat and are terrified. I want to see your characters tortured physically and mentally but ONLY because I want to see them bounce back, recover and triumph."
Npcs are a dime a dozen, PCs are gold, told to me by a DM in 1979
Unless you are playing Call of Cthulhu haha. Then I wanna see them lose. More fun that way. 😈
@@RonRon1772 i once used call of cathulhu to make a session like Phasmopobia or similar Ghost hunter series or games. and the all dies out of fear and terror AND THE LOVE IT!!!!
The dirty secret of DnD is the good DM is on the players side... If he wasn't the players lose immediately as 20 Tarrasque appear to challenge first levels. But the DM must make it challenging not impossible and not too easy. Anything that becomes boring change/remove it's your game.
*Made in Abyss intensifies*
I like the rule "The monsters have rules they follow, they will consistently follow those rules, but they won't necessarily be the same as the rules the players follow."
Goddamn it those are the words that summon 3.5! Now we're all screwed!!!
Yeah, and that's why I tell my players if a spell has text, it does what the text say(in combat) and can be used creatively outside of combat if it makes sense for the situation.
Example: my player was wondering if it's okay to cast Rope Trick and use it mid combat, I said that it wouldn't be the best idea because of how it would break everything mid combat, but say using it to lay an ambush, I'd be cool with that. It's mainly because I want to tell an epic story and abusing the mechanics like that is lame, and the table agreed. So, moral of the story, talk about the rules and why you're ruling that way, and have a discussion after the session to see if the table agrees.
My table likes a challenge, so they didn't wanna do it.😅
@@drakegrandx5914 it's like beetlejuice you say rule(s) too many times and it comes out of no where.
Ah yes... Everyone gets a gun except for PCs. lol
@@cdnamy8832 in combat it doing a specific thing and out of combat being able to experiment with it works in universe, because in combat you're using it as it's intended, in a way you know will aork
I hear you. My thing is, don't abuse it. Enemy casters have counter spell, not ALL enemy casters have counter spell.
Yeah, I think it's ok to have specialised NPC's, that way the PC's know who to target.
Perfectly stated. Balance is key here.
If the players can abuse the system the DM can too. Sorry, but no matter what you say it's still a valid argument.
@@jaydavis9717 Did you watch the video? You're toxic, just talk out your issues, it's not hard. I've talked it out with players, other dm's have talked it out with players, you can too.
@@jaydavis9717 Valid, but fundamentally flawed lol. I agree with the vid in just talking it out, or trying too. Rather than say nothing and potentially nuking your table so that no one is playing DnD anymore.
As a forever DM, I'm currently playing a 5e character for the first time in my roommates campaign and I hate it, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't having fun and why all the other group members have asked me to DM the next campaign. And then I saw this video and I understand .
Is your DM getting "vengeful"?
😂😂
Your eye has opened
@@badnewsBHhis DM is probably trying to win instead of running a dnd campaign
My favorite advice I’ve heard is “A DM’s job isn’t to win, it’s to tell an epic story”
Absolutely. At the same time, the players will need true challenges for the story to be epic. I don't play 5th, but that spell does sound like it trivializes major opponents.
It's also the players job. It's collaborative story telling, it takes everyone involved on the same page for it to work!😊
I love this advice, but am afraid of the warped version of it where the DM tells their story and you have to sit and watch their self insert save the world effortlessly.
That's the job of the whole table
I think the DM can and should facilitate an epic story. But it's not my story. Things happen, and that's the story, how the players react and change the things that are happening.
Reminds me of the old saying about how it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.
Yeah. Life happens between you achieving your dreams or whatever.
I find it strange that the DM “winning” is such a widely perpetuated notion. I don’t think players usually view themselves as “winning D&D,” and I sure hope they don’t come to the table with the express intent of “Let’s screw over the DM as hard as possible.”
Also I love how the DM's reaction to not liking a spell is to make sure it shows up at every possible opportunity
The better solution, if the DM absolutely HAS to show the player first hand how frustrating Silvery Barbs spam is would be to build an encounter around the idea “every enemy has silver barbs,” not making the game about their revenge god fantasy. But talking is much more conducive
I don't think the DM dislikes the spell.
Put yourself in their shoes for a second. If you've been in the DnD community long enough, you should know about the infamous case of everyone picking the Lucky feat.
The problem was how much dice rerolling it causes to a point that the game gets constantly interrupted, like a game of YuGiOh in which a trap takes effect every time someone places a card on the field. *But Silvery Barbs being a lvl 1 spell means as you grow in lvl, you can cast it exponentially more times than use Lucky.* It's a fun spell, but in moderation.
Let me add that I have Silvery Barbs on my wizard in our Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I rarely use it. Most people are gonna spam it every combat because it's fun to make enemies miss and sh%&, but I find the most value in it in saving it to make a big monster fail an important save or to give advantage to someone about to take a big swing. It's not worth the spell slot to burn it every single turn just to give advantage or troll the DM.
It's mind-boggling to me that that came to mind before just banning the spell for both players and NPCs
@@mak31589 There is nothing players HATE more than something being banned. Using it against the players is literally the lesser of two evils in the minds of a player. Its a no win situation for the DM.
@@themasterseye this is literally what the video you're commenting on warns against. If your games are being dominated by a single spell, then remove it from your game. A limited spell pool can actually open up creative gameplay, which everyone will remember, rather than someone saying "I cast Spell X" for the hundredth time
By the logic of “If the players can do it so can the monsters” then if you truly want a 2-way street then the players should also have legendary resistances, lair actions, the ability to get stats over 20, innate spellcasting, etc.
true polymorph
"If the players can do it, so can the monsters" is usually meant to be a kind of - "Yeah, you can do this cool thing this time, but be careful, cause the world around you evolves and you can set a precedent." But it doesn't really mean - oh, every encounter is this from now on. It means - oh, in a cool moment, a monster can pull off that move too and make things interesting. That's how I see it.
That's how I interpret it too. It's a that's neat trick to add to my own bag of tricks kind of thing where, if the circumstances align, I can pull it off myself for this one encounter. And that's the trick. *One encounter* is the best way because it throws your players a curve ball if they don't see it coming
But then that rule doesn’t go the other way. PCs can’t learn the abilities of Humanoid Monsters that have special spell-like attacks. PCs can’t have legendary actions/resistances. etc. etc. Players and monsters are not the same AND the effect this spell has on PCs vs DMs is not the same. DMs control several creatures, and usually have the means to act multiple times per turn. Silvery Barbs is barely useful for players (you’ll know this if you’ve ever actually used it) and is just demoralizing when used against them out of spite.
@@AnimatingClass101 1: Tieflings are literally in the PHB and can use some of the spell-like abilities you're describing
2: Normal enemies aren't going to have legendary actions/resistances unless you're running legacy
3: It isn't always about spite
Yeah, it's more like "Stop trying to cast produce water in the enemys lungs"
@@AnimatingClass101 Not to mention, DMs always have the option to just fudge rolls anyway. Or throw in more monsters. Or decide to buff people with magic items.
If a DM wants to be mean, they don't need Silvery Barbs to do that. DMs and players are not equal and shouldn't be treated thus. Good video, DnD Shorts
As a experienced DM, I agree. The best way to avoid the DM vs player mentality and retributive gameplay is to discuss the problem with your players as the issue is arising. If your players are always cheesing an encounter with something like silvery barbs or counterspell, sitting down with your players and coming to a gentleman's agreement is way better than being passive aggressive.
I always take a worldbuilding approach to DMing. I don't care if the players steamroller encounters, they have fun that way and I have fun workdbuilding.
When it comes to boss encounters. I use the information I get about the party in the small encounters to make the boss battle challenging, and I never try to "counter" the players abilities.
Talking always leads to the problem being solved and 100% is the encouraged solution; when the goal is for everyone to have fun. Sadly, there are people who think a DM vs Players mentality is the correct one to have, but those people are only interested in their own enjoyment, never anyone else's, so are never people I'd want to have as DMs, Players, friends, coworkers, or just associate with in general.
And for those who think the "If Players can, enemies can" concept makes things fair, then it should apply in the reverse as well. DM throws a blue dragon, beholder, or Marilith at the party? Then wouldn't it be fair that every single party member now can breathe lightning, cast rays of disintegration, can freely teleport, make 7 melee attacks and/or can cast spells, and has legendary actions and resistances. That's fair, right? "If Enemies can, Players can" after all.
Nobody who uses the concept "If Players can, enemies can" would ever allow it to be applied in reverse because they aren't interested in other people having fun; only their own. It's good for a bit of chaos, but it doesn't satisfy the power and control fantasy these people want to experience at the expense of others.
Good DMs talk to the players about problems that arise and figuring out a solution, regardless of if that means banning a spell or changing the way it works or running a different type of campaign entirely, so everybody can get back to having fun and look forward to the next session, knowing their time will be well spent.
Bad DMs see the players as obstacles to be overcome, taking satisfaction in the players' suffering, and spend their time thinking up how to torment their players, while the players are miserable and view the session time as worthless and wasted. And if you are a player who thinks such thoughts, leave that group immediately, because NO! Bad DnD IS NOT BETTER THAN NO DnD! NO DnD IS INFINITELY BETTER THAN BAD DnD! Because that time you don't spend in Bad DnD can be spent on things you do find enjoyable AND you could find some GOOD DnD to join in the meanwhile.
True, the Bad DMs won't be having fun without anyone to torment...but at least it's fair...
@@timdrugge907
This is… interesting. And a good idea for a kirby-like ability.
(I am not missing the point, my home-brew brain just started up when you mentioned monster abilities for the players)
But you’re right, GM vs Player mentality is the game killer.
Or just ban moon druid.
Precisely the right solution to this debate. Banning spells gets a bad rap from things like r/dndhorrorstories etc. but if a spell or feature has gained the status of “if you think about it, if a caster doesn’t take silvery barbs, they’re shooting themselves in the foot,” then ban the spell. If it would break immersion for the spell to exist and not be taken by any caster, then that spell was poorly designed, and can be either banned or altered in your game. Do whatever allows your table to have fun.
Really like the focus fire argument, it feels really bad as a player when an entire mob specifically targets you for no reason. I have had some bosses target a player to knock them down, but the boss is already losing in terms of action economy so it feels much fairer and adds to the stakes, its not like the boss is going to have enough actions to kill them outright before they get healed anyways.
Honestly, I think it's just a matter of expectations. I think if a party goes into a fight knowing that enemies WILL try to focus PCs down, they will be much less eager to get into fights. On the contrary, they'll be wary and think twice about rushing headfirst into battle.
The way I see it, as long as the DM isn't being adversarial and actually out for revenge, there are no right and wrong answers, only different expectations as to how you'd like a game to unfold.
I like the argument, except when I am DMing my own world and the players choose to go after a dragon.
Most encounters, I will often have enemies choose targets that I know can take a hit for various spells, and if I can, make it a close fight with my combat choices for the foes, and single target attacks only happen when something got messed up, like a wizard jumping infront of a barbarian to shoot a fireball at the backline, when the frontline of foes are within range of move and attack. That wizard got ganked....
My players are warned that Dragons are "like players" and they will not have a hostile encounter with one, unless they royally mess up, or chase after one. My players also know i can be devious...
Being targeted for no reason is BS, being targeted because you're a wizard that just fireballed the enemy and they don't want that happening again, perfectly valid.
I had a game where bandits are extorting people on the street.
Rogue and Cleric do not want to cause a scene, but Monk and Barbarian attack. Barbarian goes first, activates Rage but is too far away to reach melee range, so Barbarian throws a handaxe instead. The bandits are next, completely ignore the deranged fairy throwing axes at them and instead focus fire on Cleric. Cleric goes down, picks up a permanent injury that gives disadvantage on all charisma checks and quits the game.
My mindset on that phrase is that. Yes, if the players can have silvery Barbs. Enemies can too.
That doesn’t mean every Caster will have it. Maybe like 1 member of a group will have it prepared, possibly 2. But they won’t cast it every round, maybe they want to keep some power for Absorb Elements, Shield, or some other spell.
My mindset is that every time players use silvery barbs, that's one fewer spell slots for them to use.
I also track time on a daily level - every 3 in-game days or so (unless the plot and geography forces the players to "waste time" for things like long-distance travel) either the bad guys make progress on their goals or the players suffer a setback, such as their favorite tavern getting arsoned or a major NPC gets killed/kidnapped/otherwise inconvenienced.
YMMV, but that's worked great for me these past two decades or so. My players have come to consider spell slots quite a valuable resource.
If you as a player are casting barbs everytime you can, that is a lot of spells and a lot of reactions that could be used for other things and now leave you quite open. Hard to barbs and shield same turn lol
@@tinytimonfire yes… which is the same logic I’m applying to the occasional caster that could use it.
Whenever I heard the advice "if the players can do it, so can the monsters", I always just took that to mean that the monsters/villains could *access* those spells or abilities - it really opened up gameplay possibilities. Like if the party wanted to use flour or paint to find an invisible enemy, they could, but that would inevitably change how invisibility works and that mechanic would apply to the party as well. Not in a mean way, just in a 'we made the rules together' way. As for spells like Counterspell or Silvery Barbs, it makes sense to me that some enemy mages would have it, and would use it, but it seems clear that giving those spells to every caster would get incredibly boring incredibly quickly, bogging down gameplay and turning the battle into a slog - after all, there's likely a reason that most premade encounters do not have monsters with healing spells. It should be a rare thing, to make it more effective.
I also don't agree that *every* caster would take those spells. Look at the people around you and the weird choices they make. How many people go for flashy over functional, even when they really shouldn't? Are you telling me that my frogman shaman is really going to take something like Counterspell over Hypnotic Pattern or Lightning Bolt? What would be the point in learning something that doesn't put the fear or awe of fishthulu into the hearts of their people? Self defence? I have lightning mofo, come at me - aw sh*&, the strangers can warp time. Save me fishthulu! No! Why have you forsaken me?
Thank you for freeing me from writing a lengthy comment.
My biggest problem with "so can the mosters" is the far fetched assumption that all these mosters have access to all those things, from what I know, in most D&D settings you won´t find complete spellbooks beying sold on the street market right next to cucumbers and apple juice. Many spellcasters might have never even heard about Silvery Barbs, let alone know how to cast it
Love this comment praise fishtulu
@@baronvonbrunn8596 yep was my first thought silvery barbs in my head seems like a very hard spell to learn possible also rare and kept a secret for it could be a secret trump card
This is exactly how I understood it. I have a critical success/failure chart for attack rolls, I shared it with my players and said that if we implement this for you guys, I will also use it for my NPCs and they agreed. It led to some pretty funny moments and amazing successes for both sides. It's hilarious to watch an NPC roll a Nat 1, and then drop their weapon because the swing was so bad.
But I also have a player who is in love with the spell Kinetic Jaunt. So does this mean I make all my casters have it, or counter spell to stop it? Well, no. We're playing a low magic setting and it would break immersion if all of a sudden every NPC they fight knows how they've been fighting and are prepared to counter it. Now will returning NPCs be prepared? Most likely, but there's reasons for that.
I never understood the mindset of DM VS Player. We're all here to make an awesome story together, and that should be the main focus. Not nitpicking the fact that the players found something they enjoy that you don't.
I think it’s perfectly fine to have silvery barbs turned against the players every so often in the same way that saying “the monster uses its legendary action” causes that “OH NO” moment for players, and makes their victory over a powerful enemy all the more satisfying
*_"every so often"_* is not *_"every single time"_*
"I rolled a natural 20 on my attack."
"No, you did not."
Silvery Barbs does not make the enemy feel powerful, it makes the players feel weak. Those are not the same thing.
@@schwarzerritter5724 It does not if it is rare and comes at a significant cost. _But let's say it does:_
Logically, it also makes the monsters feel weak, thus cheapening any victory against it. And if what would make sense to do on both side makes the game less fun for any reason, _which includes being an overpowered option,_ it should be banned. And if the ban is resisted, it should be allowed AND blanket-used.
And we're speaking *"Have a campaign revolving around an opposing specie/phenomenon that allows arcane spellcasting and have an entire faction tutor each others to cast that one spell, among others, because it is so good"* blanket use.
Which is a way that's a bit passive-aggressive, but effective, of making a point. *That's why I suggest the ban first.*
@@fovarberma752 It is not the power of Silvery Barbs that makes the players feel weak, but that it turns successful roles into failures, like I said in my example. If Silvery Barbs just gave the monsters advantage on their rolls, that would be fine, even giving the player characters disadvantage would be fine, but specifically turning successes into potential failures makes it bad.
Or take the more extreme examples stated in the video: Banishment and Force Wall. Taking a character out of the entire fight will surely increase the challenge, but it will also force a player to sit there and watch everyone else play the game.
@@schwarzerritter5724 *"It is not the power of Silvery Barbs that makes the players feel weak, but that it turns successful rolls into failures (...)"*
In many games, some of these options being core to D&D since AD&D, you can achieve similar results with Block / Parry / Catch Arrows / Concealment / Mirror Image Spells, etc. Never caused a problem of "feeling weak". In facts, Silvery Barbs is one of the milder offenders in this as it still expend resources your opponent has in limited supplies: Spell Slots.
Silvery Barbs is bad design, but only because it is too good an option for its spell level.
There are workarounds to it. Summons come to mind. Summon a couple of spiders or other critters with a nasty effect, specifically on spellcasters, and watch your DM squirm not to silvery barb 1d4+2+poison. Henchmen, pets (buy guard dogs lol), multitarget and low damage spells are all ways to wear down a target with that spell, never truly worth the slot. And I'd look into counterspelling the barbs too.
In other words, if it negates that one super big attack from your party's brute... maybe your party should not feel "weak", but rather "stupid".
I otherwise agree that save-or-suck like "Banishment", "Sleep", "Hold Person", "Petrify" are a bad design. If I was to DM D&D (lol), I would houserule that for a save-or-suck effect, you can choose to pass the save if you sacrifice [Margin of Failure] * 10% of your max HP; rounded up. *But there is a major difference between having one action countered, and be effectively taken out of an encounter.*
Barbarian failed a roll versus petrification by 3? Immediately spend the 37 HP and succeed the roll!
*Disclaimer: I strongly dislike D&D, spells slots, the idea spells can basically do anything and the d20. But argument still holds.*
Agreed. Spells like Silvery Barbs, Counterspell and Shield shouldn't be used by every enemy. They are best used by bosses to ensure they survive a bit longer and make the fight a bit tougher. Make it so the boss feels like they are more skilled than the average foe, like they are on the same level as the players.
Or give out such support abilities to some fairly tough goons, so that the players have to decide on a strategy on dealing with the encounter. Do they take out the supporting elements first, or do they dispose of the big damage target first?
I had one fight scene, I think it was DRW-16 Against the Machine, where one turn the players and Red Wizards they faced off against had a 6-counter-spell stack going.
It was a wild encounter where the players, dealing head-on with the Red Wizards, had to recognize that there was going to be an absurd amount of magic flowing. But that was a climatic battle at the end of the adventure, in a scenario where the players were anticipating a huge battle with mages. Outside of that, I'll sprinkle a counterspell here or there, just to give players an opportunity to try some shenanigans (like subtle casting or casting without direct line of sight).
This. This is the way to do it. Minions should be weak and easy to kill, just a way to waste a couple minor resources. The end dungeon boss should be a challenge.
While I do agree with that statement; The players shouldn't be spamming it too, especially if it was a boss fight (as a dm, spent hours working on). Granted I would just ban silvery barbs since it's not in one of the main core rule books or core addons. But even if it was. I would just talk to my players about it. Simply asking them to take another spell, or I'll make it third level. Giving something disadvantage and then an ally advantage on a reaction it up there with fireball level spells. So it's more of an impactful choice for taking and then using the spell, also preventing spaming.
Yes
I tell my players "Most of my monsters don't min/max"
With a raised eyebrow to say, some will. Bosses and such.
I had a group came up with a great shorthand question "Is it One Of Us?"
Most of the time, no. But, sometimes...
There is definitely a difference between dm vs player and a dm challenging their players. If your players are married to a tactic then throw in some stuff where that tactic may be less viable every so often. Are your players soloing down enemies to efficiently take over the turn economy, maybe an encounter against the bbeg's minions that have a lower stat line but a higher body count than usual may be in order to get them back on their toes and thinking.
the problem there, from experience, is that players double-down on the tactic and slow the game to a crawl trying to find ways to win the fight with the tactic they want to use. 'Winning all of the fun out of the game' (I can't remember who said it but it's true)
@@TheOmegaXicor "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." - Sid Meier
@@krinkrin5982yes that's the original quote, it was Sid Meier. I don't know who modified it about winning but thanks for the reminder.
My golden rule for TTRPGs: It's everyone's job, including the DM, to make sure everyone is having as much fun as possible at the table, including the DM.
If you just talk to each other and tell the others when you're unhappy in a friendly and reasonable manner, you'll be amazed at how much better it goes, as long as you're willing to do the same for the others when they want something. It's not always easy to solve some things when different players want different things, but so worth it. You may even end up being better friends because of it. Give a little, get a lot!
Fun is the one thing you can not guarantee. There is nothing you can do to make another person feel fun. You can set up the atmosphere the best you can, have the best props, narrate the best descriptions, use the best voices, have the best snacks, etc... None of that will guarantee fun. It just allows for the possibility of fun, but unless the individual is willing to enjoy things there is nothing you can do.
@@FMD-FullMetalDragon But you can, and should, try.
Great video. I appreciate it when someone actually advocates for common sense, communication, and common decency.
The loudest voices get heard. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, those are rarely the voices of common sense or reason
This is a lesson I learned early on as a DM, unfortunately. It's much better to talk with the players than to be cryptic and passive-aggressive, trying to get back at one of the players I viewed as slightly problematic ended up with them quitting without a word mid campaign and I had to scramble together to fix this mess I made. They still haven't talked to me since, but hey, that's a lesson learned.
And simply talking to them doesn't always solve the problem. I've had many players do dumb shit repeatedly regardless of it pisses of the party or the me as the DM. The party would talk to them, I would talk to them, and they would just do the same things in different ways trying to claim they aren't doing it on purpose. 100% of the time why they have to face the consequences of their actions they cry about it and get pissed. If you think of something out of the box, don't cry when something out of the box is returned to you.
If I am being honest with you, had I been in your shoes I likely would of never forgave myself, I don't get how you manage to do this.
@@jaydavis9717 if you've talked it out and it is still unacceptable, the ONLY option is to have some balls and KICK them, not be a whiney zoomer DM and try to "get back" at them. That's just pure childish toxicity.
@@gethriel actually simply kicking someone who is being a problem is a pretty pussy method. You can avoid all your problems and ignore them. I'll actually have the balls to stand up to them and make my point. After that, if it is still an issue then kicking them might be on the table. I wasn't raised to run from my problems like a coward.
@@jaydavis9717 no one actually does anything in a game of D&D. They tell the DM what they want their character to do, and the DM makes a ruling. So if someone dies something that everyone hates, and you talk to them, and they ATTEMPT to do it again, you just tell them “no.” If they pitch a fit, then they aren’t cut out to play games with people.
I needed to hear this.
I'm reaching the end of another arc in my campaign and I'm trying to make sure my players are getting what they enjoy. One player (the Barbarian) asked that their character doesn't keep getting their ass handed to them. They win almost every combat (except for the boss saved at the end), but it's always a challenge. I'm gonna have to give them some easy ones to help them feel better. I'm hoping that by the end, an easy victory will feel earned.
Thank you.
I think counterspell and antimagic shell are another good example. Maybe those spells are your fighter's time to shine, but if every mob has those spells, your offensive spellcaster starts to wonder if they picked the right class.
High-level spellcasters should be generally rare in most settings (it's unfortunately often ignored).
@@szymonlechdzieciol Where are you pulling that information from? That's simply untrue. In Forgotten Realms there are a myriad of high level spell casters, including entire cities full of them. Waterdeep has an entire guild with nothing but spell casters to deal with magical threats. If you choose to make magic rare that's your choice but by default, magic is not rare in the default setting of D&D 5e.
@@DioxJXDOut of their ass, clearly.
@@DioxJXD you can make magic common, but you can also make knowing how to counterspell a rare spell that is hard to learn and few individuals know how to do it. Magic being prevalent doesnt have to mean that counterspell is obvious to everyone even if the concept of it is and everyone wished they could do it
I'm dming a campaign for my brother and sister, both of whom are new to D&D, and I'm constantly making adjustments and changes to prevent the lunatics getting themselves killed by angry mobs. Does it make the game less "realistic?" Absolutely. But my god is it hilarious. We have an absolute blast because y'know what? Following the rules and maintaing realism is secondary to making sure my players have fun
Not to mention it's a game with...dragons and magic. It already isn't realistic. The best part is pulling off cool things that wouldn't be possible in real life! It's a fantasy game after all. I think being able to make changes on the fly in a way that ensures your party has the most fun the can is what makes a good DM!
Same here with my friends lol
Put in a DMPC that acts as the noble/party manager, occassionally giving them a nudge in the right direction
Finding solutions to potential boredom is an important DM skill. Sometimes, you know the rules as written will just result in bad storytelling. The merman character is bad at climbing and would require in-game hours of attempts to succeed, and we need to get over this wall to continue the plot? Let the others try to throw him over! Never mind that I have yet to find the rule that lets people throw other people.
I think they key word should be if the players can do it, the enemies CAN, too. It doesn't mean that every fight players are going to go up against enemies with silvery barbs, but that the players could come to find that some of the enemies do have it, and use it.
I mean every humanoid enemies should have potions... Because if not they are just shooting themselves...
But no... Hell they even hardly use potions... Or any item whatsoever...
@@ChaosMind10531 Have played games where they totally do.
@@Iansco1 Can you clarify... Are you agreeing with npcs shooting themselves or with they use items???
Use potions. Use items.
The first time I encountered this advice was like 20 years ago, back then it was worded to me as "If you use poison, then I can use poison." by my DM. And I've grown to respect what I've gotten from that. Because, in the line of thinking I was introduced to, it was not about fairness or anything like that, it was about the DM explaining that I as the player was forming what kind of experience I wanted, and if I was gonna start poisoning NPCs and doing shady shit, then that campaign would start filling up with skulduggery.
But as always intend matters a lot, and doing stuff like that just to try and get back at your players is dumb.
Also, again, like half of all comments online are by people who talk about D&D online because they can't get a group or keep one for long.
2 simple solutions:
Just because you CAN give every enemy something, doesn't mean you should, and if you do you're a bad DM.
Not every enemy can do everything, and trying to give an enemy everything is unfair and makes you a bad DM.
This does not destroy the point, but makes it clear that overusing such things is not the way to go. The idea of the advice that I believe is fair is that it can happen and throwing something at your players once or twice that has similar capabilities as something they do can do a lot for them. It can show them things about their builds or abilities they possibly hadn't considered, how potentially annoying certain things they're doing are from a combat setup standpoint as the DM and get them to tone it down and it can potentially provide an interesting challenge for the party to overcome. However giving everything every little thing that even slightly annoys you, such as giving every enemy Silvery Barbs and Counterspell, isn't fair, fun and it will absolutely kill your game very quickly.
Im willing to bet the DM did it more to prove a point and wouldn't normally do something like that. People who think a DM should throw BS back at their players just want to do whatever they want with 0 consequences which is just a bad player mindset to have. Bravo to DM that are willing to stand up to be players and throw it right back at them. You don't want bs, don't start bs
@@jaydavis9717 Making choices that will make the game crumble is still an unintelligent choice though. I'd rather do it in a way that can keep things fun, make things a little more fair so combat doesn't just get steamrolled and keep the game in general going so we can finish the story some day. If the players can see why something they did was broken along the way than all the better.
@@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemon so making choices that makes the DM not want to DM is ok? Again y'all only ever think of the players and never the DM's. It's a selfish mindset and simply crying over consequences to your actions isn't enough to sway my opinion.
@@jaydavis9717 How about once an issue arises where it feels like the DM is against the players or the players are against the DM, we normalize talking to each other like grown adults and not try to ruin fun for each other. If the DM feels like they don't want to DM anymore because of the group, they need to verbalize that. If they did and it are still being ignored then they need to leave that group.
Anybody who is purposefully ruining the fun for others, especially as a form of revenge for the actions of another, need to seriously take a step back and think who about who they want to be as a person. D&D is supposed to be fun and unless you're some sort of sadist who enjoys making others feel miserable, then doing so defeats the purpose.
The saying "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." exists for this very purpose
@@jaydavis9717 players "BS" can be annoying but if the DM can't have fun that is not the players fault your supporting players vs DMs and your ignoring tpk if monsters die ok so but players it's way to toxic to make a player not get to play for hours because your not having fun in the end dnd is not a meat grinder but a roleplay game also the mind set of this spell book is universal and every one has it is so wrong not every enemy is going to have silvery barbs or counter spell why well an example not every soldier knows advanced first aid maybe they should but they don't because other things also have importance some may take the time to learn advanced first aid but why when it takes away from other skills they could learn. this is a game npcs aren't gonna start out as blank slates players are so they can customize everything about them selves, DMs aren't have fun because players are cheeseing fights then don't be toxic make them harder and depending on the group the higher the level the more fights they should cheese
when i wanted to start a DnD campaign i pretty much sat with my players (who are pretty much new to DnD) and said "DnD is not about winning or losing, is about us having fun and creating our own little world, shaping history to our will. I'll be the hand, you guys will be the Pencil and the world will be the paper. (my players seems very satisfied with my very first DM-ing)
tfw when total equality is completely unfair
perhaps you could modify the spell or just ban it outright?
To be honest we banned Silvery Barbs in the game, however I do remember in my first campaign I had Polymorph, and wanted to use it on a creature but was warned by the DM that if 'you gimmick my encounters' that there would be consequences... So I kind of haven't used it like that in fear of repercussions. I think this video made me realise some stuff from that group I wasn't even really aware of. Thanks for the great video!
For me this swings back to Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Just because you could, doesn’t mean that you should.
I think the advice is fine, but as usual it’s all in the application. Want to give one enemy silvery barbs for an encounter or possibly a foil? Sure! Should every character in every battle have silvery barbs, of course not.
Anything the players CAN do, an enemy COULD do.
@@paprickachicken5277 My thing is that if it's official, unless it is just stupidly overpowered- which SB is not, it shouldn't be banned. Nothing official is really that overpowered. Maybe it needs to be modified- that's what we did at my table, though I still don't really feel like that's necessary (we made it so saving throws require a 2nd level spell slot or higher).
That being said, the encounter balance is different on the DM side. For one thing it doesn't matter how against metagaming you are, you still- as the DM know what your PCs are capable of. You can find out how many of what spell slots they have and you know how close to death they are. That and you have access to things like legendary actions, and you can be like "you are attacked by 50 goons, roll initiative."
I agree it shouldn't be done just because the players can, but I would suggest that there is still a place for it, for just about everything.
This is more of a lesson on social media culture than d&d. Well done. The behaviour you mentioned is replicated in almost any other community.
Honestly I disagree, I've gotten these toxic attitudes from DMs and players who have been playing for decades. This mentality, in my view, stems from elitism, looking down on these new peasants that wanna come into your game and make changes because they're precious feelings get hurt!~ It seems like it comes from a place that distains change to your way, what you were taught so you lash out on these soyboys trying to argue "fairness."
I've been playing and running RPGs and RPG clubs for decades and only ever see this with D&D players--never with players of other systems.
This is an issue with basic humanity. The current state most people are in pushes them to the most animalistic part of their brain that deals in binary decisions: win/lose, good/bad, right/wrong. A higher level adds lose/lose and win/win options and awareness. An ideal interaction between people, everywhere, would be win/win. Typically it's all lose/lose as people try to get something over on each other through a misguided view that that's all that exists to life.
@Mark Brereton I think I have Seen this a little bit with stuff like vampire the masquerade. I think the main reason we don't see it in a lot of GMs That run other games is because well they don't know The game system as well in order to be able to do this and also the kind of people who do that seem to come from a very old mentality. That are very stuck in their ways which means they mostly play Dungeons & Dragons. And vampire the masquerade because those are 2 of the oldest Games out there and the ones that they have Gotten that mentality from because they play it a lot.
@@rockassassin64 I run a club that introduces a lot of first-time roleplayers. The ones who play dnd first get scared to try anything else because they think the on-boarding will be as onerous for everything else. The ones who play modern games go on to play *everything* because the other games are so much more intuitive and in-line with what first-timers expect an RPG will feel like.
Those games don't need prep. I mean the Apocalypse World rules literally ban the GM from preparing anything at all.
2:57 i really thought he was gonna hit us with the "WOW, you really need friends."
I always saw the "If the players can do it, the monsters can too" as more a opportunity for interesting roleplay. Like if the party swindles a humanoid NPC with a successful heist, maybe they'll encounter some enemies who used a similar tactic because they learned from the party and it works well with rivalries and things like that. Definitely not some weird revenge quest against your own players lol. Something that happened in my game was a player using a beadof force and instead of trapping an enemy they used it as a shield. And when they encountered that enemy again, I had her use the same tatic with some beads of force she was able to steal. It kinda backfired on her but that's the fun of it, and it was pretty interesting too because no one ever thinks to try to purposely fail a saving throw so my players instinctively tried to suceed against it which unknowingly gave her a chance to protect herself from their attacks.
I like this. Evolving tactics and consequences are interesting.
(And I may use that bead of force thing)
Yeah I got confused by this video at first. I mean the monsters "CAN" doesn't mean they should or that rats can make complex plans. Seems a lot of people took this the complete wrong way and decided to Metagame against the players out of spite.
I absolutely love that you're calling people out on their bullshit. If you're consistently not having fun with your friends doing an activity that's supposed to be fun and help you set aside your real-world problems for a few hours, you might need to reevaluate your choice of friends. Thank you, DnD Shorts, for advocating for people who are trying to be good people. Watching your videos always restores a little bit of my faith in humanity. Also, the Ginny Di video you referenced at the beginning is one of my favorite ones she's posted.
My personal favorite way to twist this advice is instead saying "if the monsters can do it the players can too." The former has a connotation of hostility. A players vs dm mentality. But this twist on the phrase (I hope, at least) gives the idea of giving your players hints on new tricks they can use on their enemies. A subtle nudge to new players telling them "you can be a lot more creative. You're not limited like in a videogame. You can turn your enemy's power against them!" Or if you're really clever with it, ways on hinting solutions to certain problems by demonstrating parts of that solution in the enemy's behavior.
Yeah, that's something I like to do. Some of newer players need to be shown what they actually can do. Like using the terrain, shoving instead of attacking, some of the basics as well. When stuff gets used on them, it stays a lot better in their minds compared to... just reading the manual. Or for my other pasttime: Homebrewing some ridiculous items. I show how the enemy uses them, and sometimes how the use can go wrong, before the players get it as a prize for beating that enemy.
I feel like people forget that it isn't the DM vs the Players. It's everyone working together to tell a story and play a game. A Sorcerer in my campaign as Silvery Barbs, and sure I like to joke about how he ruins all my plans, but it's really cool to see him save his allies from critical hits by using Silvery Barbs at key parts in the battle. I don't /want/ my players to die, I want them to have fun. Yes, I'm playing enemies who want them dead, but what is more exciting than seeing the party figure out how to survive a deadly encounter and celebrate when they get that last hit, or save an ally for otherwise certain death?
Yeah the DM is a player as well, just happens to the one making the core of the story you are playing. With my own DM we are just agreed to save Counterspell for major moments not just trying to tell the DM's casters you aren't doing anything before we kill you. We trust them to not Power Word Kill/disintegrate ect in a random fight. Boss fight sure lets go ham, random Tom down the street, no...let's not
Also, from the standpoint of a player that played sorcerer through tomb of annhiliation, taking silvery barbs isn't always the best option. I already had shield and counterspell, taking a third reaction based spell would clog up my action economy. On top of this, using shield or silverybarbs uses up spell slots, which you will eventually run out of. Most enemies have multiple attacks anyway, so one silvery barbs isn't going to derail a campaign. Salty DMs for sure.
Good comment. A good dm gives players an opportunity to shine and using silvery barbs is definitely one of them.
And it's not like silvery Barbs is unbeatable. A level 6 sorceror can cast 4 level 1 spells a day. So:
1. 6-8 encounter days mean we can only use silvery Barbs around every other combat unless we wish to give up higher level spell slots (or sorcery points)
2. For every silvery Barbs we use that's one less use of grease or burning hands or whatever your level 1 spells of choice are.
3. You must be within 60ft of the attacker to cast silvery Barbs. Introduce ranged fighters, spread out combats, introduce combats with say 8 weak enemies where crits will be more common.
Not for every combat but insert them in to make players have to meet challenges in different ways.
4. Just because You use silvery Barbs doesn't mean the enemy won't hit (and there is still a 5% chance of a crit)
@@lowestoftmattyhere almost no one plays that many encounters per day
Exactly! The DM essentially has unlimited uses of every spell in the game. If DnD was about the DM “beating” the players, the DM would always “win”. When you make decisions as a DM, you shouldn’t be thinking; “my players used this annoying thing, now I’m going to use to against them to annoy them”, you should be thinking about how to make the encounter more fun for the players.
“I’m sorry guys, but I do not want people running silvery barbs in my game.”
Probably one of the easiest solutions
Yeah just nerfing it in homebrew is even better so you still give them the choice but it is not a mandatory spell for every caster
At my table we just nerfed it by having them use the new roll, not the lowest, did wonders.
Yep, I banned it and we as a group discussed it. No problems, the game went on.
"Your character hasn't been to Stryxhaven, so can't know that Stryxhaven exclusive spell." Is a great way to deal with it.
@@RevokFarthis smart, i like
A way for a dm to "solve" the silvery barbs situation that is used as an example would be to talk to the players about a potentional nerf to the power, like only allowing everyone to use it once or twice per person per fight or something like that, with the argument being that you as dm want to have some fun as well since the constant use of the spell slows their turn and because it feels terrible when a good roll gets rerolled. This could be a great compromise so they can use their strategy without you banning it.
The key to using powerful spells like Silvery Barbs or counterspell as a dm is to thinly sprinkle them throughout your encounters for flavor but never going to the point it could very well endanger your player's lives/fun.
I have an easy rule at my table that fixes this. Silvery Barbs is treated as a 2nd level spell, otherwise you're only able to use it once per Short/Long Rest as though you gained it from Magic Initiate.
It's worked well for our table, and I obviously sat and talked with my players before we came to this ruling.
What about an upcast is needed to ensure successfully applying to the enemy's roll (akin to Counterspell)?
I'm so glad that you covered this topic. It may be one of the most helpful things for DM's, especially if they are new or with a new group. While having a boss or unique encounter is fun to have custom abilities or spells that you don't usually see on NPC's or monsters, but it should be the exception, not the rule.
DM: "don't take feats because then the enemies can do those things as well."
Player: "I take the chef feat"
DM: "ok, now all the enemies will use heat metal on you."
true story.
Thats fucking stupid what?
dont take feats because then i will punish you for doing so by making the enemies say "anything you can do i can do betteeeerr!"
this is not how you DM, this is how you piss off your players because you werent creative enough to challenge your players even with feats in play
what a bizarre nonsequitor
Looks at my current D&D party of a monk, sorcerer, warlock, sorlock, druid, and bow rogue. "What metal?"
@@KingZolem this table had 15 people, it was super weird. It wasn't even DND.
I could see adding one extra enemy that is hiding and casting counter spell once just to mess with the party could be a bit fun every once in a while. “As you cast your spell you watch and see that it has no effect for some reason.” Adds a bit of surprise to the campaign that helps keep the players on their toes
Imagine a cursed button on a characters shirt that can cast one or two spells per day, i wonder if/when they'd find out.
I can see adding a single enemy caster who knows Silvery Barbs as their only trick in order to both add to their character and be very gratifying for the players to beat.
It would be good if you had a perceptive party, especially one with a rogue who likes to move around the battle. But I wouldn't use it on my players 😂
Used sparingly, I think this could work. Though if the party had ever used Counterspell, I would definitely give them hints that this is what happened instead of just saying "for some reason". Maybe have them roll Arcana or Perception or something.
Kinda reminds me of the Demons Souls boss The False Idol, where one shitty nobody is up in the rafters reviving it and you have to take him out beforehand to actually beat the boss.
I am starting my session 1 today on a campaign, and in the session 0 I said silvery Barbs will not be allowed in this campaign, nor would the Lucky Feat. Everyone is fine with this. Setting expectations is one of the underused tips for new DM's. If you arent trying to "Win" DnD and instead focus on working together to make a cool story, your gonna have a good time!
This is still trap for new DMs. Game should be playable RAW without homerules - and it should be shining example of game design (that is open to adjustments).
Instead the game is unplayable broken mess and every single gaming table uses its own set of specific exceptions and additions to rules that spans several pages.
@Fionor yes, 5e isn't a very good system. But that's not the DM's fault! Lol
@@Fionor01 I always ban a set of spells and class archtypes depending on the world I'm running.
For example I wanted to run a permadeath setting, can't do that with all those resurrection spells running around so out the door they go.
No single system can run everything.
The ad for this video is ironic since finding games where winning isn't the point is the biggest barrier to finding a good group
I told my players straight up that as a DM, I hate the lucky feat. But I also didn't want to just make it unavailable, so I proposed a compromise: one member in the parti can take it, and they can decide amongst themselves who it should be. They were pretty cool with that.
I mean feats are optional in the first place.
Sure, but if you remove feats, somebody like your fighter who has tons of skill increases suddenly is castrated from a flavor and utility/fun perspective.
honestly, I ask my players not to take it sometimes not because I can't live with the mechanic, but because it slows down the game so much... Every single roll, every dramatic moment can be interrupted and wound back to be rerolled at any time. It breaks up the flow of the gameplay and the storytelling real hard. If one of my players really really wants it, my compromise is always that they have to call it's use before I narrate the result of the roll they'd like to redo.
@Daniel Cusumano Oh, 100%. Its right in the spell they decide to use it BEFORE the outcome is determined. They can look at their roll and then use it, but not wait for you to tell the result. Ideally give them a little time to decide before you speak though, a solid short pause, otherwise you might accidentally cut their chance to even use it off.
@@sidecharacter7165 but they really shouldn't be, it's like cutting out half the character customisation
I wouldn’t necessarily argue that the “if you can do it, so can your enemies“ rule is toxic in and of itself, but the examples in the video clearly illustrate how easily and horribly it can go wrong. It’s a prime example of why Session Zero and clear standards of communication are so important.
That's because it isn't toxic
But like anything in DnD (or any other tabletop) it comes down to how it's interperted
And the examples above clearly chose "petty arms race" over "organic worldbuilding"
In the end, forever and always; past, present, and future: 'Being a bad player ruins the game for the other players.'
Has nothing to do with Silvery Barbs, or D&D, or being a GM or not. Evasion vs ranged weapons works like Silvery Barbs does in Cyberpunk Red and I simply said 'If you have evasion: tell me what DC you want to not evade at.' and when asked why they couldn't just treat it on a case-by-case basis I explained that because it would make us roll roughly five hundred million times per encounter and triple the length of combat. This was not contested beyond wanting to figure out the math of when it was optimal.
In D&D, though it has luckily not come up, I don't use Silvery Barbs on either side because I want everyone to have fun and that involves not slowing down combat unnecessarily. I request the same of everyone else at the table. If we really wanted to break it down further we could say that 'If the players can make the game unfun, so can the monsters.' and showing a test combat of what that looks like might help someone realise that antagonistic gaming is not fun for anyone in the long run.
Just don't be a jerk. Be nice, try to have fun, try to make it so everyone else has fun too. It really is that simple.
@@ClothesCat Damn right bro. Honestly a lot of the more toxic opinions and mentalities in my experience come from the older players or dms that have been doing this for a bit, often getting kinda elitist and "gatekeepie" against the new players who wanna change things. Obviously a little bit of gatekeeping is healthy for a community, look at r/cursedimages. But these guys take any possible change almost personal and shoot it down, usually by mockery and spite.
I dont think the advice itself is toxic in general(Reddit sure is at times tho), it only becomes toxic if you take it to an extreme (giving every single caster silvery barbs/counterspell/hold person etc.) but mixing in the odd curveball for dramatic purposes and/or a challenging fight every now and then is absolutely fine in my book and I have always assumed this advice to mean just that.
It also depends on how intelligent your monsters are. Silvery barbs don't exist in my world, so I don't care about them. That said, if you want to build up interesting tactical encounters, then yes, the monsters or NPC baddies are going to be doing things that will frustrate and screw up and kill the player characters. So yes, they very well may target spell casters, especially if they have a pretty bright or experienced commander in charge who has seen just how dangerous enemy spell casters can be. It's called combat for that reason. The players need to outwit and out fight the monsters, or lure them into a trap where the PC's have the advantage. Fighters might need to make a shield wall around the mage--or engage enemy archers as quickly as possible. Mages might take precautions, like casting shield or mirror image. And make players think beyond their character sheets--how can they use the environment.
As a DM, I'm always rooting for the PCs to succeed, but I'm not going to pull punches either. They're going to bleed for every experience point, every gold piece, and each magic item they get. If they reach zero hp, they're down on the ground bleeding out, and they reach -10, they're rolling up a new character. And for a lot of DMs, death happens at zero hit points. If character death isn't a real possibility--why are we playing? It's not about it being DM vs. the players--it's about having a game where there are real stakes. Bad things can happen. Where you're one failed saving throw away from death, depending on the type of attack.
I think the advice is actually good as far as like house ruled rule changes go. Like if you’re going to change a rule, then sure “if the players can do it the enemies can too” is actually great advice because it tests whether a rule is balanced or not. Like if I allow my players to get a free surprise attack if they interrupt a conversation, it’s only fair that that house rule also applies to enemies right? Otherwise it kind of doesn’t make sense and is a bit reality breaking
@@Wynneceptioni completely agree but i think something like this should be used sparingly when it comes to certain things like silvery barbs from this video which personally i just ban at my tables
@@MsKeylas Nods--it's why I don't used death saves or things like that. Two sessions ago, one of the pc's got his neck snapped by a giant's bolder---a second level mage took 18 points of damage in one shot. It wasn't a surprise encounter either. They knew hill giants were in the area, but they got in a fight with bandits--the bandits used a horn to call for reinforcements, and the giants came looking to see what all the commotion was about.
I'm not of the school of thought that advances the balanced encounter as the pinnacle of game design. Balanced encounters are only one type of encounter that needs to be in a DM's tool box.
Sometimes the party needs to have a pretty easy encounter, where they trounce their enemies, and sometimes they need their asses handed to them on platter--it's the variety of encounters that keeps things interesting. They needs to use everything on their character sheet, and also think beyond their character sheet, taking in environmental factors, whether that's kicking over caldrons or leaping down on their enemies from trees--or getting down to fighting with iron spikes for things like lesser demons or lycanthrope like wererats or the like.
@@MsKeylas Right on. I grew up very old school, having thrown my first set of dice in 1982--games were more lethal, where if you failed a save that frequently meant you'd die, and that meant you were rolling up a new character.
But I do get what you're saying. There are many Many non lethal outcomes you can use where it can throw a twist into the narrative and the party has to figure their way out.
A very basic rule I have is that if a player comes up with something that makes sense to me, I'll give it a chance to work, even if it's not a really good chance, they've got a shot. Roll a D:20 and we'll see what happens. That helps keep my players from only thinking about what is on their character sheets---for instance, right now there is a town that is being plagued by insane wild boars---we've got a barbarian with animal empathy, and a ranger with the ability to speak with animals. So they are concocting a scheme where they are going to capture a boar by digging a pit and jumping on top of it with a blanket so they can question it---it's a plan that could work (if everything goes their way) or it could go horribly wrong, especially if they happen to jump the bewitched wereboar that is responsible for the attacks.
But hey, I'm going to let them try it--I've heard much worse ideas than this--so depending on how describe it to me, I'm going to give them 10-25% chance they'll capture a boar and that it won't be able to rip the blanket open with it's tusks.
I still use this, and will probably continue using this in my games. But my thing is that it doesn't apply to all scenarios. It applies to scenarios that are unique. Like a player asking that his attack to the legs impose the incapacitated condition to the enemy. This would mean in the future, they may get an arrow to the leg and may get incapacitated on a crit.
Seems better to just not allow that kind of thing in first place. Dungeon dudes did an episode on some of the worst homebrew rules, and the idea of targeting a specific Body part is one of them and I think they make VERY good points about why it's a bad rule to allow. Check it out
@@ryangerfen7489 it was an example not a genuine experience. If the players want to bend the rules then in the interests of FUN and Rule of Cool they can, if they keep doing it then the enemies will use it against them because it has stopped being cool and is just cheese.
@@ryangerfen7489 JRWI allows it sometimes, but you have to roll higher or with disadvantage or something to have a successful hit. I don't think the enemies ever use it back, but the PCs don't use it very often, either, because of the increased costs.
I think also the DM added an enemy where a specific body part was a weak spot or the only way to win or something. It was cool.
@@ryangerfen7489 Disallowing tactical depth instead of finding a way to make it work is rarely an enriching approach.
So I'd like to play an Illusion wizard, I have this really great idea for a character and...
Walks through a village and every random villager and their dog is suddenly, suspicious about that paper document I have and wants to roll for blah, blah, blah...
Every enemy is suspicious of THAT particular wall of fire... THAT one over there and wants to roll...
Thanks DM for helping me live out my fantasies and enjoy my Thursday nights...
This is why I will never play an illusion wizard even though I really want to. It's too easy for DMs to heavily nerf illusions by metagaming.
There should be a large discussion in the DMG about Illusions. As the rest of the game is so strictly codified, the looseness of Illusions makes some DMs uncomfortable. Many tend to miss the part about having to interact with the illusion in order to make the save.
Yeah, that's incredibly bad DMing. I'm sorry you've had to go thru this. tbh as a DM, I've never had a player play an illusionist, and I'd really like to see it.
I feel like so many people over estimate the value of silvery barbs, it’s statistically different from disadvantage and sorta just asks you to roll again once you’ve guaranteed success, it’s much more of a feels bad man spell than like an actually effective spell and gives players that last little line of defense when all else truly fails, if you think about it compared to disadvantage, it’s rolling disadvantage but you have one dice that’s a guaranteed success, so rolling normally. I think it a great tool for players who’re pushing limits in some resource and need that last shot to get over the finish line for the epic success or know that they failed despite their best efforts, then when enemy casters are throwing it at players, it’s just taking away cool moments from players, when one solution to players being too strong is finding alternative or more intense ways to challenge them instead of ripping success from their hands.
I think the worst advice is when people say “don’t railroad”. To many people don’t actually understand what railroading is, and often see anything other than a 100% sandbox game as “railroading”. The players have a responsibility to play the game the group agreed to, don’t half way through the game be like “chult has dinosaurs, so let’s go there instead of fighting this undead horde we agreed to deal with”. This is why lots of groups have trouble finding DMs, the players deliberately try to make the DM angry.
Depends on the definition of "railroad" used.
"Not railroading" is allowing the players to come with creative solutions to the problems not having something prepared for when the players intentionally ignore story hooks just to "see what happens".
Yeah people not understanding the difference between 'on rails' and 'railroading' is something I see a lot. They sound the same, and can kind of look the same if you squint, but there's a world of difference between 'Event A was always going to happen for narrative purposes' and DMs actively vetoing or blocking whatever the players try to do because it doesn't make the story they want.
You are either on a railroad, or you are in a sandbox. Decide which style you want to do before you start playing.
So I'm a 50/50 player dm who has developed a lot as a dm and think I'm pretty good at allowing player agency within a storyline and am currently creating a sandbox style world ... but I understand 2 things.
Firstly it is really hard to prepare and roll with the punches when players do unexpected things (and as a player I am 100% a culprit of this).
Secondly you may have an idea of something really cool - for example our dm came up with an awesome prison scenario but to be able to carry it out we had to end up in prison which you could argue was railroading.
In reality we supported our friend with his dming and the prison session was genuinely very fun and got us thinking alot about our characters morals and motivations (and my level 5 character was killed by goblins ... Will never live that down).
Dms are only human and as we don't pay our dms we cannot expect them to always create perfect games. If I feel I haven't been able to complete an action I wanted to take because of railroading it will always irk me and if it happens too often I have the option to leave the group but if you get annoyed every time your dm gets a rule wrong, takes player agency or seems to work against you then honestly d&d is probably not a good fit for you.
One of my favorite encounters I've been in as a player used "the enemies focus fire" in a fun and interesting way. We were fighting a group of monks, the leader of whom could use his bonus action to play a flute and command all of the other monks. They would surround him to provide total cover for him whenever possible, and focus all of their attacks on one player that the leader picked. The leader, however, was pretty flimsy, so it became a race of finding a way to knock him out before the monks could pick us off one by one. After that leader went down, the monks all acted individually, making it easier to focus fire each of them until none were left.
This is a very good video. I used to have a group of 'anti heroes' (kinda like gary from pokemon) who would keep re-meeting the party. They were the most tactically aware fighters (using focus fire, magic items etc.) and that change in combat style always upped the ante a little. I used them sparingly, maybe 3-4 times over. year's campaign!
Thank you for bringing this up and talking about it. I didn’t even think about not bringing certain spells and abilities against my players until XP to Level 3’s video on stun effects. Now when I design encounters I just don’t use any stun effects because players just sitting there not having fun is obviously not enjoyable to anyone involved
I love this. New players and DMs need solid counter-arguments to toxic ideas, and videos like this need to be more common to spread awareness and prevent bad practices later on.
If my players were using silvery barbs I'd have a way of dealing with it that is a little more fun than just every other monster has silvery barbs. Throw in a few halflings in with the enemies, and give them the halflings lucky ability. Rolling with the forced disadvantage of silvery barbs guarantees higher amounts of ones on a d20 roll. The first time you crit doing this will have the table roaring.
The thing to shoot for is fun, not fairness. I think the best session of D&D I ran ended with the player characters all bruised and battered to their last legs, breathing hard, looking at each other with wide eyes asking, "Did we make it?" and all the bad guys defeated utterly. The players turned to me and stated, that was the scariest and coolest thing I ever went through. Being able to create an emotional link between the players and their characters, and what their characters are going through, turns into fun when they can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. They feel accomplished and like nothing was given to them; they also feel that they earned every accolade and coin and magical item they found. I did have to fudge a little but did not let the players know that I had pulled a punch that would have insta-killed one of them. I merely acted as if the hit had almost killed him and that he "looked like he was in bad shape" letting the healer know what needed to be done to save him and bring him back into the fight. You have to use those DM acting skills to make the players think that everything is as it should be and that you are not throwing a couple of extra hit points on an enemy they are trouncing easily or pulling that insta-kill punch so that a player character is not outright killed randomly.
If you really don't want your players to find out about fudging, you might want to be wary of even this comment. Your players could find it, and if they do, it'll be hard to win back that trust.
Most game outcomes can be fun and satisfying if they feel fair and every PC gets to do at least one cool, memorable thing. Surviving by the skin of your teeth can be amazing, but so can an effortless massacre in the right context.
In one game I play in, the first enemy we encountered at level 1 was a terrifying steam-powered helicopter robot. First encounter, it abducted someone we knew and flew off. Second encounter, we saw one go into full-on battle mode, and it was TERRIFYING. We spent the next few levels running from them whenever we could. We're level 10 now, and the last time we ran into some of them, we dropped them all in a single round. It felt like a well-earned walkover that showed us just how far we'd come.
Even a loss against an over-powered enemy can make for a great story, as long as the players get a chance to narrowly escape to fight again another day.
@@SuperParkourio They don't know my YT account and I have not DMed for decades unfortunately.
@@jamesdominguez7685 There are different aspects of fairness and fun and they are not diametrically opposed.
In the context of the enemy that was scary at first level and an easy defeat at 10nth level; there always should be variation in the encounter levels with some feeling fairly easy and a few being the Boss encounters regardless of the PC level. Previous encounters in that same adventure were easy or moderately difficult with the last encounter being the Boss that almost reduced the party to ashes, but not quite.
@@SuperParkourio Or simply he should not fudge.
I've been playing DnD for about 20 years now, and one thing I've noticed is the "one up" cycle between players and DMs. This is when the DM and the PCs feel like they need to "one up" the other. I feel like "if the players can do it so can the monsters" is a symptom of this larger issue. You're right DnD Shorts, it becomes toxic really fast. Both players and DMs should see the signs when this becomes an issue and talk it out before it ruins the game.
Even before that video, I realised how bad giving the monsters player traits is a bad idea because one day I tried to make an encounter harder by giving a CR 30 monster action Surge... The moment I realised how bad that was I really never used it
As a DM I can honestly say I do use the “if players can do it, so the monsters” rule, but only as a way to make interesting encounters out of great ideas that players have had. It is a GREAT advice, but some people just take it too literally.
Also, I do get how frustrating it feels to have what you believe to be a harrowing encounter be easily toppled by the players’ creative use of the game, but hey, just be creative yourself (you know, by taking their ideas and using them against them…).
Make ‘em sweat, make ‘em squirm, and then let them win if the dice say they win
This sort of reminds me of the "shoot your monks" paradox. Where being "optimal" as a dm is to never shoot at a monk. But that player is playing a monk to catch those arrows and throw them back. Its fun and cool for them.
Shoot your monks
Yeah. Bad DM metagaming there. It shouldn't be immediately obvious to monsters/enemies, especially at lower levels, who or even what the monk is.
@@WestOfEarth I would only have it come into play on a 2nd encounter...like bad guys and party fight, brains of the bad guys gets away...3 levels later they fight again and the brains starts yelling at the archers not to shoot at the one in pajamas. Its part of the reason I prefer my normal bad guys to not be of high int so I can reason why they are trying to hit the big muscle guy with swords rather than pincushioning the fire ball throwing lady in the bath robe.
@@WestOfEarth the first time they catch and hurl an arrow back is the last time I imagine they shoot at the monk
@@WestOfEarth I have seen some DMs giving their creatures int checks if they find out if some actions are bad. Sometimes it even means a good int check result is realizing running away is the best course of action. e.g the last goblin alive sees it has no chance beating the players anymore.
@@EnraiChannel Yeah. agreed. I like the idea of an int check.
The greatest feeling as a DM is when after a session my players go home yelling down the street how awesome their game was, and yea they'll complain about some challenge or another but they always say the same thing: "I cannot wait for the next game."
If they are eager to play the next game, then mission accomplished.
In order to keep things fresh, I try to have one enemy using some interesting tactic if it makes sense to do so. It keeps battles from degenerating to 'Fireball, three shots with Sharpshooter, and you all miss with your Passive Perception so the one at the back gets backstabbed.' Sure, once in a while there will be an Invisible enemy, a Darkness spell, or a well-planned ambush. The players are adventurers, after all. But if every day of travel was ambush after ambush, the characters would never leave the city!
I kinda do something similar, where I try to have my players not just do whatever is "Optimal", but rather come up with an actual strategy for whatever I give. like, if I throw a Red dragon at them, I'm not having the solution be "true Polymorph" or "just have the bard seduce it", its more " hop into the dragons horde in order for it to not use its fire breath due to its kleptomania and it not wanting to melt the gold in its horde" or something like that
Today: a class on equality vs. equity
Exactly 🎉
To be fair, that would mean the monsters could do it and the players could not because the players have all of the statistical and metaphysical advantages so equity would have them receive more nerfs and the monsters more buffs until the monsters had an equal KDR to the players.
This would continue without regard to player level/CR, play style, tactics, luck on rolls etc. All that would matter is the monsters getting parity of kills in game.
The former is a noble goal, where as the the latter throws wants and choices out the window in an attempt to keep everything balanced. Hard yikes.
Don't forget _common sense._
You know, knowing how to apply the rules and mechanics in the game.
That reminds me of that one time where the dm took this one step further, "even if you don't allow the players to do it, you can". Banned all strixhaven content for players, we were absolutely fine with that. Until the enemies started silvery barbs spam on us.
This is a surprisingly good summary.
I have to say I am usually skeptical when it comes to online "this is bad D&D advice" content,
but this is golden.
Thank you.
As always, right on target. You even perfectly dissect the toxic psychology of the vengeful DM types. I'm a 0e grognard. Perhaps the biggest issue in modern DMs is too many aren't there for the enjoyment of their players. A DM is there to create great stories and facilitate the hero within their players.
I would just qualify that and say that facilitating heroism isn't the only fun part, giving your players a challenging, thought provoking, and limit-pushing encounter is also an incredible source of fun.
I caution those reading your comment to not just let your players do whatever they want to feel heroic, bc no challenge means no game which means no fun.
How did he do it right on target? By making up false information that isn't present?
@@CherryBerry689
What in the video was “false information”?
@@optimistprime3192 Trying to use the MADE UP theory that "every single monster and NPC from thereforth is spamming it constantly" multiple times to justify and back up their points. Which was never ever implied in the main story, but still uses those words as legitimate facts as if they were there at the table themselves.
"if the players can do it, the dm can do it" can also be seen as "if the dm can do it, the players can do it" and that would more obviously break stuff. The dm already has so many op things at their disposal. the strongest enemies in the monster manual have abilities and strength unheard of for players. a 30 in strength instead of the max 20, automatic regen, legendary actions, lair actions...
I usually go by the rule of the players are only semi special. A large majority of what a player can do specific monsters or NPC are also capable of doing. I tend to avoid things that cause players to lose turns like hold person and NEVER give a caster hypnotic pattern. That being said I always make this fact very known to my players during session 0 so we can discuss how it looks like and what to expect.
having a monster or npc that can do what the players can makes sense, having every enemy or npc have the same abilities the player does would suck. the players should feel their characters are special but not that they are unique.
One thing i learned going from player to watching D&D DMs to becoming a DM is learning to introduce a situation and giving the players the opportunity to figure out a solution. Works well in combat situations. I dont want my monsters to do the same thing as a PC. I want my monsters to introduce a different tactic to challenge them.
But D&D monsters (including humanoids) are incredibly limited. Letting them have player abilities instantly fixes that. There are two kinds of bugbear. Or there are an infinite variety in bugbears, just like there are an infinite variety of players. Is that bugbear a fighter? A cleric? Both? Does this tribe have rangers? Are they getting levels as they fight? is this group full of barbarians? Do they have scouts and outriders with better perception?
That makes fun encounters. A fuck-ton more interesting than:
"You see a bugbear village".
"I sneak up and deliver two fireballs."
"Well, I guess that's all of them then."
"Well, I guess we've exhausted the ability of bugbears to ever be a threat to us. How much loot did they have?"
@thanesgames9685 I agree to a certain extent. Yes having enemies that are more than what's provided is key to changing it up. I guess I interpreted the video as DMs punishing the players for using what is provided to them by using the same tactics against them. Although I am still new to DMing so I'm willing to be wrong.
@@thanesgames9685 the argument isn't that player abilities shouldn't be available for monsters, the argument is that many player tactics shouldn't be used by npcs.
@@TheKnoXmancommith That is the strawman he set up, conflating the stated issue with other issues that don't have to be relevant.
If the DM is dedicated to making the game unfun for players, if they are intentionally antagonistic, then it is unfun. But that is true with or without giving creatures player abilities. You can give enemies player abilities without wanting anything more than to make the game better, which is what the majority of good DM's do.
@@yamiyomizuki That is not at all what his argument was limited to. He specifically calls out enemies having access to Silvery barbs and counter spells. Those aren't tactics. Those are common magical abilities for players to have.
Reminds me of a story of a D&D group that sounded like they were going through the motions because every combat was then followed up with the group somehow being chastised that they were somehow the real monsters even if they were always attacked by the monsters first.
I once was in a dnd game and immediately got knocked out cause we were in a bar and I asked for the strongest thing they had
@@maker142 I mean they definitely gave you the strongest thing they had lmao
Your example about focused fire is my counterpoint when GM's say they don't fudge things to help the players. Well, they do. Otherwise, every fight against enemies capable of tactics would take out the cleric first, every time. I hope the cleric likes rolling up new characters!
I disagree about the cleric specifically
hmmm, I don't know that this would be the fate. If the cleric goes down once or twice due to focus fire, that might be a hint that the PC should a) find cover from archers. b) other PCs should be protecting the cleric. c). the cleric or other casters should be taking protection spells. If the cleric is going down repeatedly, I would say that is on the players.
Also, targeting the cleric first isn't always the optimum play. Often it's taking out the high damage dealer.
I should add that if the cleric loves using Guardian of Faith...well then they should be the sort of cleric who's heavily armored to withstand frontline attacks. Just as any tank.
Cleric is a goddamn tank. Ive never been able to bring down the cleric
@@Damianweibler The last character that died at our table was a cleric. Ran off to chase the BBEG down while the rest of the party was still busy cleaning up minions. One on one vs the BBEG - it did not go well for the cleric.
Great video, and excellent point. It's why monsters have stat blocks and DMs aren't just told to create the villains using standard character generation.
10:00 - Sounds a lot like...
a : 'You seem upset.'
b : 'It's your fault.'
a : 'What did I do?'
b : 'If you don't know, I'm not telling you.'
That never solves the problem. 'a' just gives up because 'b' has already given up. Then the whole campaign (or relationship) gets flushed down the toilet.
Kudos on this. I appreciate your approach to the game.
Roll for Communication.
It hasn't been a problem in my groups. My players usually try to strategize with their spell lists. At one point, they spammed silvery barbs like it's been said, however I didn't give the monsters/enemies the same. Instead I give it some spice by having an enemy that they aren't focusing set traps occasionally, and they fall for it everytime so it's become a meme in the group.
One of my friends is a great DM and uses "If you can do it, the monsters can too" in the best way. If he's interpreting a rule, he'll sometimes toss the final decision back to the players. We then make the decision with the understanding that an interpretation that helps us now could bite us later--not because the DM is vindictive, but because the situation has changed.
Example: One PC had a laser gun. He got mind-controlled and shot at my monk. The question: does that count as a missile for Deflect Missile? We went with yes. Later when we fought against a monk, we had to deal with the fact that he could deflect the laser shots.
The key is that there was no animosity. The DM wasn't getting revenge on the players for using an exploit. "The monsters can do it too" was a warning about rule consistency. No one had less fun because of it. Very different from the silvery barbs situation.
The argument about silvery barbs reminds me of when someone said whatever strategy you're using works because the DM allows it to work. Because at any moment the DM can make an encounter that goes very badly for the party, if they so choose.
It's always kinda funny how "if the players can do it, so can the monsters" never applies in reverse either.
"My human fighter has a venomous tail barb, fiery breath, and shoots an anti-magic beam out of his eyes. It's only fair!"
but all those nerdy dms talking out their nerdy problems with their nerdy players warms my nerdy heart
This is basic principle of game design and I'm surprised more people don't understand this. Great video!
You'd be shocked at how many people who have very loud opinions, have never actually played the game, I think.
@TheRusty That's the thing with Reddit you aren't gonna know if they've ever actually played or not.
On top of this, there generally tend to be more enemies and they also get stuff like legendary actions which normally aren’t available to players
The goal of this video is to avoid being a toxic GM. As someone else said, the goal is to create a memorable experience. I have been a player and a GM. Some of my worst experiences as a player have helped to form who I am as a GM. Plus I am willing to talk with my players and find out what is working for them and what is not. For us, we took a break from D&D 3.5 and started playing "Lancer" for a few months. The game set up was great as it helped to re-educate all of us on how to play TTRPG. My players learned about better teamwork and I learned how to balance encounters better. In the end, we all walked away happier and started playing Pathfinder 1st Ed.
You know, thinking about it, the players stumbling upon an area where death isn't permanent and they just re-spawn elsewhere when they die could make for an interesting mystery for them to investigate. A sorta Groundhog's Day scenario for the party.
Related point, and I'm not sure it's meant to work like this, but there seems to be an underlying mechanic in d&d that says dying while away from your home plane causes you to respawn in your home plane. I think that could be used to good effect.
I have tackled this concept before and it's a tricky mechanic for sure. You have to be clever and careful not to make your players feel like they're not making progress, otherwise their interest will tank. I would do it as a 1 time thing, if they die they lose something valuable, like time or a valuable opportunity. Don't bother with 1 use items, your players will never use them
Completely agree with you on this. The DMs only real job is to make sure everyone is having fun. There are many ways to do this, but that's job number 1.
Remember: if your enemy is gonna do something smart, it better be beatable, and interesting to watch happen.
"If the player can do it, the monster can do it" really means, any spell/action you can learn can be known by an enemy (probably a specific one) and it could even be their only spell.
The problem is while some spells are fun to use they aren't fun to be used against you and are normally absent from NPC spell lists for that reason, power word kill being one I almost personally experienced as a high level caster with low con, my max HP was
@@LumenFox777
If every enemy is a Fighter/Wizard Multiclass, then how fair would that be against PCs?
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 it would bog down play unnecessarily because player classes are not meant for NPC use, Fighter is relatively harmless as generally most things can be accomplished via magic instead Wizards you have to be careful as certain spells either bog down play excessively or have unfair mechanics towards player that only can act in the world via the perspective you are attempting to kill. Banishment comes to mind as unfun against players but perfectly reasonable against monsters. Against players that fail the save you are literally telling them they don't get to play for x number of rounds, against a monster you are removing one of many tools a DM has not to mention a player and DM should have an open conversation about the players spell list and DM noting powerful options such as banishment so they don't single handedly break encounters (or if they do roll with it which is my approach to it as a DM and another DM buddy of mine)
@@LumenFox777 Why should a rival wizard/warlock/sorcerer/whatever that hates the guts of your PC and wishes them dead not use Power Word: Kill if they can?
@@rubencampos6298 Because it would be unfun for the player that gets insta-killed?
The only thing Ive ever used the "monsters = players" thing for is like, whether or not we wanna use flanking, or optional rules or something. Thats what I always thought everyone meant by it lmao
Disparities between player abilities and monster abilities is part of what makes encounters interesting.
Players rarely, if ever, get a burrow speed, truesight, or abilities that can recharge mid-fight. There are so many ways a DM can creatively handle players overly relying on Silvery Barbs, if necessary. Have creatures that can turn invisible, creatures that passively deal damage without needing to roll, or just let the players use all of their spell slots on casting Silvery Barbs and add more encounters if you want them to ration their spells more.
I will add cheesing a big encounter can take the wind out of my sails as a DM, especially if I didn't get much prep time before hand. There's always sadness that I didn't get to show off how that homebrew monster was cool. I also get some imposter syndrome feeling as if I made things too easy and my players will get bored etc. I know it isn't the case since I've spoken to them about it but it's why a good amount of dms hate Silvery Barbs and personally it's banned at my table, most of strixhaven is to be honest.
Eh, if the party is finding a fight too easy and you want to challenge them, you can always tweak the monster's stats on the fly. This is easy to abuse, though, so I always make sure I'm doing it for a good reason that makes the game experience better.
Man, thank you so much for saying this-you shared exactly how I feel as a player. And now I understand why it bothers me so much. Like you said, it’s like an abusive relationship
I agree with "if the players can do it, the monsters can too" but what I think that means is if your players use a mirror to peak around corners then a rogue or assassin NPC can too. If they do something creative that seems like common sense for people in that world, and I need to make a ruling on it right then, I tell them if you do this just know that the monsters may do that as well in the future.
Our DM basically asked us nicely that if we were planning on taking silvery barbs, could it at least just be one of us instead of everyone who could. Which seemed like a fair compromise.
I just banned it right out
@@Natt_Skapa I think we would have accepted it being banned. But this seemed like a nicer compromise, and I don’t think we abuse it often. I don’t think we’ve ever used it more than once per long rest and only on line really clutch spells that we ‘need’ to work.
@@Pyromaniacalsquirrel I figured it would be better to ban it than try to balance it
@@Natt_Skapa tbh i don’t understand banning it
Some bosses have legendary actions that can choose to succeed anything, i prefer the simple balance of “It cannot give advantage unless you upcast it”
That or make it a 2nd level spell
@@doc1192 it gives casters way more power
I do follow this rule somewhat. "If you have access to it, so can your enemies". This includes spells like silvery barbs. But just because they CAN, doesn't mean they do,
I treat it as a lesser known spell in the world, maybe a new spell that few people have learnt yet. But if they choose to have that spell, it means that spell exists int he world and has a chance to be in an encounter. Giving it to every spell caster through is not something I do
Yeah! It only makes sense for every spell not to be accesible to everyone.
There's not like a magic-user internet or something, so really if you were a random wizard you'd probably just know the ones in your library and the ones taught to you by fellow spellcasters. Information is not so easily accesible in a semi-medieval world.
Likewise, gods and patrons do not grant every spell to every follower, and sorcerers don't all come up with the exact same ways and techniques to channel their magic. Some spells might just not mesh with certain people's minds, just like athletes who can perform one task but not another of roughly equal difficulty. Etc, etc.
What to do if you GM sucks:
Simply get all players on the same page, agree that it needs to change, have the conversation.
If its only you: quit the group and find another.
If its half the group: discuss and fix the situation.
If its only the DM: Cause a TPK at the very start of a thing he spend hours and hours preparing and tell your DM you only have lvl 1 characters as backup so you cant do whatever he came up with, he can either roll back the TPK and make it into a fun event for you, or come up with something fit for lvl 1 characters.
The worst punishment you can give a railroading and dice-tilling DM is simply not playing their game.
When the abuse inevitably becomes out of game, everyone realizes they made a bad friend. So many people use "it's just a game" as an excuse to do this kind of thing. Basic communication is not the games problem, it's a real life skill issue.
Great advice. One of my most frustrating campaigns as a player turned into one of the best campaigns I've been in when we sat down with the DM and discussed what everyone wanted. A bit of voluntary disarmament to remove overly exploitive tactics and combos and the results were epic and inspiring. If the DM won't talk about it, you can always walk away and find a better one.
The old adage is actually sound advice, but is more applicable to situations when a player wants to do something outside of the standard rules, or otherwise would like to suggest an alternate interpretation of a ruling.
Can I get flanking if I have an enemy backed into a corner? Yes, but that assumes that being backed into a corner grants flanking, therefore would apply to all such situations.
Is the web spell flammable? Perhaps, but if that is true then it is likely known by anyone who uses the spell, and NPCs might use that strategy against you.
Essentially "yes, you can get away with this as long as it's fair play when the enemies do it".
It's a great way to stop silly arguments in their tracks and prevent rules exploits.
DMs have infinite resources the players have finite resources, that’s what makes them different, giving every caster silvery barbs is much worse against the players than it ever would be towards the monsters because there’s effectively no limit to your monsters casts while the players will eventually run out of casts due to spell slots being long rest dependent and pact slots short rest dependent. Except level 18 wizards but if you’ve made it that far i doubt any DM is gonna complain.
lol. What nonsense on Silvery Barbs being some great equalizer.
Players: ~1-7
Enemies: sideways 8
Both having identical capabilities all the time is not remotely "fair."
PCs are literally the main characters. They're gonna be more powerful sometimes.
An enemy should only attack a downed player if it’s an animal or hungry (usually both).
Surprised creatures don’t have time for strategy.
Enemies should run more often than fighting to the death.
I’m guilty of this one: Not every caster of a type should have the same spell list.
If you give anyone a magic item and someone knows about it, someone will try to steal it.
Not everyone has even seen a magic item, and very rarely some have never been witness to magic.
Most unintelligent creatures cannot comprehend what magic is, just be scared of it.
Don’t make your base tight quarters unless you plan to fight close quarters, or not fight at all.