I like how the rivals progress here. I've used rivals in the past. The trick I use to keep them from being murderized by the PCs is to have them work with the party at points, particularly early on. Something like, "This monster is too powerful for us to do it alone. We should team up."
Really enjoy this kinda thing. Gives a neat sort of adversarial component that's ever-present if that's the kind of thing you and your players like. I know my players would love this stuff.
I've used rivals like this in campaigns before. The way I kept the players from killing them early was to have both parties employed by the same patron.
I agree that using Rivals like that will depend partly on the players. You could also take precautions as the DM to try to ensure they can get away when needed, but that can feel forced if it happens too often, or if the means of escape bend disbelief a little too hard.
I have a stage magician arcane trickster in my party and the player wants him to have a rival, "A Tony Wonder to his Gob Bluth" this is going to help a lot.
In my experience the biggest problem with enemy parties is finding ways for them to escape that does not feel out of place or is only occurring because the plot needs it to happen.
There is no need to apologize or justify doing multiple videos on a book, I literally ALWAYS learn something I missed or overlooked as a dm, from all of theses videos, both past and present videos. Thank you for all the hard work, i know a lot goes into making these videos, and I for one really appreciate them.
This looks like a decent route for throwing a rival party at your players. Up to now I've been taking CR 1 to 5 stat blocks, giving them sidekick levels equal to the PC they "mirror", and giving them the subclass features from whatever subclass feels appropriate to counter the PCs. If survivability is an issue, make both parties fall under the same group patron, faction, or organization. Two strike teams for the same mercenary company. Two student clubs from the sane University. Two bounty hunter poses hired by the same insane billionaire to find the ancient lost city of plot contrivance. And if killing all future social encounters doesn't do it, give the rivals an escape hatch. Rings of contingency: teleport to base camp. The fathomless warlock capstone, the Mold Earth cantrip, and a Decanter of Endless Water. Make them "Avatars" sent out by the real rivals who are safe in clone/simulacrum/magic jar producing pods. If one of them drops send down pillars of gold light that make the rival team unreachable and beam them up to a shadowy hole in the sky. Give one of them the power to control demonic plants and have them sleep safely in giant bean pods while the yellow Musk creeper the pods are attached to sends out plant based doppelgangers of them. There's dozens of ways to keep your rival party alive even with murder hobos clogging up your play group.
Hey Ted, I noticed that after each of the "abilities" given to the Rivals they have a designation stating "Ranged/Melee Spell Attack". Wouldn't that technically mean it is classified as a spell for the purposes of Counterspell? I actually went back to my copy of Monsters of the Multiverse and this seems to be the case for the stat blocks there as well. I think it's just a way of making it easier for the DM to run but do still count as spells, although I wonder if this was an oversight since the abilities don't have levels to them like spells do so maybe they can't be countered.
Awesome idea..unfortunately I see this going very bad in a hated foes kind of way. To be specific 2nd encounter or first one will be a death match. Honestly it will be at a game masters own risk, specifically if the rivals play a part in the campaign
I wonder if the ones without the class levels if they are getting monster levels. I want to say monster levels were a late 3.5 idea that never got much development. It might also been brought up in 4th or even 5th. As for rivals, if you want them to survive, make the rivals a key component to the story arc where the players have to work with them more than kill them. I'm in a party where the DM has two player parties in the same area. He thought about making them rivals but the parties personalities didn't go that route. I'm not sure if the DM has them planned to be following the same or at least similar story line.
I think it might be interesting to have players control the rivals, either as "guest players" (like Critical Role does) or playing them as the main characters of the story.
Just make the rivals super powerful, or have the rivals do horrible things from a distance. A rival in a game I had would disguise himself as a character and commit crimes to ruin that characters reputation, he would also cast dream on them to give them nightmares and stop them from long resting, he would also hire mercenaries to try and kill them. And he could not be pin him down since he had a ring of mind shielding and so they could not find where he was.
You can also have the rival attack the character when they are down, have the rival scrying or stalking the character until they are low on resources, low HP, has exhaustion levels, etc and then have the rival attack.
I don't understand the novelty in this, rivalry between adventuring parties is not a new concept and it's actually pretty cliche, most published adventurers and books in the past keep rival adventurers obscure so the DM can make thier own tailored to the adventure, perhaps this is for DMs that can't think of NPCs on their own?
@@RangerSierra11 Oh, i thought you meant in prepping. But I think its fine, unless you put mercer expectations on yourself. Uniqeness is fun, but they are also a group and it makes sense if they talk and act somewhat similarly. It might even mostly be one of them that talks?
@@SwedishSalmonbox yes! It seems the prep is done for you. I suspect I would need to do this kinda like MM ran the Tomb Takers mostly focused on Lucien, but I would want each NPC to have a unique voice. Not sure I could pull it off.
@@RangerSierra11 yeah me neither. I'd probably try by having the ogre be deep, the goblin kind of derpy and barly talking at all, the guy talk in the one accent i can speak, and then differ the blue leader from the drow by... Something. Probably by having the drow talk "mysteriously".
Pickup a copy of Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep! amzn.to/3i6q775
I like how the rivals progress here.
I've used rivals in the past. The trick I use to keep them from being murderized by the PCs is to have them work with the party at points, particularly early on. Something like, "This monster is too powerful for us to do it alone. We should team up."
Really enjoy this kinda thing. Gives a neat sort of adversarial component that's ever-present if that's the kind of thing you and your players like. I know my players would love this stuff.
I've used rivals like this in campaigns before. The way I kept the players from killing them early was to have both parties employed by the same patron.
I agree that using Rivals like that will depend partly on the players. You could also take precautions as the DM to try to ensure they can get away when needed, but that can feel forced if it happens too often, or if the means of escape bend disbelief a little too hard.
I think if it starts as a friendly rivalry, then turns bad it could work very well. It really depends on how you want to run and play I suppose.
I have a stage magician arcane trickster in my party and the player wants him to have a rival, "A Tony Wonder to his Gob Bluth" this is going to help a lot.
In my experience the biggest problem with enemy parties is finding ways for them to escape that does not feel out of place or is only occurring because the plot needs it to happen.
There is no need to apologize or justify doing multiple videos on a book, I literally ALWAYS learn something I missed or overlooked as a dm, from all of theses videos, both past and present videos. Thank you for all the hard work, i know a lot goes into making these videos, and I for one really appreciate them.
irvan’s fortitude ability has nearly the exact same wording as the undead fortitude that zombies use
the revenant race from explores guide to wildemount also has this ability
@@blackpeoplestorytime802 those are called hollow one, and they are not a race.
This looks like a decent route for throwing a rival party at your players. Up to now I've been taking CR 1 to 5 stat blocks, giving them sidekick levels equal to the PC they "mirror", and giving them the subclass features from whatever subclass feels appropriate to counter the PCs.
If survivability is an issue, make both parties fall under the same group patron, faction, or organization. Two strike teams for the same mercenary company. Two student clubs from the sane University. Two bounty hunter poses hired by the same insane billionaire to find the ancient lost city of plot contrivance.
And if killing all future social encounters doesn't do it, give the rivals an escape hatch. Rings of contingency: teleport to base camp. The fathomless warlock capstone, the Mold Earth cantrip, and a Decanter of Endless Water. Make them "Avatars" sent out by the real rivals who are safe in clone/simulacrum/magic jar producing pods. If one of them drops send down pillars of gold light that make the rival team unreachable and beam them up to a shadowy hole in the sky. Give one of them the power to control demonic plants and have them sleep safely in giant bean pods while the yellow Musk creeper the pods are attached to sends out plant based doppelgangers of them.
There's dozens of ways to keep your rival party alive even with murder hobos clogging up your play group.
Just had session 1 this week and the PCs really liked the rivals. They want to be best friends with them! It's going to be a long campaign.
My girls have had them on friendly through chapter 4 into 5
The problem with most murder hobo groups - no repercussions for being murder hobos. Add repercussions, and they mh's have to find other ways...
Getting so close to that 100k. Good luck! 🤞
Hey Ted, I noticed that after each of the "abilities" given to the Rivals they have a designation stating "Ranged/Melee Spell Attack". Wouldn't that technically mean it is classified as a spell for the purposes of Counterspell? I actually went back to my copy of Monsters of the Multiverse and this seems to be the case for the stat blocks there as well. I think it's just a way of making it easier for the DM to run but do still count as spells, although I wonder if this was an oversight since the abilities don't have levels to them like spells do so maybe they can't be countered.
Awesome idea..unfortunately I see this going very bad in a hated foes kind of way. To be specific 2nd encounter or first one will be a death match.
Honestly it will be at a game masters own risk, specifically if the rivals play a part in the campaign
I wonder if the ones without the class levels if they are getting monster levels. I want to say monster levels were a late 3.5 idea that never got much development. It might also been brought up in 4th or even 5th.
As for rivals, if you want them to survive, make the rivals a key component to the story arc where the players have to work with them more than kill them. I'm in a party where the DM has two player parties in the same area. He thought about making them rivals but the parties personalities didn't go that route. I'm not sure if the DM has them planned to be following the same or at least similar story line.
so Blackstone and Deepslate?
I think it might be interesting to have players control the rivals, either as "guest players" (like Critical Role does) or playing them as the main characters of the story.
I'm very sure the group I'm DMing for will eliminate the rivals....
Meh, murder hobos?
@@azrielslytherin2604
Yup..
But I have a few Ideas to curb that
Just make the rivals super powerful, or have the rivals do horrible things from a distance.
A rival in a game I had would disguise himself as a character and commit crimes to ruin that characters reputation, he would also cast dream on them to give them nightmares and stop them from long resting, he would also hire mercenaries to try and kill them.
And he could not be pin him down since he had a ring of mind shielding and so they could not find where he was.
You can also have the rival attack the character when they are down, have the rival scrying or stalking the character until they are low on resources, low HP, has exhaustion levels, etc and then have the rival attack.
I don't understand the novelty in this, rivalry between adventuring parties is not a new concept and it's actually pretty cliche, most published adventurers and books in the past keep rival adventurers obscure so the DM can make thier own tailored to the adventure, perhaps this is for DMs that can't think of NPCs on their own?
Rivals are a cool idea but seem like waaaay too much work, unless your name is Mercer.
much work in what way?
@@SwedishSalmonbox trying to credibly RP and maintain stats for 5.
@@RangerSierra11 Oh, i thought you meant in prepping.
But I think its fine, unless you put mercer expectations on yourself. Uniqeness is fun, but they are also a group and it makes sense if they talk and act somewhat similarly. It might even mostly be one of them that talks?
@@SwedishSalmonbox yes! It seems the prep is done for you. I suspect I would need to do this kinda like MM ran the Tomb Takers mostly focused on Lucien, but I would want each NPC to have a unique voice. Not sure I could pull it off.
@@RangerSierra11 yeah me neither. I'd probably try by having the ogre be deep, the goblin kind of derpy and barly talking at all, the guy talk in the one accent i can speak, and then differ the blue leader from the drow by... Something. Probably by having the drow talk "mysteriously".
Cool
I like it
smack talk and jeers from rivals, seems useless to me
First