Hearing the battlemaster fighter getting a free maneuver every round just makes me wonder again - why doesn't a Monk get a free one-ki-cost move per round, or something like that.
Battlemaster is a subclass and they did give a monk subclass a free Step of the Wind at level 11 and the battle master doesn't get this until level 15. The monk sub class was the open hand and a free flurry of blows would have been more thematic, and more powerful.
Weapon mastery scaling is something I've wanted since they were introduced, and its nice seeing the need for it born out in high level play. When the casters get 6th-9th level spells the martials should start being able to do more than push a not-too-big-guy a few feet.
you cannot compare 6th-9th level spells to weapon mastery. 6th-9th level spells can be cast once (or twice at super high level) per day only weapon mastery can be used on EVERY attack, all day long, without using any resource. It's normal that level 6+ spell are more powerful than weapon mastery. and here some flash news, when caster gain their 6th-9th level spell, martial can go NOVA and kill demonlord and god avatars in a single round (action surge, divine smite combo)
I don't think he was implying that weapon mastery should match the power of high level spells, just that it needs to scale in some way. Also, if you think martials keep up with casters at all at that level you must be playing with casters that don't understand the game. Going nova is meaningless compared to bending the fabric of reality like casters do.
@@bretgregersen9826 I didn't imply that either, just that the masteries should scale more than they do. And yes @sohkaswifteagle2604 I think 6th-9th level spells are a valid comparison. NOT because masteries should equal that power, but because once that kind of power is in play the small, previously fun tactical decisions provided by masteries become insignificant. So the masteries should improve too, not to equal those spells but so they don't feel completely inconsequential when those spells are in play.
Agree - I'd love to see like, Anime style mastery results - you hit the guy with a hammer and then speed lines appear and he gets blasted back 50 feet. It would still be using the core of the mastery but elevating it to superhuman level, with some in-game fiction where instead of the hammer ripping through the enemy, you get that blastback effect.
I love this type of content on your channel because even though I’ve been playing for years, I’ve literally never played a minute of DnD at 18th level. Seeing these scenarios gives an interesting look into mechanics that the average player rarely sees. Thank you for that. My groups aren’t playing with any play test content so I’d love to see like a level 5-7 test too, especially with some multiclassing.
By the way, Flee Mortals! defines its own Dazed condition that’s slightly different from the One D&D version. The FM! Dazed condition limits you to only a single move, action, or bonus action on your turn. It doesn’t limit reactions, and the book states that Greater or Lesser Restoration can remove the condition.
Major props to the DM. High level games are really hard to run and that was a very well balanced encounter that pushed the players to their limits and allowed them to use all of their available tricks and specialties.
Not sure how much of that is on DM and how much on WotC vs MCDM monsters designed for high level play. I think one of these 2 companies is clearly superior...
Man that really stinks that he was immune to thunder. When you first said acid I was like "That's a good idea! Enemies that are immune to lightning are also probably immune to thunder" and then you changed it to thunder and I was like "Nooooo!"
Something you touched upon, that for me is a very interesting topic, is attribution of damage as a result of a buff (in the video's case, Commander's Strike). There are a lot of (sub)class abilities and spells that let your allies deal better, but that don't tend to get attributed in damage calculations and budgeting. I've generally not quantified these in my budgets because it's hard to estimate the exact impact they have without a standard party make up, but in working with some newer calculations (where I've switched to estimating Advantage frequency per attack over the adventuring day), I've made some observations that a lot of the under-valued damage subclasses had features that bolstered the group's damage potential (and class in the case of the monk via Stunning Strike). This leads me into looking at ways to better quantify these contributions, such as starting with a default party (the most generic possible: Champion fighter, Thief rogue, Life cleric, Evoker wizard) and substituting the (sub)class in that party for general role overlap (fighter/barbarian/paladin, rogue/monk/ranger, cleric/bard/druid, wizard/sorcerer/warlock, artificer - probably where its subclass leans heaviest) and then seeing what the difference in damage using a no-resource round between buffed and unbuffed and attributing the difference). For example, a monk's Stunning Strike would give the fighter its attacks per rounds with 100% advantage rate over its normal for the round and the wizard's cantrip would either have advantage (if attack roll), auto-hit (if Str or Dex save) or no impact (other cases). When I was running numbers on barbarian subclasses and did a query on party buffs using a generic rogue (no subclass in these queries) and noted the difference, it did narrow the gap (to near parity in some cases) of certain barbarian subclasses that normally would underperform compared to more selfish barbarians like the Berserker and Zealot. Food for thought, I guess, but it does get me to re-evaluate the party (member) buffing subclasses in a more positive light. Still, much like with magic items and other optional rules, party configuration is never something you can reliably simulate at a general level.
Indeed, I like your suggestion of a generic party to study the effects of a round of buff - though I don't think you need or want to replace anybody, as all that matters is how much extra that status effect would allow your default team members to throw out - so just pick the default team members to be the generic DPR type builds via their different mechanisms, and for me keep it simple and just consider the generic fighter, and perhaps a sneak attack build - the spell slingers are likely to be inside that range and too varied to make a good metric, but that does mean you can say take the mid point of those two and party size to say the adverage extra enabled damage is in this area. Not to mention that the healer role tends to be undervalued in most build comparisons and that is perhaps the most reliable enabler of party damage there is, as you can't hit stuff if you are down/dead... Not that you need a healer in every party.
One thing I was thinking of for Mastery DC is to perhaps swap in "8+ Attack Modifier" for the DC instead of "8 +Proficiency Bonus + Ability Modifier", that way a "+1/2/3" Magic weapon would also increase the Weapon Mastery DCs, as opposed to having to go back and edit magic items so some of them grant a bonus to Weapon Mastery DCs. There might be a game balance issue with casters using mental stats to attack, but I am not sure that would be too much of a problem...
@@someusername9591 Probably better to specify for Archery specifically that the benefit cannot go to save DCs, since it's the primary outlier. The blacklist is much smaller than the whitelist in this case.
its nice to see a bit more mention on your channel about how it isn't all about DPR, and it really seems like a few other metrics could have been used on those encounters - healing totals and per round being a simple one, and number of rounds with restricted ability could be worth looking at as well. Though it must be said these particular encounters did seem more like DPR race between the NPC and PC than some. Still nice to see the martial builds managed to keep up alright, mostly through being able to stay in the fight more freely.
This type of content really helps me understand things i hear you talk about abstractly... i watch optimization videos way more than i play just cause i find them calming. I would love to watch more of this kind of thing. I love the high level stuff but id also watch more low, mid lvl stuff as well.
Great encounter. Just wanted to toss out, to the "DPR isn't that important" crowd... Damage is ultimately the only thing that wins most fights. The longer it takes to do the necessary damage, the more exposure your team has to whatever your opponents are doing. Less damage taken, means less action economy devoted to healing or incapacitated condition, fewer saves against controlling conditions, fewer opportunities for legendary resists to undo your big moves. DPR is it's own type of utility.
Just my opinion, I get what you mean about all spells being a bonus action but that means you can dash, dodge, disengage or hide every turn. Maybe at this level it isn’t a big deal but at lower levels it’s huge
Also all spells being a bonus action means technically you can't counter a counterspell. Personally I really want them to simplify that rule: if you cast a leveled spell with a bonus action or action you can't cast another levelled spell with a bonus action or action.
@@jasminebryant4238 it doesn't matter that it doesn't change reactions. RAW if you cast a leveled spell as a bonus action you can't cast another spell during your turn unless it's a cantrip. Any bonus action levelled spell prevents you from countering someone else on your turn (usually countering their counterspell of your original spell). If you cast Dimension door and someone tried to counter you, you can counter their counter. If you quicken dimension door you can no longer counter their counter. Basically, they wanted to limit casting both levelled bonus action and action spells in the same turn but the way they worded that restriction is confusing and annoying and I want them to fix it.
Wow that second encounter was brutal but honestly 18th level in general can be brutal. I've never experienced high level play but it looks fun. Great video chris. Keep em coming!
I also noticed that weapon masteries DCs fall off abruptly. The fact that the fighter was still impactful in this playtest despite this, means that they are still in a good spot balance wise. Even if you think that weapon masteries could use a boost, one homebrew change that could help without making things over the top, is to allow weapon quality to affect the DCs of respective weapon masteries. So if you have a +3 greatclub it'll give a +3 to the DC of whatever mastery you use with the greatclub.
In the same way that +spell_attack is not +save_DC, I think the same should apply to weapons... at least in an ideal world where weapon-based save DCs actually mattered and were anywhere near as impactful. I'd like to see the +attack and +DC bonuses added together to determine rarity. So your uncommons are +1, rares are +2s, very rares are +3, and legendaries are +4. Except no one bonus can be +4, so you're talking about either +3/+1, +1/+3 or +2/+2. So the bonuses would be distributed between attack and save.
What an awesome pair of encounters! I think the whole party did really well! It's really cool and informative to have this breakdown of your playtesting.
Goxomoc takes some more victims! I never got to test it, but I remember hearing about other testers TPKing. I tested against Forzaantilirys, and managed to stuff her attacks completely by accident by casting Invulnerability when I was at low hp. I know the point was testing OneD&D combat, but I just love Flee Mortals! so much.
Well 4 out of the 6 characters had levels in fighter, so I guess the fighter is doing something good. Still, it was actually nice to see at least 3 full classes in sorcerer, Druid and fighter.
If I'm not misremembering, the DAZED condition from "Flee Mortals" it says that you can remove it with Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration or similar effects (At DM discression). But I think the ODnD one doesn't.
slightly off topic, but I am just commenting to vouch for flee mortals as well. It's excellent. I have played dnd for a long time, but am much newer to dming, and this book has given me a lot more confidence making/altering my own monsters as well.
These combat breakdowns are great because we get to actually see what dpr calculations are worth...which is something, but not actually as much as you'd think. Lots of very well spent turns that did not contribute to dpr. I really think it would be cool if you did combat break downs more often and then also nominated a party mvp after each encounter.
Hey Chris! I know this is probably a lot of work to put together but this is some of my favorite content you do! I wish there was more of it. Love seeing optimized play broken down in the way you talk about it. Some weeks it’d be great to have the actual play on a Monday and the discussion on a Thursday for example. Just a thought, thanks for all you do!
I do love the chaos a Wild magic nutter in 5E can cause, and its just a great base for interesting character too in the longer more RP filled campaign type games - are you embracing or fighting the chaos is just such a natural personality facet. Plus they are just fun to play, the Randomness is dangerous but brilliant fun to try and adapt around. Lean heavily into tides and hope you don't really get screwed over by the wild magic table (though the stock table on in 5E is pretty tame).
I think the daze effect in the MCDM monster book has ways that it can end, but it sounds like y'all just applied the one from the new 2024 version, or at least for removing it. Regardless, can't believe you won those combats!! Way to go!
“I dive into the lava ‘cuz I might as well enjoy my fire damage immunity.” I seem to remember a one-shot when I used my Phoenix form that could fit into the smallest cracks and crevices to swarm the timy tunnels underneath the floor to chase out an enemy… and that enemy then used antimagic field… and crept closer… closer… 😂
I love these types of videos! You play enough dnd that you probably have plenty of content to use for this. I’d watch every single video at least once. Seeing how other people are more clever than me in using abilities is one of my favorite things. Helps me become a better player and dm. Here’s to hoping to see more!
@@AndrewBrownK In Playtest 7, Know Your Enemy simply costs a Bonus Action and can be used on a creature you can see within 30ft. You get to learn all the target's damage immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities. Pretty nuts.
I mean, seeing that the creature was using lightning damage and then going for the damage type most thematically adjacent to lightning probably also wasn't the play.
@@AndrewBrownK maybe use the playtest rules during a playtest session. In UA Playtest 7 it is a bonus action and does reveal the immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities of the target.
I will say that while a Haste potion is reasonable to buy for most lvl 18 parties, it is hardly something reasily available and affordable in all/most campaigns. And the extend to which this potion carries the powers of the martial characters in the second encoutner is absolutely bonkers - almost doubling the Rogue's DPR and allowing all melee characters to actually reach their targets unstead of constantly having to take the dash action before the enemy teleports away.
the titan was from flee, mortals? seems like a sick book, i thought the encounter was a little too strong since the map was so small but the monster itself seemed really cool
Goxomoc (pronounced gauze-o-mock, but it’s whatever) is meant to be the MCDM tarrasque. CR 30, 60 ft aura of earthbinding (all flying creatures fall, even with hover), a 90 foot cone godzilla breath weapon that teleports you and 600 ft eye beam power built into the multiattack. Xogomoc then also has his own absurd statblock in case he needs to shuffle off his mortal coil. the designers basically looked at the tarrasque, saw all the ways in which it could be cheesed, and made a super mega wombo combo update to patch those out. Eruption (the damage vulnerability psychic scream) and Behold True Power are meant to be the two Finisher villain actions but it seemed like they were used at the right time for the pacing of the fight
After reading through flee mprtals I came back to this video to see the monsters in action and wow its wild to me how partly because of party size the DM still needed to add more monsters to the encounters, even if they were mostly complimentary while the big bosses stole the show (even if the book is meant for them to be fought solo)
Just a fun sidebar here, the game it things you are displaying (youtube's autodetect) is world of warcraft, and here I was thinking you weren't playing fourth edition (a little joke, I really do like 4th). 10:39 Round 2. 14:21 Round 3. 17:50 Encounter 1 Wrap Up. 20:00 Round 1 24:14 Round 2 27:55 Round 3 - 29:44 Surprise! 31:10 Round 4 33:33 Round 5 36:18 Round 6 36:51 Encounter 2 Wrap Up.
I love the new rouge. Cunning strike really does do a ton of work. But I would like to see the save increase with item bonus or something seeing how weapon mastery scales. I ran a 7th arcane trickester with playtest 6, so when there where only 3 spell list. 1st level feat was wrathful smite from magic initiate. Gotta say a 20ft range thrown weapon smite sneak attack, that inflicts frighten, and prone was pretty cool.
Fun fights and fun monsters! I have been following One D&D closely (and been filling out the surveys), but my playgroup doesn't get together enough to break from our campaign to try it out. It was nice to see some of the big features in action. One takeaway I saw is that several of the builds completely disregarded the class/subclass features that often happen at L18. I guess some of them are too weak to consider building toward. Also, I thought it interesting that you allowed using potions off of Hasted actions. We've always played that quaffing a potion is "Activating an Item" per the DMG which specifically says that it is not "Use an Item." The second combat would have gone very differently if not for potions of speed and healing. Thanks for sharing. Great video!
My takeaway from this, in regards to the new Bladelock: Thirsting Blade is not the problem...crits are, and by extension Lifedrinker being a dice roll and Eldritch Smite in general. E. Smite not following the change in Paladin Smites just brings back the old issue with crit-fishing Paladins and applying it to a new class. And Lifedrinker (on top of giving healing which probably isn't even necessary) using a die for its bonus damage which then gets doubled on a crit is the reason why Bladelocks are a DPR nightmare. It's funny how the second fight, the Bladelocks DPR is pointed at as problematic when, as we saw in the first fight where they never crit, their DPR was around the same as the other damage dealers in the party and notably below the Barbarian. And the Rogue, the other class that benefits from crit bursts, never crit in either fight iirc. I'm curious what DPR looks like if the Rogue crits a sneak attack in that second encounter or if the Bladelock had to E. Smite on a standard hit...I genuinely think that, again, they normalize to each other. And that's not even taking into account the absurd feat and Invocation investment (and a full level in Fighter, not straight Warlock) to the point where the Bladelock wasn't even a "caster that oudamages martials" but just a martial with access to utility spells since that's all the Bladelock was doing in fights: using spell slots to teleport out of danger or to smite - a Paladin reflavored. If I'm being honest, rules for what gets double on a crit needs to be fully enumerated and the 3rd attack at level 11 is hardly even problematic. If the other invocations (namely E. Smite and the damage bonus on Lifedrinker) are brought to heel, Bladelocks are perfectly fine, especially when to play them as presented here, they basically give up casting in lieu of being a martial. Plus, tbh, I feel like other martials could just as easily gain a 3rd extra attack, scaling at the 5th-11th-17th scaling as cantrips with Fighters gaining another at 20th.
very interesting video for a variety of reasons. I want to highlight this one though: the rogue would have fallen off really hard in this combat, had the Battlemaster not used Commander's Strike consistently on them. obviously in an ideal party comp the PCs would do exactly that - support each other to get the most out of each one, so I am not saying this is a bad thing in the slightest. I just want to highlight that if the Battlemaster was a different martial/class without the ability to hand out reaction attacks, the rogue would have looked quite sad compared to the other PCs. they don't seem self-sufficient enough to make meaningful impact on the DPR front, and they also seem to lack the support/debuff/control options so not focusing DPR seems like a waste too. I think they need some kind of damage buff to keep up with other pure-martial classes.
Awesome video. Awesome combats. By the way... All conditions or supernatural effects that were affecting the titan continue to affect it in its second form.
“Any conditions or other supernatural effects that were affecting Goxomoc continue affecting Xogomoc.” - page 236 of Flee Mortals! it doesn’t look like there were any as there aren’t many conditions that he ISN’T immune to, but if you find one then it’ll stay. importantly he does gain 3 uses of a new Legendary Resistance mechanic so he’s likely to succeed on whatever save ends effect you put on him anyways, but at least you’ll shut down the lightning aura for a round!
Bladelock is actually very strong. Maybe if mastery proterty in Pact of the Blade and the three thirsting blade attacks were moved to HexBlade features (when it comes) it would be better balanced
since you went ahead and released the actual breakdown of events (which I LOVED btw) I wonder if you shouldn't explicitly call on your community to analyze the data in their own way. It would be fun as a community to explore the various ways a combat can be analyzed, always with the goal of attempting to quantify anything that you can that might be useful for character analysis. your decision to half the damage of any aoe targets is interesting. I wonder if asking the community for suggestions for how to parse the data might reveal an alternative method that you end up liking more.
The difficulty is that the higher level the characters are, the more scope you afford for differing degrees of optimization to create _radical_ differences in effectiveness between characters. So CR is _always_ going to break down at high levels, because it kinda _has to._ Someone else commented above that either of those encounters would have produced a TPK at most tables, and that's important to remember: this is not "what it takes to challenge a high-level party," this is "what it takes to challenge a high-level party _of optimizers."_
one of the difficulties as well is around "boss fights" at higher levels. A party of that power tends to have tons of expendable power, and so when they know they are going against the big man, they can draw on a ton of juice. I mean just look at how many magic items were blown in that last fight! So that's often I think underestimated in encounter design, the higher the Cr.....the EVEN HIGHER you need to make the CR to account for the inevitable pile on of abilities PCs will thrown in.
I got to playtest at level with a feywild shard... SO MANY ROLLS and I ran out of slots before I ever ran out of sorcery points. (I refilled three times and that was without my class feature refill.)
I think that when you guys got Dazed, the Hasted Actions would have effectively stopped working. Per the UA: "You can Move or take one Action on your turn, but not both". Had the wording said "an Action" it would have probably let you use your 2 actions (but not your Haste Action and your movement) but because it says "one Action" it implies additional Actions (such as from Haste and Action Surge) cannot be used.
Dazed also has its own definition in Flee, Mortals! which I assume was what the monster was designed to use. It’s much the same, saying: “A dazed creature can only do one of the following things on their turn: move, use an action, or use a bonus action.” However, Flee, Mortals! does specify that Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration, and any “cure ailment” power (defined in Flee, Mortals!) will remove the condition, just like Chris asked for. I assume they just missed it because the condition is so similar between the UA and the book.
someone already said this but MCDM’s dazed specifically calls out that you retain extra actions from haste and action surge. Goxomoc was playtested and published with this dazed in mind so they ran it Rules As Written.
Flee Mortals does provide a different encounter-balancing system then that in the PHB, that provides CR Caps, CR Budget per player based on level, and a daily encounter point system better suited for the reasonable 3-4 encounters per day. I've tried it out, and it works fairly well. Was this oneshot balanced with that?
@treantmonktemple I have a question. What new features from this playtest seem like they came up infequently or not at all? Was the Cunning Strike feature worth the damage loss on the rogue for example? I didn't notice any uses of it in the video which is why I am asking, especially with the playtest Swashbuckler being created specifically around this feature
Perhaps I was misreading the Light Weapon Property. Doesn't it require using the Attack action with a Light weapon, to then use a Bonus (or part of the Action with Nick) Action to hit with a DIFFERENT Light Weapon? How was the Battle Master utilizing the Warhammer?
Thank you, this does really put in a lot of perspective of the changes. Interesting that the Bladelock took the one level of fighter - doesn't the playtest 7 give the person their weapon mastery with a weapon? Was it for the heavy armor and con saving throws?
sounds like heavy armor, con saves, and a fighting style. i suppose you would also get second wind out of it, but that’s less impactful with only one level
You are only proficient while you use Pact of the Blade, which means you aren't proficient with them overall, so for feats you need to get those proficiency somewhere.
Just a few mistakes I've seen so far: (Was notified that psychic scream was taken and not wish, missed it in the video) Wish can't be used to cast a 9th lvl spell, only 8th or lower (without repercussions) Eldritch smite can only be used once per turn bit it was used twice on that turn. Unsure if that would affect the dpr. (17:37) Still watching at the moment, I'm enjoying it so far.
It's a little confusing because of the way he worded it but at 6:30 he says that he didn't take Wish because it has a shorter list of 8th level or lower spells that you actually want to replicate. Instead he took Psychic Scream and that is what he used his 9th level slot to cast.
Your right about the eldritch smite bit, but I think you misunderstood what was being said about wish. I don't think wish was used to cast psychic scream, I think he was justifying why he took psychic scream over the obvious choice of wish for a 9th level spell.
I don't understand why the breath weapon can recharge. It feels random and unfair to the players, who rarely have rechargeable resources outside rests. I much prefer recharging after a health threshold is reached or after a significant action takes place, like eating a minion or sonething.
What I would like to know is where I can get that picture that you used for Knotkwightrite - that looks amazing and I'd love to have it for my collection.
While this was a very fun video, I wonder how much use it has for a playtest? Flee, mortals! Doesn't use the same design sense as 5e in some key ways, and a fight is determined by both sides. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice for a playtest, even if I did love some of the monster abilities presented
Pretty good value. WoTC doesn't develop nearly as much content for post 12th lvl and tier 4 is non existent except for DotMM which has the DM design the T4 content anyway. Not really sure how you could get MORE appropriate than, "Ok, heres how we have been playing before, lets do that but with playtest changes."
I think practically, it’s a very good use of the play test because we might all be using the new players handbook, but it is quite likely that Dungeon Masters will continue to use third-party content, like they always have. Dungeon Masters use third-party content all the time. Generally players are kind of restricted to the stuff published by wizards.
Perhaps, but Flee, mortals! Just arrived, maybe my copy was slow but I'm not sure how common it was to use the material before now. And if we find there is an issue in high level design, is that issue caused by the 3rd party Content or by Wizard's design? Are we going to see any mass daze effects going forward, for example, which caused some very severe tactical issues for the group? Legendary resistance won't grant attackers advantage on all their attacks, so how does that change the feel of some spell usage? I'm not trying to say the data is worthless. Just that I find it an odd choice to use such new material that diverges so heavily from the design sense of 5e.
Hearing the battlemaster fighter getting a free maneuver every round just makes me wonder again - why doesn't a Monk get a free one-ki-cost move per round, or something like that.
It's like Jeremy Crawford holds a grudge about a mean Taekwondo instructor at the local YMCA when he was 7.
Treantmonks brother is secretly Jeremy Crawford, lmao
I would love to see how long a monk would last in a fight like this 😂
@@PsyrenXY Monk solos... though in this outcome the monk has gauntlets of the wyrm and soul catching gloves.
Battlemaster is a subclass and they did give a monk subclass a free Step of the Wind at level 11 and the battle master doesn't get this until level 15. The monk sub class was the open hand and a free flurry of blows would have been more thematic, and more powerful.
Weapon mastery scaling is something I've wanted since they were introduced, and its nice seeing the need for it born out in high level play. When the casters get 6th-9th level spells the martials should start being able to do more than push a not-too-big-guy a few feet.
you cannot compare 6th-9th level spells to weapon mastery.
6th-9th level spells can be cast once (or twice at super high level) per day only
weapon mastery can be used on EVERY attack, all day long, without using any resource.
It's normal that level 6+ spell are more powerful than weapon mastery.
and here some flash news, when caster gain their 6th-9th level spell, martial can go NOVA and kill demonlord and god avatars in a single round (action surge, divine smite combo)
I don't think he was implying that weapon mastery should match the power of high level spells, just that it needs to scale in some way. Also, if you think martials keep up with casters at all at that level you must be playing with casters that don't understand the game. Going nova is meaningless compared to bending the fabric of reality like casters do.
@@sohkaswifteagle2604Then perhaps Masteries should have additional, big effects that you can use once a day at those levels.
@@bretgregersen9826 I didn't imply that either, just that the masteries should scale more than they do.
And yes @sohkaswifteagle2604 I think 6th-9th level spells are a valid comparison. NOT because masteries should equal that power, but because once that kind of power is in play the small, previously fun tactical decisions provided by masteries become insignificant. So the masteries should improve too, not to equal those spells but so they don't feel completely inconsequential when those spells are in play.
Agree - I'd love to see like, Anime style mastery results - you hit the guy with a hammer and then speed lines appear and he gets blasted back 50 feet. It would still be using the core of the mastery but elevating it to superhuman level, with some in-game fiction where instead of the hammer ripping through the enemy, you get that blastback effect.
I love this type of content on your channel because even though I’ve been playing for years, I’ve literally never played a minute of DnD at 18th level. Seeing these scenarios gives an interesting look into mechanics that the average player rarely sees. Thank you for that.
My groups aren’t playing with any play test content so I’d love to see like a level 5-7 test too, especially with some multiclassing.
we ran level 10 this month as well. alot of the same characters
"Weapon Masteries didn't have much impact."
If only you had Flex, the mathematically strongest weapon mastery!
By the way, Flee Mortals! defines its own Dazed condition that’s slightly different from the One D&D version. The FM! Dazed condition limits you to only a single move, action, or bonus action on your turn. It doesn’t limit reactions, and the book states that Greater or Lesser Restoration can remove the condition.
It is possible the DM made it the Onednd dazed condition to test out the new condition
They're using the playtest stuff not any custom
Yea I love Flee Mortals. The new version of legendary resistance is fantastic and minion rules are great
Major props to the DM. High level games are really hard to run and that was a very well balanced encounter that pushed the players to their limits and allowed them to use all of their available tricks and specialties.
Not sure how much of that is on DM and how much on WotC vs MCDM monsters designed for high level play. I think one of these 2 companies is clearly superior...
Flee mortals is such a good book
Man that really stinks that he was immune to thunder. When you first said acid I was like "That's a good idea! Enemies that are immune to lightning are also probably immune to thunder" and then you changed it to thunder and I was like "Nooooo!"
Something you touched upon, that for me is a very interesting topic, is attribution of damage as a result of a buff (in the video's case, Commander's Strike). There are a lot of (sub)class abilities and spells that let your allies deal better, but that don't tend to get attributed in damage calculations and budgeting. I've generally not quantified these in my budgets because it's hard to estimate the exact impact they have without a standard party make up, but in working with some newer calculations (where I've switched to estimating Advantage frequency per attack over the adventuring day), I've made some observations that a lot of the under-valued damage subclasses had features that bolstered the group's damage potential (and class in the case of the monk via Stunning Strike).
This leads me into looking at ways to better quantify these contributions, such as starting with a default party (the most generic possible: Champion fighter, Thief rogue, Life cleric, Evoker wizard) and substituting the (sub)class in that party for general role overlap (fighter/barbarian/paladin, rogue/monk/ranger, cleric/bard/druid, wizard/sorcerer/warlock, artificer - probably where its subclass leans heaviest) and then seeing what the difference in damage using a no-resource round between buffed and unbuffed and attributing the difference). For example, a monk's Stunning Strike would give the fighter its attacks per rounds with 100% advantage rate over its normal for the round and the wizard's cantrip would either have advantage (if attack roll), auto-hit (if Str or Dex save) or no impact (other cases).
When I was running numbers on barbarian subclasses and did a query on party buffs using a generic rogue (no subclass in these queries) and noted the difference, it did narrow the gap (to near parity in some cases) of certain barbarian subclasses that normally would underperform compared to more selfish barbarians like the Berserker and Zealot.
Food for thought, I guess, but it does get me to re-evaluate the party (member) buffing subclasses in a more positive light. Still, much like with magic items and other optional rules, party configuration is never something you can reliably simulate at a general level.
Indeed, I like your suggestion of a generic party to study the effects of a round of buff - though I don't think you need or want to replace anybody, as all that matters is how much extra that status effect would allow your default team members to throw out - so just pick the default team members to be the generic DPR type builds via their different mechanisms, and for me keep it simple and just consider the generic fighter, and perhaps a sneak attack build - the spell slingers are likely to be inside that range and too varied to make a good metric, but that does mean you can say take the mid point of those two and party size to say the adverage extra enabled damage is in this area.
Not to mention that the healer role tends to be undervalued in most build comparisons and that is perhaps the most reliable enabler of party damage there is, as you can't hit stuff if you are down/dead... Not that you need a healer in every party.
I'm surprised the battlemaster didn't use Know your enemy on the titan. Hopefully in DND one/5.5 vulnerabilities will be more prevalent.
Hope so too tbh
One thing I was thinking of for Mastery DC is to perhaps swap in "8+ Attack Modifier" for the DC instead of "8 +Proficiency Bonus + Ability Modifier", that way a "+1/2/3" Magic weapon would also increase the Weapon Mastery DCs, as opposed to having to go back and edit magic items so some of them grant a bonus to Weapon Mastery DCs. There might be a game balance issue with casters using mental stats to attack, but I am not sure that would be too much of a problem...
Maybe it would also be cool if it was 8+attack or half the damage dealt, whichever was highest
I like the idea but there might be unintended consequences like making the Archery fighting style even more powerful
@@someusername9591 Good point about the Archery Fighting Style, I had not thought about that.
@@someusername9591 Probably better to specify for Archery specifically that the benefit cannot go to save DCs, since it's the primary outlier. The blacklist is much smaller than the whitelist in this case.
Those were some crazy monsters. An average group would be a pink mist while trying to fight even one of them.
its nice to see a bit more mention on your channel about how it isn't all about DPR, and it really seems like a few other metrics could have been used on those encounters - healing totals and per round being a simple one, and number of rounds with restricted ability could be worth looking at as well. Though it must be said these particular encounters did seem more like DPR race between the NPC and PC than some. Still nice to see the martial builds managed to keep up alright, mostly through being able to stay in the fight more freely.
This type of content really helps me understand things i hear you talk about abstractly... i watch optimization videos way more than i play just cause i find them calming. I would love to watch more of this kind of thing. I love the high level stuff but id also watch more low, mid lvl stuff as well.
Great encounter.
Just wanted to toss out, to the "DPR isn't that important" crowd...
Damage is ultimately the only thing that wins most fights. The longer it takes to do the necessary damage, the more exposure your team has to whatever your opponents are doing. Less damage taken, means less action economy devoted to healing or incapacitated condition, fewer saves against controlling conditions, fewer opportunities for legendary resists to undo your big moves.
DPR is it's own type of utility.
Just my opinion, I get what you mean about all spells being a bonus action but that means you can dash, dodge, disengage or hide every turn. Maybe at this level it isn’t a big deal but at lower levels it’s huge
Yeah, at lower levels I think I would be pretty happy with it, or with some kind of multiclass. With 18 straight sorcerer though..STAY AWAY!
Also all spells being a bonus action means technically you can't counter a counterspell. Personally I really want them to simplify that rule: if you cast a leveled spell with a bonus action or action you can't cast another levelled spell with a bonus action or action.
@@bennettellis1154 the surge only changes action spells to bonus action spells, so reactions remain unchanged
@@jasminebryant4238 it doesn't matter that it doesn't change reactions. RAW if you cast a leveled spell as a bonus action you can't cast another spell during your turn unless it's a cantrip. Any bonus action levelled spell prevents you from countering someone else on your turn (usually countering their counterspell of your original spell).
If you cast Dimension door and someone tried to counter you, you can counter their counter. If you quicken dimension door you can no longer counter their counter.
Basically, they wanted to limit casting both levelled bonus action and action spells in the same turn but the way they worded that restriction is confusing and annoying and I want them to fix it.
@@jasminebryant4238 oh, I see I never specified, I meant casting a counter on your turn. Sorry I was unclear in my original response!
Wow that second encounter was brutal but honestly 18th level in general can be brutal. I've never experienced high level play but it looks fun.
Great video chris. Keep em coming!
I also noticed that weapon masteries DCs fall off abruptly. The fact that the fighter was still impactful in this playtest despite this, means that they are still in a good spot balance wise. Even if you think that weapon masteries could use a boost, one homebrew change that could help without making things over the top, is to allow weapon quality to affect the DCs of respective weapon masteries. So if you have a +3 greatclub it'll give a +3 to the DC of whatever mastery you use with the greatclub.
In the same way that +spell_attack is not +save_DC, I think the same should apply to weapons... at least in an ideal world where weapon-based save DCs actually mattered and were anywhere near as impactful. I'd like to see the +attack and +DC bonuses added together to determine rarity. So your uncommons are +1, rares are +2s, very rares are +3, and legendaries are +4. Except no one bonus can be +4, so you're talking about either +3/+1, +1/+3 or +2/+2. So the bonuses would be distributed between attack and save.
What an awesome pair of encounters! I think the whole party did really well! It's really cool and informative to have this breakdown of your playtesting.
Goxomoc takes some more victims! I never got to test it, but I remember hearing about other testers TPKing. I tested against Forzaantilirys, and managed to stuff her attacks completely by accident by casting Invulnerability when I was at low hp.
I know the point was testing OneD&D combat, but I just love Flee Mortals! so much.
The Druid could fly too through wildshspe
Well 4 out of the 6 characters had levels in fighter, so I guess the fighter is doing something good. Still, it was actually nice to see at least 3 full classes in sorcerer, Druid and fighter.
It’s great seeing flee mortals holding up against high level play
If I'm not misremembering, the DAZED condition from "Flee Mortals" it says that you can remove it with Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration or similar effects (At DM discression). But I think the ODnD one doesn't.
Yup yup
slightly off topic, but I am just commenting to vouch for flee mortals as well. It's excellent. I have played dnd for a long time, but am much newer to dming, and this book has given me a lot more confidence making/altering my own monsters as well.
These combat breakdowns are great because we get to actually see what dpr calculations are worth...which is something, but not actually as much as you'd think.
Lots of very well spent turns that did not contribute to dpr. I really think it would be cool if you did combat break downs more often and then also nominated a party mvp after each encounter.
Somehow this comes up when I search for “Starfield gpu benchmark”.
Man TEM, you are really expanding the scope of your content.
Hey Chris! I know this is probably a lot of work to put together but this is some of my favorite content you do! I wish there was more of it. Love seeing optimized play broken down in the way you talk about it. Some weeks it’d be great to have the actual play on a Monday and the discussion on a Thursday for example. Just a thought, thanks for all you do!
I do love the chaos a Wild magic nutter in 5E can cause, and its just a great base for interesting character too in the longer more RP filled campaign type games - are you embracing or fighting the chaos is just such a natural personality facet. Plus they are just fun to play, the Randomness is dangerous but brilliant fun to try and adapt around. Lean heavily into tides and hope you don't really get screwed over by the wild magic table (though the stock table on in 5E is pretty tame).
Flee Mortals! The real new Monster Manual for 5e. 😂
I think the daze effect in the MCDM monster book has ways that it can end, but it sounds like y'all just applied the one from the new 2024 version, or at least for removing it.
Regardless, can't believe you won those combats!! Way to go!
Yeah Goxomog is insane. He’s flee mortals’ answer to the Tarrasque, only he actually lives up to the hype.
This was amazing! More of these kinds of playtests!
It would be a lot of work, but I would love to see you review Flee, Mortals! The monster design in it seems right up your alley.
“I dive into the lava ‘cuz I might as well enjoy my fire damage immunity.”
I seem to remember a one-shot when I used my Phoenix form that could fit into the smallest cracks and crevices to swarm the timy tunnels underneath the floor to chase out an enemy… and that enemy then used antimagic field… and crept closer… closer… 😂
I love that Arnold character! All those quotes are hilarious!!!
I am amused that Xogomoc was imposing enough that the smart move at the end was 'move into melee, break staff of power'.
I love these types of videos! You play enough dnd that you probably have plenty of content to use for this. I’d watch every single video at least once. Seeing how other people are more clever than me in using abilities is one of my favorite things. Helps me become a better player and dm. Here’s to hoping to see more!
Thoroughly impressed how close those DPR numbers were in encounter 1. Well within what I'd consider the margin of balance.
I loved this high-level game-play brake down from you. Please do more! 🙏
Surprised the Battlemaster didn't use Know you enemy in fight #2, could have saved your big spell.
it costs 1 minute of observation out of combat, and doesn't reveal resistances
@@AndrewBrownK The new Battlemaster fighter only needs a bonus action for Know Your Enemy and it now shows resistances and the like.
@@AndrewBrownK In Playtest 7, Know Your Enemy simply costs a Bonus Action and can be used on a creature you can see within 30ft. You get to learn all the target's damage immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities. Pretty nuts.
I mean, seeing that the creature was using lightning damage and then going for the damage type most thematically adjacent to lightning probably also wasn't the play.
@@AndrewBrownK maybe use the playtest rules during a playtest session.
In UA Playtest 7 it is a bonus action and does reveal the immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities of the target.
VERY impressed with the MCDM Flee Mortals! book
This was a fun video. I really enjoyed hearing about the Flee Mortals monsters.
This is EERIE, I had just clicked on your channel when the vid dropped XD
Happy 75k subscribers Chris 🙂👏🏻
Dramatis Personae:
- Caspar Foresight, Halfling Fighter 1/Swashbucker 17, 0:30
- Kasgin Dazzledust, Halfling Fighter 1/Celestial Warlock 17, 0:51
- Arnold, Orc Champion 6/12, 1:21
- Bearnard MacKillborn, Cloud Goliath Battlemaster 18, 1:40
- Brandlebund Chainyankey, Goblin Circle of the Land 18, 2:00
- Knotkwightrite, Human Wild Magic 18, 2:19
Thanks for that Chris! It was useful, and fun to watch!
completely unrelated to the overarching theme of the video, but it was good to hear chris swear for once
I've never seen a high level fight before, thanks for that.
I will say that while a Haste potion is reasonable to buy for most lvl 18 parties, it is hardly something reasily available and affordable in all/most campaigns.
And the extend to which this potion carries the powers of the martial characters in the second encoutner is absolutely bonkers - almost doubling the Rogue's DPR and allowing all melee characters to actually reach their targets unstead of constantly having to take the dash action before the enemy teleports away.
the titan was from flee, mortals? seems like a sick book, i thought the encounter was a little too strong since the map was so small but the monster itself seemed really cool
Goxomoc (pronounced gauze-o-mock, but it’s whatever) is meant to be the MCDM tarrasque. CR 30, 60 ft aura of earthbinding (all flying creatures fall, even with hover), a 90 foot cone godzilla breath weapon that teleports you and 600 ft eye beam power built into the multiattack. Xogomoc then also has his own absurd statblock in case he needs to shuffle off his mortal coil. the designers basically looked at the tarrasque, saw all the ways in which it could be cheesed, and made a super mega wombo combo update to patch those out.
Eruption (the damage vulnerability psychic scream) and Behold True Power are meant to be the two Finisher villain actions but it seemed like they were used at the right time for the pacing of the fight
Good video as always Chris.
Outstanding! Love these play by plays!!!
After reading through flee mprtals I came back to this video to see the monsters in action and wow its wild to me how partly because of party size the DM still needed to add more monsters to the encounters, even if they were mostly complimentary while the big bosses stole the show (even if the book is meant for them to be fought solo)
The intro for your character was perfect. I love it.
Love that this is also just a big advertisement for how cool Flee, Mortals is.
Just a fun sidebar here, the game it things you are displaying (youtube's autodetect) is world of warcraft, and here I was thinking you weren't playing fourth edition (a little joke, I really do like 4th).
10:39 Round 2.
14:21 Round 3.
17:50 Encounter 1 Wrap Up.
20:00 Round 1
24:14 Round 2
27:55 Round 3 - 29:44 Surprise!
31:10 Round 4
33:33 Round 5
36:18 Round 6
36:51 Encounter 2 Wrap Up.
I love to see "Flee, Mortals!" creatures in use.
Knotkwightrite's DPR for the second combat would've been a lot prettier if that 96 Thunder damage hadn't been reduced to 0
This was an absolute blast, I'm stunned, you might even say thunderstruck
Who else immediately bought Flee Mortals! after watching this playtest?
Knotkwightrite is a really good mad mage name
*laughs into coffee at the Titan's second form*
I love the new rouge. Cunning strike really does do a ton of work. But I would like to see the save increase with item bonus or something seeing how weapon mastery scales.
I ran a 7th arcane trickester with playtest 6, so when there where only 3 spell list. 1st level feat was wrathful smite from magic initiate. Gotta say a 20ft range thrown weapon smite sneak attack, that inflicts frighten, and prone was pretty cool.
I love when 400ft is melee
Congrats on the 75k subscribers!
Fun fights and fun monsters! I have been following One D&D closely (and been filling out the surveys), but my playgroup doesn't get together enough to break from our campaign to try it out. It was nice to see some of the big features in action.
One takeaway I saw is that several of the builds completely disregarded the class/subclass features that often happen at L18. I guess some of them are too weak to consider building toward.
Also, I thought it interesting that you allowed using potions off of Hasted actions. We've always played that quaffing a potion is "Activating an Item" per the DMG which specifically says that it is not "Use an Item." The second combat would have gone very differently if not for potions of speed and healing.
Thanks for sharing. Great video!
I bet MCDM is beaming at this.
Your party, even unconscious can definitely hear.
Again love these recap combat videos
My takeaway from this, in regards to the new Bladelock: Thirsting Blade is not the problem...crits are, and by extension Lifedrinker being a dice roll and Eldritch Smite in general.
E. Smite not following the change in Paladin Smites just brings back the old issue with crit-fishing Paladins and applying it to a new class. And Lifedrinker (on top of giving healing which probably isn't even necessary) using a die for its bonus damage which then gets doubled on a crit is the reason why Bladelocks are a DPR nightmare. It's funny how the second fight, the Bladelocks DPR is pointed at as problematic when, as we saw in the first fight where they never crit, their DPR was around the same as the other damage dealers in the party and notably below the Barbarian. And the Rogue, the other class that benefits from crit bursts, never crit in either fight iirc.
I'm curious what DPR looks like if the Rogue crits a sneak attack in that second encounter or if the Bladelock had to E. Smite on a standard hit...I genuinely think that, again, they normalize to each other. And that's not even taking into account the absurd feat and Invocation investment (and a full level in Fighter, not straight Warlock) to the point where the Bladelock wasn't even a "caster that oudamages martials" but just a martial with access to utility spells since that's all the Bladelock was doing in fights: using spell slots to teleport out of danger or to smite - a Paladin reflavored.
If I'm being honest, rules for what gets double on a crit needs to be fully enumerated and the 3rd attack at level 11 is hardly even problematic. If the other invocations (namely E. Smite and the damage bonus on Lifedrinker) are brought to heel, Bladelocks are perfectly fine, especially when to play them as presented here, they basically give up casting in lieu of being a martial. Plus, tbh, I feel like other martials could just as easily gain a 3rd extra attack, scaling at the 5th-11th-17th scaling as cantrips with Fighters gaining another at 20th.
the rogue did crit in the second encounter
I backed Flee, Mortals! and am enjoying it!
very interesting video for a variety of reasons. I want to highlight this one though: the rogue would have fallen off really hard in this combat, had the Battlemaster not used Commander's Strike consistently on them. obviously in an ideal party comp the PCs would do exactly that - support each other to get the most out of each one, so I am not saying this is a bad thing in the slightest.
I just want to highlight that if the Battlemaster was a different martial/class without the ability to hand out reaction attacks, the rogue would have looked quite sad compared to the other PCs.
they don't seem self-sufficient enough to make meaningful impact on the DPR front, and they also seem to lack the support/debuff/control options so not focusing DPR seems like a waste too. I think they need some kind of damage buff to keep up with other pure-martial classes.
lol the arnold voice 😂
Gotta love the thunder immunity.
Awesome video. Awesome combats.
By the way...
All conditions or supernatural effects that were affecting the titan continue to affect it in its second form.
there were none
“Any conditions or other supernatural effects that were affecting Goxomoc continue affecting Xogomoc.” - page 236 of Flee Mortals!
it doesn’t look like there were any as there aren’t many conditions that he ISN’T immune to, but if you find one then it’ll stay. importantly he does gain 3 uses of a new Legendary Resistance mechanic so he’s likely to succeed on whatever save ends effect you put on him anyways, but at least you’ll shut down the lightning aura for a round!
Id like to see more of These
Bladelock is actually very strong. Maybe if mastery proterty in Pact of the Blade and the three thirsting blade attacks were moved to HexBlade features (when it comes) it would be better balanced
since you went ahead and released the actual breakdown of events (which I LOVED btw) I wonder if you shouldn't explicitly call on your community to analyze the data in their own way. It would be fun as a community to explore the various ways a combat can be analyzed, always with the goal of attempting to quantify anything that you can that might be useful for character analysis. your decision to half the damage of any aoe targets is interesting. I wonder if asking the community for suggestions for how to parse the data might reveal an alternative method that you end up liking more.
Not Playtest related but it’s pretty wild just how far over deadly you need to go to actually challenge high level players.
Yep, the encounter difficulty rules need an overhaul
The difficulty is that the higher level the characters are, the more scope you afford for differing degrees of optimization to create _radical_ differences in effectiveness between characters. So CR is _always_ going to break down at high levels, because it kinda _has to._
Someone else commented above that either of those encounters would have produced a TPK at most tables, and that's important to remember: this is not "what it takes to challenge a high-level party," this is "what it takes to challenge a high-level party _of optimizers."_
one of the difficulties as well is around "boss fights" at higher levels. A party of that power tends to have tons of expendable power, and so when they know they are going against the big man, they can draw on a ton of juice. I mean just look at how many magic items were blown in that last fight! So that's often I think underestimated in encounter design, the higher the Cr.....the EVEN HIGHER you need to make the CR to account for the inevitable pile on of abilities PCs will thrown in.
Very informative, thank you.
I got to playtest at level with a feywild shard... SO MANY ROLLS and I ran out of slots before I ever ran out of sorcery points. (I refilled three times and that was without my class feature refill.)
I just realized that you use the same editing software as me! Nice!
I think that when you guys got Dazed, the Hasted Actions would have effectively stopped working.
Per the UA: "You can Move or take one Action on your turn, but not both". Had the wording said "an Action" it would have probably let you use your 2 actions (but not your Haste Action and your movement) but because it says "one Action" it implies additional Actions (such as from Haste and Action Surge) cannot be used.
Dazed also has its own definition in Flee, Mortals! which I assume was what the monster was designed to use.
It’s much the same, saying: “A dazed creature can only do one of the following things on their turn: move, use an action, or use a bonus action.”
However, Flee, Mortals! does specify that Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration, and any “cure ailment” power (defined in Flee, Mortals!) will remove the condition, just like Chris asked for. I assume they just missed it because the condition is so similar between the UA and the book.
someone already said this but MCDM’s dazed specifically calls out that you retain extra actions from haste and action surge. Goxomoc was playtested and published with this dazed in mind so they ran it Rules As Written.
Sounds like you have a great time!!!
Id love more of these
Nice to see more people using Foundry to run 5e.
Dudeeee, niceeeeeeeee more please
Flee Mortals does provide a different encounter-balancing system then that in the PHB, that provides CR Caps, CR Budget per player based on level, and a daily encounter point system better suited for the reasonable 3-4 encounters per day. I've tried it out, and it works fairly well. Was this oneshot balanced with that?
@treantmonktemple I have a question. What new features from this playtest seem like they came up infequently or not at all? Was the Cunning Strike feature worth the damage loss on the rogue for example? I didn't notice any uses of it in the video which is why I am asking, especially with the playtest Swashbuckler being created specifically around this feature
Thanks Chris
Perhaps I was misreading the Light Weapon Property. Doesn't it require using the Attack action with a Light weapon, to then use a Bonus (or part of the Action with Nick) Action to hit with a DIFFERENT Light Weapon? How was the Battle Master utilizing the Warhammer?
Thank you, this does really put in a lot of perspective of the changes.
Interesting that the Bladelock took the one level of fighter - doesn't the playtest 7 give the person their weapon mastery with a weapon? Was it for the heavy armor and con saving throws?
sounds like heavy armor, con saves, and a fighting style. i suppose you would also get second wind out of it, but that’s less impactful with only one level
You are only proficient while you use Pact of the Blade, which means you aren't proficient with them overall, so for feats you need to get those proficiency somewhere.
This was great!
Just a few mistakes I've seen so far:
(Was notified that psychic scream was taken and not wish, missed it in the video) Wish can't be used to cast a 9th lvl spell, only 8th or lower (without repercussions)
Eldritch smite can only be used once per turn bit it was used twice on that turn. Unsure if that would affect the dpr. (17:37)
Still watching at the moment, I'm enjoying it so far.
It's a little confusing because of the way he worded it but at 6:30 he says that he didn't take Wish because it has a shorter list of 8th level or lower spells that you actually want to replicate. Instead he took Psychic Scream and that is what he used his 9th level slot to cast.
Your right about the eldritch smite bit, but I think you misunderstood what was being said about wish. I don't think wish was used to cast psychic scream, I think he was justifying why he took psychic scream over the obvious choice of wish for a 9th level spell.
Ah, gotcha. Missed that bit. I'll probably go back to my original post and edit it once I get the chance. Thanks.
I don't understand why the breath weapon can recharge. It feels random and unfair to the players, who rarely have rechargeable resources outside rests. I much prefer recharging after a health threshold is reached or after a significant action takes place, like eating a minion or sonething.
What I would like to know is where I can get that picture that you used for Knotkwightrite - that looks amazing and I'd love to have it for my collection.
Does battlemaster get the brace manuever in playtest 7? I remembe thinking taht it had been removed.
While this was a very fun video, I wonder how much use it has for a playtest?
Flee, mortals! Doesn't use the same design sense as 5e in some key ways, and a fight is determined by both sides. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice for a playtest, even if I did love some of the monster abilities presented
I think there is value in seeing how the playtest combines with popular 3rd party material.
Pretty good value. WoTC doesn't develop nearly as much content for post 12th lvl and tier 4 is non existent except for DotMM which has the DM design the T4 content anyway. Not really sure how you could get MORE appropriate than, "Ok, heres how we have been playing before, lets do that but with playtest changes."
I think practically, it’s a very good use of the play test because we might all be using the new players handbook, but it is quite likely that Dungeon Masters will continue to use third-party content, like they always have. Dungeon Masters use third-party content all the time. Generally players are kind of restricted to the stuff published by wizards.
Perhaps, but Flee, mortals! Just arrived, maybe my copy was slow but I'm not sure how common it was to use the material before now.
And if we find there is an issue in high level design, is that issue caused by the 3rd party Content or by Wizard's design? Are we going to see any mass daze effects going forward, for example, which caused some very severe tactical issues for the group? Legendary resistance won't grant attackers advantage on all their attacks, so how does that change the feel of some spell usage?
I'm not trying to say the data is worthless. Just that I find it an odd choice to use such new material that diverges so heavily from the design sense of 5e.