Big thanks to Pete, Elliot and Forrest for workshopping some of these ideas with me after our last session! Additional ideas: Maybe they can charge the action more times for more damage? Maybe they are vulnerable to certain damage types while they are charging? Maybe they have multi stage attacks, where each stage has a specific AOE? Maybe they move as part of the big attack? Also almost definitely: They shouldn't move once they start charging unless they cancel it, and they should be able to use their action in place of a legendary action to launch a charged attack.
Alright, You’ve inspired me. Magical Glide Flings a player 20 feet, launches them 30 feet into the air, and gives them the feather fall effect. The player has full control of their movement while feather falling (their movement speed), and if they land on something they deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage. This can be taken advantage of by using it as a guaranteed hit against a boss/enemy that has this spell. Great stuff Zee!
this is cool, but fyi, there is no facing in 5e, you can see in every direction at once per the rules this type of things still works regardless and i have used it in the past and its great fun
Maybe an archer arcs a single arrow into the ground to find its range and stuff, and then they'll rain arrows down in a 15ft radius cylinder around that arrow.
I really like this honestly it allows players to actually move around and protect each other also most legendary actions are boring but this is a fun spin to them
@@utes5532 He said only one player gets to have a turn before the attack lands and its not the player who just went. If you just hit the enemy with a weapon you're stuck there and only a party member can get you out. Your movement does nothing when you literally cant move on your own. Plus If its a ranged AOE it doesn't even matter if your close with a melee or far with magic/ranged it will hit you unless a party member is close enough to save you
@@MyWaifuNow Remember that this wind up attack has facing, it is possible to move while engaged, as long as you don't move out of the engaged range.I have actually used this to pull some situation in our favour by utilising large summons. Most people, including DMs don't expect this, because usually there is no reason to move after you engage the enemy.
How badass would it be for someone to run up and put their shield in front of an impending breath attack to protect their party, probably taking some damage themselves, but preventing the rest of their party from taking damage? Iconic, and for all the things, D&D let's you do, it never let you do that.
Dude, I was just literally thinking about telegraphed boss attacks for a campaign I’m going to run and just using legendary actions is such a great way to simplify it without making it less grand, can’t believe I didn’t think of it.
I did this with a whole round of lead up. The boss hunkered down with magic shields increasing his defense while he charged an aoe centered on himself. Next turn he unleashed it. It gives the players a whole turn to lock him down or get clear but the extra defense doesn't make it feel like the boss lost a turn. The players thought it was super cool.
I'd probably introduce this mechanic by having a creature without legendary actions spend its turn winding up a hit for the next round. That way, when a bigger monster *uses a legendary action* to mimic such behavior, it should cause the players to recognize that and, hopefully, put 2 and 2 together regarding the legendary actions.
I’d suggest starting off with the first boss suddenly using a reaction, before you mark the area around them, confusing the players… Then next turn, the enemy does an attack that does a small amount of damage to the marked squares around them, but it sends everyone in the area flying. It would act as an aha moment, so that the next time those marked squares pop up, they realize that they need to stay outside of that area.
A DM of mine has been running telegraphed attacks as 'paragon actions', telegraph happens at start of round, and event resolves at the end. This could be anything from an attack to an environmental change. I loved it and will be using it in future games.
One of my proudest moment was having a boss that used 8th and 7-9th lvl magic but had it on a wind up. It started casting at round start, then at round end it would cast whatever it was doing. The players could break its concentration, but when concentration was broken it would on the next turn use focus to protect its concentration for a turn. There were also suicide clowns approaching the group that would then fireball themselves if they got close enough. The finale was the boss focusing on a meteor swarm and with enough damage the boss was taken down and the swarm launched into random directions. Good times, was stressful to the players.
Another 'fix' to the flanking problem is to not run the DMGs "flanking gives advantage" version - it's way too powerful and overshadows all the other ways to get advantage. Instead, run the popular homebrew "flanking gives the opposite of half cover" version. ^^
@@VentrexTheXVth it's an ill-conceived optional rule to begin with. if you actually want positionally interesting combat, use the optional facing rules instead. flanking is like giving everyone knockoff pack tactics.
@@harperna3938 so you would rather give the enemy onidirectional sight? The whole point of flanking to to divide attention. And yes that's what a party is a human pack
I ran a one on one Zelda RPG using 5e for my fiancé and this is how I ran boss monsters. Each attack had a telegraphed wind up followed by an attack. Each attack had a way you could avoid it or straight up interrupt it to negate it altogether. It worked really well! And I’ve started using it for other actually dnd monsters as well!
I’ve been in a couple zelda games. One started more based of one of the games then spun off. The other was more just using the world. Both were really fun.
I've been doing this for years. My favorite flavor is combining a boss telegraph with a lair telegraph. The lair telegraphs at initiative 20 and executes at initiative 1 and has bigger AOEs like hitting half the room or a starburst from a point. The boss then does a line or cone which limits the safe space and maybe leaves behind a puddle for them to stand in and take damage later.
I've run telegraphs in a game before. The problem I see with this one is that, whoever has their turn after the wind up is suddenly relegated to rescue duty, and it kinda feels bad for them unless they explicitly were planning to do that, or if they have a means to rescue someone without cutting into their own actions. From my experience, you want to make sure telegraphs don't stifle the boss's action economy, and the players can deal with the mechanics and actually have a chance to react if they'll be the ones affected. When I did it, it was in PF2 (so opportunity attacks weren't a concern), and I created two types of telegraphs: One, at the end of the boss's turn, it would switch weapons with a declaration. At the start of its next turn, it would get a free area of effect attack off, based on the weapon it equipped. E.g., a sword might be a spin attack to cleave everything adjacent, a scythe might cleave everything greater than 10-15 ft away (forcing you to get close), or a spear might just do a wide line AOE targeting the last person to successfully hit it. These go off immediately, before it can move, so it can't cheese things. It took players a minute to realize the AOEs were related to the weapon the boss had, but once they did, they were dancing around a lot more readily. The other thing it would do sometimes is summon some pylons. Before the boss's next turn, they'd fire off attacks in a cross-line pattern for automatic damage. Players would know to move to the sides / out of the way. You can do something similar with say, environmental elements like cannons or geysers that the boss can activate to erupt or fire. This worked out really well and kept players moving a lot. You just gotta be careful about throwing too many effects in at once, otherwise you can sometimes make a scenario where there are no safe areas, or they're impossible to feasibly reach.
I had an idea once for a "resistance wheel" ..so like the monster will roted a resistances between rounds (mybe last dmg type delt or the most in the round or just in order /random) on a wheel of dmg type (a elemental wheel , pysical wheel or a special wheel (nerco,psychic extra). Now the players need to plan there attacks and not rely on one weapon or spell
My big thing that drives me insane about this sorta thing is just negating it entirely using stunning strike, and PCs using forced movement to say it cancels the entire thing.
@@joeystuart2949 tbf, since I was running in PF2, stun works differently. It's not as accessible to players, bosses are more likely to save against it when it is, and stunned only reduces the actions the boss can take based on the stun value, instead of completely negating their turn. Since monsters don't have opportunity attacks by default in PF2, it also made it easier to move around. For 5e, specifically Zee's way of running it with legendary actions, I'd say stuns and forced movement are fine for solving that, though I'd also say that OA's are disable when it's priming a telegraph. But stuns are kinda badly handled in 5e (and makes monks kinda gimmicky).
@@Zedrinbot Plus on top of that, if stunning strike fails, they're now directly in front of the attack. I'd also probably add something to stronger charge attacks that they have advantage on saving throws if I wanted to counter that, kinda like superarmor, however have them autofail dodge based saving throws and if I'm feeling generous, lower their armor class/make them get advantage to being hit... or just convert them into a different type like Strength or Constitution if you wanted to make them really imposing.
Ive already planned on doing this with dragon breath weapons. Each time the dragon regains their charge of breath weapon, make it very evident that the dragon is taking a deep breath, and is facing one specific direction (either one specifically annoying character or randomly rolled with dice), giving the impression that anyone in that same direction should probably skedadle or at the very least employ the dodge action. This is also very important to allow players to utilise protective spells and resources, because what happens too often in DnD is that you cast protection from energy but either the enemy just doesn't hit you (either missing or focusing on someone else), you shielded the wrong type of energy, or spent the spell slot on a fireball that is more rewarding in general.
Our DM used FFXIV style telegraphed AoEs as the layer actions for the final boss fight of one of our campaigns. It added an extra layer of movement strategy instead of just the normal run up and deal big damage. It was one of the most unique fights I have ever had in D&D and it was a lot of fun! I highly recommend.
@@dracoslayer16 while not exactly what you're asking for, there is a full thorough homebrew for dnd5e for every race and job in ffxiv, that you could definitely work with
I've thought of using telegraphed mechanics similar to this, but it never occured to me to use legendary actions for the wind-up and resolution. This is ingenious. I will definitively be trying this mechanic in the next session. If the players respond well to it, I will be incorporating it into my boss fights from now on. Love this idea so much.
I love doing this! Combined with locational and limb damage impacting big monsters (severed limbs, blinding, etc), it allows for a lot more nuanced combat and evolving strategies, as well as great opportunities for storytelling and roleplay beyond "the monster is hurt." I definitely don't recommend doing this with more than 3 monsters at a tine since you still have a game to run, but certainly wherever you can manage. Also, great video as always
Telegraphing has definitely been one of those things I have liked the idea of, but was always hesitant on doing, because I would be worried about people perceiving it as too 'video gamey', but seeing you explain it really made it seem a lot more dynamic than I had imagined, especially with the various examples. Its honestly pretty cool to see what small changes and do mechanically, but also cinematically to the general game.
Reminds me of spells like Moonbeam that trigger at the start of the creature’s turn. Lead to fun “GET DOWN” moments to save the party’s doppelgänger from being revealed.
I do this with dragons breath weapon. One round of wind up and when it goes off, it does max damage. Combine this with claw attacks that can auto grapple and you can see the fear in the party as the dragon grabs their fighter and prepares to roast them specifically.
Okay Auto Grapple plus an Auto-hit breath weapon is too much, especially if you're also doing Max damage. The Grapple is already gonna be hard to do against a FREAKING DRAGON, let alone get the fighter out of before the end of the next player's Turn. Because even the lowest CR Adult Dragon, the Adult Brass, has a breath weapon that can deal 78 damage. You're gonna at best melt the fighter's health and at worst knock them unconscious. And if you are doing the wind up thing, then why is your dragon spending 4 legendary actions or it's turn, and 3 legendary actions to grab 1 person in particular and roast them alive when it could just fly around and roast the party when it swoops in close? That party member had better be really, REALLY valuable and really really stupid to NOT get grabbed by the dragon that's eyeing them up like a corndog.
Hmm so how does that run? Dragon winds up it's breath at initiative 20 like a lair action then fires it at the bottom of the round? Does he still take his action? Legendary actions?
@@Phourc for the breath weapon, the dragon spends the action on its turn to breath in and prepare the attack. It can spend legendary actions as normal but if it moved, I would count it's grapple as immediately over. Then, on the dragon's turn on the next round, the breath goes off. Just to make sure that everyone gets a chance to help.
@@thedragonknight3600 different strokes. It could very well do all that on one round and then decide that someone in particular needs to die. It's more about cinematics than tactical acuity.
Been doing this in my campaign for a year-ish now. I love this mechanic so much as it makes spacing very important and prevalent especially in boss encounters. Spread the word!
I absolutely love this! As an old souls player, this is a great way to run large aoe spells. Using other area control abilities, like a wall of fire, can help the BBEG make this more threatening.
I like this. I like it more if very occasionally the telegraph refers to one or two lesser used aoe attacks with a slightly altered style to remove some of the repetitiveness.
I think only if it’s a very different telegraph. If the players are left guessing which locations will be dangerous in a turn, the tactics become a lot muddier and a lot less fun.
I’ve been wanting to do something similar, making creatures with recharge attacks roll to regain them at the END of their turn instead of the start, and give a visual signal that they can use it again, like having an area on the dragon’s neck begin to glow. I really want to start telegraphing things more and giving players more agency in combat so that it isn’t just a slapfest to see who goes down first.
I recently used the Fleecemane Lion from the Theros book, a CR3 creature with legendary actions. I loved it! Legendary actions shouldnt be limited to high CR monsters, because they improve the flow of bossfights at every level. If your players are going to fight a single, strong monster, try giving it one or two legendary actions! That way it feels like a dynamic bossfight instead of the party stomping a helpless creature for 10 minutes until its the things turn again. Make sure to balance it, though. If your bossmonster has multiattack, just use one of those attacks later as a legendary action. Or give the monster legendary actions that dont deal damage, but interact with players, like an Ogre picking up the fighter and tossing them at the wizard to throw both prone.
They actually do this in Fire emblem, where when a monster lands an attack on its turn, they wind up an AOE that can hit a 4x2 area, but in any direction, so the party has to maximize for who gets hit, whom the monster aggros on, and how the party is spaced. I like it a lot!
What I did was using a "complex trap" for an encounter, where on initiative 20 the device would light up and mark the areas of effect and on initiative 10 the effects would fire. (radiant damage in a cone, summon a small radiant elemental that blinds and does minor damage in an AoE) But this one is good too, however it leaves little space to manouver I think.
I mean I mean just because it was short does not mean it wasn't high quality you have no idea how much of an impact your videos have on me and the groups that I play with thank you so much for all that you post
I'm very very interested in making my own almost monster hunter styled table top adventure and combat in this way has intrigued me greatly. But since every hunt in this game would include these telegraphed attacks, I fear there would be obvious, overpowered strategies that people can hold on to to move another player.
That might just be realism sneaking in. Hunters with D&D capabilities would naturally be much more adept at using friendly repositioning as part of their combat style. You could discuss this with your players and see if they'll agree to removing/limiting a lot of the movement spells and abilities, maybe compensating them with magical weapons to keep with the theme, or some other boon that would encourage the playstyle you're looking for like a tracking fly analog. Or you could accept that your hunting party has actual magic and embrace what a hunt looks like when you can dimension door in an S-AED, but that's just my personal preference lol.
Then don’t make whatever a boss is doing consistent with others. To me, a big part of this idea is the initial unpredictability. Make one dude cast a spell, another use a weapon. Heck, you could make it be lair actions that the BBEG causes.
@@fyshman152 Monster hunter is like a fighting game but you fight small kaiju. In the videogame, learning their signals and attack animations and dodging in and out to do damage is the main combat mechanic, like Darksouls. So the problem isn't keeping the attack patterns varied, it's preventing the party from figuring out a cheese maneuver that works against all telegraphed attacks because every meaningful fight will be against them.
what is not necessarily a bad thing, I'm sure the player will feel super clever for figuring out a way to cheese boss mechanics... just like monster hunter. you can also have the bosses use different kinds of attack to force the players to adapt and memorize mechanics, like for example the boss will use a line AOE in front of him, but then the line will explode and damage adjacent tiles the next turn, but then if the boss charges a similar attack but with a different color, it will do the same thing but the inverse.
@@danilooliveira6580 i somewhat like this middle ground take on it, being telegraphed attacks with a degree of randomness to each. The type of cheese that i dont want is for a creature to repeatedly run into a wall because the flow chart the DM uses is flawed. I feel that especially early game monsters who cant use crazy ass energy blasts or huge AOE attacks will be troublesome to find a way to keep players out of their comfort zone.
I came up with this idea while making home brew one-shots (since they’re the best format for these experimental grey area rule changes) and every time I’ve loved it. It just gives the player so much agency in what they want to do, and truly develops a collaborative essence in the party as they best try to deal with this threat. Telegraphed events in combat are reminiscent of MMORPG boss raids, which I really enjoy because the main problem in that genre is that the boss has to be repeatedly grinded making the attacks stale and boring after awhile, but in D&D each boss is unique in the sense that the setting around it is always changing. Really love that you made a video highlighting this home brew.
Zee… Thank you. 1. For your comedic addition to my day, and 2. For the wonderful ways in which you teach me to further scare my players. Good luck with the move!
Mhm this is something I actually use! Bosses have an Initiative 0 Legendary Turn that can be used to: • Attempt to shake off some effect or dispel some constraint • Perform an Attack • Change stance • Load a "Legendary Power" Alongside custom buffs to the "Help" Action and a rule that rolling a nat20 on a "Helped" Roll gives BOTH characters Inspiration, oh my goodness these three elements combined have blessed me with such unique combat with so much flashy collaboration
Yo, just wanted to say that these little shorts miiiiiiight have saved entire campaigns for me, so keep up the good work, Zee, really helpful, even the small stuff
@@youtubeuniversity3638 damage reduction, I think. So X being between 8 to 15, for every point the player AC is above it, you reduce 1 point of damage.
Im glad I wasnt the only one whos done AoE attacks like this! I made my multi-year campaign final boss do a lot of ‘odd’ aoe legendary actions like this and the players got super creative with it, they loved it and made it feel more dynamic!
I've been wondering how to best do telegraphed attacks in dnd for a while cause its such a "video game boss staple" that I wanted to replicate it somehow and this seems like a great way to do it. The wind up lasting every party members turn always seemed too easily avoidable and this is a good way to fix that.
@@darkmatterpancake9824 It's a bot, most likely. Bots like these copy other people's comments on the page. This one copied one of mine. As for the likes, either they're also bot-generated, or there are guys who "like" any post whose profile images look a certain way.
I'm glad to see that someone has come up with a similar idea to what I had. It's a really cool idea for fights and creates an amazing sense of uniqueness for your bosses. Maybe don't use it for every boss fight, but pull it out for bosses that you want the players to remember.
I've been racking my brains lately for a way to have truly massive creatures be somewhat interesting, both to sell the large lumbering and hard hitting, while not having it just "big damage lol". And this is *Perfect* for me, thank you so much Zee!
I learned about your channel a few days ago. I like it so much, I think I binged just about every video you've uploaded. This is my first "new video" so I'm excited. Thanks for the awesome content. It's already positively impacted my group's campaign. Cheers!
This is an interesting idea. Feels like bit of a cheap shot to have the boss do the swing that's meant to be 'step out of this' when a player doesn't have the ability to get out of said aoe since action economy is a thing. Still its an interesting idea as previously stated, and one I might use in my games in the future
@@Phourc Am wondering if it’d be worth it to even try to get another player out of the way, unless you can do it in a bonus action or they’re going to die from it.
It encourages a riskier playstyle where characters might save some of their movement, since 5e lets you move, attack, and move again if you still have speed left. Obviously there's no way to know if a boss is going to use their special attack before they start their wind-up, but that's the risk you run - risk an AoO, which has a chance of failure, or take the chance that the boss will charge up their auto-hit. Usually it's going to be worth the AoO - and once the boss has done one AoO, they can't do any more. You might also homebrew some escape options, magic items or spells or whatever, that can be used once per battle or so (maybe recharge on a 6 or something) as a reaction. Another option is to balance the auto-hit such that it doesn't do a *ton* of damage - I'd probably say it should do half of the average damage of the boss's most powerful normal attack, as a rule of thumb. If you want to roll it instead of just doing flat damage, that would be half the number or half the size of the dice, and also divide any flat damage added in half. If you want it to be more powerful, make it easier to avoid - charges for a round rather than just a turn, or something like that.
@@lonestarlibrarian1853 Yeah I think a system like that would only work if the hits are scarily big and the boss only had a limited number per round, meaning most of his damage could be mitigated by smart play while at least some players get a chance to attack.
I've been wondering how to implement something like this! As I like player facing combat, you could easily implement this into that kind of system since the players already roll to avoid getting hit.
Here's some help for our Pathfinder 2E lovers out there: Telegraphing an attack is a two-action activity, and consumes a reaction to use it. It's essentially the Ready action but it doesn't waste a whole turn. The reaction has the trigger of: A turn ends. Below are some more official looking writings about it. Telegraph (Two Actions) Traits: Concentrate, Visual Requirements: Monster is not fatigued, grabbed, restrained, paralyzed, or stunned. The monster prepares a devastating attack; choose an action this monster can take that has the Area of Effect or Attack traits. This activity gains the traits of that action, and the monster can then take the Release Area of Effect reaction or Release Attack reaction respectively. Release Area of Effect (Reaction) Traits: None (see Special) Trigger: A turn other than the monster's ends. The monster uses the action chosen when they Telegraphed the Area of Effect. Creatures in the area that fail their saving throw against the effect critically fail instead. Special: This reaction has the traits of the action chosen when the monster Telegraphed the Area of Effect. Release Attack (Reaction) Traits: None (see Special) Trigger: A turn other than the monster's ends. The monster uses the action chosen when they Telegraphed the Attack. If the monster succeeds on this attack, it scores a critical success instead. Special: This reaction has the traits of the action chosen when the monster Telegraphed the Attack.
"The boss performs a wind-up legendary action. You have until the boss' next turn to kill the boss or break their concentration before a party wipe." Definitely feels like a mechanic translated from an RPG video game into the tabletop.
My man out here reinventing D&D 4E. It had some good, modern combat design and everyone seems to disregard all the lessons learned from that edition just because the critical reception was bad.
And as 4e in turn just renamed to Trigger and Boss actions the assortment of the randomly bullshit named monster traits that let them take FRA or standards as immediate or ready only bits (and the channeled spell series of .5), it cant be praised for it other than for streamlining (while often misusing, like oh so much content from 1st and 2nd mm and essentially majority of pre essentials DM side content).
I've been doing this with elements within the boss arena. An obelisk that emits beams in different directions each round, if you get caught in a beam, its damage. Meanwhile the boss has incredible strength but CANNOT opportunity attack. This makes for great fun as players run around the room making sure the tiles they're on are safe, and kiting the boss. Lots of fun innovation to be had with telegraphed unavoidable attacks.
DnD is a framework, that we graft fun stuff onto for unique stories. Political intrigue, homebrew religions, black powder and clockwork monstrosities don't come in the manual; but they're what make games memorable. Love this sort of homebrew mechanical thing; definitely do more of it in the future as the ideas come to you, no worries bout whether it's purist DnD or not!
Right on the money. Telegraphed attacks work very well. It works very well, and makes certain actions that you never think of, like dash, VERY valuable. Suddenly, the dwarf that's a combat powerhouse is sweating bullets.
I’ve been doing something similar. A different spin on it legendary actions that wind up at the start of a player’s turn, and take effect at the end of the same turn. At the start of a player’s turn, the boss telegraphs a type of attack. E.g. the giant spider might rear back, ready to chomp with its fangs. Or quickly spins a small net of web. The player then has their turn and decides whether or not to move out of the way, and at the end of the turn the spider strikes or throws the net based on what was broadcast. A variation also includes the boss changing the conditions of the battlefield at the start of the player’s turn. E.g. at the start of an archer’s turn, the spider boss might leap right up to them, or it might spin a wall of web that gives it cover. Something for the player to react to that requires them to re-evaluate their turn.
I love that you covered this. I did something with a similar stratgegy with Demogorgan in the Out Of The Abyss adventure, as he gets a LA every turn after the players. Using his ominous tail slam for a swing with advantage [over autohit AOE]. It made the players a bit more scared..
You know, I've always been a big proponent of utilizing the movement and non-attack actions more dynamically in combat. This is a marvelous method to help 'reward' that sort of thing.
I really like this type of mechanic in video games like XCom and other turn based tactic games were you can get things to focus on one player that hurt them the most last round etc. Knowing what's coming and having limited options to do anything about it in time made those moments super tense. And fun.
I like it. It's never a bad idea to incorporate out-of-the-box stuff like this. Especially because most players are going to understand the concept fairly well as it's a familiar video game trpe.
Oh I love that! I'm currently "writing" (as in collecting) all Homebrew ideas and flavour changes in one little place. (Like bringing all the Ranger fixes I like together in a rewritten Ranger, that is less of a mess) And I will definetly add that one!
Great idea! As always, love the vid. Congrats on moving, which for us kicks off years of finding buried boxes. Our house is like a dungeon crawl for months afterwards. Have fun with that!
Had a great time with my DM when they described an enemy reeling back their staff and chanting at the end of our rogues turn, the day after this video came out. "So uh Chris. You watch Zee Bashew or Somethin'?"
A neat idea, would be cool to see in some games to add a bit of flavor, even if it does gameify it a bit. Hope the move goes well Zee! Thanks for bringing out these wonderfully animated, humorous and even education animated spell books the past couple of years! Can't wait for next season, haha
I always called that maneuver "Telegraphing Your Moves Like a Drunken Toddler", I also use it for hazards, puzzles, traps and even mysteries. STEP ONE: Setup an obvious hazard. STEP TWO: Add a bunch of clues indicating that the obvious hazard. STEP THREE: Pretend like you are not aware of how obvious you have been. STEP FOUR: When they come up with an obvious solution to deal with your obvious hazard, pretend like your surprised at their genius, and throw them some inspiration points. STEP FIVE: Watch them high five and fist bump each other for their clever thinking. Its dumb, but it works like a charm
Ur videos are among very few that keep me wanting to run dnd games... Been playing since a month before 5e dropped and have been fed up since 2019. But this idea feels worth it to stick around a bit longer.
That is an absolute brilliant idea, makes huge and gigantic creatures really feel their size as the distances and energy into each blow really show. Plus it gives them something to do with legendary actions that has player interactivity (always a good thing) and rewards clever placing and baiting as you have players move into range and bait attacks so only one gets hit instead of many. Cant believe i didn't think of this...good luck on the move see you when you get back.
Man, that’s actually pretty cool. You could even use this on deadly moves that you want your players to know is something they SHOULDN’T try to face tank, like at the end of its turn a dragon billowing fire into its mouth and setting up the cone. This sadly doesn’t work if you play without a map (yes we exist, and yes it is in fact torture at times but it usually works out), but for the most part it’s really cool! Might have to start making battle maps to implement this
I love cool homebrew. I’d personally never mind if you wanted to do more of these short videos on homebrew ideas you have, maybe not even ones you tested to get a sense of how they’d work.
When I see this I remember Giffyglyph's monster guide, the guy had a similar idea for boss monsters where certain attacks can be made under certain conditions and wind up attacks, real cool!
Definitely going to incorporate this for spellcaster bosses. Sounds like it'll make the attack feel much more impactful than using a spell the players have seen before.
Running Waterdeep Dragonheist I let the ”bossfight” room in Xanathar’s Guild Hideout in Chapter 1 be a room where they safely used to burn dangerous sever gas buildups. So every other turn one side of the room gas would start building up, and torching it in the next turn. Players loved it!
Hey! I've been doing this one for a while, and love it! As long as you're cautious with what the abilities do I think it works great. I hadn't tried auto-hit tbh, just made them high-chance to hit and high-damage/effect. Big success for it so far.
Had a DM that did something like this in a fight, only it wasn't as simple as "a big boss". It was a group effort from the "little guys". We were attacking a fort full of Gnolls, and a ways into the fight while we were fighting their BIG GUY we noticed a bunch of them up on the wall were all picking to hold their actions. Once about 5 of them had all done this, a 6th one took an action to "give an order" to target a location and for any of us in said location, DEX save for half damage as it was pelted with a volley of arrows. We stopped largely ignoring the little guys after that.
Wow, that's quite elegant! I've wanted to add something to this effect for a long time. Tested a lot of stuff, but somehow something so simple never occurred to me.
I like this a lot. I can see how you could start tweaking this to be really fun fun and crazy. My immediate though is this should be how dragons breath works.
I played a ton of games like battletech, aerotech and star fleet battles on the table top growing up and facing and range was a very important aspect of those games. It has always carried over to d&d when figurines were available. The last thing you ever wanted to do was be in range when whomever you were fighting could bring every weapon to bear and target a single area critically damaging or destroying it and often ending the combat in single turn.
That gave me some inspiration for an upcoming boss. A mass of undead bones and flesh melded into a giant entity, flailing around and warping the demiplane it resides in with the waving of its hundreds of hands. Big AoE cubes of spacetime being abruptly crushed, torn, and deleted.
very cool idea for those who pay with miniatures. I was never interested in playing with them, but I can see the value here. great presentation, love the art!
I did this quite a few years back in a campaign. They were fighting in a volcano and the boss would fracture the floor, revealing lava below when it attacked. I always did like fun arenas more than the bosses themselves.
One of my favorite wind up legendary attacks is one where the only way to avoid it is to get either right next to the boss, or very far away. Basically a ring AOE around it, and you make it so the boss is *very* good at killing players who get too close. Basically keeps them back unless they think they can avoid whatever comes next.
In a game I was DMing, my players had to use an altar to perform a ritual that lowered the water level of a bay in order to access a hidden temple beneath the sea. In doing so, they ended up trapping a legendary great white shark, a massive beast with a harpoon lodged in one eye, hence his name, Ol' One Eye. He would attack by winding up much like you described, and then launching himself out of the pool he was trapped in like a rocket, doing insane damage to anything that remained in his path of attack, and would then flop himself back into the shallows to repeat the maneuver. My players quickly figured out how it worked, and began baiting him into easy positions for them to immediately deal attacks by being just inches out of the attack zone. Great fight, had a lot of fun with that one. The best part was after the fight was over I got to congratulate them for surviving a close encounter with the DMs one eyed monster. The audible groans over voice chat were worth it.
I always try to make encounters have some reason to be ran on a mat with miniatures. What I mean is that some encounters are very simple like it's just the party in a blank room of a dungeon with a few enemies, and encounters like those are so simple that they can just be run with theater of the mind. But I hate running encounters with theater of the mind so I design my encounters to have a reason for being mapped out and your idea of telegraphed legendary attacks is a great way to add that extra complexity to an encounter and give it a reason to be run on a map.
Big thanks to Pete, Elliot and Forrest for workshopping some of these ideas with me after our last session!
Additional ideas:
Maybe they can charge the action more times for more damage?
Maybe they are vulnerable to certain damage types while they are charging?
Maybe they have multi stage attacks, where each stage has a specific AOE?
Maybe they move as part of the big attack?
Also almost definitely: They shouldn't move once they start charging unless they cancel it, and they should be able to use their action in place of a legendary action to launch a charged attack.
Alright, You’ve inspired me.
Magical Glide
Flings a player 20 feet, launches them 30 feet into the air, and gives them the feather fall effect. The player has full control of their movement while feather falling (their movement speed), and if they land on something they deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage.
This can be taken advantage of by using it as a guaranteed hit against a boss/enemy that has this spell.
Great stuff Zee!
this is cool, but fyi, there is no facing in 5e, you can see in every direction at once per the rules
this type of things still works regardless and i have used it in the past and its great fun
Final Fantasy 14 AOEs. That's it.
Maybe an archer arcs a single arrow into the ground to find its range and stuff, and then they'll rain arrows down in a 15ft radius cylinder around that arrow.
I love this concept of homebrew stuff. It could make combat more interesting on both ends. Please more of this.
I really like this honestly it allows players to actually move around and protect each other also most legendary actions are boring but this is a fun spin to them
@@utes5532 He said only one player gets to have a turn before the attack lands and its not the player who just went. If you just hit the enemy with a weapon you're stuck there and only a party member can get you out. Your movement does nothing when you literally cant move on your own. Plus If its a ranged AOE it doesn't even matter if your close with a melee or far with magic/ranged it will hit you unless a party member is close enough to save you
@@utes5532 You can move after attacking, but nobody else can move since it's not their turn. That's the point.
@@MyWaifuNow Remember that this wind up attack has facing, it is possible to move while engaged, as long as you don't move out of the engaged range.I have actually used this to pull some situation in our favour by utilising large summons. Most people, including DMs don't expect this, because usually there is no reason to move after you engage the enemy.
How badass would it be for someone to run up and put their shield in front of an impending breath attack to protect their party, probably taking some damage themselves, but preventing the rest of their party from taking damage?
Iconic, and for all the things, D&D let's you do, it never let you do that.
You say all, while the example given is 1. 1 is not all.
Dude, I was just literally thinking about telegraphed boss attacks for a campaign I’m going to run and just using legendary actions is such a great way to simplify it without making it less grand, can’t believe I didn’t think of it.
I've been using Dale Kingsmill's variant dragons for a while for that reason
I'd think if anything a long and powerful-looking windup would only make an attack more grand.
Been running a homebrew Zelda campaigns and this would be great for them dungeon bosses
I did this with a whole round of lead up. The boss hunkered down with magic shields increasing his defense while he charged an aoe centered on himself. Next turn he unleashed it. It gives the players a whole turn to lock him down or get clear but the extra defense doesn't make it feel like the boss lost a turn. The players thought it was super cool.
Making the BBEGs or minis a little more unique.
I'd probably introduce this mechanic by having a creature without legendary actions spend its turn winding up a hit for the next round.
That way, when a bigger monster *uses a legendary action* to mimic such behavior, it should cause the players to recognize that and, hopefully, put 2 and 2 together regarding the legendary actions.
I’d suggest starting off with the first boss suddenly using a reaction, before you mark the area around them, confusing the players…
Then next turn, the enemy does an attack that does a small amount of damage to the marked squares around them, but it sends everyone in the area flying. It would act as an aha moment, so that the next time those marked squares pop up, they realize that they need to stay outside of that area.
A DM of mine has been running telegraphed attacks as 'paragon actions', telegraph happens at start of round, and event resolves at the end. This could be anything from an attack to an environmental change.
I loved it and will be using it in future games.
One of my proudest moment was having a boss that used 8th and 7-9th lvl magic but had it on a wind up. It started casting at round start, then at round end it would cast whatever it was doing. The players could break its concentration, but when concentration was broken it would on the next turn use focus to protect its concentration for a turn. There were also suicide clowns approaching the group that would then fireball themselves if they got close enough.
The finale was the boss focusing on a meteor swarm and with enough damage the boss was taken down and the swarm launched into random directions. Good times, was stressful to the players.
What level were they? Good idea also!
You really just gonna drop the phrase "suicide clowns" and not elaborate?
@@jalencooper5156 i mean they explained it pretty well. Suicide clowns that fireball themselves when they close to the party.
@@jalencooper5156 Clowns don't need a reason to be suicide bombers
@@jalencooper5156 blacephalon basically did it first lmao
Great idea, can help make the players move around more and find new angles to attack and stop constant flanking
Another 'fix' to the flanking problem is to not run the DMGs "flanking gives advantage" version - it's way too powerful and overshadows all the other ways to get advantage.
Instead, run the popular homebrew "flanking gives the opposite of half cover" version. ^^
@@Phourc ah yes take away the rule instead playing around it great choice
@@VentrexTheXVth it's an ill-conceived optional rule to begin with. if you actually want positionally interesting combat, use the optional facing rules instead. flanking is like giving everyone knockoff pack tactics.
@@Phourc there's a dm I know that plays it like You need at least 3 people triangling on melee around the target
@@harperna3938 so you would rather give the enemy onidirectional sight? The whole point of flanking to to divide attention. And yes that's what a party is a human pack
I ran a one on one Zelda RPG using 5e for my fiancé and this is how I ran boss monsters. Each attack had a telegraphed wind up followed by an attack. Each attack had a way you could avoid it or straight up interrupt it to negate it altogether. It worked really well! And I’ve started using it for other actually dnd monsters as well!
Oh! Tell us more about this system!
Yes, please tell us more!
The unique ways to interrupt or avoid it sound like a really cool way to emulate specific items being used to beat specific bosses.
I’ve been in a couple zelda games. One started more based of one of the games then spun off. The other was more just using the world. Both were really fun.
I'm actually planning to incorporate certain pieces of Zelda into my campaign. Did you homebrew stuff or reskin existing stuff or what?
I've been doing this for years. My favorite flavor is combining a boss telegraph with a lair telegraph. The lair telegraphs at initiative 20 and executes at initiative 1 and has bigger AOEs like hitting half the room or a starburst from a point. The boss then does a line or cone which limits the safe space and maybe leaves behind a puddle for them to stand in and take damage later.
I've run telegraphs in a game before. The problem I see with this one is that, whoever has their turn after the wind up is suddenly relegated to rescue duty, and it kinda feels bad for them unless they explicitly were planning to do that, or if they have a means to rescue someone without cutting into their own actions.
From my experience, you want to make sure telegraphs don't stifle the boss's action economy, and the players can deal with the mechanics and actually have a chance to react if they'll be the ones affected. When I did it, it was in PF2 (so opportunity attacks weren't a concern), and I created two types of telegraphs:
One, at the end of the boss's turn, it would switch weapons with a declaration. At the start of its next turn, it would get a free area of effect attack off, based on the weapon it equipped. E.g., a sword might be a spin attack to cleave everything adjacent, a scythe might cleave everything greater than 10-15 ft away (forcing you to get close), or a spear might just do a wide line AOE targeting the last person to successfully hit it. These go off immediately, before it can move, so it can't cheese things. It took players a minute to realize the AOEs were related to the weapon the boss had, but once they did, they were dancing around a lot more readily.
The other thing it would do sometimes is summon some pylons. Before the boss's next turn, they'd fire off attacks in a cross-line pattern for automatic damage. Players would know to move to the sides / out of the way. You can do something similar with say, environmental elements like cannons or geysers that the boss can activate to erupt or fire.
This worked out really well and kept players moving a lot. You just gotta be careful about throwing too many effects in at once, otherwise you can sometimes make a scenario where there are no safe areas, or they're impossible to feasibly reach.
I had an idea once for a "resistance wheel" ..so like the monster will roted a resistances between rounds (mybe last dmg type delt or the most in the round or just in order /random) on a wheel of dmg type (a elemental wheel , pysical wheel or a special wheel (nerco,psychic extra). Now the players need to plan there attacks and not rely on one weapon or spell
Wow, you've gone full Dark Souls! I might have to this a try.
My big thing that drives me insane about this sorta thing is just negating it entirely using stunning strike, and PCs using forced movement to say it cancels the entire thing.
@@joeystuart2949 tbf, since I was running in PF2, stun works differently. It's not as accessible to players, bosses are more likely to save against it when it is, and stunned only reduces the actions the boss can take based on the stun value, instead of completely negating their turn.
Since monsters don't have opportunity attacks by default in PF2, it also made it easier to move around.
For 5e, specifically Zee's way of running it with legendary actions, I'd say stuns and forced movement are fine for solving that, though I'd also say that OA's are disable when it's priming a telegraph. But stuns are kinda badly handled in 5e (and makes monks kinda gimmicky).
@@Zedrinbot Plus on top of that, if stunning strike fails, they're now directly in front of the attack. I'd also probably add something to stronger charge attacks that they have advantage on saving throws if I wanted to counter that, kinda like superarmor, however have them autofail dodge based saving throws and if I'm feeling generous, lower their armor class/make them get advantage to being hit... or just convert them into a different type like Strength or Constitution if you wanted to make them really imposing.
Ive already planned on doing this with dragon breath weapons. Each time the dragon regains their charge of breath weapon, make it very evident that the dragon is taking a deep breath, and is facing one specific direction (either one specifically annoying character or randomly rolled with dice), giving the impression that anyone in that same direction should probably skedadle or at the very least employ the dodge action. This is also very important to allow players to utilise protective spells and resources, because what happens too often in DnD is that you cast protection from energy but either the enemy just doesn't hit you (either missing or focusing on someone else), you shielded the wrong type of energy, or spent the spell slot on a fireball that is more rewarding in general.
Our DM used FFXIV style telegraphed AoEs as the layer actions for the final boss fight of one of our campaigns. It added an extra layer of movement strategy instead of just the normal run up and deal big damage. It was one of the most unique fights I have ever had in D&D and it was a lot of fun! I highly recommend.
Clerics Adjust.
Now I want a FFXIV tabletop game.
@@dracoslayer16 while not exactly what you're asking for, there is a full thorough homebrew for dnd5e for every race and job in ffxiv, that you could definitely work with
I've thought of using telegraphed mechanics similar to this, but it never occured to me to use legendary actions for the wind-up and resolution. This is ingenious.
I will definitively be trying this mechanic in the next session. If the players respond well to it, I will be incorporating it into my boss fights from now on.
Love this idea so much.
I love doing this! Combined with locational and limb damage impacting big monsters (severed limbs, blinding, etc), it allows for a lot more nuanced combat and evolving strategies, as well as great opportunities for storytelling and roleplay beyond "the monster is hurt." I definitely don't recommend doing this with more than 3 monsters at a tine since you still have a game to run, but certainly wherever you can manage. Also, great video as always
Telegraphing has definitely been one of those things I have liked the idea of, but was always hesitant on doing, because I would be worried about people perceiving it as too 'video gamey', but seeing you explain it really made it seem a lot more dynamic than I had imagined, especially with the various examples. Its honestly pretty cool to see what small changes and do mechanically, but also cinematically to the general game.
Reminds me of spells like Moonbeam that trigger at the start of the creature’s turn. Lead to fun “GET DOWN” moments to save the party’s doppelgänger from being revealed.
I do this with dragons breath weapon. One round of wind up and when it goes off, it does max damage.
Combine this with claw attacks that can auto grapple and you can see the fear in the party as the dragon grabs their fighter and prepares to roast them specifically.
Okay Auto Grapple plus an Auto-hit breath weapon is too much, especially if you're also doing Max damage. The Grapple is already gonna be hard to do against a FREAKING DRAGON, let alone get the fighter out of before the end of the next player's Turn. Because even the lowest CR Adult Dragon, the Adult Brass, has a breath weapon that can deal 78 damage. You're gonna at best melt the fighter's health and at worst knock them unconscious. And if you are doing the wind up thing, then why is your dragon spending 4 legendary actions or it's turn, and 3 legendary actions to grab 1 person in particular and roast them alive when it could just fly around and roast the party when it swoops in close? That party member had better be really, REALLY valuable and really really stupid to NOT get grabbed by the dragon that's eyeing them up like a corndog.
Hmm so how does that run?
Dragon winds up it's breath at initiative 20 like a lair action then fires it at the bottom of the round?
Does he still take his action? Legendary actions?
@@Phourc for the breath weapon, the dragon spends the action on its turn to breath in and prepare the attack. It can spend legendary actions as normal but if it moved, I would count it's grapple as immediately over. Then, on the dragon's turn on the next round, the breath goes off. Just to make sure that everyone gets a chance to help.
@@thedragonknight3600 different strokes. It could very well do all that on one round and then decide that someone in particular needs to die.
It's more about cinematics than tactical acuity.
"This would destroy the table"
Yes, I think perhaps it would! My players would totally try it anyway though 😂
Been doing this in my campaign for a year-ish now. I love this mechanic so much as it makes spacing very important and prevalent especially in boss encounters. Spread the word!
I absolutely love this! As an old souls player, this is a great way to run large aoe spells. Using other area control abilities, like a wall of fire, can help the BBEG make this more threatening.
I like this. I like it more if very occasionally the telegraph refers to one or two lesser used aoe attacks with a slightly altered style to remove some of the repetitiveness.
I think only if it’s a very different telegraph. If the players are left guessing which locations will be dangerous in a turn, the tactics become a lot muddier and a lot less fun.
I’ve been wanting to do something similar, making creatures with recharge attacks roll to regain them at the END of their turn instead of the start, and give a visual signal that they can use it again, like having an area on the dragon’s neck begin to glow.
I really want to start telegraphing things more and giving players more agency in combat so that it isn’t just a slapfest to see who goes down first.
I recently used the Fleecemane Lion from the Theros book, a CR3 creature with legendary actions. I loved it! Legendary actions shouldnt be limited to high CR monsters, because they improve the flow of bossfights at every level. If your players are going to fight a single, strong monster, try giving it one or two legendary actions!
That way it feels like a dynamic bossfight instead of the party stomping a helpless creature for 10 minutes until its the things turn again.
Make sure to balance it, though. If your bossmonster has multiattack, just use one of those attacks later as a legendary action. Or give the monster legendary actions that dont deal damage, but interact with players, like an Ogre picking up the fighter and tossing them at the wizard to throw both prone.
They actually do this in Fire emblem, where when a monster lands an attack on its turn, they wind up an AOE that can hit a 4x2 area, but in any direction, so the party has to maximize for who gets hit, whom the monster aggros on, and how the party is spaced. I like it a lot!
What I did was using a "complex trap" for an encounter, where on initiative 20 the device would light up and mark the areas of effect and on initiative 10 the effects would fire. (radiant damage in a cone, summon a small radiant elemental that blinds and does minor damage in an AoE)
But this one is good too, however it leaves little space to manouver I think.
Love your work, keep it up!
Imagine burning 2 legendary actions to attack once. You basically just reinvented true strike with a kind of fringe benefit.
I mean I mean just because it was short does not mean it wasn't high quality you have no idea how much of an impact your videos have on me and the groups that I play with thank you so much for all that you post
I'm very very interested in making my own almost monster hunter styled table top adventure and combat in this way has intrigued me greatly. But since every hunt in this game would include these telegraphed attacks, I fear there would be obvious, overpowered strategies that people can hold on to to move another player.
That might just be realism sneaking in. Hunters with D&D capabilities would naturally be much more adept at using friendly repositioning as part of their combat style. You could discuss this with your players and see if they'll agree to removing/limiting a lot of the movement spells and abilities, maybe compensating them with magical weapons to keep with the theme, or some other boon that would encourage the playstyle you're looking for like a tracking fly analog. Or you could accept that your hunting party has actual magic and embrace what a hunt looks like when you can dimension door in an S-AED, but that's just my personal preference lol.
Then don’t make whatever a boss is doing consistent with others. To me, a big part of this idea is the initial unpredictability. Make one dude cast a spell, another use a weapon. Heck, you could make it be lair actions that the BBEG causes.
@@fyshman152 Monster hunter is like a fighting game but you fight small kaiju. In the videogame, learning their signals and attack animations and dodging in and out to do damage is the main combat mechanic, like Darksouls.
So the problem isn't keeping the attack patterns varied, it's preventing the party from figuring out a cheese maneuver that works against all telegraphed attacks because every meaningful fight will be against them.
what is not necessarily a bad thing, I'm sure the player will feel super clever for figuring out a way to cheese boss mechanics... just like monster hunter. you can also have the bosses use different kinds of attack to force the players to adapt and memorize mechanics, like for example the boss will use a line AOE in front of him, but then the line will explode and damage adjacent tiles the next turn, but then if the boss charges a similar attack but with a different color, it will do the same thing but the inverse.
@@danilooliveira6580 i somewhat like this middle ground take on it, being telegraphed attacks with a degree of randomness to each. The type of cheese that i dont want is for a creature to repeatedly run into a wall because the flow chart the DM uses is flawed. I feel that especially early game monsters who cant use crazy ass energy blasts or huge AOE attacks will be troublesome to find a way to keep players out of their comfort zone.
I really like the idea and have been loving more of the animated spell book
I came up with this idea while making home brew one-shots (since they’re the best format for these experimental grey area rule changes) and every time I’ve loved it. It just gives the player so much agency in what they want to do, and truly develops a collaborative essence in the party as they best try to deal with this threat. Telegraphed events in combat are reminiscent of MMORPG boss raids, which I really enjoy because the main problem in that genre is that the boss has to be repeatedly grinded making the attacks stale and boring after awhile, but in D&D each boss is unique in the sense that the setting around it is always changing. Really love that you made a video highlighting this home brew.
Zee… Thank you. 1. For your comedic addition to my day, and 2. For the wonderful ways in which you teach me to further scare my players. Good luck with the move!
Best part of the week
Fr fr
Cool Idea! I might use it for my next homebrew build...
Mhm this is something I actually use!
Bosses have an Initiative 0 Legendary Turn that can be used to:
• Attempt to shake off some effect or dispel some constraint
• Perform an Attack
• Change stance
• Load a "Legendary Power"
Alongside custom buffs to the "Help" Action and a rule that rolling a nat20 on a "Helped" Roll gives BOTH characters Inspiration, oh my goodness these three elements combined have blessed me with such unique combat with so much flashy collaboration
Yo, just wanted to say that these little shorts miiiiiiight have saved entire campaigns for me, so keep up the good work, Zee, really helpful, even the small stuff
Ps. The cultists procession was one of the best d&d vids ever, totally hilarious
Woooo
You could also have something like "AC in excess of X gives you some DR" so armor isn't simply trivialized.
"DR"?
@@youtubeuniversity3638 Damage Resistance / Reduction, it reduces damage
@@youtubeuniversity3638 damage reduction, I think. So X being between 8 to 15, for every point the player AC is above it, you reduce 1 point of damage.
Im glad I wasnt the only one whos done AoE attacks like this! I made my multi-year campaign final boss do a lot of ‘odd’ aoe legendary actions like this and the players got super creative with it, they loved it and made it feel more dynamic!
"Papa just moved" is gonna live rent free in my head and I will forever call him Papa now
I've been wondering how to best do telegraphed attacks in dnd for a while cause its such a "video game boss staple" that I wanted to replicate it somehow and this seems like a great way to do it. The wind up lasting every party members turn always seemed too easily avoidable and this is a good way to fix that.
I think you used the wrong account for this comment pal
@@darkmatterpancake9824 It's a bot, most likely. Bots like these copy other people's comments on the page. This one copied one of mine. As for the likes, either they're also bot-generated, or there are guys who "like" any post whose profile images look a certain way.
I'm glad to see that someone has come up with a similar idea to what I had. It's a really cool idea for fights and creates an amazing sense of uniqueness for your bosses. Maybe don't use it for every boss fight, but pull it out for bosses that you want the players to remember.
I've been racking my brains lately for a way to have truly massive creatures be somewhat interesting, both to sell the large lumbering and hard hitting, while not having it just "big damage lol". And this is *Perfect* for me, thank you so much Zee!
I learned about your channel a few days ago. I like it so much, I think I binged just about every video you've uploaded. This is my first "new video" so I'm excited. Thanks for the awesome content. It's already positively impacted my group's campaign. Cheers!
This is an interesting idea. Feels like bit of a cheap shot to have the boss do the swing that's meant to be 'step out of this' when a player doesn't have the ability to get out of said aoe since action economy is a thing. Still its an interesting idea as previously stated, and one I might use in my games in the future
Shoves exist as an option, but yeah - it's a lot of pressure on whoever's up next!
@@Phourc Am wondering if it’d be worth it to even try to get another player out of the way, unless you can do it in a bonus action or they’re going to die from it.
It encourages a riskier playstyle where characters might save some of their movement, since 5e lets you move, attack, and move again if you still have speed left. Obviously there's no way to know if a boss is going to use their special attack before they start their wind-up, but that's the risk you run - risk an AoO, which has a chance of failure, or take the chance that the boss will charge up their auto-hit. Usually it's going to be worth the AoO - and once the boss has done one AoO, they can't do any more. You might also homebrew some escape options, magic items or spells or whatever, that can be used once per battle or so (maybe recharge on a 6 or something) as a reaction. Another option is to balance the auto-hit such that it doesn't do a *ton* of damage - I'd probably say it should do half of the average damage of the boss's most powerful normal attack, as a rule of thumb. If you want to roll it instead of just doing flat damage, that would be half the number or half the size of the dice, and also divide any flat damage added in half. If you want it to be more powerful, make it easier to avoid - charges for a round rather than just a turn, or something like that.
@@lonestarlibrarian1853 Yeah I think a system like that would only work if the hits are scarily big and the boss only had a limited number per round, meaning most of his damage could be mitigated by smart play while at least some players get a chance to attack.
I've been wondering how to implement something like this!
As I like player facing combat, you could easily implement this into that kind of system since the players already roll to avoid getting hit.
Here's some help for our Pathfinder 2E lovers out there:
Telegraphing an attack is a two-action activity, and consumes a reaction to use it. It's essentially the Ready action but it doesn't waste a whole turn. The reaction has the trigger of: A turn ends. Below are some more official looking writings about it.
Telegraph (Two Actions)
Traits: Concentrate, Visual
Requirements: Monster is not fatigued, grabbed, restrained, paralyzed, or stunned.
The monster prepares a devastating attack; choose an action this monster can take that has the Area of Effect or Attack traits. This activity gains the traits of that action, and the monster can then take the Release Area of Effect reaction or Release Attack reaction respectively.
Release Area of Effect (Reaction)
Traits: None (see Special)
Trigger: A turn other than the monster's ends.
The monster uses the action chosen when they Telegraphed the Area of Effect. Creatures in the area that fail their saving throw against the effect critically fail instead.
Special: This reaction has the traits of the action chosen when the monster Telegraphed the Area of Effect.
Release Attack (Reaction)
Traits: None (see Special)
Trigger: A turn other than the monster's ends.
The monster uses the action chosen when they Telegraphed the Attack. If the monster succeeds on this attack, it scores a critical success instead.
Special: This reaction has the traits of the action chosen when the monster Telegraphed the Attack.
This has been a very neat and entertaining series of shorts since the "season" started
"The boss performs a wind-up legendary action. You have until the boss' next turn to kill the boss or break their concentration before a party wipe."
Definitely feels like a mechanic translated from an RPG video game into the tabletop.
My man out here reinventing D&D 4E. It had some good, modern combat design and everyone seems to disregard all the lessons learned from that edition just because the critical reception was bad.
And as 4e in turn just renamed to Trigger and Boss actions the assortment of the randomly bullshit named monster traits that let them take FRA or standards as immediate or ready only bits (and the channeled spell series of .5), it cant be praised for it other than for streamlining (while often misusing, like oh so much content from 1st and 2nd mm and essentially majority of pre essentials DM side content).
I've been doing this with elements within the boss arena. An obelisk that emits beams in different directions each round, if you get caught in a beam, its damage. Meanwhile the boss has incredible strength but CANNOT opportunity attack. This makes for great fun as players run around the room making sure the tiles they're on are safe, and kiting the boss. Lots of fun innovation to be had with telegraphed unavoidable attacks.
anything that forces your players to think ahead and/or creatively is an improvement in my book
seriously though why are youtubers always moving
DnD is a framework, that we graft fun stuff onto for unique stories. Political intrigue, homebrew religions, black powder and clockwork monstrosities don't come in the manual; but they're what make games memorable.
Love this sort of homebrew mechanical thing; definitely do more of it in the future as the ideas come to you, no worries bout whether it's purist DnD or not!
Oh man, one of those ideas you get a little mad with because you didn't think of it sooner. Love it, definitely using it.
Right on the money. Telegraphed attacks work very well. It works very well, and makes certain actions that you never think of, like dash, VERY valuable. Suddenly, the dwarf that's a combat powerhouse is sweating bullets.
I’ve been doing something similar. A different spin on it legendary actions that wind up at the start of a player’s turn, and take effect at the end of the same turn.
At the start of a player’s turn, the boss telegraphs a type of attack. E.g. the giant spider might rear back, ready to chomp with its fangs. Or quickly spins a small net of web. The player then has their turn and decides whether or not to move out of the way, and at the end of the turn the spider strikes or throws the net based on what was broadcast.
A variation also includes the boss changing the conditions of the battlefield at the start of the player’s turn. E.g. at the start of an archer’s turn, the spider boss might leap right up to them, or it might spin a wall of web that gives it cover. Something for the player to react to that requires them to re-evaluate their turn.
I love that you covered this. I did something with a similar stratgegy with Demogorgan in the Out Of The Abyss adventure, as he gets a LA every turn after the players. Using his ominous tail slam for a swing with advantage [over autohit AOE]. It made the players a bit more scared..
You know, I've always been a big proponent of utilizing the movement and non-attack actions more dynamically in combat. This is a marvelous method to help 'reward' that sort of thing.
I really like this type of mechanic in video games like XCom and other turn based tactic games were you can get things to focus on one player that hurt them the most last round etc.
Knowing what's coming and having limited options to do anything about it in time made those moments super tense. And fun.
I like it. It's never a bad idea to incorporate out-of-the-box stuff like this. Especially because most players are going to understand the concept fairly well as it's a familiar video game trpe.
Oh I love that!
I'm currently "writing" (as in collecting) all Homebrew ideas and flavour changes in one little place. (Like bringing all the Ranger fixes I like together in a rewritten Ranger, that is less of a mess)
And I will definetly add that one!
I've been doing these for a while now and we love em. Gives the players a lot more to do and think about.
Great idea! As always, love the vid. Congrats on moving, which for us kicks off years of finding buried boxes. Our house is like a dungeon crawl for months afterwards. Have fun with that!
Had a great time with my DM when they described an enemy reeling back their staff and chanting at the end of our rogues turn, the day after this video came out. "So uh Chris. You watch Zee Bashew or Somethin'?"
A neat idea, would be cool to see in some games to add a bit of flavor, even if it does gameify it a bit. Hope the move goes well Zee! Thanks for bringing out these wonderfully animated, humorous and even education animated spell books the past couple of years! Can't wait for next season, haha
1:20 Have no fear, have no fear! Zigzag the grand vizier is here!
An amazing twist for a game. I do love coming up with great ideas using other peoples brains.
I always called that maneuver "Telegraphing Your Moves Like a Drunken Toddler", I also use it for hazards, puzzles, traps and even mysteries.
STEP ONE: Setup an obvious hazard.
STEP TWO: Add a bunch of clues indicating that the obvious hazard.
STEP THREE: Pretend like you are not aware of how obvious you have been.
STEP FOUR: When they come up with an obvious solution to deal with your obvious hazard, pretend like your surprised at their genius, and throw them some inspiration points.
STEP FIVE: Watch them high five and fist bump each other for their clever thinking.
Its dumb, but it works like a charm
Ur videos are among very few that keep me wanting to run dnd games... Been playing since a month before 5e dropped and have been fed up since 2019.
But this idea feels worth it to stick around a bit longer.
My previous DM used this a couple of times in his campaign, it changed the dynamic of the fights in cool ways. I'm a fan.
Homebrew Legendary actions.
Simple, effective, and lets the party think of combat in a new way that is super easy to grasp.
Nice. :)
That is an absolute brilliant idea, makes huge and gigantic creatures really feel their size as the distances and energy into each blow really show. Plus it gives them something to do with legendary actions that has player interactivity (always a good thing) and rewards clever placing and baiting as you have players move into range and bait attacks so only one gets hit instead of many.
Cant believe i didn't think of this...good luck on the move see you when you get back.
LOVE YOUR CONTENT!!!! The humor, the animation, the scripting (or sometimes the ad libbing) are all on point!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE continue!!!
Man, that’s actually pretty cool. You could even use this on deadly moves that you want your players to know is something they SHOULDN’T try to face tank, like at the end of its turn a dragon billowing fire into its mouth and setting up the cone. This sadly doesn’t work if you play without a map (yes we exist, and yes it is in fact torture at times but it usually works out), but for the most part it’s really cool! Might have to start making battle maps to implement this
I think this a great way of using the legendary actions that take more than one action to do.
I love cool homebrew. I’d personally never mind if you wanted to do more of these short videos on homebrew ideas you have, maybe not even ones you tested to get a sense of how they’d work.
1:01 Had to rewind, I did NOT see that coming 😄👌. Also, loved the little dance at the end, enjoy the new place 👍
When I see this I remember Giffyglyph's monster guide, the guy had a similar idea for boss monsters where certain attacks can be made under certain conditions and wind up attacks, real cool!
Thanks for moving and getting into a hopefully nice place to continue showing your awesome and fun animations
Definitely going to incorporate this for spellcaster bosses. Sounds like it'll make the attack feel much more impactful than using a spell the players have seen before.
Running Waterdeep Dragonheist I let the ”bossfight” room in Xanathar’s Guild Hideout in Chapter 1 be a room where they safely used to burn dangerous sever gas buildups. So every other turn one side of the room gas would start building up, and torching it in the next turn. Players loved it!
Hey! I've been doing this one for a while, and love it! As long as you're cautious with what the abilities do I think it works great. I hadn't tried auto-hit tbh, just made them high-chance to hit and high-damage/effect. Big success for it so far.
I really like this idea! It is intuitive, clear and can still pose a challenge
Had a DM that did something like this in a fight, only it wasn't as simple as "a big boss". It was a group effort from the "little guys".
We were attacking a fort full of Gnolls, and a ways into the fight while we were fighting their BIG GUY we noticed a bunch of them up on the wall were all picking to hold their actions. Once about 5 of them had all done this, a 6th one took an action to "give an order" to target a location and for any of us in said location, DEX save for half damage as it was pelted with a volley of arrows.
We stopped largely ignoring the little guys after that.
It might not feel particularly on-brand for D&D, but this is basically the way monsters do *everything* in Kingdom Death, and it's pretty amazing.
Ayyy, love KD. Fond memories of wandering out into the acid rain 3 times in a row till we got acid hands.
I love making an environment more interactive, especially for boss fights
Wow, that's quite elegant! I've wanted to add something to this effect for a long time. Tested a lot of stuff, but somehow something so simple never occurred to me.
I like this a lot. I can see how you could start tweaking this to be really fun fun and crazy. My immediate though is this should be how dragons breath works.
I played a ton of games like battletech, aerotech and star fleet battles on the table top growing up and facing and range was a very important aspect of those games. It has always carried over to d&d when figurines were available. The last thing you ever wanted to do was be in range when whomever you were fighting could bring every weapon to bear and target a single area critically damaging or destroying it and often ending the combat in single turn.
love the homebrew stuff because it is so intertwined with creativity
That gave me some inspiration for an upcoming boss. A mass of undead bones and flesh melded into a giant entity, flailing around and warping the demiplane it resides in with the waving of its hundreds of hands. Big AoE cubes of spacetime being abruptly crushed, torn, and deleted.
very cool idea for those who pay with miniatures. I was never interested in playing with them, but I can see the value here. great presentation, love the art!
I did this quite a few years back in a campaign. They were fighting in a volcano and the boss would fracture the floor, revealing lava below when it attacked. I always did like fun arenas more than the bosses themselves.
I love these! Love most of your homebrew ideas
I've been running some bosses kinda like this for years, and it can add some unique dynamics to certain encounters.
One of my favorite wind up legendary attacks is one where the only way to avoid it is to get either right next to the boss, or very far away. Basically a ring AOE around it, and you make it so the boss is *very* good at killing players who get too close. Basically keeps them back unless they think they can avoid whatever comes next.
In a game I was DMing, my players had to use an altar to perform a ritual that lowered the water level of a bay in order to access a hidden temple beneath the sea. In doing so, they ended up trapping a legendary great white shark, a massive beast with a harpoon lodged in one eye, hence his name, Ol' One Eye. He would attack by winding up much like you described, and then launching himself out of the pool he was trapped in like a rocket, doing insane damage to anything that remained in his path of attack, and would then flop himself back into the shallows to repeat the maneuver. My players quickly figured out how it worked, and began baiting him into easy positions for them to immediately deal attacks by being just inches out of the attack zone.
Great fight, had a lot of fun with that one. The best part was after the fight was over I got to congratulate them for surviving a close encounter with the DMs one eyed monster. The audible groans over voice chat were worth it.
This video was super cool! You’re an inspiration and videos like these make me wanna DM again after experiencing heavy burnout.
I always try to make encounters have some reason to be ran on a mat with miniatures. What I mean is that some encounters are very simple like it's just the party in a blank room of a dungeon with a few enemies, and encounters like those are so simple that they can just be run with theater of the mind. But I hate running encounters with theater of the mind so I design my encounters to have a reason for being mapped out and your idea of telegraphed legendary attacks is a great way to add that extra complexity to an encounter and give it a reason to be run on a map.