@@wolf_from_beyond8282 I dunno he kinda lives rent-free in my head as the "silly little guy" creator. I'm sure there's a few gremlins in the phonebook Logan could call up.
Krakens are born looking like normal squids, except bigger. But they often change their bodies using magic to get new weapons and tools, which is why the one in the monster manual looks like that. They would be absolutely down to modify themselves to get legendary resistances and stronger attacks.
Fun fact; catfish and electric eels are related, so instead of having the kraken summon lightning from the ether, just have it generate it either in it's catfish form, or explain it away as it have the eel's physiology
Most knife fish, which include electric eels, are electric to some degree, as well as some rays and stargazers as well. So you've got a couple species of catfish, knife fish, rays, and stargazers to pull from. I'd go with a stargazer, slap some tentacles on one of those and make it 100 times larger and you basically have the picture from the monster manual.
That reminds me of Hydrus from Shadow of the Colossus, a gigantic electric eel! Give it some range on its electric attacks and it could be a kraken form. I miss playing that game.
One option I've looked at is having a secondary creature that buffs the Kracken and supplies it the lighting it needs. Think of Sharks and Remora. You could have the Kracken as the Shark and the secondary as the Remora. They would using their electrical skill to remove dead skin, parasites and such from the Kracken. Then the Kracken then stores the energy and discharges it in a form that looks like lightning. You could also have someone in party or town that knows if they want to find a Kracken, they need to look for the secondary.
For all that krakens aren't and could be, I will never forget the time I ran a kraken boss fight for my party. Specifically because one of my players, a Storm Giant Soul Sorcerer, rolled really well in her initiative and decided to go all-out with a 5th-level lightning bolt (it was the highest level she could muster at the time). She pulled out all the stops, including the Empowered Spell metamagic and her homebrew item that boosts her lightning spells. I got to describe, in glorious detail, as the super-charged lightning bolt struck the titan head-on... and dispersed harmlessly across its leathery, slimy skin, as krakens are immune to lightning damage.
Storm giant pc Let that sink in Storm giant player charchter Sure why not Just let the party be formed by also an ancient gold dragon and a solar Or why not a titan at this point There is home brew rules and there is insane ridicolous things done for laughing That is ok But if you play your campaign as dm seriously and you let your player choose as race the strongest non epic level giant in the entire game you are doing it wrong It is not epic It is just laughable
For all you and I know that's a custom subclass or they awkwardly worded it being a goliath storm sorcerer, let people do whatever they want to do m8 @@tripleh327
@@tripleh327 no such thing as playing the game wrong , as long as people are having a good time, u playin right. Also I think they're talking about a Giant Soul sorcerer, UA subclass that lets you draw power from certain giant lineages, (i,e storm)
@@christ297-x5j nope There are wrong way to play the game Especially when you left the party do insane things and basically left them derail any kind of structure of the story You can play a campaign for fun where you give the players any kind of stupid liberty like being a gold dragon But that are for shit and giggles Nothing to be proud or boast about on the net DND is a game of choice and liberty But is also a game About structure storytelling and rules I played since childhood with my Friends and every single successful campaign I ever participate in was one where the dm actually follow the suggested rules Deviation and home brew is ok only in little doses Making a katana not an exotic weapon in your game? Homebrew yeah but with minimal impact and easy to balance Letting your pc using monster races like storm giants or dragons? Recipe for turning your campaign in a fantasy power trip. There is a reason why we don’t see player monster The reason is balance Monster races are so powerful that they completely destroy any kind of balance or encounter difficulty They trivialize most of the mundane challenges that the party might encounter like closed doors walls to climb river to cross etc And they absolutely destroy challange rating Forcing the dm to literally toss a bunch of dragons onto the party to make the encounter last more than 2 turns Yeah the manual suggest a level adjustement( that in many cases is like +8 or more) but also stress the fact that letting of mister be a thing is at high risk of derailing the entire campaign If you are an extremely good dm you can do it Sure But in 25 years of playing dnd I never saw anything remotely successful down the path of “ letting your pc chose to be literal dragons” I agree with point of if they are having fun is a good thing But having fun is one thing Having fun and managing a succesful campaign and boasting it exploit in the net is another Also divine soul sorcerers derive their powers form otherworldly or divine bloodline (given their nature as mixed holy and arcane casters) Giants are not extraplanar (otherworldly) or divine Storm giants have some arcane powers related to thunder and lighting but they are not divine being that can grant divine magic So it matters little if it is a literal giant with that class or some other species with a giant bloodline in both cases it should not be a thing without heavy homebrew And the more you homebrew the less anything you describe of the fear of your campaign have meaning or sound impressive
I recently revealed a mile-long Kraken to my players. Its teeth are each twice their height. If all goes to plan, they will be killing it with a railgun. If they go off-course, they may instead kill it with a Dragonator.
@@marcogenovesi8570magical railgun , like in my world there is something called a magical accelerator wich doubles whatever spell is casted into it and the longer it is the more times its doubled and the further range it has for example hand held versions which are about a meter and a half multiply the spells by 4 but the largest that exists is one placed whithin a gigantic dwarven war golem which is a kilometer long that thing can turn a fire bolt into a lvl 20 meteor swarm
Nooooooo you forgot the most awesome and badass aspect of Krakens: THEY MODIFY THEIR BODIES!! They are not only titans of the sea, they are friggin cyborgs. Just imagine what underwater or ancient empires they could have plundered for magitech! Imagine a kraken with mounted railguns and instead of white T-Cells, they have warforged fending off intruders entering their bodies. The inside could look like a cyberpunk dungeon, ffs!
@@finderfinder4290it was also mentioned in 'Lords of Madness' a 3e supplement about aberrations. Mostly focused on Aboleths (kraken discussed under their minions section but get way more attention than any other minion does), Beholder's and Mindflayers
@@Ziek2006 FR. I've been scrolling through comments and no one else read the list. 3 of the entries alone have two nukes missing a'piece. That's 9 nukes missing 😂
2:00 "They saw the biggest, most horrifying creature in existance" As a Guy with both Thalassophobia and Cetaphobia (Whale-Phobia) I relate to that Moment on a primordial level.
New head cannon, krakens are biological interstellar ships that empirical mind flayers used to concor worlds, and are now chilling at the bottom of the ocean until someone gets into their control unit and flies them out
what terrifies me about krakens is their feasibility in relation to something called "deep sea gigantism" since atmospheric oceanic pressure per cubic foot gets pretty crazy pretty quick, animals circumvent being crushed by equalizing the pressure in their bodies with the pressure of the environment around them leading some animals to grow to up to kilometers long. a squid is generally a much more complex organism than what is usually found in the deep sea however but due to studies conducted in the sea of cortez it is theorized that at least certain species of squid megafauna may still exist in certain parts of the world with some rare footage suggesting that some could grow to over 50 feet long and beyond
7:49 regional effect allows Kraken to make a storm "The kraken can alter the weather at will in a 6-mile radius centered on its lair. The effect is identical to the control weather spell." - MM, p. 197
I had my players take shelter on the kraken/leviathan Arixmethes in a Theros campaign, thinking they were an island. The campaign ended before they figured out why all the buildings & ruins were covered in seaweed, barnacles, and crabs. I feel like one aspect of the kraken that's overlooked would be it's ability to push PCs underwater. Make a DC=25 Strength check or get pushed 5d10 feet underwater after getting hit with an attack. And then 5d10 force damage if they swim up too fast, because the Bends are BRUTAL.
Another great example of a Kraken breaking molds is the Sea Emperor Leviathan of Subnautica. It isn't interested in destruction in as much as it is curious of other life forms and communicating telepathically to "play" with other beings, going so far as to exude enzymes that cause all predatory lifeforms to become docile and non-aggressive.
I know “At the beginning of time” and the like is just lazy writing, but as I DM I’ve found a solution: When my players started questioning a wizard NPC about it, he just told them that time is a fairly new phenomenon. It’s been around since the beginning of time, but only in a few plans and only after a lot of shit went down. Since then, I’ve played it like time is something that occasionally happens to planes and the Feywild is one of those planes that it didn’t fit into all that well. One of my players likes to have a few watches on them and has a habit of offering them to extra planer creatures and asking them if they’re interested in a Time Share. Now instead of being a thing that gets my players off track, it’s another detail that’s engaging them.
@@LordCrate-du8zm Basically, a lot of lore places monsters and races before the beginning of time. I basically just added to my campaign’s lore that time just isn’t a thing in most places. The Astral Plane already doesn’t have time. So, in my lore, when the Material Plane was created, time was created with it. Since the Material Plane, and therefore time, had a distinct beginning, everything before that beginning was “before the beginning of time”. A lot of things happened before the beginning of time, but all those things were in an un-aging eternal state where beginning and end were indistinguishable from each other. After the formation of the Material Plane, time made its way into the other planes. Since comparably less stuff has happened since time was introduced, I like to tell my players that time is a “recent” thing. Recent because it would take a very long time for all the stuff that happened before time to occur if they had to occur in sequence.
The material plane came into existence in my dms world cause of everything going to hell in a hand basket, and it is the only thing keeping everything stable as it's the center of reality itself and if it falls everything else falls with it, time is the material planes first thing it made and so it just exist within the matrial plane well until the feywild and its anti counterpart took some of it and didnt realize how big of a mistake that was and now a lot of reality is having a collective panic attack cause of time, being who knew no end now have time which has a beginning and so a end, ironicly this plays into the material planes hands as the technical owners is humanity and who ever the god of humanity was who has long sense disappeared, i think my favorite part of this is how owner ship of planes work, owner ship of a plane means if the owner dies the plane goes with it and anything connected to that plane normally just flouts around until it either reconnects or is connected to another thing, not the matrial plane like i said if it goes everyone else and thing goes with it, if humanity goes everyone else goes hence why so many gods and demons and just nasty things are intrested in man, they want to keep existing and so they need both man and the material plane (known to some of the younger races as the plane of creation and destruction) alive and well hence why the interdimensional slave market is so filled with man though this also comes at the cost of humanity not surviving long outside their plane if forcfully taken away from as their souls will kill the body slowly or fast and so the slave market whilst over saturated with humans they are also incredibly valuable and highly coveted sense well humans could do basically anything, also the material plane is also the key to the lady of pains true form and she fears its living embodiment.... dont ask why we haven't found the scroll or whatever that explains why
My players did the kraken nuke thing not too long ago in my campaign I had a boss fight planned with a kraken but they just polymorphed it into a pig and tied it up on their ship. They then sailed over to a blockade of enemy ships and launched the pig out of a cannon at them. One of my players trickshotted it in midair (bc taking damage causes it to change back) so a kraken just appears in the air over the ships and falls on top of them and destroys them while they sailed away as fast as they could. Love that you brought up that same idea in this video, great minds think alike
an idea I've had for a while is an adventure where the heroes have been taken down into a cave by a kraken to be its slaves, and they have to figure out how to escape a deep undersea cave. you have to deal with the high pressure, drowning, skum or other fishmen jailers, maybe even prisoners who revere the kraken as a god, and finally the kraken itself.
Idea for a campaign: You're charged a god to track down and slay six lost Krakens, each of which is modelled after one of the US's lost nukes. Get deep into what we know about how each one was lost and turn it into Fantasy lore.
At our table, we've had a Kraken fight relatively recently, though it was balanced for a level 5 party and... Let's just say unusual in design, considering it looked like a massive white whale with big eyes all over its body and more fins than the average cetacean. It controlled the storm around us to a degree, with a lot of its boss actions involving calling lightning bolts, generating great winds or making waves, and at least one of its attacks caused skulls to burst out of our rogue's leg for a moment (a few sessions earlier we also fought a giant crab with skulls in its eyes, which I think may have been foreshadowing). We fought it on a ship, so most of the damage came from cannons, and also me, the barbarian, jumping on top of it to hit it in the blowhole, which also had an eye on it. I also took most of the damage in that fight and got KO'd three times, but I feel like it was either that or a TPK. It took two entire sessions for us to defeat it, cause it got a second wind once its HP got to zero. Gotta tell ya, that was the coolest boss we've had so far.
This idea is so much fun and I'm loving the videos I've seen on this so far. You've inspired me to put out a video on my own channel for the Marvel Multiverse RPG!
Awesome! I want to thank you for making this type of content. It inspired me to try out D&D a few years ago and I still play it weekly. Have a great day!
Kraken's also have a 22 intelligence. They should have great tactics. And something I would absolutely do if I ever run a kraken is make it a high level wizard
I think a fight against a kraken would be best as a fight against its tentacles, not the beast itself. Like instead of trying to kill it, you have to get it to flee and not attack your boat anymore.
I think krakens thematically or better served when they're not actually monsters, but more actual hazards.... Like in the classic scenario Salvage Operation (either the 4E version, or the 5e version in Ghosts of Saltmarsh), which has the giant octopus attack the ship. Obviously there's ways to damage and delay the octopus, but ultimately the goal isn't to kill it, is to get away from the thing that it's destroying. I don't know, it just seems like the kind of monster that is better suited treated as a environmental hazard more so than an actual beast that can be killed.
Remember, the US lost 6 nukes. We have no idea how many the Soviets lost, because they never told us about it. For all we know they lost 100... but probably not that many or something would have exploded by now.
I've heard enough baffling stories about the Soviet air forces to believe it was probably more than 6. We're talking about the same guys who lost 16 admirals and generals in one plane crash.
When Ukraine turned over their nukes after the USSR broke up (incidentally that agreement was contingent on the USA and NATO pledging to defend their borders) they found at least 21 missing from their inventory. Even more terrifying, they only had about 20 of the Soviet's arsenal. Meaning if that's representative then there's 100+ unaccounted for..
Dont worry unlike how show and movies show it nukes are highly senstive as in one thing goes wrong and suddenly you got a highly radioactive and heavy paper weight
The Terrasque has spikes on it's back, a biological way for animals to protect themselves of predators (An example of which is the porcupine), of which proves the existance of something that eats them. And i believe that this video shows the EXACT monstrosity that would eat a Terrasque.
My players encountered a Kraken a few months ago in their naval campaign. Some of the players were salvaging a few wrecks, when one of them noticed an enormous presence moving around outside the wreck. He attempted to communicate with it, but only served to annoy it, causing the Kraken to dart for the surface to attack their ship with the remaining party members unaware of the threat. That player happened to be a Cleric and have Word of Recall (and a shrine he built to his goddess on the ship), so he teleported himself and one other player to the ship to warn the others. Most of them started to prepare the cannons, etc, but the Druid player just stood by the railing waiting for the Kraken to emerge. As the Kraken emerged and the fight was about to begin, the Druid cast polymorph on said Kraken... And that was the moment I discovered that despite being a Legendary monster with Legendary Actions, Krakens dont get Legendary Resistances... So my beautiful, calamity-bringing Kraken, was reduced to a goldfish. Which the Drakewarden in the party promptly scooped up, and flew over to the nearby island with an active volcano
One of the modules I ran had a "cutscene" ship chase with a Kraken. The Ranger tried to reason with it. It responded with a psionic threat of maiming. In another five levels or so I might have them neet that one Kraken again and have it go, _"You"_
5:00 If my math and reading comprehension skills are up to par, that's 6 *instances* of losing a nuke, but the writing itself totals to 9 missing nukes. One in Tybee, Two in North Carolina, One off the Aircraft carrier in the pacific, and the misc 5 missing in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific waters listed after.
The collab is a really cool idea. I'm not sure how far the oceanic theme can go even when only done once a year. It could be nice to try a new theme every year. Just my thought.
I was just waiting for you to cut to the Puffin Forrest bit about his party polymorphing a Kraken into a Cat. The other interesting thing to note about Krakens is that they actually have a pretty great assortment of associated NPC statblocks for use as minions and lesser boss fights en route to the climax- the CR5 Kraken Priest from volo's is a certified banger, and its big brother is the CR17 Storm Herald in Bigby's, which is essentially a Storm Giant that became a Kraken Priest, and is fucking terrifying.
wish I had known about this celebration earlier... as my party are supposed to play this upcoming Sunday but they are in a landlocked city, not hitting the open waters for several more sessions.
Some issues I'm having with D&D 5e monsters: > They are squishy and easy to hit. Namely because oh how AC scaling works and because the rules removed resistance and immunity levels. > Lots of times their damage is pitiful. Actually when I check the guidelines for monster CR and look at some of the monsters in the CR range I'm planning my monster into, I get confused. > Epic bosses and action economy. Action economy is really broken, partially because most attacks that aren't magic are single target attacks. So a gargantuan Kraken smashing down it's 20.000 pound tentacle on the players? Hits one target. Same with dragons and the like. So what I'm thinking of is: + legendary resistances + Legendary actions + Tentacles are their own entities the Kraken controls. + Attacks turned into AoE + Defebsice bodyparts, so for instance charapace with it's own HP that gives the creature damage treshold and / or AC. All damage that doesn't hit the treshold is taken by the charapace unless the charapace is targeted specifically in which case even damage that does hit the treshold damages it. Reducing it's health to 0 breaks it and lowers AC appropriately.
Alternatively, the Tromokratis is a neat addition from the Mythic Odyssey of Theros book that gives us a Kraken with more HP, an interesting gimmick where you have to kill its multiple hearts, Legendary Resists, and Spell Resistance with its Carapace, and other neat stuff. I really suggest looking into that instead of a standard Kraken.
I think the best way to run a Kraken fight in D&D would be to treat the base stats as the stats of the main body, then give it 8-10 tentacle "minions" that the party has to defeat before the main body appears, and maybe give it phases where it retreats after damage is taken and spawns more tentacles. Treat it like a video game boss fight, maybe put a timer on it where if the party doesn't defeat the tentacles quickly, the ship starts taking damage as the Kraken eats it from below.
My fix to kraken is what I call Sharknado. The fix is simple - when it throws something, it's not random, but targeted - it makes a roll to hit a target. Now, the sharknado part: its shark minions swim next to the kraken and hold action to attack a creature that comes in range. On the kraken's turn, and 3 times after other creatures' turns, it throws a shark at an opponent. If the shark hits the target, both take damage from the fling. Now the shark is in range of a creature, so it gets its held-action attack! And if the target is knocked prone and/or if the shark has blood frenzy, the shark's attack is with advantage! Though, I definitely like the idea of giving it legendary resistance, too.
The original Clash of the Titans is one of my favorite movies. Ray Harryhausen was a god of animation. Stop motion Medusa lit by flickering candlelight is more impressive than any CG you'll ever see.
Where did anyone get the idea that lightning damage underwater hits everybody? The only damage type that has any environmental interaction is Fire. Anything else is table homebrew.
I run kraken as essentially a group of tentacles, each with their own attack, hp etc. the main body stays out of sight and if you kill all the tentacles it’s not dead, just decides your not worth it.
The legendary resistance rant makes me so sad at how much the book relies on legendary resistance to account for player bullshitery instead of actually interesting counterplay
Fun facts: It's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, not 2,000 (easy enough mistake to make) There have actually been roughly half a dozen of them, the earliest being 1907 (not a typo), but the 1957 Disney one that you cite is, by far the best. Krakens have traditionally, from the golden age of sailing onward, mostly been thought to be some larger form of giant squid. Sadly - or mercifully - giant squid tend not to come anywhere near the surface (not an hospitable environment for them) and get no longer than 60 feet (18m). And that's based on extrapolations from beaks found in whale tummies, the largest actual recorded one is not even 40 feet (12m), tops. However, there were two remarkably similar reports of a giant squid roughly 200 feet (60m) long. Both were reported by navy sailors on ships at anchor away from shore. One was a British sailer during WWI and the other was from an American Sailor in the 1990s. There's no good explanation why both reports would be nearly identical, which does lend them *some* credence. But, sadly, (or, again, perhaps mercifully) it's far more likely that it's a coincidence or the later guy somehow heard the story of the WWII guy. Giant squid have the largest eyes of any known animal. Also, it is apparently the law that one must compare them to basketballs or dinner plates. Nothing else. I've never seen them compared to soccer balls or volleyballs or frisbees. Always basketballs or dinner plates.
REgional effects: the kraken can alter the weather at will in a 6-mile radius centered on its lair. Tadaaa lighting. Also i dont get the porten die with 9 or below. Polymoprh is wisdom save Witha lvl 7 party member having a Spell save DC of 8+3+4/5 (15/16) depending on scores. that requires a roll of 3 or lower by the kraken with a wisdom save of +11. All that kraken doesnt have is high Dexsterity which can EASILY be changed. Additionally it can create cover for itself and fight in water.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I changed my mind I want the little goblin back
Best Logan can do is a level 1 gnome druid.
You had your chance
@@wolf_from_beyond8282 I dunno he kinda lives rent-free in my head as the "silly little guy" creator. I'm sure there's a few gremlins in the phonebook Logan could call up.
😂
Krakens are born looking like normal squids, except bigger. But they often change their bodies using magic to get new weapons and tools, which is why the one in the monster manual looks like that. They would be absolutely down to modify themselves to get legendary resistances and stronger attacks.
Or keep the attacks as they are but 3-5x the hp of it. A creature this massive should have more hp IMO
I'd love to see a collection of artworks of Krakens with various different forms for different environments and lifestyles
That i really interesting, I’ve never heard of that before, what sourcebook is that from?
Don't they try and modify away their ability to reproduce because male Krakens die immediately after the conjugal act?
@@finderfinder4290 ruclips.net/video/lDN_nGcQg7M/видео.htmlsi=HG1-rK70qNz0kB7l
The description provides sources
Fun fact; catfish and electric eels are related, so instead of having the kraken summon lightning from the ether, just have it generate it either in it's catfish form, or explain it away as it have the eel's physiology
Most knife fish, which include electric eels, are electric to some degree, as well as some rays and stargazers as well. So you've got a couple species of catfish, knife fish, rays, and stargazers to pull from. I'd go with a stargazer, slap some tentacles on one of those and make it 100 times larger and you basically have the picture from the monster manual.
So what I’m hearing is that me being a Stormherald Barbarian makes sense
That reminds me of Hydrus from Shadow of the Colossus, a gigantic electric eel! Give it some range on its electric attacks and it could be a kraken form. I miss playing that game.
One option I've looked at is having a secondary creature that buffs the Kracken and supplies it the lighting it needs. Think of Sharks and Remora. You could have the Kracken as the Shark and the secondary as the Remora. They would using their electrical skill to remove dead skin, parasites and such from the Kracken. Then the Kracken then stores the energy and discharges it in a form that looks like lightning.
You could also have someone in party or town that knows if they want to find a Kracken, they need to look for the secondary.
Electric catfish exist, they aren’t as powerful as the eels but they aren’t as big either
"Swimming in the ocean? Are you crazy! DO YOU KNOW WHAT LIVES DOWN THERE !!!" - something i heard way to many times both irl and in game
oh, Australian waters....
For all that krakens aren't and could be, I will never forget the time I ran a kraken boss fight for my party. Specifically because one of my players, a Storm Giant Soul Sorcerer, rolled really well in her initiative and decided to go all-out with a 5th-level lightning bolt (it was the highest level she could muster at the time). She pulled out all the stops, including the Empowered Spell metamagic and her homebrew item that boosts her lightning spells.
I got to describe, in glorious detail, as the super-charged lightning bolt struck the titan head-on... and dispersed harmlessly across its leathery, slimy skin, as krakens are immune to lightning damage.
Well that's one way to make an impression.
Storm giant pc
Let that sink in
Storm giant player charchter
Sure why not
Just let the party be formed by also an ancient gold dragon and a solar
Or why not a titan at this point
There is home brew rules and there is insane ridicolous things done for laughing
That is ok
But if you play your campaign as dm seriously and you let your player choose as race the strongest non epic level giant in the entire game you are doing it wrong
It is not epic
It is just laughable
For all you and I know that's a custom subclass or they awkwardly worded it being a goliath storm sorcerer, let people do whatever they want to do m8 @@tripleh327
@@tripleh327 no such thing as playing the game wrong , as long as people are having a good time, u playin right. Also I think they're talking about a Giant Soul sorcerer, UA subclass that lets you draw power from certain giant lineages, (i,e storm)
@@christ297-x5j nope
There are wrong way to play the game
Especially when you left the party do insane things and basically left them derail any kind of structure of the story
You can play a campaign for fun where you give the players any kind of stupid liberty like being a gold dragon
But that are for shit and giggles
Nothing to be proud or boast about on the net
DND is a game of choice and liberty
But is also a game
About structure storytelling and rules
I played since childhood with my
Friends and every single successful campaign I ever participate in was one where the dm actually follow the suggested rules
Deviation and home brew is ok only in little doses
Making a katana not an exotic weapon in your game?
Homebrew yeah but with minimal impact and easy to balance
Letting your pc using monster races like storm giants or dragons?
Recipe for turning your campaign in a fantasy power trip.
There is a reason why we don’t see player monster
The reason is balance
Monster races are so powerful that they completely destroy any kind of balance or encounter difficulty
They trivialize most of the mundane challenges that the party might encounter like closed doors walls to climb river to cross etc
And they absolutely destroy challange rating
Forcing the dm to literally toss a bunch of dragons onto the party to make the encounter last more than 2 turns
Yeah the manual suggest a level adjustement( that in many cases is like +8 or more) but also stress the fact that letting of mister be a thing is at high risk of derailing the entire campaign
If you are an extremely good dm you can do it
Sure
But in 25 years of playing dnd I never saw anything remotely successful down the path of “ letting your pc chose to be literal dragons”
I agree with point of if they are having fun is a good thing
But having fun is one thing
Having fun and managing a succesful campaign and boasting it exploit in the net is another
Also divine soul sorcerers derive their powers form otherworldly or divine bloodline (given their nature as mixed holy and arcane casters)
Giants are not extraplanar (otherworldly) or divine
Storm giants have some arcane powers related to thunder and lighting but they are not divine being that can grant divine magic
So it matters little if it is a literal giant with that class or some other species with a giant bloodline
in both cases it should not be a thing without heavy homebrew
And the more you homebrew the less anything you describe of the fear of your campaign have meaning or sound impressive
I recently revealed a mile-long Kraken to my players. Its teeth are each twice their height.
If all goes to plan, they will be killing it with a railgun. If they go off-course, they may instead kill it with a Dragonator.
ah the railgun, classic fantasy weapon
WHERE'S THE DRAGONATOR!?
@@marcogenovesi8570magical railgun , like in my world there is something called a magical accelerator wich doubles whatever spell is casted into it and the longer it is the more times its doubled and the further range it has for example hand held versions which are about a meter and a half multiply the spells by 4 but the largest that exists is one placed whithin a gigantic dwarven war golem which is a kilometer long that thing can turn a fire bolt into a lvl 20 meteor swarm
Nobody tell the kraken about the big red self-destruct button every -inator has.
@@marcogenovesi8570 at least it's not a peasant railgun. Instant rock's fall.
Nooooooo you forgot the most awesome and badass aspect of Krakens: THEY MODIFY THEIR BODIES!!
They are not only titans of the sea, they are friggin cyborgs. Just imagine what underwater or ancient empires they could have plundered for magitech! Imagine a kraken with mounted railguns and instead of white T-Cells, they have warforged fending off intruders entering their bodies. The inside could look like a cyberpunk dungeon, ffs!
Wow, that is really cool, did not know that, what sourcebook is that from?
@@finderfinder4290 Look up What They Don't Tell You About Krakens - D&D by MrRhexx!
@@finderfinder4290 9:00 in What They Don't Tell You About Krakens - D&D
@@monkeibusiness thank you, apparently the source that person got their lore from was Dragon 334, ecology of the kraken
@@finderfinder4290it was also mentioned in 'Lords of Madness' a 3e supplement about aberrations. Mostly focused on Aboleths (kraken discussed under their minions section but get way more attention than any other minion does), Beholder's and Mindflayers
8:20 Actualy, all krakens naturaly look like giant squids but because its inconvenient they learn flesh magic to customize themselfs.
I like the idea of a level 9 wizard polymorphing a kraken into a kitten putting it in a bag of holding and gifting it to a noble.
7:08 6 lost nukes that we know of several more are speculated
sounds like we have the workings of a Godzilla rip-off film series featuring 6+ radioactive baddies
6 Incidents. 9 total missing on that list.
@@Ziek2006 FR. I've been scrolling through comments and no one else read the list. 3 of the entries alone have two nukes missing a'piece. That's 9 nukes missing 😂
2:00 "They saw the biggest, most horrifying creature in existance"
As a Guy with both Thalassophobia and Cetaphobia (Whale-Phobia) I relate to that Moment on a primordial level.
The blunt line up of cathulu, the sea kraken, and a terask would be crazy
Eldest of Kraken, Ancientest of Red Dragons, and the Terrasque walk in to a bar…
@@ChilleBruhthe fucking dino chiken then eats everything and kills a few gods
New head cannon, krakens are biological interstellar ships that empirical mind flayers used to concor worlds, and are now chilling at the bottom of the ocean until someone gets into their control unit and flies them out
I hate how much I love this.
'canon' and 'conquer'
what terrifies me about krakens is their feasibility in relation to something called "deep sea gigantism"
since atmospheric oceanic pressure per cubic foot gets pretty crazy pretty quick, animals circumvent being crushed by equalizing the pressure in their bodies with the pressure of the environment around them leading some animals to grow to up to kilometers long.
a squid is generally a much more complex organism than what is usually found in the deep sea however but due to studies conducted in the sea of cortez it is theorized that at least certain species of squid megafauna may still exist in certain parts of the world with some rare footage suggesting that some could grow to over 50 feet long and beyond
7:49 regional effect allows Kraken to make a storm
"The kraken can alter the weather at will in a 6-mile radius centered on its lair. The effect is identical to the control weather spell." - MM, p. 197
A kraken video with pointy hat and dnd shorts?! This will be good.
I had my players take shelter on the kraken/leviathan Arixmethes in a Theros campaign, thinking they were an island. The campaign ended before they figured out why all the buildings & ruins were covered in seaweed, barnacles, and crabs.
I feel like one aspect of the kraken that's overlooked would be it's ability to push PCs underwater. Make a DC=25 Strength check or get pushed 5d10 feet underwater after getting hit with an attack. And then 5d10 force damage if they swim up too fast, because the Bends are BRUTAL.
Another great example of a Kraken breaking molds is the Sea Emperor Leviathan of Subnautica. It isn't interested in destruction in as much as it is curious of other life forms and communicating telepathically to "play" with other beings, going so far as to exude enzymes that cause all predatory lifeforms to become docile and non-aggressive.
I know “At the beginning of time” and the like is just lazy writing, but as I DM I’ve found a solution: When my players started questioning a wizard NPC about it, he just told them that time is a fairly new phenomenon. It’s been around since the beginning of time, but only in a few plans and only after a lot of shit went down. Since then, I’ve played it like time is something that occasionally happens to planes and the Feywild is one of those planes that it didn’t fit into all that well. One of my players likes to have a few watches on them and has a habit of offering them to extra planer creatures and asking them if they’re interested in a Time Share. Now instead of being a thing that gets my players off track, it’s another detail that’s engaging them.
Explain this. I’m confused.
@@LordCrate-du8zm Basically, a lot of lore places monsters and races before the beginning of time. I basically just added to my campaign’s lore that time just isn’t a thing in most places. The Astral Plane already doesn’t have time. So, in my lore, when the Material Plane was created, time was created with it. Since the Material Plane, and therefore time, had a distinct beginning, everything before that beginning was “before the beginning of time”. A lot of things happened before the beginning of time, but all those things were in an un-aging eternal state where beginning and end were indistinguishable from each other. After the formation of the Material Plane, time made its way into the other planes. Since comparably less stuff has happened since time was introduced, I like to tell my players that time is a “recent” thing. Recent because it would take a very long time for all the stuff that happened before time to occur if they had to occur in sequence.
@@throwaway2931 I see. Thanks!
The material plane came into existence in my dms world cause of everything going to hell in a hand basket, and it is the only thing keeping everything stable as it's the center of reality itself and if it falls everything else falls with it, time is the material planes first thing it made and so it just exist within the matrial plane well until the feywild and its anti counterpart took some of it and didnt realize how big of a mistake that was and now a lot of reality is having a collective panic attack cause of time, being who knew no end now have time which has a beginning and so a end, ironicly this plays into the material planes hands as the technical owners is humanity and who ever the god of humanity was who has long sense disappeared, i think my favorite part of this is how owner ship of planes work, owner ship of a plane means if the owner dies the plane goes with it and anything connected to that plane normally just flouts around until it either reconnects or is connected to another thing, not the matrial plane like i said if it goes everyone else and thing goes with it, if humanity goes everyone else goes hence why so many gods and demons and just nasty things are intrested in man, they want to keep existing and so they need both man and the material plane (known to some of the younger races as the plane of creation and destruction) alive and well hence why the interdimensional slave market is so filled with man though this also comes at the cost of humanity not surviving long outside their plane if forcfully taken away from as their souls will kill the body slowly or fast and so the slave market whilst over saturated with humans they are also incredibly valuable and highly coveted sense well humans could do basically anything, also the material plane is also the key to the lady of pains true form and she fears its living embodiment.... dont ask why we haven't found the scroll or whatever that explains why
My players did the kraken nuke thing not too long ago in my campaign
I had a boss fight planned with a kraken but they just polymorphed it into a pig and tied it up on their ship. They then sailed over to a blockade of enemy ships and launched the pig out of a cannon at them. One of my players trickshotted it in midair (bc taking damage causes it to change back) so a kraken just appears in the air over the ships and falls on top of them and destroys them while they sailed away as fast as they could. Love that you brought up that same idea in this video, great minds think alike
an idea I've had for a while is an adventure where the heroes have been taken down into a cave by a kraken to be its slaves, and they have to figure out how to escape a deep undersea cave. you have to deal with the high pressure, drowning, skum or other fishmen jailers, maybe even prisoners who revere the kraken as a god, and finally the kraken itself.
Idea for a campaign: You're charged a god to track down and slay six lost Krakens, each of which is modelled after one of the US's lost nukes. Get deep into what we know about how each one was lost and turn it into Fantasy lore.
U mean charged by or u charged a god?
I've got family out in Tybee. Crazy all the times I've visited there was a dormant Kraken out in those waters.
At our table, we've had a Kraken fight relatively recently, though it was balanced for a level 5 party and... Let's just say unusual in design, considering it looked like a massive white whale with big eyes all over its body and more fins than the average cetacean. It controlled the storm around us to a degree, with a lot of its boss actions involving calling lightning bolts, generating great winds or making waves, and at least one of its attacks caused skulls to burst out of our rogue's leg for a moment (a few sessions earlier we also fought a giant crab with skulls in its eyes, which I think may have been foreshadowing). We fought it on a ship, so most of the damage came from cannons, and also me, the barbarian, jumping on top of it to hit it in the blowhole, which also had an eye on it. I also took most of the damage in that fight and got KO'd three times, but I feel like it was either that or a TPK. It took two entire sessions for us to defeat it, cause it got a second wind once its HP got to zero.
Gotta tell ya, that was the coolest boss we've had so far.
Fun fact the “kraken” from clash of the titans is actually an individual monster named Cetus who’s name is the root word for cetacean.
This idea is so much fun and I'm loving the videos I've seen on this so far. You've inspired me to put out a video on my own channel for the Marvel Multiverse RPG!
Awesome! I want to thank you for making this type of content. It inspired me to try out D&D a few years ago and I still play it weekly.
Have a great day!
Kraken's also have a 22 intelligence. They should have great tactics. And something I would absolutely do if I ever run a kraken is make it a high level wizard
There's a 20th lvl Wizard Kraken in the Forgotten Realms!
Found your channel through kraken week! Now I'm subscribed because wow! Great video!
I think a fight against a kraken would be best as a fight against its tentacles, not the beast itself. Like instead of trying to kill it, you have to get it to flee and not attack your boat anymore.
5 years later and you are still hilarious
Living at the same time as such a mad lad is truly a divine blessing
I think krakens thematically or better served when they're not actually monsters, but more actual hazards.... Like in the classic scenario Salvage Operation (either the 4E version, or the 5e version in Ghosts of Saltmarsh), which has the giant octopus attack the ship. Obviously there's ways to damage and delay the octopus, but ultimately the goal isn't to kill it, is to get away from the thing that it's destroying.
I don't know, it just seems like the kind of monster that is better suited treated as a environmental hazard more so than an actual beast that can be killed.
4:12 I've been getting into One Piece recently too, just finished Marineford and the brainrot is real
Remember, the US lost 6 nukes. We have no idea how many the Soviets lost, because they never told us about it. For all we know they lost 100... but probably not that many or something would have exploded by now.
I've heard enough baffling stories about the Soviet air forces to believe it was probably more than 6. We're talking about the same guys who lost 16 admirals and generals in one plane crash.
When Ukraine turned over their nukes after the USSR broke up (incidentally that agreement was contingent on the USA and NATO pledging to defend their borders) they found at least 21 missing from their inventory. Even more terrifying, they only had about 20 of the Soviet's arsenal. Meaning if that's representative then there's 100+ unaccounted for..
Dont worry unlike how show and movies show it nukes are highly senstive as in one thing goes wrong and suddenly you got a highly radioactive and heavy paper weight
That's a cool history of krakens, thank you for the video
All the three of my favorite D&D channels in one video? F*ck yeah!
Got here from the pointy hat portal, was entertained. Gj
Release the kraken! 🦑
"Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!"
Thanks for the Kraken week content.
The Terrasque has spikes on it's back, a biological way for animals to protect themselves of predators (An example of which is the porcupine), of which proves the existance of something that eats them. And i believe that this video shows the EXACT monstrosity that would eat a Terrasque.
The continuity between this video and the Hat’s 👌🏻
My players encountered a Kraken a few months ago in their naval campaign. Some of the players were salvaging a few wrecks, when one of them noticed an enormous presence moving around outside the wreck. He attempted to communicate with it, but only served to annoy it, causing the Kraken to dart for the surface to attack their ship with the remaining party members unaware of the threat.
That player happened to be a Cleric and have Word of Recall (and a shrine he built to his goddess on the ship), so he teleported himself and one other player to the ship to warn the others. Most of them started to prepare the cannons, etc, but the Druid player just stood by the railing waiting for the Kraken to emerge.
As the Kraken emerged and the fight was about to begin, the Druid cast polymorph on said Kraken... And that was the moment I discovered that despite being a Legendary monster with Legendary Actions, Krakens dont get Legendary Resistances... So my beautiful, calamity-bringing Kraken, was reduced to a goldfish. Which the Drakewarden in the party promptly scooped up, and flew over to the nearby island with an active volcano
One of the modules I ran had a "cutscene" ship chase with a Kraken. The Ranger tried to reason with it. It responded with a psionic threat of maiming. In another five levels or so I might have them neet that one Kraken again and have it go, _"You"_
Honestly, the kraken is the sort of thing that’s a mythical danger to the common person but reasonably dangerous, but not some BBEG to a party
1/2 mile monsters! Whoa! Also, glug, glug, glug. Happy Kraken week!
I wondered "whose dndshorts? And then I saw him and went "goddammit beanie and beard man I thought I was finally rid of you"
Whelp time to use a kraken next session.🦑
5:00
If my math and reading comprehension skills are up to par, that's 6 *instances* of losing a nuke, but the writing itself totals to 9 missing nukes. One in Tybee, Two in North Carolina, One off the Aircraft carrier in the pacific, and the misc 5 missing in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific waters listed after.
Glow-down. You had that Shaggy Rizz going, man
The collab is a really cool idea. I'm not sure how far the oceanic theme can go even when only done once a year. It could be nice to try a new theme every year. Just my thought.
I recently just fought one of these with a party and barely managed to get out alive, cant wait to see this when it premieres
I was just waiting for you to cut to the Puffin Forrest bit about his party polymorphing a Kraken into a Cat.
The other interesting thing to note about Krakens is that they actually have a pretty great assortment of associated NPC statblocks for use as minions and lesser boss fights en route to the climax- the CR5 Kraken Priest from volo's is a certified banger, and its big brother is the CR17 Storm Herald in Bigby's, which is essentially a Storm Giant that became a Kraken Priest, and is fucking terrifying.
Please cast Silence on the hat if you ever plan on going anywhere near it again, thanks...
It's 9 bombs according to the text shown on screen. A few of the options says 2 bombs lost instead of one... unless the last 3 items are a summary.
I had a Kraken fight a party once. The monk stun locked it and the fight was pretty much over.
I sincerly love your vids
wish I had known about this celebration earlier... as my party are supposed to play this upcoming Sunday but they are in a landlocked city, not hitting the open waters for several more sessions.
Some issues I'm having with D&D 5e monsters:
> They are squishy and easy to hit. Namely because oh how AC scaling works and because the rules removed resistance and immunity levels.
> Lots of times their damage is pitiful. Actually when I check the guidelines for monster CR and look at some of the monsters in the CR range I'm planning my monster into, I get confused.
> Epic bosses and action economy. Action economy is really broken, partially because most attacks that aren't magic are single target attacks. So a gargantuan Kraken smashing down it's 20.000 pound tentacle on the players? Hits one target. Same with dragons and the like.
So what I'm thinking of is:
+ legendary resistances
+ Legendary actions
+ Tentacles are their own entities the Kraken controls.
+ Attacks turned into AoE
+ Defebsice bodyparts, so for instance charapace with it's own HP that gives the creature damage treshold and / or AC. All damage that doesn't hit the treshold is taken by the charapace unless the charapace is targeted specifically in which case even damage that does hit the treshold damages it. Reducing it's health to 0 breaks it and lowers AC appropriately.
HOLY SHIT THE LORE ACTUALLY TIES IN
Crazy right
Krakens being able to look like an impossibly large version of any kind of invertebrate sea creature is such a cool concept.
8:18 So you're telling me that, theoretically, I could throw in a Nakarkos and call it a kraken, and not be wrong?
Alternatively, the Tromokratis is a neat addition from the Mythic Odyssey of Theros book that gives us a Kraken with more HP, an interesting gimmick where you have to kill its multiple hearts, Legendary Resists, and Spell Resistance with its Carapace, and other neat stuff. I really suggest looking into that instead of a standard Kraken.
Boss boss boss! You're my favorite character in Elynthi I feel bad this is your first video I've watched but I'll be going thru the backlog
"And we're back in the Kracken..."
Not gonna lie... I snickered a little at that one.
5 nukes now, one was found powering a dude in Floridas house from what I heard
Pointy Hat on some Bill Cypher shit
Fr
If you want to use a scary Kraken, whip Tromokratis from Theros
I think the best way to run a Kraken fight in D&D would be to treat the base stats as the stats of the main body, then give it 8-10 tentacle "minions" that the party has to defeat before the main body appears, and maybe give it phases where it retreats after damage is taken and spawns more tentacles. Treat it like a video game boss fight, maybe put a timer on it where if the party doesn't defeat the tentacles quickly, the ship starts taking damage as the Kraken eats it from below.
DON'T. GET. ON .THE. BOAT.
This is my new favorite week!!!
According to Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, younger krakens look like squids. Also, previous editions of D&D portrayed them as squids.
I would never forget about Sinbad, its like my third favorite animated movie
3.5 krakens were MVPs
6:30 ever been around a damp kitten? They're very, very sharp.
My fix to kraken is what I call Sharknado. The fix is simple - when it throws something, it's not random, but targeted - it makes a roll to hit a target. Now, the sharknado part: its shark minions swim next to the kraken and hold action to attack a creature that comes in range. On the kraken's turn, and 3 times after other creatures' turns, it throws a shark at an opponent. If the shark hits the target, both take damage from the fling. Now the shark is in range of a creature, so it gets its held-action attack! And if the target is knocked prone and/or if the shark has blood frenzy, the shark's attack is with advantage! Though, I definitely like the idea of giving it legendary resistance, too.
Bless the RuneSmith
I like krakens
My players did the polymorph trick then took it to a friendly Medusa to petrify it. It's currently a little stone rabbit in her collection.
Ah yes, the tried and true 5e method. "Give it a generic any-time-use nuh uh! Ability." Flawless.
I'm not sure if I got too high before watching this or not high enough 😆
This came out on my Birthday
Don't compare yourself to Pointy Hat, Logan. In the time you've provided a fun and interesting video he's still getting to the ad read.
The original Clash of the Titans is one of my favorite movies. Ray Harryhausen was a god of animation. Stop motion Medusa lit by flickering candlelight is more impressive than any CG you'll ever see.
5:00 -insert metal gear reference here-
Kraken week would explain my Subscriptions page...
I'm guessing he's made a new book.
Where did anyone get the idea that lightning damage underwater hits everybody? The only damage type that has any environmental interaction is Fire. Anything else is table homebrew.
bruh, I am just now finding out about Kraken week but ran a Kraken-centered plotline for the last month lmao
I think massive monsters should have damage thresholds like is seen on some vehicles
I run kraken as essentially a group of tentacles, each with their own attack, hp etc. the main body stays out of sight and if you kill all the tentacles it’s not dead, just decides your not worth it.
Kraken ink is a necessary ingredient in making magical ink for writing scrolls.
Aww, should've had DndShorts pitch his Ryoko's rules for kaiju as a Kraken fix.
The legendary resistance rant makes me so sad at how much the book relies on legendary resistance to account for player bullshitery instead of actually interesting counterplay
Kraken week!!! Woot woot
Honestly I feel like the Tarrasque should be scaled up that’s the kind of size I’d expect “a walking apocalypse” to look like
Fun facts:
It's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, not 2,000 (easy enough mistake to make)
There have actually been roughly half a dozen of them, the earliest being 1907 (not a typo), but the 1957 Disney one that you cite is, by far the best.
Krakens have traditionally, from the golden age of sailing onward, mostly been thought to be some larger form of giant squid. Sadly - or mercifully - giant squid tend not to come anywhere near the surface (not an hospitable environment for them) and get no longer than 60 feet (18m). And that's based on extrapolations from beaks found in whale tummies, the largest actual recorded one is not even 40 feet (12m), tops.
However, there were two remarkably similar reports of a giant squid roughly 200 feet (60m) long. Both were reported by navy sailors on ships at anchor away from shore. One was a British sailer during WWI and the other was from an American Sailor in the 1990s. There's no good explanation why both reports would be nearly identical, which does lend them *some* credence. But, sadly, (or, again, perhaps mercifully) it's far more likely that it's a coincidence or the later guy somehow heard the story of the WWII guy.
Giant squid have the largest eyes of any known animal. Also, it is apparently the law that one must compare them to basketballs or dinner plates. Nothing else. I've never seen them compared to soccer balls or volleyballs or frisbees. Always basketballs or dinner plates.
My preference with things that dumbhuge is treat it as terrain and slap statblocks on individual bits.
what a nice pointy hat
REgional effects: the kraken can alter the weather at will in a 6-mile radius centered on its lair. Tadaaa lighting.
Also i dont get the porten die with 9 or below. Polymoprh is wisdom save Witha lvl 7 party member having a Spell save DC of 8+3+4/5 (15/16) depending on scores. that requires a roll of 3 or lower by the kraken with a wisdom save of +11. All that kraken doesnt have is high Dexsterity which can EASILY be changed. Additionally it can create cover for itself and fight in water.
Kraken Week, woot!