Jacob: "Let's pretend you've come to my house and we're about to play d&d" Also Jacob: "Oh? Hey, I didn't see you there" Me: "Dude you invited me, we're already inside your house"
#1 After each long rest clerics and paladins roll a d8. On a 1 they get the shabbat effect. Players with shabbat have disadvantage on spell casting and opponents have advantage on saving throws against spells from players with shabbat. #2 Clerics and paladins with the orthodox feat roll a d4 instead for the shabbat effect. They have advantage/impose disadvantage on spells while not having the shabbat effect. They can't use any spells while having shabbat.
Honestly, the people who say “who are you” are so rude, like I’ve been in their house at least 50 times to eat their snacks and they have the audacity to say that.
rightt! and when you let them go on they say like "is that my t-shirt?" "why is there blood on my t-shirt?" "is that a gun?" like shit I thought this was gonna be fun you know
@@hugofontes5708 A bit of crazy plans and terrible rolls. She's also my first real D&D character, so she's the OPPOSITE of minmaxed. I took a 6 in Constitution for the "Roleplay Opportunities." It's been an absolute pleasure playing her for just those said opportunities, but sickly bards do tend to be, as I've coined, chronically dead. :D
Agreed. I would never be comfortable placing my characters fate into another person's hands in that sense. Because if they did die, I wouldn't feel as though they died as much as the other person killed them. Even if no fudge was involved, I would feel cheated of that character. There are other ways to produce suspense. Making a player who is already in a stressful situation unable to know their own self condition just makes it worse.
What you said about attuning to magic is interesting, and while I’m going to stick to normal rules for attunement, I’m gonna start making my players roleplay how their characters attune to magic items. Maybe the monk meditates, but the barbarian just screams at it for an hour.
I've always interpreted as either meditation for high WIS characters, study for high INT characters and martial practice for physical-focused characters.
Maybe it's just me, but I always interpreted it less as "the character is attuning to the item" than "the magic of the item is getting used to and attuning to the character". Magic items are weird, they have a mind of their own in some cases. Having to attune an item to you feels like an intermediate progression between "random magic item" and "sentient aware magical artifact". There's a will or some other "presence" there that becomes used to the character to let them use it. If that makes any sense.
i always saw attuning as a combination of essentially creating an account and fully understanding the enchantment so that you cant set it off accidentally or use it use it improperly for example a wand with a button could just be used by brute forcing the magical activation mechanism, but you'd have no idea how far it goes, how big the explosion is, how powerful it is, or if it self destructs after a number of uses. It's just not worth the potential risks and is about as dumb as drinking a mysterious vial of green liquid.
From the PHB: "Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a short rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can't be the same short rest used to learn the item's properties). This focus can take the form of weapon practice (for a weapon), meditation (for a wondrous item), or some other appropriate activity." I think I saw an interview with Crawford where he explained it's basically you spending an hour with the item, using it and getting used to it, testing it's limitations, working out what it can do. Like 'Ok so if I flourish the wand like this what does it... oh shit it casts fireball. Sorry party member resting by the campfire, I'm sure your eyebrows will grow back" kinda thing :)
A barbarian with the intelligence of a rock ( like grog) wouldnt know how to meditate. So that barbarian then wouldnt be able to attune to a wondrous item, since it requires meditation according to the PHB. I agree with Jacob on this, since most items that require attunement, have an extra ability that should come natural to the player using it ( not including things like boots of spiderclimbing). Just because it does an extra 1d8 cold damage or whatever, doesnt mean you have to meditate to unlock it. the weapon should just do that.
@@antrosatheant7036 which is still an arbritary amount of time. when it comes to immersion, it makes no sense to say that every attunable item, be it common or wondrous, takes an hour to attune to (even if the manner of attunement differs per item). it's a game mechanic that barely makes sense. and before you say " well otherwise you can just switch between epic items whenever you want", why not make a rule that says you cant attume during combat or you can only attune X amount of times per day.
@@jasaadduthane Because then you are just taking away one rule to add several more? IT may not be perfect, but at least it's efficient. And let's be real, how many short rests are more than just "we are gonna short rest" "okay" "we shall now continue exploring"
@@jasaadduthane Attunement shouldn't be a free action but what is wrong with letting people swap out items during combat or while exploring? My rule is attuning requires just one additional action beyond what would be necessary to don/doff the item. So if its a weapon - free action to draw it, action to attune it - if it is a piece of armour then it takes 5-10minutes to put it on then action to attune it. If it's a cloak/boots/jewellery etc.. then it's one action to put it on and a second action to attune it. And it goes both ways so swapping items between two players requires the first to spend an action to unattune it, an action to give it to another player and that other player has to spend an action to attune it. This actually makes the thief subclass cool because they can use a bonus action to attune an item.
Actually, doesn't seem that bad to me. Iirc, Usain Bolt's top speed was like 21-22 MPH (correct me if I'm wrong). Monks already get the ability to tap into their chi to do whacky stuff with their movements. It makes sense to me that they'd be able to imbue their legs with their energy or something to run faster.
One of my personal favorites is “Final Stand” as a variation on the Pathfinder rule. If damage results in you falling to EXACTLY 0 hp, you are placed in final stand. You fall prone (half speed) and on your turn, you can take either an action or movement. You cannot take both and doing so will cause 1 point of damage at the end of your turn, putting you in death saves, and you cannot stand up. It gives players a moment of desparation they can use to act before they fall unconscious and has created some great moments.
@@marshalltodt6805 Lol, literally. Extra time to maneuver, because you can't only physically turn and move in 4 cardinal directions. Extra time to 'explain' how one is flanking... Now extra time to roll, if the explanation was good enough. "I don't like war game D&D. It's too fast. But I want combat to be fast cause it's supposed to be,"
I'm late, but I think the "fast" is referring to the planning phase. He wants the game to be more about roleplay and less about crunching numbers. In that respect, the added rules make more sense.
Timestamps (click to see reasoning/explanation for each one): 1:46 intro (end of promo) 2:29 CHARACTER CREATION RULES 2:45 Homebrew/UA on approval of DM 3:09 HP gain per level: always roll instead of taking average. Reroll 1s. 3:30 Level 1 racial feats, depending on the campaign 3:48 Always variant encumbrance (PHB) 4:53 No Mystics, period 5:00 No evil characters unless the DM knows you can handle it 5:31 No secret characters: everyone knows everyone else's race/class/background 6:03 INT mod becomes "points" that add/remove skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, or languages; or spend three "points" to get one expertise 6:29 Milestones (DMG) 6:37 Alt. attunement: 1 action to attune, 10 minutes to un-attune 7:36 COMBAT RULES 7:40 Flanking skill checks. Meant to encourage more descriptive combat actions from players? 8:18 Diagonals (PHB), not the variant (DMG) 8:50 Bloodied for NPCs 8:57 Massive damage 9:41 Lingering injuries, can be as bad as loss of limb, eye, etc. 10:16 Secret death saves, rolled by DM, never fudged 11:22 DC 10 Medicine check on downed ally that acts as another death save. Healer feat and healer's kits still usable as normal 11:56 Sprint: forgo all non-movement actions in a turn to move 5x normal movement speed. Straight line only, provokes opportunity attacks, which are at advantage. Also usable by enemies. 13:08 Massive damage also applies to enemies, especially big/important ones. 13:31 "Cardic" Inspiration, replaces default Inspiration (PHB/DMG) 14:48 SPELL RULES 15:08 Healing Spirit (XGE): in-combat only 15:38 ROLEPLAYING RULES 15:39 Insight vs. Deception, when used by one player on another, has an outcome at the players' discretion 16:29 Discourage Insight as a lie detector 16:36 Letting players take narrative control 17:10 EXPLORING RULES 17:11 No "taking 20"? 17:48 STR/DEX/CON checks can be rerolled for a second attempt, but a blown INT roll means you don't know that information, so you can't reroll it 18:07 Must be proficient in a skill you are trying to Help another player with 18:23 Countercharm buff. Just cures the status instead of granting advantage. Paladins can do it? It's called 21 homebrew rules, but I count 29. But I was confused on a few things.
One rule that i put in every single one my games is that if a player wants to take the help action (this doesn't apply to familiars or bonded animals) they have to be able to justify it. For example, if a fighter wants to help the monk in combat they cant just say "I help the monk attack this guy" instead they have to come up with exactly what they are doing. Since the help action doesn't really come up often this usually doesn't matter, but it ALWAYS makes for a better narrative when it happens. My favorite example of this so far was when my player's fighter was disarmed and all they had was a shield. They knew the minotaur still had an opportunity attack and their weapon was out of reach so they took the help action. They called the monk's name and tapped their shield. The monk's turn was next and she jumped onto the fighter's shield while they boosted her up into the air. She leaped over the minotaur and got the benefit of the help action. She rolled a natural 2 and a natural 20. The minotaur was low and the attack ended up finishing him off. It was the single most fun turn of combat I've ever been a part of.
@@elgatochurro my players are almost always drama nerds. I know my table and I know they love cinematic combat. I'm not saying that this is a good rule for everyone, just that it makes our combat better
So i actually had a feind/tome warlock who grabbed find familiar as one of their rituals (i went tome over chain for not needing to sleep) and his familiar was a feindish owl who had an eye pattern at the end of each of her feathers. She aided on attacks and perc checks by being able to shut her owl eyes and open *all of her feather eyes* and transfering the knowledge of that sight to whomever's shoulder she sat on.
Ive only once played a “secret” character. But it was only the class that was secret. His name was Eric O’Clant who in-game believed he was a cleric but had actually accidentally maid a contract with an old forgotten great evil who pretended to be god. So it ended up fitting overall cause role play wise there was a sense that something was off but nobody else knew what. Sadly the campaign fell off early and nobody was able to release that Eric O’Clant was an anagram for not a cleric. :(
@@fanana6193 yeah I hope to find a campaign which he’ll fit in again because he was really interesting to rp and his class choices ended up being really interesting for combat too.
Hey I ran something super similar, though because wild magic she died, met the God who in the setting grew more powerful based on the number of followers and evil actions done and so offered her to be revived for taking a blood oath. You ever try and play a good character who has to become a cultist without a cult? It's a trip.
I was gonna play a secret changeling. Always in the form of an elf that was "really good at mimicry" and he would keep it secret due to his history of pursecution
I like the principle of secret death throws simply because it lets the DM fool around more. *rolls in secret, face turns sorrowful before slowly turning to look you in the eyes.* "Get back up, you're at 1."
My favorite home brew rule, is that every time a character is brought down to unconscious and then healed for a revive, they gain a stack of exhaustion. It's a punishment and makes it actually bad to go down
Mine is similar, when you get back up from 0 HP, you take a permanent, but healable, penalty to one random ability score. Say the blow that took you down hit you in the shoulder, your arm is weakened so you take a -2 to Strength until you have the fracture healed (either by a healer or a special potion). I should probably mention that this isn't for D&D or Pathfinder, so it's far harder to have that type of wound healed than just "lol cleric can you un-break my shoulder please?".
Ive played with this rule , it sucked when you get at 3 exhaustion would take 3 long rests to clear that up, in a dungeon crawl doing 5-6 encounters / long rest ... it just not how the game is meant to be played and seriously nerfs any frontline character
@@Binsto I have to be careful about difficulty with this rule. Get a feel for what players can reasonably take, and make it a good fight without killing them. Plus, exhaustion as a regular thing is likely to make players take restoration spells! Or perhaps short rests could remove exhaustion!
I do the same, but only with magical healing while they are still unstable. It forces the players to either stabilize the character first, find nonmagical healing, or take the point.
@@limboprime5926 Tell that to 22K likes. Variant encumberence can be fun and it feels more nitty-gritty and realistic to the characters physical strengths. Obviously a meat raging goliath barbarian can carry more than a anorexic weak bodied wizard.
@@philswiftdestroyerofworlds1988 This guy became popular because he screams haha funny and he whines. He's entitled to his opinions, but half of the shit he says he either contradicts himself or it doesn't make alot of sense. For example, he says he wants combat to be quick, but adds a special Flanking rule that increases the amount of dice rolled. Any mildly experienced DnD player knows just a regular fucking combat can take super long, adding more rules that add very little to the mechanical part of the game.
"Hello, I'm Dave. I'm a neutral evil Human. I will bring prosperity to humanity by exterminating the dwarves so we can take over their mines and forges and rapidly expand our industrial capacity. The elves must be purged so we can gain access to the vast lumber resources they've been monopolizing too. To do this I will upset diplomacy and foment quarrel between the races leading to all out war. To accomplish that, I must rule this kingdom. I am adventuring to gather capital for this. Let's go!"
@@themageofcontext7071 I think it was best described as wizards always feel frail at the beginning but then completely dominate the field with a lack of care for their health because of the spells they learn to protect and keep enemies from even closing in. If playing a wizard is always detrimental in combat I would assume its the dm acting based on stats rather than roleplay. Or your wizard keeps provoking every single attack, somehow.
Jacob: "Oh? Hey, I didn't see you there. So you wanna play Dungeons & Dragons?" Me: "Ummm... I'm a thief." Jacob: "Great! Did you bring your own dice? Otherwise you can borrow mine."
I am so confused now. I thought you were referring to a thief/burglar in real life but judging from your reply, it seems like you're referring to a rogue in the game.
With the Attunement, I've always considered it to be semi-passive, and is the character getting used to the item. Wizards or druids might meditate with a wand, a fighter would practice with a sword or a ranger takes practice shots with a bow.
@@ruenvedder5921 Same thing he'd do with the sword? My thought process was you'd do basically whatever would help you appropriately center yourself while concentrating on the item.
I used to be a hardcore "Roll hitpoints" DM but when we had a level 6 wizard with 20 hitpoints who died in one hit and walked out of the game, I relented to get him to come back because, yeah its a bit bullshit
override367 if you don’t mind me asking could you give some more details about that story of the 20 hit point wizard? I ask because i just started dm’ing and i’d love some advice.
Joseph LaBlanc wizards have to a roll a d6 for hitpoints, the lowest any class rolls, it makes wizards usually have very low hp without the ability to reroll or take average for a bit higher health. This results in higher end creatures being able to one-shot or two-shot them most of the time
Taking average hitpoints with no con for a wizard would land them at 21 hp at level 6. If he's complaining about having shit health, shouldn't have played a wizard then.
Therefore you always go mountain dwarf with +4 CON mod rolled. Get heavy armor whenever possible, don it, grab martial weapon, fizzle every second spell and bash the enemy with some 2hander for it. Also you get a beard.
I always imagined attunement to be like when you get a new prescription for eyeglasses. every time my prescription changes and I get new lenses, it takes me any where between an hour or a whole day for my eyes to adjust to the new correction, until then my vision is blurry. applying this to magic items, it takes a player character's body time to acclimatize and adjust to the innate magical aura of the item, having to get used to the item by having it near them, play in with it and staying near it to adjust to the magical aura that wasn't there before.
For my group the PC rolls death saving throws and only the dm and PC know the number, being that there character is out they are prohibited from voicing the results. It kinda gives off the same effect as Jacobs method and lets my players feel they are controlling there characters fate.
3 dice method is great. Player takes 3 dice, & DM secretly decides which color will be the actual roll - then player rolls all 3. "Oh no, a 1! But I also rolled a 12 & a 17..." DM smiles knowingly as he sits back down behind the screen...
I'm always in favour of the players having as much agency in their characters fates as possible. Even though death saving throws are literally just the luck of the roll, having the DM make them in secret would stress me out, in a not-good way.
I found the whole, dm rolls death saves from another dm, i cant remember where, but I tried it, like literally next session. I described it to my players, got their consent (always a must for me, I dont just throw rules at my players, they always have to agree) Same session one of them went down, I rolled the save, then moved on, my players freaked out, the whole mood shifted. Usually what would happen: player goes down, "Ok well, Ill finish guy X off, then when we have some time to clear I will go over and stabalize, assist, w/e." Player rolls, 18. "Oh sweet so your good then? nice." fight continues. This time? Player went down, parties entire strategy shifted, suddenly, this was important, suddenly, someones life was on the line and there was FEAR, urgency, and strategy. Also a homebrew I love, is the DMG's varient profieciency, where you roll a die, based on lvl, and add the result to your roll. there are still things where you need static, like passive perception. but it adds a sense of randomness, and makes it a bit more exciting for my players.
runesmith: Deck of many! Me: no Dingo: Deck of many! Me: no Puffin forest: Deck of many! Me: no All the D&D youtubers: DECK OF MANY! Me: no! XP2lvl3: Deck of many Me: on second thought
Seriously though, I ordered 2 decks with the Kickstarter, the cantrips and the Deck of Many Things. No joke, that has probably been my favorite thing to come out of Kickstarter. Just, the Deck of Many Things (Animated!) is so awesome, and I highly recommend it. Edit: The Cantrips deck (and the rest of the spells) are also awesome too, but they did such a good job with the Deck of Many Things that it's head and shoulders above the rest. The actual art, the animations, everything about it is so awesome.
My favourite little homebrew, recently added by my dm, has been to give my pc's dog companion expertise on insight checks for whether or not she likes someone (she gains levels as a sidekick). He now trusts his dog's judgement over his own or the party's - but I don't get told if the roll succeeded or failed. This has already led to us being betrayed by a corrupt city official who always managed to slip her treats, and another who helped us out because she was a dog person (rolled a nat 20 to assist my persuasion check with big puppy eyes). Thinking I should somehow train her to recognise and refuse bribes, or maybe get some kind of magical resistance against being charmed.
k so here's what you do, you can open the transcript of the video. remove the timestamps and then you have literally everything he said. I know it's kinda a jerky response, it's late but, really you can do that. it's like 8 seconds and boom you have your document. good luck.
"If you ever think a spell is rediculous, double-check if it's concentration!" ah, okay. *checks mirror image* hmmmmm... *checks blur* ... but... they're the same level...?
blur is typically more powerful. Especially for any sort of gish or medium/high AC builds. Mirror image is only preferable if your AC is so low that whatever is trying to hit you likely hit you with disadvantage anyways, and that only has one or 2 attacks at most to use on you. For a higher AC character you can easily go through all the images before any of those lost images wouldn't even have hit you in the first place.
@@Agarwaen mirror image is better I'd say, mostly because it doesn't require concentration and therefore is still useful at higher levels, but also it stacks with other effects that give enemies disadvantage.
@@luiswi Sorry, but you really need to understand how it works. While it doesn't take concentration, it only works to at most stop 3 attacks, and less or none if your AC is high enough to cause attacks that would easily take down a mirror image to have missed you (and mirror images are going to have low AC). At higher levels you're going to face monsters with more attacks even more often, further reducing the value of it. Thus it really is most useful for those with low AC who wants to avoid the odd attack coming their way, while being fairly unsuited for frontlining.
@@Agarwaen well but turning 3 hits into misses is actually quite good, at least when compared to blurr in my opinion. Blurr only imposes disadvantage which can be achieved by different abilities too and doesn't stack. When you're getting hit, there's a good chance that you'll loose concentration and most importantly, you cannot concentrate on anything else which is a huge downside. Mirror images doesn't turn you into a tank but it's actually pretty good because you just have to worry less about defense and with a decent AC they can last a couple of rounds which can be the entire combat. They also help protecting your concentration spell which is pretty important as mentioned.
@@luiswi Except again, you're assuming all those would have been hits, when the difference between your AC and your mirror images AC should be sizeable, and could be huge (for some it could easily be 10 points or more), meaning, as I keep having to restate, you can easily lose a mirror image to an attack that wouldn't have hit you in the first place. Mirror image has it's use, but it is in no way strictly better.
I just have one comment on the "no taking 20" rule. We allow taking 20, essentially if it is a check you can do over and over with no consequence until you hit a 20, using an hours as a thumb rule for how long it takes. So, you can search a room, meticulously turning over everything slowly and eventually find everything, but as you said, no casual re-rolling of knowledge checks.
Yeah that's an actual rule in Pathfinder; for a skill check that has no negative consequence for failure, that realistically you could keep trying until such point as you succeed, you can just take a 20 on it (though some DMs will just say it succeeded in such a case, unless there's some reason it matters specifically how well you succeeded). Like for opening a heavy door when it's assumed you're strong enough to eventually get it open, and there's no time pressure, I have a DM that won't even bother making the players roll if they have enough combined strength to eventually open it to save time. Two basic rules for (not) rolling skill checks: 1. If it's inevitable they'll succeed eventually, and there's no negative consequence for failure, just say they succeed and don't bother with the roll. 2. If it's impossible anyway, or the character attempting it can't possibly succeed, just say they fail and don't bother with the roll. Dice should only be rolled when it's necessary to resolve an uncertain outcome. If a given outcome is inevitable, just say it happens.
Okay, so as a Barbarian you roll a d20 strength check to break down a door, gets a 1 "welp guess that's the best I can do" so what are they supposed to do? Get the puny wizard to make a strength check? They'll almost certainly do better even with far worse stats. A d20 on a strength check is your instantaneous burst of strength, not "well this door magically caps my strength as 5% because my first attempt was at my lowest 5%" no, you just keep trying until you do your best. And if it takes a roll of 20 to do it why does everyone have to sit there watching until you get a 20?
If a dm tells me a spell can only be used in combat, I ask a party member to start fist fighting me so I can concentrate on my spell better. Makes sense to me
It doesn't even make sense to me in the first place. Healing spirit isn't that good of a spell. Healing Prayer is the same level of spell, and can do the entire healing of healing spirit per person on up to six people. And since we're out of combat, the long casting time isn't really a factor.
@@seigeengine That's because Healing Spirit was nerfed a few years ago. There used to be no limit on how many times it could heal, meaning that outside of combat everyone could just step in and out of the aura every 6 seconds = everyone would get healed for 10d6.
@@KJLock66 If that is his concern then in all honesty either his players are not using their abilities correctly or they are playing the wrong game for them and should look at another rule system or switching to 4th edition.
@@shadowsofdawn3871 i actually started on 4th edition, so i mean thats kinda cool. believe it or not, the fighting is absolutely grueling, so long, and you basically have to do the same cycle of things over and over, so much so, that you actually stop caring about adding cool dialogue to your attacks. you just want the fighting to be over with. (just my opinion, not sure if anybody else thinks it was like this but uh..)
Fast and interesting. Taking the idea of "Move with a purpose" to the game table for combat that is interesting but doesn't take longer than it need to.
Ignoring ones when rolling HP should be in the official rules. It brings the average roll to exactly the default (half a point higher than a straight roll).
Jacob: "I want combat to be fast-paced" Also Jacob: "I have a lot of rules for combat" Also, also Jacob: "I want players to be creative and describe what they do". You should play a session with my best friend. If he ever plays a wizard, his name will be Analysis Paralysis. That guy is awesome at tactics, but at the same time you need to indicate the pressure of the combat situation
I got a new sword and spent the day playing with it. Just kind of going through different guards and swings, and just kind of bonding with it. That's in real life! I really did attune to my new sword in real life! You've probably had a similar experience with a new shiny you were excited about.
My medicine check homebrew rule for unconscious PCs is different. Anything below a 10 is no effect. 10 or higher is one success for the unconscious PC. 15 or higher is stabilized but still unconscious. Nat 20 is awake with 1 hp. Nat 1 is a failure.
This is better because otherwise it isn't worth it unless you have high medicine, because if you do fail then you might kill them before the healer can do something.
In the mid 80's my friends and I also amended and expanded the set rules and incorporated other board games and real world maps. We altered minor aspects of the DM guide to suit logic, and we used topographic maps of the Grand Canyon, and the board game, Feudal. Recently my four, mostly teen daughters rolled characters and played a night with me. That's true sorcerery.
"I like combat to be fast" requires skill check for flanking, adding in another roll and calculation to see if a move ny the player was even worth the effort...
Plus, it strategically makes sense that a person that is being attacked from in front, and behind would have a difficult time with it. Unless you are just fighting toddlers, which I don't endorse but I'm just throwing that out there........cause toddlers are easy to throw.
@@bread-colon3 which annoys me because it literally makes flanking less than half as effective as it is with advantage. The game wants advantage to be easy to get because 1. you still need to roll high to hit and the game isnt made to assume you have magic items at all times and 2. certain class features are based on advantage and disadvantage
@@donb7519 Even by early mid-game, you don't need to roll high to hit. And by level 10, even if you start off with the basic standard array, you're going to be on a +10 average to hit something. The thing my group find is that for the most part, after the first 4-5 levels, armour class becomes practically pointless. If you don't have 22-23 AC, you're practically going to be hit 75% of the time. If you do, then it ends up being the other way round and you maybe hit 25%.
Jacob: I don't like you pretending to be a paladin when you're actually a warlock the celestial warlock: -_- the oathbreaker palading: -_- Edit: I’ve never gotten this many likes and I was completely unaware of it, thank you so much.
"What are you doing with the item, are you poking it or just staring at it" I have 2 trains of thought on this matter. 1) Powerful magic items have a safety deliberately so if disarmed an opponent can't use it against the wielder, kind of like those guns with the built in finger print scanners. You spend an hour setting up a new "user profile" or "magic hacking" the admin account. 2) For weapons what does a +2 feel like? I think it would feel like the weapon equivalent of mouse acceleration so a +2 Great sword, it swings faster than it should, you want to do a half cut and you do a full cut or you raze to guard and it ends up over your head, so you need to relearn aim so you don't overshoot the mark and lop your own leg off or a +2 bow would have recoil and you need to learn to control it.
@Francisco Ciruela They don't have the same hp. It's based off constitution still, and each class has a different hit die. Barbarians have a d12s, Fighters and Paladins have d10s, Bard has a d8 and Sorcerer and Wizard- I assume that's what you mean by mage- has a d6.
@@brandondennis5166 What he means, I think, is he doesn't like manually rolled HP because someone with a character that is supposed to be beefy like a Barbarian could totally whiff on a roll and end up with the same or less HP as a Wizard that high rolled.
It's the ol "We like to roll (but not actually take on any risk) metalitiy". If you want to roll, have a spine and stick to your result. D&D is already random enough of as it is, their is no need to randomize such a key stat such as HP aswell.
The normal method gives you a 50% chance of getting less than 3 Ignoring 1s takes that down to 40%, which is not actually much of a decrease Using averages makes it a 0% chance
Something like the death save rule that I use is that the DM rolls for checks like perception, so the player doesn't know if they failed and weren't able to see something, or if there is nothing at all, which helps stop everybody in the group from rolling perception
Jacob: "It's a Pigeon" Later Jacob: "It's a Dove. I'm a fool" He's not too far off. Pigeons and Doves are technically both in the Columbidae family, which contains over 300 other birds too. Though colloquially Pigeons and Doves tend to be used to refer to any of the birds in the family with "pigeon" being used for all the larger ones and "dove" for the smaller one
Depends on the species whether they were classified as pigeons or doves, but there is no actual difference between doves and pigeons, hence being in the same Columbidae family and "rock pigeon" being an accepted name for "rock dove". Generally I'd say pigeons are larger and thought of more as a gamebird that is shot and eaten. Doves are smaller, faster and usually thought of as the kind of birds you race or use as messengers rather than eat.
@@awesomesauce_3516 Chapter 10: Spellcasting. Section: Casting Times. *_Bonus Action._* A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. *_You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action._* Also, unless the feature explicitly states that you can choose to do something as an action or a bonus action (such as Cunning Action), you can’t just flip between the two.
On note of countercharm: Paladins can't actually do anything about charm, just frighten. The only one that gets anything to do with charm is Oath of Devotion (a 10 ft anti-charm aura.) Charm is kinda an annoyingly strong effect, but it's totally save or suck. Personally what I like to rule for countercharm is, as an action it removes frighten, but for charm you can allow any allies another attempt at saving versus charm as an action, and any allied saves against charm or frightened get your cha bonus til the start of your next turn. Maybe have it ramp up at later levels to immediately end charm, but at level 6 that might be too early. Tbh, charm suffers from effects of previous editions where there were effects that were immediately absurdly damaging if you failed a single save, but didn't do anything if you succeeded, leading to a lot of swingy gameplay. Also I'm stealing cardic inspiration, I like that idea a lot.
@@shirleyjoking Yeah. It only works currently if you're actively using it. The only ways that'll be useful is if it's passive, if it has a duration (e.g. making it a concentration effect might be an option), or if it's changed to have an effect WHEN you use it too. (e.g., removing charm or allowing a repeat save)
This is where I think a simple homebrew fixes a broken ability. Make counter charm either a bonus action (on turn) or a reaction (off turn) to start and free to maintain with a bonus action. This means if someone drops a charm on someone you can react to it and start counter charming to give the bonus instantly on that first roll and you can maintain it and a concentration spell at the same time. No muss, no fuss, and the Bard's broken ability now has functionality without being OP. Still not a great power but no longer total shite.
@@shirleyjoking It would be much more useful if it was allowed as a reaction. Otherwise it's only useful if you somehow know in advance the enemy is going to try charming someone.
Debra Ann Woll from Relics & Rarities has two I have enjoyed. 1. When you help someone you add your skill proficiency to their roll. If you're not good at something you're not going to do a great job helping them. 2. The DM rolls investigation and insight checks for the player in secret, then tells them what they learned.
Players taking narrative control of their attacks. I see some DMs including on CR, describing characters attacks, after they roll and it's confirmed a hit. Mercer will sometimes say things like "You lunge forward and drive your sword deep into it's chest as blood erupts". Things to add a bit of flavor over "You hit. Roll damage" "You miss". Instead I recommend letting the players know the AC (unless it's one of those rare circumstances where you want them to continue attacking until they figure it out, usually do to spell protections). So you let them know the AC they are aiming for. They roll their attack and damage rolls together (to save time) and if it hits, they see how much damage it did and can then describe the attack to you based on those.
I have a rule for DM’s I got from a game called Coriolis: No matter the result of a skill check or roll, the only thing a DM cannot say is “nothing happens”
The 15 mph is a bit misleading, considering you also have to accelerate during those 6 seconds, and compensate for the time spent accelerating. Adventurers are not average humans though.
Actually, it's more realistic than you think on acceleration. You do have to accelerate, but you can output enormous effort for short durations. In fact, the 50 m (164 ft~) record is under 6 seconds, and, for men, is around 20 mph.... but by the time you're hitting 1000 m, the world record speed is 17 mph, at 5000 m it's 15 mph. Of course, 50 m is a bit short. The 100 m record is over 23 mph, but, to be fair, the 100 m seems to be a far more popular distance, so it's possible lack of competition is what's lead to a low 50 m record, though it's likely also just too short to reach those peak speeds. Of course, the world record sprinter at 100m peaked at nearly 28 mph, but considering the 200m record, by the same guy, also is only about 23 mph... those intense speeds clearly can't be sustained. By 500m it's down to nearly 19 mph, then, as I said, 1km is down to 17 mph. The unrealistic part is that those world record level athletes are specialists in sprinting, often with access to state of the art performance optimization and the advances of modern science, optimal diets, etc. For the 5 km for instance, 100 years ago the record was more like 12 mph. And that those sprinters do it basically wearing nothing except good modern footwear. In contrast, our adventurers may be very fit, but they are not specialists in sprinting, they don't have access to modern science or optimal diets, they have medieval level footwear, and they're likely carrying loads of bulky heavy equipment.
Most animals/humans reach full speed well before 6 seconds. Cheetahs, scary enough, reach full speed in just under 3. Horses a bit faster than that. The muscles in the legs are extremely strong. Especially in adventurers/people that do that sort of thing a lot. I'd imagine that a Monk/Rogue/Ranger probably use their legs for movement far more than, say, a wizard (who relies on magic). So trying to add "but they have to accelerate" is dumb.
Great video! Just wanted to add that Fighter has indomitable for death saves as well for knowing if they failed or not, because they can only reroll if they specifically fail the save.
The fighter could wait to use it for when the DM tells the fighter that they died. It'd make it a lot more of an epic moment too. DM: Unfortunately, even though the party tried their hardest to kill the boss before the fighter bled out, it just wasnt possible. With a final breath- Fighter:I summon up every last bit of my willpower and to attempt to stay alive just a little longer!
5:43 One of my players is a half-giant and the other player know that, but the characters have never seen a giant and to them, he just looks like a buff and taller human, so they think he's just human. Honestly its a fun feature when they have to introduce him (He's a silent character and doesn't talk to the other players speak for him) as a human.
Definitely gonna integrate the "take narrative control" idea. I've been trying to do the juggling act of getting my new crew to understand what cooperative storytelling entails, and I need something to balance out my occasional wrist slapping. think it might be just the reward for their good role-play!
My only thing with this is if someone with the Lucky feat is rolling death saving throws, how will they know if they want to reroll unless they know it's a fail?
I run something similar. I use Roll20 for my games and my players print a /gmroll death save rather than a public roll and keep the result to themselves. Everyone knows they've made death saves, no one knows if they've died yet or what state they're in until they try to pump healing into them. It caused a rather shocking situation when I ran lost mines; the party changeling rogue went down, took a failed death save from being caught in an ally aoe and the turn after they rolled a one. It wasn't until the dust settled and the healer could cross a chasm to reach them did they find out they weren't coming back. No meta burning everything to get them back up, people thought they had more time and only when the fight was over did it hit them like a tonne of bricks.
As a DM, I am fervently against this one, honestly. I think it takes a way from player agency to not give them control of the rolls that could see their character live or die. It'd feel really bad for a player to know their character died on a death saving roll behind a DM screen that they didn't even get to observe, much less roll. It's their character, and the fate of their character should be in their hands, not the DM's. It also puts the burden on the player to trust that the DM didn't fudge their rolls, and is complicated further by the introduction of things like luck or divine intervention from patron deities in higher level campaigns.
I disagree with the help action homebrew. Even if I don’t know how to scale a wall and kick flip through a window, I can sure as hell stand there with my fingers interlaced to be a step-stool.
But do you know how to balance someone standing on your fingers? Do you know how to use your whole body to take their weight or lift them up? That said I tend to allow/disallow help on a case-by-case basis rather than use a general rule.
Agilemind I just give flat number increase for the corresponding stat modifier and proficiency, if there is any. And some tasks have unreachable for one or two people numbers - like lifting castle portcullises. But one player in our group who was the jacked fighter was helped by our dwarf war cleric, who was strong too, and they called a few ally warriors for aid. And now a dozen of people, helping the fighter, did manage to lift it enough for rogue to slide in to open it later.
If you’re good at roleplaying, you can let the *players* know you’re really a warlock, but the *characters* think you’re a paladin! Also my simple home brew would be that rage only gives a level of exhaustion when you don’t make a con save, and more shield variants. And also anything that adds more fun and makes things more concise
"I don't like to use average hit points, because it tends to give a lot of hit points" so instead I use a homebrew rule that will tend to give more than average hit points.
@@FabulousJejmaze No it doesn't The average roll of 1d4 is 2.5 The average roll of 1d4, ignoring 1's, is 3 The average roll of 1d6 is 3.5 The average roll of 1d6, ignoring 1's, is 4
@@nekroz_of_super_dora3477 You don't round half values up because you don't actually roll half values. That's just the average roll. If you rolled 10,000 d6, and then you added up all the numbers you rolled, you'd come up with about 35,000. That means for each die roll of those 10,000 rolls, the average was 3.5 There is no middle number on a d6, because it's even-sided. 1,2,3 are low, and 4,5,6 are high. There is no middle number, so the average roll is between 3 and 4. You don't actually roll a die and get a 3.5. That's just what it averages out to.
@@endosmuthmaobethwen7030 What they mean is according to the phb the hp you gain on a lvl up is the hit dice or the average rounded up. For example a monk says. Hit Points at Higher LeveIs: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per monk levei afler Ist
Using diagonals without accommodating for the increased hypotenuse lengths buffs certain actions and abilities when not in use. That's why I insist on using it, complication aside. I think using Insight (or Sense Motive, Pathfinder main here) should be used to perceive emotions from a character; makes PC on PC checks a lot easier without exposing deceptions. Also as a PF main, I have to disagree on the opposition to taking 10 or 20. I believe this mechanic is solely present to avoid rerolling unnecessarily when the player can just roll until a desired result is achieved. The dice are there to control the drama, and in actions that bare no stakes, there ought not be dice.
There should never be PC on PC checks unless the characters are dueling or something similar. One, it takes agency away from the players of the characters to decide how they react to other characters' actions, and two, it's just another form of PvP which is always a bad idea, period.
@@troodon1096 I mean I'm not for serious PvP like players trying to kill each other or maliciously robbing each other blind but like fun sort of PvP that is more joking or just for fun and no stakes or malice involved is fine by me
The way I narrate attuning to a magic item is you need to get used to how something that acts in an unnatural way behaves. Imagine having a 25 lbs great axe but woah it is a +3 so it is easy to swing.
@@Bznsin to get to a point where it wouldn't be an absurd amount of blood, you would remove the cost of the component I think, and thus the component wouldn't be consumed and/or you wouldn't have to track it. Best to just leave it as is in the source material. It was meant to be a cheap and easy way to heal up the party between combats after all.
@@shadowsofdawn3871 Well, he was looking for an in lore reason for why Healing Spirit can only be cast during combat (Home brew rule). I am simply offering an in lore reason why it can be done so. The monetary cost of blood required to cast the spell does not be expensive. It just need to have a monetary cost and have the spell consume the cost to prevent the substitution of material components to a spell focus/component pouch (Which defeats the purpose). Hence, the need for the blood to be fresh (so that it players cannot store blood to be used at a later date) and the need for the blood to have some monetary value. Heck, it does not need to blood, just need to be some thing that is freshly produced in combat. Like a corpse that has only existed for a minute. Or broken armor and/or weapon pieces.
Better explantion I heard for it is the spirit is a sentient being of nature and only answers the call in battle because there's other healing magicsfor outside Like calling a ambulance instead of going to a doctor... stop wasting my time it's not an emergency.
I think his point was no secret characters for the players. “I am playing a changeling celestial warlock.” Vs “hello Bob, I am a changeling celestial warlock.”
It's not like your character can't trick the other characters You're just not allowed to trick the other players Which seems fair, if you're not playing with a bunch of meta-gaming assholes who will immediately try to reveal your secrets in character without any reason to do so
I agree, classes should be obvious but keeping your race a secret better immerses players especially if you drop hints. I played a Changeling bard did this twist and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had to the point that he’s one of my favourite characters that I always return to if ever I’m introducing myself to a new group of players cause he’s such a good character and just a safe bet overall.
My one character is a semi-homebrew class (created with DM), basically it follows all of the rules in the book, but I put limiters on myself (what spells I can cast) and a massive amount of flavor text. My character cannot cast spells, but he is haunted by spirits that benefit him and affects others based on his emotion. So when "I cast" mage hand, a spirit is actually levitating it and my character is distracted by a strange crack in the wall. (pathfinder, halfling, oracle, double curse: Haunted, Scourge) So while the DM and I know what he is the other's don't and likely think at first that he was just a mage until they figure it out. Majority of npc's who know him thinks he is cursed. (there is a lot more to him but I won't bore you with it, I'm just saying I agree and wanted to share a little about him).
@@kane8165 what’s ironic about all that is that I have a similar character concept for a fighter/ bard ( or whatever other class that would accept this concept ) where his soul has intertwined with the unborn soul of his twin who grows up with but as a ghost since souls age and they’re souls are intertwined. And my PC would have lived close to an ancient battleground so his ghost brother would have been taught by the warrior spirits that dwell there. So whenever he’s in combat he goes from this measly not all combat experienced person to this battle hardened grizzled warrior who strikes by bending his limbs in unnatural ways to strike. And because his dead twin never grew up with a body, he pushes it to move in unhealthy ways in order to get an advantage in combat, even though it damages the body and hence he would take damage just to attack with advantage ( it would also only work on people who haven’t seen him do it, so If an enemy had his back turned the first time he twisted his arm the other way to strike someone then he would get still get advantage, if he didn’t have his back turned saw you do it then it would be just a regular attack. Not sure if this would balance him out or be an unnecessary nerf ) It would also mean that they would have two character sheets along with two complete opposite personalities. The measly one would have high dex since he prefers to dodge his way through fights. While the undead one would have a low dex as he has limited experience with how limbs really work and no real concept of pain or risking death but higher con cause his ghostly possession buffs the body of the living twin. So something like casting mage hand would actually not be the hands of the pc that everyone can see but the hands of the undead brother who is only temporarily and restrictively been brought back to our plane of existence to try and mimic his brother’s hand movement. Obviously this would all also be kept secret from the entire party until the DM/PC decides otherwise or if by chance someone in the party discovers it independently. So a twist like that would work in my eyes as you wouldn’t be hiding the fact that you’re playing a new class just not revealing the more finer and important details of what exactly you are.
the death save one is a really good idea. as a DM, i love that- it'll really make my players invested in the campaign because of the suspense. as a player? aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You have a kind and generous heart... Giving the players death saves. I used to use the old 1E style, drop a HP until you hit -10 and die. But no one died unless they got knocked to -10 on the same hit as they went below 0 HP. So my home brew is this... When a player goes down, you probably only have until the end of the next turn to get them healed. On the downed players initiative *AND* at the end of the round, starting immediately, they roll a d4 with a -1 modifier for every roll they have made so far. d4-1 for the first, d4-2 for the second, etc. If they roll a zero or less, they die. They _could_ die on the first roll. They WILL die on the fourth. (I gave out a magic item that lets a player add their CON bonus to the roll... It's one of the most prized magic items in the game!) When a player is brought back from negative HP they get 2 levels of exhaustion. When you are revived, you _can_ continue to fight, but 4 levels of exhaustion is harsh, and 6... Well you stay dead if somehow you go down a third time. I have homebrewed that a 5th level Greater Restoration will heal 3 levels of exhaustion, and 3rd level Lesser Restoration will heal 1 to help with getting a player back up and 100% functional sooner. And healing overnight? Yeah, you only get back your CON bonus in HP. The HD die roll hit point gains and full health long rest are other lame rules.
Massive Damage rule : Let's make Rogues and Paladins even stronger by making the mob/NPC make a massive damage check on every attack. I just can't get behind this rule. Can't use average HD when level upping is a rule I debated with one of my DMs. I absolutely despise this rule because I used it many times and it led, on 3 different campaigns to me, playing a Fighter or Barbarian and ending up with 2/3rd of the Rogue's HP, while having 16-18 Con vs the Rogue's 14-15. It just feels awful to be the tank that literally cannot tank because they die on a single fireball at level 6. Overall, a few rules, like the sprint and the secret death saves that I like and will discuss with my DMs.
@@getthegoons To be fair, a hill dwarf cleric has a pretty good chance to have high Hp, what with native constitution + extra hit points. But yeah, a single roll should't be that important as a hp roll, at least not a non-story roll.
@@PikaPenny17 I think that character had 16 Con. The aasamar Paladin had 16 as well, and a d10 hit die. We should have been close to equal (Average of 9 for me, 9 for him) but he rolled ass and ended up with like 7 or 8 less than I did.
Evil characters in the party usually enrich the game. Just needs to be done right. There is a huge difference of being more authentic or being a caricature of an evil person. And usually evil characters are way more cautious. Make an evil character that can fit and benefit a group is key, and the same goes for the goodie-two-shoes Paladin.
Personally, I think the issue is people tend to play evil characters like stereotypical sociopaths and not like actual evil people. Being evil just means you're willing to hurt others for personal gain. A perfectly well socially adjusted person could be evil. An evil person can care greatly for their companions. Their idea of personal gain can even lead them to superficially appearing good. For example, maybe Keith's personal gain is glory, and to get that they want to go on some grand adventure and save people... but oh look, they need some extra cash to purchase the equipment and supplies with. Well, who cares if a few people go missing for the cause? That's a price Keith is willing to pay. But evil characters are not inherently more cautious than other characters. If anything, perhaps less, because they have fewer internal checks and balances on their behaviour, so may be inclined to think about their behaviours and possible results less.
@@seigeengine Yea, you’re spot on m8. You can go through an entire campaign doing only good stuff with the party and being evil, at that point, it boils down to intent. If you’re evil, you’re doing it for purely selfish reasons, perhaps said evil person now has the means to do his nefarious stuff after the campaign. I say cautious, and that is more related to people playing a stereotypical villain and going out and kicking puppies, if you’re evil, you don’t do that, because that will compromise your survival. If you’re evil, you must rely on fitting into society as much as possible, and if you’re evil, other evil people are not your friends. Good people are not your friends. All in all, you won’t really have friends because you’re that self-absorb. Neutral people can have the “the end justifies the means” attitude, an evil person will always do it for selfish gain. Ofc. there’s so many shades. I actually found something a while back, which grasp it really well, when I did research to play an evil character correctly. Edit: Found it here; Lawful Evil; forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?448542-Compliance-Will-Be-Rewarded-A-Guide-to-Lawful-Evil Neutral Evil; forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?449418-By-NE-means-necessary-a-guide-to-Neutral-Evil Chaotic Evil; forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?446414-No-Limits-No-Regrets-A-guide-to-the-Chaotic-Evil-alignment If you should ever need it, or if you've people around you wanting to play an evil character, and helping them getting into the right mindset.
@@Christian_Bagger I mean, I don't really agree. Certainly smart evil character would behave like that, but there are plenty of thugs and scumbags in our world who openly abuse animals, assault people, etc. Also, I ardently reject the idea that being selfish means you lack normal social bonds. Social bonds aren't a property of good people, they're a property of the type of animal we are and our survival strategy. Evil people regularly associate, and they have just as strong a motivation to legitimately cooperate as the rest of us do. You don't help your mate move because "you're a good person," you help your mate move because establishing and maintaining a strong social web and the ensuing potential reciprocation allows the exploitation of greater resources in times of personal need. There's also the genetic metaorganism aspect, but that's not beneficial to the individual. An evil person may ultimately decide to sell out those bonds if they perceive them as not worth maintaining but... do the rest of us not do the same thing? You're not useful anymore, so we drift apart. You move, or switch jobs, or w/e, and it's no longer convenient to get my social fix from you... so we stop talking. That IS betrayal of a bond that you perceive, on some level, as no longer worth the cost of maintaining. Arguably the people an evil person may most want to form bonds with are good people, because good people are willing to do the most for others. It's also an aspect of behaviour vs values. That's something good from harry potter actually. Children aren't sorted into houses in that fiction based on what traits they have, but what traits they value. Many characters are great examples of this. Hermione seems like she'd belong in Ravenclaw: she embodies the traits that house prizes, but what SHE prizes in people are the traits of Gryffindor. It isn't cleverness or curiosity she aspires to, but bravery and honor. Harry, as mentioned, has all the aspects befitting a Slytherin: and, imo, he clearly portrays all those behaviours in the books: a sadistic delight in his "enemies'" misery, a willingness to use underhanded means, a disregard for the rules, intense selfishness and ambition, etc... but he aspires to be brave, upright, and honorable, even if he's not always those things. The quartet of the prior generation all exhibit this too: James and Sirius are clearly more Slytherin material than Gryffindor, though they also exhibit bravery. Remus is more a "Ravenclaw." Peter is a "Hufflepuff" who aspires perhaps the most to Gryffindor qualities, but years of abuse and exploitation pushed him to be more Slytheriny. Just because I'm willing to hurt innocents to get the job done doesn't mean I don't think highly of those who don't make those compromises. Perhaps I view them as simply better people than I. Perhaps I view them as idealistic fools, and am saddened that I believe such sacrifices need to be made. An evil person can love their family, value their friends, cherish their pet dog, and ultimately desire things that are "good." The only difference between being good and evil is what you're willing to do to get whatever it is you want. And personally, I hate guides like those. I don't want some giant elaborate textwall about what other people think of alignments or alignment archetypes or w/e. Drive to the heart of what something is. Boil it down to it's most concentrated form, and then dilute it out and mix in what you please. Yes I'm aware that's funny coming from a guy giving you a giant text wall about what I think alignments are, even though there's a clear difference, lol. To be good is to sacrifice yourself for others. To be evil is to sacrifice others for yourself. To be lawful is to respect rules. To be chaotic is to disrespect rules. Neutrality is to be between these. Everything else is flavour, and you should build that yourself.
I really like my DM's house rule for hit points. Every time we level up, we roll all the hit dice (except for the one for first level) and if it is more than the amount you rolled for the previous level you keep it. For example, lets' say you are a wizard with a +0 Con. You get your 6HP at level one, and then your 6 +1d6 at level 2 like normal, keeping 1s. Let's say you rolled a 6. So now you have 12 HP. Awesome! Level 3 your new HP is 6 + 2d6. Let's say you roll a 1 and a 3. This is not to add to the 12. No, rather, you either choose between the 12 or the 10 you just rolled. Obviously, you keep the 12. Level 4 your new HP is 6 +3d6. You roll a 4, 3, 5, so now your HP goes from 12 to 18. And so on and so forth. What ends up happening is that bad dice rolls don't curse your character forever. The Barbarian's 2 roll doesn't stick with them forever. But, if you roll super good then you might not get hit points for a level or two. Also, it's more fun rolling a big handfull of dice at higher levels, which will tend to skew towards average.
that is amazing. although it undoubtedly leads to higher hp, it balances them back in line automaticly. nobody has too little or too much, but both can happen temporarily
I tend to allow my players to roll as per normal, however, if they roll below the die average it becomes equal to the average. So if they do have a 1d6 the average is a 4. This helps our wizard friend not be so squishy (even though he did get run over by a Gorgon last session) but also doesn't give them too many hit points in the long run if they don't roll the average. Though I do like your idea too, it sounds like a lot of fun.
Then you could have someone who is cursed by one levels worth of good rolls. In theory, and I've had players that have this bad of luck when rolling groups of dice, you could have that same Wizard get 12 at 2nd level then spend levels 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 without gaining more HP at all other than CON boosts, which in this case with the stated +0 con, would be nothing. Statistically, the method would work out more often than not, but Murphy is a modern god for a reason. Statistics mean nothing to the all mighty Murphy.
Jacob: "Let's pretend you've come to my house and we're about to play d&d"
Also Jacob: "Oh? Hey, I didn't see you there"
Me: "Dude you invited me, we're already inside your house"
Lol Coincidentally just watched the Mystics video before this one
_Oh, hey, I forgot about you there._
@@janelantestaverde2018 *FoRGoT*
Hey, I didn’t see the three-person D&D party with a camera and mic standing just off to my side waiting to make a totally unscripted video.
First Name Last Name
Must have a -2 to perception.
I thought you were going to say:
I don't really like to sponsor products I don't really like or understand but todays sponsor is Raid: Shadow legends
Let's play raid shadow legends.
Same lmao
I honestly was waiting for that too
Me too
Me: “Good thing it wasn’t”
RUclipsrs: “RAID : SHADOW LEGENDS”
Me:”WHAT... THE FU-“
When he showed the invisibility card, he should have just held up an empty hand
Your username and pfp makes absolute sense with this comment
Where would he have gotten the hand
That would have gotten out of hand.
Wait, he was holding a card?
Can u help? The link in the description is an ip logger I think, I clicked and idk what to do
When I clicked on this video I honestly thought it said "My 21 Hebrew Rules for D&D 5e". I was intrigued.
#1 After each long rest clerics and paladins roll a d8. On a 1 they get the shabbat effect. Players with shabbat have disadvantage on spell casting and opponents have advantage on saving throws against spells from players with shabbat.
#2 Clerics and paladins with the orthodox feat roll a d4 instead for the shabbat effect. They have advantage/impose disadvantage on spells while not having the shabbat effect. They can't use any spells while having shabbat.
@@swapode rule #2 Any players of Jewish decent gets an imidate inspiration
I looked back and forth between the actual title and this for over 20 seconds before I noticed "hebrew" =/= "homebrew"
@@redundantqwail9088 same
Oi vey!
Trying to guess what surface Jacob will be sitting on each new video is like half the fun of watching these.
Looks like a shag rug to me.
And in what position.
"wanna play Dungeon and Dragons?" Now thats what i wanna hear when i go into someones house, none of this "Who are you?" and "How did you get in?"
Honestly, the people who say “who are you” are so rude, like I’ve been in their house at least 50 times to eat their snacks and they have the audacity to say that.
rightt! and when you let them go on they say like "is that my t-shirt?" "why is there blood on my t-shirt?" "is that a gun?" like shit I thought this was gonna be fun you know
So often a find an overly generous host who insists that I "just take whatever I want." Like who does that?? It's just weird and awkward.
the only valid response to "who are you and how did you get in here?" is "I'm a locksmith, and I'm a locksmith"
@@8-bitsarda747 And don't call me Shirley.
As a chronically dead player that death save rule is TERRIFYING
Omg chronically dead lol
How come you are that much dead? Characters with a death wish, crazy plans or just terrible rolls?
or undead, like a lich or something. XD
That might be the only rule I actually add from this.
@@hugofontes5708 A bit of crazy plans and terrible rolls. She's also my first real D&D character, so she's the OPPOSITE of minmaxed. I took a 6 in Constitution for the "Roleplay Opportunities." It's been an absolute pleasure playing her for just those said opportunities, but sickly bards do tend to be, as I've coined, chronically dead. :D
Agreed. I would never be comfortable placing my characters fate into another person's hands in that sense. Because if they did die, I wouldn't feel as though they died as much as the other person killed them. Even if no fudge was involved, I would feel cheated of that character.
There are other ways to produce suspense. Making a player who is already in a stressful situation unable to know their own self condition just makes it worse.
Jacob: "Those are also forgetted a lot"
Me: Ah yes, my favorite D&D setting, the Forgetted Realms.
Who forgot the Forgotten Realms though
@@evankauffman2139 - that’s why they’re now known as the Rememberly Realms
I personally prefer the Unforgotten Realms.
This whole reply section gave me respiratory problems-
@@SluggzNotFound - it gives me conniptions
What you said about attuning to magic is interesting, and while I’m going to stick to normal rules for attunement, I’m gonna start making my players roleplay how their characters attune to magic items. Maybe the monk meditates, but the barbarian just screams at it for an hour.
The fighter is like practicing with a magic sword or whatever and the barbarian is just heaving it around shouting “Work damnit!”
My Cleric spent an hour rubbing his Rod of Resurrection.
I've always interpreted as either meditation for high WIS characters, study for high INT characters and martial practice for physical-focused characters.
Maybe it's just me, but I always interpreted it less as "the character is attuning to the item" than "the magic of the item is getting used to and attuning to the character". Magic items are weird, they have a mind of their own in some cases. Having to attune an item to you feels like an intermediate progression between "random magic item" and "sentient aware magical artifact". There's a will or some other "presence" there that becomes used to the character to let them use it.
If that makes any sense.
i always saw attuning as a combination of essentially creating an account and fully understanding the enchantment so that you cant set it off accidentally or use it use it improperly
for example a wand with a button could just be used by brute forcing the magical activation mechanism, but you'd have no idea how far it goes, how big the explosion is, how powerful it is, or if it self destructs after a number of uses. It's just not worth the potential risks and is about as dumb as drinking a mysterious vial of green liquid.
From the PHB: "Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a short rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can't be the same short rest used to learn the item's properties). This focus can take the form of weapon practice (for a weapon), meditation (for a wondrous item), or some other appropriate activity."
I think I saw an interview with Crawford where he explained it's basically you spending an hour with the item, using it and getting used to it, testing it's limitations, working out what it can do. Like 'Ok so if I flourish the wand like this what does it... oh shit it casts fireball. Sorry party member resting by the campfire, I'm sure your eyebrows will grow back" kinda thing :)
A barbarian with the intelligence of a rock ( like grog) wouldnt know how to meditate. So that barbarian then wouldnt be able to attune to a wondrous item, since it requires meditation according to the PHB. I agree with Jacob on this, since most items that require attunement, have an extra ability that should come natural to the player using it ( not including things like boots of spiderclimbing). Just because it does an extra 1d8 cold damage or whatever, doesnt mean you have to meditate to unlock it. the weapon should just do that.
@@jasaadduthane Those are both examples. You don't have to meditate on it. You simply have to use or focus on it for an hour
@@antrosatheant7036 which is still an arbritary amount of time. when it comes to immersion, it makes no sense to say that every attunable item, be it common or wondrous, takes an hour to attune to (even if the manner of attunement differs per item). it's a game mechanic that barely makes sense. and before you say " well otherwise you can just switch between epic items whenever you want", why not make a rule that says you cant attume during combat or you can only attune X amount of times per day.
@@jasaadduthane Because then you are just taking away one rule to add several more? IT may not be perfect, but at least it's efficient. And let's be real, how many short rests are more than just "we are gonna short rest" "okay" "we shall now continue exploring"
@@jasaadduthane Attunement shouldn't be a free action but what is wrong with letting people swap out items during combat or while exploring? My rule is attuning requires just one additional action beyond what would be necessary to don/doff the item. So if its a weapon - free action to draw it, action to attune it - if it is a piece of armour then it takes 5-10minutes to put it on then action to attune it. If it's a cloak/boots/jewellery etc.. then it's one action to put it on and a second action to attune it.
And it goes both ways so swapping items between two players requires the first to spend an action to unattune it, an action to give it to another player and that other player has to spend an action to attune it.
This actually makes the thief subclass cool because they can use a bonus action to attune an item.
Your Sprint rules lets my Monk/Rogue run 30 MPH, the speed of a galloping Horse, and I'm 100% down.
Actually, doesn't seem that bad to me. Iirc, Usain Bolt's top speed was like 21-22 MPH (correct me if I'm wrong). Monks already get the ability to tap into their chi to do whacky stuff with their movements. It makes sense to me that they'd be able to imbue their legs with their energy or something to run faster.
@@HyenaFox actually it was 28 mph
Doing that Naruto Run.
Seth Haycock-Poller fastest man tho
Make it a tabaxi and you can double that!
One of my personal favorites is “Final Stand” as a variation on the Pathfinder rule. If damage results in you falling to EXACTLY 0 hp, you are placed in final stand. You fall prone (half speed) and on your turn, you can take either an action or movement. You cannot take both and doing so will cause 1 point of damage at the end of your turn, putting you in death saves, and you cannot stand up. It gives players a moment of desparation they can use to act before they fall unconscious and has created some great moments.
I was like: "what the hell happened with that chair?"
and then I saw the cat.
I kept thinking about the jump scare from The Conjuring 2 when the old man yells "My house."
oh yeah. those kinds of furniture scars are easy to recognize to cat owners
Haha! I saw the chair, and thought "Yeah, he has a cat."
Widogast has sent his familiar
I have 9 cats all my furniture has been scratched
XP to level 3 roleplay ASMR: DM explains his home rules to you
Milestones to level 3*
While sitting on the carpeted floor of his living room
text begins to float next to him
“It’s combat, It’s supposed to be fast”
In this action economy?
"It's supposed to be fast"
*Adds a bunch of rules that require extra rolls*
“It’s supposed to be fast”
The necromancy wizard: ya about that....
@@marshalltodt6805 Lol, literally. Extra time to maneuver, because you can't only physically turn and move in 4 cardinal directions. Extra time to 'explain' how one is flanking... Now extra time to roll, if the explanation was good enough. "I don't like war game D&D. It's too fast. But I want combat to be fast cause it's supposed to be,"
I'm late, but I think the "fast" is referring to the planning phase. He wants the game to be more about roleplay and less about crunching numbers.
In that respect, the added rules make more sense.
Just grab one of those 30 second hourglasses and give every player that long to complete their turn.
Timestamps (click to see reasoning/explanation for each one):
1:46 intro (end of promo)
2:29 CHARACTER CREATION RULES
2:45 Homebrew/UA on approval of DM
3:09 HP gain per level: always roll instead of taking average. Reroll 1s.
3:30 Level 1 racial feats, depending on the campaign
3:48 Always variant encumbrance (PHB)
4:53 No Mystics, period
5:00 No evil characters unless the DM knows you can handle it
5:31 No secret characters: everyone knows everyone else's race/class/background
6:03 INT mod becomes "points" that add/remove skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, or languages; or spend three "points" to get one expertise
6:29 Milestones (DMG)
6:37 Alt. attunement: 1 action to attune, 10 minutes to un-attune
7:36 COMBAT RULES
7:40 Flanking skill checks. Meant to encourage more descriptive combat actions from players?
8:18 Diagonals (PHB), not the variant (DMG)
8:50 Bloodied for NPCs
8:57 Massive damage
9:41 Lingering injuries, can be as bad as loss of limb, eye, etc.
10:16 Secret death saves, rolled by DM, never fudged
11:22 DC 10 Medicine check on downed ally that acts as another death save. Healer feat and healer's kits still usable as normal
11:56 Sprint: forgo all non-movement actions in a turn to move 5x normal movement speed. Straight line only, provokes opportunity attacks, which are at advantage. Also usable by enemies.
13:08 Massive damage also applies to enemies, especially big/important ones.
13:31 "Cardic" Inspiration, replaces default Inspiration (PHB/DMG)
14:48 SPELL RULES
15:08 Healing Spirit (XGE): in-combat only
15:38 ROLEPLAYING RULES
15:39 Insight vs. Deception, when used by one player on another, has an outcome at the players' discretion
16:29 Discourage Insight as a lie detector
16:36 Letting players take narrative control
17:10 EXPLORING RULES
17:11 No "taking 20"?
17:48 STR/DEX/CON checks can be rerolled for a second attempt, but a blown INT roll means you don't know that information, so you can't reroll it
18:07 Must be proficient in a skill you are trying to Help another player with
18:23 Countercharm buff. Just cures the status instead of granting advantage. Paladins can do it?
It's called 21 homebrew rules, but I count 29. But I was confused on a few things.
Thanks bro youre a hero
BLESS THANK YOU
After watching for 2 minutes and he didn't get to the point, I stopped watching and looked for a comment like yours. Thank you.
you forgot the most important one! 9:40 when the cat behind him stands up and stretches
.
One rule that i put in every single one my games is that if a player wants to take the help action (this doesn't apply to familiars or bonded animals) they have to be able to justify it. For example, if a fighter wants to help the monk in combat they cant just say "I help the monk attack this guy" instead they have to come up with exactly what they are doing. Since the help action doesn't really come up often this usually doesn't matter, but it ALWAYS makes for a better narrative when it happens.
My favorite example of this so far was when my player's fighter was disarmed and all they had was a shield. They knew the minotaur still had an opportunity attack and their weapon was out of reach so they took the help action. They called the monk's name and tapped their shield. The monk's turn was next and she jumped onto the fighter's shield while they boosted her up into the air. She leaped over the minotaur and got the benefit of the help action. She rolled a natural 2 and a natural 20. The minotaur was low and the attack ended up finishing him off. It was the single most fun turn of combat I've ever been a part of.
Like in Wonder Woman
That's stupid... every tone i take the action i gotta waste time detailing it out?
@@elgatochurro my players are almost always drama nerds. I know my table and I know they love cinematic combat. I'm not saying that this is a good rule for everyone, just that it makes our combat better
So i actually had a feind/tome warlock who grabbed find familiar as one of their rituals (i went tome over chain for not needing to sleep) and his familiar was a feindish owl who had an eye pattern at the end of each of her feathers. She aided on attacks and perc checks by being able to shut her owl eyes and open *all of her feather eyes* and transfering the knowledge of that sight to whomever's shoulder she sat on.
@@CrazzyJ-iw5rc that probably scares the shit out of enemies too, helping even more lmao.
Ive only once played a “secret” character. But it was only the class that was secret. His name was Eric O’Clant who in-game believed he was a cleric but had actually accidentally maid a contract with an old forgotten great evil who pretended to be god. So it ended up fitting overall cause role play wise there was a sense that something was off but nobody else knew what. Sadly the campaign fell off early and nobody was able to release that Eric O’Clant was an anagram for not a cleric. :(
That is a brilliant idea! Maybe you can use him in a future game
@@fanana6193 yeah I hope to find a campaign which he’ll fit in again because he was really interesting to rp and his class choices ended up being really interesting for combat too.
Hey I ran something super similar, though because wild magic she died, met the God who in the setting grew more powerful based on the number of followers and evil actions done and so offered her to be revived for taking a blood oath. You ever try and play a good character who has to become a cultist without a cult? It's a trip.
I was gonna play a secret changeling. Always in the form of an elf that was "really good at mimicry" and he would keep it secret due to his history of pursecution
I played a changeling pretending to be an elf
I like the principle of secret death throws simply because it lets the DM fool around more.
*rolls in secret, face turns sorrowful before slowly turning to look you in the eyes.*
"Get back up, you're at 1."
because DMs need more ways to fool around
Everyone in the party losing limbs and eyes at Lvl 1 when ambushed by goblins
Yeah considering i just played a lvl1 and even as a barbarian i get dropped by 2 hits
Yeah I'd be interested to see if Jacob use a work around at early levels or some other way of dealing with it.
literally every hit against our -1 con wizard.
This comment currently has 69 likes, and I couldn't bring myself to change it
So...Goblin Slayer then
My favorite home brew rule, is that every time a character is brought down to unconscious and then healed for a revive, they gain a stack of exhaustion. It's a punishment and makes it actually bad to go down
Mine is similar, when you get back up from 0 HP, you take a permanent, but healable, penalty to one random ability score. Say the blow that took you down hit you in the shoulder, your arm is weakened so you take a -2 to Strength until you have the fracture healed (either by a healer or a special potion). I should probably mention that this isn't for D&D or Pathfinder, so it's far harder to have that type of wound healed than just "lol cleric can you un-break my shoulder please?".
I play this rule. I call it anti-whack-a-mole.
Ive played with this rule , it sucked when you get at 3 exhaustion would take 3 long rests to clear that up, in a dungeon crawl doing 5-6 encounters / long rest ... it just not how the game is meant to be played and seriously nerfs any frontline character
@@Binsto I have to be careful about difficulty with this rule. Get a feel for what players can reasonably take, and make it a good fight without killing them. Plus, exhaustion as a regular thing is likely to make players take restoration spells! Or perhaps short rests could remove exhaustion!
I do the same, but only with magical healing while they are still unstable. It forces the players to either stabilize the character first, find nonmagical healing, or take the point.
“I’m lazy, I don’t like attunement”
Also implements variant encumberence
yeah but computer does everything for him, so he still gets to be lazy. I still think it's a bullshit rule tho
ITS FUN
XP to Level 3 there once was a time where I would come to you for information...
however I now know that I shouldn’t because you’re factually wrong
@@limboprime5926
Tell that to 22K likes.
Variant encumberence can be fun and it feels more nitty-gritty and realistic to the characters physical strengths.
Obviously a meat raging goliath barbarian can carry more than a anorexic weak bodied wizard.
@@philswiftdestroyerofworlds1988 This guy became popular because he screams haha funny and he whines. He's entitled to his opinions, but half of the shit he says he either contradicts himself or it doesn't make alot of sense. For example, he says he wants combat to be quick, but adds a special Flanking rule that increases the amount of dice rolled. Any mildly experienced DnD player knows just a regular fucking combat can take super long, adding more rules that add very little to the mechanical part of the game.
XP: "Spare the dying is a pigeon!"
Onscreen text: It's a dove, not a pigeon
Me, an intellectual: Doves are LITERALLY a variety of pigeon.
I never knew that. That's fucking cool
Not even that. Pigeons and doves are literally the same thing. The only real difference is the colour of the feathers.
@@zoroearc2582 Doves are just albino pigeons.
Mike Loofburrow No. no they are not. Albinism is total lack of pigment. A dove’s skin and eyes are a normal colour
@@JEST3R_ You mean Fucking Coo.
One time I was the only evil character in a campaign and also the only one that wasn't a murder hobo. I left early.
"Hello, I'm Dave. I'm a neutral evil Human. I will bring prosperity to humanity by exterminating the dwarves so we can take over their mines and forges and rapidly expand our industrial capacity. The elves must be purged so we can gain access to the vast lumber resources they've been monopolizing too. To do this I will upset diplomacy and foment quarrel between the races leading to all out war. To accomplish that, I must rule this kingdom. I am adventuring to gather capital for this. Let's go!"
"Averaging gives too much health"
*Looks at my Bard who is brought to critical health in one attack*
Yeah...sure
Besides which, rerolling 1s gives you exactly the same amount on average.
Try a wizard
^This
This guy is a *terrible* DM.......
@@themageofcontext7071 I think it was best described as wizards always feel frail at the beginning but then completely dominate the field with a lack of care for their health because of the spells they learn to protect and keep enemies from even closing in. If playing a wizard is always detrimental in combat I would assume its the dm acting based on stats rather than roleplay. Or your wizard keeps provoking every single attack, somehow.
Jacob: "Oh? Hey, I didn't see you there. So you wanna play Dungeons & Dragons?"
Me: "Ummm... I'm a thief."
Jacob: "Great! Did you bring your own dice? Otherwise you can borrow mine."
"Actually you're called a rogue in this edition."
Spindlewax
I think that’s the joke.
@@CasperVonGhoul Thief is an archetype for rouge, so that's what I was using. But it's ok if you see a fun in my joke that was not intended by me. :)
me: hay my dice just went missing
I am so confused now. I thought you were referring to a thief/burglar in real life but judging from your reply, it seems like you're referring to a rogue in the game.
With the Attunement, I've always considered it to be semi-passive, and is the character getting used to the item. Wizards or druids might meditate with a wand, a fighter would practice with a sword or a ranger takes practice shots with a bow.
And how does one practice with a rod? ;o
yeah true but like those are easy examples... wtf is he doing with a ring of protection for and hour
@@ruenvedder5921 Same thing he'd do with the sword? My thought process was you'd do basically whatever would help you appropriately center yourself while concentrating on the item.
I used to be a hardcore "Roll hitpoints" DM but when we had a level 6 wizard with 20 hitpoints who died in one hit and walked out of the game, I relented to get him to come back because, yeah its a bit bullshit
override367 if you don’t mind me asking could you give some more details about that story of the 20 hit point wizard? I ask because i just started dm’ing and i’d love some advice.
Joseph LaBlanc wizards have to a roll a d6 for hitpoints, the lowest any class rolls, it makes wizards usually have very low hp without the ability to reroll or take average for a bit higher health. This results in higher end creatures being able to one-shot or two-shot them most of the time
Yeah. I started to give them the max when I stopped saving/babying them lmao
Taking average hitpoints with no con for a wizard would land them at 21 hp at level 6. If he's complaining about having shit health, shouldn't have played a wizard then.
Therefore you always go mountain dwarf with +4 CON mod rolled. Get heavy armor whenever possible, don it, grab martial weapon, fizzle every second spell and bash the enemy with some 2hander for it.
Also you get a beard.
I always imagined attunement to be like when you get a new prescription for eyeglasses.
every time my prescription changes and I get new lenses, it takes me any where between an hour or a whole day for my eyes to adjust to the new correction, until then my vision is blurry.
applying this to magic items, it takes a player character's body time to acclimatize and adjust to the innate magical aura of the item, having to get used to the item by having it near them, play in with it and staying near it to adjust to the magical aura that wasn't there before.
I hadn't thought about it like that, but as a fellow glasses wearer, you're absolutely right
Well, you're right. The thing is that the book tells how the attunement process go. Attunement to a sword involves training with it, for instance
@@ziz0328 I mentioned that in my comment
Okay I like this
@@XPtoLevel3 thank you, hello btw, hope you've been having a great day
Jacob: "Let's pretend you've come to my house and we're about to play d&d"
Strahd: "Don't mind if I do."
The sleeping cat in the background is like a small cookie with your coffee. Not needed, but very welcome.
I checked the comment thread specifically to find the cat love to add a like to. He has a nice ninja-kitty there.
wish I could like this one twice
WHERE
Sneak attack, there was two. In the ad at the left at the door, and the second in the seat.
For my group the PC rolls death saving throws and only the dm and PC know the number, being that there character is out they are prohibited from voicing the results. It kinda gives off the same effect as Jacobs method and lets my players feel they are controlling there characters fate.
This seems better.
I like that one
^^Straight improvement in my opinion
3 dice method is great. Player takes 3 dice, & DM secretly decides which color will be the actual roll - then player rolls all 3. "Oh no, a 1! But I also rolled a 12 & a 17..." DM smiles knowingly as he sits back down behind the screen...
I'm always in favour of the players having as much agency in their characters fates as possible. Even though death saving throws are literally just the luck of the roll, having the DM make them in secret would stress me out, in a not-good way.
Between his love of horror, maiming and lingering damage, it sounds like he'd rather be playing War Hammer Fantasy 2nd edition.
He doesn't like the War Game feel, though.
@@cyrusnoble4346 its fast combat tho
I found the whole, dm rolls death saves from another dm, i cant remember where, but I tried it, like literally next session. I described it to my players, got their consent (always a must for me, I dont just throw rules at my players, they always have to agree) Same session one of them went down, I rolled the save, then moved on, my players freaked out, the whole mood shifted. Usually what would happen: player goes down, "Ok well, Ill finish guy X off, then when we have some time to clear I will go over and stabalize, assist, w/e." Player rolls, 18. "Oh sweet so your good then? nice." fight continues. This time? Player went down, parties entire strategy shifted, suddenly, this was important, suddenly, someones life was on the line and there was FEAR, urgency, and strategy.
Also a homebrew I love, is the DMG's varient profieciency, where you roll a die, based on lvl, and add the result to your roll. there are still things where you need static, like passive perception. but it adds a sense of randomness, and makes it a bit more exciting for my players.
runesmith: Deck of many!
Me: no
Dingo: Deck of many!
Me: no
Puffin forest: Deck of many!
Me: no
All the D&D youtubers: DECK OF MANY!
Me: no!
XP2lvl3: Deck of many
Me: on second thought
Tbh he's the only one I've seen take the cards irl and show them, that made me think about buying them
Sounded so good, then I saw the sticker price st my LGS. Yikes.
Seriously though, I ordered 2 decks with the Kickstarter, the cantrips and the Deck of Many Things. No joke, that has probably been my favorite thing to come out of Kickstarter. Just, the Deck of Many Things (Animated!) is so awesome, and I highly recommend it.
Edit: The Cantrips deck (and the rest of the spells) are also awesome too, but they did such a good job with the Deck of Many Things that it's head and shoulders above the rest. The actual art, the animations, everything about it is so awesome.
They have some pretty good stuff; they started making item cards for The Griffon's Saddlebag, who makes fantastic custom items.
The youtubers never mention that they cost about a dollar a card, and only come in 30 packs.
My favourite little homebrew, recently added by my dm, has been to give my pc's dog companion expertise on insight checks for whether or not she likes someone (she gains levels as a sidekick). He now trusts his dog's judgement over his own or the party's - but I don't get told if the roll succeeded or failed.
This has already led to us being betrayed by a corrupt city official who always managed to slip her treats, and another who helped us out because she was a dog person (rolled a nat 20 to assist my persuasion check with big puppy eyes). Thinking I should somehow train her to recognise and refuse bribes, or maybe get some kind of magical resistance against being charmed.
Have the dog roll persuasion checks to elicit pets from non-dog people. ._.
I feel like every house has a big easy chair that's just falling apart, but to damn comfy too throw away.
Would you mind actually putting this in PDF or document form? I really enjoyed a lot of your rules and would like them on paper!
I'd like that too
Yes!
yeah
Please
k so here's what you do, you can open the transcript of the video. remove the timestamps and then you have literally everything he said. I know it's kinda a jerky response, it's late but, really you can do that. it's like 8 seconds and boom you have your document. good luck.
"If you ever think a spell is rediculous, double-check if it's concentration!"
ah, okay.
*checks mirror image*
hmmmmm...
*checks blur*
...
but...
they're the same level...?
blur is typically more powerful. Especially for any sort of gish or medium/high AC builds. Mirror image is only preferable if your AC is so low that whatever is trying to hit you likely hit you with disadvantage anyways, and that only has one or 2 attacks at most to use on you. For a higher AC character you can easily go through all the images before any of those lost images wouldn't even have hit you in the first place.
@@Agarwaen mirror image is better I'd say, mostly because it doesn't require concentration and therefore is still useful at higher levels, but also it stacks with other effects that give enemies disadvantage.
@@luiswi Sorry, but you really need to understand how it works. While it doesn't take concentration, it only works to at most stop 3 attacks, and less or none if your AC is high enough to cause attacks that would easily take down a mirror image to have missed you (and mirror images are going to have low AC). At higher levels you're going to face monsters with more attacks even more often, further reducing the value of it. Thus it really is most useful for those with low AC who wants to avoid the odd attack coming their way, while being fairly unsuited for frontlining.
@@Agarwaen well but turning 3 hits into misses is actually quite good, at least when compared to blurr in my opinion. Blurr only imposes disadvantage which can be achieved by different abilities too and doesn't stack. When you're getting hit, there's a good chance that you'll loose concentration and most importantly, you cannot concentrate on anything else which is a huge downside.
Mirror images doesn't turn you into a tank but it's actually pretty good because you just have to worry less about defense and with a decent AC they can last a couple of rounds which can be the entire combat. They also help protecting your concentration spell which is pretty important as mentioned.
@@luiswi Except again, you're assuming all those would have been hits, when the difference between your AC and your mirror images AC should be sizeable, and could be huge (for some it could easily be 10 points or more), meaning, as I keep having to restate, you can easily lose a mirror image to an attack that wouldn't have hit you in the first place. Mirror image has it's use, but it is in no way strictly better.
Nothing like drinking home brewed ale while playing some home brewed 5e
Ive made mead before. Its easy to do but hard to do good
I literally play at a brewery so like, yeah. Really cool.
Regular person: What's up with the semi-destroyed couch over there?
Person who owns cats, nodding knowingly: Yeah, that guy has cats.
As an upholsterer I cannot recommend owning a cat.... enough. I love the little terrors and would give away a free kitten with every job if I could.
As the owner of three clawed terrors, I concur.
"imagine whipping this bad boy out"
cat comes over
IT'S THE BAD BOY
I just have one comment on the "no taking 20" rule. We allow taking 20, essentially if it is a check you can do over and over with no consequence until you hit a 20, using an hours as a thumb rule for how long it takes. So, you can search a room, meticulously turning over everything slowly and eventually find everything, but as you said, no casual re-rolling of knowledge checks.
That makes sense.
Yeah that's an actual rule in Pathfinder; for a skill check that has no negative consequence for failure, that realistically you could keep trying until such point as you succeed, you can just take a 20 on it (though some DMs will just say it succeeded in such a case, unless there's some reason it matters specifically how well you succeeded). Like for opening a heavy door when it's assumed you're strong enough to eventually get it open, and there's no time pressure, I have a DM that won't even bother making the players roll if they have enough combined strength to eventually open it to save time. Two basic rules for (not) rolling skill checks:
1. If it's inevitable they'll succeed eventually, and there's no negative consequence for failure, just say they succeed and don't bother with the roll.
2. If it's impossible anyway, or the character attempting it can't possibly succeed, just say they fail and don't bother with the roll.
Dice should only be rolled when it's necessary to resolve an uncertain outcome. If a given outcome is inevitable, just say it happens.
Okay, so as a Barbarian you roll a d20 strength check to break down a door, gets a 1 "welp guess that's the best I can do" so what are they supposed to do? Get the puny wizard to make a strength check? They'll almost certainly do better even with far worse stats.
A d20 on a strength check is your instantaneous burst of strength, not "well this door magically caps my strength as 5% because my first attempt was at my lowest 5%" no, you just keep trying until you do your best. And if it takes a roll of 20 to do it why does everyone have to sit there watching until you get a 20?
@@troodon1096 this is the rule I'm emulating :) just less mechanically defined XD
I let characters take 20 then I roll 2d6 to see how many turns it takes to complete the action instead of just saying it takes an hour.
We just implemented the death save rule. My character had two good saves, but I was CONVINCED she was about to die.
If a dm tells me a spell can only be used in combat, I ask a party member to start fist fighting me so I can concentrate on my spell better. Makes sense to me
It doesn't even make sense to me in the first place.
Healing spirit isn't that good of a spell.
Healing Prayer is the same level of spell, and can do the entire healing of healing spirit per person on up to six people.
And since we're out of combat, the long casting time isn't really a factor.
@@seigeengine That's because Healing Spirit was nerfed a few years ago.
There used to be no limit on how many times it could heal, meaning that outside of combat everyone could just step in and out of the aura every 6 seconds = everyone would get healed for 10d6.
@@mefit8725 See, this is the kind of vital detail that's needed.
"I like combat being fast" "I don't like just saying 'i go here I attack I roll dice'"
*MAKE UP YOUR MIND MAN*
robineir he wants it fast but not repetitive, he doesn’t want it just attack with a sword 2 times over and over again
@@KJLock66 If that is his concern then in all honesty either his players are not using their abilities correctly or they are playing the wrong game for them and should look at another rule system or switching to 4th edition.
@@shadowsofdawn3871 i actually started on 4th edition, so i mean thats kinda cool. believe it or not, the fighting is absolutely grueling, so long, and you basically have to do the same cycle of things over and over, so much so, that you actually stop caring about adding cool dialogue to your attacks. you just want the fighting to be over with. (just my opinion, not sure if anybody else thinks it was like this but uh..)
Fast and interesting. Taking the idea of "Move with a purpose" to the game table for combat that is interesting but doesn't take longer than it need to.
@@shadowsofdawn3871 this video is literally him changing the rule system to improve the combat, why would he need to switch to a different one
MILESTONE INSTEAD OF XP??? I feel like I've been lied to this whole time.
Most DMs I've ever played for prefer this.
Milestone To Level 3
@@liger04 MTL3? Hmmmm... Empty... LOL
Or just go back to xp per gold found, and roll random gold per creature based on its type.
@@charlesjones1535 definitely not
Ignoring ones when rolling HP should be in the official rules. It brings the average roll to exactly the default (half a point higher than a straight roll).
Yes, then the D6 having an average of 4 makes actually sense, and taking that is not stronger or weaker than rolling
Okay, new homebrew rule: if you roll a 1 you actually lose a hit point, and have to reroll. Rerolled 1's stack.
Have the wizards not suffered enough
@@rex2546 Imagine leveling up and it turns out your health took a turn for the worse and you died.
@@seigeengine calm down Satan
Jacob: "I want combat to be fast-paced"
Also Jacob: "I have a lot of rules for combat"
Also, also Jacob: "I want players to be creative and describe what they do".
You should play a session with my best friend. If he ever plays a wizard, his name will be Analysis Paralysis. That guy is awesome at tactics, but at the same time you need to indicate the pressure of the combat situation
"If it's in the books, I consider it official". What about multiclassing into every class?
That idea is abserd.
Bladez Overlord that’s actually viable
@@thatonedmguy1586 Possible yes, viable no.
@@Ozzymandias777 I see what you've done there
Haha glad to see someone else got the absurd reference.
My favorite homebrew: Vicious mockery is a bonus action
Inigo Montoya as a dex-based fighter with the Magic Initiate feat to take Vicious Mockery and use it while he action surges with extra attack
"...and another thing!..."
An extra 1d4 + magic modifiers every turn is unbalanced and most likely will backfire later on
@@SuperVannini plus not to mention a lot of bards main supporting features (bardic inspiration and healing word) are also tied to bonus action.
@@SuperVannini you typically don't add your magic modifier to vicious mockery...
I got a new sword and spent the day playing with it. Just kind of going through different guards and swings, and just kind of bonding with it. That's in real life! I really did attune to my new sword in real life! You've probably had a similar experience with a new shiny you were excited about.
My medicine check homebrew rule for unconscious PCs is different. Anything below a 10 is no effect. 10 or higher is one success for the unconscious PC. 15 or higher is stabilized but still unconscious. Nat 20 is awake with 1 hp. Nat 1 is a failure.
This is better because otherwise it isn't worth it unless you have high medicine, because if you do fail then you might kill them before the healer can do something.
@@harperthegoblin If you don't know medicine, it's probable that you make the injury worst. So it's better to try if you do have a high medicine.
@@quebec269 then lets say, if you get lower then a five, it's a fail. And if you roll a 1, you don't get to add modifiers.
you just stab them
Then again the half orc barbarian with zero healing skill probably would destroy someone if they tried CPR....
In the mid 80's my friends and I also amended and expanded the set rules and incorporated other board games and real world maps. We altered minor aspects of the DM guide to suit logic, and we used topographic maps of the Grand Canyon, and the board game, Feudal. Recently my four, mostly teen daughters rolled characters and played a night with me. That's true sorcerery.
What level did you end up getting to in this super fun sounding rp adventure?
To be fair to you, Pigeons and Doves are basically the same bird from a biological perspective.
JamesSonOfBaboonzo they are literally the same thing
YUP
I think (don't quote me on this) that not all doves are pigeons but all pigeons are doves.
@@arandomzoomer4837 google assistant says it's only about the size of them. Doves are just small pigeons apparently.
Pigeons and doves are ROBOTS
"I like combat to be fast" requires skill check for flanking, adding in another roll and calculation to see if a move ny the player was even worth the effort...
Plus, it strategically makes sense that a person that is being attacked from in front, and behind would have a difficult time with it. Unless you are just fighting toddlers, which I don't endorse but I'm just throwing that out there........cause toddlers are easy to throw.
@@Nightrailer and so are grandmas/grandfathers may i add
he mentioned in a different comment that he has since switched to just +2 when flanking cause rolling was too annoying
@@bread-colon3 which annoys me because it literally makes flanking less than half as effective as it is with advantage. The game wants advantage to be easy to get because 1. you still need to roll high to hit and the game isnt made to assume you have magic items at all times and 2. certain class features are based on advantage and disadvantage
@@donb7519 Even by early mid-game, you don't need to roll high to hit. And by level 10, even if you start off with the basic standard array, you're going to be on a +10 average to hit something.
The thing my group find is that for the most part, after the first 4-5 levels, armour class becomes practically pointless. If you don't have 22-23 AC, you're practically going to be hit 75% of the time. If you do, then it ends up being the other way round and you maybe hit 25%.
XP to level 3 uses milestones and has his players start at level 3. What a legend.
Jacob: I don't like you pretending to be a paladin when you're actually a warlock
the celestial warlock: -_-
the oathbreaker palading: -_-
Edit: I’ve never gotten this many likes and I was completely unaware of it, thank you so much.
OP af hexadin. Pally out for vengeance and needs more power for it and goes down a dark path.
Then whats role playing about then lol
Me who's playing a cross classed Redemption Paladin/Celestial Warlock. "Er.."
*paladingdong
Me: A battlemaster fighter/celestial warlock who is believes she's a paladin: . _.
Jocob on the ground, cat on the chair. That’s a true cat owner right there
"What are you doing with the item, are you poking it or just staring at it" I have 2 trains of thought on this matter.
1) Powerful magic items have a safety deliberately so if disarmed an opponent can't use it against the wielder, kind of like those guns with the built in finger print scanners. You spend an hour setting up a new "user profile" or "magic hacking" the admin account.
2) For weapons what does a +2 feel like? I think it would feel like the weapon equivalent of mouse acceleration so a +2 Great sword, it swings faster than it should, you want to do a half cut and you do a full cut or you raze to guard and it ends up over your head, so you need to relearn aim so you don't overshoot the mark and lop your own leg off or a +2 bow would have recoil and you need to learn to control it.
Jacob: "Average tends to inflate hitpoints"
Ignoring 1 puts the mean of rolling above the stated average
@Francisco Ciruela They don't have the same hp. It's based off constitution still, and each class has a different hit die. Barbarians have a d12s, Fighters and Paladins have d10s, Bard has a d8 and Sorcerer and Wizard- I assume that's what you mean by mage- has a d6.
In a game I play, the half orc fighter has the same hp as the bard. While I, the mage, have half their hp. Our bard is a fucking tank...
@@brandondennis5166 What he means, I think, is he doesn't like manually rolled HP because someone with a character that is supposed to be beefy like a Barbarian could totally whiff on a roll and end up with the same or less HP as a Wizard that high rolled.
It's the ol "We like to roll (but not actually take on any risk) metalitiy". If you want to roll, have a spine and stick to your result. D&D is already random enough of as it is, their is no need to randomize such a key stat such as HP aswell.
The normal method gives you a 50% chance of getting less than 3
Ignoring 1s takes that down to 40%, which is not actually much of a decrease
Using averages makes it a 0% chance
Jacob: Well if you wanna flank to give you and your friend advantage, you gotta make a skill check!
Me: *Laughs in Mastermind rogue*
Yes seriously, it actually gives the mastermind rogue something to do and doesn’t feel useless
@@XPtoLevel3 IMO, a mastermind rogue/battlemaster fighter multiclass sounds awesome... Battle-master-mind?
@@seasaltsky Master battlemind
Sounds like the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes when he's fighting.
Something like the death save rule that I use is that the DM rolls for checks like perception, so the player doesn't know if they failed and weren't able to see something, or if there is nothing at all, which helps stop everybody in the group from rolling perception
Jacob: "It's a Pigeon"
Later Jacob: "It's a Dove. I'm a fool"
He's not too far off. Pigeons and Doves are technically both in the Columbidae family, which contains over 300 other birds too. Though colloquially Pigeons and Doves tend to be used to refer to any of the birds in the family with "pigeon" being used for all the larger ones and "dove" for the smaller one
No sh*t.
In ancient Greek, the word for dove literally translates to white pigeon
thank you based bird fact person
Pigeons are also called "Rock Doves" because they primarily lived on cliffs before cities happened.
Depends on the species whether they were classified as pigeons or doves, but there is no actual difference between doves and pigeons, hence being in the same Columbidae family and "rock pigeon" being an accepted name for "rock dove". Generally I'd say pigeons are larger and thought of more as a gamebird that is shot and eaten. Doves are smaller, faster and usually thought of as the kind of birds you race or use as messengers rather than eat.
Jacob: The DM rolling death saves makes everyone panic
Me: *goes Grave Domain Cleric* Ahem, 30ft Spare the Dying
I had a book of shadows warlock who did that too. Familiar, fly over there and deliver this spare the dying please.
You can also technically cast it twice in one round as a Grave Cleric
@@SeismicHammer well, you can’t. You can cast one spell as bonus action and cantrip as an action, but no two cantrips.
@@OlegRhein it doesnt say anything about that in the PHB, where are you getting the ruling from?
@@awesomesauce_3516
Chapter 10: Spellcasting.
Section: Casting Times.
*_Bonus Action._* A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. *_You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action._*
Also, unless the feature explicitly states that you can choose to do something as an action or a bonus action (such as Cunning Action), you can’t just flip between the two.
9:42 That beast was there the whole time! Kitty made a successful stealth roll. I didn't see your cat until it was to late. Darkness.
On note of countercharm: Paladins can't actually do anything about charm, just frighten. The only one that gets anything to do with charm is Oath of Devotion (a 10 ft anti-charm aura.)
Charm is kinda an annoyingly strong effect, but it's totally save or suck. Personally what I like to rule for countercharm is, as an action it removes frighten, but for charm you can allow any allies another attempt at saving versus charm as an action, and any allied saves against charm or frightened get your cha bonus til the start of your next turn. Maybe have it ramp up at later levels to immediately end charm, but at level 6 that might be too early.
Tbh, charm suffers from effects of previous editions where there were effects that were immediately absurdly damaging if you failed a single save, but didn't do anything if you succeeded, leading to a lot of swingy gameplay.
Also I'm stealing cardic inspiration, I like that idea a lot.
Imo the bards countercharm is very underwhelming unless you somehow knew the enemy was going to use a spell that charms or frightens your party
@@shirleyjoking Yeah. It only works currently if you're actively using it. The only ways that'll be useful is if it's passive, if it has a duration (e.g. making it a concentration effect might be an option), or if it's changed to have an effect WHEN you use it too. (e.g., removing charm or allowing a repeat save)
This is where I think a simple homebrew fixes a broken ability. Make counter charm either a bonus action (on turn) or a reaction (off turn) to start and free to maintain with a bonus action. This means if someone drops a charm on someone you can react to it and start counter charming to give the bonus instantly on that first roll and you can maintain it and a concentration spell at the same time. No muss, no fuss, and the Bard's broken ability now has functionality without being OP. Still not a great power but no longer total shite.
@@shirleyjoking It would be much more useful if it was allowed as a reaction. Otherwise it's only useful if you somehow know in advance the enemy is going to try charming someone.
5e is almost all swingy gameplay
Debra Ann Woll from Relics & Rarities has two I have enjoyed.
1. When you help someone you add your skill proficiency to their roll. If you're not good at something you're not going to do a great job helping them.
2. The DM rolls investigation and insight checks for the player in secret, then tells them what they learned.
Players taking narrative control of their attacks. I see some DMs including on CR, describing characters attacks, after they roll and it's confirmed a hit. Mercer will sometimes say things like "You lunge forward and drive your sword deep into it's chest as blood erupts". Things to add a bit of flavor over "You hit. Roll damage" "You miss". Instead I recommend letting the players know the AC (unless it's one of those rare circumstances where you want them to continue attacking until they figure it out, usually do to spell protections). So you let them know the AC they are aiming for. They roll their attack and damage rolls together (to save time) and if it hits, they see how much damage it did and can then describe the attack to you based on those.
"You Have Come Over To My House And We Are Going To Start Playing DnD (ASMR)"
"What is that? You want to check the bushes? Alright, roll for initiative" *rolls dice*
I really wanna do this just for the meme
@@XPtoLevel3 omg please do. That would be amazing 😂
I have a rule for DM’s I got from a game called Coriolis: No matter the result of a skill check or roll, the only thing a DM cannot say is “nothing happens”
This is a good rule. I'm stealing this.
The 15 mph is a bit misleading, considering you also have to accelerate during those 6 seconds, and compensate for the time spent accelerating. Adventurers are not average humans though.
Also all their encumberance is weighing them down
Actually, it's more realistic than you think on acceleration. You do have to accelerate, but you can output enormous effort for short durations.
In fact, the 50 m (164 ft~) record is under 6 seconds, and, for men, is around 20 mph.... but by the time you're hitting 1000 m, the world record speed is 17 mph, at 5000 m it's 15 mph. Of course, 50 m is a bit short. The 100 m record is over 23 mph, but, to be fair, the 100 m seems to be a far more popular distance, so it's possible lack of competition is what's lead to a low 50 m record, though it's likely also just too short to reach those peak speeds. Of course, the world record sprinter at 100m peaked at nearly 28 mph, but considering the 200m record, by the same guy, also is only about 23 mph... those intense speeds clearly can't be sustained. By 500m it's down to nearly 19 mph, then, as I said, 1km is down to 17 mph.
The unrealistic part is that those world record level athletes are specialists in sprinting, often with access to state of the art performance optimization and the advances of modern science, optimal diets, etc. For the 5 km for instance, 100 years ago the record was more like 12 mph. And that those sprinters do it basically wearing nothing except good modern footwear.
In contrast, our adventurers may be very fit, but they are not specialists in sprinting, they don't have access to modern science or optimal diets, they have medieval level footwear, and they're likely carrying loads of bulky heavy equipment.
Most animals/humans reach full speed well before 6 seconds. Cheetahs, scary enough, reach full speed in just under 3. Horses a bit faster than that.
The muscles in the legs are extremely strong. Especially in adventurers/people that do that sort of thing a lot. I'd imagine that a Monk/Rogue/Ranger probably use their legs for movement far more than, say, a wizard (who relies on magic). So trying to add "but they have to accelerate" is dumb.
Great video! Just wanted to add that Fighter has indomitable for death saves as well for knowing if they failed or not, because they can only reroll if they specifically fail the save.
The fighter could wait to use it for when the DM tells the fighter that they died. It'd make it a lot more of an epic moment too.
DM: Unfortunately, even though the party tried their hardest to kill the boss before the fighter bled out, it just wasnt possible. With a final breath-
Fighter:I summon up every last bit of my willpower and to attempt to stay alive just a little longer!
I love the secret death saves thing. I'm definitely going to steal that.
"Good artists borrow. Great artists steal."
-Pablo Picasso
“Hey, Jacob. How do you say the past tense of ‘forget’?”
“I forgetted”
me english dum
@@XPtoLevel3 english is hard
5:43 One of my players is a half-giant and the other player know that, but the characters have never seen a giant and to them, he just looks like a buff and taller human, so they think he's just human. Honestly its a fun feature when they have to introduce him (He's a silent character and doesn't talk to the other players speak for him) as a human.
2:08 I thought that he was gonna say, "You wanna Dungeon my Dragons?" And I hate my brain.
I love that phrase, i wanna use it in real life
Agevdhxjaj WHAT.
Man, we're gonna go out and do some Dragon Dungeoning...I have no words. Good stuff.
Definitely gonna integrate the "take narrative control" idea. I've been trying to do the juggling act of getting my new crew to understand what cooperative storytelling entails, and I need something to balance out my occasional wrist slapping. think it might be just the reward for their good role-play!
That "DM rolls the death saving throws" thing... that sends me. Definitely using that as a future DM. Sounds like a lot of suspense and fun!
My only thing with this is if someone with the Lucky feat is rolling death saving throws, how will they know if they want to reroll unless they know it's a fail?
Its fun until you kill one of your players and they permenatly feel like if they had rolled they could have saved them
I run something similar. I use Roll20 for my games and my players print a /gmroll death save rather than a public roll and keep the result to themselves. Everyone knows they've made death saves, no one knows if they've died yet or what state they're in until they try to pump healing into them. It caused a rather shocking situation when I ran lost mines; the party changeling rogue went down, took a failed death save from being caught in an ally aoe and the turn after they rolled a one. It wasn't until the dust settled and the healer could cross a chasm to reach them did they find out they weren't coming back.
No meta burning everything to get them back up, people thought they had more time and only when the fight was over did it hit them like a tonne of bricks.
As a DM, I am fervently against this one, honestly. I think it takes a way from player agency to not give them control of the rolls that could see their character live or die. It'd feel really bad for a player to know their character died on a death saving roll behind a DM screen that they didn't even get to observe, much less roll. It's their character, and the fate of their character should be in their hands, not the DM's. It also puts the burden on the player to trust that the DM didn't fudge their rolls, and is complicated further by the introduction of things like luck or divine intervention from patron deities in higher level campaigns.
@@TheSilentShane I prefer it with a DM/Player roll only - a luxury only able with online table top games but it certainly adds to it.
I disagree with the help action homebrew. Even if I don’t know how to scale a wall and kick flip through a window, I can sure as hell stand there with my fingers interlaced to be a step-stool.
But do you know how to balance someone standing on your fingers? Do you know how to use your whole body to take their weight or lift them up? That said I tend to allow/disallow help on a case-by-case basis rather than use a general rule.
Agilemind I just give flat number increase for the corresponding stat modifier and proficiency, if there is any. And some tasks have unreachable for one or two people numbers - like lifting castle portcullises. But one player in our group who was the jacked fighter was helped by our dwarf war cleric, who was strong too, and they called a few ally warriors for aid. And now a dozen of people, helping the fighter, did manage to lift it enough for rogue to slide in to open it later.
My main home brew rule is that ‘insight’ is renamed to ‘vibe check’
fantastic
Yes
“Make a vibe check”
_rolls dice_
Shit, failed the vibe check.
Don't do that.
@@Dyanosisdon't be a vibe kill lol
If you’re good at roleplaying, you can let the *players* know you’re really a warlock, but the *characters* think you’re a paladin!
Also my simple home brew would be that rage only gives a level of exhaustion when you don’t make a con save, and more shield variants.
And also anything that adds more fun and makes things more concise
"I don't like to use average hit points, because it tends to give a lot of hit points" so instead I use a homebrew rule that will tend to give more than average hit points.
The homebrew rule gives you the exact same amount on average
@@FabulousJejmaze No it doesn't
The average roll of 1d4 is 2.5
The average roll of 1d4, ignoring 1's, is 3
The average roll of 1d6 is 3.5
The average roll of 1d6, ignoring 1's, is 4
Aren’t those half values rounded up? Cause then they’d be the same number of points
@@nekroz_of_super_dora3477 You don't round half values up because you don't actually roll half values. That's just the average roll.
If you rolled 10,000 d6, and then you added up all the numbers you rolled, you'd come up with about 35,000. That means for each die roll of those 10,000 rolls, the average was 3.5
There is no middle number on a d6, because it's even-sided. 1,2,3 are low, and 4,5,6 are high. There is no middle number, so the average roll is between 3 and 4.
You don't actually roll a die and get a 3.5. That's just what it averages out to.
@@endosmuthmaobethwen7030 What they mean is according to the phb the hp you gain on a lvl up is the hit dice or the average rounded up. For example a monk says. Hit Points at Higher LeveIs: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per monk levei afler Ist
Using diagonals without accommodating for the increased hypotenuse lengths buffs certain actions and abilities when not in use. That's why I insist on using it, complication aside.
I think using Insight (or Sense Motive, Pathfinder main here) should be used to perceive emotions from a character; makes PC on PC checks a lot easier without exposing deceptions.
Also as a PF main, I have to disagree on the opposition to taking 10 or 20. I believe this mechanic is solely present to avoid rerolling unnecessarily when the player can just roll until a desired result is achieved. The dice are there to control the drama, and in actions that bare no stakes, there ought not be dice.
There should never be PC on PC checks unless the characters are dueling or something similar. One, it takes agency away from the players of the characters to decide how they react to other characters' actions, and two, it's just another form of PvP which is always a bad idea, period.
@@troodon1096 I mean I'm not for serious PvP like players trying to kill each other or maliciously robbing each other blind but like fun sort of PvP that is more joking or just for fun and no stakes or malice involved is fine by me
0:37 If anyone's wondering, the technique used to make "animated prints" like these is called "lenticular printing".
The way I narrate attuning to a magic item is you need to get used to how something that acts in an unnatural way behaves. Imagine having a 25 lbs great axe but woah it is a +3 so it is easy to swing.
"there are races that don't have feats"
snake people?
Yuan-Ti are OP enough, no exclusive feats for them in my opinion
no one got this joke! SNAKES HAVE NO FEET
Ahem, sneeple. Thank you
You mean foots?
How dare you be funny like that
"Milestone to lvl 3" that cracked me up 🤣
15:17 Add material component to the spell 'Healing Spirit'
The material component is 'Freshly spilled blood worth 1gp, which the spell consumes'
How much blood is worth 1 gold piece.
A lot.
@@Bentothethird
If its too much, it can be reduced.
@@Bznsin to get to a point where it wouldn't be an absurd amount of blood, you would remove the cost of the component I think, and thus the component wouldn't be consumed and/or you wouldn't have to track it. Best to just leave it as is in the source material. It was meant to be a cheap and easy way to heal up the party between combats after all.
@@shadowsofdawn3871
Well, he was looking for an in lore reason for why Healing Spirit can only be cast during combat (Home brew rule). I am simply offering an in lore reason why it can be done so.
The monetary cost of blood required to cast the spell does not be expensive. It just need to have a monetary cost and have the spell consume the cost to prevent the substitution of material components to a spell focus/component pouch (Which defeats the purpose).
Hence, the need for the blood to be fresh (so that it players cannot store blood to be used at a later date) and the need for the blood to have some monetary value.
Heck, it does not need to blood, just need to be some thing that is freshly produced in combat. Like a corpse that has only existed for a minute. Or broken armor and/or weapon pieces.
Better explantion I heard for it is the spirit is a sentient being of nature and only answers the call in battle because there's other healing magicsfor outside
Like calling a ambulance instead of going to a doctor... stop wasting my time it's not an emergency.
I'd argue that secret race is perfectly valid, because changelings
I think his point was no secret characters for the players. “I am playing a changeling celestial warlock.” Vs “hello Bob, I am a changeling celestial warlock.”
It's not like your character can't trick the other characters
You're just not allowed to trick the other players
Which seems fair, if you're not playing with a bunch of meta-gaming assholes who will immediately try to reveal your secrets in character without any reason to do so
I agree, classes should be obvious but keeping your race a secret better immerses players especially if you drop hints. I played a Changeling bard did this twist and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had to the point that he’s one of my favourite characters that I always return to if ever I’m introducing myself to a new group of players cause he’s such a good character and just a safe bet overall.
My one character is a semi-homebrew class (created with DM), basically it follows all of the rules in the book, but I put limiters on myself (what spells I can cast) and a massive amount of flavor text. My character cannot cast spells, but he is haunted by spirits that benefit him and affects others based on his emotion. So when "I cast" mage hand, a spirit is actually levitating it and my character is distracted by a strange crack in the wall. (pathfinder, halfling, oracle, double curse: Haunted, Scourge) So while the DM and I know what he is the other's don't and likely think at first that he was just a mage until they figure it out. Majority of npc's who know him thinks he is cursed. (there is a lot more to him but I won't bore you with it, I'm just saying I agree and wanted to share a little about him).
@@kane8165 what’s ironic about all that is that I have a similar character concept for a fighter/ bard ( or whatever other class that would accept this concept ) where his soul has intertwined with the unborn soul of his twin who grows up with but as a ghost since souls age and they’re souls are intertwined.
And my PC would have lived close to an ancient battleground so his ghost brother would have been taught by the warrior spirits that dwell there. So whenever he’s in combat he goes from this measly not all combat experienced person to this battle hardened grizzled warrior who strikes by bending his limbs in unnatural ways to strike. And because his dead twin never grew up with a body, he pushes it to move in unhealthy ways in order to get an advantage in combat, even though it damages the body and hence he would take damage just to attack with advantage ( it would also only work on people who haven’t seen him do it, so If an enemy had his back turned the first time he twisted his arm the other way to strike someone then he would get still get advantage, if he didn’t have his back turned saw you do it then it would be just a regular attack. Not sure if this would balance him out or be an unnecessary nerf )
It would also mean that they would have two character sheets along with two complete opposite personalities.
The measly one would have high dex since he prefers to dodge his way through fights.
While the undead one would have a low dex as he has limited experience with how limbs really work and no real concept of pain or risking death but higher con cause his ghostly possession buffs the body of the living twin.
So something like casting mage hand would actually not be the hands of the pc that everyone can see but the hands of the undead brother who is only temporarily and restrictively been brought back to our plane of existence to try and mimic his brother’s hand movement.
Obviously this would all also be kept secret from the entire party until the DM/PC decides otherwise or if by chance someone in the party discovers it independently.
So a twist like that would work in my eyes as you wouldn’t be hiding the fact that you’re playing a new class just not revealing the more finer and important details of what exactly you are.
the death save one is a really good idea. as a DM, i love that- it'll really make my players invested in the campaign because of the suspense. as a player? aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You: "Spare the Dying is a pideon!" ("It's a Dove, I'm a Fool")
Me: Pigeons are also called Rock Doves
Cardic Inspiration is a rad rule, it's like having a tarot turned over by Fate.
You have a kind and generous heart... Giving the players death saves. I used to use the old 1E style, drop a HP until you hit -10 and die. But no one died unless they got knocked to -10 on the same hit as they went below 0 HP. So my home brew is this... When a player goes down, you probably only have until the end of the next turn to get them healed.
On the downed players initiative *AND* at the end of the round, starting immediately, they roll a d4 with a -1 modifier for every roll they have made so far. d4-1 for the first, d4-2 for the second, etc. If they roll a zero or less, they die. They _could_ die on the first roll. They WILL die on the fourth.
(I gave out a magic item that lets a player add their CON bonus to the roll... It's one of the most prized magic items in the game!)
When a player is brought back from negative HP they get 2 levels of exhaustion. When you are revived, you _can_ continue to fight, but 4 levels of exhaustion is harsh, and 6... Well you stay dead if somehow you go down a third time.
I have homebrewed that a 5th level Greater Restoration will heal 3 levels of exhaustion, and 3rd level Lesser Restoration will heal 1 to help with getting a player back up and 100% functional sooner.
And healing overnight? Yeah, you only get back your CON bonus in HP. The HD die roll hit point gains and full health long rest are other lame rules.
Jacob: oh hey, didn’t see you there
Me: *wolfing down cup ramen*
Massive Damage rule : Let's make Rogues and Paladins even stronger by making the mob/NPC make a massive damage check on every attack. I just can't get behind this rule. Can't use average HD when level upping is a rule I debated with one of my DMs. I absolutely despise this rule because I used it many times and it led, on 3 different campaigns to me, playing a Fighter or Barbarian and ending up with 2/3rd of the Rogue's HP, while having 16-18 Con vs the Rogue's 14-15. It just feels awful to be the tank that literally cannot tank because they die on a single fireball at level 6.
Overall, a few rules, like the sprint and the secret death saves that I like and will discuss with my DMs.
Yeah I hate when DMs say you have to roll.
I'm a Dwarf Cleric that has more HP than everyone else because I rolled high.
@@getthegoons To be fair, a hill dwarf cleric has a pretty good chance to have high Hp, what with native constitution + extra hit points.
But yeah, a single roll should't be that important as a hp roll, at least not a non-story roll.
@@PikaPenny17 I think that character had 16 Con.
The aasamar Paladin had 16 as well, and a d10 hit die. We should have been close to equal (Average of 9 for me, 9 for him) but he rolled ass and ended up with like 7 or 8 less than I did.
Our DM gives the option of Average HP or risk it on the roll. No one ever risks it on the roll.
Evil characters in the party usually enrich the game. Just needs to be done right. There is a huge difference of being more authentic or being a caricature of an evil person. And usually evil characters are way more cautious. Make an evil character that can fit and benefit a group is key, and the same goes for the goodie-two-shoes Paladin.
Personally, I think the issue is people tend to play evil characters like stereotypical sociopaths and not like actual evil people.
Being evil just means you're willing to hurt others for personal gain. A perfectly well socially adjusted person could be evil. An evil person can care greatly for their companions. Their idea of personal gain can even lead them to superficially appearing good. For example, maybe Keith's personal gain is glory, and to get that they want to go on some grand adventure and save people... but oh look, they need some extra cash to purchase the equipment and supplies with. Well, who cares if a few people go missing for the cause? That's a price Keith is willing to pay.
But evil characters are not inherently more cautious than other characters. If anything, perhaps less, because they have fewer internal checks and balances on their behaviour, so may be inclined to think about their behaviours and possible results less.
@@seigeengine Yea, you’re spot on m8. You can go through an entire campaign doing only good stuff with the party and being evil, at that point, it boils down to intent. If you’re evil, you’re doing it for purely selfish reasons, perhaps said evil person now has the means to do his nefarious stuff after the campaign.
I say cautious, and that is more related to people playing a stereotypical villain and going out and kicking puppies, if you’re evil, you don’t do that, because that will compromise your survival. If you’re evil, you must rely on fitting into society as much as possible, and if you’re evil, other evil people are not your friends. Good people are not your friends. All in all, you won’t really have friends because you’re that self-absorb. Neutral people can have the “the end justifies the means” attitude, an evil person will always do it for selfish gain. Ofc. there’s so many shades. I actually found something a while back, which grasp it really well, when I did research to play an evil character correctly.
Edit:
Found it here;
Lawful Evil; forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?448542-Compliance-Will-Be-Rewarded-A-Guide-to-Lawful-Evil
Neutral Evil;
forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?449418-By-NE-means-necessary-a-guide-to-Neutral-Evil
Chaotic Evil;
forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?446414-No-Limits-No-Regrets-A-guide-to-the-Chaotic-Evil-alignment
If you should ever need it, or if you've people around you wanting to play an evil character, and helping them getting into the right mindset.
@@Christian_Bagger I mean, I don't really agree.
Certainly smart evil character would behave like that, but there are plenty of thugs and scumbags in our world who openly abuse animals, assault people, etc.
Also, I ardently reject the idea that being selfish means you lack normal social bonds. Social bonds aren't a property of good people, they're a property of the type of animal we are and our survival strategy. Evil people regularly associate, and they have just as strong a motivation to legitimately cooperate as the rest of us do. You don't help your mate move because "you're a good person," you help your mate move because establishing and maintaining a strong social web and the ensuing potential reciprocation allows the exploitation of greater resources in times of personal need. There's also the genetic metaorganism aspect, but that's not beneficial to the individual.
An evil person may ultimately decide to sell out those bonds if they perceive them as not worth maintaining but... do the rest of us not do the same thing? You're not useful anymore, so we drift apart. You move, or switch jobs, or w/e, and it's no longer convenient to get my social fix from you... so we stop talking. That IS betrayal of a bond that you perceive, on some level, as no longer worth the cost of maintaining.
Arguably the people an evil person may most want to form bonds with are good people, because good people are willing to do the most for others.
It's also an aspect of behaviour vs values. That's something good from harry potter actually. Children aren't sorted into houses in that fiction based on what traits they have, but what traits they value. Many characters are great examples of this. Hermione seems like she'd belong in Ravenclaw: she embodies the traits that house prizes, but what SHE prizes in people are the traits of Gryffindor. It isn't cleverness or curiosity she aspires to, but bravery and honor. Harry, as mentioned, has all the aspects befitting a Slytherin: and, imo, he clearly portrays all those behaviours in the books: a sadistic delight in his "enemies'" misery, a willingness to use underhanded means, a disregard for the rules, intense selfishness and ambition, etc... but he aspires to be brave, upright, and honorable, even if he's not always those things. The quartet of the prior generation all exhibit this too: James and Sirius are clearly more Slytherin material than Gryffindor, though they also exhibit bravery. Remus is more a "Ravenclaw." Peter is a "Hufflepuff" who aspires perhaps the most to Gryffindor qualities, but years of abuse and exploitation pushed him to be more Slytheriny.
Just because I'm willing to hurt innocents to get the job done doesn't mean I don't think highly of those who don't make those compromises. Perhaps I view them as simply better people than I. Perhaps I view them as idealistic fools, and am saddened that I believe such sacrifices need to be made.
An evil person can love their family, value their friends, cherish their pet dog, and ultimately desire things that are "good." The only difference between being good and evil is what you're willing to do to get whatever it is you want.
And personally, I hate guides like those. I don't want some giant elaborate textwall about what other people think of alignments or alignment archetypes or w/e. Drive to the heart of what something is. Boil it down to it's most concentrated form, and then dilute it out and mix in what you please. Yes I'm aware that's funny coming from a guy giving you a giant text wall about what I think alignments are, even though there's a clear difference, lol.
To be good is to sacrifice yourself for others.
To be evil is to sacrifice others for yourself.
To be lawful is to respect rules.
To be chaotic is to disrespect rules.
Neutrality is to be between these.
Everything else is flavour, and you should build that yourself.
I really like my DM's house rule for hit points.
Every time we level up, we roll all the hit dice (except for the one for first level) and if it is more than the amount you rolled for the previous level you keep it.
For example, lets' say you are a wizard with a +0 Con. You get your 6HP at level one, and then your 6 +1d6 at level 2 like normal, keeping 1s. Let's say you rolled a 6. So now you have 12 HP. Awesome!
Level 3 your new HP is 6 + 2d6. Let's say you roll a 1 and a 3. This is not to add to the 12. No, rather, you either choose between the 12 or the 10 you just rolled. Obviously, you keep the 12.
Level 4 your new HP is 6 +3d6. You roll a 4, 3, 5, so now your HP goes from 12 to 18. And so on and so forth.
What ends up happening is that bad dice rolls don't curse your character forever. The Barbarian's 2 roll doesn't stick with them forever. But, if you roll super good then you might not get hit points for a level or two. Also, it's more fun rolling a big handfull of dice at higher levels, which will tend to skew towards average.
that is amazing. although it undoubtedly leads to higher hp, it balances them back in line automaticly. nobody has too little or too much, but both can happen temporarily
This is a very interesting rule. I am going to look into using this briefly at my table to judge its effectiveness.
I tend to allow my players to roll as per normal, however, if they roll below the die average it becomes equal to the average. So if they do have a 1d6 the average is a 4. This helps our wizard friend not be so squishy (even though he did get run over by a Gorgon last session) but also doesn't give them too many hit points in the long run if they don't roll the average. Though I do like your idea too, it sounds like a lot of fun.
Then you could have someone who is cursed by one levels worth of good rolls. In theory, and I've had players that have this bad of luck when rolling groups of dice, you could have that same Wizard get 12 at 2nd level then spend levels 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 without gaining more HP at all other than CON boosts, which in this case with the stated +0 con, would be nothing. Statistically, the method would work out more often than not, but Murphy is a modern god for a reason. Statistics mean nothing to the all mighty Murphy.
Your thumbnail strongly emits "Oh, yeah. It's all coming together" energy.