im playing a game where i take a drink of water everytime i read a comment thats about spencer, you know, to stay hydrated. At least we can all agree why we're here. The hot goth babe.
@@janelantestaverde2018 Literally I watch this because Jacob is funny and a decent DM. I take notes for when I DM. I like my style better (I run 3.5e so it is what it is) but you can always learn from how others run the game. I really couldnt care less if one of the players is a woman.
4:15 Jacob's face as Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Ravenway introduces herself. The look at the camera. And then the drink from the skull mug. Gets me every time.
I love how, since Spencer has the highest passive perception, she sees the edgiest shit in every wall while the rest just see kids dancing and flowers 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Ebony is the only one off her meds.
@@vincentbrancato5146 I'd argue there's a bit more to an aesthetically pleasing goth look than that. "done well" anyway. Heavy makeup is far less forgiving of makeup mistakes for example. But fair enough.
Death House's difficulty as an introduction to CoS is kinda funny story wise if you tpk and have to roll up new characters for the rest of CoS it's like an episode one where you think you're meeting the main characters but you're really just playing through a cautionary tale
When I ran this for my group I changed things up a bit. When the group made it to the attic and found the children, the children asked the group to come play with them before the group all pass out and awaken to find themselves still in the attic but something is not quite right when they realize that they are in the doll house looking out the window to see their bodies unconscious in the attic. They are forced to play hide and seek with dolls of the children and in the process find the hidden door to the basement and the child apologise for trapping them in the doll house and explain that they have been alone for so long and that the monster will not let them rest in peace. I also moved the door to the crypt to the first floor. I changed the mound to a mound of flesh with the baby brother at its core.
Not the only one, I played a character who was a rouge, he had an anbu mask and wore all black, we had like 2 rouge's in our party. So I was really surprised that none of them played a rouge class. (An anbu mask is a Japanese fox mask)
Rogues do great during the first half of the house, but not as well during the second half because all the combat encounters in the dungeon are in too small of spaces.
Yeah, that's what happened to my party. Someone doubted the children were real, went to touch them. Once understood they were a trap, they torched the house.
I don't get how you guys are still so unknown on RUclips. Those streams are funny, With some good rp and awesome to watch. Just some friends playing a module for fun. Good video guys. Keep it up
Death House was actually my first experience into DnD! Absolutely loved every second of the campaign and I got what my friends called a legendary moment! What a first impression this game left on me!
@@donb7519 i only know they removed a writer and a programmer.....why was never fully discussed. The company says it was a mutual decision but the writer said the news was just dropped on them and they were out. Aside from that all the happy PC bs really kills the dark ominous psychological setting and replaces it with My little pony prime time episodes. I got little issue with PC but when you are trying to hard to force it. When it starts limiting STs from being able to create villains and settings that fit in WoD.....well now world of butterflies. You might as well have just turned it into twilight sparkles included.
The first time I played through the death house, my DM turned the Shambling Mound into a giant flesh monster and it was both horrifying and amazing at the same time. I heard someone give this as a suggestion in the end and as a player, I can honestly say that that definitely left an impression. I was so excited for the rest of the game!
"Well they will come with a balanced party an...3 DPS characters? You...you are bringing 3 DP characters. To the Goredungeon of Murderdoom? Not even a Tank? OK..." Every DM ever.
@@TheBayzent When i ran through this house it was literally the easiest least impressive thing i'd ever run. 1 grick, and 1 suit of armor, both of which i guessed and was ready for, (having never played this before). The only thing that was even a remotely challenging encounter was the shambling mound. Because it kept critting me and so everytime i got out, i got raped again lol.
I just started this module with some friends and we're using the dungeons and doggos/ cats and catacombs content in our campaign. The shenanigans a group of awakened animals can do in the death house is quite amazing so far haha
All my characters ever have super edgy abilities, aesthetics, and often some edginess in their perspective, but tend to have fairly upbeat backstories, serious but loyal and kind (within their own paradigms, like they usually will give food and coin to beggars, help older people cross the street, enslave goblin tribes rather than slaughter them to the last, and end the suffering of a downed foe) or even have a bit of a sense of humour. They tend to either be a party face or else the backup face, but every DM who I’ve played with either doesn’t read the backstory and assumes they are an edge lord or else does and loves the character.
I tend to put thought into the backstory, but since all my friends play with "Gareth Ravenbane", "Alastra Thornblood" and "Animustriel Sandwraith" I like to call my characters "Tom" and "Bill" and give them rather mundane (for a fantasy world) lives. I play most of my characters like Deadpool's Peter nowadays.
My first character was an edgy young adult Drow in a home brew setting. The Drow government was more unified but still a dictatorship so I had his backstory be he was part of the secret police/fascist death squad and is now trying to atone for his last mission where he helped murder a family and left their bodies stroking their own decapitated heads at the dinner table plus a punch bowl filled with blood in the middle( pulled from real life fascists supported by the USA, I believe it was El Salvador). He was loyal to the team, to authority figures he respected and still could do edgy things like the murder/decapitation and dinner bowl filled with blood thing but would only do so if the group agreed to it. Only one other person in that group of 8 knew the events I was referencing and it was not the DM lol. The DM also did not seem interested in exploring the psychology of the character more but it may have been my fault for making it too dark, or too real.
Tiefling rogue, haunted one, the family ritual thing, ran away from home, I have a high char and Dex, so I'm like a really dashing rogue. All flash and fun and jokes.
My edgy character's backstory basically was that he ran away from home when he accidentally killed his brother's pet goose. I tried unironically to make it sentimental but it sounds like a joke
If anyone is wondering, the unknown scroll that Orpheus tried to cast on Venariel was Protection from Poison and would have not helped bring him back or anything.
I recently ran this as a one-shot to get used to Roll20. I plan on running CoS this fall. Death House was an awesome introductory adventure. I took the advice of people on the internet to really play up the horror factor through atmospheric details, and it worked great. I also changed the Shambling Mound into a mound of bodies with the stats of a flesh golem. I really like your idea to make this house more meaningful by giving information that the players can use later when confronting Strahd, such as by finding information about the artifacts. Very insightful!
Ohhhhh that "tell us something that everyone would know about you after 2 days" sounds like an AMAZING trick to start up a game. Quite amazeballs, if I should say - 10/10 will steal
The first time I played the Death House, (I was new to D&D at the time) we actually went to the basement (or whatever you call it) and almost died from the Shadows. Long story short, we finished it (alive) and left. Well we actually did the sacrifice, so for the longest time I was so confused whenever people would mention the Shambling Mound encounter (I was very insistent on exploring the entire house). Until your video that you posted today, I didn't realize where that encounter was. I also sold the windmill deed
I just want to say The Ebony Icon being the Internet Historian Sundance Rejects Ebony is a wonderful thing to see. 10/10 Spencer is a blessing to this video.
Handy to watch, our Strahd game starts tonight and I've been pouring over the Durst Manor for days to make it as engaging and challenging as possible but without the need for TPKs. I've dialled a lot of the encounters into ones that can be dealt without combat if done intelligently. I've increased the creepy factor somewhat and oddly made quite a few of the changes you had talk about at the end (e.g. flesh mound instead of plant). Spent 4 hours writing personalised nightmare sequences for each character to get them into the game... can't wait for it to start :)
Homebrew > modules in my humble opinion. Modules tend to be too rigid to let a session really thrive. Homebrew you can improvise and the player will never know. The largest difference is modules have flavor text a sufficiently prepared homebrew is almost identical to a module in my experience.
Oh god this is a bad example lol The entire reason for this VOD is for him to have good arguments for why the death house is a bad part of curse of strahd. If you want to actually see good homebrew, watch the waterdeep campain!
Running this I would probably flavour the shambling mound as like the heart of the house or something, and like instead of being a bush it’s like a mass of broken construction material to keep the plant material aspect
**walks up set of stairs that start on the ground floor to the next level** *"Are we on the third floor or the fourth?"* I genuinely don't know if this was RP or a momentary brain fart on the player.
Someone would have to do it VERY well for me to allow it in my game. I like the concept but the way dnd works it would be difficult to make it not a nuisance, but I'd run a one shot and see how it worked if it didn't unfortunately I wouldn't let it happen. And I'm a dm that let's anyone try ABOUT anything they want.
Goth spencer was my first intro to spencer. I quickly realized it was a joke but for the first few minutes i was thinking "What have i gotten myself into.
Really entertaining playthrough, also a great follow-up to the Death House fix video. I am DM'ing DH, currently on 40% or so after the first session. One of the main critical points from you guys was the unnecessary difficulty of the adventure - I will observe what is going to be the case if the party is not 3 squishy casters, but a more well-rounded combo of tiefling paladin/variant human rogue/half-elf warlock/orc wizard is. It is too early to see for the meatgrinder part starts in the second half :D (and the Spectre is just hooey, will be nerfed)
conclusion: Spectre was oneshotted by the warlock, the first floor grinder of the shadows/mimic/ghasts was completely ignored, they went straight down to the second floor, awakened the bossmonster - Zombie Beholder in our case - it one-shot the wizard, but otherwise it was rapidly defeated, all of this 2 sessions without even a single short rest
@@kaiyihuang4045 my party wasn't that well rounded, as it turned out, the Zombie Beholder destroyed the wizard, but the consistent warlock EB damage put an end to it's unholy afterlife. Since then, I finished my campaign as well :D
I believe it is absolutely a boss move if a character dies in the scope of one-shots, to bring their brother/sister. As a matter of fact, I would always ask to have one at the ready for one shots specifically so I can merrily go around and kill everything that moves
I'm building a Death House for my campaign. I'm a baby DM.... Tiny, new baby that walked into this world in support of my husband in a newfound hobby during a mentally draining time in his life... And now I'm here.... Running a thing. I was inspired by the newest Dark Anthology game Devil in Me. But it was missing something. I wanted the group to walk into something terrifying, with traps, but also someone who can twist a knife in their back stories and make them hurt. This is now apart of my research. As I eat chips and laugh. :)
There is a better monster to use in place of the specter: The Indentured Spirit from Ravnica. It still does 3d6 damage, resists everything, passes through walls etc, but it can't drain max hp and it has less hp. It's still CR 1, but it actually belongs there. Lore-wise its somebody who died indebted to the Orzhov Syndicate and now has to keep working for them until it pays off its debt. I don't think it's at all a stretch to say you become one if you die owing money to your evil cult leader boss.
So medium creatures can't move through other medium creatures unless they're allies. That means that the ghouls wouldn't have been able to get behind the party. They would have wound up, if they wanted to attack whoever was in front, have to move into their allies space, attack, and then potentially take an AOO as they moved back because they can't end their turn in another's space.
Went way to far to find this. There's a variant rule for tumbling, but otherwise you can't move through a hostiles space. The difficult terrain rule is only for moving through a creature two sizes larger/smaller.
Enjoyed this video and haven’t DM’d a game in over a year but intending to do CoS. We typically played on maps I pasted together from Schley images and I decided to build a 40” table tv to do it to save me from having to print and build the many maps required for Strahd. Wasn’t too sure how I would display my digital maps (Mike S and some others again) and after watching this, I know I won’t consider D20.
I really wanted to learn how to separate a "viewer screen" like this video and some streamers does. I'm DMing a Curse of Strahd campaign on roll20 and some of my friends wanted to watch the sessions. For now I try to open two browsers, one is the DM browser with my notes and full map visual while the other browser is the player one to show to the stream. But its kinda inconvenient to control both browsers at the same time.
Weird cheat have a player stream their view on discord and then window capture discord. Probably the laziest way where you don't have to have 2 browsers
I'm gonna start the death house in grim stile, and I had want to be a little inspired. So, it has been worst idea to watch this videos, because I really can't stop laughing! You are amazing, guys 😂🤗
Reasonably enjoyed this. But it's much more fun to have the Animated Armour grapple and shove the players off the balcony. The armour can use its first attack to grapple. drag the player to the balcony and then shove using the other attack. Cue 2d6 fall damage. Otherwise it's just a fight against an 18ac monster which is dull as fuck.
@1:04:00 you need a free hand to reload a crossbow, so you can't dual wield two hand crossbows after the first shot. You would need to drop one crossbow to reload the other.
You can't. In 5e, (re-)loading a ranged weapon is part of its attack. And it always exists.. If you play by RAW, you can't even pre-load your ranged weapons. Just another thing the writers did not consider when coming up with the rules. The "loading" property that the crossbow master feat allows the player to ignore is not about the reload; it's the inability to attack more than once per action, reaction, or bonus action. You still have to load it though, which requires a free hand. That, however, means that you can fire a hand crossbow twice if you are not dual wielding: once as an action + once as a bonus action.
3:30:24 RAW Half-Elves can be paralyzed by ghouls, but they need to roll a Saving Throw to avoid the paralysis. I am kind of glad he allowed it though because as the video shows, the combat is already hard enough. The CoS is a neat module, but I agree with his other video ranting about Death House being too hard for an intro, but the house itself is great to explore.
3:32:38 So you read it, you CAN'T move through enemy space if he's the same size or one difference. If you want to move through enemy (same size or one difference) space, there is optional rule in DMG (p. 271) that allows that. You need to make Tumble Action (of Bonus Action, your choice) and if you succeed, you can move once on your turn through that enemy space.
Kobold Battlemaster with a hand crossbow, archery fighting style, and crossbow expert, one of the highest sustained dpr in the game Not as good at burst damage as some other builds, but XBE rangers and fighters have insane sustained damage. It gets ridiculous if you stack sharpshooter on it as well. Also I am extremely impressed by Jacobs descriptive ability.
Jacob: Make the edgiest character you possibly can.
Spencer: *My Time Has Come*
Love your profile pic. Always nice to see FMA appreciation.
@@_Woody_ Thanks! The world needs more Van Hohenheim
@@chrisradek6693 Yes, definitely.
Jacob: Make the edgiest character you possibly can.
Me: *Tucks myself in a corner*
Now that is edge.
I'm only here for Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.
I'm here for Orpheus' orifices. And Mrs. Venereal Disease sounds like a drag name.
NeinRegrets I am here to see different modules, We have google we do not need to watch a 4 hours video to see a goth girl.
dont forget Diabolo and Hybrid
@@kaer0471 It's a joke, bro. We have Google, we don't need to explain jokes to people like you.
Same. As soon as I heard in the other video that she named her character after Enoby, I had to watch
Spencer is so in character it’s scary. She became an actual goth girl for this dungeon.
im playing a game where i take a drink of water everytime i read a comment thats about spencer, you know, to stay hydrated.
At least we can all agree why we're here. The hot goth babe.
@@Kugrox ...No... For the Death House and for Jacob... What's wrong with you
@@janelantestaverde2018 Literally I watch this because Jacob is funny and a decent DM. I take notes for when I DM. I like my style better (I run 3.5e so it is what it is) but you can always learn from how others run the game. I really couldnt care less if one of the players is a woman.
@@JarthenGreenmeadow I believe he was joking
"This is why i dont like babies, they turn into kids and lie to you" Legendary
4:15 Jacob's face as Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Ravenway introduces herself. The look at the camera. And then the drink from the skull mug. Gets me every time.
I love how, since Spencer has the highest passive perception, she sees the edgiest shit in every wall while the rest just see kids dancing and flowers 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Ebony is the only one off her meds.
Call them Dungeon runs. Where you run dungeons to see how bad they really are!
Thats great. Call it Arcane Arcades Asinine Adventures
Dumbgeon runs?
Simple, Elegant, Evocative. I vote a "yessss sir".
Rating scale goes from "dungeon to run" to "dungeon to run from"
Damn, Jacob got himself a goth gf. LIGHT THE BEACONS!
More like Goth Wife
She's nailing the look, but I dunno. She said she used to be emo, which is kinda like goth, but...
@@kathrynck Not exactly a complicated look to nail down to be honest. Pale your skin color and use a ton of black clothes and dark make up.
@@vincentbrancato5146 I'd argue there's a bit more to an aesthetically pleasing goth look than that. "done well" anyway. Heavy makeup is far less forgiving of makeup mistakes for example. But fair enough.
Don't light the beacons you fool! We must travel into hell! Cause edgy and emo and goth ya know
GOTH SPENCER GOT ME HOOKED
Mmh death by dark snu snu, I'm alright with this.
@@supremehare9893 it would have costed you nothing, not a single thing, to have not said that
@@Tote_Mich And it would cost you nothing to not read it. Any other pointless "waste of time" comments?
Death House's difficulty as an introduction to CoS is kinda funny story wise
if you tpk and have to roll up new characters for the rest of CoS it's like an episode one where you think you're meeting the main characters but you're really just playing through a cautionary tale
When I ran this for my group I changed things up a bit. When the group made it to the attic and found the children, the children asked the group to come play with them before the group all pass out and awaken to find themselves still in the attic but something is not quite right when they realize that they are in the doll house looking out the window to see their bodies unconscious in the attic. They are forced to play hide and seek with dolls of the children and in the process find the hidden door to the basement and the child apologise for trapping them in the doll house and explain that they have been alone for so long and that the monster will not let them rest in peace. I also moved the door to the crypt to the first floor. I changed the mound to a mound of flesh with the baby brother at its core.
I kinda love this.
Am I the only one who is surprised that no one picked a rogue
Yeah,Rogues and Warlocks are prime edgelord material,I was surprised by their absence
Akabeche I’ll give Ebony since she is the definition of EDGY
Not the only one, I played a character who was a rouge, he had an anbu mask and wore all black, we had like 2 rouge's in our party. So I was really surprised that none of them played a rouge class. (An anbu mask is a Japanese fox mask)
Too easy and cliche. Not interesting to make one.
Rogues do great during the first half of the house, but not as well during the second half because all the combat encounters in the dungeon are in too small of spaces.
DnD RAW - Run As Written
Witty... I like it! Increase your Chrisma and Intelligence by 1.
THIS. IS. THE. BEST. 4 real nice title idea.
@@totalnaddjob
*Charisma
-1 to your intelligence.
RAW definitely needs to be in the title. "Doing it RAW" is the best I could think and the most family friendly.
Generally not a good idea, unless you're good with no PC surviving...
I want him to play the annoying wizard in a campaign lol.
OH MY GOD YES PLEASE
*bigdickwizard69
Kids: Save our baby brother
*House burning in the background*
Adventurers: Well... that didn't go as expected...
Kids: 😱😱
Adventurers: Monster is dead, your brother won't be eaten now.
*House blows up*
Adventurers: Another job well done. Yaaaay us.
Yeah, that's what happened to my party.
Someone doubted the children were real, went to touch them.
Once understood they were a trap, they torched the house.
@@WexMajor82 so a kiddie toucher and an arsonist... bad PC.
I'm gonna need a "My Immortal" campaign book now. I'm going to need you to roll a perception check to see if this Goth is a poser.
Would be more of insight probably
Insight for Posers
Perception for Preps
"Whoopse! I warped through the wall!"
Me (reflexively): *whispers* He's a phantom...
Du dudududud he’s a phantom…
Goth-Spencer is fucking gorgeous tbh.
I don't get how you guys are still so unknown on RUclips. Those streams are funny, With some good rp and awesome to watch. Just some friends playing a module for fun. Good video guys. Keep it up
When Spencer was describing all of the band members I just got the image of egy/emo/goth hagrid from Harry Potter stuck in my head.
Na, it's PS1 Hagrid. His existence is pain by the look of it. He's shaped like a Tesla truck.
dumb and random:
fact this was posted on my birthday so i had something new to watch
thank you
john batory 👌
Horrpy Borf dorp
Happy Birthday random stranger
Death House was actually my first experience into DnD! Absolutely loved every second of the campaign and I got what my friends called a legendary moment! What a first impression this game left on me!
That moment when Spencer rolls a 6 in an Intelligence check, and Jacob's face goes through the 5 stages of grief.
Vampire the Masquerade when?
I'd love to see you all go full goth.
You want to go up that hill? I don't think you really want that level of edge.
@@vernonhampton5863 *"Assmites Intensify"*
@@vernonhampton5863 Vampire 5 E has no edge
@@danielessex2162 didnt they remove a lot of it and get into trouble for some weird pc stuff and thats what people are worried about with the new game
@@donb7519 i only know they removed a writer and a programmer.....why was never fully discussed. The company says it was a mutual decision but the writer said the news was just dropped on them and they were out. Aside from that all the happy PC bs really kills the dark ominous psychological setting and replaces it with My little pony prime time episodes. I got little issue with PC but when you are trying to hard to force it. When it starts limiting STs from being able to create villains and settings that fit in WoD.....well now world of butterflies. You might as well have just turned it into twilight sparkles included.
The first time I played through the death house, my DM turned the Shambling Mound into a giant flesh monster and it was both horrifying and amazing at the same time. I heard someone give this as a suggestion in the end and as a player, I can honestly say that that definitely left an impression. I was so excited for the rest of the game!
I used a shoggoth like shit.
My players burnt it by pure luck.
I love Orpheus so much
“A Terrible Gaming Accident” made me cackle
I was already worried when they made 2 casters with a d6 health die and one d8 health, especially for a place called “death house”
"Well they will come with a balanced party an...3 DPS characters? You...you are bringing 3 DP characters. To the Goredungeon of Murderdoom? Not even a Tank? OK..."
Every DM ever.
I think blood hunter has a d10?
@@coleserfass3101 Oh you're right. Forgot about that. I think I thought Blood hunter had a d8 because of Warlocks and Clerics.
Sounds like my party. Two d10s and two d6s. Guess who was at the front of the party.
@@TheBayzent When i ran through this house it was literally the easiest least impressive thing i'd ever run. 1 grick, and 1 suit of armor, both of which i guessed and was ready for, (having never played this before). The only thing that was even a remotely challenging encounter was the shambling mound. Because it kept critting me and so everytime i got out, i got raped again lol.
So when is Ebony going to the Good Charlotte concert with her bf Ma-...Strahd?
I mean, doesn't malfoy call himself Vampire in My Immortal? So either way she goes with "Vampire".
I'm pretty sure Harry is Vampire.
I don't know why I remember this though.
Harry and Malfloyd, 2 friends, back on a grand adventure again.
In the mornin, I'm makin waffles! 🧇
I'd love for more "One-shot" dungeon playthrough/reviews like Tomb of Horrors and Death House. Also what map/virtual tabletop program do you guys use?
Pretty sure they’re using Roll20 here
Yup definatly roll 20, jacob mentions it multiple times. Roll 20 will sell you the module, that includes all the maps and such
Roll 20 kinda sucks, it just feels janky to use.Fvtt is a much better virtual tabletop, but it require you to host a server.
I keep giggling each time Jacob said "harpischord" instead of "harpsichord". It's endearing. XD
I just started this module with some friends and we're using the dungeons and doggos/ cats and catacombs content in our campaign. The shenanigans a group of awakened animals can do in the death house is quite amazing so far haha
spencer pulling a "my imortal" reference is the best thing in this one shot haahah
All my characters ever have super edgy abilities, aesthetics, and often some edginess in their perspective, but tend to have fairly upbeat backstories, serious but loyal and kind (within their own paradigms, like they usually will give food and coin to beggars, help older people cross the street, enslave goblin tribes rather than slaughter them to the last, and end the suffering of a downed foe) or even have a bit of a sense of humour. They tend to either be a party face or else the backup face, but every DM who I’ve played with either doesn’t read the backstory and assumes they are an edge lord or else does and loves the character.
I tend to put thought into the backstory, but since all my friends play with "Gareth Ravenbane", "Alastra Thornblood" and "Animustriel Sandwraith" I like to call my characters "Tom" and "Bill" and give them rather mundane (for a fantasy world) lives. I play most of my characters like Deadpool's Peter nowadays.
@@TheBayzent that's awesome.
My first character was an edgy young adult Drow in a home brew setting. The Drow government was more unified but still a dictatorship so I had his backstory be he was part of the secret police/fascist death squad and is now trying to atone for his last mission where he helped murder a family and left their bodies stroking their own decapitated heads at the dinner table plus a punch bowl filled with blood in the middle( pulled from real life fascists supported by the USA, I believe it was El Salvador).
He was loyal to the team, to authority figures he respected and still could do edgy things like the murder/decapitation and dinner bowl filled with blood thing but would only do so if the group agreed to it. Only one other person in that group of 8 knew the events I was referencing and it was not the DM lol. The DM also did not seem interested in exploring the psychology of the character more but it may have been my fault for making it too dark, or too real.
Tiefling rogue, haunted one, the family ritual thing, ran away from home, I have a high char and Dex, so I'm like a really dashing rogue. All flash and fun and jokes.
This has been a great watch. I am a first time dm and actually watching the module has made studying to dm it a lot easier.
My edgy character's backstory basically was that he ran away from home when he accidentally killed his brother's pet goose. I tried unironically to make it sentimental but it sounds like a joke
I mean, if he was young I bet it could be really trumatic
But yeah still funny
If anyone is wondering, the unknown scroll that Orpheus tried to cast on Venariel was Protection from Poison and would have not helped bring him back or anything.
Would have helped protect Venereal from Disease LMFAO
@@imthebest4957 man every time I hear it I laugh
I recently ran this as a one-shot to get used to Roll20. I plan on running CoS this fall. Death House was an awesome introductory adventure. I took the advice of people on the internet to really play up the horror factor through atmospheric details, and it worked great. I also changed the Shambling Mound into a mound of bodies with the stats of a flesh golem. I really like your idea to make this house more meaningful by giving information that the players can use later when confronting Strahd, such as by finding information about the artifacts. Very insightful!
You could see Jacob dying of blood loss from all the EDGE
Ohhhhh that "tell us something that everyone would know about you after 2 days" sounds like an AMAZING trick to start up a game.
Quite amazeballs, if I should say - 10/10 will steal
Proper d&d session, stop in the middle of combat for half an hour to talk rules lol
After about a year it doesn't happen anymore, until the next edition rolls in.
@@TheBayzent >until the next edition rolls in.
Imagine playing anything but 3.5e
The first time I played the Death House, (I was new to D&D at the time) we actually went to the basement (or whatever you call it) and almost died from the Shadows. Long story short, we finished it (alive) and left. Well we actually did the sacrifice, so for the longest time I was so confused whenever people would mention the Shambling Mound encounter (I was very insistent on exploring the entire house). Until your video that you posted today, I didn't realize where that encounter was. I also sold the windmill deed
I just want to say
The Ebony Icon being the Internet Historian Sundance Rejects Ebony is a wonderful thing to see. 10/10 Spencer is a blessing to this video.
"Internet Historian Sundance Rejects Ebony"
The internet historian didnt come up with Ebony.
Handy to watch, our Strahd game starts tonight and I've been pouring over the Durst Manor for days to make it as engaging and challenging as possible but without the need for TPKs. I've dialled a lot of the encounters into ones that can be dealt without combat if done intelligently. I've increased the creepy factor somewhat and oddly made quite a few of the changes you had talk about at the end (e.g. flesh mound instead of plant).
Spent 4 hours writing personalised nightmare sequences for each character to get them into the game... can't wait for it to start :)
DnD test runs should be the series title
[Tyler's character gets hit by a wave of vertigo]
DM: "Vanarial dizzies."
Criminally underrated joke
Jack: "This would be a much different kind of dungeon..."
Best line
I've never played a module (only homebrew stuff, which has been fun!) So it's nice to watch how pre-written stuff plays out!
Homebrew > modules in my humble opinion. Modules tend to be too rigid to let a session really thrive. Homebrew you can improvise and the player will never know.
The largest difference is modules have flavor text a sufficiently prepared homebrew is almost identical to a module in my experience.
Oh god this is a bad example lol
The entire reason for this VOD is for him to have good arguments for why the death house is a bad part of curse of strahd.
If you want to actually see good homebrew, watch the waterdeep campain!
“I’m a idiot and a genius” I can relate so much when I’m using Roll 20
very surprised that no one played as a tiefling for that extra flavor of edge
Not even 8 minutes in, and there was already a MCR reference, I love it!
I was hoping for them to "clean" the house and make it their edgy base.
Goth Spencer looks amazing! She is so pretty!
Running this I would probably flavour the shambling mound as like the heart of the house or something, and like instead of being a bush it’s like a mass of broken construction material to keep the plant material aspect
3:49 i love how fucking casually Spencer says didn't they all fucking die which is just so messed up in the wrong context
I came here after watching the Tomb of Horrors VOD. This cannot possibly be worse
spenser nailed it holy shit. i hope you play vampire someday
**walks up set of stairs that start on the ground floor to the next level**
*"Are we on the third floor or the fourth?"*
I genuinely don't know if this was RP or a momentary brain fart on the player.
I am happy to hear that Jacob is using Sword Coast Soundscapes. It’s the tracks that I have planned on using when I run this game for my group.
Spencer is having way too much fun with this.
Its a nice change of pace. I just watched the tomb of horrors video. She looked so miserable in that lol
I never realised how badly mute characters "work" till now
I'd never, in a million years, allow it in my game lol.
Someone would have to do it VERY well for me to allow it in my game. I like the concept but the way dnd works it would be difficult to make it not a nuisance, but I'd run a one shot and see how it worked if it didn't unfortunately I wouldn't let it happen. And I'm a dm that let's anyone try ABOUT anything they want.
They can use telepathy to talk as well if they are in a scenario where they actually would need to say something.
the player has to be role play with detailed actions more then talking to make it work.
@@2PieceandABiscuit profession pantomime
Goth spencer was my first intro to spencer. I quickly realized it was a joke but for the first few minutes i was thinking "What have i gotten myself into.
Really entertaining playthrough, also a great follow-up to the Death House fix video. I am DM'ing DH, currently on 40% or so after the first session. One of the main critical points from you guys was the unnecessary difficulty of the adventure - I will observe what is going to be the case if the party is not 3 squishy casters, but a more well-rounded combo of tiefling paladin/variant human rogue/half-elf warlock/orc wizard is. It is too early to see for the meatgrinder part starts in the second half :D (and the Spectre is just hooey, will be nerfed)
conclusion: Spectre was oneshotted by the warlock, the first floor grinder of the shadows/mimic/ghasts was completely ignored, they went straight down to the second floor, awakened the bossmonster - Zombie Beholder in our case - it one-shot the wizard, but otherwise it was rapidly defeated, all of this 2 sessions without even a single short rest
@@kkrisztian2 so essentially the key to not let players die is to have a well rounded party?
@@kaiyihuang4045 my party wasn't that well rounded, as it turned out, the Zombie Beholder destroyed the wizard, but the consistent warlock EB damage put an end to it's unholy afterlife. Since then, I finished my campaign as well :D
I believe it is absolutely a boss move if a character dies in the scope of one-shots, to bring their brother/sister. As a matter of fact, I would always ask to have one at the ready for one shots specifically so I can merrily go around and kill everything that moves
I'm building a Death House for my campaign. I'm a baby DM.... Tiny, new baby that walked into this world in support of my husband in a newfound hobby during a mentally draining time in his life... And now I'm here.... Running a thing. I was inspired by the newest Dark Anthology game Devil in Me. But it was missing something. I wanted the group to walk into something terrifying, with traps, but also someone who can twist a knife in their back stories and make them hurt. This is now apart of my research. As I eat chips and laugh. :)
There is a better monster to use in place of the specter: The Indentured Spirit from Ravnica. It still does 3d6 damage, resists everything, passes through walls etc, but it can't drain max hp and it has less hp. It's still CR 1, but it actually belongs there. Lore-wise its somebody who died indebted to the Orzhov Syndicate and now has to keep working for them until it pays off its debt. I don't think it's at all a stretch to say you become one if you die owing money to your evil cult leader boss.
I really enjoyed this, even though I don't really love the death house RAW, they make is so fun :) This was great
I love how valid these characters ended up
"Hopefully I will not die in the first combat" well, you didn't die in the first
I'll probably DM a campaign of Curse of Strahd, and this was really great, because I had the chance to see what it's about :D
Gonna try to run this soon for a 1- or 2- shot, and this was super helpful and fun to watch!
Thanks so much for posting this. It's really helped me for my attempt at DMing CoS.
Ngl super happy this was posted, keep doin what ur doin
So medium creatures can't move through other medium creatures unless they're allies.
That means that the ghouls wouldn't have been able to get behind the party.
They would have wound up, if they wanted to attack whoever was in front, have to move into their allies space, attack, and then potentially take an AOO as they moved back because they can't end their turn in another's space.
Went way to far to find this. There's a variant rule for tumbling, but otherwise you can't move through a hostiles space.
The difficult terrain rule is only for moving through a creature two sizes larger/smaller.
Yeah, not trying to be toxic, but can't believe they read the rule in the book and proceed to completely ignore it
Enjoyed this video and haven’t DM’d a game in over a year but intending to do CoS. We typically played on maps I pasted together from Schley images and I decided to build a 40” table tv to do it to save me from having to print and build the many maps required for Strahd. Wasn’t too sure how I would display my digital maps (Mike S and some others again) and after watching this, I know I won’t consider D20.
I really wanted to learn how to separate a "viewer screen" like this video and some streamers does. I'm DMing a Curse of Strahd campaign on roll20 and some of my friends wanted to watch the sessions. For now I try to open two browsers, one is the DM browser with my notes and full map visual while the other browser is the player one to show to the stream. But its kinda inconvenient to control both browsers at the same time.
Weird cheat have a player stream their view on discord and then window capture discord. Probably the laziest way where you don't have to have 2 browsers
No ones more edgy than hagrid
I'm gonna start the death house in grim stile, and I had want to be a little inspired. So, it has been worst idea to watch this videos, because I really can't stop laughing! You are amazing, guys 😂🤗
Spencer looking like she got back from the cybergoth dance party
Reasonably enjoyed this. But it's much more fun to have the Animated Armour grapple and shove the players off the balcony. The armour can use its first attack to grapple. drag the player to the balcony and then shove using the other attack. Cue 2d6 fall damage. Otherwise it's just a fight against an 18ac monster which is dull as fuck.
Is it just me, or is Spencer just absolutely stunning?
(no disrespect to Jacob)
Oh yeah, snu snu.
(Full disrespect to Jacob)
Completly kidding 😄
@1:04:00 you need a free hand to reload a crossbow, so you can't dual wield two hand crossbows after the first shot. You would need to drop one crossbow to reload the other.
By game mechanics you can dual wield two hand crossbows and refire them if you have crossbow master
You can't. In 5e, (re-)loading a ranged weapon is part of its attack. And it always exists.. If you play by RAW, you can't even pre-load your ranged weapons. Just another thing the writers did not consider when coming up with the rules.
The "loading" property that the crossbow master feat allows the player to ignore is not about the reload; it's the inability to attack more than once per action, reaction, or bonus action. You still have to load it though, which requires a free hand. That, however, means that you can fire a hand crossbow twice if you are not dual wielding: once as an action + once as a bonus action.
What about tactiCOOL reload with throwing them in the air, putting bolts in and catching both in one jumpflip?
4:24
Orpheus
,Morpheus, Dorpheus
Go eat some walruses
Orifices, Porridges
Morpheus, Morpheus
Morpheus drinkin a 40 in a DEATH BASKET.
Infeel like, of I read this in front of my TV on rainy nights, I will see my soulmate. Or a ghost.
3:30:24 RAW Half-Elves can be paralyzed by ghouls, but they need to roll a Saving Throw to avoid the paralysis. I am kind of glad he allowed it though because as the video shows, the combat is already hard enough.
The CoS is a neat module, but I agree with his other video ranting about Death House being too hard for an intro, but the house itself is great to explore.
Loved this so much. Can't wait for more!
Ive got my coffee cakes and im ready to watch
I also have coffee cake.
I don't...
@@gregoryharris6935 🥮
So glad I can watch this to get an idea of how to run death house when I play lol (I'm a new dm and haven't played before)
set that third useless dot on their icons to passive perception. SO useful for the DM. Mine is green-AC/blue-PP/red-HP on characters
I have it green hp blue AC and red PP
3:32:38
So you read it, you CAN'T move through enemy space if he's the same size or one difference.
If you want to move through enemy (same size or one difference) space, there is optional rule in DMG (p. 271) that allows that. You need to make Tumble Action (of Bonus Action, your choice) and if you succeed, you can move once on your turn through that enemy space.
It could also attempt to overrun using Athletics.
XD I would watch this as a movie any day!!
Kobold Battlemaster with a hand crossbow, archery fighting style, and crossbow expert, one of the highest sustained dpr in the game
Not as good at burst damage as some other builds, but XBE rangers and fighters have insane sustained damage. It gets ridiculous if you stack sharpshooter on it as well.
Also I am extremely impressed by Jacobs descriptive ability.
RUclips just asked me what I thought of this video instant five stars
Oh neat a one-shot.
Jacob: Welcome to D&D Challenges
An hour and 40 minutes in and I don’t think Orpheus has done a single good thing but I love him so much
What kind of software is this in the down left corner? Its fantastic, but where can i get it from?
Roll20
Getting pulled out of the story every time they call the one character "venereal" .
Four years and still iconic ✨✨
thanks for doing this. im getting ready to run curse of strahd/deathhouse for the first time. reading along as you play is very helpful
An alternative title for this series:
Jacob TPK's his players with:
If you know german, you already know what's the problem there, when you learn the family is the "Durst" family.
Yeah.. that's so blatant it hurts lmao. It's like Dr. Betruger in Doom 3 lol.
@@StabYourBrain Yeah, Dr. Fraud would be a bit on the nose.
When I played this I tossed the suit of armor over the railing, and used the little boys skeleton as a weapon