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100% agree, its not very fun for the DM to fudge, but its also very unfun for the players to have to deal with a less engaging combat session because of poor prep or because I'm inexperienced in running combat as a DM. I recently allowed a bard player to give disadvantage to a dispacer beast's attack by using minor illusion as a reaction, conjuring a mirror image of their face, and ducking below as the beast struck this air. My lowest roll was a 16, and I want to encourage my players to think creatively like that, so I fudged the roll. I think it was a good decision, especially with them being a new player.

Judging by your two latest shorts, it seems the money you've not invested in the new DND books has been well used to buy the DM Core :D

I'm considering playing a gnoll. Nice timing 😊

Thank you for this, soon I will get the Knolls Epic Encounters 😎

Fun fact: this mythos is inspired by Kieth Parkinson’s famous illustration of the gnoll necromancer. I don’t remember which TSR publication it’s from though

thanks for the tips!

More pathfinder 2e content please! If you want to.

I'm still in the rookie year of DMing but I have a succubus that's been homebrewed I didn't mean to but when I set up a tournament, by the rolls of the dice a different reoccurring enemy (that almost TPKd them) was one shot and dead from the succubus They were all afraid of her and I realized I had something They DESPISE her and I love throwing her at them

Cool, that's sooo 70s 😎

Yeah Pathfinder content 🎉🥳🦄 the Golarion world/setting is so interesting

I designed my HB campaign around this exact premise!

I won’t buy them. I don’t like what they did to paladins and I don’t have a lot of disposable income

Nahhh I think if wotc doesnt significantly change how they operate or put out something undeniably amazing, I'm not gonna be doing business with them again

Our table just got familiarised and comfortable with 5e.. to be honest I think it will take us a while to go to 5.5. However we already start to talk about it, and just being excited and discussing it, but nothing too serious. I will be buying the new books nevertheless, because I'm just a sucker for nice illustrations, and I'd love to add them to my collection. But for the whole table to move on, I guess it will take a sweet while!

No

Another great video!

Hi, as a bossfight for a 1v1 what can a level 17 paladin kill in terms of CR? Can he kill 20/21 CR for example?

I like how it a real game, doesn’t feel over done with the social interactions and filler 👍🏽💯 really great to watch to learn for my own games

You said you wouldn't buy the books because it would be expensive but then mention that it would be available on dndbeyond....you still have to pay them for access to the digital version of the books unless i missed an announcement for these three

Damm bro this is my first time watching a video of yours but your voice is not at all what I expected you to sound like but it’s also really cool

No. You should get DC20.

But can I make my character a lich? Not the enemy but a character. My character willingly chose to become a lich. Is it possible? You know be a good lich? Hunt down criminals and bad people and take their souls. Sort of an antihero. But I never heard anyone make their character a lich. Is it possible?

I will certainly be buying the PBH asap but probably not the MM & DMG because I practically never use the DMG and make my own monsters and if I needed rules I can always reference my 2014 DMG or MM, or I can just google the book using online anyflip which I already do. I’m excited to see what the new character sheets look like even though I use dnd beyond for all my characters 😅. Congrats on the success with the channel recently ❤!!!

I honestly love everyone of your videos, and have probably watched them all several times. Such a huge help and ressource for a first time DM homebrowing a campaign. Thank you so much for your content. Its really great

I will buy them, but I don’t like what I hear. I think the weapon abilities will get old really fast, especially if they involve saving throws. An action surging fighter using these features 4 times in a turn will be annoying. The restriction on ability score distribution in backgrounds are stupid and a downgrade from Tasha’s. Humans with two feats will be the best choice again for species (and I am now forced to deal with the “skilled” feat which is often banned in my group of sometimes 6 players).

My group is pretty strongly 5e based so I’ll buy the book. We’ll give the PHB a fair shake with Vecna Eve of Ruin, then probably sculpt everything into the homebrew version of the game that works best for us.

Between what they published in UA and what they will publish in the SRD later, i doubt there'll be much i cant already get for free. Which is good because while I do like almost all the changes they've made, I refuse to give WotC my money now.

My tabaxi apothecary healer artisan teamed up with the eladrin to learn all about making medicines, potions and the like. The first field research early campaign was pinning out a young black dragon that attacked the party in a swamp. We tried to negotiate. Not so much. Tabaxi started a field journal to learn all about monsters and dragons. One of the party asked what each part was and what it did, and use it for. When got to the kidneys, "what are you those for." Oh. Those are for the pie later. Ha. The player turned green. We got to the bard's home-swamp-town and had a bbq with the dragon. Alkali soaked the acid out enough for just a hint. The Party had a party. Good times. Winding in at 5 year campaign. The troll and ted dragon studies were tough. Made all sorts of fun potential potions

same sentiment, sure i can pick a few of the upgraded rules here and there but i do not have the kind of money to buy the full books i rather use that money for some fun third party supplement or other system.

Undecided. All my official D&D content is digital. Maybe getting something in book format would be good. But all my games are digital, and I find myself reading from the screen for other products, even when I have the books.

It really sounds to me like DND 5.5 is taking all its "new" ideas from Pathfinder 2e -Weapon traits -Low level feats + increase of the number of feats one gets (those low level feats are heavily reminiscent of Ancestry feats) so that lvl1 to 3 doesnt feel like a slog -Heroic Inspiration which is basically hero points -More impactful background (that is part of character creation in PF2) Why not go for the original then ? The only thing to me that sounds interesting is the crafting bit that is weirdly absent from 5e base books; but then we have your crafting guide so it's a useless addition IMO. If you do use this spare money to get PF2 books (id recomend the Player Core before the DM Core), I'd love to see you delve more into PF2E and maybe have some of your adventures / Patreon supplements based on this rule system.

You think this is great (and it is!) and then you realise that your players are all in for a 'save the world' campaign and that they actively WANT hints about the BBEG sprinkled throughout the early stages of the game... yeah, I planned a BBEG for my current campaign (well, a BBEF, where F stands for Faction). So it's all worked out well.

I’ve already preordered the bundle. I never owned physical copies of the 2014 core rulebooks, just the digital on D&D Beyond, so I decided to splurge.

Funnily enough, D&D provides a mechanism for this as well. Milestone levelling. You can pace your campaign through milestones. Early on, your arcs are short - just enough work to justify bumping them up a level. Each level should come after a satisfying conclusion to a chapter in your story. I actually structure my campaigns using Chapters. It helps break the story into discreet blocks, if players need a break or want to do a separate one-shot, we can schedule it between chapters. The chapters get longer as the amount of adventuring needed to level up increases, and the plots get more complex and more obviously/directly linked to the BBEG and their schemes.

I enjoy all of Tales Arcane videos

Wow. Aside from #9, I have made every single one of these mistakes, and more than once too. Ouch.

There's also a great fear mechanic from... somewhere. The basic goal is to prevent the party from resting. When they do try to sleep, they get nightmares. At first, don't punish them with exhaustion, just limit their abilities by preventing rest. After one or two encounters, they'll have to switch to a much more conservative style of play, and the tension ratchets up. It's a way of weakening the players and making them feel more helpless. Then, when they feel like they're making headway on the mystery, give them a point of exhaustion, but congratulate them on their efforts - really give them a sense of accomplishment before exhausting them. Finally, spring the boss monster on them. The encounter will be terrifying simply because they're low on spells and doing many things with disadvantage (remember - initiative is an ability check!). Give the players a clear option to run away, and hope they take it. This should make your villain a whole lot scarier, as most players don't run usually from a fight, so having to retreat will make the encounter highly memorable. Then they have incentive to go away, level up, tool up and return to finish the job... only now the location has changed.

Point Hat (check him out!) covered this in a similar manner. He basically proposed the following - the party's next location is either 'near', 'far' or 'very far'. Depending on the distance, they have one, two or three encounters (feel free to adjust this according to the inherent danger in the areas they're travelling), all of which you can pre-plan. Assume they get a long rest between each encounter for the purposes of balance, and make sure the encounter contributes to the story you're telling - either narratively, or building up the world. If they meet a merchant, the number of guards they have with them, the goods they stock, the prices they charge and their willingness to deal with strangers on the road will all tell the players things about your world. On a busy main road, they might be meeting other travellers every day, providing a wealth of social encounters. In rugged jungle/forest untouched by the hands of mortals, exploration and combat encounters might happen almost constantly. And remember - in many random encounter cases, the monsters may run away. They might jump out hoping to surprise and eat a party member (or their horses/travel animals), but they'll vanish back into the forest the moment they take a serious injury. They won't fight to the death. Bandits will probably flee if one or two members die. And as the party gets more powerful, these creatures may simply not attack at all, which speeds up travel without having to give them magical means.

what would you do for a more primitive time period

I like you was leaning towards a different book instead and chose DC20 for myself. Though some of this stuff feels like it will be improvements I am more excited about the half a dozen far reaching indie games coming out this year instead. I just hope the indie games get a enough traction to have third party stuff built for them. I love seeing what the wider community's beautiful brains come up with (yourself included).

No, there is no need for new handbooks or adventure modules. TSR did it better in the 70’s anyway. All you get today is political stupidity like purple drow and PC approved inoffensive orcs (how that works for cannibalistic creations of a literal god of rape and pillage is beyond me). All you need is a few sheets of blank paper, some dice, and imagination.

My group is too invested in the 2014 books. Plus, we like it. We'd have to have a serious conversation about switching to a new system, and to be honest, we'd still probably stick with 5e 2014.

Personally i have gotten soo much more exitment and fun out of DC20 than any other ttrpg the i have been playing the free rules from the Kickstarter and my table has been loving it we occasionally still play 5e but the new phb dosnt really Scratch the itch for us. For anyone that is intrested in the new books dont pre order them wotc dosnt add any extra things for pre orders ots bot any cheeper nor do you get antyextra goodies wait untill your favorite youtuber makes a review and then. Buy your books if you want too at your local game store happy gaming ebryone 💜

Im just getting started as a 5e DM here. I’ll likely buy the new stuff, but definitely won’t be preordering it.

It's been a while since I stopped by, glad to see you're still going strong, and even at 43K. Big leap from those 700 days. Good stuff as always man. Keep it up

“Babe, wake up. New Tales Arcane just dropped!”

I’m coming back to dming. What is another system that is superior and more dynamic that i should try out

Honestly, I won’t be buying the book. Probably ever, honestly, since anymore of I want to do something in DnD I just use an unofficial site. On top of that, I’m going to reserve judgement on most of these ideas. The weapon mastery sounds great. Except, I’d the play test material and BG3 are anything to go by, they’re going to be once per rest. Which sucks. I doubt they’re going to make martials any more powerful, I’m almost certain all the casters are gonna be buffed except guidance on Cleric, and im almost positive that those high level booms are going to be useless for 90% of the player base because high level play will still be an uninteresting slog.

We're going to be checking out DC20 instead. Also excited by some of the other third party 5e new rule systems from the dungeon dudes and dndshorts, etc. Already use your crafting rules and theyre great.

I’ve an absolute ban on any publications from Hasbro/ WotC .