@@Vher_ Role Playing Game As in its a game where you play a given role, namely your PC, whether you actually act out that PC is your prerogative, but you are experiencing the game world through your PC, so you are ultimately playing that characters role. not Roleplay Playing Game Repeatedly Playing Game also doesnt work
Exactly. The same goes for writing. You learn the rules of writing so that you know when to break them. Having something unexpected and out of nowhere happen is generally not good writing, things should be set up and pay off. But if you know *why* that is, and you know what you want to do, then you know *how* to break that rule to get the effect you want. If you just have random shit happen all the time for no real reason or purpose other than "because!!!" it won't be very interesting or good.
Hot Take: Rules Lawyers are helpful if they aren’t the “UHM ACKSHUALLY,” type, but the “Well, this is how the rules handle that situation, do with that what you will,” type.
That's one form of Rule Lawyers. The other is someone yelling at you that your playing the game wrong because you didnt follow every rule that they've memorized. When one of the rules is in fact to disregard the rules and make your own if you want.
"Vampires should be viable warlock patrons" Regardless of whether that makes sense or not I would _love_ to see a Curse of Strahd campaign where one of the party members is a warlock whose patron _is Strahd_
This would be pretty rad especially given that one of Strahd's motivations is to find a successor. If you work out the patron mechanics such that they are gaining the power as a gift rather than being *actively* granted power, it'd work very nicely. Good idea!
Not-so-hot-take: There should be more diverse magic weapons. There is literally only one magic longbow in all released DnD content, and like a million different swords.
A lot of magical weapons have enchantments that can easily be applied to any weapon. Sword is just the default because most characters that are melee centric use swords. There should be more bows though.
I mean .... I guess. It’s designed to be the best cantrip in the game specifically to balance a class that can have weaker spell casting output than other full caster classes. I think a warlock virtually has to take both the cantrip and agonizing blast just to be balanced. While a third level wizard/sorcerer/cleric/bard/druid has 6 spell slots to work with if the group gets attacked at breakfast ... that warlock has 2. That’s 33% the capacity for support or damage dealing. It’s worse if this isn’t the first combat since your last rest. There are types of cleric and wizard that still get access to spell damage die plus attribute modifier damage (8 for light clerics, 10 for evocation wizards) so even having access to that invocation isn’t especially useful for balance for half of the warlock levels. At that point the benefit is the damage type. I feel like what you’re saying is the same as saying ... you can make a mechanically weak character. And you can! You’re weakening yourself and forcing the DM and other players to make up for the imbalance you bring to situations. You can play someone who is evil and actively working against the party goals. It will make for memorable moments ... is that the game people want to be at though?
@@zero11010 A hexblade Warlock won't nerf himself by not taking Eldritch blast. Warlocks biggest nerf in 5e I feel is the increased duration of short rests meaning they basically never get their spells back. Whoever made that change didn't consider Warlocks at all. If you change it back to the old short rests they're balanced, they have fewer spells but they can use them in every fight.
@@Gufnorkian I’ve built out but never played a melee warlock. I can’t get myself to want to do D8+DEX melee damage on a class with mediocre to poor armor class instead of attacking with D10+CHA damage when CHA is the main attribute and what you want to be stacking anyway. I see that the temp hit points from a fiend patron will help with certain types of fights. Melee attacks scale fine until level 10 and then they start getting out paced dramatically by the evolving cantrip. It feels like a ranger with a sling instead of a longbow. If the class had some modifiers for AC and combat ability I’d love to more seriously consider the pact of the blade. I still think it’s better than a beast master ranger or the elemental monk. But, that doesn’t mean I want to try it.
@@zero11010 Hexblade lets you use CHA on your attack and damage rolls in place of STR or DEX at level 1. You also start with Hexblade Curse for +2 damage, and access to Wrathful Smite. And hexblade can evolve their melee attacks in the same way others can evolve EB. Extra attacks, teleporting melee strikes, different curses, etc.
Once played a half-elf who was conceived by accident at a party. He's a mature adult of 80 years, and his elf dad is still the same immature frat bro due to how long they live.
This just struck me as I read your comment: a half-elf will likely have their human parent die before they reach adulthood, and the elf parent will almost certainly have to bury their human spouse and children they had together, due to the difference in the species' lifespan. Your comment was funny but now I feel sad :
@@exantiuse497 If you like anime, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is about this. I mean, even if you don't like anime you could probably get some nice moments from it.
That's why all other Playable Races are lame compared to Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves!!! Seriously, in a world of Magic why are there so many races that their average lifespan is less then 100 yrs?! Even in real life people can potentially live 100+ years!
I picture elves kind of like the gods in Percy Jackson: they’ve been around so long that their personality has been honed into their own unique brand of mild insanity. Still plenty of room for variety there.
Definitely. Same with beings like archfey. Watching matt mercer rp artagan in critical role is a perfect example of a lucidly insane being with some wierd quirks
"This is my character, Clark" "Oh cool, what great powers does he have?" "None" "Ok that's cool... Is he attractive at all?" "No he's quite below average honestly" "Ok well what about an overdramatic backstory?" "Not really, his parents love him very much" "Ok well where is he from? Hell? A magical forest?" "Connecticut"
As my groups rules lawyer, I often have to stop myself from piping up when someone is doing something cool because I recognize that all I'd be doing is ruining their fun. Like, who cares that *technically* you can't grapple two people at once? The barbarian has 20 strength, he's literally been a workhorse before(he pulled a cart several miles), and the fight is basically over, he can do a double suplex if the dm lets him.
I mean ... some kind of negative modifier on the roll though to target two with a target one ability, right? Or ... do people just get occasional cleave attacks because they don’t know any better and ask for it? Or .... but, I really want to hit him, can I have advantage because I want it?
I'm now imagining some wrestler barbarian walking up and yelling "Do you know what the Grok is cooking!" before elbow dropping a goblin This idea is now out in the world
@@mrosskne the rulebook states the dm can change the rules as they wish, it is but a loose guideline, at the end of the day they are your God *and they have run fresh out of mercy*
@@aldoushuxley5953 yep. I actually like the idea of keeping them fairly consistent, to ensure that someone picking one weapon type over another isn't taking a massive build-breaking disadvantage because of the choice. However I think they went a bit far in that direction, at the same time as somehow still messing it up a bit (looking at you, "why-even" light hammer / sickle... and especially looking at you, "necessarily superior" rapier). They could easily have made more variety from playing around with a few additional weapon abilities in exchange for a wider array of damage stats. Some of my favourites I've home-brewed include "hefting" which means you can't move in the same turn you attack with it, "momentum" where you have to use an action to wind it up and it winds down when it strikes, "hazard" where if you miss with it you take the attack yourself, "hooking" offering a weapon grapple (kinda like net but for lassos, hook swords, reaper scythes and mancatchers too), oversized / undersized just like the previous-edition rules for that, "impaling" which gets stuck on a crit and requires an action to pull out again, and "contact" which has a range of touch and doesn't require an attack roll.
@@Torthrodhel I completely get it. There is enough stuff to optimize already, and adding another element into it could just break the game. But as it stands right now, some options are just simply better than others. Why would I ever use something different than a longsword? (apart from feats like PAM and GWM) Why would I ever use a dagger instead of a shortsword? I think, there should be slight differences between the weapons. For example, a dagger could have +1 to hit, and -1 to damage. That way, the dagger offers precision in exchange for damage. The same could be applied to crossbows compared to longbows (although that might be gamebreaking because of the archery fighting style). I really liked the weapon feat UA. I hope they bring that one back
Precision / damage difference would be a great way of doing it. Damage randomness / non-randomness would be another way to split things up. I always thought there ought to be a difference between absorb type armor class and dodge type armor class (a set of full plate mail being "the same" as an agile naked monk always seemed a bit too out-there for me). So different damage types could apply differently to those, too. I got a neat published homebrew, that's a set of weapon upgrade rules. I almost never buy stuff like that (especially digital-only stuff) but I like it because it bumps everything up in different ways, to roughly-equivalent levels. I mean technically you could want a dagger if you want a throwable finesse light weapon. Like if you want to dual weild something without getting the dual weilder feat that you can also throw even though dual weilding is very poorly optimised for throwing without that feat. So... a kinda self-defeatingly niche situation. But why's the light hammer just worse than a dagger? Why's the sickle just worse? Dart, at the very least, counts as a ranged weapon and so triggers different types of ability even if you use it in melee. And what's even the point of half the single-handed martial weapons when they have to sit next to rapier? Why's that one bumped up without penalty when none others are? I honestly just tend to pick weapons based on what feels right for the character. But it would be really nice if their attributes felt in line with that too. More varied and a bit less often-necessarily-suboptimal. I've heard some GMs just allow players to reskin one weapon as another. That's a nice enough fix, but it doesn't really sort out the damage type is the problem with it. Sometimes there just isn't an optimal pick that fits. So all in all I just take the optimisation hit and feel good about the character fulfilment despite it.
@@Torthrodhel completely agree. Plate armor should honestly just give disadvantage to dex saves. And maybe in return, you could get resistance to slashing and piercing, but weakness to bludgeoning. (since a swordslice does basically nothing against plate armor). Imo there are not enough monsters with resistances/ not enough differences between the physical damage types. Apart from skeletons, the damage type doesn't really matter honestly. How much cooler would it be, if specific weapons would be better against specific monsters (also makes str better, since carrying multiple weapons would be an advantage)
To the rules lawyers thing: There's a difference between letting people know there are rules that exist on a matter, and trying to say that's the only way to do it. If a player makes a mistake on how an ability was written to work or its written limitations, then its okay to point it out. That's helpful because it maintains relative balance to the game and among players which is important. BUT, if you insist that a player and/or DM is "Breaking" a rule after they are fully aware of it, then you are probably not in it to be helpful...
This right here. I was going to have a enemy jump over a character to get to another and have it roll acrobatics because I didn’t know how that worked and someone pointed out there is a table for how far something can jump which I then used to correct it. You should have to know when it’s mechanically important or important for a cool molment
Also and here is the key, there’s a difference between a rule traditionalist and a rule lawyer. Rule traditionalist are okay, and can help the DM, a rules lawyer is only in it to get what they want.
I'm usually the GM for my group, but as a player I find myself as the defacto 'rules reminderer'. My GM appreciates it, and whenever he changes the rules or states otherwise I roll with it. It's the difference between going 'Hey the appropriate skill is X, hee's why' and 'Well actually I want to roll X'. If my GM says no roll Y, I'm rolling Y regardless.
I know the rules pretty well, whenever I point something out it's- paraphrasing - 'RAW, it's this, but its what DM says'. Never had a problem. I DM from time to time and then I forget half the shit the pcs can do because I'm focused on the enemies, having a 'rules lawyer' is great because they relieve some of the mental load on the DM, and for fucks sake most players still don't know how their own class abilities work so DM's need all the help they can get. Also, a fellow player reminding people to make concentration checks helps alleviate the 'DM vs players' mentally.
Hot take: Poison can be a really really interesting mechanic if not a zillion things were immune to it and the condition accompanying it. I know it makes sense for all the outer-planaral monsters to be immune to it but I, for one, really enjoy the concept of an Assassin preparing for the assassination via making poisons, scouting out the place, etc’. and having half the monster manual be immune to it, or have a gigantic plus to constitution saves, kinda takes away from that.
@@SmawCity And fiends, and really any of the 95 monsters in the Monster Manual that have immunity to the fucking thing. Poison should be much more lethal, especially when used against people. Jacob's point of there being "so many different types of poison" doesn't really account for the fact that the ones that can actually kill someone outright when poured in their stew or put on an arrow don't come into play at levels where the party has so much HP that it's not going to kill them anyway, or they cost so absurdly much that it's just not worth it.
If I was the DM, I would let you make a research quest to find out something the monster is weak to. When you think about it, "poison" is just "stuff humans are weak to". Like silver for werewolves.
This, someone who knows the RAW and double checks when we veer off the rules is wonderful. Someone who selects certain rules (or only reads a few select sentences from one *cough* *cough*) is the worst.
@@squibbies7015 is everyone Ok with it @ your table? depending on how stuff is going, it might be better if you just offer the DM your services & wait for when he/she asks you the ruling. you do you.
Not to mention you just invalidate Pact of the Sword by going Hexblade, and that’s probably the only subclass that cares about having actual weapons. Sure, it’s an option for other subclasses that might want to use weapons, but honestly no warlock has the HP for that...
@@eddiemate the thing is that we have had the SAME 3 PACT BOONS SINCE 5E RELEASED IN 2014. I didn't invalidate anything. It's just more boon options would be nice to have at this point in time for 5e.
Ty 7689 No, I don’t mean you as a person invalidate anything. I mean going Hexblade makes going for Pact of the Sword completely meaningless. I should’ve worded that better.
@@eddiemate The fix for that is giving hex warrior to the blade pact instead of having it as a hexblade class feature. This also solves some of the multiclass abuse. More pacts would be nice though. I would like to get a third eye on my head, and then gain features from that. A pact of mutation would be pretty interesting
@@eddiemate Hexblade is the only warlock subclass that really benefits from Pact of the Blade. They pretty much need it to get the full benefits of Hex Warrior, so they can only afford to skip it if they're going to drop the knight part of their magic knight build.
@@neruneri my favorite is Guts from Berserk. I’ve never met a character that hit all the “lone wolf” character traits that made me empathize so much for him. I actually cried a little reading about this character. And his transition from “DONT TOUCH ME!” And “I work alone,” to traveling with a full on D&D party is so gradual and subtle and in character as he develops it’s amazing. The way that he bonds with his party members and gradually opens up over time is beautiful, and by now in the series he’s practically an extrovert. Plus his backstory makes his ways pretty understandable. Sorry for the rant, I love Berserk.
Only if the character actually goes on that arc. If they don't stick with the rest of the party for most of the game then it's a problem in most games.
@@fawn4348 Plot twist: You are the demon and you were about to haunt someone but then you got sleep paralysis and Jacob started talking at you and now you can't escape.
@@benjoe1993 Extreme Plot Twist: You are Jacob and you find a sleep paralysis demon about to haunt someone, then take the intiative and haunt the demon, and trapping it using the power of hot takes, but then a human comes out of no where and starts to give you some horrible hot takes, and you find that you cannot leave nor show distaste toward his opinions.
I get large amounts of ptsd whenever I hear the term “rules lawyer” ever since I was miss labeled as one back when I first played and the DM had no idea how ki points worked and the player just wanted to be broken so give him unlimited fire balls no matter how much I said “having components doesn’t mean you’re free of paying ki” eventually the dm finally picked up on it the player verbally belittled me. So rules in DnD are there for a reason you can’t just ignore basic fundamentals.
It sure as shit felt like cheating at the time. Not to mention no one else got this I have components so free spell shit only the monk did. Is why I specifically mentioned being miss labeled as one
A DM that didn't understand the rules entirely and a player trying to take advantage of that fact (or who also simply didn't understand the rules, and was frustrated when they found out that monks actually suck ass :p)
@@cassandramuller7337 Yeah the probelm was cheating but what about when it isnt?Following basic rules is needed to games even be a game and sometimes this basic rules are most importent in different situation. Anyway i mostly see the both side,rules or freedom of creativity, is eathier choas or ordor. which one you chose?
@@cassandramuller7337 But D&D has to have a social contract. If the players can't trust the DM to at least *mostly* play by the rules, they have absolutely no influence of what happens in the game. The rules serve to keep everyone on a level playing field.
I actually made an elf with the specific shtick that he lived among humans and adopted their patterns. Because of this, he was just constantly exhausted. Humans live so fast, so ambitious, don't just devote a decade to writing poetry on a whim. So he was this grumpy, lethargic dude that was constantly drinking a stimulant tea just to stay awake.
The poison system is good, but unfortunately because it’s in the DMG not everyone knows about it. It should absolutely be more available to players though
It is not good. The poisons are one use only, hard to get and very expensive. Also, remember that they only apply to one attack. For the insane costs, it is almost never worth it. There also aren't really a lot of rules for making your own poisons, especially simple ones. If you want to be the Ranger guy, who knows which plants to eat, and which to avoid, and want to make poisonous arrows (most plants are poisonous), that is basically impossible if you follow the DMG.
The main problem is how pricey they are. Like, sure, getting it off of a natural creature can be cool, but a lot of the more fun or even relatively useful ones are like 500gp to 1,000gp for a SINGLE dose.
@@aldoushuxley5953 DC20 nature to harvest poison ...play a lv1 rogue expertice in nature and you are done...wait for the dm to throw snakes and ...profit? Even if you fail you can take proficienct in poisoner's kit and take no damage
Hot take: Wizards have the same sales pitch as college out of highschool; they say it's the best way to succeed, but for most of the early game its terrible and it costs you way too much
Yeah, wizards don't really pick up until you get 3rd level slots and/or a ring of spell storing. That being said find familiar alone is worth it alone in the early game. imagine, you summon a super small spider onto the head of an enemy and tell it to give the help action every turn by crawling into their ear and scuttling about/ biting them and distracting them. Enemy ac too high? Just cast shocking grasp through your familiar every turn (which only takes their reaction so they can still use the help command). Need a spy? Got one, remote controlled as well. Maybe the barbarian is trapped on the opposite side of the canyon fighting an enemy, send your familiar over and cast mage armor on them. Best God damn 1st level spell in the game, even at higher levels find familiar aides me time and time again.
I Have an 4th Level Aerenai Abjuration Wizard that can literally have about 50hp between his regular health (he only has +2 Con), Arcane Ward and False Life, with 17 Ac from the Mage Armour used to activate the ward, Wizards can still kick ass at lower levels you just need to know what your doing and focus on a few schools rather than trying to be a magic Swiss army knife.
@@kanashimi4356 what is an Aerinai? I have never heard of that race. Also, what is your intelligence, did you roll 2 18's cause that is a very high armor class.
Sniper: I've got eyes on the target... 5 klicks North... He's laying down... He's got some weird squishy toy things. I think he's... Talking about D&D hot takes? Command: You're free to take the shot Sniper: No wait... I wanna see where this goes.
Hot take: Beer & Pretzels story romps are just as, if not more, fun. Drunk story-telling and roleplay can often be more compelling in amusement factors than drunk wargaming.
@@Yawyna124 of course they can be. It really just depends on the group and what they're in the mood for. I'm just sick of seeing this narrative that everything that happens in an RPG session MUST serve a narrative purpose
Hot take: While the DM's ruling must always be final, a Rules Lawyer who reminds the DM not only of useful rules that may be relevant, but also precedents that the DM has set with similar rulings during previous sessions is a useful resource who can not only help the game run smoothly but also help to keep DMs honest. DM favouritism is the worst and having a big brain Rules Lawyer who is focused on fairness can help.
Had a DM who rule zeroed the as written effect of control water. As in, the spell no longer was able to do about half of what the text allows it to do. Now, that is a fine thing for the DM to do before the game starts, or after discussion with the players. But this was mid encounter, because the player used it as a solution to a 'scary chase'
I think it's fine, in some cases great, when a DM does their own ruling, as long as the DM is aware of the "correct" ruling in the book. The bad thing is a DM that's not aware of the actual rules making up rules on the fly, because it can screw over some classes/character and make the DM seem unfair.
I will also rules lawyer in favor of my DM. There is another player that on occasion will get very passionate about their view on how something should be ruled, even after the DM has given what should be his final ruling. I will pop in with where its at in the PHB or show the Sage Advice where it clarifies so we can move the game along.
Hot take: 99% of all D&D Hot Takes can be answered with "it depends on the situation". There are some absolute truths, but it mostly depends on how you wanna play your made up game and what kind of game the DM wants to run
Except saying poison is great when 95% of everything has resistance and 90% have straight up immunity. If a monster has fire resistance 9/10 times it has poison resistance or straight up immunity. Ghost of saltmarsh is the worst.
The horse that guy is so large that I think he legally qualifies for the Mammoth Rider Prestige class form Pathfinder. That is how high his horse is he can legally mix systems.
On one hand, if everyone uses the same rules, it is super easy to jump from one group to another. Everyone knows whats what and how to play. On the other hand people aren't playing professional sports, they are playing a game to have fun.
@@AgentDRJ Yah, they probably should be called Guidelines instead as that what they are, if the DM says otherwise, you should probably follow the guidelines.
Hot take: Making a character who's entire personality is "I subverted the stereotype by not being the (insert stereotype for class here)" is just as bad as making a stereotype character itself. The statement "it isn't the stereotype at least" does not make your character building better than those that follow the stereotype.
I like to go opposite of the stereotype because I find it more fun. Like my abstinent, frontliner, holy-man Bard. He started out as a joke but had some nice depth and good development. Stereotypes are fun too but I generally have a harder time with character development.
@@onecrazypig8423 stereotypes are there for a reason though. Classes are not something arbitrary, but basically a broad job description. Just like you won't find many stupid physicists and fat small basketball players, weak fighters and dumb wizards probably are a rarity. You can write many different characters around a wizard. I don't see how making him stupid makes him any more interesting. If anthing, it just makes your character more unbelievable. (unless you play an old wizard professor, who has gotten Alzheimers to explain their low int, that would be pretty funny and make sense)
Hot take. Having the party be the cogs in the machine of a much grander world is just as compelling as making them the big hero dudes who save everyone. This is especially true in a grimmdark setting.
High fantasy is fun and all but damn I would love to be played for once. Idk if its 5E itself since how easy the game/rules are that inspires high fantasy.
Simulationism in general, where the players are simply agents in an internally consistent gameworld (as opposed to being the most important people in the universe), is a really interesting approach to TTRPG design. 5e is kind of disappointing when it comes to giving you tools to run games like that. I have way more fun "playing" my antagonists against the party within the confines of some sort of ruleset than designing them out of thin air, and my players feel more organically empowered when they arrive at a solution by learning and using that internal logic to their advantage. It also means I don't have to waste my time designing arbitrary puzzles, because now *anything* can be a puzzle by virtue of how it interacts with the simulation.
The difference between a rule lawyer and someone's who's knowledgeable about the rules is if you argue with DM. Reminding the DM about the rules or asking if it's a personal call on them is fine, but constantly arguing against their decision is annoying, rude, and stops the games. Say something, get a yes or no, and move on with the game.
Being the rules lawyer as a DM is hard, because I think it throws off my friends when I fudge a rule or try to be lenient and they expected me to go full lawyer, but that's not what makes DMing work. I can't spend 14 minutes looking up resources every time I happened to have forgotten exactly how grappling works. Makes the game suck. Being the rules lawyer as a player is also hard because none of my friends who DM know the rules well enough. But the bright side is, as a player, I can be on the spot for them, and I offer up the rules on a quaint pillow for them to use or not at their discretion. It is as you say - arguing the rules AT the DM is unacceptable. Being there to help the rules slide on through as you all play is a lot like being the player that takes notes or draws the map. Just helping out the table to make the game run more smoothly.
@@trident042 I feel this same thing but for a different reason. When being a DM and explaining some of the rules, or how something does not work, it feels like I am taking something away from that player. I try to balance it all out, but trying to remember all of the rules is difficult. As a DM you sometimes have to make judgement calls, which goes against the rules, but my biggest problem with the game is that it feel almost to reliant on a strong DM. The players really have to rely on the DM's knowledge for the game to work, and the whole thing falls apart if the DM does not deliver a strong enough: story line, encounter, or retort for why something is happening. This game can be really difficult sometimes.
It depends really. If a DM has this idea "this is MY campaign (not the whole parties) and MY rules (we are playing 5e not john5e) and we do things my way" ive had DMs who literally think since they are a DM the players must play the way the DM wants, progress the way the DM wants, follow only rules the DM wants. Huge problem i think in DND is how people think its the DM's campaign and not the parties. Most rules if controversial whould be party discussions not "rule 0 cuz im better and smarter than all of you cuz i am a DM."
Hot take: min-maxing is perfectly fine and good, as long as it _always_ comes after characterisation and roleplay. You want to play Bones-McGee, the undead pacifist assassin with a skewed moral compass who neutralises their targets with a variety of paralytics, sleep poisons, etc just to let _other people kill them instead?_ By all means, min-max and get the best stats possible for bones-Mcgee. Hell, take a level in warlock for a zany chain pact familiar that stabs your targets after you put them to sleep to cut out the middle man('s kidney), but only min-max _within the constraints of the character._
This is exactly why I don't like the custom origins in Tasha's. Minmaxing is fun with constraints, not when I can make every gnome, tabaxi and aasimar basically the same as variant human.
You must have gotten really unlucky with your dms cause that's just inflexible and lazy on their part. I mean if you were in the shadowfell or the elemental plane of fire, I'd get it but otherwise...?
Yeah, and for the most part anybody else can do it too. Outlander Fighter: "I use my knowledge and skill in foraging to find food for the group" Barbarian: "I wanna find food and water for the party... I rolled a 13 Survival Check" DM: "You find enough food and water for everyone"
On elves, heres a thing; A common misconception is that when the phb says "They arent considered mature until they are 110ish" they think "a 20 year old elf is a baby." Elves age and mature at the same rate as humans in every way, they just dont consider other elves mature until they are 110ish. Elves dont consider ANYONE to be mature until they are over a century. Humans are literally immature enmasse to them. If you want to play a human-like elf, make them 20 for a bright eyed adventurer or 45 for a grizzled veteran. A "mature" elf by elf standards is the wizened old man, just with their sexy young elf body.
@@joybreegaming8781 no its not. That was the whole point of what I said. They mature at the same rate of humans, but culturally elves dont view that as very fast at all
I would say they age slightly slower than humans. I usually run it as basically when they’re children, they age one year’s worth for every year and a half or so. So, for example, a 15-year-old elf would be equivalent to a 10-year-old human, etc.
As someone running an artificer, I chose to take a level in forge cleric to get the extra cantrip room for mending. The forge blessing feels like an artificer ability too so now I can upgrade more of my annoying party's gear.
My DM gave me not a magic spear, but an exotic one. It functions a nornal spear but once a day it's ability can be activated. You throw it and it summons a lightning wherever it strikes, dealing 3d6 lightning damage on top of whatever damage the spear does +modifiers
@@billybobjoe5039 you can use it as a spear. But if you try to use it's power without throwing it you'll receive the lightning damage as well, as you'd be too close to the impact zone
8:07 "Yeah clerics are super super super strong, and I think they are super super super strong because they need to be, otherwise nobody will play them" So like TF2 medic?
The problem is that Clerics don't "fit a role". They can fit all of them. I'm OK with versatile classes but when you can successfully finish a campaign with 4 characters being exactly the same class with different domains you kinda miss the point ofmthe game IMO.
Healers in almost every game are typically above balance as most all players wouldn't want to play them, as it is more entertaining to play the character that effects the objective more, more directly (typically killing baddies)
Clerics are literally like the Dev's babies. Literally just the favorite class that gets tons more stuff than other classes. Wish my sorcerer had 500 domains or shit to choose from
Hot Take: Sub-classes are fine but we need more official class specific options: like warlock's invocations, sorcerer meta-magics, and fighting styles, so that classes aren't just "pick your subclass". PS: More official feats would help as well.
@@robertjohnpecayo8642 It'd a step in the right direction but, at least to me, they didn't provide enough for the comment to be obsolete. Hopefully they do add more for sorcerers and warlocks, while also introducing other systems for other classes, so that we get a more modular game.
Yeah, the character building and strategising parts of min-maxing are super fun, but the 'I make everyone else in the party redendant' is a big issue. I think when done responsibly and in a game that's designed to make it less problematic (e.g. breaking 5e with min/maxing is pretty hard, but doing it in pathfinder is super easy unless everyone's on the same page about power levels and letting people have their niches) it can add a lot to the fun though.
Okay, wanting your character to be powerful combat-wise isn’t wrong, but making combination that make absolutely no sense in the setting like making a elf fighter (samurai) rogue (assassin) in a setting that haven’t got a non-Japão and whitout a backstory that would somehow make it possible and never roleplaying your character is bad.
Arthur Yeah, that kind of stuff is a really fine line. Sometimes games forcing you to make obscure changes to your character's personality and backstory to accomodate your bizarre build can be a really fun creative exercise. The issues start arising when people just make a walking stat stick comprised of all the OP character options from various obscure settings books - although I feel like the real problem kinda comes back to the walking stat stick/bad team player issues. Like, if said hypothetical player had made a poorly optimised Samurai 4/Time Traveller 3/Pharaoh 2 for a game set in fantasy europe, and asked if they could reflavour them as just a cool swordmage with a time manipulation/desert theme to their magic, I'd personally be totally ok with it.
I love that the comment about the rule lawyer's argument is that you spent a lot of money on rule books so you should use them. One of the books is literally all about creating your own rules.
@@grantflippin7808 Not really. It shows how to do it in a way that balances with the rest of the rules, instead of just doing what a lot of That Guys do at some point & insist that their half-demon, half-angel, half-dragon is an immortal god with every spell in the game & immunity to all damage.
Sometimes it feels like the "hurr durr rules bad" guys are the same that want to make demigod characters and get away with it lmao, they want the equivalent of cheat codes, rule bending should be for the sake of the story/fun, not so you can two-shot a tarrasque
Hot take: most “hot takes” aren’t really hot takes, in the top 30 comments of this video like 17 are “the DM is the final arbiter of the rules“ this is obvious. Also “hot takes” that are just different flavors of “there should be more options of x” Are also not Hot takes, basically everyone can agree that they would like more options in the game.
"Rules Lawyers are actually the most helpful players to have at the table" There's a *type* of rules lawyer who's the most helpful player at the table, and that's the one who's correcting the rules after the game. I also think it's probably important to recognize when a rule is being misunderstood, or when a rule is being purposefully ignored or changed by the DM. If a rule is misunderstood, then correct it. If the DM is ignoring the rule intentionally, or creating an exception to the rule then there is no correction needed. The problem comes with DMs who have an ego and present themselves as never being wrong about the game, or knowing the most about the game by virtue of having the screen. The Rules Lawyer is there to make sure your character doesn't die because the DM thought their Intellect Devourer could use their claw attack, Devour Intellect, and Body thief in the same turn. (They can only use a claw attack and Devour intellect as part of their 'multiattack' action). There's a right way and a wrong way to be a rules lawyer. Just like there's a right way and a wrong way to be a DM, or roleplay, or literally anything.
@@omnical6135 I mean, at that point it's a different scenario to construct entirely. Cuz tables/DMs who don't want help from a Rules Lawyer are either already well versed in the rules and want to keep the flow of their game running smoothly, or people who *think* they know the rules when in reality they don't. Perhaps it's not wanted at the table, but more often it's needed. Again, not many issues arise if you just talk about it after the game.
@@Scrittus I have a player at my table who knows the rules much better than I do, Everyone knows this is the case. But unless it's clearly a misinterpretation by me, They don't interrupt the game, However I do often ask if they agree with my ruling.
@@BramLastname this is me in most of my games. Unless the rule being used wrong is affecting a huge part of the game. Like a spellcaster adding ability modifier to damage or a martial class forgetting to add. I'll usually bring it up after the game or give my opinion when asked. . Otherwise its just a new homebrew ruling that we using and whatever the DM says goes.
Yeah even if you're making a melee fighter with a warlock dip for hexblade, EB is still worth taking. It is after all the best damage cantrip in the game. Even if you're not going to use it all the time it's nice to have in your back pocket just in case. I agree with the guy who said it should be included in the class, and with Jacob in that it should be different depending on your patron.
Hot take: new dms need soft rules lawering, rules lawering where the ruling is looked at from a RAW standpoint and the interpreted standpoint to determine the best course of action as to make everyone feel the ruling is fair.
I agree and don't agree. a reminder of rules sure, however "actually he cant to that because it says here on page eventyhundredandblahblah" is fucking infuriating. my tip for new DM's keep your rulings consistent. if you let one player swing across the bridge because they got a CR19 dexterity check. make sure you do that for other players as well. I have a player that reminds me of the rules. and every time I tell them "yo I get you. I understand. but this is my call. however I will take that recommended skill check type. you're right (insert skill name here) might be better for this".
@@cobaltblu4196Yeah, that what he mean by soft rule lawyer, people who know the rules and could remind everyone in the table if needed, those kind of players are very helpful
But that's not rules lawyering. Rules lawyering is "um ackshually"-ing any deviation from RAW to the point of being obnoxious, & ignoring or denying Rule Zero. What you're talking about is just having a player or two who have read the rules.
@@donb7519 Not really. More things are resistant to fire, but a hell of a lot more things are straight up immune to poison. In terms of fire resistance, there's a feat that lets you ignore resistance to it and other elemental damage in official DND. Poison, however, isn't under the protection of that feat. Poison is so much more gimped in DND than fire under these circumstances.
Medicine is a strength check. "Urgok fix broken arm for you" *snaps broken bone back into perfect alignment.* Could work if you wanna not take it too seriously but eh what do I know. :P
Medicine is now a charisma check charm the hell out of the virus Or i guess placebo them and convince them theyll be okay but sickness seduction is cooler
I play with an adult group. We are all 40-55 and have all played since high school. We absolutely have a 50 year old player who still does the cold distant loner with each and every character he ever makes regardless of the class. Super cheerful guy out of game.
@@mikehimes7944 "HELP, HELP, I CANNOT SEE THE WORDS ON THE SCREEN!" Anyway, yes, Zero is right, insight is for discerning intentions and meaning of interactions, perception is for noticing details, investigation is for making deductions based on clues. Anyway, not certain how Zero might have missed the point; he was sharing an anecdote about a player who has potentially been playing for a very long time that is still playing that type of character 40 years later. I think you failed your insight check to notice Zero's implication that there isn't really anything wrong with it in that he's still a part of their group and that they didn't imply anything bad about the player with it, perhaps reaffirming OP's posting suggesting that they usually do that sort of character.
My personal hot take: I think that character PC romances can be great for a campaign depending on how you play it off, and as long as you are mature about it
@@Mariusweeddeath Dang that sucks. I'm in a campaign, (it's about to end soon) where I'm playing a blood hunter. And that blood hunter is in a relationship with the Palidan of the party. Even though it was never planned at the beginning of the campaign, as well as the fact that they had separate moral codes, their relationship actually made sense bc of the fact that they played so well off of each other. The blood hunter has gone through an entire character arc since then, and it really works out between the two. Unfortunately, most PC relationships go too far, or people don't understand that it's a game and take it too literally and seriously. It sucks that your players are like that, and I hope that one day you experience a party where a PC actually works
That's up to the players honestly. I'm not changing my campaign an iota to accommodate for that, but I have no problem with them interacting with each other how they see fit, and spending their down time as they wish.
I was a guy playing a female character (battle master fighter with great sword) and over time she fell for one of the party members (male human warlock, everyone he loves dies), we managed to not only have a successful campaign but that character canonically retired and had their kid (he died sacrificing himself to break his contract with his patron). PC romances are absolutely viable
hot take: the annoying edginess of a character isn't determined basically AT ALL by their backstory but entirely by their RP. Like, a character can have killed their family and stolen everything they own and been an assassin for a time and have never considered anyone in the world a friend before the campaign started, that doesn't mean jack shit if they're played as an interesting, fun character, even if they are edgy af. also it's just so much better having a cringy character than a boring character, it's more fun for you, it's more fun for the table. The way the internet keeps insisting on making the most average joe motherfuckers just to make sure their character isn't even the tiniest bit cringy is so annoying I hate it
My kitsune wizard walks around being smart, but the actions I make make it look like I'm an idiot. So much so that my party decided that they wanted to send the Bard with me so I didn't do anything stupid. I made a bomb. (but also the "cure" for a zombie disease)
I agree. Yeah sure your cringy, but at least your interesting. Also cringy characters are just people that fail at being cool. So If you try to make a cringy character, you might accidentally make them cool.
I played fighter that started off as a farmer conscripted into a war. He experienced horrors that would break most men. He deserted and became a brigand and eventually desecrated a temple. He was designed to be a test for the cleric and paladin down the road. Normally, he'd be an edgy-boi annoying character. But I played him as seeking some kind redemption and good in the world. He turned out to be a great player and really tested the paladin and cleric's convictions and inspired the rogue to actually become good instead of just doing penance to avoid a death sentence. Halfway through, he left the party to become a priest and we made him a recurring NPC. One of the best characters I've ever played.
I feel like Elves can be a mixed bag when they're played. Like, depending on the Elf 200 years varies greatly. For an Elf that lives away in seclusion for all their life, 200 years leads to a peaceful existence in which they believe they should guide other races with trivial knowledge. For an Elf that lived with humans their whole life, maybe they see their extended lifespan as a curse and spend every day as a dare devil tempting death.
actually played a sort of lore-keeper elf bard that got saddened by people around her aging and dieing so early that she started her career as a bard wanting to gather stories of all the people she came across, to give them a sort of immortality via text. Really liked the concept, didn't really get to explore it much bc we were playing a pre-written module but maybe I'll revisit the idea some day in a more open-ended campaign.
I have a half elf Acrane trickster called myst, that went to a wizard college for a couple years before it was burned down and pillaged by orcs, when returning to his royal family life, he has learned of his parents deaths, both killed by orcs, inheriting his fathers tophat (look i know a tophat) and his mothers signet ring, he learns these orcs have done this since he didnt pay off his fees to a crimelord, the orcs were originally payed to join him, now being ruled by him, Myst owed these fees since he wished to exile his brother for abusing his power, so he has now taken on a nomadic lifestyle learning tricks along his way, drinking off the memories and buying free drinks for adventurers telling thier own stories, he rarely talks about his own path, rather trying to help others on thier way, only stealing from the abusers or the wicked. Edit: Any more suggestions or anything for my character
Also, take into account super young Elves around the age of a young adult human. Time for some hyper ass extreme curiosity over the most random things! Ahaha!
I still feel like rules lawyers can be good for your game. Naturally not in the "oh actually... You can't do that..." kind of way. But having a player that knows the rules well, and gives reminders about easily forgotten rules can be very helpful.
Yes! I was in a group where I played with them for months and I don’t think I remembered a single character’s name. One guys characters kept dying and it was never like, a big deal. Now in my current group we all have our own campaigns (forever dm said he wanted someone e else to and instead of like, voting we all just started building campaigns independently so now we have like 5) and it’s basically a competition to see who can make the group cry hardest with dramatic RP shenanigans
As a Knowledge Cleric I'm glad that our DM has included a lot of exploration and other non-combat encounters because it makes my otherwise okay-at-best character feel like an absolute god. Going to the store to buy stuff is like "what price shall I demand today with Suggestion?" and being good at everything non-combat makes me the natural leader of the group... so much so that I'm consciously trying not to make all the rolls first because the other guys low-key envy my 30+ rolls on History and Arcana :P
@@TonkarzOfSolSystem you speak to a baroness in a wrong tone and don’t wipe your feet, you will be executed tomorrow You sneeze in front of a quest giver and don’t cower your mouth, quest denied Social situations can be infinitely more deadly than combat, because it is possible to build a character that is impossible to kill in combat, but you cannot be immune from social situations, because unless the dm plays them like “roll me competing charisma, uh the baron loses the argument, plus one thousand gold, roll charisma, three thousand, time to depart guys” it’s gonna be aimed at the players.
Hot Take: while DMs have the final say in the game, throwing away the rules just because he says so can ruin the fun for the players. Some players create their PCs with certain sinergy or choose spells because of an idea they had (that is based on the rules) Telling the Cleric "your turn undead doesn't work because this zombies are different" is plain wrong.
@Eitra Ardania Double damage or double *dice*? Crit fireball seems like a bad idea regardless, but if they use dice doubling instead of total damage doubling then the green flame blade ruling is perfectly consistent: On a crit, you can roll all dice twice, but flat modifiers aren't doubled. Green Flame Blade's extra damage is a flat value, no dice are rolled.
@@professorkhepri Sure, but the you have people telling you how much D&D sucks, and when you start prying on the reasons you discover that they were not playing D&D. The problem is that most people think they are very good at coming up with gaming systems and they really really are not.
Or your Barbogue that he can't use a rapier with strength because it's just silly. If it bothers you so much, Bill, call it a one-handed Estoc! I'll even dress him like a matador!
Hot take: There should be more ranged weapon magic items. The only ones that isn't homebrew are the bargain bin +1,2,3 weapons and the Oathbow --yes some say that the Moonblade can be reflavored as a bow, but there's literally only 1 unique longbow and no crossbows--
I don't get why they don't just make blueprints for weapons instead of individual magic weapons. Why couldn't there be a flametongue bow or spear for example?
Wanting a high main stat is normal. It is when they start to multiclass in order to make an undebatable character that is the problem. Or make broken combos.
@@doubeld.7536 Thats the difference between power fantasy, and some table tops you have to min max, I know few played it but 3.5 needs some minmaxing. Games where the game is harder enforces min maxing to some degree.
I minmax the character to some extent to ensure it is capable of doing the job it's supposed to. That leaves me free to rp the character without worrying that it will negatively impact the game.
I recently made a character with more average stats instead of the higher stats I could’ve rolled just to avoid being a "minmaxer" and I think the highest stat is like +2 mod right now, and I just feel like all I’ve done is make myself weaker for combat. It hasn’t changed how I RP or how the character behaves. I just made myself weak.
Eddiemate you can’t really min max stats. If you roll, it’s basically entirely random. Point buy and standard array only let you get stats as low as 8 and as high as 17 (technically a changeling can get an 18, but that’s an exception). You shouldn’t ever worry about minmaxing with stats. Just make the best character you can, because making one that is weak will haunt you for the entire campaign.
@@Aplesedjr that's pretty much my point. Having a character that is weak in certain areas can be fun to rp, but a character that is all around weak sucks!
Logan Sanders Yeah, I guess if we're talking about pure minmax then stats aren’t a concern. However at the time I had confused "optimal" for "minmax" Which was stupid, but it’s too late now.
As a Warlock player myself, I wanna throw in my two cents on the Eldritch Blast being boring comment. Even if you keep as still the normal generic 1d10 Force, I think a lot of the fun is flavouring how exactly the character casts it, or furthermore at higher levels how the multiple beams interact with eachother. Such as having them curl around eachother when fired so they look like some sort demented eldritch DNA helix, or having them do cool tricks and loops on the way to the target. Personally how I always keep it interesting for myself, is describing them as compact laser blasts instead of generic energy tossing. Kinda like Iron Man's repulsers, so I can personally get a little bit of joy from firing fricking laser beams from my fricking hands.
Also if the fiend shot fire blasts it'd be the worst eldritch blast patron. Since fire is common to have resistance two. Hell playable 3 races have it!
I totally agree. Flavor it. It was balanced to be the best offensive cantrip in the game because of the spell casting issues with Warlocks. You can be a caster warlock with a negative charisma if you feel that will be fun for you. Warlocks get very few known spells and nearly no slots. Recharge on short rest (which should inherently be rare for balance) and a very powerful cantrip is the only way to balance them. Otherwise you end up with first, second, and third edition casters .... which were shitty archers with no dex that had 3 spells to cast in each day with 18 rounds of combat with 15 rounds in each day of combat to be a shitty archer. So, eldritch blast and agonizing blast it is. It isn’t over powered. That’s a fighter with a longsword in two hands. What does the DMG say ... one short rest per 3-4 encounters? So at level one you have one spell slot for 3-4 encounters. Sweet.
i had a sick edgy character in one of my games where he played a druid who had a dead sister whose spirit haunted him and he manipulated dead plants. edgy can also be innovative
Hot take: people only complain about MinMaxing because they forget about the “Min” part of it. A MinMaxed character will excel in certain areas, and struggle in others. If you feel a MinMaxed player is too op then start putting them in different situations
There's two problems with this : First, usually they manage to have significant maxes and irrelevant mins. There are many activities in D&D that you just need one character in the party to be good at, so sacrificing it on yours is mostly not going to impact you. Second, when a character has a huge weakness, either the DM doesn't use it, in which case they have the max and not the min, or the DM uses it and it may feel like he's out to get that player in particular. I mean, minmaxing is fine if everyone is doing it, or if players who don't just don't care about power imbalance, but I don't think that the min part of minmaxing is counterbalancing enough.
@@chaoslordnicky9723 That's a funny story, but it also sounds like you were taking out your frustrations on your player, which is a big no-no. It's not player vs GM.
@@chaoslordnicky9723 So what was the reason for the force of nature, powerful enough to menace cities by itself, coming up behind the party? What was big enough to heavily obscure the creature? I'd agree with Bobby, it half-way sounds like you were just murking them to murk them.
Hot take: not following the rules is liberation for the DM to do what ever the DM wants to do, but takes away the last shreds of control the PCs have over the game. If the DM has free reign to arbitrarily change any rule he/she wants on the fly, that's the most railroady of railroaded games imaginable.
I dont get why this is the go to point of view that people think a person who says the rules shouldn't be rigid always go to. What you are referencing is more like cheating. If the DM decides they want a system to work differently in their game and players are warned before playing about those changes, that's perfectly fine. If someone is just making shit up to suit the way they want things to go on the fly then they're just cheating or atleast being a dick.
@@tehtayziez Most DMs who I've played with seem to just spring their houserules mid game, I may have a 12 page word document of houserules (mostly expanding upon rules, such as setting up a camp in the woods or adding a sanity system for horror focused games) but I give access to players at session 0 and then we vote on which ones we want to use in the campaign
It's a negotiation. The DM can't be expected to know or care about every rule, but they do need to care about the rules that impact the characters that the players have created and their objectives. Like if you make a mariner, with the expectation that nautical combat works the way it does in the book, it would be a burn for the DM to have it work some other way arbitrarily. On the other hand, if nobody prepared for the specific rules of naval combat (or whatever, this is just an example), it might be best to make some up that better accommodate what the players are actually good at and will have fun doing.
I've DM'ed and I've never felt constrained by the rules. Homebrews on the other hand force me to work twice times harder because suddenly a Ranger is a better tank than a Barbarian and can do anything while the other player's can only better and with less rolls, so I have to literally make two encounters, one for an anime character and one for normal players. Also in mnany cases, the cool abilities the monsters have? Half of them gone because they are useless because "in this group monsters can't grapple" and bullshit like that. Sorry, I only play/DM on strict AL rules now.
It does sound like playing a bard with negative charisma .... just be a different class and pretend to be a bard with low charisma. Fighter with entertainer background and the magic initiate feat. You could totally be a sorcerer with natural ability and think you’ve got a deal with a devil or whatever. Metamagic works great as an invocation substitute. There is no reason to break your class to make it interesting ... you’re not limited enough to need to do that.
@@saintpoli6800 He does way more damage with his combo of green flame blade cantrip, shortsword and sneak attack. We already have a sorcerer and me as cleric, so we need more frontliners.
Being a rules lawyer is bad, yelling for people to play the game how you wish But instead being something of a rules encyclopedia who simply reminds people of rules when they are unsure and accepts how dms will warp rules can be very helpful It is a fine line between the two, if you can pick the right path than you are quite a pal but dip into the dark side of the force and you will cause only ruin
I have a player in my game who is a complete Rules Encyclopedia. he has a genuine compulsion to correct me. and honestly I am so so SO greatful for it. the reason I don't call him a Rules Lawyer is simply because he accepts all of my rulings. even bad ones, and I respect that
To say "Minmaxing misses the point of the game!" or really "X misses the point of the game!" in general is a really narrow-minded take. Your idea of what the point of the game is is not the only valid one. If people have more fun minmaxing than not, then let them.
Hot Take: Sorcerers should have an expanded spell list for each Origin. Lore-wise and balance-wise, it's understandable that they lack as many spells as Wizards, but they still have an intimate connection to a natural force flowing through their body and soul; I feel like that should fetch a few extra spells.
@@ridwana4037 i think they mean spells known and theyre right a wizard can prepare 25 easy at level 20 so why cant i know 25 especially when at that point i cant change any more spells known by raw
@@donb7519 Because that'll make sorcerer broken. The number of spell is not the sorcerer's main weapon. It's the metamagic. Simply put Wizard: lots of access to spell, but only specialized on one type of it. Sorcerer: limited spell, but the toolbox (metamagic) is the one that gives the kick.
Maybe they should add some nature based spells that they automatically learn for free and at a certain level (like 15) any spell of that nature doesn't cost a cost a sorcery point.
I've read the 5e rule books multiple times and have memorized 3 editions worth of rules across different systems. It's not that we "rules lawyers" hate things that aren't in the book, we hate when someone tries to do something that is a class feature or feat that invalidates the point of planning out a character's abilities when your just going to let that slide. I know you should be able to realistically be able to grab someone with a free hand while punching someone else, but then the Tavern Brawler feat shouldn't even exist.
As a DM I've never had an issue with people who knew the rules inside and out - but I never would have called those people Rules Lawyers. Personally, I've only ever thought of those players who would argue with something that I've said about how I interpreted a rule (or improvised one that I wasn't aware of). By all means, be a Rules Lawyer, just bear in mind that the DM is not another Rules Lawyer, they are the Rules Judge. If you happen to know any actual lawyers, ask them what happens to lawyers who argue with judges.
If I ever min-max, it's so I can be stupid without dying as easily, or in hopes that I can "get serious" and actually be helpful when the people that want to carry the team / show off start to struggle.
I did that to the extreme. My sorcerer probably has the most potential to vaporize the rest of the party, but they insist on taking the most roundabout way to solve a problem "for the sake of science" Like yeah I could cast fireball at the extremely clumped together Yuan-ti who haven't spotted me above them, or I could drop on top of one of them and fireball a pillar, causing the room to collapse.
I actually did that exact kind of thing for my most recent character, by giving them more average stats. Sure, they’re *playable* but my character just feels weak with their low damage, and it hasn’t even changed how that character behaves. For less important stats, it’s definitely good to play with those for the sake of making them more interesting, if you’re willing to roleplay those, but making your main stats bad is just an awful move.
@@eddiemate same I tried it and its just kinda underwhelming when your character says dont worry were in this together and then they can't add anything to the battle due to their averageness
Hot take that should be in every episode: groups shouldn't expect their dm to be Matt or any other professional or high level, experienced dm. And you should try to get into your character, even if the rest of your group seems shy. I'm in a group that was a little shy at first. The first 5 or 6 meetings was everyone kind of getting out of their shell but there was me and one other that from the start that got into character and helped the other 4 realize, hey... We're in a fantasy game, we aren't ourselves. And the meetings have gotten better and better.
Hot take: its ok to change alignment. Characters can have changes of heart! Ex: A PC that falls into an Evil alignment becomes good because one of the other PCs shows them that things are not set in stone (i would be more detailed but I dont want to get too wordy :P)
Yeah, one of my players has a character that started out as a law-abiding dragonborn prince that became a prison guard to get away from his parents. After helping a bunch of people break out (The rest of the party) he slowly started to become more murderous, and will now kill anyone that looks at him funny.
Not so hot take : just forget about alignment altogether. It's a limiting concept, and 5e has done its best to remove any gameplay impact from alignment. Just play your character the way it feels interesting and natural, let it change as you want, and don't try to put stuff in boxes when there's no real reason to.
@@commandercaptain4664 Twitter's idea of races is just different colored humans with le animal/magic quirks, and maybe sometimes an animal head or pointy ears.
I find it just as interesting for people to be bigoted against elves for the exact reason elves are normally bigoted against everyone else: They're longevity makes it so they aren't bound to one generation of human, so no generation of human would be raised believing they owe elves the time of day, gliding through life at glacial speeds and providing nothing to society yet putting their noses up at everyone.
@@shealupkes Well if you look at D&D lore you'll find the elves have actually done quite a bit for the other races. The War with the Drow , battles against Gods and Demons , teaching how magic works , etc. It's not their fault the other races have the memory of Goldfish. Maybe they're just tired of having to explain history every five minutes to yet another generation of short lived races. I mean in the time it takes for a single elf to be considered an adult humans go through like four generations. And the fourth generation couldn't tell you the lessons the previous three learned even if their lives depended on it. Meanwhile a single elf can recite hundreds if not thousands of years of history off the top of their heads. So just maybe the Elven bigotry towards other races might just be well earned.
The rules of DnD are a baseline. They account for a lot of things but they are just the base thing. You get to add to it, change or subtract from it as you see fit. DnD rules are like plain Vanilla icecream. You get to sprinkle stuff on top or change the icecream itself to chocolate as you see fit. It's just nice to have a starting point that is a functioning ruleset.
@@grantflippin7808 No. Rules lawyers tell you that you're not allowed to put toppings on the ice cream or pick anything but vanilla. "Rules encyclopedias" are the ones who remind you about the milk.
9:29 i always thought it would be interesting for an elf to have a far looser definition of punctuality. "When should we show up?" "Oh, Tuesday-Thursday." "Have you been waiting her long?" "Not really, I just arrived a few hours ago."
I agree with the notion about the rules being guidelines. When you're playing with friends, making changes to the game will always add to the fun. The exception to this is playing online with a group of people you don't know IRL. In this case, deviating from the rules can ruin a player's fun. The way to avoid that is to set expectations, of course.
A focus only replaces components that don't have a gold cost. So it makes sense that they don't need one, as long as they don't need a gemstone that costs at least 1,000 gold. Alternatively, I've had DMs that say ANYTHING can be a focus, including your weapon, or your fingers. It doesn't replace War Caster, but I like the flavor options that that allows.
The innately magical part is what gives them the advantage though. A wizard will have to spend years of their life studying the ways of magic, and only get access to some cantrips and first level spells, and then also get a focus/components. A sorcerer ignores the first step entirely, but being innately magical doesn’t ignore the need to channel that magic.
Hot take: There should be more customization in terms of normal weapons and armor. E.G. a shield always applies the same AC bonus if it is non magical. A buckler and a tower shield should both be available and have different pros and cons.
Let me introduce you to 3.5. Probably other editions as well. The "+2 AC shield" in 5th edition is just dumb IMO. 3.5 had bucklers. shields, tower shields, and all kinds of flavors for them
@@MistaOppritunity it's pretty easy to homebrew them in, but I just dont get why they got rid of them in the first place. Shields add so much flavor to a character, and just having a flat ac bonus irked me. But yeah, it would definitely be nice if they added them back in
Hot take: the weapons and armor list are just common equipment that are most common, says so in the book, PHB 144 and 146. You give those players as many bucklers and tower shields as they want, you give 'em those compound bows that add their STR ability score to the damage (that's actually a thing that's even in one of the modules as something an adventurer has, even).
You mean like, oh, just saying a +1 shield (for a total of +3 AC) is a bigger shield? They took out the half-dozen shields because people only used the best one that was available for their class, so it was unnecessary crunch (and allowed for the infamous levels of munchkining & powergaming that plagued 3.5).
Wow, called out...
I didn’t know you watched him
F
He is ... The One
With Calligraphy.
I love the irony, Phil. You rock.
by the way, any examples of D&D Deadpool? Is this about build, personality or behavior?
"Vibin' on the couch" is my favorite non-combat cantrip.
Learnable by every class! unless you are a Barbarian. you have no chill.
Why don’t you make videos?
He came here to drink G-Fuel and throw Fireballs, and he's got plenty of G-Fuel because of the sponsorship
I'd just slap my self with sleep
ah yes, 'non-combat'... heheheheheheh...
literally one of D&D's written rules is "the rules are malleable and DM has final say" so technically breaking the rules IS following the rules :3
rules are more guidelines depending on how much leverage your dm gives you. I agree Jocat. Also big fan sub
The rules are really just like the pirates code. Rule zero is there for a reason
“And now you know how to break the rules correctly, you’re welcome.”
What happens when you break that rule though? Hmmmmmmmm??!?!??
Rules of D&D. They're more what you call...guidelines.
POV: Jacob is on your ceiling, ready to pounce from his web at you, after stating his opinions in a long-winded conversation with you.
I accidentally adopted this view while reading, and got super confused when he dropped the squeezymonster and it fell upwards.
He's actually a drider.
@@OokamiKageGinGetsu wait but all driders are fema-
@@charlieblank3393 SILENCE!!
It's 2021, he can be whatever he wants to be, Lolth be damned
I actually looked at the roof after I read this
That's one spicy lookin' shirt my boy
is it an owlbear? he hefty
I wonder where he got that from
That owlbear do be vibin' doe.
Wow, Jacob pinned Tulok and Jocat’s comments but not yours.
Got you fam
www.bonfire.com/fat-owlbear/
Hot take: role playing is underused during combat
Honestly, based on a good majority of comments I see on the D&D vids I watch, roleplaying is simply underused in general.
Hell yeah
Damn right ! It's a missconception that the R in RPG stands for "roleplay", it actually stands for "repeatedly" !
I try to role play when fighting but it always ends up with me doing the combat rounds in my character's voice
@@Vher_ Role Playing Game
As in its a game where you play a given role, namely your PC, whether you actually act out that PC is your prerogative, but you are experiencing the game world through your PC, so you are ultimately playing that characters role.
not Roleplay Playing Game
Repeatedly Playing Game also doesnt work
“Then why did you spend $180 on 3 books of rules?”
Because you cant break the rules unless you know them.
I didn't!
Library and pdfs for the win!
12:34
The books are more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.
Exactly. The same goes for writing. You learn the rules of writing so that you know when to break them. Having something unexpected and out of nowhere happen is generally not good writing, things should be set up and pay off. But if you know *why* that is, and you know what you want to do, then you know *how* to break that rule to get the effect you want. If you just have random shit happen all the time for no real reason or purpose other than "because!!!" it won't be very interesting or good.
@@1218Draco just like the geneva conventions
@@mrmarciniak9992 hold up
Hot Take: Rules Lawyers are helpful if they aren’t the “UHM ACKSHUALLY,” type, but the “Well, this is how the rules handle that situation, do with that what you will,” type.
That’s just a rules attorney.
@@Dualis58 Good Take!
That's one form of Rule Lawyers. The other is someone yelling at you that your playing the game wrong because you didnt follow every rule that they've memorized. When one of the rules is in fact to disregard the rules and make your own if you want.
Rule Advisor
Yeah, that sounds about right. I look at checking the rules as more of a "hm, this is what the book says about xyz, how can we apply this to abc?"
"Vampires should be viable warlock patrons"
Regardless of whether that makes sense or not I would _love_ to see a Curse of Strahd campaign where one of the party members is a warlock whose patron _is Strahd_
That would be pretty gamer
It is called The Undying Patron.
This would be pretty rad especially given that one of Strahd's motivations is to find a successor. If you work out the patron mechanics such that they are gaining the power as a gift rather than being *actively* granted power, it'd work very nicely. Good idea!
We vampire the masquerade now bois
Here's a hot take: compared to the lore about him, and how bad ass he's made out to be, 5e Strahd is a bitch
Not-so-hot-take: There should be more diverse magic weapons. There is literally only one magic longbow in all released DnD content, and like a million different swords.
there are also basically no spears.
You can re-flavor a lot of weapons to be other weapons, but it's true there's a vast overabundance of SWORD by default compared to other weapons.
A lot of magical weapons have enchantments that can easily be applied to any weapon. Sword is just the default because most characters that are melee centric use swords. There should be more bows though.
And don't even get me started on the fact that a never-ending quiver isn't a thing yet
Not to mention there's not a single magical (non generic) Sling or Crossbow
"You don't have to take Eldritch Blast". That's a hot take on it's own.
I mean .... I guess. It’s designed to be the best cantrip in the game specifically to balance a class that can have weaker spell casting output than other full caster classes.
I think a warlock virtually has to take both the cantrip and agonizing blast just to be balanced.
While a third level wizard/sorcerer/cleric/bard/druid has 6 spell slots to work with if the group gets attacked at breakfast ... that warlock has 2. That’s 33% the capacity for support or damage dealing. It’s worse if this isn’t the first combat since your last rest.
There are types of cleric and wizard that still get access to spell damage die plus attribute modifier damage (8 for light clerics, 10 for evocation wizards) so even having access to that invocation isn’t especially useful for balance for half of the warlock levels. At that point the benefit is the damage type.
I feel like what you’re saying is the same as saying ... you can make a mechanically weak character. And you can! You’re weakening yourself and forcing the DM and other players to make up for the imbalance you bring to situations.
You can play someone who is evil and actively working against the party goals. It will make for memorable moments ... is that the game people want to be at though?
@@zero11010 A hexblade Warlock won't nerf himself by not taking Eldritch blast. Warlocks biggest nerf in 5e I feel is the increased duration of short rests meaning they basically never get their spells back. Whoever made that change didn't consider Warlocks at all. If you change it back to the old short rests they're balanced, they have fewer spells but they can use them in every fight.
@@Gufnorkian I’ve built out but never played a melee warlock. I can’t get myself to want to do D8+DEX melee damage on a class with mediocre to poor armor class instead of attacking with D10+CHA damage when CHA is the main attribute and what you want to be stacking anyway.
I see that the temp hit points from a fiend patron will help with certain types of fights.
Melee attacks scale fine until level 10 and then they start getting out paced dramatically by the evolving cantrip. It feels like a ranger with a sling instead of a longbow.
If the class had some modifiers for AC and combat ability I’d love to more seriously consider the pact of the blade. I still think it’s better than a beast master ranger or the elemental monk. But, that doesn’t mean I want to try it.
@@zero11010 Hexblade lets you use CHA on your attack and damage rolls in place of STR or DEX at level 1. You also start with Hexblade Curse for +2 damage, and access to Wrathful Smite. And hexblade can evolve their melee attacks in the same way others can evolve EB. Extra attacks, teleporting melee strikes, different curses, etc.
Its
Once played a half-elf who was conceived by accident at a party. He's a mature adult of 80 years, and his elf dad is still the same immature frat bro due to how long they live.
I love this so bloody much.
great concept
This just struck me as I read your comment: a half-elf will likely have their human parent die before they reach adulthood, and the elf parent will almost certainly have to bury their human spouse and children they had together, due to the difference in the species' lifespan. Your comment was funny but now I feel sad :
@@exantiuse497 If you like anime, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is about this. I mean, even if you don't like anime you could probably get some nice moments from it.
That's why all other Playable Races are lame compared to Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves!!!
Seriously, in a world of Magic why are there so many races that their average lifespan is less then 100 yrs?! Even in real life people can potentially live 100+ years!
I picture elves kind of like the gods in Percy Jackson: they’ve been around so long that their personality has been honed into their own unique brand of mild insanity. Still plenty of room for variety there.
This comment is so perfect.
Definitely. Same with beings like archfey. Watching matt mercer rp artagan in critical role is a perfect example of a lucidly insane being with some wierd quirks
@@dancook6114 And that guy found a luttle girl and gave her magic powers...
That makes sense for either my High Elf Druid or my Shadar-Kai Undying Warlock.
@@dancook6114Artagan is the best.
"This is my character, Clark"
"Oh cool, what great powers does he have?"
"None"
"Ok that's cool... Is he attractive at all?"
"No he's quite below average honestly"
"Ok well what about an overdramatic backstory?"
"Not really, his parents love him very much"
"Ok well where is he from? Hell? A magical forest?"
"Connecticut"
As a native, CT is pretty close to hell
I like this clark guy
Flock of Cows
Florck
@@pipower314159265 me too, and i agree.
I can't believe Jacob glued his sofa to the ceiling just for this video. He is so dedicated to his craft.
Hot take: Rolling high on thievery when stealing a flametongue.
I appreciate you
I have a character who's backstory is literally they went to wizard school and want to adventure to pay off student loans
Edit:feel free to steal
Sounds like fun
@@Lycaon1765 it's a good time
That's genius
@@weefslider tysm
Have a Dispel Magic loan officer threaten the wizard every now and then.
As my groups rules lawyer, I often have to stop myself from piping up when someone is doing something cool because I recognize that all I'd be doing is ruining their fun. Like, who cares that *technically* you can't grapple two people at once? The barbarian has 20 strength, he's literally been a workhorse before(he pulled a cart several miles), and the fight is basically over, he can do a double suplex if the dm lets him.
As my own group's rules lawyer, I'll have to try to remember that!
I mean ... some kind of negative modifier on the roll though to target two with a target one ability, right?
Or ... do people just get occasional cleave attacks because they don’t know any better and ask for it?
Or .... but, I really want to hit him, can I have advantage because I want it?
I'm now imagining some wrestler barbarian walking up and yelling "Do you know what the Grok is cooking!" before elbow dropping a goblin
This idea is now out in the world
Why did you buy a rulebook if you're just going to do freeform?
@@mrosskne the rulebook states the dm can change the rules as they wish, it is but a loose guideline, at the end of the day they are your God
*and they have run fresh out of mercy*
Comment: "There should be more magic items that aren't weapons."
Me: "There should be more weapons that aren't magic items!"
there should be more differences between weapons
@@aldoushuxley5953 yep. I actually like the idea of keeping them fairly consistent, to ensure that someone picking one weapon type over another isn't taking a massive build-breaking disadvantage because of the choice. However I think they went a bit far in that direction, at the same time as somehow still messing it up a bit (looking at you, "why-even" light hammer / sickle... and especially looking at you, "necessarily superior" rapier).
They could easily have made more variety from playing around with a few additional weapon abilities in exchange for a wider array of damage stats. Some of my favourites I've home-brewed include "hefting" which means you can't move in the same turn you attack with it, "momentum" where you have to use an action to wind it up and it winds down when it strikes, "hazard" where if you miss with it you take the attack yourself, "hooking" offering a weapon grapple (kinda like net but for lassos, hook swords, reaper scythes and mancatchers too), oversized / undersized just like the previous-edition rules for that, "impaling" which gets stuck on a crit and requires an action to pull out again, and "contact" which has a range of touch and doesn't require an attack roll.
@@Torthrodhel I completely get it. There is enough stuff to optimize already, and adding another element into it could just break the game.
But as it stands right now, some options are just simply better than others.
Why would I ever use something different than a longsword? (apart from feats like PAM and GWM)
Why would I ever use a dagger instead of a shortsword?
I think, there should be slight differences between the weapons.
For example, a dagger could have +1 to hit, and -1 to damage.
That way, the dagger offers precision in exchange for damage.
The same could be applied to crossbows compared to longbows (although that might be gamebreaking because of the archery fighting style).
I really liked the weapon feat UA.
I hope they bring that one back
Precision / damage difference would be a great way of doing it. Damage randomness / non-randomness would be another way to split things up. I always thought there ought to be a difference between absorb type armor class and dodge type armor class (a set of full plate mail being "the same" as an agile naked monk always seemed a bit too out-there for me). So different damage types could apply differently to those, too.
I got a neat published homebrew, that's a set of weapon upgrade rules. I almost never buy stuff like that (especially digital-only stuff) but I like it because it bumps everything up in different ways, to roughly-equivalent levels.
I mean technically you could want a dagger if you want a throwable finesse light weapon. Like if you want to dual weild something without getting the dual weilder feat that you can also throw even though dual weilding is very poorly optimised for throwing without that feat. So... a kinda self-defeatingly niche situation.
But why's the light hammer just worse than a dagger? Why's the sickle just worse? Dart, at the very least, counts as a ranged weapon and so triggers different types of ability even if you use it in melee.
And what's even the point of half the single-handed martial weapons when they have to sit next to rapier? Why's that one bumped up without penalty when none others are?
I honestly just tend to pick weapons based on what feels right for the character. But it would be really nice if their attributes felt in line with that too. More varied and a bit less often-necessarily-suboptimal.
I've heard some GMs just allow players to reskin one weapon as another. That's a nice enough fix, but it doesn't really sort out the damage type is the problem with it. Sometimes there just isn't an optimal pick that fits. So all in all I just take the optimisation hit and feel good about the character fulfilment despite it.
@@Torthrodhel completely agree. Plate armor should honestly just give disadvantage to dex saves.
And maybe in return, you could get resistance to slashing and piercing, but weakness to bludgeoning.
(since a swordslice does basically nothing against plate armor).
Imo there are not enough monsters with resistances/ not enough differences between the physical damage types.
Apart from skeletons, the damage type doesn't really matter honestly.
How much cooler would it be, if specific weapons would be better against specific monsters (also makes str better, since carrying multiple weapons would be an advantage)
To the rules lawyers thing: There's a difference between letting people know there are rules that exist on a matter, and trying to say that's the only way to do it. If a player makes a mistake on how an ability was written to work or its written limitations, then its okay to point it out. That's helpful because it maintains relative balance to the game and among players which is important. BUT, if you insist that a player and/or DM is "Breaking" a rule after they are fully aware of it, then you are probably not in it to be helpful...
This right here. I was going to have a enemy jump over a character to get to another and have it roll acrobatics because I didn’t know how that worked and someone pointed out there is a table for how far something can jump which I then used to correct it. You should have to know when it’s mechanically important or important for a cool molment
Also and here is the key, there’s a difference between a rule traditionalist and a rule lawyer. Rule traditionalist are okay, and can help the DM, a rules lawyer is only in it to get what they want.
I'm usually the GM for my group, but as a player I find myself as the defacto 'rules reminderer'. My GM appreciates it, and whenever he changes the rules or states otherwise I roll with it.
It's the difference between going 'Hey the appropriate skill is X, hee's why' and 'Well actually I want to roll X'. If my GM says no roll Y, I'm rolling Y regardless.
I know the rules pretty well, whenever I point something out it's- paraphrasing - 'RAW, it's this, but its what DM says'. Never had a problem.
I DM from time to time and then I forget half the shit the pcs can do because I'm focused on the enemies, having a 'rules lawyer' is great because they relieve some of the mental load on the DM, and for fucks sake most players still don't know how their own class abilities work so DM's need all the help they can get.
Also, a fellow player reminding people to make concentration checks helps alleviate the 'DM vs players' mentally.
A lawyer serves his client, not justice.
If he does not try to get the best possible outcome for his client, he is not a good lawyer.
Hot take: Poison can be a really really interesting mechanic if not a zillion things were immune to it and the condition accompanying it. I know it makes sense for all the outer-planaral monsters to be immune to it but I, for one, really enjoy the concept of an Assassin preparing for the assassination via making poisons, scouting out the place, etc’. and having half the monster manual be immune to it, or have a gigantic plus to constitution saves, kinda takes away from that.
Don’t try to poison undead or constructs and then you’ll be fine. Other than those, most of the monsters you encounter are not immune.
@@SmawCity And fiends, and really any of the 95 monsters in the Monster Manual that have immunity to the fucking thing.
Poison should be much more lethal, especially when used against people. Jacob's point of there being "so many different types of poison" doesn't really account for the fact that the ones that can actually kill someone outright when poured in their stew or put on an arrow don't come into play at levels where the party has so much HP that it's not going to kill them anyway, or they cost so absurdly much that it's just not worth it.
I think that Poison in combat can be nerfed. Immunity to Poison damage? Sure. But immune to being Poisoned? Less fun.
I actually used a petrification poison to capture a person of interest and store them in our bag of holding. It's basically fantasy carbonite.
If I was the DM, I would let you make a research quest to find out something the monster is weak to.
When you think about it, "poison" is just "stuff humans are weak to". Like silver for werewolves.
good Rules Lawyers are a treasure, for they take *a lot* of weight from the DM's shoulders, but Rule Cherrypicker is one of the worst kind of players.
Amen
Be a Rules Paralegal: there to help out when needed, but never butting in.
This, someone who knows the RAW and double checks when we veer off the rules is wonderful. Someone who selects certain rules (or only reads a few select sentences from one *cough* *cough*) is the worst.
hmmm... rules devil/warlock and rules angel/paladin?
@@squibbies7015 is everyone Ok with it @ your table?
depending on how stuff is going, it might be better if you just offer the DM your services & wait for when he/she asks you the ruling.
you do you.
Hot take: there should be more pact boons for warlocks, because there are only 3 and a ton of subclasses
Not to mention you just invalidate Pact of the Sword by going Hexblade, and that’s probably the only subclass that cares about having actual weapons. Sure, it’s an option for other subclasses that might want to use weapons, but honestly no warlock has the HP for that...
@@eddiemate the thing is that we have had the SAME 3 PACT BOONS SINCE 5E RELEASED IN 2014. I didn't invalidate anything. It's just more boon options would be nice to have at this point in time for 5e.
Ty 7689
No, I don’t mean you as a person invalidate anything. I mean going Hexblade makes going for Pact of the Sword completely meaningless. I should’ve worded that better.
@@eddiemate The fix for that is giving hex warrior to the blade pact instead of having it as a hexblade class feature.
This also solves some of the multiclass abuse.
More pacts would be nice though.
I would like to get a third eye on my head, and then gain features from that.
A pact of mutation would be pretty interesting
@@eddiemate Hexblade is the only warlock subclass that really benefits from Pact of the Blade. They pretty much need it to get the full benefits of Hex Warrior, so they can only afford to skip it if they're going to drop the knight part of their magic knight build.
Has anyone ever noticed that every single GOOD lone wolf character’s character arc is learning how to not be a lone wolf anymore?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
@@neruneri my favorite is Guts from Berserk. I’ve never met a character that hit all the “lone wolf” character traits that made me empathize so much for him. I actually cried a little reading about this character. And his transition from “DONT TOUCH ME!” And “I work alone,” to traveling with a full on D&D party is so gradual and subtle and in character as he develops it’s amazing. The way that he bonds with his party members and gradually opens up over time is beautiful, and by now in the series he’s practically an extrovert. Plus his backstory makes his ways pretty understandable. Sorry for the rant, I love Berserk.
Only if the character actually goes on that arc. If they don't stick with the rest of the party for most of the game then it's a problem in most games.
@@quendi5557 ye that’s what I said
@@maximillion322 ye. I suck at communicating that I agree.
POV: you are having a sleep paralysis and the demon is telling you about some hot DND takes he found on the way to Your room
Shush!!!! It's def not 2:20 am yet
Plot twist: Your sleep paralysis demon is actually Jacob.
@@fawn4348 Plot twist: You are the demon and you were about to haunt someone but then you got sleep paralysis and Jacob started talking at you and now you can't escape.
@@benjoe1993 Extreme Plot Twist: You are Jacob and you find a sleep paralysis demon about to haunt someone, then take the intiative and haunt the demon, and trapping it using the power of hot takes, but then a human comes out of no where and starts to give you some horrible hot takes, and you find that you cannot leave nor show distaste toward his opinions.
prediction: there will be one "Eberron should be the default setting" guy
i think i am that guy
@@XPtoLevel3 "He's the guy"
@@XPtoLevel3 You're not alone
I think it is a more interesting setting but it should not be the default one
@@XPtoLevel3 i think all setting should be supported so theres a good choice like making official moduals for ebberon and other ones
I get large amounts of ptsd whenever I hear the term “rules lawyer” ever since I was miss labeled as one back when I first played and the DM had no idea how ki points worked and the player just wanted to be broken so give him unlimited fire balls no matter how much I said “having components doesn’t mean you’re free of paying ki” eventually the dm finally picked up on it the player verbally belittled me. So rules in DnD are there for a reason you can’t just ignore basic fundamentals.
Unless the dm specifically rules otherwise. Then again your problem seemed to be less about ruleslawyering and more about a cheater at your table
It sure as shit felt like cheating at the time. Not to mention no one else got this I have components so free spell shit only the monk did. Is why I specifically mentioned being miss labeled as one
A DM that didn't understand the rules entirely and a player trying to take advantage of that fact (or who also simply didn't understand the rules, and was frustrated when they found out that monks actually suck ass :p)
@@cassandramuller7337 Yeah the probelm was cheating but what about when it isnt?Following basic rules is needed to games even be a game and sometimes this basic rules are most importent in different situation. Anyway i mostly see the both side,rules or freedom of creativity, is eathier choas or ordor. which one you chose?
@@cassandramuller7337 But D&D has to have a social contract. If the players can't trust the DM to at least *mostly* play by the rules, they have absolutely no influence of what happens in the game. The rules serve to keep everyone on a level playing field.
I actually made an elf with the specific shtick that he lived among humans and adopted their patterns. Because of this, he was just constantly exhausted. Humans live so fast, so ambitious, don't just devote a decade to writing poetry on a whim. So he was this grumpy, lethargic dude that was constantly drinking a stimulant tea just to stay awake.
hey, it looks likes me especially the energy drink part
So just a modern day normal person but beautiful
...Can I use this character in LMoP..?
@@thebutterscotchkid2481 Yeah man, I'd be honored. Mine was a rogue, but the character works as any class.
@@yosoydave8521 Not my elf. He was Battle scarred, eye-patched, grimy and dirty. You might call him ruggedly handsome, but not beautiful.
The poison system is good, but unfortunately because it’s in the DMG not everyone knows about it. It should absolutely be more available to players though
It is not good. The poisons are one use only, hard to get and very expensive.
Also, remember that they only apply to one attack.
For the insane costs, it is almost never worth it.
There also aren't really a lot of rules for making your own poisons, especially simple ones.
If you want to be the Ranger guy, who knows which plants to eat, and which to avoid, and want to make poisonous arrows (most plants are poisonous), that is basically impossible if you follow the DMG.
The main problem is how pricey they are. Like, sure, getting it off of a natural creature can be cool, but a lot of the more fun or even relatively useful ones are like 500gp to 1,000gp for a SINGLE dose.
Poison resistance being so common doesn't help much, either.
One word: assassination
@@aldoushuxley5953 DC20 nature to harvest poison ...play a lv1 rogue expertice in nature and you are done...wait for the dm to throw snakes and ...profit?
Even if you fail you can take proficienct in poisoner's kit and take no damage
Hot take: Wizards have the same sales pitch as college out of highschool; they say it's the best way to succeed, but for most of the early game its terrible and it costs you way too much
Wizard only gets really good at like level 7
Before that other full casters are just better
And you spend all your money on books and lab fees (components).
Yeah, wizards don't really pick up until you get 3rd level slots and/or a ring of spell storing. That being said find familiar alone is worth it alone in the early game. imagine, you summon a super small spider onto the head of an enemy and tell it to give the help action every turn by crawling into their ear and scuttling about/ biting them and distracting them. Enemy ac too high? Just cast shocking grasp through your familiar every turn (which only takes their reaction so they can still use the help command). Need a spy? Got one, remote controlled as well. Maybe the barbarian is trapped on the opposite side of the canyon fighting an enemy, send your familiar over and cast mage armor on them. Best God damn 1st level spell in the game, even at higher levels find familiar aides me time and time again.
I Have an 4th Level Aerenai Abjuration Wizard that can literally have about 50hp between his regular health (he only has +2 Con), Arcane Ward and False Life, with 17 Ac from the Mage Armour used to activate the ward, Wizards can still kick ass at lower levels you just need to know what your doing and focus on a few schools rather than trying to be a magic Swiss army knife.
@@kanashimi4356 what is an Aerinai? I have never heard of that race. Also, what is your intelligence, did you roll 2 18's cause that is a very high armor class.
POV: You have Jacob in the scope but you’re interested in where this laying down thing is going
Also: The first thing you did to him when he laid down was throw a beholder at him.
Sniper: I've got eyes on the target... 5 klicks North... He's laying down... He's got some weird squishy toy things. I think he's... Talking about D&D hot takes?
Command: You're free to take the shot
Sniper: No wait... I wanna see where this goes.
Jodie Hobbs kinky...
Logang
Hot take: not every D&D game has to be about the "story". Sometimes, a beer & pretzels dungeon romp with your buddies is just as fun
Hot take: Beer & Pretzels story romps are just as, if not more, fun. Drunk story-telling and roleplay can often be more compelling in amusement factors than drunk wargaming.
@@Yawyna124 of course they can be. It really just depends on the group and what they're in the mood for. I'm just sick of seeing this narrative that everything that happens in an RPG session MUST serve a narrative purpose
hot take: Pretzels don't go well with beer.
@@LegDayLas preach
@@LegDayLas blasphemy
Hot take: While the DM's ruling must always be final, a Rules Lawyer who reminds the DM not only of useful rules that may be relevant, but also precedents that the DM has set with similar rulings during previous sessions is a useful resource who can not only help the game run smoothly but also help to keep DMs honest.
DM favouritism is the worst and having a big brain Rules Lawyer who is focused on fairness can help.
+
Had a DM who rule zeroed the as written effect of control water. As in, the spell no longer was able to do about half of what the text allows it to do.
Now, that is a fine thing for the DM to do before the game starts, or after discussion with the players. But this was mid encounter, because the player used it as a solution to a 'scary chase'
oh, yes, definitely
as both the DM and the rules lawyer, I do see the value have someone to help with housekeeping rules, rulings and precedents
I think it's fine, in some cases great, when a DM does their own ruling, as long as the DM is aware of the "correct" ruling in the book. The bad thing is a DM that's not aware of the actual rules making up rules on the fly, because it can screw over some classes/character and make the DM seem unfair.
I will also rules lawyer in favor of my DM. There is another player that on occasion will get very passionate about their view on how something should be ruled, even after the DM has given what should be his final ruling. I will pop in with where its at in the PHB or show the Sage Advice where it clarifies so we can move the game along.
Hot take: 99% of all D&D Hot Takes can be answered with "it depends on the situation". There are some absolute truths, but it mostly depends on how you wanna play your made up game and what kind of game the DM wants to run
It depends on the situation.
@Rainergunvikes were you the dm?
Except saying poison is great when 95% of everything has resistance and 90% have straight up immunity. If a monster has fire resistance 9/10 times it has poison resistance or straight up immunity. Ghost of saltmarsh is the worst.
Someone in the comments: “Why is he lying down on a couch like that?”
Me: “You must be new here”
Wait
He's lying down on a couch?!
I thought he was sticking to a carpeted ceiling with static electricity!
Honestly that should be next episodes schtick
it's a ceiling
I just assumed he had spider climb... or reverse gravity. You know... wizards.
I don't know why but I love it
"Play the game the RIGHT way."
_God, the high horse this guy is on-_
I cringed so hard I cracked a rib
The horse that guy is so large that I think he legally qualifies for the Mammoth Rider Prestige class form Pathfinder. That is how high his horse is he can legally mix systems.
@@Immoralsalvage No one horseman should have such power...
On one hand, if everyone uses the same rules, it is super easy to jump from one group to another. Everyone knows whats what and how to play.
On the other hand people aren't playing professional sports, they are playing a game to have fun.
@@AgentDRJ Yah, they probably should be called Guidelines instead as that what they are, if the DM says otherwise, you should probably follow the guidelines.
Hot take: Making a character who's entire personality is "I subverted the stereotype by not being the (insert stereotype for class here)" is just as bad as making a stereotype character itself. The statement "it isn't the stereotype at least" does not make your character building better than those that follow the stereotype.
especially if it happens all the time.
I have a player who always makes the 6 int wizard and then complains about not being as strong as the sorcerer
I like to go opposite of the stereotype because I find it more fun. Like my abstinent, frontliner, holy-man Bard. He started out as a joke but had some nice depth and good development. Stereotypes are fun too but I generally have a harder time with character development.
@@onecrazypig8423 stereotypes are there for a reason though.
Classes are not something arbitrary, but basically a broad job description.
Just like you won't find many stupid physicists and fat small basketball players, weak fighters and dumb wizards probably are a rarity.
You can write many different characters around a wizard.
I don't see how making him stupid makes him any more interesting.
If anthing, it just makes your character more unbelievable.
(unless you play an old wizard professor, who has gotten Alzheimers to explain their low int, that would be pretty funny and make sense)
I'd still appreciate having more bards who won't interrupt everything to try to fuck every NPC or monster we run into.
@@TheHellspawnHero you cool if I just go after the dragons though right?
Hot take. Having the party be the cogs in the machine of a much grander world is just as compelling as making them the big hero dudes who save everyone. This is especially true in a grimmdark setting.
High fantasy is fun and all but damn I would love to be played for once. Idk if its 5E itself since how easy the game/rules are that inspires high fantasy.
true, but another system might fit that feeling better, COC for example.
The mechanics always influence the feel of the world and the characters in it
Simulationism in general, where the players are simply agents in an internally consistent gameworld (as opposed to being the most important people in the universe), is a really interesting approach to TTRPG design. 5e is kind of disappointing when it comes to giving you tools to run games like that.
I have way more fun "playing" my antagonists against the party within the confines of some sort of ruleset than designing them out of thin air, and my players feel more organically empowered when they arrive at a solution by learning and using that internal logic to their advantage. It also means I don't have to waste my time designing arbitrary puzzles, because now *anything* can be a puzzle by virtue of how it interacts with the simulation.
THISVIDEOEASSPONSOREDBYGRIMHOLLO-
Honestly it just depends on how well the DM runs it and what kind of game the players want to play.
The difference between a rule lawyer and someone's who's knowledgeable about the rules is if you argue with DM. Reminding the DM about the rules or asking if it's a personal call on them is fine, but constantly arguing against their decision is annoying, rude, and stops the games. Say something, get a yes or no, and move on with the game.
Being the rules lawyer as a DM is hard, because I think it throws off my friends when I fudge a rule or try to be lenient and they expected me to go full lawyer, but that's not what makes DMing work. I can't spend 14 minutes looking up resources every time I happened to have forgotten exactly how grappling works. Makes the game suck. Being the rules lawyer as a player is also hard because none of my friends who DM know the rules well enough. But the bright side is, as a player, I can be on the spot for them, and I offer up the rules on a quaint pillow for them to use or not at their discretion. It is as you say - arguing the rules AT the DM is unacceptable. Being there to help the rules slide on through as you all play is a lot like being the player that takes notes or draws the map. Just helping out the table to make the game run more smoothly.
@@trident042 For stuff like that I use post its with how the rule works. They are life savers.
I agree with this on so many levels it's not even funny.
@@trident042 I feel this same thing but for a different reason. When being a DM and explaining some of the rules, or how something does not work, it feels like I am taking something away from that player. I try to balance it all out, but trying to remember all of the rules is difficult. As a DM you sometimes have to make judgement calls, which goes against the rules, but my biggest problem with the game is that it feel almost to reliant on a strong DM. The players really have to rely on the DM's knowledge for the game to work, and the whole thing falls apart if the DM does not deliver a strong enough: story line, encounter, or retort for why something is happening. This game can be really difficult sometimes.
It depends really. If a DM has this idea "this is MY campaign (not the whole parties) and MY rules (we are playing 5e not john5e) and we do things my way" ive had DMs who literally think since they are a DM the players must play the way the DM wants, progress the way the DM wants, follow only rules the DM wants. Huge problem i think in DND is how people think its the DM's campaign and not the parties. Most rules if controversial whould be party discussions not "rule 0 cuz im better and smarter than all of you cuz i am a DM."
Hot take: min-maxing is perfectly fine and good, as long as it _always_ comes after characterisation and roleplay. You want to play Bones-McGee, the undead pacifist assassin with a skewed moral compass who neutralises their targets with a variety of paralytics, sleep poisons, etc just to let _other people kill them instead?_ By all means, min-max and get the best stats possible for bones-Mcgee. Hell, take a level in warlock for a zany chain pact familiar that stabs your targets after you put them to sleep to cut out the middle man('s kidney), but only min-max _within the constraints of the character._
I did not want to play Bones-McGee before, but now I kind of want to
This is exactly why I don't like the custom origins in Tasha's. Minmaxing is fun with constraints, not when I can make every gnome, tabaxi and aasimar basically the same as variant human.
Without fail any DM I take the outlander background with says "uh, there is no food to forage for, so it doesn't work"
You must have gotten really unlucky with your dms cause that's just inflexible and lazy on their part. I mean if you were in the shadowfell or the elemental plane of fire, I'd get it but otherwise...?
I had problems with a DM in the past that did that but with like everything, I feel ya
(Rip devil's sight)
Yeah, and for the most part anybody else can do it too.
Outlander Fighter: "I use my knowledge and skill in foraging to find food for the group"
Barbarian: "I wanna find food and water for the party... I rolled a 13 Survival Check"
DM: "You find enough food and water for everyone"
Then get a nice tasty pizza and eat it in front of the DM. Don't share with anybody until he agrees to let you forage for your party.
@@mandykarevicius9746 now that's just torture hope your party isn't good alignment
On elves, heres a thing;
A common misconception is that when the phb says "They arent considered mature until they are 110ish" they think "a 20 year old elf is a baby." Elves age and mature at the same rate as humans in every way, they just dont consider other elves mature until they are 110ish. Elves dont consider ANYONE to be mature until they are over a century. Humans are literally immature enmasse to them. If you want to play a human-like elf, make them 20 for a bright eyed adventurer or 45 for a grizzled veteran. A "mature" elf by elf standards is the wizened old man, just with their sexy young elf body.
Hey never say those words again
Yea when I play a young elf I will play it like an adult with the mind of a child as that is what elves in their 20s-30s are
@@joybreegaming8781 no its not. That was the whole point of what I said. They mature at the same rate of humans, but culturally elves dont view that as very fast at all
@@blockhead134 I realised my before words seemed kinda rude I just found the last few words to be strange in phrasing lol
I would say they age slightly slower than humans. I usually run it as basically when they’re children, they age one year’s worth for every year and a half or so. So, for example, a 15-year-old elf would be equivalent to a 10-year-old human, etc.
As a pirate once told me: They're more like guidelines than actual rules.
Didn’t he immediately get shot by the pirate that made the rules?
@@DeathnoteBB no the rules were made by a group of pirates. Jack sparrow shoots him hours after Barbossa mentions that to Elizabeth
Hot Take: Artificers should start with mending free because half their subclasses require it for the features
As someone running an artificer, I chose to take a level in forge cleric to get the extra cantrip room for mending. The forge blessing feels like an artificer ability too so now I can upgrade more of my annoying party's gear.
I'd say that depends, not every artificer would want mending though. You can play an artificer without mending.
@@freepalestine2434 That sounds really cool.
@@quendi5557 It probably would be in a party that wasn't so miserable :p
@@freepalestine2434 oof. You still having fun?
Hot take: spears need some love; there should be more magical spears and other types of weapons in 5e.
Yeah I want a magic great-club!
Imagine Güngnir in D&D
My DM gave me not a magic spear, but an exotic one. It functions a nornal spear but once a day it's ability can be activated. You throw it and it summons a lightning wherever it strikes, dealing 3d6 lightning damage on top of whatever damage the spear does +modifiers
@@THEPELADOMASTER isn't that just a javelin of lightning?
@@billybobjoe5039 you can use it as a spear. But if you try to use it's power without throwing it you'll receive the lightning damage as well, as you'd be too close to the impact zone
8:07 "Yeah clerics are super super super strong, and I think they are super super super strong because they need to be, otherwise nobody will play them"
So like TF2 medic?
“...And then his skeleton melted from his body and the cleric was never heard from again! Anyway that’s how I lost Pelor’s patronage.”
The problem is that Clerics don't "fit a role". They can fit all of them. I'm OK with versatile classes but when you can successfully finish a campaign with 4 characters being exactly the same class with different domains you kinda miss the point ofmthe game IMO.
Healers in almost every game are typically above balance as most all players wouldn't want to play them, as it is more entertaining to play the character that effects the objective more, more directly (typically killing baddies)
making a one-shot PvP arena campaign is fun because everyone gets to use his min-max OP ideas that they aren't likly to use in regular campaigns.
Warforged Cleric of the Forge = infinte AC
Amber Dantzler
My AC is MAXIMUM!
This is what my group does when either the dm or or more than one player can't make it lol
Good luck passing my DC 24 Wis save to hold person at Level 5 against my RAW Changeling College of Eloquence Bard.
Enjoy the crits.
@@Khaons MAKE IT STOP!
Clerics are literally like the Dev's babies. Literally just the favorite class that gets tons more stuff than other classes. Wish my sorcerer had 500 domains or shit to choose from
Clerics and to a lesser extent wizards. The sorcerer can't even be the only one to be able to change spell damage, the wizard had to have that too.
If you didn’t want to play unmodded Skyrim then why did you spend 60$ to download it? Checkmate homebrew
Because copyright laws suck. Anti-checkmate!
because you can't mod skyrim without the base game... but you can play what you'd call DnD without purchasing any of the books...?
@@nickromanthefencer you could code your own game if you were smarter
@@nickromanthefencer I rigged doom on my casio watch, call it skyrim...
@@Depleted-Uranium lmao
Hot Take: Sub-classes are fine but we need more official class specific options: like warlock's invocations, sorcerer meta-magics, and fighting styles, so that classes aren't just "pick your subclass".
PS: More official feats would help as well.
The most egregious examples are warlock pacts and sorcerer metamagics, neither of them has had a official addition since 5e came out.
THANK YOU the sorcerer wizard druid and warlock leveling charts are just blank as fuck
I bet you love TASHA'S.
I hope next books follows the same idea of adding more options
@@robertjohnpecayo8642 It'd a step in the right direction but, at least to me, they didn't provide enough for the comment to be obsolete.
Hopefully they do add more for sorcerers and warlocks, while also introducing other systems for other classes, so that we get a more modular game.
Feats was a 3.5 trap that 4E and 5E tried to avoid.
Hot Take: There is NOTHING inherently wrong with minmaxing, its all about how you use it
Hot Take: It comes and goes. It's in the way that you use it. Boy, don't you know.
Yeah, the character building and strategising parts of min-maxing are super fun, but the 'I make everyone else in the party redendant' is a big issue.
I think when done responsibly and in a game that's designed to make it less problematic (e.g. breaking 5e with min/maxing is pretty hard, but doing it in pathfinder is super easy unless everyone's on the same page about power levels and letting people have their niches) it can add a lot to the fun though.
I just min-max when it suits the character, I don’t give much of a care to how perfectly attuned they are for combat or something.
Okay, wanting your character to be powerful combat-wise isn’t wrong, but making combination that make absolutely no sense in the setting like making a elf fighter (samurai) rogue (assassin) in a setting that haven’t got a non-Japão and whitout a backstory that would somehow make it possible and never roleplaying your character is bad.
Arthur Yeah, that kind of stuff is a really fine line. Sometimes games forcing you to make obscure changes to your character's personality and backstory to accomodate your bizarre build can be a really fun creative exercise. The issues start arising when people just make a walking stat stick comprised of all the OP character options from various obscure settings books - although I feel like the real problem kinda comes back to the walking stat stick/bad team player issues.
Like, if said hypothetical player had made a poorly optimised Samurai 4/Time Traveller 3/Pharaoh 2 for a game set in fantasy europe, and asked if they could reflavour them as just a cool swordmage with a time manipulation/desert theme to their magic, I'd personally be totally ok with it.
I love that the comment about the rule lawyer's argument is that you spent a lot of money on rule books so you should use them. One of the books is literally all about creating your own rules.
"Haha, we got your money"
@@grantflippin7808 Not really. It shows how to do it in a way that balances with the rest of the rules, instead of just doing what a lot of That Guys do at some point & insist that their half-demon, half-angel, half-dragon is an immortal god with every spell in the game & immunity to all damage.
Sometimes it feels like the "hurr durr rules bad" guys are the same that want to make demigod characters and get away with it lmao, they want the equivalent of cheat codes, rule bending should be for the sake of the story/fun, not so you can two-shot a tarrasque
Hot take: most “hot takes” aren’t really hot takes, in the top 30 comments of this video like 17 are “the DM is the final arbiter of the rules“ this is obvious. Also “hot takes” that are just different flavors of “there should be more options of x” Are also not Hot takes, basically everyone can agree that they would like more options in the game.
The funny thing is this isn’t a hot take either lol
@@navels553 you’ve defeated me, sadge.
Also, pretty much every single take in the video is correct.
"Rules Lawyers are actually the most helpful players to have at the table"
There's a *type* of rules lawyer who's the most helpful player at the table, and that's the one who's correcting the rules after the game. I also think it's probably important to recognize when a rule is being misunderstood, or when a rule is being purposefully ignored or changed by the DM. If a rule is misunderstood, then correct it. If the DM is ignoring the rule intentionally, or creating an exception to the rule then there is no correction needed. The problem comes with DMs who have an ego and present themselves as never being wrong about the game, or knowing the most about the game by virtue of having the screen. The Rules Lawyer is there to make sure your character doesn't die because the DM thought their Intellect Devourer could use their claw attack, Devour Intellect, and Body thief in the same turn. (They can only use a claw attack and Devour intellect as part of their 'multiattack' action).
There's a right way and a wrong way to be a rules lawyer. Just like there's a right way and a wrong way to be a DM, or roleplay, or literally anything.
rules lawyers are only good if the help is actually wanted
@@omnical6135 I mean, at that point it's a different scenario to construct entirely. Cuz tables/DMs who don't want help from a Rules Lawyer are either already well versed in the rules and want to keep the flow of their game running smoothly, or people who *think* they know the rules when in reality they don't.
Perhaps it's not wanted at the table, but more often it's needed. Again, not many issues arise if you just talk about it after the game.
@@Scrittus I have a player at my table who knows the rules much better than I do,
Everyone knows this is the case.
But unless it's clearly a misinterpretation by me,
They don't interrupt the game,
However I do often ask if they agree with my ruling.
@@BramLastname this is me in most of my games.
Unless the rule being used wrong is affecting a huge part of the game.
Like a spellcaster adding ability modifier to damage or a martial class forgetting to add.
I'll usually bring it up after the game or give my opinion when asked.
. Otherwise its just a new homebrew ruling that we using and whatever the DM says goes.
@@omnical6135 The help is good whether you want it or not. You will play correctly or not at all.
“I like playing Warlocks that DON’T have eldrich blast.”
He’s a disgrace
that's what the death penalty was invented for
Warlock say the line!
Yeah even if you're making a melee fighter with a warlock dip for hexblade, EB is still worth taking. It is after all the best damage cantrip in the game. Even if you're not going to use it all the time it's nice to have in your back pocket just in case. I agree with the guy who said it should be included in the class, and with Jacob in that it should be different depending on your patron.
My hexblade will fight you.
I'm the DM and god I hate the 12th level warlock and his triple enhanced eldritch blast attack every single round.....
Hot take: new dms need soft rules lawering, rules lawering where the ruling is looked at from a RAW standpoint and the interpreted standpoint to determine the best course of action as to make everyone feel the ruling is fair.
I agree and don't agree. a reminder of rules sure, however "actually he cant to that because it says here on page eventyhundredandblahblah" is fucking infuriating.
my tip for new DM's keep your rulings consistent. if you let one player swing across the bridge because they got a CR19 dexterity check. make sure you do that for other players as well.
I have a player that reminds me of the rules. and every time I tell them "yo I get you. I understand. but this is my call. however I will take that recommended skill check type. you're right (insert skill name here) might be better for this".
@@cobaltblu4196Yeah, that what he mean by soft rule lawyer, people who know the rules and could remind everyone in the table if needed, those kind of players are very helpful
@@alphahollow5642 very!
But that's not rules lawyering.
Rules lawyering is "um ackshually"-ing any deviation from RAW to the point of being obnoxious, & ignoring or denying Rule Zero.
What you're talking about is just having a player or two who have read the rules.
@@epsilon-eleven my point exactly, "soft rules lawyering"
Hot take: To many enemies have poison resistance or immunity which makes poison not so good.
fire has it even worse
Sean Wisniewski Most of them are pretty reasonable however like you cant poison a construct.
If you are going to play Curse of Stradh, maybe don't use poison...
Don B Actually fire is the most common resistance/immunity
@@donb7519 Not really. More things are resistant to fire, but a hell of a lot more things are straight up immune to poison. In terms of fire resistance, there's a feat that lets you ignore resistance to it and other elemental damage in official DND. Poison, however, isn't under the protection of that feat. Poison is so much more gimped in DND than fire under these circumstances.
Medicine is a strength check. "Urgok fix broken arm for you" *snaps broken bone back into perfect alignment.*
Could work if you wanna not take it too seriously but eh what do I know. :P
i feel like that would be more dex than strength because of the precision, but tbh in the end it is whatever the dm says it is
Medicine is now a charisma check charm the hell out of the virus
Or i guess placebo them and convince them theyll be okay but sickness seduction is cooler
@@SilverCraftLPx Who said he did it on purpose? He just shoved it and hoped it worked. Strength + Luck = best doktor
@@DapperestDave As a bard main... i love this.
I would allow that, but increase the DC, and if you fail, the player would have to get an extra 1d4 damage.
"Every player has an edgy phase, some never grow out of it."
I DID NOT COME HERE TO BE CALLED OUT LIKE THIS!
Jk, cool vid
I don't think I had an edgy phase yet.
"Every player has an edgy phase, and some never grow out of it"
I feel personally attacked
I play with an adult group. We are all 40-55 and have all played since high school.
We absolutely have a 50 year old player who still does the cold distant loner with each and every character he ever makes regardless of the class.
Super cheerful guy out of game.
@@zero11010 you know your comment reads like a failed perception check right?
@@mikehimes7944 you said perception. Did you mean insight?
@@mikehimes7944 "HELP, HELP, I CANNOT SEE THE WORDS ON THE SCREEN!"
Anyway, yes, Zero is right, insight is for discerning intentions and meaning of interactions, perception is for noticing details, investigation is for making deductions based on clues.
Anyway, not certain how Zero might have missed the point; he was sharing an anecdote about a player who has potentially been playing for a very long time that is still playing that type of character 40 years later. I think you failed your insight check to notice Zero's implication that there isn't really anything wrong with it in that he's still a part of their group and that they didn't imply anything bad about the player with it, perhaps reaffirming OP's posting suggesting that they usually do that sort of character.
Good. You should.
My personal hot take: I think that character PC romances can be great for a campaign depending on how you play it off, and as long as you are mature about it
Too bad half the players I've played with aren't mature enough l get past the "Imma bone them" stage!
@@Mariusweeddeath Dang that sucks. I'm in a campaign, (it's about to end soon) where I'm playing a blood hunter. And that blood hunter is in a relationship with the Palidan of the party. Even though it was never planned at the beginning of the campaign, as well as the fact that they had separate moral codes, their relationship actually made sense bc of the fact that they played so well off of each other. The blood hunter has gone through an entire character arc since then, and it really works out between the two. Unfortunately, most PC relationships go too far, or people don't understand that it's a game and take it too literally and seriously. It sucks that your players are like that, and I hope that one day you experience a party where a PC actually works
That's up to the players honestly. I'm not changing my campaign an iota to accommodate for that, but I have no problem with them interacting with each other how they see fit, and spending their down time as they wish.
@Michael Fox lol
I was a guy playing a female character (battle master fighter with great sword) and over time she fell for one of the party members (male human warlock, everyone he loves dies), we managed to not only have a successful campaign but that character canonically retired and had their kid (he died sacrificing himself to break his contract with his patron). PC romances are absolutely viable
"A survival D&D game could be kind of fun."
Yeah, there's a whole setting for it, called Dark Sun.
"May I go to twitter now?"
Me, waiting for my take to get read: NO. No you may not.
Hot take, it’s ok to like combat more than roleplaying as long as you don’t only play to derail things into violence
hot take: the annoying edginess of a character isn't determined basically AT ALL by their backstory but entirely by their RP. Like, a character can have killed their family and stolen everything they own and been an assassin for a time and have never considered anyone in the world a friend before the campaign started, that doesn't mean jack shit if they're played as an interesting, fun character, even if they are edgy af.
also it's just so much better having a cringy character than a boring character, it's more fun for you, it's more fun for the table. The way the internet keeps insisting on making the most average joe motherfuckers just to make sure their character isn't even the tiniest bit cringy is so annoying I hate it
My kitsune wizard walks around being smart, but the actions I make make it look like I'm an idiot. So much so that my party decided that they wanted to send the Bard with me so I didn't do anything stupid.
I made a bomb. (but also the "cure" for a zombie disease)
@@agamerdoesthings9317 did the bomb work?
I agree. Yeah sure your cringy, but at least your interesting. Also cringy characters are just people that fail at being cool. So If you try to make a cringy character, you might accidentally make them cool.
Whenever I play any RP game I always make a parody of edgy characters.
I played fighter that started off as a farmer conscripted into a war. He experienced horrors that would break most men. He deserted and became a brigand and eventually desecrated a temple. He was designed to be a test for the cleric and paladin down the road. Normally, he'd be an edgy-boi annoying character. But I played him as seeking some kind redemption and good in the world. He turned out to be a great player and really tested the paladin and cleric's convictions and inspired the rogue to actually become good instead of just doing penance to avoid a death sentence. Halfway through, he left the party to become a priest and we made him a recurring NPC. One of the best characters I've ever played.
"Have you ever tried googling symptoms?"
Me: (googles stuff about my intense body heat and joint pain)
Google: *you're already dead*
You: NANI
google: your free trial of life has expired
Sean Treadway This is having chronic pain in a nutshell.
I googled nausea in the morning, because I feel sick if I eat breakfast too early and Google told me I was pregnant🙃
I feel like Elves can be a mixed bag when they're played. Like, depending on the Elf 200 years varies greatly. For an Elf that lives away in seclusion for all their life, 200 years leads to a peaceful existence in which they believe they should guide other races with trivial knowledge. For an Elf that lived with humans their whole life, maybe they see their extended lifespan as a curse and spend every day as a dare devil tempting death.
Their long lifespan provides a wealth of narrative opportunities. I already have an idea for an Elf Drunken Master Monk.
actually played a sort of lore-keeper elf bard that got saddened by people around her aging and dieing so early that she started her career as a bard wanting to gather stories of all the people she came across, to give them a sort of immortality via text. Really liked the concept, didn't really get to explore it much bc we were playing a pre-written module but maybe I'll revisit the idea some day in a more open-ended campaign.
I have a half elf Acrane trickster called myst, that went to a wizard college for a couple years before it was burned down and pillaged by orcs, when returning to his royal family life, he has learned of his parents deaths, both killed by orcs, inheriting his fathers tophat (look i know a tophat) and his mothers signet ring, he learns these orcs have done this since he didnt pay off his fees to a crimelord, the orcs were originally payed to join him, now being ruled by him, Myst owed these fees since he wished to exile his brother for abusing his power, so he has now taken on a nomadic lifestyle learning tricks along his way, drinking off the memories and buying free drinks for adventurers telling thier own stories, he rarely talks about his own path, rather trying to help others on thier way, only stealing from the abusers or the wicked.
Edit: Any more suggestions or anything for my character
Also, take into account super young Elves around the age of a young adult human. Time for some hyper ass extreme curiosity over the most random things! Ahaha!
So after 200 years with humanity they became suicidal?
Fair enough
I still feel like rules lawyers can be good for your game. Naturally not in the "oh actually... You can't do that..." kind of way. But having a player that knows the rules well, and gives reminders about easily forgotten rules can be very helpful.
I agree, if the DM or a Player has forgotten how some rules work, then that is really helpful.
Yeah, our party has a player that we literally refer to as the "true dm". He's just a player with really good memory of rules.
@@RiptidePen imma steal that analogy.
@@RiptidePen hey, it's continuing with D&D tradition.
“Vampires should be warlock patron option” vampires can literally work with like three different warlock subclasses
Yeah like I gues Pact of the Undying isn't a thing..?
I thought you where Abserd
@@mr.potato2223 lol
"It's about telling a fun story, not necessarily a good one"
That awakened me
9:17 he mentioned the race. No-one ever mentions the race. WE ARE RECOGNISED!!
He only mentioned races in the PHB, no word about the other ones :(
Hot Take: Most problems in d&d comes from people only focusing on combat. Exploration and social encounters are needed for a balanced experience.
Yes! I was in a group where I played with them for months and I don’t think I remembered a single character’s name. One guys characters kept dying and it was never like, a big deal.
Now in my current group we all have our own campaigns (forever dm said he wanted someone e else to and instead of like, voting we all just started building campaigns independently so now we have like 5) and it’s basically a competition to see who can make the group cry hardest with dramatic RP shenanigans
As a Knowledge Cleric I'm glad that our DM has included a lot of exploration and other non-combat encounters because it makes my otherwise okay-at-best character feel like an absolute god. Going to the store to buy stuff is like "what price shall I demand today with Suggestion?" and being good at everything non-combat makes me the natural leader of the group... so much so that I'm consciously trying not to make all the rolls first because the other guys low-key envy my 30+ rolls on History and Arcana :P
The problem is that combat will kill the character and the other things won't.
@@TonkarzOfSolSystem you speak to a baroness in a wrong tone and don’t wipe your feet, you will be executed tomorrow
You sneeze in front of a quest giver and don’t cower your mouth, quest denied
Social situations can be infinitely more deadly than combat, because it is possible to build a character that is impossible to kill in combat, but you cannot be immune from social situations, because unless the dm plays them like “roll me competing charisma, uh the baron loses the argument, plus one thousand gold, roll charisma, three thousand, time to depart guys” it’s gonna be aimed at the players.
@@user-qp4ru6el2s Of course you can "roleplay right now or rocks fall and everyone dies" the players, but DM fiat deaths are not fun for anyone.
Hot Take: while DMs have the final say in the game, throwing away the rules just because he says so can ruin the fun for the players. Some players create their PCs with certain sinergy or choose spells because of an idea they had (that is based on the rules) Telling the Cleric "your turn undead doesn't work because this zombies are different" is plain wrong.
@Eitra Ardania Double damage or double *dice*? Crit fireball seems like a bad idea regardless, but if they use dice doubling instead of total damage doubling then the green flame blade ruling is perfectly consistent: On a crit, you can roll all dice twice, but flat modifiers aren't doubled. Green Flame Blade's extra damage is a flat value, no dice are rolled.
The game people choose to run are their own, if you have a problem with it, take it up with them.
@@professorkhepri Sure, but the you have people telling you how much D&D sucks, and when you start prying on the reasons you discover that they were not playing D&D. The problem is that most people think they are very good at coming up with gaming systems and they really really are not.
Or your Barbogue that he can't use a rapier with strength because it's just silly. If it bothers you so much, Bill, call it a one-handed Estoc! I'll even dress him like a matador!
Or if your DM is using an NPC to spam Anti-Magic Field on you even though you're a 4th level wizard. I just wanted to cast some spells, man.
Hot take: There should be more ranged weapon magic items. The only ones that isn't homebrew are the bargain bin +1,2,3 weapons and the Oathbow
--yes some say that the Moonblade can be reflavored as a bow, but there's literally only 1 unique longbow and no crossbows--
There should be more magic items that aren't just swords. Having a pseudo-vorpal heart-seeker spear, bow, or crossbow would be awesome.
We need a magical blow dart gun that doesn't deal much damage, but has some kind of secondary effect.
I don't get why they don't just make blueprints for weapons instead of individual magic weapons.
Why couldn't there be a flametongue bow or spear for example?
@@runedoom Maybe. Or reusable magical ammunition that has special effects. Cool stuff like that.
Not sure if it counts, but Javelin of Lightning?
Hot take: Just because I want a character with a +3 in their main stat that doesn't mean I'm min-maxing. Maybe I just want to be useful
A +3 isn’t even a good stat unless you’re playing with point buy
Wanting a high main stat is normal.
It is when they start to multiclass in order to make an undebatable character that is the problem.
Or make broken combos.
yeah
I thought the point of RPG was not to play yourself, why would I want to not be awesome a things?
@@doubeld.7536 Thats the difference between power fantasy, and some table tops you have to min max, I know few played it but 3.5 needs some minmaxing. Games where the game is harder enforces min maxing to some degree.
@@doubeld.7536 if that's how people want to play the game and the dm is chill then no, it's not a problem.
“Counterspell is op”
Me as the dm who uses it: that’s the point
Bruh hot take about vampires: they are hard core slept on in 5E unless his name is Strahd
In all editions. They are sort of a shitty enemy with exceptions.
I think that vampires would be more interesting if the rules didn't immediately go, "x is a vampire, therefor x is now LE".
I minmax the character to some extent to ensure it is capable of doing the job it's supposed to. That leaves me free to rp the character without worrying that it will negatively impact the game.
I recently made a character with more average stats instead of the higher stats I could’ve rolled just to avoid being a "minmaxer" and I think the highest stat is like +2 mod right now, and I just feel like all I’ve done is make myself weaker for combat. It hasn’t changed how I RP or how the character behaves. I just made myself weak.
Eddiemate you can’t really min max stats. If you roll, it’s basically entirely random. Point buy and standard array only let you get stats as low as 8 and as high as 17 (technically a changeling can get an 18, but that’s an exception). You shouldn’t ever worry about minmaxing with stats. Just make the best character you can, because making one that is weak will haunt you for the entire campaign.
@@Aplesedjr that's pretty much my point. Having a character that is weak in certain areas can be fun to rp, but a character that is all around weak sucks!
Logan Sanders
Yeah, I guess if we're talking about pure minmax then stats aren’t a concern. However at the time I had confused "optimal" for "minmax"
Which was stupid, but it’s too late now.
It's not minmaxing though if you just make a character good at something.
As a Warlock player myself, I wanna throw in my two cents on the Eldritch Blast being boring comment.
Even if you keep as still the normal generic 1d10 Force, I think a lot of the fun is flavouring how exactly the character casts it, or furthermore at higher levels how the multiple beams interact with eachother. Such as having them curl around eachother when fired so they look like some sort demented eldritch DNA helix, or having them do cool tricks and loops on the way to the target.
Personally how I always keep it interesting for myself, is describing them as compact laser blasts instead of generic energy tossing. Kinda like Iron Man's repulsers, so I can personally get a little bit of joy from firing fricking laser beams from my fricking hands.
I usually imagine it as an almost invisible beam or energy you shoot out. Kinda like Hit's ki blasts from Dragon Ball Super.
Also if the fiend shot fire blasts it'd be the worst eldritch blast patron. Since fire is common to have resistance two. Hell playable 3 races have it!
I flavor ot based on thwir patron but mostly just the damage changes like a demon from hell its fire
I totally agree. Flavor it. It was balanced to be the best offensive cantrip in the game because of the spell casting issues with Warlocks.
You can be a caster warlock with a negative charisma if you feel that will be fun for you. Warlocks get very few known spells and nearly no slots. Recharge on short rest (which should inherently be rare for balance) and a very powerful cantrip is the only way to balance them.
Otherwise you end up with first, second, and third edition casters .... which were shitty archers with no dex that had 3 spells to cast in each day with 18 rounds of combat with 15 rounds in each day of combat to be a shitty archer.
So, eldritch blast and agonizing blast it is. It isn’t over powered. That’s a fighter with a longsword in two hands. What does the DMG say ... one short rest per 3-4 encounters? So at level one you have one spell slot for 3-4 encounters. Sweet.
I'm your other players falling asleep while you describe your boring spell for the 30th time
i had a sick edgy character in one of my games where he played a druid who had a dead sister whose spirit haunted him and he manipulated dead plants. edgy can also be innovative
Reminds me of Wendy from Don't Starve
Hot take: people only complain about MinMaxing because they forget about the “Min” part of it. A MinMaxed character will excel in certain areas, and struggle in others. If you feel a MinMaxed player is too op then start putting them in different situations
There's two problems with this :
First, usually they manage to have significant maxes and irrelevant mins. There are many activities in D&D that you just need one character in the party to be good at, so sacrificing it on yours is mostly not going to impact you.
Second, when a character has a huge weakness, either the DM doesn't use it, in which case they have the max and not the min, or the DM uses it and it may feel like he's out to get that player in particular.
I mean, minmaxing is fine if everyone is doing it, or if players who don't just don't care about power imbalance, but I don't think that the min part of minmaxing is counterbalancing enough.
@@chaoslordnicky9723 That's a funny story, but it also sounds like you were taking out your frustrations on your player, which is a big no-no. It's not player vs GM.
@@chaoslordnicky9723 So what was the reason for the force of nature, powerful enough to menace cities by itself, coming up behind the party? What was big enough to heavily obscure the creature?
I'd agree with Bobby, it half-way sounds like you were just murking them to murk them.
@@chaoslordnicky9723 Did you delete your comment?
If your min/max character is ever faced with a min then you didn't max enough.
Hot take: not following the rules is liberation for the DM to do what ever the DM wants to do, but takes away the last shreds of control the PCs have over the game. If the DM has free reign to arbitrarily change any rule he/she wants on the fly, that's the most railroady of railroaded games imaginable.
I dont get why this is the go to point of view that people think a person who says the rules shouldn't be rigid always go to.
What you are referencing is more like cheating. If the DM decides they want a system to work differently in their game and players are warned before playing about those changes, that's perfectly fine.
If someone is just making shit up to suit the way they want things to go on the fly then they're just cheating or atleast being a dick.
@@tehtayziez Most DMs who I've played with seem to just spring their houserules mid game, I may have a 12 page word document of houserules (mostly expanding upon rules, such as setting up a camp in the woods or adding a sanity system for horror focused games) but I give access to players at session 0 and then we vote on which ones we want to use in the campaign
It's a negotiation.
The DM can't be expected to know or care about every rule, but they do need to care about the rules that impact the characters that the players have created and their objectives. Like if you make a mariner, with the expectation that nautical combat works the way it does in the book, it would be a burn for the DM to have it work some other way arbitrarily.
On the other hand, if nobody prepared for the specific rules of naval combat (or whatever, this is just an example), it might be best to make some up that better accommodate what the players are actually good at and will have fun doing.
@@tehtayziez Because it is what happens. Always. I became a rules lawyer *because* of shitty experiences like these being a constant.
I've DM'ed and I've never felt constrained by the rules. Homebrews on the other hand force me to work twice times harder because suddenly a Ranger is a better tank than a Barbarian and can do anything while the other player's can only better and with less rolls, so I have to literally make two encounters, one for an anime character and one for normal players. Also in mnany cases, the cool abilities the monsters have? Half of them gone because they are useless because "in this group monsters can't grapple" and bullshit like that.
Sorry, I only play/DM on strict AL rules now.
“I like playing Warlock without Eldritch blast”
You dare speak such heresy?
It does sound like playing a bard with negative charisma .... just be a different class and pretend to be a bard with low charisma. Fighter with entertainer background and the magic initiate feat.
You could totally be a sorcerer with natural ability and think you’ve got a deal with a devil or whatever. Metamagic works great as an invocation substitute.
There is no reason to break your class to make it interesting ... you’re not limited enough to need to do that.
My friend is multiclassing into warlock, and he is not taking eldritch blast.
@@666HeroHero
*shame him*
@@saintpoli6800 He does way more damage with his combo of green flame blade cantrip, shortsword and sneak attack. We already have a sorcerer and me as cleric, so we need more frontliners.
@@666HeroHero if they’re going to be a gish it can work fine. If they’re going to focus on spellcasting it’s basically a necessity.
Being a rules lawyer is bad, yelling for people to play the game how you wish
But instead being something of a rules encyclopedia who simply reminds people of rules when they are unsure and accepts how dms will warp rules can be very helpful
It is a fine line between the two, if you can pick the right path than you are quite a pal but dip into the dark side of the force and you will cause only ruin
I have a player in my game who is a complete Rules Encyclopedia. he has a genuine compulsion to correct me. and honestly I am so so SO greatful for it.
the reason I don't call him a Rules Lawyer is simply because he accepts all of my rulings. even bad ones, and I respect that
The virgin rules lawyer v. The Chad rules shepherd.
To say "Minmaxing misses the point of the game!" or really "X misses the point of the game!" in general is a really narrow-minded take. Your idea of what the point of the game is is not the only valid one. If people have more fun minmaxing than not, then let them.
The only problem with minmaxing is when only one player does it, or you overshadow other players with it. Otherwise it's fine
Would you say it..... misses the point of the game?
Exactly. This is D&D and the "point" of the game is whatever the player/group wants it to be.
Min-maxing and RP aren’t mutually exclusive either. I don’t get why a character can’t be powerful AND interesting in the eyes of some people.
@@roar104 a minmaxer overshadows others at what he maxed and sucks at what he minned. I dont see the problem.
Hot Take: Sorcerers should have an expanded spell list for each Origin.
Lore-wise and balance-wise, it's understandable that they lack as many spells as Wizards, but they still have an intimate connection to a natural force flowing through their body and soul; I feel like that should fetch a few extra spells.
Sorcerers having 15 spells total at level TWENTY is just another reason I think 5e is crap.
@@30noir Isn't that why they have sorcery point? To make them choose between more utilities (damage, range, etc.) or more spell?
@@ridwana4037 i think they mean spells known and theyre right a wizard can prepare 25 easy at level 20 so why cant i know 25 especially when at that point i cant change any more spells known by raw
@@donb7519 Because that'll make sorcerer broken. The number of spell is not the sorcerer's main weapon. It's the metamagic. Simply put
Wizard: lots of access to spell, but only specialized on one type of it.
Sorcerer: limited spell, but the toolbox (metamagic) is the one that gives the kick.
Maybe they should add some nature based spells that they automatically learn for free and at a certain level (like 15) any spell of that nature doesn't cost a cost a sorcery point.
I've read the 5e rule books multiple times and have memorized 3 editions worth of rules across different systems. It's not that we "rules lawyers" hate things that aren't in the book, we hate when someone tries to do something that is a class feature or feat that invalidates the point of planning out a character's abilities when your just going to let that slide.
I know you should be able to realistically be able to grab someone with a free hand while punching someone else, but then the Tavern Brawler feat shouldn't even exist.
I mean... I think you just found the problem yourself 😂
+
@@cassandramuller7337 and yet the game presumably was balanced around tavern brawler being a thing
rules are hard
As a DM I've never had an issue with people who knew the rules inside and out - but I never would have called those people Rules Lawyers. Personally, I've only ever thought of those players who would argue with something that I've said about how I interpreted a rule (or improvised one that I wasn't aware of). By all means, be a Rules Lawyer, just bear in mind that the DM is not another Rules Lawyer, they are the Rules Judge. If you happen to know any actual lawyers, ask them what happens to lawyers who argue with judges.
@@alexschmitt2980 Fun fact, my brother in law is a lawyer.
If I ever min-max, it's so I can be stupid without dying as easily, or in hopes that I can "get serious" and actually be helpful when the people that want to carry the team / show off start to struggle.
You.. You understand the good side of the minmax.... sad that 50% of minmax players I've met just bulldoze over the party
I did that to the extreme. My sorcerer probably has the most potential to vaporize the rest of the party, but they insist on taking the most roundabout way to solve a problem "for the sake of science" Like yeah I could cast fireball at the extremely clumped together Yuan-ti who haven't spotted me above them, or I could drop on top of one of them and fireball a pillar, causing the room to collapse.
hot take: coronavirus has made jacobs hair grow sentience
For min maxing I liked to make characters who are good at their jobs
Like yes I could make my mask wearing fighter bad at fighting but like...why
I actually did that exact kind of thing for my most recent character, by giving them more average stats.
Sure, they’re *playable* but my character just feels weak with their low damage, and it hasn’t even changed how that character behaves.
For less important stats, it’s definitely good to play with those for the sake of making them more interesting, if you’re willing to roleplay those, but making your main stats bad is just an awful move.
@@eddiemate same I tried it and its just kinda underwhelming when your character says dont worry were in this together and then they can't add anything to the battle due to their averageness
Because you have a death wish?
@@halifaxsteppenwulf7980 well thats built in with the character but like any other character wouldnt be as much fun
Making your character good at what you want them to be good at isn't maxing out your character though.
"They didn't sponsor this video." He says, wearing one of Logan's shirts...... He gets paid in pizza and plot armor, doesn't he....
That's a good deal
Hot take that should be in every episode: groups shouldn't expect their dm to be Matt or any other professional or high level, experienced dm. And you should try to get into your character, even if the rest of your group seems shy.
I'm in a group that was a little shy at first. The first 5 or 6 meetings was everyone kind of getting out of their shell but there was me and one other that from the start that got into character and helped the other 4 realize, hey... We're in a fantasy game, we aren't ourselves. And the meetings have gotten better and better.
Hot take: its ok to change alignment.
Characters can have changes of heart!
Ex: A PC that falls into an Evil alignment becomes good because one of the other PCs shows them that things are not set in stone (i would be more detailed but I dont want to get too wordy :P)
Yeah, one of my players has a character that started out as a law-abiding dragonborn prince that became a prison guard to get away from his parents. After helping a bunch of people break out (The rest of the party) he slowly started to become more murderous, and will now kill anyone that looks at him funny.
Not so hot take : just forget about alignment altogether. It's a limiting concept, and 5e has done its best to remove any gameplay impact from alignment. Just play your character the way it feels interesting and natural, let it change as you want, and don't try to put stuff in boxes when there's no real reason to.
Lots of characters in pop-culture have this thing called a "character arc"
@@Darkprosper depends on the player/party. Some really like alignment, and that's completely fine.
"Elves should be aloof bigots"
This why Kruuk smash elves with fist.
"Races should be this and only this."
*Twitter rage INTENSIFIES*
@@commandercaptain4664 Twitter's idea of races is just different colored humans with le animal/magic quirks, and maybe sometimes an animal head or pointy ears.
I find it just as interesting for people to be bigoted against elves for the exact reason elves are normally bigoted against everyone else: They're longevity makes it so they aren't bound to one generation of human, so no generation of human would be raised believing they owe elves the time of day, gliding through life at glacial speeds and providing nothing to society yet putting their noses up at everyone.
@@shealupkes Well if you look at D&D lore you'll find the elves have actually done quite a bit for the other races. The War with the Drow , battles against Gods and Demons , teaching how magic works , etc.
It's not their fault the other races have the memory of Goldfish. Maybe they're just tired of having to explain history every five minutes to yet another generation of short lived races.
I mean in the time it takes for a single elf to be considered an adult humans go through like four generations. And the fourth generation couldn't tell you the lessons the previous three learned even if their lives depended on it.
Meanwhile a single elf can recite hundreds if not thousands of years of history off the top of their heads.
So just maybe the Elven bigotry towards other races might just be well earned.
@@clothar23 no, it's not their fault, it isn't anyone else's fault they can't live that long by natural processes
The rules of DnD are a baseline. They account for a lot of things but they are just the base thing. You get to add to it, change or subtract from it as you see fit. DnD rules are like plain Vanilla icecream. You get to sprinkle stuff on top or change the icecream itself to chocolate as you see fit. It's just nice to have a starting point that is a functioning ruleset.
The lawyers are just there to remind you to remember the milk
@@grantflippin7808 No. Rules lawyers tell you that you're not allowed to put toppings on the ice cream or pick anything but vanilla.
"Rules encyclopedias" are the ones who remind you about the milk.
9:29 i always thought it would be interesting for an elf to have a far looser definition of punctuality. "When should we show up?" "Oh, Tuesday-Thursday." "Have you been waiting her long?" "Not really, I just arrived a few hours ago."
Love the rules bit at the end, because what you're saying is basically straight out of those pricey books!
I agree with the notion about the rules being guidelines. When you're playing with friends, making changes to the game will always add to the fun. The exception to this is playing online with a group of people you don't know IRL. In this case, deviating from the rules can ruin a player's fun. The way to avoid that is to set expectations, of course.
And the fun faces you see if you get to DM an AL game for "veteran players" ohh boy...
Hot take: Sorcerers don't need components or focuses. They're innately magical!
Then again.... Revivify
Never thought about it like that
They need 1000 gold worth of sustenance in order to restore the lost mana.
A focus only replaces components that don't have a gold cost. So it makes sense that they don't need one, as long as they don't need a gemstone that costs at least 1,000 gold.
Alternatively, I've had DMs that say ANYTHING can be a focus, including your weapon, or your fingers. It doesn't replace War Caster, but I like the flavor options that that allows.
The innately magical part is what gives them the advantage though. A wizard will have to spend years of their life studying the ways of magic, and only get access to some cantrips and first level spells, and then also get a focus/components. A sorcerer ignores the first step entirely, but being innately magical doesn’t ignore the need to channel that magic.
Then again balance
Hot take: There should be more customization in terms of normal weapons and armor. E.G. a shield always applies the same AC bonus if it is non magical. A buckler and a tower shield should both be available and have different pros and cons.
Let me introduce you to 3.5. Probably other editions as well. The "+2 AC shield" in 5th edition is just dumb IMO. 3.5 had bucklers. shields, tower shields, and all kinds of flavors for them
@@HipposaurusRex Ah. Maybe they'll follow suit into 5E if people want them.
@@MistaOppritunity it's pretty easy to homebrew them in, but I just dont get why they got rid of them in the first place. Shields add so much flavor to a character, and just having a flat ac bonus irked me. But yeah, it would definitely be nice if they added them back in
Hot take: the weapons and armor list are just common equipment that are most common, says so in the book, PHB 144 and 146. You give those players as many bucklers and tower shields as they want, you give 'em those compound bows that add their STR ability score to the damage (that's actually a thing that's even in one of the modules as something an adventurer has, even).
You mean like, oh, just saying a +1 shield (for a total of +3 AC) is a bigger shield?
They took out the half-dozen shields because people only used the best one that was available for their class, so it was unnecessary crunch (and allowed for the infamous levels of munchkining & powergaming that plagued 3.5).