Dungeon Master Inspiration
DMI is a podcast made to share the tricks of the trade of DMs with a wide range of experience levels, from fresh, new DMs to wisened masters of the position.
We focus on exploring topics within the world of DnD that consistently pose problems to DMs, such as developing characters, the use of monsters & NPCs, and combat. You'll hear from a variety of DMs speaking on a plethora of intriguing controversial issues in-depth.
No matter where you are in your DnD journey, we've got something worth listening to.
Dungeon Master Inspiration
A Fresh Perspective on D&D Combat Strategies for Immersive Gameplay
Ever thought about how grappling could change the outcome of your D&D combat? Or how a spell's somatic and verbal components could drastically affect your gameplay? This episode peels back the layers of the often understated aspects of the 5th Edition combat system, exploring how specific techniques like disarming and descriptive combat can transform your gaming experience. We discuss just how tangible the world of RPG becomes when you integrate character into your spells and actions, making for a truly immersive and cinematic game.
Have you considered how your daring duels and epic battles can shift when you take into account the terrain? Whether you're using a tree root to trip up your enemy or casting a spell to dislodge a branch, we highlight how these environmental factors can alter the way you play. Moreover, we consider how your setting, be it castle or village, can influence the difficulty of a check. In this episode, we also tackle the exciting mechanics of armor maintenance, borrowed from the likes of Baldur's Gate, that give room for dynamic characters and environments to thrive.
As we wind down from the adrenaline of combat, we delve into its consequences and when it should come to an end. We reflect on the often overlooked aspects like the effect on hit points and age, and stress that combat should conclude when the narrative calls for it, rather than just when hit points dictate. Additionally, we discuss creature challenge ratings, dragon variations, and how the 'rule of cool' can amplify your combat encounters. Join us on this journey as we shed light on these intriguing facets of D&D combat, promising a leveled-up game night for novice and seasoned players alike.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you are interested in seeing more content like this check out our YouTube! We also post weekly game articles on our Patreon and have an active Discord community.
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Alright, we're back for episode two of DM. You know, it's kind of like we're here every every week oh man, but I'd be crazy though. No, no, that's insane. Alright, so Kind of the topic that we have chosen for this week is actually gonna be combat. I think combat is one of the most underused and challenging things for especially new DMs. To start with, I started D&D off Wanting to play and having no friends in high school who played D&D. No one at my school played it, so I literally started out by picking up one of each of the copies of the main books and then figuring it out, and I know definitely I made a lot of mistakes in combat, which is why I'm really excited to talk about this topic, because I would like to think that I've come a long way from where I started.
Speaker 2:That's fair.
Speaker 1:I started way back in the days at 3.5 Ah, so it was more complicated believe it or not, I actually went back and I played 3.5 after learning all of fifth edition, and I have such respect for that format. It's actually a lot of fun to play that combat system, especially if you know what's going on. But I do think the 5e is a little bit easier for, especially for new players.
Speaker 2:5e 100%, super easy, like streamlined. So the easiest one is like 5e, super like new player friendly 3-5 if you want to like do combat and like Skill and ability stuff, like out of RP, like not like oh, I'm gonna have a conversation with this guy like 3-5 was really meaty for Skills and like combat and you could like a Personalized stuff a lot better.
Speaker 1:I really do like how 5e does the combat though, because it does give a lot of room for players to be very Specific with how they want to do combat and it gives a lot of freedom, especially to dungeon masters and players. There's a lot of really like nuanced parts that kind of get overseen. One that I'm gonna mention that I really think is often overlooked is like disarming. Disarming in 5e is super straightforward in combat and I really do like that grappling and like those close hand-to-hand, but it's super underutilized. Like I see it when I watch, like when I listen to the podcast for not another D&D podcast or critical role, that's when I see that, but at my tables I've almost never actually had players get into grappling.
Speaker 2:I don't like 5e. Super nice with it because it's like straightforward, it's just an opposed skill check that don't matter too much. And I've seen in 5e have had one person who I've played with who did a grappler fighter so he was a boxer basically who grappled people and just punched them while they were pinned. But other than that I don't ever see people you really utilizing it.
Speaker 1:I will say I've seen a monk use it a lot, especially on like other shows that I watch on YouTube. That being said, I feel like it adds a lot to monk fighter barbarian and it's just super underutilized. I think it's just. It really has what like one, two paragraphs maybe in the player handbook and it's right at the end in the combat section. It's not mentioned at all in the early of like how to play the game. None of those like effects and abilities to fight show up at all. They wait until the very end of the book. And unless you're like a madman like me, where I read the book cover to cover, mostly because I had people keep abusing things that I didn't understand, they're like oh, you don't know every single feat and how they work. Let me pick this random feat that you've never heard of and let me abuse it and break it. So I had to go back and read every single page and that's when I really realized, oh my god, these skills can be really strong as long as you're in like single target combat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one thing's probably does real nice is it makes combat more of a like RP piece to of instead of just being, well, I'm gonna hit the guy and I'm gonna use this one thing. You can put your own like character into what you're doing and I like.
Speaker 1:So a very interesting thing is like I have mostly Played spellcasters. Spellcasters is kind of my special, my special like genre when I comes to Like playing actual characters. I've played wizards, I've played sorcerers, I've played clerics. Those are like my big three.
Speaker 1:I will say I Find that people often overlook the somatic, the verbal, the fiscal components, unless it's incredibly expensive for casting spells and For combat. That's kind of. That's kind of saddening to me, because there are spells like deafen where if you cast deafen on a magic Caster they can't do anything with a verbal component, it's just gone, so they can't cast those spells. But a lot of times players don't even bother to look at those symbols to kind of see whether or not they can cast it, especially when there's those status effects. So that's where, like me as a DM, if I have a monster that casts silence, that's really scary for all of my spell casters and they're gonna be like oh, I'm gonna cast fireball and you can't speak within this domain, so you can't cast fireball. Like that's crippling and debilitating to spellcasters and it's something that people don't pay attention to. If you walk into a silent zone where you Can't speak, if you lose your somatic component, you're done, like there's nothing you can do.
Speaker 2:So like I think that that's one of the real nice things for at least spellcasters is because they have the different pieces and All those parts are like super small on it, like it's three letters that People don't read because it doesn't have like, well, this isn't what the spell does and it's in the block of like oh, it's an instant speed spell or Bonus action, free action or whatever type of spell it is, and that's the piece that gets overlooked.
Speaker 1:But that's also the part that makes it the most Interest because they all require something slightly different, and what I do like is that they all require something slightly different. So if you have a prepared spell list, you really should be looking at those three letters and making sure that you have a variety of them that's missing one of each of the components, because otherwise, if you lose one of those, it's gonna be rough. What if somebody takes your? What if you have a thief steal your magic focus belt? Like you don't have any of your fiscal components anymore and they may be minor, but that's a couple gold pieces to replace.
Speaker 1:And if you're going right into combat after that, I want you to know what spells you're gonna be able to actually cast. Like if we're in a bar, a crowded bar, and you're getting Wasted and I have you roll for perception and somebody grabs that bag, it runs away that's gonna be pretty hard on you, especially with People that like to go into taverns and drink a lot oftentimes will make these kind of nuanced Checks that people don't think about. They're like well, why are you punishing me for being drunk in the bar? I'm like because I think it D&D is a lot more interesting when it's a real story and it's more realistic. And if you're that person that's wasted in the bar every night, one of these times Somebody's gonna grab something from you and it might be pretty important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like cuz you're, especially if you're in whatever settings, if you're in a bigger city especially, there's gonna be people and they're looking for you Not you, but like looking for that guy who's getting a little too drunk, a little too far gone, and then, as soon as they see that they're going to go for it, gonna act upon it, basically taking a spellcaster out, especially because what happens most of the time, as soon as something's stolen, you turn and start trying to shoot.
Speaker 2:Yep, and you're not gonna be able to you're gonna turn, you're gonna go cast, cast like firebolt or whatever and Whatever piece of it you needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. With magic casters, I mean, magic is a common knowledge thing in the D&D world. They're gonna know if they grab that bag that there's nothing you can do, and especially with combat. And how I like to do it is, those components are very, very important and I actually liked One of my players. They asked me hey, I'm playing a ranger. I know all the jokes about ranger being one of the worst classes. I don't think it's the worst, especially with D&D releasing their rework and me having played with a couple of different ideas for it.
Speaker 1:But my ranger goes hey, can I shoot my bow at the goblin mage in the back? He's got his focus in his hand. Can I shoot at that focus? Now it's a super small space. So I'm like, yeah, you can shoot at it, but it's gonna be really hard to hit. I'm not telling my player, no, but I'm still gonna give them. I'm like, if you get above a 15, I didn't tell them. I'm like, if you roll really well, I'm gonna let you hit it. And they rolled a nat 20. So, like they hit it, it exploded that magic caster. He's useless now. He can't do anything. That requires a focus which is a good 80% of those, those abilities, and I'm really not opposed to Players going about doing that. Now, me as a DM, I'm not gonna have non intelligent creatures or low intelligent creatures go for the orbs, unlike the spell focuses, but I Think there's a lot of nuances added when you allow them to disarm spellcasters.
Speaker 2:I think that goes kind of into the being able to be specific with what you're shooting at or hitting, like if I'm in a Fight with somebody who's trying to get away, it's a lot more interesting if I can like take out his legs, the knowing just hitting his AC, just hitting him in general, like generically, because then you can have that nuance in your combat, as opposed to just Beating someone until their health bar is zero. You get to actually like okay, I'm gonna do this strategy piece.
Speaker 1:as to, oh, my characters, let's say a swashbuckler, they're going to be like stabbing Adam and slapping quick slashes, whereas your big barbarian might break their arm with a hit and like, let's say, I have a swashbuckler in my campaign and we're running combat and they're fighting a bunch of thieves and one of the thieves tries to run past them and get across and they get this opportunity for a opportunity Attack. I would much rather my player be like I'm gonna go and slash for the backs of his knees, because for me if you roll really high now, let's say you get a non-natural 20 I can be like alright, you turn, you take a full swing. If you get seven hit points, he's got one hit point left. You cut right through the back of those tenants in his knees. He falls to the ground and you, he's now prone.
Speaker 1:That's such a easier description for me as a DM and it makes my player feel like they're really part of this story, because you're not gonna just willy-nilly just chuck an axe at somebody and Pray to God that it lands and have no idea. You're gonna be like alright, I'm gonna look, I'm gonna line up with his head, I'm gonna throw my axe and if you roll a nat one, that things going flying across the room, but if you roll a nat 20, it's gonna land right where you wanted it. It's gonna be devastating and it gives those story elements where also it's not on me as the DM to build the entire story from scratch, and it lets the players feel more rewarded.
Speaker 2:Also kind of goes with like, though, a lot of people run with the rule of cool in the tables. What's? It's a lot more like cool if you throw your axe and you embed it into their head Versus, just oh, I threw my axe and I hit them. Like those two things are such different Ideas and they carry such a different weight to them that it makes the combat more like Explosive and action feel like a movie. Like you're not seeing a movie where guys just like punching them at the chest and like I mean, unless you're watching an old Bruce Lee film, but those still. But then it's.
Speaker 1:You're the art behind the March, like the fight, yeah, and I definitely like the, the way that a lot of Older DMs do it, where they really let their players be Descriptive, and that's definitely something I did not do at first. When I was like they're like I want to cast Acid splash, I was like all right, and I just literally read off the card. That was not very engaging, and role play was a very hard thing for me at the beginning because we didn't know the rules. So I had to learn the rules and then it was just the rules and it wasn't any really role play.
Speaker 2:Special with spells, like there's so much you can put of your character into your spells. So, like for a campaign, I'm gonna be playing. A fire drew without like wild fire drew it right, my cure wounds Isn't gonna be. I put my hand on a good 20 hit points. What I've like it's going to be. I'm a fire druid. I put my hand on him, ignite my hand and cauterize that wound and that becomes something where it's like oh, your character is doing it in this method, like I've seen artificers who will like pull out a syringe of something to do with their heel and it gives that character to your like spells as opposed to just Using the generic oh well, I cast your wounds and it's like there's there's a spell called inflict wounds in the cleric Spell list and that that spells insane.
Speaker 1:Like just straight up, that spells insane. But I ran a necromancer cleric and my channel divinity for my death domain was to add damage to it. And so my DM, when I landed this critical hit on a wyvern he's just started describing how my hand Started glowing purple and bubbling and as I touched the dragon, tripping into it, I touched it it began to dissolve half of the dragon because I nearly killed the thing in one shot. And like I liked that, he Spent the time to actually go step by step and describe really what was happening to the creature in Response to my spell. And it wasn't just oh, a purple, necrotic light show shines and the creature falls dead. And that's where I think a lot of those challenges comes from. The storytelling perspective is it's our responsibility To kind of guide that story, both as a player and as the DM, and you're kind of just Making it easier on each other, because if your players are just saying I'm gonna Like, one of the big things is like finishing.
Speaker 2:So like when you drop someone to zero, a lot of the teams will be like how do you do it? It's a lot more interesting. The players like, oh well, I'm whatever class, I do this intricate thing that's fitting for my character to do, instead of just well, I stab him, he dies yeah. I said earlier, but like those are two extremely different vibes based on just how you Just choose to talk about what's happening in the situation and I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like, eventually, one of these days I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna record a bunch of audios and build a soundboard out and I'm gonna have one.
Speaker 1:That's just Finish him it's just like the old, like old, like style game kind of aesthetic, because I think it adds some. It gives a moment for Everybody to laugh, smile. Your player gets to do something really cool. You get to describe how it kind of comes out and the ramifications that come from those actions. Because if they're gonna kill a character, if they just are there like I'm gonna go and stab straight through his chest, that's gonna be a lot less, for example, intimidating. If they're fighting in a fighting a group, then I slice his head off and it goes flying. You're gonna probably strike some fear into the other enemies.
Speaker 2:It's like there's a little bit of a difference between. It was like you're fighting a horde of just random goblins Versus you're fighting the lieutenant of the bad guy. Like if I'm fighting the lieutenant of the bad guy, I don't want him to just die. I want that death to be a narrative piece to it, and sometimes that includes how they die instead of just oh well, they, they're dead now. So now the story is different, because the boss's second hand is gone, but by how you defeat them, making it be. This impactful moment of this big Explosion happens. If you cast fireball, he catches fire and just explodes out onto in the middle of a battlefield.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what's really cool about those kind of experiences is Like, let's say, you are fighting a random horde of goblins, you're pinned against the wall, your magic casters are out of spells, you're sitting there as the the lone barbarian finally enraged and you just take a swing at one of the goblins and you lob his head clean off from full health. If you're gonna describe that situation to me and I'm gonna let you do that and you're like I'm gonna go and swing for his head I was roll a 20. I'm doing 25 damage and his head is coming flying off, I'm gonna be like, alright, you intimidate the rest of the goblins, they turn and they run and that could save your party, and that also, it seems a lot more fulfilling than me as a DM Having to try to make a reason why I don't accidentally TPK my whole party.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's also it does allow for that, what you're doing to actually have an effect on combat, like In the rule book, if you're just like there's like some morale checks, which is, but that's usually big army fighting, right, because like, oh, you beat half the rank, the other half is gonna what's going on? And runs away and like disperses. But especially like when you're one-on-one type combats, it makes it a lot more. It gives the DM excuses to have things change in the fight. So, oh, you Killed the leader of this group. The rest of them aren't gonna still be just standing there like, okay, we're gonna kill you now. They're probably gonna be like, oh, what just happened? Our boss is gone now and and trying to like Find a leader in themselves, as they're like, and maybe you just decimate that leader and this are like oh well, I'm out and run away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think running away isn't a bad thing, like it's never a cop out for you to just be like, oh my god, to my players just they just slaughtered these monsters and now there's this one that has this glorious and triumphant Battle against the biggest guy there. If he, you guys, watch the biggest man fall and you just lost two of your comrades, you at least half of them are gonna be like, oh, do I really want to fight these people? How much do I believe in that cause? So it's like, especially with intelligent creatures, I think that's really important, especially letting the characters kind of guide that narrative of like you were talking about how in our campaign that we're we're podcasting, you're gonna be running a flame Druid. Like if I watch you walk up and Cast a spell and my buddy, from full health, burst into flames and incinerates, I'm gonna be like, oh, about that fight. I think I'm good.
Speaker 2:It's even like, especially in like comments for like ship to ship to ship combat. In any situation, especially if you have a fire care character, casting fire or like lightning, things are gonna catch fire and Unlike water, even like outside of D&D, in like the real world, if your boat catch caught on fire, that boat was gone like you would have to like try to get water from the ocean to dump onto the fire Before it spreads to the sails of your ship or to whatever other piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I I kind of also it's like one of those things of I I do have a little more understanding of like it's.
Speaker 1:It's very much a narrative that's gonna be important because, like for yours, you're gonna be a wildfire.
Speaker 1:Druid, our setting is in space, on boats. If you do that on the wrong boat at the same time, the whole boat goes up in flames with you and the crew on it, and I don't think that's really what we want to do a lot of the time. So it also adds that kind of if you're letting them describe the spells, if it goes horribly wrong and you cast a major fire spell, half the ship lights on fire and now you got to find a way to get off and with our setting we're, we're placed firmly in the astral sky, like there are ships that aren't made out of wood. That being said, if we're on a ship that's wood fighting in ship to ship combat and you go hog wild, I I would want to hear how you describe it, because if you do one of those major aoe fire attacks and you light for people on fire, okay, maybe the fire is magical and doesn't like the wood on fire, but the guy that's running around with his head cut off, burning.
Speaker 2:He's gonna say something on fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you're gonna have to, as a crew, kind of talk about ooh, should we keep fighting, should we be running away from this giant burning ship that we're on? But hey, the druid gets away.
Speaker 2:The druid turns into a burning plasma.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and it's like, especially with the fact that we're in a spelljammer setting, like we're in space. There's only so much air around the ship, so it's like and once that ship goes down, oh, we're bolting.
Speaker 2:You're running out of air.
Speaker 1:And, like me as a DM, it's kind of almost amusing to think about that idea, and it's part of the reason I really wanted to encourage you to play that character is it's almost funny that you're a fire druid in the middle of space.
Speaker 2:Like this is like a small thing with, like how your characters work, like a fire's character especially. Fire is such a dichotomy of an item like element Every element is, but like fire hits it in such a bit more visceral way of fire will literally destroy everything if left unchecked. If we're on a ship and I'm like, well, I'm gonna cast fireball, that ship is probably on fire. And now, well, the thing that was supposed to just protect us and help us, like when the fight, is now going to be a reason that we could all die because of it and we do have like fighters and stuff like.
Speaker 1:At the same rate, if, like, let's say, we had a barbarian instead with a great axe or a fighter with a great axe, you decide, you come to me and you're or a hammer, we'll use a hammer, because it's a good example. I'm coming with a great war hammer, we're on a ship, I want to take a big overhead swing and I get a nat one and a miss. And now not only have you taken this big wind up and lost your turn, but that big hammer is probably going through that ship.
Speaker 2:And with spelljure it's like a lot more specific because it's such a magical type of ship. If you're near your like I can't remember the exact name is but like the helm of the ship, you could just lose your actual ship, like obviously, like one nat, one's not going to be. Oh, there goes your ship.
Speaker 1:But if you're like, if you're like smacking the ship and constantly missing and constantly having them evade, that's not going to be good for that ship. If you're fighting on the helm and if you mess up and you swing at the guy who's sitting on the helm with that war hammer and you get a one, I'm definitely having that thing smashed open and then you're stuck going in. Whatever direction you're in, If that's going to collide with your ship, that's not going to be pretty. And I think that's where the freedom of combat it has such highs and lows that it really brings more interest into the actual description of the game.
Speaker 2:If you make like combat can be interesting and fun, as just like a, so not even sociable, like a game right, like just doing the base. We have a map, we do fighting, which, something like that, something super simple, can be enjoyable. But because for D&D you're not just trying to run a game, you're trying to tell a story. The big piece for combat is how does your combat play into your story? There's a couple ways you can have combat play into the story. Like you can do a combat where it's about a character growing, so throughout that combat you can kind of see this character changing, like, especially if it's like for a backstory. If you're fighting the enemy from your backstory, your character is not going to go in and out of that fight as the same person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know we've spent a lot of time already talking about how terrain affects combat, but it's such an important part, like if you're walking into a cave and you're using a great sword, you're not going to be able to swing that. So now you're a fighter that's specialized in sword fighting that's going to have to go up, get in their face and have a fist fight, and that's not something that you ever really want to experience as a player. But it also adds another element to the combat that can be fun and rewarding or punishing, and I really like that.
Speaker 2:And with terrain and combat. A lot of people just have it as a static piece, like, oh well, you're in a village, so there's some houses and there's like some fields and there's some animals and pens, but then that's all, that's there. But as soon as like combat eventually will get boring especially if it's a big combat, something can change. Let's say you're in that town where there's like a cow pen or something. There's this combat going around. All the animals are going to be freaking out. They might knock over the fence at some point and then hit the combat as a new stat, not even static, but like a new force that's not actually fighting but like just plowing through. And now suddenly my combat of I'm fighting the 20 million goblins becomes I'm fighting goblins and there's cows charging at me.
Speaker 1:And like, for example you said that perfectly like if these animals get out and start running towards you, that's not going to be good for you. But, more importantly, animals are going to try to get away from the combat. If they knock over that fence and get away, who knows, maybe you're trying to do sneak attack and then it turns into this big battle. Now that horse is galloping through the forest screaming any of their local villages or whatever If it's goblins. Now you got hobgoblins coming and that's not going to be as fun Like, even if you're like attacking a bandit camp.
Speaker 2:If you're trying to like be not too noisy while like fighting all the bandits, someone might still be just taking a nap. That somebody could be a really good spellcaster so that, oh, the animals are out now could be. Their horses have started like braing and making all these noises and your spellcaster, who was like taking an epilogue, was going on, walks out of the tent, sees six people he has never seen before fighting people, his allies, and suddenly just goes. Well, I have to do this.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like, for example, it would say, he's sleeping under a tree and he's just chilling out there. If you're trying to sneak up, you've successfully gotten your stealth roll. We're really close, we're all the way, we're all the way in their camp. Basically, and my spellcaster goes, I want to cast a lightning strike directly on that giant branch over him. Okay, if it's like a medium sized branch, okay, you got to get a 10. If it's a big branch like you get a 15, you cut straight through that branch. That dops on him. I mean I'm willing to give you 3d 12s for that and that might just kill him, which would be massive for combat. Or he could be like, if you do it in a subtle way as a druid and just have it break or have like a chilling touch hand, like break it or something that's or mage hand, let mage hand do it. That kind of adds a different component where it's like he's like oh my God, that tree was really unstable if he does live and he's already majorly hurt. So now you kind of have an easier fight.
Speaker 1:I think combat. A lot of people miss out the opportunity to use the terrain you're in to your advantage. What's the terrain?
Speaker 2:One of the big things, like for the druids, and rangers have to do a lot with the terrain and what's around them. One of the spell like a core spell to druids is their druid craft spell. But that doesn't do anything. As it's written it's just oh, you can make something grow or a flower bloom and these super small things. But as soon as you bring in that, like in combat, you can RP it. I could make a tree's root move a little bit. Somebody might trip over it now. Or if that guy's under the tree, that root might come up and grab like if I would probably be a check or something it might wrap around his foot. So now he wakes up and camp is like I'm stuck on the ground, which you don't get if you're just if you're not including that extra little piece to combat.
Speaker 1:And this has been called lazy before, when I when I admit this. But for me those kind of terrain, like effects, like hitting a door and breaking it down, hitting a lightning, a lightning bolt and breaking off a branch, all of those things I don't write down what DC I put that at. I kind of put it based on where we're feeling. If we're sneaking up and you have time and you're going slowly and you're planning to break that branch or wrap it around his foot, I'm going to give you a much easier DC check than okay, we're in a castle, keep, we've got five cobalts that we're fighting. We're a level three party. I want to smash through the door so that we can sprint out with our down teammate. That's going to be a lot harder check because you got people swinging at you Like that might be a 13 or a 14. And like that doesn't seem like a lot. But those DC checks that I do, I kind of do it based on the feeling of the, of the environment, rather than keeping them as static numbers.
Speaker 2:Yes, like, especially with terrain, like part of it is how can you use your terrain to your advantage in any like realistically? If you're trying to be more realistic, if you're in a fight and if you're trying to try to ambush or something, you're going to be modifying the terrain, you're going to be doing something to give yourself an advantage, like, say, a car's going across a bridge or something, you might be cutting down a tree in front of it.
Speaker 2:How am I going to do that? If I'm just, if it's just, oh well, you cut down the tree. It's kind of like, yeah, that makes your mission easier. But if there's like a check, because oh, the car got here earlier, then now there's stakes to this modifying of the terrain, that tree could fall in the wrong way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. And like I was talking to one of my friends last night who was telling me they've never gotten into D&D because they've had a couple of rough goes about it. They're telling me about one campaign they were doing where they were playing a dwarf fighter and they're in the middle of combat with a group of people and they're like I wanted to break down the door and go into the room. I'm playing a dwarf fighter. Doors are known for being really stocky and the team just told me I couldn't do it. I'm like that just seems to me. That doesn't. That doesn't seem how I would want to play my table. And I was talking to them.
Speaker 1:I'm like no, I would still ask you to do a check. Grant it your dwarf. You're pretty strong. You're probably going to go through the door. I'm not saying you're not going to go through the door, but if you roll a five and under, you probably trip smashing through the door, land on your face and now you're prone. So it's like I'm going to still ask you for checks but I'm not going to just tell you.
Speaker 1:You know now, if my players are like we're going to go and kill this whole city and we're going to go fight constantly. Might you hear unsettling noises in the distance of a giant worm or something like that. That's, you're going to want to stay away from this. Cries of a dragon, the screams of a people that are being scourged, yeah, but I'm going to use that descriptive storytelling to kind of guide you away. I'm not going to tell you you can't do it, but there might be something there that you don't want to fight, and anytime there's like anything where it's like a piece of a player trying to do something, it's almost there's two options there.
Speaker 2:Should, it should never be a hard no, but it could. So it's kind of like an acting rule where you never say no and for improv right, you don't say no. You can't do that. If you say no, it's always a no. But so if I'm trying to break down the like a door, you might be know that door is made of iron. But you see, a little ways away there's something else you can do, and I mean obviously, I grew up as an actor.
Speaker 1:I've been formally trained in Hollywood. One of the big things we always did for improv, like you mentioned, is we weren't allowed to say no. It was always we had to say yes, and so they would be like I want to break through this door, yes, and you can do that, but you might fall. If you are unbalanced, it's always a yes, you can do that and or, but something else may happen. Or yes, and you're going to have disadvantage. On like, I'm always going to tell you you can do something. It just might not be what you want it to be Like, especially with like D&D. If you're in like a castle or something right, there's sometimes where no is the answer. Like, you can't do that.
Speaker 2:Can I break down this random, like four foot wide support pillar? No, but then you, instead of just being like no, there has to be something to it, like you might be able to do something to Know what you see, there's this thing over here that might be able to help you, or those minor little for me.
Speaker 1:They're like I'm trying to find the exit. We don't want to bother going around. I want to try to go through this four-foot wall. Awesome, feel free. The, the, the dwarf can just go. I want to go through this four-foot thick wall. Okay, roll me if they are not getting a 20. They're hitting that as hard as they can and they're gonna be unconscious Like I'm gonna let you do it, but I'm gonna also let everybody else laugh at you if you don't succeed Tremendously and not even in a mean way. It creates a funny encounter even for that player of like oh my god, that's so stupid. I just tried to run through a four-foot wall and that's way more fun than just being like no, I'm not gonna let you walk through, at least in my opinion.
Speaker 2:So this was like this is what I never thought it was gonna happen. I was doing a campaign of the like this ice tower and it starts like collapsing back into the sea. So the players are at the very top of it and the point of it was like, oh, they have to run back down and get down there. In time they ended up like the whole bit was like you're gonna basically make it down no matter what, because your ship's at the bottom. You need to get back to your ship. And it was a way excuse to give them a new ship. The goal was to like just get rid of their old one and give them a new, nicer ship. And they one of them decided I'm going to shoot. They had some fire spell like burning hands or something out with the back of our sled down the. Is that going to really do anything?
Speaker 2:No, no but it's a lot more fun if it's like, yeah, that makes sense. And then it's like I gave him a little bit like, oh, you go faster because you're a rocket. We've held, slid down this tower. I made them make a check because I was like a circular tower.
Speaker 1:I love that that's, but that's so much more fun and like for me. A big thing for like moments like that and all of my moments is I Don't tell my players the DC often. And the reason I don't tell the DC often is I feel like I can't. If my players like, okay, what would the DC be to break through that four foot wall, I'm not gonna say, oh well, you're gonna have to do a DC of 19 or above. I'm gonna be like the wall looks like it's pretty well intact, very sturdy, had lots of Deep and meaningful masonry work into it. You can tell that it's well crafted, especially if they're dwarf. Won't be like you can see that it was made by your brother and or someone is skilled as them like. Then that dwarf is gonna be like oh, maybe. I don't want to ram into that wall.
Speaker 2:Think for the if, what, like, should, should players know how, where the DC is. It kind of goes to the level of what are they trying to do. If it's like this is something no one would, you would never have even thought of before, no, you have no idea how hard it's really going to be. You can kind of be like, well, that's a wall, it's gonna be difficult, but that's like all you're going to know. Versus like if you're a fighter who was, you know, part of a local militia and there's a door and you're like I want to kick down the door, you probably know, like you know about. That's probably about like a fortune.
Speaker 1:So for me, the reason I don't explain those numbers is like, let's say that you are a militia Character who has kicked down plenty of walls. You're probably a character that's focused on strength, so you're already gonna have an advantage towards it. And if I describe the wall of well, it's a rickety old board like what you would see. You would imagine a normal fantasy setting, unlike a pretty poor house. It's kind of shavilly built together with some rough like nails in it.
Speaker 1:You're gonna know as a fighter who's part of the militia with a high strength Alright, I'm gonna be able to kick this down, no problem, unless I horribly fail. Versus if I say it's a strong, thick, mahogany door with the gorgeous inlays on it and steel brach, you're gonna be like oh yeah, I don't. I don't think I can break that down and, granted, what I do takes a little more time. But personally, especially when we're having like long sessions, I think it's a lot more rewarding to the players to hear those descriptions and be like Look at that solid oak door that I just snapped in half.
Speaker 2:There's a little bit of both, like I'm not saying like, oh, if it's a big thick door, give them a, oh, it's a 17, but like it's gonna be, you know, we'll probably need at least like To do okay, like give a little bit of like. This is kind of the area would be in. I'd be like it.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be pretty hard, but I'm not gonna like depending.
Speaker 2:It's also like a that how well you know your DM of, like, some teams. Oh, it's gonna be difficult. It's gonna be like 15 to 20, some, it's gonna be difficult, it's gonna be like 20 to 25.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for me, like the only DCs I really like to tell people, I'll tell people if they really want to know, and we've Discussed it beforehand. But the only one where I'm like gonna be like okay, this is going to be Incredibly like, you need to get a ten or above is on saving throws. Like saving throws or like Con checks for spells, like that's public knowledge you know these spells like and really there's no way that I can hide those numbers, unfortunately. I wish there was a little bit better way to do it, roleplay wise, but especially with the campaign that we're preparing for, I Want it to be highly descriptive. We have two new players who aren't super rule heavy and you and I are kind of we're the other half of that group, especially with us podcasting and us knowing the book really well. I want to give them those roleplay opportunities while we focus much more on the rule.
Speaker 2:Lawyer thing Like we meet, like this, part of the reason why it's like I'm playing I haven't done many druids, but like I'm doing a class that I know can do whatever I need it to do is so that they don't have to worry about Combat or like any of the mechanical things, because someone can do it. I'm playing a druid. I can be a frontline if I need to. I can heal, I can do damage. I can do a little bit of everything, depending on how we take my spells that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that that's a really important thing for us and our dichotomy in our like Is dichotomy the right word but like in our, in our group, in our decisions, is the fact that we Know as a group that we have players that aren't as experienced and we have two people who have DM'd we've played what Way more sessions than we probably want to admit. Yeah, so like for us, it's a little bit more on us, and I think that's how a lot of new tables are, because there's a lot of people looking to get into DND and we mentioned it on our last podcast. Boulders gate just opened that floodgates for us.
Speaker 2:And like so has, like the critical roles and the dimension 20s and the not another DND podcast. All those, by having these like prolific people, are Especially showing the role play aspect because they're all professionally trained in trained improv comedic actor. So you want to give those people who are trying to get into it that opportunity. So it's not, you're not gonna, your DM's not gonna be Matt Mercer or Brennan Lee Mulligan.
Speaker 1:You're not gonna have somebody at that level whose only thing is DND to where they can spend those 40-hour weeks just building and like even for people that are coming, like Myself, for example, like I struggle to find DM's who've DM'd as many campaigns as I have, because it's such a small group, it's a lot of the time in the group it's well, sorry, buddy, it's your turn to be the DM. No one really steps forward and wants to be that DM character and I really didn't have a choice because I was the person that wanted to start convincing my friends to play. So you have to be able to run the game and I've made so many mistakes and even watching them I'm like wow, that's crazy. And like I went to an improv school. I'm still growing, but like to find actual good DMs who have had that experience is really, really challenging and that's part of why I wanted to do this is so that we could kind of have a discussion with multiple people I know who have DMed that I've either played with or I've played under.
Speaker 1:That I've really enjoyed and even meet some new people, because it is a very small community of dungeon masters, and creating those opportunities for new players to kind of learn how to play and helping each other grow. That's. That's really where we're at with boulders gate, because I know I have the challenge of. I went to my work the other day and I was talking about DND and I had like nine people come up to me and they're like, oh my God, I want to get into it. I played boulders gate but I don't know a DM and I'm sitting here like myself as some the only person my work who's ever been a DM and I'm like I can't take all of these people. I want to, but even just to teach one of them to be a DM would take me hours and hours.
Speaker 2:One of the like. This is one of those things of they're not great, the modules are not the best, because the modules are never going to be what's fun. Like you're going to have your module and you're going to start it and you're going to read it and you're going to learn all the pieces to it, but then a player is going to be like but I want to do this other thing.
Speaker 1:Rolling with the, rolling with the different, like I almost jokingly will call it like the abuse of the players, as it is like the whole purpose of being a DM your players are going to be like. So you know that thing that the book says nothing about? Yeah, you know that giant worm. I'm going to put a mind sash on him so that he becomes intelligent, communicating, being. What is a giant purple worm going to do when he can think and reason? I don't know. I have to make that up in five seconds and that's challenging because I don't want to just be like, no, it fails, you can't put it on him.
Speaker 2:That's boring A lot of time for like, especially because of Baldur's Gate and how. All you're learning in Baldur's Gate is the like mechanics You're not learning. Oh, this is how I play a character. Your character is like in that game is literally nobody, they're just a body realistically, and the only characters are the NPCs. And those NPCs have like scripted responses, which is because it's a game. They can't have them being AI dynamic. But so for any new player, they're not going to have that right now, especially the DM side of figuring this stuff out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it's. It's going to be challenging because Wizards helped make Baldur. It's a phenomenal game. From what I've heard, I haven't got the opportunity to play it yet because I've been preparing for our campaign, but it is a very, very challenging. Rule of like. I was explaining someone how tabletop works and how being a DM works who played Baldur's and they're like well, I want to lead a campaign for my friends. That's it's going to be a lot of work to kind of take that stepping stone into being a DM. And for me, like description is key. Like armor classes being static. I don't personally like walls having static checks. I don't like that either. I want it to be like you're looking at this guy. If his leather armor is tattered and beaten from years of being worn, that's going to give him maybe an AC boost of like seven, not 10. Like it's it's not going to be completely useless, but it's also not going to be perfect.
Speaker 2:And for AC is one of the things. This is a monster type I want to include, I'm planning to include on a campaign I'm working on, but it's an enemy whose armor actively breaks throughout the combat because it's an ancient like goal one. With this old armor. That's really thick armor but it's been sitting there for 200 years so you hit it with a big axe, a chunks falling off of it like it took the hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's almost kind of dull when you have like this really veteran warrior who puts on his armor after years of not touching it and he walks out with plate mail that's giving him a plus 13, but it hasn't been touched or maintained in like 20, 30 years. That thing's going to be rusty Now like dragon scale, as long as there's not like pieces that have fallen off of it and you don't describe it as like pieces have fallen off dragon scale, like give a little more benefit because dragon scales don't decompose. So like I'm forgiving with some of them. But like leather armor, plate mail, like stuff like that, it's going to break down over time.
Speaker 2:Especially if you're using it every like as players like obviously it sucks having to buy your big heavy armor, especially if you're a tank. So I always go with the like. You can maintain it on your own. If you have the tools, yeah. But if you're just, you know, a guy who's a fighter, who's like whatever, my armor don't matter. All that matters is magic items and swords, and you know you buy three swords so you can use all three. Then if you're not paying attention to your armor, your armor is eventually going to give out on you. You're getting constantly battered by goblins and whatever else.
Speaker 1:Your armor is not going to be just punky dory sitting there like, yep, I'm still great and I love in combat the idea of armor breaking, and I'm never going to be like out of the blue, all of a sudden you're hit by an arrow and your armor shatters. That's. That's dull, but definitely if you're talking to your players. It's like you guys have been traveling for months through frozen tundra. You've been traveling in this barren desert, sand blasting you in the face and you're wearing leather armor and then you get to the next town and somebody slashes you. It might go through that armor. Like we're going to have that conversation and I think it's a fun optional rule that can add some flavor to your combat and it makes it so your combat isn't just well, I bought the best armor.
Speaker 2:I am golden now, like you're. If even like historically if you look at armors, those armors aren't cheap and they're not cheap to keep All of that big, heavy stuff that is going to be the sort of like if you know you're 18 and 20s in AC needs to be taken care of, it needs to be maintained, or else it's just going to fall apart and the the other thing is, like you mentioned, those bait like buying that perfect set of armor.
Speaker 1:Once players kind of have that perfect set of armor it gets really dull, especially combat, because basically nothing can hit you unless you're coming against things that negate armor, and that feels unsatisfying to me. So personally I I know a lot of DMs and I have been the DM that adds status effects as a damage type, like exhaustion, and the first time a new player is going to experience a monster that is giving you exhaustion points, that's going to be scary.
Speaker 2:And it's like you want to let your tanks feel like tanks. Right, you don't want your person spent 500 gold on their heavy play armor to be just getting smacked around Like you don't want to be that paladin who has a 20 AC and the DM said well, I can't hit the paladin. So I'm going to bump everything's bonus Because it's unsatisfying for the paladin who wants to be your big tank and it's the most frustrating experience for everyone else at that table. But as soon as you add those other damages like, oh well, this, you're getting beaten up, even if you're not like bleeding and taking actual damage from it.
Speaker 1:You're getting tired by it and like I have special biomes that I use, like one of my, one of my friends, who I'm hoping to get on here at some point swamps we don't go and swamps swamps are absolutely never. I'm not stepping foot into that swamp unless you force me to. But like one of the ones that we talked about is, we did a campaign in a crimson forest. We created this whole biome called the crimson forest and we had these crimson dire wolves Dire wolves aren't that scary, and it was a late game campaign.
Speaker 1:Everybody's like ha ha, I'm just going to smack on the wolves because it's going to be really hard for them to hit me. But one of them hit them and what they didn't realize was that every one of these wolves had venom on its teeth and its claws and so it just put bleed on them. So like, yeah, our wizard had a robe that let him teleport to dodge, and our paladin had the greatest magical armor that we could find, and so he had like an AC of like 22,. But it hit him with a 23. And he just started gushing blood and then he, for the first time in a long time of combat, he had to actually be afraid of something which was not normal, and it wasn't something that was massive like a giant boss. It was a mundane, everyday creature with the normal step blocks. It just had this effect, which gave it that little edge to make the encounter feel more devastating, and with like, especially with like, high AC characters, you can do the well.
Speaker 2:I'm going to just throw saving throws, but that also feels like cheap of well, I couldn't hit you, so I'm going to hit you which, yes, those saving throws are important. Like you, it's a good way to like keep your party balanced, of well. Yeah, your paladin has a 20 AC. He doesn't have a high dexterity though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, throw a fireball. The thing that I actually find kind of funny, though, is like the monster manual makes mistakes. I, as a young, as a very young DM like not having much experience at all threw five shadows at a party, and if I was like a shadow has a half a challenge rating. They're super easy. My party's going to clean them up, no problems asked. That is not what happened. They are immune to everything, and I didn't pay attention to those immunities and I TPK'd a level five party with literally a challenge rating of three, which shouldn't happen.
Speaker 2:But it does, Especially with the challenge rating system. It's so unlike optimized of this is actually accurate. You have stuff like that where it's I can't remember exactly what the card, the creature is it's invisible and it can push things really well. So one a trap and I believe it's a pre-made dungeon is just a hallway with holes on the ends, Full of these creatures and like it doesn't matter what level your party is, you can't see them. They're just going to shove you and they're going to keep shoving you until you die.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think they're like a CR one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like people don't pay attention to the fact that those things are dangerous. It's almost why, like for late game characters, I actually have brought back a couple of times like the first, second and third edition old rules surrounding undead where, like, if a skeleton touches you, it can rip 60 years from your character. Like that doesn't matter to elves, but if you have a human in your campaign, oh my God, I just got touched and lost most of my lifespan.
Speaker 2:This is a piece that was in older editions that they've cut because it was kind of dumb and no one was a big fan, which I kind of thought was really interesting, because intellect devourers still do it, but they don't do the full effect. It used to be if you hit like zero in a stat, you died. You have no intelligence, you literally have no mind, you can't live. You have zero strength. You are able to hold your body up and different creatures could eat at that. So your 100 HP fighter had 20 strength or 20 con. That zombie is going to hit him and knock off two con.
Speaker 1:And the the one that was really bad was ghosts. Ghosts could strip away permanent hit points. That was scary, like I walked out of a session in three five that I played and, mind you, I went back to three five and I got hit by this ghost and I went to what the heck? And I had to play the rest of the campaign out with five hit points because he ripped 30 away from me and that was terrifying 3-5 combat monsters were brutal, though, because they expected you to optimize.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of glad that we're not in that place anymore. But like when you get level 20 characters if you kind of read through the DM handbook I'm pretty sure it's in they talk about what each level of character is supposed to be in terms of like society. Like, once you hit level 6, you're like a well-known folk hero. By the time you're hitting like 18-20, you're revered as a god. So like, tossing that occasional old rule that is crippling and terrifying back in makes the fights feel rewarding. It makes you feel like you're actually going to help towards something.
Speaker 2:Especially in like later levels, after like level 12-13, there's a reason. All like we're going back to Baldur's Gate again. It ends at like level 12. You can't get above level 12 because after that you're just like essentially a god. You have spells that can just wipe the board of everything. So it's not interesting to play at that point in standard 5e with no homeroo, nothing special. But as soon as you introduce those things that can either propagate themselves and create more monsters on the midst of a battle or can like hit something that nothing else can, it keeps the players from just being like well, I'm level 20, nothing gets in my way.
Speaker 1:And the thing that's challenging for me is with new combat, I kind of struggle to get those status effects explained well because there's so few of them. There's like fatigue, there's exhaustion, there's bleed, but like describing bleed is just like the creature bites you, the wound doesn't close, it continues to drip down your face and it starts to rush faster and faster. Like I can describe that exhaustion. You all of a sudden, after having the creature grab you and envelop you into them, you slowly feel the energy leaving your body as you crumble towards the ground, barely able to move under your own weight. I can do those descriptions because I have experience having to do them and having like improv practice.
Speaker 1:But I kind of miss the old, brutal monsters because like if a spirit touched you all of a sudden, you saw your hands shrivel, you felt the life being pulled from you as the cold depths come towards you and you're losing yours off your life. But they gave us descriptions which I really kind of miss and like the undead were scary, which is why having a cleric was a great thing, because just being able to evaporate undead was so important in later levels and that's where those abilities come from. But they're not important these days.
Speaker 2:Unless you like, especially for like clerics and stuff who have these abilities to counteract it right now in like 5E, especially turn undead is just a very specific ability. It's not a devastating ability, it's just a very specific one Turn undead used to be like how you got out of those bad situations.
Speaker 2:You used to need it to survive, but now it's like well, all clerics have it, but no one really uses that ability too often, because the undead aren't scary when seeing a literal corpse walking at you, intent on murdering you. That should not be a whatever, it's just another. It's just another wolf.
Speaker 1:And I think honestly part of that is also pop culture. We see zombies and stuff like that and all of these horror movies, so we're kind of desensitized to it. Versus when D&D was originally coming out, those things weren't popularized. I mean, there was, like Frankenstein's monster, which is really old You've got the old vampire stories. But a lot of these spirits that were made in D&D and made into monsters. They were new ideas, like, for example, one that's very rarely talked about the bag man. Where did that thing come?
Speaker 2:from, I think the bag man's more recent though, but, like D&D, lost that sense of like these creatures who are just intimidating no matter where you are, like a creature that no one ever sees. That I want, I would love to do a campaign with. It's hard to do. Once you know about it, though, is the false hydra, where it sings a song and everything just forgets about whatever it consumed. So you walk into a tavern. There's a picture of the, of the barkeeper and his wife and the bar. If you ask the barkeeper about his wife, he's like I don't have a wife. Who are you talking about? And you, because you're not under the full effects of it, because you never were, there are just left like what's going on in this town and the false the false hydra is one of my favorite monsters.
Speaker 1:It's a very unique idea because it's not a hydra either and the hydra is the amount of times I see the actual like intriguing hydras from 3-5 and before mentioned, versus just a normal hydra as stated in the base monster manual, not even the expanded monster manuals. I don't even see the base hydra anymore, like false hydras, fire hydras, like there were so many hydras and those things were scary and I never see them anymore. It makes it makes combat a little more boring when you're always fighting goblins.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that's part of not necessarily pop culture. But like Lord of the Rings and these, like big names, what do you see? People fighting orcs, goblins, maybe zombies sometimes, but zombies always end up going into that horror genre where and with with your players.
Speaker 2:like there's only so many times that you can kill a kobold and it be inspiring and creative, and that's why I wanted to lump this part little talk, I mean, we'll talk more on monsters later but specifically talking about it in combat, like there's only so much room for creativity if we're consistently using the same monsters, and that's something that we will we'll touch on another time even just mechanically, if you're looking at it, if you're just fighting the one or two types of monsters, you're gonna have such a boring combat experience, as opposed to having something like a it's a demi-litch, I think where it's just a floating skull that can cast spells, or like a beholder yeah, like you don't see beholders, even though they're like poster child of D&D, and beholders are such a devastating enemy on the battlefield honestly, I want a campaign where Xanathar goes after somebody like that would be so much fun like a beholder is always going to be a one view party, but that's because of how devastating one beholder can be.
Speaker 2:Your magic, your wizards don't matter. They can't cast spells anymore.
Speaker 1:It's looking at you like these, granny can only look at one of them with that eye at a time. So, like if you have multiple magic castors spread out so you can't be seen by it. But like there, there's so much more thought into these more explicit monsters and probably one of the best ways to do it is I know they sell now they sell the D&D books on a subscription on D&D Beyond. I know there's a lot of controversy behind it, so if you don't want to go that way, the books are now sold in bundles so, like you can get a bunch of the monster books and read through all the different monsters. Even if you're just skimming, you're gonna find something new and interesting.
Speaker 2:It's always more interesting if you look at something you see. You see something that looks cool in for a fight, throw it in there somewhere.
Speaker 1:Find a way to loop it in, like the false hide or find a way to put it in someone figure out where they live, to like, don't just like, toss like, for example, don't toss like a red dragon into an ocean. That makes no sense. That being said, in the 80s I think it was, there was this thing called dragon magazine that was made by, that was made by wizards of the coast and it describes the color wheel for dragons, and so there are purple dragons, are orange dragons, are yellow dragons, and they're explained in this really old text and there's actually youtubers out there who now have gone through and updated those to fifth edition. Like they're out there, the materials out there, and they're interesting and they're unique like dragons.
Speaker 2:Yes, dragon, all dragons are gonna be dragons, but some of those water dragons, especially the ones that can shoot, water breath and stuff yeah you can make one of those combat so interesting. I've seen a camp. I've. It was one of my, my brother's campaign, but they were fighting a water dragon in a combat where they were retrieving something from the bottom of the ocean yeah so that dragon wasn't just like flying at them, it was swimming towards them it just just like dragon turtles.
Speaker 2:Dragon turtles do the same thing and it's such a different experience with a classic monster of a dragon, but now you're underwater against this dragon who's chasing you and the.
Speaker 1:Because you're underwater, all of your stuff works different and, like I think I can't remember if it's the orange or the yellow dragon, when's the last time you fought an orange or yellow dragon? They're a typical sea dragon. Not often they breathe salt, like that is so cool of the idea of just this creature flying overhead and just spitting salt on you and crystallizing everything that's insane.
Speaker 2:Non-fire dragons are such a cool. Like image in the D&D movie that came out the other, like last year, there's a earth drag. It's like a black dragon. It's not a black dragon, but it's like a brown or something drag.
Speaker 1:So black was acid no, it's a, it's a black. Black was the there was in shone. In total there were three. There was a red dragon, a black dragon and then there was the stone dragon avatar which came from, I want to say, rise of Tiamat's book, which it's like a flashback seen into a big battle. You see this dragon flying over shooting, or that was actually an asset, that was a black was that?
Speaker 2:I said that was the earth one yeah, no, that was the black dragon that imagery of like something shooting earth out of its mouth into a battlefield fully changes the terrain, because it's not like fire which is going to hit and like disperse, it's going to build a wall. Now there's this new obstacle that both teams have to face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the only reason I remember that that was a drag black dragon specifically is both the dragons that they showed and they talked about in the D&D movie were named dragons from first edition. Nobody knows they exist. I'm a major dragon nerd. I've been working on a campaign that is focused around dragons so I've done research on the names dragons and nobody talks about them. They're in like one of them, the white dragon, and rise of Tiamat is a well known dragon, but they don't. Who's a more than ancient dragon and in the campaign when you fight him he doesn't even have spells. In first edition he had a spell list of 20 like that's so boring to just toss him against a normal white dragon and then use his name. It's almost disrespectful to the character. In my mind.
Speaker 2:Any ancient dragon give it spells yeah, give it something to be more than just a bigger dragon because what was cool about that dragon is he hangs in the snow and waits and he uses tunnel abilities when you have a dragon, especially even if it's like a fully homebrewed dragon, like there's a campaign that I've been paying attention to with the bad guy has a dragon as a pet, but this dragon is actually the like child of the real villain, who's another bigger dragon. And but these dragons aren't just like attacking with fire, like even basic elements. They're doing these weird, like when they hit something ages, so like they attack a town and you swatch a wall crumble to dust because this dragon breathed its time breath on it that's terrifying.
Speaker 1:It's just like the time was, or. I really like the idea that, like HP and like age and these things can be affected by combat and that they're not these static effects and you can lose hit points permanently. Because I'm sorry, if you're stabbed to clean through the chest unless you have actual like, if if you just go, what is it? Spare the dying, stabilize them and then take them back to a hospital, that's not going to be same, the same as a full restoration from a cleric. So like you're going to lose five hit points permanently. I'm sorry. Now, if you drink a health potion and it forces it to heal, that's fine. But if we're just stabilizing you and having you heal normally, I don't think that your hit points would come back permanently. It's nothing I've tried implementing yet but I like the idea.
Speaker 2:I like the idea but I think overall just makes it. It makes it so. I this is a piece I always thought, for combat is combat feels to separate, like you go into combat and you go out of combat and they're two different like worlds of the game. But let's say we're fighting and I take half my hit points or more, especially on the high level. I'm not gonna be walking out of that fight Just as the same as I walked into it with. And that's not just gonna be, oh well, I'm blood battered and bloody.
Speaker 1:It's going to be like, oh well, maybe I'm missing some fingers now for me when I really think about these ideas of how I want to run my combats. If I am, as an individual, bringing you down to like zero hit points, there's got to be ramifications and An optional rule. That I've seen on a lot of forms lately has been this idea that and I've been playing with the, the idea myself, I haven't found a good way to implement it where if you have major damage done to you, it doesn't heal unless you go and you seek out Help from a cleric or or a religious figure or a magical potion, and I like that idea that, like your body's not gonna naturally hear those or some of these wounds, like Long rest ain't gonna cut it.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, but isn't gonna heal you from getting like your heart ripped out or getting stabbed through the chest. No one is like Zorro from one piece, who takes the biggest sword across the chest and Fights the next day. Perfectly fine, pretty much now like you're gonna be not walking normally for a while.
Speaker 1:And I definitely think that that's kind of important to recognize is that optional rule is very interesting. I just don't know how to execute it yet and that's something that I'm playing with and I'd love to test In a campaign before I kind of publish the rules on it. My last kind of thing that I want to bring up is Combat ending. When combat ends it's just so boring and that's why I like that HP rules, because then Combat has ramifications that you're going to have to deal with later outside of combat. One of the reasons I like those static effects is, let's say, that you have exhaustion, exhaustion. Only tips takes away. Like a point per long rest or two points per long rest doesn't fully reset. So now you're gonna have to carry and lug your stuff Going that slow like, or you're gonna sit down and you're gonna collapse in your chair at the bar, like.
Speaker 2:Then it has Impact on the rest of the game combat almost needs to end, not necessarily when the hit points say it ends, but when the story says it, then so if you're in combat for 50 turns with you know whatever horde of enemies that's gonna get like Eventually they're going to get like bored or likes decided. This isn't worth it. So at some point it has to end, without necessarily the fight being over and the it's kind of a hard line to find because that's up to the player in players and the DM as to when they feel combat is right and it feels satisfying, because if you're fighting, you know a horde of goblins or something and they just go and screw it and walk away.
Speaker 1:That's really dissatisfying.
Speaker 2:But if you're, you know, in a big fight and they're getting battered down and you Both, group and they end up being like this isn't worth our fight, which is a normal thing like with like Animals in the wild will they'll be fighting for a while. The prey usually he's just jumping out of the way and eventually the predator yeah, I'm not worth it. Yeah, and just is like Screw this, I'm going home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'd love to see a little bit more of that, and I think that comes back to the descriptive combat storytelling that we were talking about before. So I think I think we covered a lot. We're definitely gonna do one on kind of monsters and like good ways to use them, because I feel like there's a lot left To talk about with that. If people are interested in continuing the discussion, check out our website, check out our discord. There will be groups in there for you to connect with and yeah.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate everybody for listening today and stay tuned for the next one. You, you, you, you you.