Never, ever, forget that Dragons can fly! Keeping a Dragon grounded trivializes the encounter!
@donniejefferson9554
8 ай бұрын
Its one of those things where the dragon has to attack with claws and bites but the dm for some reason then thinks that the dragon wont leave melee range and take an opportunity attack. It genuinely shouldn't care about opportunity attacks. Its a dragon. It has scales and an ass ton of hp. A little sword doesn't bother it
@Treebohr
8 ай бұрын
And some dragons have a swim speed! It can drop into murky water and be unseen as well as out of melee.
@Calebgoblin
8 ай бұрын
That's the worst britishizing of a word I've ever seen But u right
@edvingjervaldsaeter3659
8 ай бұрын
Have a dragon pick up a player, then make it drag them through a Spike Growth spell, Super-Smash-Bros Riddley-Syle, just a suggestion! : )
@VinceValentine
8 ай бұрын
And if you're thinking "Well how are the melee classes going to hurt it?" You should obviously tune the encounter for the party. Give them a flying broomstick or something.
@Zixor_
8 ай бұрын
For monster recharge abilities, I have a solution that might help. Roll the recharge die at the end of the monster’s turn and make it a public roll. I find that I’m more likely to remember to roll at the end of a monster’s turn, maybe because I skim their available actions every time their turn occurs so it’s fresh in my mind. Plus, your players will anticipate the roll and can remind you. As an added bonus, making this an open roll and giving players a round to act before the recharged ability gets used again enables more tactical gameplay.
@RichWoods23
8 ай бұрын
I don't think the PCs should know that an ability has recharged unless the monster is definitely going to use it the next round (eg, describe the red dragon taking in a deep breath at the end of its turn). Just write the letter R on the stat block once the recharge roll has been made, then cross it out the next time the attack is used.
@dziooooo
8 ай бұрын
@@RichWoods23I disagree, I think it is a great idea to let the players know that the big hit is coming. You'll get them to rethink their strategy, to move more on the battlefield, to concentrate fire, to reach for consumable items they forgot they had. And they are not encouraged to always play it safe, considering the monster can get the recharge power back at any time. When they know it's NOT coming? They'll go for a risky play, or decide it's safe to use a turn on a utility spell instead of continuing to focus on damage. I've been doing it for a while and at my table it almost always makes the encounter better when I let the players know about recharge!
@RichWoods23
8 ай бұрын
@@dziooooo What do you actually do to indicate that a power has recharged? Do you just tell them the result of the die roll or is there something always detectable that you can describe to them? If there isn't something visible, then how on earth could they realistically know that the monster has got an ability back?
@dziooooo
8 ай бұрын
@@RichWoods23 Of course not, I don't just tell them "great, I rolled a 6!" If I'm rolling recharge, it means the monster already used the ability at least once. The players know what to expect and I can just refer to how I described the previous attack. The red dragon takes a deep breath and the air suddenly feels dry and scorching hot. The mind flayer's eyes glow and faint telepathic pressure fills your mind. Yellow caustic vapor rises from between the plates in iron golem's armor, making your eyes sting.
@RichWoods23
8 ай бұрын
@@dziooooo That's exactly what I said, yet you said you disagreed! Bloody hell...
@HorizonOfHope
8 ай бұрын
It’s not forgetting but seriously: move your monsters. Movement is exciting. Opportunity attacks aren’t as bad as you would think - or just give your monsters abilities that allow them to ignore them. e.g. Slippery. The creature moves cautiously. Opportunity attacks against it are made with disadvantage.
@romannadolishny2423
8 ай бұрын
I've added a rule where making an opportunity attack opens you up to an opportunity attack from adjacent creatures.encourages tactics and movement
@jcblebowski
8 ай бұрын
I have found that the more I have been provoking opportunity attacks from my players, the more they are willing to risk every now and then.
@anders630
8 ай бұрын
Yes DMs that play their monsters bad strategically makes everything into unexciting meat bags.
@The-0ni
8 ай бұрын
Just literally use more goblins (MM) or Swashbucklers (MMOM). Bonus action disengage. Works as long as nobody takes the Sentinel feat! Oh wait… Edit: In all seriousness Sentinel makes moving around a massive problem. Instead of an ability like “always had disadvantage on attacks” where theres still a chance sentinel wrecks your plans; just use Shocking Grasp. Most PCs wear metal armor which gives advantage for Shocking Grasp. It kills all reactions from that PC so no opportunity attacks or counterspells or held actions.
@piecewisefunctioneer
8 ай бұрын
I hate that attacks of opportunities are only when you are leaving a players threat range. It should be Everytime you move in, through or out
@r4nd0m1zer2
8 ай бұрын
I don't know if this would drastically overload Kelly's editing duty, but it would have been really nice to see some 10second clips of in game examples from your Drakkenheim campaign. Not of how you forget things but how you remember things and incorporate it to the live game without causing a fuss
@AlexS_983
8 ай бұрын
I forget how many attacks enemies get pretty often, especially low level monsters who somehow get multiple attacks. One thing I am better about now but which used to get me all the time is remembering to make my enemies speak in the middle portion of combat as well instead of just the beginning and end
@ArvelDreth
3 ай бұрын
Low level monsters get multiattack usually because they're meant to compete with the fact that they will be against 3 - 5 enemies at once lol.
@jessy5241
8 ай бұрын
It’s always helpful when the whole table works together to remind each other of things. As a player, I’ll gently remind another spellcaster they need a concentration check or I’ll remind my DM what effect is in play on the monster. As a DM, my players will work together to do the same thing (especially with homebrew at play). It heightens the fun and actually helps the players work together both in and out of character.
@TheHogan883
8 ай бұрын
Agreed, and I often remind players/DM of something they missed even if it's detrimental to the party. It feels like cheating if I realize something was missed and I don't say anything.
@dominikgose2609
5 ай бұрын
I think its also easy to cross this line into being the rules lawyer guy if taken to the extreme
@michaelramon2411
8 ай бұрын
Regarding setting player expectations, if you use description to set something up as properly terrifying and the PCs are able to defeat it fairly easily, there's a decent chance that the players' reaction will be relief rather than anticlimactic disappointment. Especially if the monster continues to be creepy after its defeat - melting away into salt, or its severed limbs continuing to twitch.
@thepaintedtrolls5631
8 ай бұрын
I really needed this. I just ran a very complicated encounter designed to really challenge my lvl 4 players and their two lvl 3 NPC sidekicks. I had homebrewed a 5e monster version of the 3.5e Ocular Adept prestige class (humanoid paladins for beholders). They fought two of them and their five gazers, but they also had a fairly strong NPC shadow monk character with them for story reasons. This was one of the most difficult encounters to plan and balance in my GMing career and it went mostly well but I was still beating myself up for forgetting things and for messing up certain traits. For example, I was rolling attacks rolls for the gazers eye rays for the first half of the encounter and still having them roll the DC checks, so I massively nerfed the gazers for half the fight. I also forgot the main goal of the ocular adepts halfway through as the conditions kept piling onto them. It was a lot, but this video made me feel a lot better
@Albatross0913
8 ай бұрын
Best quest in the elder scrolls, respect
@robertnelson4460
8 ай бұрын
Almost every single one of my encounters has some form of lair action that represents the environment. It can either impact both sides or impact only the players. It makes the environment the players are in as an essential character in the fight, and forces them to choose to fight or flee within that environment. I had them fighting the mook mobs in an underwater dungeon once where there were strong tidal forces. It caused impacts every tound as the current rushed in and rushed out. One time the tank failed their save and got pulled out from the entire group and into a swarm of monsters that just pummeled on him, which forced the team to adapt their tactics to the situation, to save their ally. A routine combat they had settled into fighting one mob at a time suddenly required them to pivot and try to handle 10 mobs at the same time. It was good fun and put that threat of defeat to mooks which they out classed into mind, making the encounter more rewarding.
@petetheelder195
8 ай бұрын
For status effects some one in our group bought one of those boxes of colored plastic condition rings that have various status effects written on them and each is a different color. If you are stunned, poisoned, restrained, concentrating, etc. you put a ring on the miniature and take it off when the condition ends.
@dziooooo
8 ай бұрын
If you don't have access to actual status rings, improvised ones taken from milk jugs and coke bottles also work great! Ask the whole group to keep any they have, in various colors, and in a few weeks you'll have a rainbow collection. And then it's just deciding that red means "on fire", yellow means "frightened" and black means "blinded".
@TheHogan883
8 ай бұрын
@@dziooooo Yes. I love low cost solutions like this. Being able to keep cost down is a good way to make the game more inclusive. Also, it's just a clever solution.
@piecewisefunctioneer
8 ай бұрын
For missing monster turns I get around it by grouping initiative. If I have 7 minions I will have 2 goes. The first will have 4 of them and the second initiative has 3. This not only makes "less turns" needed to be remembered but also stops the monsters turn taking forever. I recommend grouping Upton a max of 5.
@phvieira256
8 ай бұрын
I this too. But only minions. Having 3 CR 8 acting one after another is sometimes dangerous
@TheOmegaXicor
8 ай бұрын
In before you forget which minions are the three and which are the four as your players move them around like faireground cups.
@piecewisefunctioneer
8 ай бұрын
@@TheOmegaXicor no method is perfect
@thecornergoblin4532
8 ай бұрын
I'm really happy this was brought up. I've been kicking myself for a couple of weeks for accidently letting my players absolutely cheese the boss of one of their backstories with Bane and Bestow Curse and by forgetting legendary resistances/actions. Thanks for making me remember everyone makes these mistakes ❤
@ryangentry2003
8 ай бұрын
Try running Tiamat with 5 separate breath attacks and remembering which ones have been used and which ones have been recharged
@fuzzygreentiger
8 ай бұрын
Grab 5 coloured die, set them on the table near the "mini" when they are used.
@jeremiahpohl3596
7 ай бұрын
Use all 5 at once always >:) In all seriousness though that is probably a bit tedious
@MDPrepper
8 ай бұрын
The best campaign I ever ran was back in college when I ran the campaign with a co-DM. I was the lead DM as it was my overall world and storyline but my college roommate was the Co-DM. He ran all NPCs that the party encountered both out of combat and in combat and if we had no NPCs with the party, he would generally control the larger or more intelligent monsters/enemies during combat while I made ruling on the combat and introduced effects like changing weather or the arrival of additional monsters to the combat. We could even split the part and run sessions in separate rooms as he always knew where I wanted to go with the session but respected player options and responded accordingly. Co-DMing is something I've rarely heard about, but it works well and should be utilized more often.
@gaelickledoher4773
8 ай бұрын
thank you for reminding all of us what we "always" forget. This is so true about all the points you mentioned. When there is a combat, there are so many things we tend to forget and yes we do need to keep track not to forget anything...but to forget the least :). I particularly enjoyed what you mentioned about the minis. Yes these are great to represent the monsters and enemies, but remember that we usually do not have one mini for each encounter and so we need to use again and again what we have in hand to represent what the characters are fighting. And so DMs need to emphasize on what the players do not see. A full description of what is coming to us is so important. Just as important as if we were doing theater of the mind. The one thing that you forgot to mention, and that I think is super important: make the enemies speak!!! Yes, it seems so weird to say that, but remember that when you are talking about intelligent enemies, they are going to speak during combat. Whether this is to cast spells, call out minions for help, or just challenge the characters and interact with them. It is so important to make the battle feel real.
@ClintEPereira
Ай бұрын
33:31 I had the opposite experience where I didn't plan for a combat encounter but one of my players ended up destroying something that pissed everyone in the building off. I ended that session early to get my battlemap, npc stats, etc. together for next time and it ended up being the best encounter of the campaign, culminating with them just barely saving the life of some rando astronomy intern who ended up becoming the party's adopted NPC.
@dndhydrate
8 ай бұрын
I have to say one of my favorite encounters is introducing an NPC that had odd mannerisms that was questioned by other allies and when combat started post a doublecross scenario, the players were terrified and surprised when an intellect devourer burst out from that NPC's head. It nearly killed a player that failed a save against Psychic Lance(unconscious condition) a turn before the reveal too. What a memorable encounter tho. It was against the Intellect Devoured NPC a souped up Hyrdroloth with some extra spells (like Psychic Lance) and a Froghemoth. It was fun how the Hydroloth used Control Water to flood the cavern the PCs were attempting to rest in, while the Froghemoth and other swimming minions were hunting them. It was a mechanically complex encounter to put together, but it was worth running for sure.
@PresidentMystry
5 ай бұрын
I used to always forget about concentration checks. I find that having concentration rings around minis made remembering that much easier. For that reason, as a player, I always tell my DM I need to make a concentration check when applicable because it’s just one less thing for them to worry about Edit: I just remembered something I forgot when doing a combat as a DM lol. The party was fighting a smothering carpet, animated armor, and flying swords in a forbidden section of a library, and one of the PCs used some effect that blinded the swords and armors and carpet, I forget what effect it was lol. But I didn’t even realize until after the combat was over that each of them had blind sight. It was the funniest thing when I realized too because I told the party immediately as I realized and went, “I mean obviously they have blind sight, they don’t even have eyes.”
@Belagarth1
8 ай бұрын
First boss encounter that my players came across was an Annis Hag in her Swamp/mountain lair. I forgot about the difficult terrain, the legendary resistance that I gave her (which got her hit with Bane) and I had a artificer in the party and I accidentally made one of his robots stupid overpowered. Lots of learning opportunities there
@solar4planeta923
8 ай бұрын
Great, humble and fun video. Sometimes I do great, sometimes I really mess up. Recently I let the dice tell me to use the same wandering encounter twice in a row, and regretted it. I had to remind myself "I'm the DM! Not the dice!" Keeping everything interesting and fun, leaning into the RP and drama is when the table comes alive for me. Rules are pretty critical in combat, but after decades of play I have most of those down pretty well. Totally agree with the abbreviated denouement on some fights. Not everything has to be rolled.
@mini-paintingpapa
6 ай бұрын
I was running a massive siege combat- the heroes had to choose how to spend time preparing (each hero chose an action from a table I generated, and their choices had an impact on the survivability during the fight). All waves had been repelled and now it was time for the final boss, a massive Orc riding an armored Allosaurus. I painted a scene of it tearing through the battered gate, even eating one of the Orc Lieutenants (to show how awesome he was). Just then, my bard reminded me that he placed Oil on the spot my model was literally standing. I made all the rolls, rewound time- now the Dino blasted through, slipped on the oil, crushing the lieutenant. Then the Dino and boss took damage (since they both rolled sub 5). And the party essentially nuked them both as they lay on the ground, covered in oil. It was hilariously disastrous.
@max_2da_max336
8 ай бұрын
Oh gosh, where to begin? Magic Resistance has been a big one (party has Wizard *and* Bard, Polymorphs for Days), Mirror Image and Blink for my less beefy Humanoids (especially when the 5th+ Level Monk gets 4 successive hits and Stunning Strike queued up), Burrow Speed! Oh God, Burrow Speed! Had a Xorrn Ambush planned but *fully* left each Xorrn out in the open after each turn (planned on having them burrow after each attack and Ambush-and-Hide throughout the Combat). Gosh, of course there's Hydra Heads (classic, had the PCs going through a desert, occasional Ambush from within the sand, when they got wise and started slicing, I fully forgot to add heads), "yeah the attacks stop" 💀 God sometimes I feel like the master of planning beautiful combats that go the way of the Homer Simpson Grill 😅
@JeffPom
8 ай бұрын
Again - the natural interaction makes this better - love seeing Monty’s reactions! (The laugh at the beginning.) Makes it less stiff. Go. With the flow! :)
@ianfrazier9896
8 ай бұрын
Thanks for this video! As someone who’s been DMing for about 15 years and still regularly makes some of these mistakes, I often beat myself up over it. But if it’s happening even to you guys who DM *professionally*, it makes me feel a bit better. :)
@KogasaGaSagasa
8 ай бұрын
I don't play D&D anymore but, if you want to have multiple monsters with legendary actions, consider giving a group of legendary enemies a pool of legendary actions. For example, when it comes to that group of adventurers, instead of giving them individual reactions, it'd be great if they have group legendary actions of 5, with caveat that if they used one, that one cannot be used consecutively (ie if there's a legendary action to blink step, the said adventurer can't blink step again and again). It would be a memorable fight, especially if they had legendary actions that reflect their group's deeds, legends, and teamwork. ... This sounds like a fun idea. I should make a thing for this.
@Stray_GM
8 ай бұрын
Oh, that actually sounds really cool for something like a hag coven.
@JKSSubstandard
8 ай бұрын
How I track initiative that helps with a lot of these issues is index cards. Every PC gets a card with their ac and saves on it as a reminder. Every enemy gets a card with ac, hp, saves and each action they have available. The cards are easy to prep, just make them for each enemy they might encounter each session. They keep you from having to go to the book or some other reference in combat. And it gives you constant reminders of important info
@Calendyr
8 ай бұрын
You are right! Forgetting someone's trun happens a lot despite the use of extensive trackers... it's so weird!
@serahcornelia
8 ай бұрын
Just started watching - or more: listening - to your videos about two weeks ago. Even listened to your stuff from years ago! Got interested in D&D after playing Baldur's Gate 3. You got my attention via DND Beyond the Drakkenheim book which got just released. Anyroads, just want to say here and now: you two are awesome together! Please stay great friends together forever - the combination of both of you together make your videos so great! Keep up your good work!
@thundyrcat
8 ай бұрын
It feels like you were watching my last 10 sessions and you are calling me out!! LOL! You guys rock! Thank you! I am waiting patiently for my Sebastian Crowe's to ship! I am so excited for it!
@seangray8585
8 ай бұрын
With effects and conditions, one thing I do that helps me remember with a caster class that has a turn-ticking damage is to roll the damage in the caster turn, then apply it if the conditions are still met. It runs into the problem of "does this actually tick at the beginning or end of the victim's turn?"--but I at least have the damage queued up to remind me to check.
@seangray8585
8 ай бұрын
That said, I had one combat where I forgot my striker character could fly and shoot the enemy from the sky... and he very nearly died in close combat against things that kept knocking him down and getting attacks of opportunity when he stood back up--when I made the fact that he could fly a key part of why he left his childhood home and became an adventurer. I made up for it towards the end of the encounter by grappling goblins and flying up to drop them into dangerous terrain, since none of us were successfully hitting them in the first place.
@njflyersfan74
8 ай бұрын
Watching this before work only had time for half the video I’ll watch rest later tonight but I dm more than I play - my two things , embarrassingly to admit, sometimes I forget a held action a player announced earlier in the turn like “if the zombie moves near our healer I’ll attack it” and number two I forget an ability the monster has. As far as in general though I “eat the mistake “ so to speak as the dm. And this is usually to my players benefit more than it’s not.
@zing_zippers
7 ай бұрын
One of the more memorable encounters for me as a player was on a cliff's edge. Not super tall, but enough for me to know that my monk wouldn't get hurt for more than 10 points. I was subclassed into rune knight, so I tackled the ogre off the cliff, taking him out of the combat completely.
@LoreFoundry
8 ай бұрын
As a player and a dungeon master. I have this advice for any DM. Practice, practice practice. You wont get it right the first time, or the 100th. Before your game, prep is over, spend 30 minutes before your game looking at your DM screen/sheet. If you don't have one, make one. Throw actions in combat, conditions, spell casting rules, and anything else you might use every single game. Quick example, your players constantly craft stuff, have the coats and times associated with crafting on your sheet. And advice for players, if your dm forgot, pass them a note or a message, dont interrupt whoever is speaking. Everyone wants to have fun, help each other out. If i as a DM can help a player with their actions mid combat, yall can remind me that i messed up. I had a player remind me that a monster forgot to make a saving throw on a following turn. Man, I gave him inspiration. Ez pz
@rooibosdragons
8 ай бұрын
Last year I promptly killed the party bard with a howler before the paladin reminded me we had skipped their turn. In that scenario we did rewind time, and the paladin of course flattened the remaining enemies. It became a pretty fun Schrödinger's tabaxi bard moment, as we basically played it as the bard seeing an alternate future 😅
@brencelionheart6837
8 ай бұрын
Ha I had a mimic ship for a pirate adventure I ran. It was crewed by various sea based creatures and the sails were a type of cloaker. One of the players got trapped below decks(in the stomach) digestive juices started flowing so one of them polymorphed into a t rex and chewed his way out.
@TLBainter
8 ай бұрын
For important calls that can sway the combat, I have the player who's asking about it look up a ruling and put their turn on hold, then move on to the next player. Gives them something to do and allows them to find a resource while the combat keeps rolling, that way I can stay engaged. For lesser things, definitely agree with just making a call and saying we'll come back to it again in the future.
@scottieapplseed
8 ай бұрын
Forgetting to lock focus during recording of a video about forgetting to do common things is priceless; the books on the back shelves look so crisp and amazing though especially that 100k plaque.
@stevenphilpott4294
8 ай бұрын
One thing you guys will never forget, is being awesome
@darkveritas1484
7 ай бұрын
I had an entire cave with goblins who were led by a bugbear that my party was potentially going to have to fight through to rescue an NPC. The Bard, who was a changeling, decided to utilise his changeling abilities, turned into a bugbear and intimidated the goblins at the cave entrance to take the party to their leader, and were able to negotiate the release of the NPC
@joeloftus6148
8 ай бұрын
This video further confirms my theory that Monty once bet someone he could mention "hypnotic pattern" in every video they make, lol
@JamesMacKenziePhoto
8 ай бұрын
I find most encounters don't go past five rounds. So for big fights with lots things to keep track of, I will script what the monsters will do for five rounds. That includes rolling to see if things recharge, plan which layer actions they will use, etc... If my players do something before the fight to change it, that's fine. It becomes a reference doc. But it usually gies OK, and it actually makes the fights move a bit faster.
@charlielewis3261
8 ай бұрын
Monty's laugh at 07:50 - so evil
@Mr_Maladroit
8 ай бұрын
I once forgot that a player had just taken their turn and tried giving them another. Somehow convinced myself that all the stuff they just did happened in the previous round.
@GrumpyGrobbyGamer
8 ай бұрын
Been there. Done all of those. I once let my group kill off a very dangerous legendary crocodile because it horribly failed a saving throw and they were so excited that I forgot that it got to make 2 saves a day that it failed the roll on. They still bring this one up.
@El-Comment-8-or
8 ай бұрын
Grognard here… I have always played with a smaller subset of rules from each edition of DnD. Because while we’d love to play a game where all these sophisticated rules are executed, but what is humanly possible always falls short. What I often do is say, for this session encumbrance will be important, and that will be the only time we worry about it. I’m currently playing Monster of The Week. It’s so much more fluid, rapid, and adaptable.
@disciple012
8 ай бұрын
Ugh... Forgetting someone's turn. I felt that. I did that so many times, and always with the same person.
@bryand7667
4 ай бұрын
"I have the token or the checkmark to remember, but then i forget to add the token or check the checkmark". My dude, it sounds like you need a checkmark to check off to ensure that you remember to check your checkmarks.
@WolfmanXD
6 ай бұрын
Literally just last week I forgot that the crimson countess had cunning actions, and ended her turn right next to the druid. The druid than proceeded to cast a 4th level inflict wounds for 30+ damage.
@ZachC-130
7 ай бұрын
I just print off a paper using bold, giant font.. "RECHARGE, LEGENDARY ACTIONS/SAVES, REQ MAGIC DMG," and i use that paper to track HP. Use condition rings on the minis to track conditions, have a player write the initiative on a whiteboard hung on the wall
@ArchielDiem
8 ай бұрын
Something I did in a recent session when I realized "I need to do something to set up that this guy is tough" I had him laugh when combat was iminent, exclaim how much he's been itching for a battle then had him punch a tree with the back of his fist, causing it to fall over. A bit cartoony/excessive lol, but it got the players to go "yo, that guy knocked over a tree in one punch! I'm not messing with him!" Which lead to some very creative combat decisions
@Evoker23-lx8mb
8 ай бұрын
My dm ran a homebrew monster that could sometimes generate a magic immunity shield. The dm forgot to give us the opportunity to figure out that the shield was a thing (a party full of spell casters). This isn’t throwing anyone under the bus, the dm did Eve fully realise he fucked up and gave us the opportunity to figure out the weakness.
@diegoseba12
8 ай бұрын
I'm a fairly new DM and while I haven't forgotten a player's turn (we play online) I still forget monster turns almost all the time lol
@eddarby469
8 ай бұрын
I almost always realize in my review of a session I forgot this and that, but then what about the stuff I don't even know or remember? Love the Strongholds & Followers and the Kingdoms & Warfare books on the shelf!
@mattg8262
8 ай бұрын
Nice hoodie Monty. I just got that same one for Christmas.
@johnfort68
8 ай бұрын
For monsters with recharge abilities, I roll the recharge right away (behind the screen, obviously) to see how long it takes to get it back. I make a note on the sheet I'm using to keep track of everything going on in that encounter. I don't think I've ever forgotten one yet, but there isn't video evidence one way or another. :)
@AscensionGod
8 ай бұрын
One time I was playing a sorcerer and I had just gotten my first instant kill spell. My party and I were sent to visit a mercenary group. I was sitting at the table and decided that my frog companion, whome I loved and was named Froggy, jumped on to the table. The mercenary boss chopped off Froggy's left legs. I cast my first ever instant kill spell and the Boss failed both saves and instantly died. I had just killed the boss of the main encounter of the week to avenge my frog companion's limbs. My DM was flabbergasted and didn't know what to do. So i ended up becoming the leader of a Mercenary band, but just ignored them and let them do what they want. Truly, one of my favorite moments in all of my games I have been a player in.
@TheOneNotTheOnly
8 ай бұрын
When my level two cleric did almost over 20 something damage to my monster first round with Guiding bolt 4/d6. I didnt remember that being so powerful. It was a killer roll too but man almost kissed the thing in one hit.
@BlueTressym
8 ай бұрын
"The story doesn't stop just because the swords are drawn," is a great motto!
@htenerf137
8 ай бұрын
What’s funny is I forget with a VTT way easier than anything else. It’s so easy to double hit the space bar or enter key and then have to go all the way back around to one persons turn.
@linkatronic
8 ай бұрын
I always forget to set the scene when running my combats. We use a VTT so I've tried to spend more prep time getting really good maps to offset my poor descriptions!
@TANSamuraiSmurf
8 ай бұрын
I’m digging the longer videos!
@Maverickstyg
8 ай бұрын
I laughed SO hard at the intro title card lasting for like 4 seconds too long 😂 love you guys
@KnicKnac
8 ай бұрын
I find myself as the one who remembers the concentration check for others yet don't want to interrupt the flow of combat. I remember for myself at least I try to. Lots of information intake happens during combat or leading up to combat
@mattdahm4289
8 ай бұрын
Thanks dudes!
@Jamesington
8 ай бұрын
Lich dance off: The lich agrees, raises a bunch of zombies and casts Otto's Irresistible Dance on them and the party
@rachelvalencia7112
5 ай бұрын
one of our DMs regularly give out inspiration to the player who volunteers to track all the initiatives (for the dm and players). maybe you can try this out at your table?
@aaronwhite1882
8 ай бұрын
I had a combat where my character rolled a 1 perception to notice the assassins and was last in initiative. The DM forgot my turn until the second round. I would have reminded them, but I felt it was more in character to just skip that turn anyway. Also RAW my character would have been surprised anyway. edit: For clarification the rest of the party noticed and fought them, while I continued on my way down the road, none the wiser.
@chrisscott9564
8 ай бұрын
Awesome vid as always. I have a question for the DDudes (and the amazing community) I have a pretty good memory and I've noticed that I'm often the one pointing out when things get forgotten in combat. I'm a little worried about that getting perceived as being the rules police. If you have someone who's just really good at keeping track of the game and remembering everything, would you rather they mention things or perhaps just keep it to themselves?
@AlbiniLapierre
8 ай бұрын
When my players faced the Lord of the Feast, in the streets of Drakkenheim, I forgot the Legendary actions of the LOTF, and on top of it one of the players had a magic weapon that created an ARCANE anomaly which polymorphed the LOTF into an awakened shrub. The rest of the combat was a breeze. So I returned home and created The Matron, a female version of the LOTF that was at the Cathedral which gave them a run for their money... and the players never knew that she didn't existed in the first place.
@skaar6191
8 ай бұрын
This video is helping me get some good ideas!
@RobKinneySouthpaw
8 ай бұрын
Don't forget to deploy passive auras and bonus actions. Some of the statblocks have neat features that encourage movement and positioning, but arenin a wall of text.
@kclubok
8 ай бұрын
Something that I see forgotten all the time: When a PC or NPC has some ongoing debuff effect that allows them to make saving throws every round. Turns often will pass by with no saving throw rolled. Also, a common interaction between the things mentioned: When legendary actions, lair actions, or reactions allow somebody to do something outside of their regular initiative order, it often happens that this interruption gets adjudicated, and then the DM forgets that it this doesn't count as a turn, advances initiative and skips somebody's turn in the process. This is particularly easy to do when using a VTT turn tracker, and clicking the Next Turn button feels so automatic.
@TheOmegaXicor
8 ай бұрын
My favourite failure was my party entering the combat having convinced a goblin that killing his boss, releasing the hostages and having a good relationship with the town would benefit the whole tribe, especially him because adventurers wouldn't come and kill him. The fight started and the paper in front of me read "Goblin 3 pulls his punches and on Turn 3 Sneak Attacks the boss" well Turn 3 came and I shortbow'd the fighter and rolled a Nat 20, rolled double damage and moved on to the next monster before remembering that the crit should have been for the boss... Oops. I think the fighter always held a grudge tbf.
@masterlucarion
8 ай бұрын
The Lair Actions get me every time
@srellison561
8 ай бұрын
Most of these aren't really an issue for me. Because my players are spread around the country, we play on Roll20. So, I have physical representations of effects on the screen, I have the monsters' stat blocks open on a second screen, and the turns are actually on Roll20 (I do screw that up on occasion, but the players quickly remind me).
@RJeremyHoward
8 ай бұрын
Roll20 token effect icons and number bubbles are my saving grace. Isss mah bessd fren.
@SamLugo
5 ай бұрын
I forget constantly to roll for Wild Magic on my Wild Magic Sorcer, and so does my DM. I just need to put a piece of paper that says "WILD MAGIC" on my dice tower or something.
@budewthirtyfive
8 ай бұрын
30:26 as a retail worker, i too wish to instill fear in the customers
@toranas1500
8 ай бұрын
In a prewritten module, I forgot to review a map ahead of time and realized that the squares were 50 feet, not 5. It threw the entire encounter off, so I essentially brought in something to make the characters retreat and made a "to be continued" element. While the first part of the fight slogged, the second part was one of the best in the campaign.
@TheHogan883
8 ай бұрын
One time I got my butt handed to me, and after the fact I realized that everyone in the party, to include the DM, totally forgot that my character had a cloak of displacement. So the attacks should have been at disadvantage. After that, everyone in the party randomly yells "at disadvantage!" when my character gets attacked. It's pretty funny, and has kind of turned into an ongoing joke. Other than that, the biggest thing I see is players will often forget that they have bardic inspiration, and when I cast bless on the party I'm constantly saying "don't forget the d4". Another common one is if a player can cast magic stone and hands them out to the party. People totally forget they have the pebbles.
@DramakilzU
8 ай бұрын
Legendary Actions kinda break the flow of combat, especially when players expect to take their turn in order of initiative. I’d prefer to have the monster use all its LA at once so I won’t forget and I don’t have to disrupt the natural turn order. A good alternative is using up all LA at the end/start of the round or on initiative count 20, so you can lump it in with lair actions, making it easier to remember to use. Yes, it makes the monster have a big power swing that turn, but the players have a round to prepare for it and know when it’s gonna happen.
@mikenusser8444
8 ай бұрын
Last session me and our parties rogue avoided a fight with three drow who were trying to catch someone I was talking to. He used magehand to tie their shoes together, I cast disguise self to make a second version of who they were chasing and the two of "him" ran seperate directions.
@13SaberWolf
8 ай бұрын
I'm surprised no one mentioned forgetting 1/2 or 3/4 cover for ranged attacks while talking about forgetting rules.
@Stray_GM
8 ай бұрын
I had a great encounter planned with a rival adventuring party. They were strong, but not so strong that they would have destroyed the party, but at least given them a hard time. The enemy wizard knew fireball. I forgot his first turn in the combat and players proceeded to target him first because they said "He probably knows fireball!" It never went off because I forgot about his turn, lol.
@th3auth0r44
8 ай бұрын
9:37 it's funny to me because i've never used legendary actions, i just put them as actions on the stat blocks & it works great, instead of having those locked by limited use i can have a dragon lv7 fighter pulling combos on the party just like they would on the dragon. But for the rest it has happened at least once or twice.
@N1ghthavvk
8 ай бұрын
I just got grappled today and forgot I had a Wind Fan ready. Obviously I "chose" to fail my Athletics check instead on purpose! :D
@Barthenn
8 ай бұрын
I find the idea of giving XP for kills to be in direct counter purpose to narrative in a Tabletop game. I always use milestone. Remove that barrier that everything has to die because XP. If you go for full Murder its on you, not because X player need to be X level as soon as possible. Otherwise I find that most GM I've ever seen play have too many encounter that fight to the death. I find it ridiculous that so many creature always fight to the death. Or until one is left that runs to another group and then joins another fight. That mention about the NPC threatening the death of one PC, PC should also be able to do the same. NPC should sometimes care about each others. Not all the time. Not if they are mindless creature of course. But intelligent or animal should cower when face with unsurmountable dangers. It also makes it interesting when you get to the thougher enemy that actually do not disengage, and the player looks at you, and you go; The Chief Barbarian falls on one knee coughing blood, wipe his mouth with his right arm, and looks at the heavens. A look of sadness in his face, is this the end!? His facial complexion rapidly change to one of pure determination and defiance one who knows that death is at the door waiting and he looks at it and says come get me if you can. The Barbarian rises from the ground and release a battlecry that fill his the remaining of his underling with pride and willpower to go on and fight to the very end. In that moment, looking at their Warchief they are reminded that there is honor in a death by Combat. Like their forefathers before them, they too will be judge by their God, after a few seconds the others raise their weapon in the air and scream together. The leader removes his damaged armor, and prepare for one last fight. Otherwise as they mention in the Video. Are the enemies after something like an artifact? Stealing the artifact from the players or arresting the PC if they are representative of the law, or maybe they are just some thugs that were in it for the easy gold. You know, mug a few travelers on the high road. Maybe the thugs thought the PC looked like easy prey, little did they they know they were an elite unconventional special force team, and the thieve see one of their mate go down and realize, it ain't worth losing all their life for a purse or two of gold. cut their losses and run. The cultist may suddenly face their doubt about their motivation to join at all cost. Their brother told them its was dangerous, but the cult promise things that until now has delivered nothing and has taken everything from them, and surrender. Also if you ever plan an encounter and it ends up being much more difficult for your players than you anticipated and you believe your players have 0 chance of winning, you could always have the leader of the enemy acknowledge the player's characters has being impressive. Most would have went down in a few seconds... maybe they can be useful to the leader, and propose a temporary alliance maybe against a bigger threat. Or something that both party may agree is a higher priority than their need to kill each other off. Alternatively if the LEader is convince that the player pose no threat, They could declare that the character are not even worth their time and teleport or exit the battlefield, leaving one or two goon to finish the rest off. (obviously meant for the players to have a chance to succeed, when the initial fight might have been a TPK) Personally, I don't very much enjoy as a Game Master to kill the PCs because I underestimated the power of a creature or overestimated the PCs abilities to deal with certain encounter. If I see that the combat is disproportionality difficult and they had no chance to begin with and I forced the encounter on them, I find a narrative way to retract the threat.
@retroambassador2945
5 ай бұрын
I very often forget my legendary actions until like the second round
@TheJulioToboso
8 ай бұрын
What I do for the rechargeables is roll to see if the came back when I want to use them. If I didn’t try to use it last time I do it with advantage.
@gatts205
8 ай бұрын
Honestly as a player I forget rules all the time. I can count so many times when I forget to add part of my bonuses to a weapon :) Arrows from a bow hit differently when it's a shortbow 1d6 vs 1d6 +prof +dex. (LOL sorry I'm new to the game and trying. It doesn't help that my first games started mid-campaign with lv 9 and lv 18 so I got thrown in the deep end more or less.)
@Byhookorbycrook1776
8 ай бұрын
Make your players roll for the recharge for you. Creates suspense. Move the roll from player to player as play progresses.
@khw1425
8 ай бұрын
Probably concentration checks...slightly boring, but that's actually why I think they get forgotten...that's the most common one I see...biggest whoops I did was forgetting to add all of my subclass spells to my character sheet as an aberrant mind sorcerer...though it still was pretty effective despite playing like 5-6 sessions without all of them.
@jakando9307
8 ай бұрын
My party had this massive battle with a Kruthik hive that the party just completely destroyed with little opposition... turns out I was forgetting their multi-attack...
@der_mind_blender313
8 ай бұрын
My Bros, Amazing video and just wanted to say you got the drip m8s
@practicepositiveprogress5396
8 ай бұрын
My last session I (wild magic sorcerer) forgot to roll wild magic the entire fight, and it was a big fight. so we rolled at the end of the session and mostly it was just bubbled and now I'm taller 👍🏻
@ktlikes
6 ай бұрын
Our last session my DM forgot my turn *all three times through the order*. I did roll low on my initiative, but not *that* low. 🙂
@CerealKiller979
8 ай бұрын
I was running a fight between my party of 4 and their “rival” party of 5 and completely forgot about one of the NPC’s for the first 2 rounds…it happens. I just played it off as he was strategizing.
@TommyTheCat83
8 ай бұрын
When I miss a monsters turn and they come back around, I'll usually give them an action surge. Players understand the mechanics of it and it won't seem inappropriate.
@LeChevalierduLys
8 ай бұрын
K.I.S.S. "Keep It Simple Stupid" Not calling anyone stupid, just a mantra i use when i build an encounter.
@swankysloth
8 ай бұрын
Oooo I like that “standoff” when a player is downed idea a lot 😈
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