Currently watching this video while at my in laws in Willem Defoe's hometown of Appleton, WI. Small world!

I really like your take on D&D as not being as 'boxed-in' as most people play it out to be. The nuance with the social interactions in the game is more important i believe than getting too fixed in on the rules

Whoop

please do a guide for the shattered obelisk

When do we get more?

My players treated Sildar so badly that he left I mean like they “saved” him and chained him to the back of there carriage and only brought him to town to force a reward out of him…..he left🤦🏽‍♂️🤣

Cool advice I already have the Initiative Tracker and Damage Tracker. I think as a DM the players get a mental break to watch the combat unfold when it is not their turn but as a DM it is always your turn, tracking HP, answering questions. Combat is the most mentally exhausting part of being a DM for me

For the Descent Into Avernus screen, yes, the War Machine stat blocks, Mishaps, and Chase Complications were good inclusions-they're very campaign specific.

Funnily enough, I wanna just thinking about how short the overall adventure is, and how kinda boring the final fight was. I'm gonna be running this for my brother and his family, since they've never played DnD, and they wanna get into something together as a family, so I'm trying to absorb as much of this campaign from everyone in the hopes of making mine memorable for them (especially for my nephews/nieces!). I thought of keeping Mek and Min safe, BUT have the other kobolds fight for Sparkrender because they're extremely loyal. I feel Myla would worry for her brothers, so Mek and Min are only followers, but not loyal. I'm gonna make them bumbling fools, because that's how i picture them. 😅 I also *thought* about making Sparkrender a young blue dragon because of the sheer party size I'm anticipating (7-9, which is waaaay above my comfort zone, and my brother knows it, but for his kids, I'll do it!), but if i do end up keeping his wyrmling size, then definitely adding the kobolds will help even the fight. That and the legendary resistance, because of Sparkrender's lineage (his grandfather who Runara defeated). I also am adding more personal touches, like having Runara entrust/hide the key to the bridge, and all the events not just be effected by isolated incidents, but be *connected* to Sparkrender in some way. That's what i feel makes a compelling villain: being the cause to all the effects happening currently/recently on the island. I'm still doing more thinking on this, but this is what I've thought of so far. Definitely might take the countdown timer you've mentioned and use it! That'll definitely up the stakes!!

are you continuing these onto the Shattered Obelisk?

I wanne ruk this campaign soon and i would buy your patreon tho make sure that the campgain is good is still everthing available on the patreon

Problem with describing him as the biggest guy my players have ever seen is that we have a Loxodon cleric that's bigger.

My players managed to subdue the Bugbear Mosk while Glasstaff got away and fled to Cragmaw castle. Mosk was leading the party to Cragmaw and along the way the party convinced him of how King Grol has jeopardized the entire Cragmaw clan, to include children and aged ones. A random encounter fight showed Mosk the power of the party. They agreed to support his overthrow of Grol. They were lead through Cragmaw castle straight to Grol and Glasstaff. Grol was defeated, Mosk took over as chieftan and the Bugbear clan still lives in the castle as secret allies to the party.

An observation from myself would be to avoid skill challenges like the plague. Theyre dated in my opinion and really interfere with the flow of the game. Keep most changes just have the interaction as a general interaction

Matthew, I know this video is old, but please give me some more info about those chase rules of yours! How do I use this system if the players are the ones being chased? And what do I do if there are multiple enemies being chased by/chasing the party? And what if they have different speeds?? Please, I really liked this system, but I need these answers... :'3

I might run this adventure for a group of newbies, as a new DM myself. Do you think this would be manageable for 5 level 4 characters (again, new players) without making adjustments to the adventure as written? Thanks in advance.

I'm planning on running this in a week when I visit my dad. It will be my first time DMing. My sister ran (her first time DMing) it with our DND group and when I say we had a blast we had a blast!!! We drew random premade characters. I've never played a monk so that was interesting... anyway I digress. We ended up eating the sheep wizard and keeping the tower. Good Times! I killed Nuke by giving him several atomic wedgies.

That's a really interesting way to run this spell. I like it

What about Reidoth? Any suggestions for his action? I was planning to have the druid be the one to guide the party to Cragmaw castle in return for helping him remove the green dragon.

So, so helpful. I'm looking forward to working through the rest of the series. Thanks!

I took the Arcane adept and learned Toll the Bell and cast that cantrip first to tee up our wizard for chain lightning. (Yes we did play samples of the Metallica album when this combo hit).

Alternative title: DMs need a rulebook to understand what friendship is

Personally I think charm person is a bad written and bad designed

Dayum, someone read the DMG. I'm Charmed by your efforts Big P!

I'm DMing our second DnD adventure and this just gave some nice ideas

Gotta have Venomfang! Im currently running LMoP and my party of 5 is level 4. Venomfang is the ultimate villain.... His sly cunning is he is manipulating The Spider to unlock the forge so he himself can take over

Haha barbarian taking one for the team. Kinda makes sense though, you take 1/2 or 1/4 of a fireball and 4+ enemies take a whole or half fireball. It's like for every HP cost to you, your enemies in total pay 8 times that.

What's the new puzzle in the observatory? I dont see it in the actual video. Thanks!

Did u make any change to the statues puzzle??

I personally dont really like this spell for narrative purposes, simply because i dislike telling people how theyre feeling, or having someone else manipulate my character's feelings. Just feels gross to me.

I love the worldbuilding suggestion. And even though, raw, guards probably wouldn't be able to use a scroll, I let anyone use a scroll with an arcana check anyway!

Easy, you use this spell atop a castle or a tower of the big bad for an epic final confrontation

This is powerful Wizardry, Bro... you really wanna go down this path?

Can you imagine how powerful this spell would be against a defended fort? They won't even know where you cast it from.

Sounds like a good option for if AoE are in coming. 50% to dodge the fireballs for a minute

That's my stirge's spray spell 😂

Ah I just ran this and the fire snake I thought was 3 x 1d6 not 3Dng OR 1d6 😂 my players all got killed oops

It's always useful to cast Blink. You don't need to appear in the same space and if the enemy gets the ready action, he needs to specifically say what would trigger the ready action and he can't multi attack. It's a great spell. You just need to know the rules.

Nope, the spell is extremely effective at helping not getting hit jn the first place, especially if you have a decent AC. Worthy 2nd level spell.

Yeah, there are a lot of spells like that. The old blade ward cantrip being an action, barkskin only raising up to 16 (medium armor range) by concentrating for an hour (duration of the spell). I agree with you. Self-defense spells shouldn't be concentration spells.

The problem with readying an action for when someone blinks back to your plane is that you don't know exactly where they'll reappear. The Blink spell states you can reappear anywhere within 10 feet of the spot you blinked from - meaning a 20ft circle. I could ready a sword attack but if they're not in melee range I'm out of luck, can't both move *and* swing that sword with one readied action! I suppose that a ranged attack might be able to target you where ever you reappear but I could easily see a dm ruling that readying your shot includes where you're aiming and you can't just change your target as part of your reaction.

The problem with blindness is the fact that enemies almost always have some kind of counter to the spell, whether it be counterspell itself when going against a wizard, or another sense when against another species besides humanoids (and even some humanoids) And even if you do blind them, it doesn't restrain them, they can still make blind attacks, the biggest weakness is the fact that they can just do a bunch of AOE attacks in random areas while they're blind, which could be significantly more dangerous than if they weren't blind

My dm always has blindsight or any other way to counter this spell.

Yes correct And to make sure this work you need to make sure your enemy doesn't has truesight (or any other way to see) or it will be useless)

I didn't skip the traps because they captured a goblin who was leading them to the hideout. They roleplayed very friendly and the goblin decided to warn them of the traps. Because they showed compassion I am going to have him present the party with an opportunity to help Yeemik take over the hideout and become it's new leader. Not sure yet what to do from there but our session is today so hopefully I can come up with something fun!

Maybe increased crit rate on affected target? I don’t really do D&D but whatever the equivalent of that might be

I am a DM so my perspective might be a little different. I also am not necessarily the biggest fan of spellcasters, I don't hate them but I'm just being honest that I think they are at the moment Super busted. I actually think spells should receive more specialization rather than buffs. Right now, pretty much every spellcaster has to run more or less all the same spells because they're just the best spells, No matter how much you buff blight, it is always going to be a less preferable to any form of summoning option or to many of the other spells which just do more damage or provide way more utility in situations That's why as a DM, I'm not the biggest fan of magic and I use the situation with magic to create creative situations which require more nuanced usage of magic.

I like the idea of a lingering effect, but I think that having it impaired in some way might work just as well. If your tissues decay under the effect of the spell, then your physical constitution should also suffer. A penalty to strength and dexterity checks seems like a simple place to start, until healed up by a lesser restoration spell? I wouldn’t necessarily go the zombie route, because that we already have necromancy spells that raise dead.