A5E Monsters & Encounters - Lazy RPG Talk Show

D&D and RPG news and commentary by Mike Shea of slyflourish.com
Video Contents
00:00 Show Start
01:27 D&D & RPG News: Numenera Bundles of Holding
04:25 D&D & RPG News: Kobold Guides Bundle of Holding
05:46 DM Tip: Detailed Random Encounters with A5E's Monstrous Menagerie and Trials and Treasures
11:50 DM Tip: PJ Coffey's Intro to Level Up Advanced 5E
13:32 Patreon Spotlight: Patreon Discord Server
16:37 Commentary: Travel Options from 5e Books
33:25 Patreon Question: Tips for One on One Games
39:04 Patreon Question: What To Do with Weeks of Prep Time?
42:27 Patreon Question: How Much is Too Much for Describing Scenes?
45:37 Patreon Question: How Much Do I Need to Get Buy-In from Players on a Future Campaign?
47:49 Patreon Question: Offering Feedback to Other DMs
Links
Subscribe to the Sly Flourish Newsletter
slyflourish.com/subscribe/
Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
/ slyflourish
Buy Sly Flourish Books:
shop.slyflourish.com/
Numenera Discovery Bundle of Holding
bundleofholding.com/presents/...
Numenera Horizons Bundle of Holding
bundleofholding.com/presents/...
Kobold Guides Bundle of Holding
bundleofholding.com/presents/...
Level Up Advanced 5e Trials and Treasures
enpublishingrpg.com/products/...
Level Up Advanced 5e Monstrous Menagerie
enpublishingrpg.com/products/...
PJ Coffey's How to Explain: Level Up Advanced Fifth Edition
homebrewandhacking.com/2023/0...
Uncharted Journeys
cubicle7games.com/uncharted-j...
Campfire (affiliate link)
www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
Weird Wastelands
store.2cgaming.com/products/w...
Lazy DM's Companion
shop.slyflourish.com/products...
Running One on One Games
slyflourish.com/running_one-o...
Balancing D&D Combat for One-on-One Play
slyflourish.com/balancing_com...
A Framework for One-on-One D&D Games: Sherlock Holmes and Watson
slyflourish.com/framework_for...
#dnd #lazydm #dndtips #dmtips

[@rufuslynks8175]

A true Scout is never lost, just conducting recon on alternate terrain.

[@BryanCmpbll]

Love this! We need more A5E content.

[@KateH]

Thanks so much for your reply to my question both here and on Patreon :)

[@SlyFlourish]

Happy to do it! Thank you so much for your support!

[@ikaemos]

I didn't expect a Christmas episode. Cheers!

[@mithren86]

Hey Mike, just got forge of foes and its awesome!

[@ChadHensley]

I picked up Uncharted Journeys recently due to your regular referrals of the book. Anxiously awaiting my hard copy from the publisher! I'm also excited to look into the encounters in the Monstrous Menagerie. I've had the PDFs for a while but really only looked at the monsters themselves. Thanks for covering what you found out.

[@Throgmoyd]

Thanks Mike, for this and all your invaluable output during 2023! My copy of 'Forge of Foes' arrived today - the BEST Christmas present! :-)

[@Frederic_S]

Great advice, as always. Especially liked the tips on the one-on-one games and game preparation.

[@cartoonfuntimeco]

I love the Cubicle 7 travel stuff. I’ve run their Adventures in Middle Earth and love it. For the exhaustion effects I added a 0.5 level of exhaustion. Disadvantage until you pass a check. Once you do you are back to normal. I also added a level of “Vigor”. When players succeed they get Advantage until they fail a check. I found that balances the over use of exhaustion for my games.

[@daanopdebeeck2312]

I understand some critiques for Uncharted Journeys, because I had them too at the beginning when I picked it up. However, I really delved deep into the mechanics and I'm pretty sure it's mechanically solid RAW. Most people seem to forget that the party roles can grant advantage or a bonus to certain rolls once per journey for every ally so the chance for a player to fail a roll won't occur that often. This really plays into the fantasy of the party working together as a unit to survive in the wilderness. There's just a perfect amount of crunch and they neatly tighten it together imo, but one has to read the specifics to appreciate its elegance. Besides that, we get to decide how Exhaustion in our game works. We can use the popular One D&D version of -1 to any d20 rolls, or just give disadvantage to the next roll. The goal this year for me is definitely to run the system as written and then tweak it to fit our group and tone of the game. To test this, I will run it first in very gritty survival oriented one-shots with a few mechanics borrowed from Shadowdark.

[@JunMiyazaki]

OK, I bough A5E monster book and DM book for myself as a last minute xmas present... boy, these are awesome source materials. Thanks for the suggestion!

[@henriksebring7633]

I use highlighters (three different colors actually) in my books. I get the weirdest reactions when showing it - I've also bought used books from ebay and ended up with old highlights - and it is totally cool. Especially when the previous owner added small notes that apparently came from their campaign. Love it. It makes the books alive and with a special historical patina =)

[@Deep_Freeze_DF]

Great tips on solo games, something I don't plan to DM but now I have great advice and tips to better execute. Something I thought of, pet and summoner classes/builds from 5e that tend to slow down combat pacing would actually work well in solo games to help with action economy. Spores Druid, Circle of Shepherd Druid, Necromancer, Conjurer, etc.

[@dylanwatts1045]

45:17 "If in doubt, young Meriadoc, always follow your nose."

[@JunMiyazaki]

Merry Xmas, Mike!

[@lonic123]

Thanks

[@nickroth1906]

I haven't tested it yet but for a 1-on-1 game I think "Flee, Mortals!" minion rules could help with action economy issues while still letting the PC cut through swathes of enemies.

[@blueheronfishing]

Regarding feedback, provide it one on one immediately after the session. Be very specific regarding the moment you felt railroaded during the session. Consider using the three plus one method, where you give three examples of how you enjoy being a character in the dms campaign / group and one point of feedback that is impacting how you are enjoying the game.

[@geoffdewitt6845]

I'm ... aghast ... at the utility of this advice!

[@sewinlove_co]

Happy Holidays Mike! This is really timely because last week I bit the bullet and bought all three A5E PDF books, primarily based on your recommendation. I recently starting GMing again after a very long hiatus; in fact, I haven't regularly run a game since 4th edition. Doesn't it seem like 4E was a lot easier to balance than 5E? I'm hoping that the A5E will give me better options. I haven't had a chance to run the monsters or encounters yet, but they look really good!

[@PhilipDudley3]

Do you find that using a Reaction Roll from older versions or other RPGs could gelp spice up your sessions?

[@GateKeeperPat]

“I’m not your fwiend, pal!”

[@clawlesslawless]

I'm your friend? 🤣

[@snobgoblinDK]

I have stopped the group I play with from today because the pressure as a DM is too high and it triggers my anxiety. I am so sad. There’s so much advice, so many ways you can do better all the time, so much conflicting advice, and I can’t deal with it anymore 🙁

[@seenyab4494]

Man don't focus on making the most perfect, critical role-esque, "I spent 50 hours on making todays session" game ever. The number one rule of damn near every single TTRPG is this: have fun. Just play the game. Even if you get things wrong, even if you arent fully prepared, just do the game. So long as you and everyone else is having fun, it was a great game. Often times players know how to make their own fun in these games and its just a matter of adjudicating rolls at that point. I have prepared entire sessions of content, only for my PC's to spend 5 hours playing frigging hide and seek.

[@snobgoblinDK]

I know all these things and I have played for years, but this last year or so it’s gotten increasingly bad. I’ve cut all KZbinrs save for Mike and Mastering Dungeons but it was too little too late. I feel like this industry likes to create problems and make things overly complicated, and then sell you the solutions. For every good video or advice, there’s 50 “this is how you suck as a DM” or RPGhorrorstories. Most players are consumers of the stuff you prepare, they are not contributors. When you finally find good players, you are so burned out from the bad ones. Then the circus begins for dissecting their backstories and meet their expectations. Now you gotta mesh in 12 bonds, 4 flaws, remember all that shit, create content to make them shine, connect everything in a story that makes sense and is exciting at LOTR level. I have found solutions for many of these things, but it’s such a high pressure. No wonder no one wants to DM anymore.

[@tuomasronnberg5244]

This. Don't go out of your way to read all the advice, just look for advice on a particular problem when your group runs into it. You need to deal with information overload first.

[@SlyFlourish]

All the advice out there, including mine, isn’t meant to get in the way of focusing on the game in front of us and simplifying it down as small as we can make it. It might be worth exploring the pressures you feel with your friends and see what you can all do. We love to explore the far reaches of this amazing hobby but it’s always worth grounding it down to the bare minimum we need to have fun with our friends. slyflourish.com/minimum_viable_dnd_game.html

[@anonymouse2675]

Quartermaster`s role: "Well all our food got ruined! Luckily I bought an Alchemy Jug, so everybody grab a spoon and eat you daily allotment of Mayonnaise! 48,320 calories of mayo a day! Don`t worry, I know Prestidigitation, Mmm... and maybe next time don't leave all our food in a mud puddle! thanks!"

[@thekaxmax]

Or use Create Food And Water and then Prestidigitation on the mayonnaise, better result and more food.

[@anonymouse2675]

@@thekaxmax But what if your party consist of two Fighters, a Rogue, and a Wizard? No Goodberry, no Create Food And Water, hence the Alchemy Jug...

[@thekaxmax]

@@anonymouse2675 oh, if you're going to put limitations on the group.... :P If the rogue can't fake out a scroll of Create Food And Water what good are they? :D

[@anonymouse2675]

@@thekaxmax That`s my current group. I`m the Wizard and I would absolutely love another caster, especially a Druid, but alas... I have actually thought about "making room", but the DM would never go for it no matter how many bottles of whiskey I bribed him with. Stupid ethics...

[@thekaxmax]

@@anonymouse2675 well, not having a cleric is a party choice, you'll have to deal with it and eat mayonnaise.

[@tracyburnham604]

Your friend…?

[@torinmccabe]

Instead of exhaustion for a skill check failure what about a DOOM die. Like a hero or inspiration die but for the DM to use for a monster

[@torinmccabe]

You can keep a big intimidating stack of doom dice and give the players skill opportunities to remove those dice before they have to face the session big battle

[@PhilipDudley3]

Sounds like the Usage Die from The Black Hack 2e

[@PhilipDudley3]

Or the Doom Die from Mork Borg

[@jeaugust]

I'm still not a big fan of how the Trials & Tribulations encounter tables work. Requiring me to have a second book to actually get full use out of those tables seems fairly shitty, especially from a system that claimed at the top that it would be very modular, not requiring you to have the full system.

[@VinStJohn]

On the other hand, the tables that are in the monstrous menagerie are enormously useful on their own, without needing the trials and treasures book, something that would not have been true in the monster manual that doesn't have equivalent encounter tables at all. So they'd have to choose between one book being useful, the other, or reprinting the same information in both

[@jeaugust]

@@VinStJohn So include the encounter tables at the beginning of the monster book instead of in Trials & Tribulations. It's really bad product design that you have to buy a second expensive book for the tables in the first expensive book book to be good.

[@keithvanboskirk7327]

spoiled supplies failure on travel and bad roll on forage/hunting = You kept your party alive by gathering grubs and snails for a week.