How to Improvise Damage for D&D

[@perfectfyre]

I really like how you tackle subjects a lot of other channels do not. You also do it very well.

[@masterthedungeon]

Thank you! Most of these are problems we've faced at one time in our own home games.

[@DDCRExposed]

One of my players came across a series of mysterious red glowing liquid flowing through tubes and containers. The rogue, on his own, decided to poke the the tube with his rapier and getting sprayed by this mysterious liquid. At this point they were roughly level 9-10 and I got him with 4d10 for the danger he put his PC in. Ironically, I rolled rather high on that and it nearly KO'd him. Ah, what a fond memory as the DM. By the way, the mysterious red liquid is synthetic magic for my campaign world. Highly caustic and the BBEG is weaponizing it.

[@nvfury13]

Ooooh, exposure to something like that would require some rolls to see if there was an effect in my games.

[@noahtrucano1029]

So maybe the magic could mutate as well... just like how radiation can mutate creatures. I would have had that player roll a con save(after dealing the damage) to determine if there was some sort of impact on their character.

[@HereticalKitsune]

For the extreme weather you can always add Exhaustion, that'll hurt even more than damage.

[@JakeConrad666]

Players were on the docks of Luskan fighting off Frost Giant raiders. I warned them that since their darkvision range was only 60ft, they couldn't see if any more frost giant longships were coming in, but I did tell them that they could hear a war drum and waves hitting a ship. So they knew another ship was coming, and fast. Everyone ran off the docks and onto the shore, all except the warlock. The rest of the party and NPCs called out for him to run off the docks. I as the DM even stopped and asked if he was sure he wanted to stay out on the docks. He said yes, his reasoning was that the giants would dock their ship and he'd hold them at a chokepoint on the docks... One round later the warlock sees the 150ft long ship enter his vision range and in that same 6 seconds it crashes into the docks and smashes him. Looked up improvised damage, saw that "flying fortress crashing into a character" was 18d10. I'd describe these ships that fit 20 frost giants as fortresses. It did 72 damage on his failed dex save, out of his 71 hp! He fell unconscious into the frozen sea and died. As a fun throw back, about a year later I brought back his character as a deathlock serving the kraken BBEG the party has known about.

[@jasonreed7522]

The most important thing for a DM is to tell the party "All your dead belong to me". Meaning that if you don't cremate them with proper religious ceremonies you may face uou dead friends again. (Applies to PCs, backstory NPCs, and regular NPCs)

[@nairocamilo]

I've been playing more and more with improvised damage in my games. My favourite thing about it is how I can just mentally glance at it, set a xDy, and that's it. ... Then I come in, and from that damage, comes a consequence (like a setback superficial cut inflicting diseases, or dangerous explosion damage causing deafness. I love the appendix)

[@masterthedungeon]

It really cuts down on the amount of prep work you have to do and keeps the game moving.

[@KiltedShepherd]

I ran into improvised damage my first time as a DM on our second engagement. We were playing The Mines of Phandelver and we got to the starting goblin cave just outside where the sentries are on platforms in the briar bushes and 2 things happened one of my players attempted to throw anothers dwarf into one of the platforms to take out the goblin but rolled a fail and instead the Dwarf landed in the briars and then another player casted a fire spell (IDR) and rolled low so it missed and caught the area on fire, including all the briar bushes the dwarf was now stuck in. I think I just rolled a D4 so it was more funny than deadly.

[@gstaff1234]

Terrific. Liked how you added the tier levels as that needed reminder to not destroy the group on “accident”

[@masterthedungeon]

Players are just too squishy at lower levels to leave too much up to chance.

[@elskaalfhollr4743]

A knight in full plate takes no damages from lightning in fact, any metal armor makes you impervious to it since the electricity travels through the metal, not the body

[@siriusstar8245]

Flesh is a conductor, so if your flesh touch the metal, you are electrocuted as well

[@elskaalfhollr4743]

@@siriusstar8245 that is not how electricity works, it seeks the path of least resistance, aka following the most conductive material. In actuality, mail is used to protect against current, and metal fibers against emp, as an example, kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6Kco52efJx8i6M

[@siriusstar8245]

@@elskaalfhollr4743 Interesting

[@samuels1123]

@@siriusstar8245 think of electricity as a sort of 'ghost train' here, the lightning wants to go from positive to negative and will not stop for obstructions but will take the easiest path without armor, that train crashes through you as you are more conductive than air, and it will rip you apart with armor, the armor is the easiest path, and it will get very hot and maybe welded together, but the 'train' will not pass through the person

[@DarkadeTV]

An amazing video as usual! A very good point you touch and is not often mentioned is the variance of dice. Often people think of bigger dice as bigger numbers, and they are, but they also introduce more variance, so that something miraculous might happen. 10d4 gives a more consistent number than 4d10 because the variance is lower. You can exploit that in order to fudge damage while not fudging it lol you roll a lot of dice while being more confident it will roll the average instead of an unwanted edge case

[@masterthedungeon]

Barbarians probably understand the variance the best, since even though they get those high dice numbers, it all eventually equals out in the end. Math and probability are weird.

[@nairocamilo]

A great time to quickly check Anydice before the session

[@rabidrich8969]

Of course, 10 d4 has slightly higher average damage. 4 x 5.5 is 22, while 10 x 2.5 is 25.

[@swapertxking]

Honestly having some deaths occur to mundane things like tripping down the stairs makes dnd have some interesting memories. You as a party will remember Theras Dawnstar, noble hero of the land dying in a heroic last stand equally enough as Vederick the sorcerer who slipped on some stairs and broke their neck. Are they equally good memories? Well if there are injokes about it, probably.

[@kamilrichert8446]

It always depends though - reading the room, or a table for that matter, is important here

[@swapertxking]

@@kamilrichert8446 thats given, or i should hopefully assume so. but you know. Always skip the the stairs if you fear Vederick's curse.

[@tp1382]

I absolutely love your teaching style, voice, and examples! you are a wonderful teacher, and I look forward to all future videos :D first comment after many videos watched and just realizing I want to be giving you as much engagement as possible~

[@randus7053]

Based just on spells and weapon damage here are a few homebrew ideas. Dagger like sources, say an icicle or a needle deals a d4, a large area of affect often uses the d6, element type damage plus a condition uses the d8, focused single square damage uses the d10 with the exception of maybe hourly environmental damage say cold or heat extremes, and the d12 comes up with big axes or continuous electricity like a tesla coil.

[@nicolasgbotelho]

I really like your videos! Hope you get more recognition! 👏👏

[@nvfury13]

0:23 As much as the spell. Using the spell damages for mundane things that are effectively the same is good shorthand, like with the example of being struck by lightning or a grain explosion being a Fireball.

[@yamatohekatsue9143]

As a point the paladin in full plate holding the sword is completely grounded if lighting hit him it would travel into his sword and over the metal of his body and into the ground. This is called a Faraday cage or Faraday shield I would apply this if it was natural lightening not magical

[@FrostSpike]

Two words. Arc. Flash.

[@heretic5579]

Also, he would be sweating in full plate and die.

[@elliel.5915]

Not exactly the topic of the video, but this reminds me of when I grappled a darkmantle and decided to just wack it on the floor repeatedly instead of attacking it properly. My dm just sighed lol. We eventually defeated the darkmantle by chucking it out a window. Based on this example, I think it would also be nice to have a video explaining how to decide how much damage unconventional attacks by players would do as well.

[@adam222111333]

Just found this channel through Reddit, and it is really fantastic! I don't know if you're just one person or a group, but i wish you every success!!

[@masterthedungeon]

That's very kind, and we're glad you found us!

[@snowtsukasa6662]

Improvised damage us useful cause you cannot prepare for everything. I typically use d10, or 2d6 in their place depending on what triggers it. Sometimes I may offer saving throws to half the damage if they are quick enough to find a creative solution. A roof caving in ontop of them cause the wizard used a fireball inside a wooden cabin for example, theyd have warnings its on fire and begining to colapse. They'd get dex saves, as they could attempt to dodge the heavier debris, raise shield over heads, or get under something sturdier. In times like this I allow them to do any one thing thats not an action once the damage has been rolled, but before its been given.

[@DragonKingZero]

Another area where improvised damage might be relevant: physics questions that aren't covered by RAW (i.e. how thunder and especially lightning damage work underwater).

[@jjkthebest]

Full plate armour would probably act as a faraday cage, so no damage from lightning there.

[@matthewquan9083]

I had a city that had running fire in the plumbing and not just running water. You could have tap fire, tap air, and tap water. There wasn't any tap earth though.

[@seymourfields3613]

Story time: My full health level 5 Orc Warlock failed to spot a trap, having got a 17. The trap was the first time Relentless Endurance triggered, and I was absolutely livid with my DM. I felt absolutely cheated, that such a lethal trap was behind such a high DC, at such a low level. He told me the random generation for the Dungeon set the DC at 20 and the damage at whatever die value it was to knock out my Orc from a single trap. This absolutely destroyed trust between the party and the DM.

[@samuels1123]

its also fun to use the damage as intimidation when applied to an npc in view npc is hit by weird quantum nonsense magic laser of 1mm width for some reason ((((((((dice rolling sound)))))))) npc detonates to the point of the shards of their armor doing light improvised damage to nearby people

[@walterbunn280]

Heh... in 3rd edition the biggest difference between 'natural' sources and magical /character controlled sources was the dice used. A d10 was a natural source, whereas a d8 or a d6 was usually a character controlled source (PC or otherwise). This kinda continues that, but is more generalized. Now to scale back the earthquake that's going to destroy the opening scene for the campaign....

[@CaedmonOS]

If you were to get struck by lightning in full plate you would take no damage the lightning would Arc around you through your armor and not interact with your body in any way maybe it might burn you a little bit

[@AstroSalamander]

Fire pit: 5 flat damage per round and a dex check to escape Lava: 5 flat damage per round and halfed movment speed Lightning: 5d8 I chose these rules for your first examples based on other rules (such as: lighting oil on fire will cause 5 damage, and the lightning bolt spell deals 5d8) Though still loved the examples - i took this as a challenge 😂😂

[@jasonreed7522]

Real lava is genuinely horrifying and should be more like 10d4 per round and quartered movement. Its molten rock, so its around 2,200°F and has a density between 2.5 and 3.2g/cm^3 (humans are around 1g/cm^3 so we would float with most of the body exposed to air), the actual outcome is the liedenfrost effect plus superheated noxious gasses doing additional damage. (But that isn't exactly fun to have genuine instant death for a common DnD hazard) And lighting hitting metal armour should do 0 damage if all the pieces are bonded together for the same reason you are safe from lightning in your metal car, it goes around you due to the skin effect. (If your armour isn't bonded it will jump the gaps anyway, physics is wierd but its not a terrible plan to just find something similar in the rules to base damage off of)

[@AstroSalamander]

@@jasonreed7522 ayy, im also a physics nerd but throwing physics at my players hasn't been something they've enjoyed so i just chopped it down to some other basic rules and added on some easy things. With lava quarter movement would make sense and i thought about doing that but figured it would be more simple just to keep it at the "difficult terrain" thingy. Could chuck a strength save DC everytime they wanna move on top of that though and then it'd be way more dangerous. I definitely would up the damage though, that's a good point. Lighting - yeah but thats no fun XD Unless you wanna make a player look like a god (which isn't actually a bad idea) to npcs or something. That could be a totally epic plot point to use. Also that makes me wonder, if someone played a completely accurate physics game of dnd, would lightning bolt (the spell) even do damage to someone wearing full plate? Or would there be extra physics due to the nature of the weave that allow it to actually hit the target? That's a fun thought.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@AstroSalamander definitely agree on the whole IRL physics vs D&D game mechanics not being a good mix. Definitely know your party and just keep things consistent, magic doesn't exist irl so what else is different / is it affecting. I would only even consider it my friends who are also engineers and therefore science nerds, and even then i would out of character warn them about the phenomenon in question if i had no good reference in the source material to base the judgement on. And for spells i would say its already making lightning by manipulation of electric fields and serving as a current source so it can probably continue control past the first metal surface and actually hit through armor. Also 5d8 lightning damage is quite pitiful in comparison to irl lighting (summer lighting is around 10,000-30,000A and winter lightning can be over 100,000A, the voltage is whatever it takes to make the current flow since lightning is a current source) i would say this difference can be excused for in the range the strike has to build up voltage over, irl it has litteral miles between cloud and ground, in dnd most spells cap out at 120ft. (Basically real lightning is super powerful and magic can't hope to match it. And this shows in how nobody has ever survived a direct strike but characters withstand spells all the time)

[@AstroSalamander]

@@jasonreed7522 yesss i think that would be cool. I got a couple friends who are interested in that type of stuff so i might actually think about running a game like that now ngl Ooo yeah thats a good point! Very good explenation for magic lightning vs natural lightning.

[@samuels1123]

Yeah real lava is more about 'everything between you and lava has melted, your skin has fused to that melted stuff and the lava, your bones are on fire'

[@5peciesunkn0wn]

As a Warhammer 40k player, I have no issues with rolling 24 d6 lol. I do have issues rolling 24 d10 since I don't have 24 dice sets. Yet. Let's see...Got my purple plastic dice, got my BIG green-and-metallic plastic dice, got my Twisted Taverns plastic dice, and got my Twisted Taverns metal dice. Maybe one other set of dice? I don't remember. Hmm. Well, rolling 4d10 five times shouldn't be too bad lol.

[@isaacgraff8288]

How much damage does a gnome in a sack deal... oh you meant to the gnome? What is the damage of a wall?

[@jayteepodcast]

1-5 d12s

[@stevekirkby6570]

oh no, I was 'like' thumbs up number 666