The D&D Iceberg Explained

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Today we dive into the D&D Iceberg, going over the unique history, community members, and obscure rules that have sunken over the years.
My D&D Homebrew Packs! / blainesimple
The D&D Iceberg! icebergcharts....

[@WolfBoy-om6dw]

The quote Gary gygax says at 18:09 about people blaming D&D for their failures as parents is so true and I couldn't agree more

[@schemage2210]

I found that to be particularly funny, if only because public figures are rarely that blunt in the defense of their products....

[@liquidweird6055]

Patricia Pulling was a negligent parent, and her son's death, while tragic, was not the fault of D&D, but rather her own for not addressing his mental health problems.

[@lorekeeper685]

@@schemage2210 I mean it isn't really wrong lol

[@Case2_0]

400th like

[@jetpackdog3427]

That one got a laugh outta me

[@sailorenthusiast]

Listening through, I was surprised just how much stuff in this iceberg were considered obscure. Though, perhaps that’s just a sign of how deep into the DnD rabbit hole I’ve gotten, eheh.

[@joshhall3040]

Same!!!

[@glarak9819]

Same here^^"

[@Sawtooth44]

agreed

[@derekvollans]

Same!

[@Loki-]

I mean isn't that why people say something that's obvious you to doesn't mean it's obvious to someone else or visa versa?

[@schemage2210]

As a DM, I kinda really like the notion of the 2e Druid title hierarchy. The idea that there might only be a handful of these insanely powerful spellcasters and if you wish to gain that power you must seek them out and defeat them in some form of ritualised challenge, is awesome world building. In worlds where magic actually isn't dirt common, this really shows how rare it is, narratively and mechanically. As a player, I can appreciate that it might have sucked, though.... Especially if the DM wasn't willing to allow you to seek out these more powerful druids.

[@dormrifle6174]

well it sounds really fun until there are two players who play Druid

[@schemage2210]

@@dormrifle6174 I have never actually seen two druids at the one table, though I can appreciate how that might be decisive to table cohesion.

[@jeremyszpicki491]

@@schemage2210 I've only seen 2 people play druid, ever. Both 5e, Both within the last 2 years. One was a gnome.

[@itshel2677]

@@jeremyszpicki491 idk I really like how you mentioned that one was a gnome. just tickles my neurons

[@Rannsack]

The concept is historical, and was likely plucked out of "The Golden Bough" by Sir Frazer first published in 1890.

[@jclarkev]

16:50 you know someone plays a lot of DnD when they say “un-martial” instead of “un-marital” 😂😂😂

[@adriannaranjo4397]

2:21 Tier 1 14:05 Hello Fresh sponsorship 15:13 Tier 2 29:10 Tier 3 39:43 Tier 4 46:45 Tier 5

[@Meanlucario]

Honestly, a campaign focus on the party exploring Netheril ruins sounds like a fun module. Just history nuts and their guards searching ruins for the lore.

[@johndavisson344]

That's basically the last chapter of Icewind Dale

[@googiegress]

They developed the historical setting of Netheril with a boxed set and a few splatbooks and modules in 2e. And then of course the Ruins of Myth Drannor is the archetypal mythal ruin. The great strength of 2e was its campaign settings.

[@Meanlucario]

Funny thing about No Dragons: Early D&D lack a focus on dragons, so they hired the couple who made Ravenloft (the first appearance of Strahd von Zarovich) to make a setting focused on dragons. That's how Dragonlance was started, which also had a much more structured narrative than modules at the time (and its first module was more flexible than the second, which was written by someone else).

[@Ravell52]

Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. Dragonlance was what got me into D&D.

[@Meanlucario]

@@Ravell52 The books did their job very well I've heard (well enough for the setting to get a 3.5 and 5e book).

[@justnoob8141]

When Abishai number wasn’t enough so you just replace Orc with Dragon-Man

[@monkeysk8er33]

If there are no dungeons, or dragons, you're not playing D&D. I created my own universe, my own system, and have both dungeons and dragons, since day 1. Clearly I D&D better than WotC does 😂

[@prostatus7190]

I'd say Rangers are Bad is now replaced with Monks are Bad now by most of the dnd community, which I believe is the more popular sentiment now

[@thatonepossum5766]

I don’t care how bad monks are- I will cherish that class until the day I die. (Honestly though they aren’t TERRIBLE once you get it hammered into you that they aren’t front liners. Took my monk almost dying for me to learn that. Beware rabbitfolk with multi-attack, people. xD)

[@joeydurant6267]

If you hate a monk you're probably playing it wrong. Imp. Unarmed strike fears with the flurry of blows. Take anything that adds/stacks unarmed dmg or makes your hands be treated as magical etc... They get real hard to handle really fast.

[@prostatus7190]

@@joeydurant6267 I mean mathematically it's not the best option option to unarmed attack and flurry of blows(even with the best option for spells spirit shroud), the best monk for damage is a Gunk (a gun using monk) that doesn't use unarmed attacks 99% of the time, the only other slightly viable build being a Mercy monk who uses weapon attacks and flurry of blows with Hands of Harm with the spirit shroud combo, the Monk isn't bad, it's just worse than every other class mathematically cause it can never take advantage of Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter and it has little to no spell usage, with a really limited resource at early levels and also a MAD(Multiple Ability Score Dependent) factor to it

[@prostatus7190]

@@thatonepossum5766 even then, as a class they do the least amount of damage out of basically every class and don't even have a utility/support function that's really powerful

[@joeydurant6267]

@@prostatus7190 wait... What version are we talking? I switched to pathfinder after 3.5. also played a dwarvish monk which I think the con bonus helped for the self heal feature of monks class... I'd have to get my sheets out cuz I haven't played in a decade but I remember meticulously going through all the math etc and by the time I hit level 5 my damage was like rolling a high level fireball (which was very satisfying btw)

[@jakerenwick5029]

Glad you took a chance with a longer video, it was great! Keep up the good work Blaine!

[@sillerbarly4927]

19:57 a phrase i like to say when explaining the difference between Devils and Demons. Devils want to dominate you, while demons just want to brutally and painfully eviscerate you to a bloody pulp then to do that to your soul.

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

I guess it falls into the same category as the peasant railgun, but I was hoping for a mention of Pin Pun, the kobold with arbitrarily high stats due to some unintended rule interactions

[@yuvalgabay1023]

No matter how I look ate the peasent rail gun. It's just doasnt make sense. It's not fully raw and not fully Rai or full reality. It's a mash of all 3 of them taking rules and idea that's halp it works and throwing ideas that will hurt it.

[@evilbarrels2506]

@@yuvalgabay1023 Yeah, the peasant railgun is a meme that applies real-world physics to D&D mechanics. While, yes, a line of 5,000 people could move an object 25,000 feet in 6 seconds according to D&D 5e rules, which is much faster than the average bullet in real life, it would only be "launched" if you both apply real-world physics to the item at the end of the line, while also not applying it to the line of 5,000 people who need to move their arms at a speed of almost 5,000 feet per second. If the peasant railgun obeyed its own rules then you wouldn't even need the peasant railgun, since all 5,000 people in the line need to seperately be able to throw a rock hard enough to break the sound barrier.

[@wastedspam385]

If you'd try a peasant railgun in game RAW, it would just result in the item traveling N*5 feet and then the last peasant in line throws it at the monster as a standard thrown weapon. No bonuses at all. So not very useful for dealing damage. But thinking outside the box... Anything that requires resource management would be greatly affected; imagine a fire breaks out in a city, peasants are drafted to form a line to the nearest well, and within the span of 6 seconds a bucket of water will reach the burning building, every turn no matter how far from the water source. I guess a logical falacy here is that outside of combat, the world doesn't move in turns, but in real time. Maybe you could cheese it by starting a fist fight with your party members while standing near the peasants, forcing the DM to go into turn-by-turn combat, but they will absolutely hate you for it. So instead, we need a combat situation in which supply management is necessary. For example, in the siege of a castle. Especially for the defenders, getting stuff like arrows to the archers and kettles of burning oil on the ramparts is crucial for a succesful defense. So be creative with it! Tho I must admit that the Peasant Instant Transportation Line, doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

[@ThAlEdison]

Pun Pun

[@ThAlEdison]

It's a 3rd edition/3.5 RaW interaction. Pun Pun would boost the stats of a specific creature, and a certain mechanic (I think it's in Savage Species) would make a temporary stat boost permanent. You could then transfer the stat boost onto Pun Pun. I believe the original build had him at 6th level, but with innovations it got down to 1st level. Kobold was picked because in 3rd edition they were pretty weak compared to anything else. Also I could easily look up specifics, but I kinda don't want to.

[@TheFoxfool]

Another tip about the Peasant Railgun: Because you're having something thrown by a peasant, it still is an Improvised Weapon, and therefore despite the physics involved, it still only deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage with an effective range of 20/60...

[@thealientree3821]

Still enough to kill a Wizard.

[@liquidweird6055]

@@thealientree3821 so is a housecat

[@Justahumbletalonmain]

@@liquidweird6055true

[@AtelierGod]

I learnt of D&D from being given a PDF of the core rule book after being invited to a one shot Pathfinder 1e game back in 2015 and that’s about how I got into D&D.

[@glarak9819]

When Stereotypes where brought up, I thought "You all meet in a tavern" would be brought up as well Amazing video, knew quite a lot, and didn't realize how deep in the rabbit hole I already were

[@camobranson09]

surprisingly enough. due to the amount of dms avoiding that trope over time it became, no longer, an actual trope.

[@hyzmarie]

One of the few campaigns I have played, I actually did meet in a tavern. My character was kind of surly and her main goal was to be left alone. Well, she was forcibly pulled into the plot hook, where she pretended to only speak Draconic to avoid conversation (since abyssal would probably be the wrong foot to start off on). In response Mr Plot Hook continued the conversation in draconic and it worked fine until my character was surprised (I think by the existence of pancakes? She couldn’t fathom why you’d eat something that wasn’t meat) and exclaimed in common. The party was shocked that she actually spoke it.

[@herogohome4445]

RE: the spell names, I don't know about Mordenkainen and Tasha, but Bigby and a couple of others were the names of prominent player-characters in the earliest campaigns (back when the game was first being developed) who had spells named after them.

[@richardrizon1733]

I believe Mordenkainen was one of Gary's own PCs, but I think Tasha was originally made up just for the Hideous Laughter spell.

[@elprimo8639]

@@richardrizon1733 Actually from what I’ve read both were characters created by Gygax himself, with Mordenkainen being his PC, and I believe Tasha being an NPC he played that became a rival to Mordenkainen. Could have both been PC’s though, I’m not sure.

[@zachariahmerry2396]

Funnily enough Bigby is one of the few who *weren't* originally a PC, instead he was a low level villain who ended up being reformed (with some minor mind control involved but shh) and working for Mordenkainen. Some of the was names were come up with were great though ("Melf" being named "Melf the Elf", and "Rary" being 'cause a lvl1 wizard was known as a medium and thus he was "medium Rary". This isn't even getting into the things like "Drawmij" being the character of "Jim Draw" & other dumb names like that.)

[@Observer31]

yup - this iceberg needs to go FAR DEEPER

[@lorekeeper685]

Some of the ancient npcs are that. Mordakian also sorta had the best epic build too lol

[@MichaelStJohn-lr7el]

This may be mentioned in the 200+ comments already made, but the original alignments in 0e D&D were Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Good and Evil were added later. Aside from that, there were very few things I didn't know... I think a second Iceberg could be made regarding lore regarding specific campaign settings, monsters, and characters. There's enough material about Forgotten Realms alone for its own iceberg, and I think people would be surprised to learn how much Realms lore influenced changes made in later editions (See: Drizzt and Dual Wielding Rangers).

[@Lrbearclaw]

29:00 - Two of my friends backed high enough for the (canceled) red carpet and one of them is listed as an Executive Producer in the credits of LoVM.

[@Veran42]

That's cool

[@helgenlane]

Your friends have too much money 👍

[@dragonriderabens9761]

thankfully, I started playing DnD BEFORE I every even heard of Critical Role, so I was spared the Matt Mercer effect I don't even know where I got my ideas of DnD from

[@coalcreekdefense8106]

"And D&D continues to be a system that allows for stuff like that to exist." Hasbro in 2023: *Evil Matt Mercer meme*

[@raisylvaine8398]

41:12 okay so there’s a reference to this in the Hildebrand quests in FFXIV where we’re told to wait under a gazebo, and one of the NPC’s goes “a gazebo? I thought those were dangerous!” and I never knew why that line was there…until now! It’s interesting to see how DND still influences Final Fantasy games, even after decades of the first game

[@krinkrin5982]

In the same vein as the Peasant Railgun there is the Locate City Bomb. Basically, there is a spell called Locate City, that normally does exactly what the name implies. However, the rules technically allow you to stack a bunch of modifiers on top of it to give it damage based on range. Since Locate City has a range of several miles, the resulting damage ends up being enormous, enough to pulverize everything within that area.

[@rishitchithirala2977]

That's a 3.5e thing iirc? Ooh the centower also was a fun thing before it got errata'd

[@carpedm9846]

You could probably put in "Gary X" the dragon god of war domain who is "definately not a self insert" Or "Gary Gygax's first character", which is the one and only Mordenkainen

[@Liquidor]

pretty good. except for the Good / Evil being first. The first rulebooks only had Law/Chaos. TSR resisted Good/Evil until the 80's and the 2nd or 3rd printings of 1st.

[@ethans9379]

Yeah I heard it in the video and I was like “Isn’t it the other way around?”

[@williethenerfherder2193]

Yep, which followed the mythos of the Elric of Melnibone series.

[@perryshaffer8358]

@@williethenerfherder2193 Michael Moorcock in general, Elric, and Corum Jaelen Irsei in particular. The Greyhawk supplement to the White Box edition did note that beholders were evil despite being lawful, so there was that.

[@joeboywho]

Haven't watched yet, just glanced through the iceberg.. I am so glad Large Luigi got included, he's my favourite

[@JakeTheBeastDelta]

Here's some even more obsure d&d things. The most powerful character in d&d: in 3.5 a build was made that was called Pun-Pun using the kobald race and several obcure and neche abilities created a character that can gain almost infinite stats, can get any monster's feature, and infinite spells known and castable. Tucker's Kobolds where the DM Tucker used a dungeon full of kobolds using traps and trickery made a high level party use most of their resources and retreat from the dungeon in the end.

[@freindlycommentator1710]

Pun-Pun just sounds like the DND version of old man henderson

[@jvbrod]

If I remember Pun-Pun is not really a viable character and it was only possible because the DM left the player cheese a rule

[@gerby876]

@@jvbrod Pun-Pun had gone through several iterations and is a legal as written but not in spirit sort of thing. Technically if your DM said anything goes it would be playable but due to the infinite stats and experience it could be said that Pun-Pun already existed since Pun-Pun exists across all time. This means that Pun-Pun could kill any bring who tried to take a similar path. I just realized this might come across in an um actually style if so sorry I just like talking about 3.5.

[@TheHEAVYDAN]

Omnicifier was up there as well.

[@nmathew01]

@@jvbrod No, it was straight rules as written, despite what the goons at "The Gaming Den" want to claim.

[@bandana_girl6507]

Might I also offer the play "She Kills Monsters", a theatrical play which centers around an older sister playing through a campaign module written by her (late) younger sister. It includes multiple instances of both monsters and allies in the game who are based on people in the younger sister's life.

[@mulvicoder]

Read this in college. This is a great call out!

[@bandana_girl6507]

@@mulvicoder I did lighting design for a production of it in college and then also helped high school students who were doing it have some sense of familiarity with DnD

[@8bitalex]

Bro really tried to rickroll me, I have been dodging those for YEARS.

[@PyryKorh]

Alignment language would be an interesting one to add to the list.

[@Mrryn]

This. Such an obscure and weird thing the older editions had. I'd also like to add on "Taking levels in elf/dwarf" and class ability score requirements to the list of AD&D rules not included here. The latter he touched on a bit with the Human Fighter section, but some of the ability requirements (Ranger, Paladin, Bard) were hilariously restrictive especially when rolling 3d6 in order for stats.

[@jackiecove]

@@Mrryn The elf class didn't exist by AD&D time.

[@Mrryn]

@@jackiecove My mistake in lumping it in with AD&D but it actually was, just in the D&D Basic set which was introduced at the same time as AD&D and meant to be, as the name implies, the basic version (for early levels) compared to the advanced of AD&D and meant to be the lead in version of the rules for newer players. So demi-human races like Elf and Dwarf as classes did exist that far back.

[@tonyhakston536]

7:55 You made a mistake on the internet. The council will decide your fate.

[@Jessie_Helms]

Could you imagine playing a party of all Druids with the Druid hierarchy? Like you’re all advancing but you _know_ as you get higher and higher level that your allies may become opponents one day. And as you approach the higher levels maybe the whole party takes on the same number of Druids, but once there’s less positions open than Druids in the party there comes the fateful decision of, “we I multiclass? Do we fight? Do I maintain my level? Or do we try to find a way to uproot the hierarchy and potentially bring on the wrath of much higher level Druids?”

[@kaylacribley2637]

As a professional DM, this is SUPER helpful for whenever a family member tells me my job is easy.

[@kaylacribley2637]

Especially given the fact that I teach children

[@Flowery0]

Some advice about Dead cells: if you can get your main damage scroll - get it. Also, it's ok to get support items of not your main scroll, but if you use it for damage it has to be your main color You're doing good, find weapons and game style you like, and you may even complete it with

[@fake_nok]

oka

[@cshade0886]

this guy was like 'cool dnd' and then just focused on the gameplay in the background. relatable though

[@entothechesnautknight1762]

13:20 I think you missed a key note in that "Dungeons and Dragons" is a legacy name for the series, as 1st edition was absolutely all about Dungeons, not just in the settings, but the very mechanics of the game. Players HAD to go raiding through dungeons not just to progress, but to *survive* and avoid poverty, as this wasn't just an adventure, it was quite literally their job. There was even a mechanic about tracking the exact days expenditure of lodging, food, rations, and other general bookkeeping expenses, and the only way to get the money to pay for that? Dungeons. Even spells were designed around the idea players needed to raid dungeons for as much loot as possible, even if they'd lost most of the party doing so, because no one was gonna throw them a pity party. "Dungeons" was the name of the game in ADnD, both literally and in terms of the gameplay, as every day not spent in a dungeon was spent preparing for the next dungeon. Dragons, though, that was always just a marketing thing. There's genuinely more dragons in DnD in general today than at any point in 1st edition, and they're still ignorable.

[@jeremymullens7167]

Most of the tracking of things was probably its relation to war gaming. Very early sources mentioned city adventures and campaigns run completely in an urban setting of desired. The early game was also more tailored to large groups because that’s what gygax ran. I think even current editions of DnD are better suited to dungeon crawling than other endeavors. Older editions of DnD just used roleplaying to figure out social situations but, newer editions with social skills still don’t have the depth of systems and support as dungeon exploration and combat. On a personal note, it wasn’t till I read 2e and 1e DnD that I understood the point of certain rules that I found in pathfinder. There’s a lot of baggage and the game designers don’t often know what’s important to leave out or add. The example that stuck out to me was wondering monsters. For my video game playing brain monsters=exp and can be used to make you stronger. It worked exactly like this in pathfinder. In older editions the majority of exp is from finding treasure and wandering monsters don’t have any making them a hindrance. Even though the reason for wandering monsters no longer applied to pathfinder, they still published wandering monsters lists in all their modules because of tradition. Even rules like taking 10 and taking 20 in pathfinder (which weren’t in older editions of DnD I don’t think. Maybe 3rd though) reference the fact that wandering monsters are bad. Since the only reason to not take a 20 is because you would get an automatic wandering monster check. I don’t think pathfinder even detailed the process but it’s been a while since I read that rule book.

[@gwionthemighty3892]

I wish you put hexcrawls on the iceberg! It is my favorite format for hosting D&D groups

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

I just started running my first hexcrawl campaign this week! I’m super looking forward to seeing how it goes. So far just doing a few jobs/dungeons in the close hexes around town at the moment, but once they get some camels and resources the world will be their oyster!

[@Taalsman]

When my group makes a fully detailed plan on how to do something, we all agree to do it and let the DM know just to hear. "You can certainly try" And then we end up discussing if we do it for another 2 hours.

[@DrDogg0]

For my first dnd campaign as dungeon master (currently going on rn) I have 5 party members they are very interesting. We have a mantis insectiod rouge, a deranged lunatic war veteran human fighter, three kobolts in a trench coat that one of them us a bard, a Goliath munk, and a wedigo sorecer. Everyone in my party this is their first campaign and I think these are the most interesting party members I've ever seen.

[@StateBlaze1989]

To this day I've still never seen anything related to critical role outside of some animation about an 11 day old kobold. While I do hear it's a good show, the amount of people I've seen and heard about just treating it like the "real" way to play D&D and bitching up a storm when a game they join isn't one for one like critical role has helped to push me away from ever giving it a look.

[@robopope7584]

I looked at it, realized it was over 700 hours, and decided just not to touch it.

[@kirbo7184]

i joined D&D because my brother played D&D and i watched necrohunt, and a few other D&D youtubers, i had no idea what critical role was and still haven't seen a single thing about it, i just know that a little guy in one of their campaigns shot an ally with an arrow

[@ASuspiciousCrab]

It's really good, yeah. But it's hard to get into due to the sheer size of it, and some people treat it like "real DND". When that happens, even me, a big fan of it, cringe at the "thIS iS rEAl DND" people

[@peacefultengu6384]

Yeah, it's gargantuan, like, sometimes I feel overwhelmed by Dimension20's 15~ episodes of barely two hours self-contained seasons (I'm still in the 8 episode or so of Fantasy High, so I'm a pretty slow watcher), meanwhile Critical Role got 23 episodes of three to five hours.

[@robopope7584]

Some D&D stuff I’d recommend to people: Rolling With Difficulty, Belkinus Necrohunt, and The Unsleeping City.

[@bsquared9]

I'm a new player to DnD (playing for only a couple of years) and decided to try my hand at being a DM/GM. I listened to this video on a drive into work today and was impressed at how much information it contained. Absolutely love the content that Blaine generates!!

[@delroland]

You got 1E and 2E druids mixed up: 1E had the battle-for-levels mechanic. It applied to monks as well.

[@Arnkel]

2e had battle for level for druids too. It's right there in the PHB.

[@JacobL228]

I'd just like to add that that there are a total of three MTG-inspired campaigns/settings for D&D: "Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos", "Mythic Odysseys of Theros", and "Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica", with many additional supplements, called "Plane Shifts", added as well. Also, I don't think just comparing the Tarrasque to a t-rex does it justice; it's more like a 50-foot tall, spiked armor-plated t-rex with extra-long, fully functional arms; it's like a giant mythic deathclaw from Fallout 4, but somehow way scarier.

[@Shalakor]

And, at the same time, with enough planning a level 1 party could kill it using it's statblock RAW. Becomes much more difficult to cheese if you let it start throwing buildings around or something, of course.

[@rishitchithirala2977]

I'd argue that a tarrasque is hardly scary. It can die to a flying level 2 arcane Archer fighter or a clay golem

[@aaverageweeb5660]

Ok also my party's obscure reference is " you know that crack goblin of a god " the reason this works as a solution is everyone knows him nobody wants to earn his dissatisfaction with them

[@thecoldcapybara1637]

At 10:22 you mention that Fool's Gold was the most successful, but it has recently been surpassed by the soulsborne inspired setting of Steinhardt's Guide to the Eldritch Hunt. Fool's Gold reached about 2.48 mil whereas Steinhardt's reached 2.69 mil.

[@mosesferney1722]

Fun Fact: A PHB Ranger outdamages a rouge assuming feats are allowed. Just because a class has bad features doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have good features like spellcasting and extra attack and fighting style. Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter is awesome.

[@Azarthes]

are you talking about a phb ranger with gloomstalker subclass or phb ranger with phb subclasses? cause i'm fairly certain with just PHB options an assassin rogue has better burst and better sustained dpr. but if you're talking about phb ranger with gloomstalker then yea it's pretty hard to out dpr it. i think you could do it if you can ensure a shadowblade through a ring of spell storing

[@pkepix5405]

yooo i love rouge the bat from sonic the hedgehog

[@mosesferney1722]

@@Azarthes Hunter exists. Have you played a SS + CE + Hand Crossbow build? That stuff can get wild. Rouges kinda stink in DPR unless they get help from their caster friends to get reaction attacks but otherwise their damage is bad. Also I think it's funny that that rouges are considered the go-to stealth class when ranger with Pass Without Trace is right there since day 1.

[@mosesferney1722]

Also in terms of burst damage, assassin rouge was never that good considering at level 10 with rouge with a crit does around 47 damage on average while level 10 ranger (with SS CBE and Hand Crossbow of course) does that on a good turn. (Less than a 5% chance to crit)

[@Azarthes]

@@mosesferney1722 pass without trace, just like shield, is a pretty busted spell so any singular character who picks up pass without trace becomes a good stealth character. arguably the strongest stealth character in the game is a druid who casts pwot and then wildshapes into bug or a creature with a burrow speed. i have played an SS + CE build but I played it on a fighter. i absolutely recognize the damage of that feat combo. however, even if a rogue can't get an AOO (which i dont know why you brought casters up, almost every spell except dissonant whispers is forced movement which doesnt trigger aoo) it's still kind of a good baseline for DPR. which, you didn't really tell me what you're doing for a ranger's dpr. are you taking into account magic items, what spells youre casting (hunter's mark, i'm assuming??). because iirc monsters at cr10 have a bit of an AC jump

[@Maximara]

Uh 45:50 you forgot that TSR went after homebrew stuff so often they were nicknamed "They Sue Regularly" with one company largely winning the lawsuit ( Mayfair) and TSR having to buy the line of products out.

[@randomthoughts6680]

This is video was so satisfying to listen to, I loved that you took a chance on longer videos, it's very satisfying to listen to your voice. Even though it made me question "why am I hearing Liyue music in Mondstadt?" several times while doing my dailies.

[@GreyfauxxGaming]

Correction: You said that they only release stuff for current D&D, but technically speaking 5e and D&Done are to be completely compatible, further its honestly super easy to switch stuff from formats, as long as you know both. I regularly take from 3rd and 4th edition because I knew those systems well.

[@GreyfauxxGaming]

Correction 2: Critical Role cast moved from Pathfinder to 5e when they started the video's on youtube.

[@roycemitchell1692]

I’ve been playing for about half a year and I have only heard about 2/3 of this stuff. This was very insightful❤❤❤❤

[@podemosurss8316]

24:22 Remember, when you cast it you have to scream "Explosion" with a Japanese accent.

[@hoxton4068]

Or "Explosions?" Like mister torgue

[@podemosurss8316]

@@hoxton4068 It was a Konosuba reference.

[@couchmaster3773]

Hey, I drew that picture of the human fighter at 8:28! Posted it on Reddit around a year ago

[@Pharoin]

There is no way that I could honestly watch the entire video, learn so much and not subscribe. Very informative and entertaining content. Thanks Blaine.

[@moongirl-d9h]

DUDE WAS PLAYING DEAD CELLS, GUNGEON, AND ROR2???? this guy is pretty freaking epic ! !

[@patchclient3555]

Is that Liyue music in the background?! Nothing much, it's not what I was expecting but it's a nice touch lol 😂🤣

[@madmachanicest9955]

Another fun fact is that the entire elder scrolls series is based on a home-brewed version of the mystara 2nd edition flash first edition D&D campaign setting where the tabaxi originally came from.

[@Android_ELITE]

even if you used a thousand peasants, the item wouldn’t hit mach 1. you’d need closer to 1500 to hit that speed, at which point you do finally have an item traveling at something approximating the speed of a typical bullet. frankly I’m more interested in the implications of talking being a free action. infinite words per minute… lol

[@ruffles4scruffles]

I watched this video while playing Genshin. I was so confused about where the music was coming from. lol.

[@stakezen7825]

i remember i had teamed up with all the players at my table to make 5 edgy rogues, all wearing different colors and acting like orphan power rangers

[@8-7-styx94]

I recall a few things that may not have been easy to find. The one that comes to mind atm was the shipwreck. Supposedly the goal was to raise the wreck and move it to a convention center where they would host a session of D&D live on tv. The exact reasoning for this madness I can't recall but if successful it would have been an epic game to be sure.

[@Feanor6450]

56:36, "you know stories, a good wizard tricked it" "I hate good wizards in stories, they always turn out to be him" the doctor and river song.

[@Jenaldin]

I enjoyed this video very much, Blane, thank you for the efforts! Today I hosted a one shot for my colleagues from work who had only heard of D&D and wanted to try so I have send them the video as "homework" as there are so much interesting details and lore they could enjoy! I think its a great thing you did here! I was surprised at how many things I knew and how many I did not :) Great job!

[@lightning_11]

13:20 Our group actually set up a spreadsheet and arranged for members to take turns bringing the food, so you're only on the hook every couple of weeks.

[@efrenenverde]

One of the players in my original group will always take any chance to ask all willing NPCs absolutely everything. He once asked a random child what was the main export of that town, so we now ofen ask "What's the main export?" whenever someone is making too many or too silly questions even out of the game. Not than anyone cares, just wanted to boost the algorythm lol

[@FredrickTesla]

True Strike isn't a bad cantrip, it's just bad for someone who's only idea for it is to use it in conjunction with basic attacks in combat. It's not for that. It's for the really important shots. It's for when you can't ignore that your crossbow has loading, or you pick up a blunderbuss and you're not proficient with it. It's for winning a game of darts without anyone knowing you cast a spell on the dart board. That's right, True Strike can be cast on anything you can target, it doesn't have to be a creature. It's for when you want to wade into an area with silence, but you don't have the movement to get to your target this turn, use your action to point at them and True Strike them on the way in. It's purely somatic, if you can point, you can True Strike. It's for when you have a consumable magical item that makes you do a spell attack. Yes, True Strike works with spell attacks. And last but not least, you can use it on targets you cannot see. Nowhere does it say it requires line of sight, meaning you can use it when you're blinded or poisoned to negate the disadvantage.

[@daemon_7669]

Damn, talk about a heads up xD I never thought of it this way, also more people need to see that.

[@FredrickTesla]

@@daemon_7669 Think that's cool, Ever looked at Crown of Stars? Cast it, it lasts an hour and gives you seven motes of light around your head. Once a turn as a bonus action, you expend a mote to target a creature with a spell attack and if it hits you do 4d12 radiant damage. That means you cast Crown of Stars before combat begins, and anyone and anything that seems like it might initiate combat, you point and true strike it before the DM says to roll initiative. As soon as your first turn comes, you use your bonus action to do the attack at advantage, then as your action, you True Strike again. Next turn, bonus action attack with advantage, action, True Strike. Repeat until you're out of motes.

[@marvintg2002]

Oh my god, i didn't expect to be reminded of Arcadum within the first minute of the video. Got into their content a couple of months before the drama, and saw it all unfold. I would never be comfortable watching him again.

[@nyxislost553]

It honestly kinda hurt to see his name after all this time. I genuinely loved his campaign and all of his players, how interesting and in depth the campaign was and his campaign was the only D&D actual play content that I could watch all the way through. I was so heartbroken when I found out about the drama

[@internet_lizard]

Just listening through all this, I find character tropes quite interesting because everyone who plays DnD sort of lives by them subconsciously and when those tropes are broken there's a slight moment of 'what?'. For instance, i was aware of character tropes and I had a new player in my group who wanted to play a Tiefling Barbarian. Everything was going well until we went to one particular shop, and they asked to buy a longbow. My brain physically stopped working at that point as everything i thought i knew was thrown out of a window. XD They are a fun player and I do look forward to future sessions!

[@asafoetidajones8181]

Gygax hated wizards and loved polearms. I don't think he'd have an extramartial affair.

[@1Ring42]

At first I was like "where's the head of vecna" but I suppose that falls under one of the story categories.

[@andrewoxner2941]

My wife and I host the game and we frequently put together meals for everyone! there are a couple of D&D cookbook out there.

[@sirelfinjedi]

Great video! As I recall the OG alignments were chaotic, neutral, and lawful. Good and evil were added to make the alignment grid in AD&D ("first edition"). I've played since 1988, now in multiple games a week, and listen to tons of dnd youtubers. I knew almost nothing from the bottom tier. Thanks!

[@sehrgut42]

Came here to say this. Good and evil were added only as a concession to players consistently misinterpreting lawful AS good and chaotic AS evil.

[@WaterZer0]

Baldur's Gate being tier 3 is funny now because it would be tier 0 now.

[@skittlemenow]

The most impressive thing in this video is that you managed to find anything that the internet didn't have opposing views on.

[@AvangionQ]

7:53 Back in the day, alignment was a choice between lawful, neutral and chaotic ... the good/evil axis was added later.

[@exudeku]

Funny story that I first know D&D from a then not popular novel called "Overlord". I learned that its popular in Japan as well, and it literally birthed the JRPG trope of western heroes and Isekais. Sadly that D&D isnt that popular here in my country (Ph)

[@etopihpih2234]

Haha same!! Though, the anime was the first thing I discovered Overlord. Then I tried to read the LN after like 3 times rewatching the series. Everything feels so natural and raw... well, except for Ainz, being Ainz lel And yeah, sadly, there's just so little of nerds here in phil 😭

[@ThAlEdison]

7:55 I'd be interested on the source of "back in the day there were two options to pick from, good and evil". I did not play back in the day (starting in the 3.5 era, myself), but I have played in a couple of games with older rulesets, and the alignment options were order and chaos. Which mirrors a couple of the in-universe creation myths for D&D.

[@goldjaw]

10:44 In the business, we call this “Foreshadowing”

[@WilliamHostman]

Major factual error: Original Edition and Basic had only Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Optional articles for OE added Good/Neutral/Evil as a second axis, which would survive through 3.5; 4E has a 5 point system; 5E went back to the 2 axis of AD&D and 3.X.

[@leontio7161]

"Fireball solves everything" - BigDickWizard6969

[@danielknapp3141]

This feels like a good test of how knowledgeable someone is about D and D. I got through most of tier 3 before I heard anything really new.

[@SteveMND]

16:47 "extra-martial affairs" I can't tell if this was a typo of "extra-marital" that made its way into the reading or an absolutely top-tier pun.

[@hyzmarie]

Every time there is a gazebo anywhere near me, I face it alone.

[@dxjxc91]

D&D + MTG: You mentioned Strixhaven, the 3rd MTG setting printed in D&D, but not the first 2: Ravnica and theros? The centaur, minotaur, and satyr races from these books (as well as what few subclasses they had) were eventually reprinted into general D&D rules (no longer setting specific)

[@Olav_Hansen]

Things like "there is a multiverse" seem like tier 3 maximum. The "there is 1 terraque" also doesn't sound like t5 to me. 'gish' also sounds like a t3/t4 term that isn't in this list. You also didn't mention 'never split the party', or 'never jump over moving water', where falling in the water somehow always leads you to a waterfall. There is also the classic dm line "as far as you can tell, everything is safe" every time a character makes a low check. Also, a cool one that wasn't mentioned yet: the elder scrolls was mostly based on a game of dnd some of the devs were running.

[@figment3242]

55:27 I’d always imagined they tried to kill each other over the treasure. Thus “ there is no honor among thieves “.

[@viktord2025]

Before I watch the video all the way through, I checked out the things on the Iceberg, and yeah, turns out I know all of these. But hey, the less initiated can learn something from this, so A+ for the video ahead of time. Edit on Alignment: There were three alignments, Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic. Just a quick fix. Edit on the Edit on Alignment: My bad, you mentioned L N and C. My bad. Edit 2: You pronounced Mordenkainen wrong. Just a pet peeve

[@GreenFlameTheGF]

I wish Order of the Stick was there, as it what got me into D&D in the first place Their from is also where I found about powerful 3.5e build that took at most 2 levels in a class going for 40+ levels

[@ClaireBear_yt]

I could’ve sworn “Steinhardt’s Guide to the Eldridge Hunt” was the most successful source book kickstarter, but I could be wrong. Also, recency bias.

[@dorothymorrigan4251]

Adding to the anime dnd, kugane maruyama creator of Overlord is a massive dnd fan and implemented some of it into his story, whether true or not a joke in the overlord fan community is that he wrote a book because he couldn't get a dnd group together

[@afrothekobold]

speaking of obscure campaign references, I'm pretty sure my current DM won't allow me to play Druids anymore because during a christmas one shot I destoryed the turn economy by summoning a bunch of adds, making the spell caster flea with Geas, changing one of the bigger bosses into a ferret for a few turns and polymorphing Santa into a T-Rex

[@jamesmitchell5138]

In concern with the minics, I once had a one shot where as a joke we all made chaotic characters, so when we say a cake in an abandoned gnome town, we all ran towards it, the table it was on became a mimic, throwing the cake at us, which was of course, a mimic

[@jamess3395]

A reminder that netheril is a very specific location to the FR, and as they are minor artefacts the specific lore behind them will change depending on the setting.

[@sebastianlopez9433]

1:29 I'm so traumatized that I can recognize the link

[@TheKillerman3333]

i used mold earth, it cuased an avalanche of rocks to fall on the players. we all lived through it. mold earth was so strong, that it nearly killed my whole party

[@WilliamRoyNelson]

Normal people have extra-marital affairs. Gygax has extra-martial affairs.

[@prinnyEXE]

Brrr it's cold at the bottom.

[@cobwebinthecorner]

Illinois native here, just wanted to mention how funny I thought your pronunciation of Rockford was. I actually didn't know about that fact though, and was really surprised when I looked it up and found out that Gygax was an Illinois native as well! I've BEEN to Toad Hall more than a few times and never knew he played a test build there!

[@Blarg6306]

My boys had a discussion about d4's. Boy 1: What's worse, stepping on a d4 or a Lego. Boy 2: stepping on a d4 MADE of Legos. Me: 😶

[@Feanor6450]

44:00 I went through a blood hunter phase for a few months before I got fed up with the lack of higher level spells and went with circle of the moon druid instead.

[@Elkantar_Rostorgh231]

7:53 Going to make a correction: back in Original D&D, the only alignments were Lawful, Neutral, and Chaos. Good and Evil were not added in until Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and the most misunderstood aspect of alignments that most players nowadays fail to grasp is that alignments don't just represent personal morals and beliefs, but they're legit cosmic concepts that are tangible and real. To be of a Good Alignment means to literally align yourself with a cosmic force of good, and to be Evil is to literally align yourself with a cosmic force of Evil, and these cosmic concepts and forces can alter the very balance of the universe.

[@captianbacon]

Dungeons don't just refer to delving into a forgotten tomb to find a sword of a fallen hero, it can refer to woods complex alleyways ect.

[@MrElectronicfallout]

Loved it! wanted to watch tier 1-2 but stayed until the end.

[@GreyfauxxGaming]

Addition: Human Fighter used to be something to got relegated into but in 5e its crazy powerful if the DM allow addition feat. That means as a fighter you start with a feat, at 4th level and every two levels after you can get an ASI or a feat. You can easily max your main stat and pick up a ton of feats.