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If Giants know they may be fighting humanoids, it makes sense for them to beef-up their leg-armor! Different parts of the Giant could have different ACs...

I've had this idea for a while of assigning separate HP blocks to each of the Giant's arms and legs, and to the torso/head. So characters would have to say "I'm aiming for it's right arm", or something like that. Destroying an arm would give disadvantage on melee attacks, legs would reduce its speed, and torso would kill it outright (though it would also have the most HP, and maybe a higher AC, depending on what kind of armor they're sporting). Haven't had a chance to playtest this idea though.

Now you NEED to give this to the biggest, brutish character you have, nothing like a 8ft Goliath with flowing golden locks while spinning elegantly~

Good talk, good info.

Just working on a vampire sub-plot, but to be honest, I haven't heard anything that would make me go "Oh this is really cool idea". Also the mic and production value is really low, but I suppose you know that. The time stamps is a nice touch though.

I came here to address the mic, but since it seems you’ve already addressed that in other comments all I can say is awesome video! There’s no way this channel doesn’t blow up if you keep at it! I enjoy how you don’t directly appeal to the high fantasy genre of dnd with these creatures and focus more on the low/dark fantasy aspects! Have you looked into grim hollow at all? The way you talk about plot points and narrative uses of monsters I think you’d really enjoy their work!

Sad to say we're all spoiled on youtube by high-end audio setups. It's very distracting when it's not.

There was a short supplement I picked up a while back that presented a brief "whodunnit"-type scenario in Castle Ravenloft and, more interestingly, offered individual stat blocks for Strahd's vampire spawn Brides. It gave them each some new abilities and minor Legendary actions that made them feel both more threatening (especially in a group) and more like individuals without radically increasing their challenge rating--still obviously subordinate to their Master, but more unique and interesting. Makes for a happy medium between surprise thralls and the final boss.

Good content, but you really need an upgraded mic. Good luck!

I like to put World of Darkness Vampires and Demons in my D&D and Liches and Death Knights in my World of Darkness games 🤪

Daggershit Iñis Great for rubbish adventures and scripts like those on Critical Boring Roll. It's more Dungeons & Diversity for Snowflakes, with no Dungeons 🤣🤣. 5E and Featfinder are already Bad, but this spawn of an RPsg IS even worst. No surprise coming from the minds of CR lol

Hey! Fellow DM here. Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the video! Great job and keep it up! The way you describe things is super cool and I like your ideas!

I don't know if you've pieced this together, but I LOVE Vampires. Strahd, Dracula, Sorin Markov! You did an exceptional capturing a lot of the great elements of one of the best types of creatures in fantasy!

*Hurriedly takes notes*

Really enjoyed this video, G! Some really fun ideas.

I do vampires all the time and have *tons* of variants.:)

Step 1: Ban remove Curse

Great video! I really enjoyed this! Something I've been having a lot of fun with recently is the idea that history is written by the winners. So every creature in the Monster Manual is described by people who have fought against it, and presumably lived to tell the tale. For Vampires, how different would their story (and their statblock!) be if they told their own story?

And to a polymorphed dragon?

Jerma?

Have they fixed the hope/fear/action chaotic oscillator yet? As an engineer I know *never* to build things like that! The "cinematic" thing is actually really offputting to me, especially the way Spencer DMs it. The language of Hollywood *does not belong* in my fantasy world. As a DM from AD&D, I follow the original Gygaxian feel, and encourage players not to play their character sheet, and just say what they'd like to do.

Given that D&D uses Vancian magic, you might try researching Vancian curses. You don't need magic to defeat the curse, you need to fulfill the conditions of the curse while avoiding the consequences of it. I recommend Vance's Dying Earth series, in particular, Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga which are a pair. The Lyonesse series by Vance may have some curses as well; worth a read even if I am wrong on that.

Remove Curse should be renamed Remove Minor Curse and that alone shifts how we think Okay so we can riddle little small curses here and there that are pesky And design major curses that demand those plotlines There are so many ways to deal with curses but I'm always a big fan of witches, hags, and ghosts delivering them

I love dungeons as the underworld where it’s not supposed to make sense, because it’s a hostile alien world that is an adversary in and of itself - a place that wants your dead or gone, guards its treasure, keeps its secrets, blows out your torches and jams doors behind you - this sort of procedural generation could definitely feed into that - when it doesn’t make sense, that’s ok, because it’s not supposed to made for you surface dwellers

Wherever these shit activists go, they will continue to bring their senseless ideas which will destroy whatever next venue you run to

you're a nice dude, but the background "lounge" music is so damn annoying...

One of my players is keen to give this a try...

A simple work around could also be that cure curse still needs an extra step. Maybe a rare item. Or something of the person who cursed you. Or you could look at it as the spell being the first step. A ritual of sorts.

Thank you for putting gameplay in context! I think I'll run a more traditional d20 system for newbies and Daggerheart for the veteran players.

I agree with the general thrust of this video, but it leaves out a few things that might give us inspiration. In addition to _bestow curse,_ another spell that causes a short-term curse is _hex._ There are some class abilities that involve brief curses: Hexblade's Curse, or, in the Exandria setting, a blood hunter's Blood Curses. I think it's fair to remove these with a _remove curse_ spell, perhaps with added difficulty if the curse spell is cast at a higher level, like with _dispel magic_ (which maybe shouldn't work on curse spells). Also, there are a bunch of monsters in 5e that inflict curses. All lycanthropes can spread their curse with a bite, a mummy can inflict a rotting curse with its fist, a rakshasa causes a curse with its claw, and a dusk hag has her Nightmare Touch. A lamia causes a curse for 1 hour with its touch. Fomorians inflict a temporary curse with their Evil Eye, and mirror hags have a 24-hour Reconfiguring Curse. Some creatures have extremely brief curses, measured in seconds. A demilich has Vile Curse, a destiny hag has Destiny Curse, and a blood hag has Sanguine Curse. And in addition to cursed items that won't let you drop them, the Deck of Many Things has the Euryale card, which bestows a curse that is extremely hard to remove. And that can be an inspiration for other powerful curses. Like the Euryale card, some curses should be more potent than spells, and DMs should communicate to their players ahead of time that certain curses (like those lasting for more than 24 hours) can only be removed by something special. Maybe that's making amends with the curser or their kin. Maybe it's completing a quest, like going to a specific place where the curse can be removed, finding an appropriate material component for _remove curse_ or _greater restoration,_ persuading an angel to use their Healing Touch, helping a tormented creature find peace, or passing the curse on to someone else in a specific way. Maybe it just takes very powerful and unpredictable magic, like a divine intervention, a _Wish,_ drawing The Fates from the Deck of Many Things, or dying and being brought back via the _reincarnate_ spell.

The best curses in media are those that momentarily are beneficial, but over time will have catastrophic consequences if not lifted.

It would be cool to be able to make a cursed object creator subclass for Artificers where the creator has curse effects an some benefit from making cursed object that with can not be emotional removed easily or curse scribe bard whose hands develop a necrotic effect with every curse the writer creates an the severity increases but even if the healed there would always be a slight necro touch active the trade off would be the bard could use it as an attack or use an action to touch something to desolve it

Thanks for the video. Nice ideas. I will definitely check out the books. One critique. The music in the background was not evocative of curses in general, but it now curses my soul. Thank you.

This is fantastic stuff. Stealing for my table...

1:14 Fun fact: "geas" is an Irish word pronounced "ghesh".

I really hate anti-exploration magic. Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Comprehend Languages, universal darkvision, like they talk incessantly about "three pillars" but they really see two pillars and a miscellany.

If the curse has a plotline, a mear level 3 dispel curse fails. Divine intervention on curses is a thing also. Especially since many enchanted items tied to a curse can't be destroyed by normal means, why would the curse? For instance, Vecna's eye and hand curse. I dont see Vecna just allowing a level 3 cleric to rob him of a new body to possess? And let's not forget that dieties exist over curses, and what if they decide that same level 3 cleric spell just isn't enough. Even Mystra may wish to see the end results of a curse since it is within her wheelhouse of magic. Especially if she wants new magic developed for stronger curses created by others, whether they are dieties or not. So the diety doesn’t need to be evil nor the purpose be revealed to the players. Some curses need to come to fruition, just depending on the players and the DM agreement on mechanics. If the fun goes out the window, the curse needs to be solved, in my opinion. But the plot line to that itself is fun. I agree with the issue of curses, though written raw. But that is why DMs get control over things to make them more fun. I've heard of this Vecna work elsewhere. I'm strongly considering getting it to include in my library of options for games.

this sound more like a mean dm nightmare.

This video is absolutely amazing and gave me so many ideas! What are your opinions on giving dragons the ability to cast spells? Or give them metamagic options from the sorcerer class? I can already see a white dragon hiding itself in an illusionary snowbank using hallucinatory terrain, waiting for a party to walk on by to then snatch the weakest player and try to get away. Or a green dragon using the sleep spell to remind others of it's power, and maybe of possible deals made with. Showing players/NPC's dreams about their loved ones dying if they don't cooperate. That way the dragon can hide itself easily, but remain very much active in the story.

I wouldn't mind remove curse if it was something like a 8th level spell.

I thought Geas was proounced Gesh.

Seem to remember some cursed traps in the grimtooths series.

The only long term curse I've used was a list of bad things that might happen to anyone who opened a specific tomb. The dwarf cleric got a really bad roll and is now hairless - head to toe, not even eyebrows. The Player decided to role play it out rather than just get rid of the bad effect. In the end of the story, the cleric was instrumental in bringing back the dwarven race (they had been virtually exterminated in the story set up) and the first thing the reawakened dwarves saw was a cleric w/o any hair. So now, in my world, dwarves shave their hair as a sign of their allegiance to their god. They sacrifice all their previous allegiances and commitments to serve and the new cleric has to ritually shave as part of their spell prep for the day.

I never use "cursed magic items" that the player can't walk away from. I make them enticing enough that they choose to use it anyway.

You just effectively articulated what I've been thinking and feeling for over twenty years!

The best kind of "cursed items" aren't simply cursed. They're items that use a balancing effect that that gives some aid or benefit to the player character, but harms (or seriously inconveniences) the PC themselves or people or things that the PC actually cares about. Examples: - A medallion that allows the PC to instantly leap a great height or distance, but simultaneously inflicts two rounds of indescribable, disabling pain on their closest loved one, or familiar, or animal companion, etc. (GM's choice.). You can use it, but... - A ring that protects the PC from mind control (either fully or by improving a saving throw), but prevents them from receiving magical healing for the next day, or week after each use.

There's There's section on Curses on Van Richtens Guide where anyone can place a curse.

When I was trying to write interesting curses, one of the things I did was to include a special circumstance during which the curse was lifted, like the hedgehog shedding his quills at night and returning to human form, the adventurer cursed to be unable to own or hold any property for more than a few moments, can one day a year, buy, sell, and accept gifts. I do really like the idea od a curse progressing, like a magical disease, the end stage of which is probably literally monstrous.

I'm running a homebrew curse of Strahd. Thank you

There are monsters that can curse you, top of my head I can only name mummies and Rakshasa but I'm pretty sure there are others