My problem with is you guys clearly wrote a "main character" for a D&D/TTRPG book when the "main character" is supposed to be the party. Maybe next time just... write a novel?
I always felt that the futuristic weapons were there as a baseline for any DM who wanted to run a 5e campaign but with a futuristic setting. If I remember correctly there was even a UA for spells that would fit into a modern setting. My guess is they added that stuff for later use, like maybe they were going to do a campaign book set in a futuristic version of Faerûn but then that probably got scrapped after Starfinder came out in 2017.
The best part is when you remember that you can interact with an object as PART of your action, costing no additional actions. Disarm using an attack action, and pick up their weapon as part of the same action. Bonus points if the DM one-ups you and does the same action in return, turning it into a game of keep-away.
Thats how I DM'd, we can add technical rules and make combat more interesting; but enemies will have the same rules. Generally, players don't want that.
one of the weapon addition PDFs I stumbled on adds stuff like grapple and disarm abilities as bonus actions to some weapon choices and it's something I REALLY wanna try at some point. Sadly probably whenever I get DMing going on my end but still!
@@MegaFrog I didnt use the disarm rules but I ran an encounter where the players faced a mirror match of themselves, except the mirrors didnt have thier magic items, but *did* have their attunements and prepared spells and abilities. The fighters mirror immediatly used disarming strike manuver, because it knew the fighter had a +2 magic sword with a special ability, picked up the sword in the same turn, and proceeded to action surge, plus spend every single charge the sword had, just because I decided I would play the mirrors with ruthless efficiency that the party lacked.
"Nobody knows why the DMG has weapon details for laser pistols and laser rifles..." It's because laser guns have been part of D&D's canon lore since 1980, when they appeared in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks adventure module. They were considered non-busted because they rely on laser ammunition, and the crashed spaceship from that adventure is the only place in the setting where such ammo can be found (and there only in scarce+finite quantity) - the guns were deliberately overpowered as a "one time" toy that would generally be depleted of ammo either during the very same adventure, or shortly thereafter.
Rime of the Frostmaiden is the most recent module to utilize laser weapons with a laser pistol in the position of a gnome ceremorph in a crashed illithid spacecraft. The weapons has 50 charges initially and no way to reload it, so every time you use it (or the gnomithid uses it in the fight to acquire it) is one of finite ammunition.
In Xanathar's Guide to Everything it says you instantly fall in a turn up to a maximum 500ft, instantly falling an additional 500ft on each subsequent turns.
The one thing i dont like about the rules for falling is that, instantly implies you literally do not get to make any action to try and prevent your fall. The only thing one could do is cast feather fall as the reaction but if your not a caster your quite literally shit out of luck.
@@NoGoodHandlesLeft Then it gets banned and the Ranger/Druids are like "oh yeah my background is Outlander, I can find food/water for up to 5 people a day" and the entire survival part of the game gets tossed lmao
@@PunknPixels In defence of the Druids/Rangers there is a spell component cost but in most campaigns I've been a part of any really common components are handwaved (which could be an addition to this video). I probably could have been a dick and asked if they had mistletoe but its a multi-DM campaign and none of the previous ones enforced this rule.
I've played Magic: The Gathering so the idea of counterspelling a counterspell is already known to me. Imagine a whole counterspell chain of the party versus the enemy encounter desperately trying to either force through or stop a different spell. My suggestion for often ignored rules; Electrum coins.
I use electrum to provide access to out of theme items such as a laser blade in a vampire adventure. There is a dedicated group of NPCs who trade exclusively in them.
8:20 Objection! You fall 500ft per round, falling 1000ft into lava would give you a turn to do something, and falling 1001ft would give you two turns :)
Specifically, you fall 578 - lets round up to 600 - feet per turn. If you want to get serious, though, even if you fell 1200 feet you'd still hit the bottom before the second turn completes due to acceleration
@@Nazuiko You hit terminal velocity in 12 seconds or about 1500 feet of fall. So after 2 rounds, acceleration does not matter. I would guess the first round is about 600 feet while the second round is closer to 900 feet. Then, you would stay at approximately 900 ft per six seconds until you encounter and equal and opposite force. Fun fact... an actual immovable rod with a galaxy frame considered, would fly away from its position at no less than 2 million miles per hour. The heat from acceleration would decimate every living thing on the planet you foolishly used it on.
Don't forget jack of all trades also applies to counterspell and dispel magic rolls as they are also checks, which makes bards some of the best at those spells in the game
@@Ethan13371note it is spellcasting modifier not spell attack bonus, so you don't get your proficiency. Abjuration wizards get the ability to add their proficiency to rolls for counterspell/dispel magic at level 10, which wouldn't be necessary if you already did so
Likewise, if guidance is cast before combat, the target can use the d4 on their initiative check. Same with peace cleric's warding bond, luckstone... It's all just remembering that bonuses to ability checks apply to all ability checks, and remembering that all of these rolls are ability checks. An initiative check can't fail, so sorcerer's magical guidance won't work on that, but if you fail a counterspell or dispel magic? Spend a sorcery point for a reroll.
@@winter945So if you were a multiclass Bard/Abjuration Wizard, in that order, you'd start off with your CHA+half your proficiency to counterspell, and then when you hit L10 Abjuration Wizard you'd get to add the other half?
Fun fact: the ruling that makes it so that squares are circles is actually a variant rule, because playing on a grid at all is a variant rule. This forced WOTC to publish *another* optional rule in the DMG that gives a more realistic way of determining distances
So, I like adding stealth bonuses based on size so small and large creatures get a +2 and -2 respectively. Meanwhile, tiny creatures get a +5, and huge creatures get a -5 to stealth. Gargantuan creatures get a -10 to stealth because they're the size of an F'ing three story house and shake the ground when they move. I don't care if its an invisible tarrasque its not going to sneak up to the party in a dense forest because it'll knock over trees and create a clearing simply by existing.
I’d rather widen the scope of neutrality. I don’t think a player who’s a fairy or goblin should get such a high bonus so easily and oni that are built to be sneaky shouldn’t have such an innate disadvantage.
I hadn't thought about stealth bonuses, but as I was adding Large and Tiny races to my homebrewing work, I made it so Tiny gains +2 AC and reduces their hit die by 1 factor (faerie wizards living that 1d4 hit die meme) whereas large gets -2 AC and improve hit dies by 1 factor (d20 Minotaur Barbarian, ftw). Adding in stealth modifiers would make some sense as well in retrospect, even if it's not as big as yours.
You mean that module made by Gygax for AD&D in 1980s? What? No way! Get that 3rd party shit away! That loser shit had no place in the REAL game! Especially by a hoax by the name Gary Gygax who TOTALLY wasn’t the one who made AD&D!
See also "Temple of the Frog", where an adventurer is wielding not one, but TWO futuristic laser weapons ON THE FRONT COVER. D&D was made by nerds from the 70s. _Of course_ they stuck Sci Fi into their Fantasy game.
Futuristic Guns: These are included because D&D is ultimately based on Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance (Heck, D&D spellcasting is called Vancian spellcasting for a reason). All the classic monsters and the like are based in a world of collapsing to barbarism as the universe collapses slowly on itself. Think like Thundarr the Barbarian. Mimics were made to protect belongings you stored inside them, Ioun stones act weird and orbit things because they are mined from the cores of collapsed stars and have weird rules with gravity, etc. Faeries being Small: Or you're playing a Pixie, which are Size S. :)
I’d also say that a common rule often ignored is keeping track of ammunition. Unless it’s special ammunition like enchanted ammo, most DMs I’ve played with ignore it because forcing a player’s build to be tied to a resource that could run out and constantly needs to be replenished isn’t very fun. Ranged martial characters already have to contend with being weaker than spellcasters in general, there’s no point in nerfing them further by making their main attack a limited number of uses that is dependent on being able to get back to someone who sells ammunition before they run out.
I keep track of it, but I've never been asked or questioned about it. Can't really blame the Dms, honestly, which is why I just don't bring it up and keep track of it quietly
"because forcing a player’s build to be tied to a resource that could run out and constantly needs to be replenished isn’t very fun" So spellcasters, Monks, Barbarians, Battlemaster fighters, Paladins arent fun to play then I assume :P
@@Malkuth-Gaming theres a difference, the arrows are tied to their most basic attack and being forced to go melee or just kinda sit and cry in combat is not fun
@@Malkuth-Gaming Warlocks, Spellcasters, Monks, Barbarians, etc. "I've run out of spells." [Throw them a pillow and a blanket for a Short Rest] "I've got all my spells!" Archer "Wood grows on trees, but fletching doesn't! I don't magically regenerate arrows!"
Players are ideots, characters are not. Unless a resource is unavailable or specially expensive I tend to assume the character prepared enough for the adventure, or at least until the next resupply.
7:00 short rest spam is easy to fix: As a short rest takes 1 hour, that's 1 hour of extra prep time the mobs get to fortify their positions, call for reinforcements, evacuate the area with the loot, and so on. And if the adventurers are in a time sensitive mission, these hours add up pretty quickly. And some traps are pretty easy to set in just a couple of hours. Watch any video on Victor Charlie traps if you don't believe me.
If there's a Warlock in your party, you definitely should spam short rests so they can burn through spell slots more often. A short rest only has to be 1 hour, and you can always have someone stand watch or cast an alarm/ward. There's really no good reason not to, and if your DM objects to it, your Warlock should insist. Otherwise they're actively sabotaging one of their players.
I'd add that you need a minimum of comfort for the rest to work. Meaning you can't rest under harsh environnemental conditions without shelter for example
Another half decent way to upgrade your player’s pet companion is using the sidekick rules from Tasha’s. The martial sidekick specifically mentions it can be a wolf or other animal companion
Flee, Mortals! also has kickass companion rules. Started using them at my table and the players love it. They are especially useful in games with only 1-2 players.
^This. I'm honestly surprised the Sidekick rules from Tasha's weren't mentioned. They literally exist to facilitate the exact "acquire NPC friends/animal companions" playstyle many groups gravitate towards.
The reason why futuristic weapons exist in the DMG is a holdover from the earliest days of the game. Specifically the adventure module "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks". The adventure starts off as the typical dungeon-crawl, but you quickly discover that what you're exploring isn't a dungeon/labyrinth/Overlord's Hideaway but is a crashed starship. The weapons and stuff that folks could (and would) find on the dead crew, weapons lockers, etc. were seriously OP even back then, but were actually needed to beat some of the critters that were running around. Edit: Falling rules are covered in the PHB; you take 1d6 damage for every 10 feet that you fall with a cap of 20d6. A *VERY* common house rule does away with the damage cap however, especially when PCs are sitting in the triple-digit HP range. Xanathar's covers the rate of falling, which is 500 feet per turn, which goes a really long way to explain why the vast majority of falls occur instantly. TBH, tracking rations is forgotten because most parties have at least one character that can provide sustenance for the group pretty easily; whether it's through Skill (usually Survival) or Spells (Goodberry, Create Food & Water...), the necessity of keeping (let alone tracking) rations becomes a quaint idea pretty quickly.
Disarm - I had a enemy hero with a badass sword and special legendary actions that allowed him to grapple with a successful attack (to flex for story purposes) The Paladin was grabbed around the throat and lifted into the air...he Commanded the enemy to drop his sword. Badguy uses his turn to pick up the sword Paladin commanded him to drop it. This variant of Disarm went on for 4 turns...
@@SlopeOfTangent Correct, but dropping the sword would take an action because of the command spell, so it does still waste the enemy's turn at least. The funnier part is that with the rule of a free object interaction, the paladin could've picked up the enemy's sword and ran away with it XD
I never forget the jumping rules, and it leads to endless suffering for me and me alone as I try to jump in game, and the DM scrambles to figure out how that works while I repeatedly tell them the rule and where they can find it if they want to double check me.
I actually am a bit curious, how often does jumping make a difference for you? I mean, if a stream is only 10 feet wide or even narrower, then I just expect everybody in the party to be able to make the jump. And no, I don't care if the wizard only has 8 or 9 strength, because what happens? He proably gets wet boots and that's it. You so rarely have something 15 feet wide, that some characters would auto-succeed while others have to make a check. Most of the time you sit at 20 feet or wider, in which case nobody can auto-succeed on the jump. And for high jumps, well, 5 feet high ledges are very uncommon as well, most are at least 10 feet, at which point everybody can reach up with their arms stretched out. Or at 20 feet everybody has to climb unless they have flying.
@Schilani movement is a valuable and limited resource in combat. Jumping over pits, hazards, or even just difficult terrain can help you move further when it matters. One time, I saved multiple turns jumping onto a docked pirate ship instead of running all the way to the gangplank. This helped a lot because there were ranged attackers on the ship supporting melee fighters on the ground. As for heigh jumping, it doesn't make sense to say that 10 foot ledges aren't common. (or any situation) That's completely dependent on who's running the game. That said, jumping allows you to reach your jump height plus your standing height plus half your standing height if you use your arms. It ends up being the same deal. Ot can save valuable movement in combat. Plus, the rules say you can add 1.5 times your standing height to your vertical reach when jumping (that represents your arms reaching up too), so with a height of 6 feet and a modest strength modifier of 3, a running high jump lets you reach 15 feet with your hands. Might help you reach a window or a tree branch or a flying monster.
@@Allesef Well the pits and hazard come back to 10 feet being easily jumpable by pretty much everybody, and 15 or more being only jumpable by dedicated strength classes, because nobody else invests in strength. The ship is a nice example of a jump actually mattering a lot, thanks for that. And I so like that idea of jumping up to a low flying enemy and grabbing it. A thing I don't really like abou the high jump is, that pulling yourself up a 10 foot high ledge costs 10 foot of movement speed as a standing jump, while pulling yourself up a 15 foot ledge with a running high jump costs 25 foot of movement. And both don't count as an action at all, so you can climb up that ledge and still get all your actions. But that is something that I feel is off.
@@Schilani I don't see how it's a problem that only a character with high strength could jump bigger gaps. I think that's the mechanic operating as intended. characters have different abilities. not everyone needs to be able to make significant use of jumping, and it doesn't need to always be the most efficient option. some people can use it, and it's often a good option or even the only option. that makes it useful. (also, you can't climb everything. I'd argue you can't climb most things, but that's hard to quantify. you definitely can't climb a lot of things)
For some reason my table ALWAYS has one character that cares about dim light and/or no light. And in some cases I actually made encounters to straight up countering these characters, sometimes in the form of setting them on fire, just to prevent the teleportation of the shadow monk.
@@Schilani Just as a minor reminder, dunno if it applies to any groups that you run, but one easy way to nerf darkvsion for a puzzle or encounter is to demand something in color. Darkvision on all the base 5e races is written as viewing in greyscale, so doing a quest objective requiring seeing reds and greens is going to mess them up if noone brought a lantern.
@@gratuitouslurking8610 oh yeah, visual puzzles against darkvision can be quite amusing. Especially when you don't use them too often, so by the next time the party runs into one, they forgot about the gray scale aspect again.
Had a one-shot where every PC had counterspell... And it turned out that a number of the cultists we were fighting did too. We ended up having a counterspell duel during the BBEG fight where _everyone_ fired off a counterspell to try and stop the BBEG's spell. Good fun!
The pair to the Bard Init thing is Monk and Paladin Death Saving Throws. Monks get proficiency in all saving throws and Paladins emit an aura giving everyone up to +5 to all their saving throws, and yes that includes death saves. Paladin is admittedly less useful as you lose the bonus if the Paladin is unconcious, which you would be if you're making death saving throws, but if the Paladin is up the rest of the party can get themselves up if the Paladin is out of lay on hands or something.
The only bad part about this is that succeeding on death saving throws seldom matters. Rolling a natural 20 is what matters most (at best the dm is merciful and you survive being downed and are just unconsious for a few hours).
@@DarkBladeFury-xc8jh They're still "saving throws", they just aren't tied to any of the stats. Because the bonuses mentioned go towards *any* "saving throws", "death saving throws" thus gain the benefits of such features.
My favorite rule that I think makes a lot of sense that my DM has always used is making a healing potion a bonus action, but still using it as an action to feed it to a companion. It means you can stay in the fight, not waste your turn, and most importantly, heal up only to get smacked back down and need to heal again.
Furthermore, the Monster Manual has faeries of all shapes and sizes. Since the race is just vague "fairy" and not a specific kind of fairy that is very smol - like a Pixie - it makes no sense to limit size for them, when even the game books themselves say that they come in a multitude of sizes. It's really hypocritical to say Oh our fae can big, but yours can ONLY be tiny.
@@MissOnana Pixie, the Faerie that D&D Claims is small in 5E is actually a Pixie from the earlier editions... they are size S. c.c Faeries are smaller and something different. c.c Like he said, us oldheads have to use logic from earlier editions because of 5E's... problems it has sometimes. :)
@@MissOnana Actually no. Fairy is the category which combines Sprite, Pixie, Grig and Nixie, being the main residents of the Realm of the Faerie and by 5e all but the Nixie (being the size of a large rat/potted plant/baby cat as to not get eaten by fish) are tiny.
@@zephodb That's fine and all, but it still completely ignores the original comments point that I was in agreement with, and using the Monster Manual example to support it further. Classic folklore has faeries being all shapes and sizes. Fairy is a general term that just sort of means all Fair Folk. So saying a fairy can only be tiny is complete nonsense. Especially when the word fairy doesn't really mean any one specific thing.
@@jamesdinius7769 The consequence is YOUR CHARACTER IS DEAD. Most people I feel already would feel horrible because of that But then you wanna punish the player too?
Honestly, unless your players are explicitly okay with it OR they maneuvered themselves into the position through repeated reckless or blatantly incompetent decisions, you've failed as a DM if any of your PC's die and can't be resurrected. Note the particular wording, though: "You _have failed_ as a DM", implying a single instance of failure. NOT "you _are a failure_ as a DM", which would imply you're a bad DM in general. Everyone can mess up, it's important to try and learn from mistakes or even rectify them if possible. My point is, you should avoid killing PC's until the party gets access to Revivify, and you should make sure they have ample opportunity to acquire diamonds to power the spell. Maybe even give them access to Revivify scrolls, just to be safe.
@@theuncalledfor Your point is that you don't like campaigns having stakes in your game and you think other people should play the same way. But unless the DM is intentionally putting people in such a position, it's not a failure of theirs if things don't go the right way before the safety net of revivify is gained.
You litterally can say non-magical laser guns exist in your world and call it a day tho, and that leads to one of the coolest things from pathfinder. The country of numeria which is a nation of barbarian tribes and space tech wizard as a ruling class of the structured society.
Magitek is just as valid a genre to bring into DND as any. I mean the most popular MMO currently is arguably FF14 and that's got more magitek than you can shake a chocobo leg at. It's also been done rather well in places, like Fool's Gold and it's Foreclaimers, or, well *gesticulates at Ebberon and Spelljammer*
Stuff like He-Man and other kids cartoons and movies often had this sort of set up with swords and sorcery and laser guns. Perfectly legit setting for a fantasy game.
DnD lore has spaceships, dimensional warping, steampunk realms, etc. They even added a hi-tech rocket-chairwheel (which is honestly very distasteful, physically disabled ppl I know were very offended). There is no good reason not to add optional gun rules to the game. I once even ran a spaghetti western one-shot where guns could use paladin smites and other weapon spell boosts.
I played a Plasmoid once. I spent like 4 sessions using Disguise Self and the plasmoid's vaguely defined shape changing rules to role play as the party's dog so I could spy on the cult members traveling in the same caravan as us.
I’m playing a soul knife rogue small sized Plasmoid who insists on having a coin sized bag of holding to store everything that isn’t small enough to squeeze into small places. Never takes humanoid form. Has bypassed traps in a dungeon by squeezing through a hole in a wall. His size also made sense when he fought an army alone in a snowstorm. The growing snowdrifts hid him effectively, though he was starting to freeze slowly, so he had to fight quickly. Invested in a ring of warmth after that.
A lot of 5e's rules honestly just seem like the system is at odds with itself. Like, 6:05 part of this is annoying cause the DMG and Xanathar's actually say to use a circle and measure out coverage, but that just defies the system of measurement for movement. If you're gonna use a non-euclidian grid (diagonals are always 5ft), then use non-euclidian circles, aka squares. It's both easier to run, and you shouldn't be able to run out of a 30 ft circle by moving less than 30 ft diagonally anyway.
What if, hear me out, we took a line of paper or like a ruler with a hole or one of those.. uhm.. the things you use to draw circles on maps. Take it and start at however big the radius is. Draw a circle. I'd probably say something along the lines of "every square touching the line takes half damage, anyone fully inside the circle takes full damage". I believe the situation has been solved, and in a way that feels relatively legitimate. (On the other hand, you can just do that circle for full damage and the leftover cube edges as half damage, so you don't have to bring out the tools)
@@justanothergamer64Or, hear me out, just use a square because you're already using a non-euclidian system, so you don't need to draw anything and it's super easy to measure and already works within the logic of 5e's grid based system. Pathfinder's approach of alternating 5-10-5-10 for diagonals provides you with fairly accurate circles for grid based combat, but that requires odd diagonal measurements that some players may not like and isn't as quick. If you don't want to do that and want to stick with 5e's (technically 4e's) diagonal system, then make the circles squares, because a circle is a shape where each point along its edge is equidistant from the center. Compromises on this is just trying to use two different measurement systems simultaneously which is both more work for zero benefit, not even a logical or 'realistic' one. The only other time you'd use circular shapes/literal measurement is if playing gridless, which is definitely possible, but also not related to this topic.
On page 86 of Xanathar's guide actually presents two methods for determining Area of Effects: Template & Token. The template method is the one that recommends creating templates to check if creatures are mostly within an area of effect. The token method recommends using some sort of tokens(like d6s) to figure out the affected spaces. Under the token method, spheres & cylinders are represented by squares with sides a long as the diameter.
Monsters of the multiverse and Wild beyond the Witchlight both state that the fairy race is Small. What you're stating is the pixie or the sprite monster type which is tiny. As a DM running Wild beyond the Witchlight this is something I have to know. Witchlight is also a survival game so have to keep up with rations, besides it's kinda fun when they roll on the table and find gingerbread cookies, cotton candy fog or flowers that literally ask to be eaten. Here's that table for reference. 1) Three gingerbread cookies shaped like elves and stacked on a wooden plate 2) A minty, three-leaf clover (for the next 8 hours, any creature that eats a leaf plucked from the clover can communicate telepathically with another creature up to 100 feet away that has eaten a similar clover leaf) 3) A delicious orange flower that whispers, “Eat me” (the flower’s head is tart, while its stem is sweet) 4) A white and gray eldercap mushroom (any creature that eats more than half of the mushroom has its appearance magically changed so that it looks like an aged version of itself for the next 24 hours) 5) A wisp of sweet, candied mist (similar in consistency and taste to cotton candy) 6) A brilliantly colored sunrise flower, which, when plucked, sheds light like a lantern for 8 hours (it also tastes like spicy honey) 7) A small, flaky meat pie wrapped in a colorful cloth (the pie is hearty and delicious) 8) A gourd shaped like a plump little dragon (any creature that eats more than half of the gourd’s innards gains 2d4 + 2 temporary hit points)
I think he's saying that even though the rules lists the fairy player race as being small most tables ignore that rule and run it as tiny. I don't think that's true. I think HE runs it as tiny because he wants to be tinkerbell and assumes we all do the same, even though having a permanently tiny PC would be insane.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the most common rule I've always seen ignored, beyond stopping the most ridiculous of misuse. Inventory management. Aka, no one really does it, at all, beyond a list of what they're carrying. The ridiculous misuse rule is generally just there to keep people from grabbing massive statues and other such things and tossing it into their packs, since that makes no sense. Unless you have a bag of holding, in which case, pretty much all aspects of inventory management is just completely ignored and you absolutely can loot entire towns without a second thought, lol
Meanwhile, the group I play with takes it so seriously we track coin weight, leave extremely valuable but quite heavy loot behind, and once took a whole session to make carts to move a bunch of gold coins to a far away town and set up a bank account. 😅
@@jimmysthoughts8571 It definitely helps that we play on Roll20, so it does the constant weight calculations for us. And there are also weird quirks, such as candles not having weight, so our fighter is carrying around about 1000 candles in a comically oversized backpack. :P
2:23 a way I’ve come to deal with this trouble is simple, if it meets the criteria of bring CR rating 1/2 or lower is to give the creature Sidekick levels, they now level up with you but not be as strong as you, an excellent compromise for early level creatures you can get like mastiffs.
4:55 Actually no. Harengon can add their proficiency bonus to initiative checks. I don't know if that counts as proficiency though. Edit, I can confirm that I've actually used the Jumping rules MANY times, and I've let one of my players start with a Laser Rifle once. Surprisingly they weren't even dealing the most damage out of everyone.
It's not 'proficiency in Initiative', since Initiative isn't a skill and you can't put Expertise on it, but basically the next best thing. Good catch though!
IIRC the Futuristic weapons are like many homebrews for firearms, where you ignore DEX bonuses for damage rolls. Kinda the closest thing 5th Ed has to exotic weapons in the modern day. Meanwhile the average ranger will be dropping a couple dozen dice a turn with Hunter's Mark.
Same, it makes no sense to roll for jumping. Roll to try to jump further sure, but rolling to jump makes no sense. You don't roll for each step you take, and for battle hardened individuals like dnd characters, jumping is basically just another type of movement.
Bards also get a bonus to the ability check attached to dispel magic and counterspell. So, the rules in the PHB presume that your character is never going to be in a situation where they're falling more than 200 feet (Max fall damage being 20d6). In Xanathars, there are rules for if a character is falling for extreme distances; in that case, then they fall 500 feet immediately when they fall, and then fall an additional 500 feet at the end of each turn they are still airborne. I agree, that counterspell wars are probably my least favorite interaction in the game, and there's a few reason for this; First, the monsters don't have anything else to do today, so they're free to absolutely slot-dump if they want, while PCs have to be a bit more cautious with their resources. Second, the winner of a counterspell war is a forgone conclusion; whichever side has more casters that haven't burned their reaction on something else this round is the side that will win the war. Third, there's a certain kind of player who will one-hundred percent hit the sunk cost fallacy with this. Like... Okay, guys, you just burned five of the team's third level spell slots so that you could force that fireball through; was it really worth it? That's part of why I liked the new playtest version of counterspell from D&D'24. Not just tracking rations, but the rules for traveling through the wilderness in general. One thing about the PHB ranger, if you read favored terrain and understand how it applies to the travel rules, when it applies, it is _actually_ busted. However, in my experience, most games don't really bother with those sort of housekeeping elements and just scoot by those scenes with the orchestral arrangement of the main theme playing over sweeping shots of New Zealand countryside.
Glad to hear someone else agrees that being winged gnome instead of an actual fairy is really freaking lame and makes it much more fun to be tiny compared to others.
@@justnoob8141you can’t have 6hp at level one as a barbarian, because you always start with the max of 12 excluding con. Hell even if you have a con of 0 you’d still have 7 hp because a con of 0 would be a -5.
@@ninjakirby777 you want to play NPC character, they don't use class for their HP, they use SIZE for their HP, which is 4 for TINY, so good luck playing Barbarian with only 4 HP
It's balance thing, a tiny character would bring with a whole slew of issues that they would need to make a whole bunch of rules for, like what weapons they can use, how much items for their size weight, how their carry capacity is calculated, not to mention that basically no adventures are designed with tiny creatures in mind so they would be able to get to lot of places your not supposed to be able to get to. Kind of reverse of the issue you would have with large size pcs, which is why the pc centaurs and minotaurs are only medium size. Because nothing is designed with large size pcs in mind either so they wouldn't be able to fit into lot of places.
The DMG has an optional rule for diagonal movement (the 5-10 one), AFAIK that is the default one used. However sometimes, when a combat takes place in nature without those pesky square rooms I'll just flip the battlemap over and use hexagonals.
How do your players feel about switching back and forth between squares and hexes within the same campaign? Are they cool with it or do you get disputes sometimes?
@@Randoman590 it's fine, it's just a tool for combat. The "physics" aren't defined by the battle matt any more than monsters and PCs are defined by what minis look like. It's a way to keep track of position during combat. Sometimes we just do theater of the mind
Yeah man. I've never seen a use for it even while DMing. Maybe I should make an encounter where they attack, stealth and then move? Players would probably just run in though 🤷♂️
@@Antimonium I've seen it be used to (try to) counter stealthed enemies. The only examples I can think of off the top of my head right now being in the PvP specials. But I feel certain that rule has been used for that purpose and others in the actual campaigns. Maybe it was a C2 thing. Campaign 2 is much more RAW 5e than Campaign 1, of course.
@@andishawjfacMercer is actually pretty good at following the 5e rules about as closely as possible (aside from a few notable table rules like the revive mechanic) and he checks his players when they try to cut corners like this, especially in S2. On top of that, he runs a lot of honest-to-god dungeons, which most 5e podcasts sadly lack. Gotta give him props, he is running the game exactly how it was intended to be played.
Guidance, and Peace Clerics Emboldening bond also boost initiative 9:00 Xanathar's does add an optional rule that you can fall a mximum 500ft per turn.
1:40 Well... that's actually pretty classic since "Expedition to the barrier peaks" times. But Some science fantasy exists even in modern D&D, courtesy of spelljammer, and this bleeds even on official adventures. For example one specific area of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (pretty much the wet dream of any Arteficer) has several futuristic weapons 5:35 Diagonal movement rules exits, as an optional rule, in 5th edition DMG if you prefer more realistic distances. 8:45 Xanathar has specific "high altitude" rules including a "Rate of falling" rule that explicitly gives a maximum fall distance of 500 feet each round (that is actually a nearly realistic value math-wise) My vote for the most forgotten/ignore rule: chase rules from the DMG. While optional they are actually explicitely required in a few official adventures (such as Waterdeep: Dragon Heist) and most DMs have no idea how to run those chase scenes and often hadwave them.
I rule at my table that you can't cast counterspell if you are currently casting a spell that is getting countered. I do this because to do so, you'd have to stop casting the spell you are currently casting to cast another spell, then immediately somehow be right where you were in the previous casting.
I would only allow casting a counterspell yourself, if there is no component overlap. So either the main spell has no somatic component, or you actually use something like subtle spell to make your counterspell not have a somatic component.
I mean not really, you can cast a action spell and a bonus action spell. I feel like you could definitely cast an action spell and then a reaction spell. Technically you could cast an action spell, action surge spell, and reaction spell. So you could cast fireball counter the counter spell, then just cast it again.
Another big one is the rules for dim light and darkness. I had been running my current campaign for over A YEAR before I finally looked at those rules and realized that dim light should have been imposing disadvantage on normal sight, and darkness doing it for darkvision. And of course, by then the precedent was already set. Because nobody actually looks at that rule and just assumes "oh, darkvision lets me see i the dark!"
reminds me of a scene in one of the Shanarra books, where someone had to explain that his Darkvision wouldn't really help in a deep cave with NO light at all.
2:41 In Tasha's there are sidekick classes that can be used to level animals and npc companions. You can be a Warrior, Mage, or Expert, but need a language to be a Mage or Expert. It is the most forgotten rule of DND, I would say.
@@DarkstarAshura ok that's definitely a specific module monster. It has the stats of a cr 10 monster but it has cr 0 so that it awards no exp. Definitely a weird edge case but imo it should be ineligible.
Counterspell chains are fun. You cast a spell, enemy cast counterspell, you reaction cast counterspell, enemy ally casts counterspell, your ally casts counterspell. Everyone waste a bunch of lvl 3 spell slots preventing a silence spell.
@@PikaPenny17 Had to double check because I was thinking of Sul Katesh, but you're right. What she does is have the ability to cast Counter Spell at will, not as a Legendary Action.
Making the arcane caster players feel really clever when they work out how many spells lots their enemies have left after forcing their hands with counterspell chains. Much like when you intentionally drain their legendary resistance.
The Playing on a Grid rules are a variant, and even if you use them they specify what the movement calculations apply to. (Movement and determining range.) Whether using the default, the Playing on a Grid variant or the more accurate Diagonal Movement rules in the DMG, spheres are never cubes RAW.
My tabletop group decided to ditch the square grid and use a hex grid instead. When every adjacent spot became one space without question, the debates surrounding mobility went out the door. What happened instead was a very creative use of swarm tactics by the DM lol
For mobility I just go with a fun rule of "Looks about right." My table already has templates for different spell patterns and ranges to tell if a square is being hit or not, I am not bothering with exact movement distances. Especially for the rogue going movement - dash action - dash bonus action. You get there, stop counting!
you fall 500 feet every turn. But you only take up to 200 feet of damage, which I find silly. If 500 feet is going to be your terminal velocity then the max fall damage cap should be 50d6 not 20d6
@@jonathankonderla7989 "terminal velocity", meaning you're not falling any faster. So given the OP, it takes 200 ft of falling to reach terminal velocity. While something larger will take more damage (because mass is another factor in the equation), that much is hand waved because we're not here for super complicated math.
@@Nuggette The 20d6 is the funniest rule too because it means after a certain level some classes simply cannot die ever from fall damage at max health. Drop a barbarian from orbit and have them rage right before they hit the ground and they can survive absolute max damage at level 6 with 16 Con.
@MxChloeB42 Literally any Half-Orc can survive any single source of damage if you are not using optional rules. A level 1 Half-Orc sorcerer with 1 Constitution can survive 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000+ damage.
On the topic of counterspells, our group actually chained it to 5. Player spellcast, Badguy1, player 1, badguy 2, player 2. We went up 1 level each time with player 2 needing to roll because it was casted at the same level as badguy 2.
What's always funny about something like that: What if you just didn't go along the chain and also try to counterspell the original spell, instead of a counterspell?
@@elfireii328 well in your case player 2 could have instead counterspelled badguy1 with a level that they already knew wouldn't force a roll, because they wouldn't try to do it against the higher level of badguy2
The original UA for the fairy gives you Fey Passage, which lets you squeeze through a space as small as 1 inch. Doesn't this mean fairies were supposed to be able to change size from Small to Tiny at will? That's how I see it at least.
I absolutely used the futuristic weapon rules. Only the enemies got them because it was powering the plasma gun with it's wierd energy core, but it was funny to hear the reaction to a plasma grenade being chucked at them.
Looked into it more and you're right! Counter point though, the fact that a rule this important was published in an external rulebook means most people are still ignoring it lol
If you really want to have a roll for Jumping, instead of nerfing existing jump distance, I suggest allowing an Athletics roll to exceed it. Something like DC 10 for +1' on a long jump, and another +1' per +5 DC. I'd suggest DC 15 for +1' vertical, and +10 for every additional +1'.
I have an easy solution to the jump calculations. Just write it down ahead of time. You said you need to remember two jump distances, but actually it's four, depending on a 10 ft running start. It's still easy. Example: STR 15 = 15 ft running longjump / 7 ft longjump & 5 ft running highjump / 2 ft highjump (can reach overhead 1/2 char height). Shorthand on char sheet: longjump 15/7 ft, highjump 6/2 ft (reach 2 ft). Takes five minutes, and you only have to do it once. It'll also keep things moving quickly at the table. Rolling is usually not necessary when jumping.
I feel like the jumping rules come up rarely enough anyway. How often do you get to a stream that is 15 feet wide, so that only half of the party can cross it without a skill check?
Yeah, and some spells (like Sacred Flames) even indicate that "the target gets no benefit from cover" when rolling a saving throw specifically for this reason.
I honestly forget about this little bit for the most part. But most of the time it doesn't matter with my table anyway, because they either have full or no cover. They rarely stand behind a chest-high wall or something like that.
Every campaign we always wind up having at least one conga line of everyone counterspelling each other in one round of combat, so this time around I decided to play a divine soul sorcerer, and subtle counterspell will be my saving grace when the time comes.
A rule that is ,,, not ignored but more-so completely unknown "Casting from Over-leveled spell-scrolls" (Location Pg:200 of the 5e DMG) in short: if a character level 1 spellcaster wanted to cast a "scroll of (spell Lv:3) Fireball" they can make a (in this case) "DC:13 INT ability check Without-Proficiency" where success casts the Fireball (& destroys the scroll) , or failure Destroys the scroll outright. The Algebra of the DC = (Base 10 + Inscribed spells level, (even if the inscribing was an already upcast spell own its own))
this reminds me of an old sourcebook i read, with complex rules for making Wands, using an "Enchant Item" spell. if i remember, it would take 24 hours, then you would cast the spell AT the wand. odds of success were affected by character level, INT, and complexity, that is, trying to make a wand with two charges would require casting that spell twice. if it failed, the wand would simply disintegrate. that Enchant spell could also be used to make enchanted weapons and armor, if the PC also knew the "Permanency" spell. BUT, if it failed, he would wind up with Cursed equipment, BUT would not KNOW that, until the party got into an actual battle! only the DM knows for sure.
Was surprised that the material components of spells weren’t here. In every game I’ve played, always ignored material components cause for magic classes running around trying to gather a crap ton of various random objects just to hurl a spell is annoying as hell, and sometimes the components make no sense monetary wise
Ah, but if you cast misty step, and the enemy counterspells it, you can't counterspell that counterspell because counterspell is a spell that isn't a cantrip with a casting time of one action and you cast a spell using a bonus action on the same turn.
But that rule only applies to bonus action and action spells. It's not talking about reactions at all. It makes sense to also include reactions, especially when you consider components. You are casting a spell, then have to use your hands to cast the counterspell as well. If the main spell needed somatic components, you can't use somatic components for the counter spell without interrupting the main spell yourself.
@@matthewparker9276 Actually, RAW it goes like this "A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action." That's the only mention of not being able to cast two leveled spells on your turn. And funny enough, this also means that a bonus action cantrip still means you can't cast a fireball as an action. So funny enough: RAW you can cast a leveled spell as your action and still cast counterspell. But you wouldn't be able to cast a spell as your bonus action and cast counterspell, even if that bonus action spell was a cantrip.
How about body blocking as half cover against projectiles and reach weapons? "A target can benefit from cover only when an attack or other effect originates on the opposite side of the cover. [...] A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, _or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend."_ The rules also say that multiple sources of cover don't add together, but personally, I like to think that two or more sources of half cover counts as three-quarters cover. Beyond that, the cover rules are comprehensive enough.
Pets can be made sidekicks, which are basically simplified character classes. This allows pets to scale with the players. I've done this with at the table I DM for and it's worked really well so far.
reminds me of an old D&D videogame i had, where your characters have a WEIGHT limit, and money has weight. so, every time i visited town, i would "pool" my money and buy some extra arrows, and the game would change everything into Platinum coins, reducing my weight. this was sort of rendered moot when i defeated some giants, who dropped 10,000 gold EACH.
1:40 It's just in case you ever decided, for whatever reason, have a UFO crash-land in your fantasy setting. It is likely a nod to the "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" adventure which was just that.
My dm straight up didn't let us disarm narratively. This was before we knew there was rules for it- we looked it up, he saw it was optional and said "nu-uh". really took us out when we just *couldn't*
Point them at the "Improvise an Action" action in combat. That said, being that it is provided by a Battlemaster option or often the Heat Metal spell, a DM would be justified for making it unlikely to be successful when attempted without the use of one of those features.
my current dm actually keeps track of things like ammo, or rations, and even makes us aware of expiration. he also gives us levels of exhaustion if we don't stay hydrated and nourished in certain intervals. and tbh, it's not that hard to deal with.
The way I run my table with short rests is you can have 4 per long rest but there must be at least 4 hours between each rest, but how it really works is my players will ask for a short rest and I will tell them if they get the full benefit or not from a rest
I think the most times my party asked for a short rest between long rests was twice. Never did they ever try to take more than two shorts rests on a day. Mostly because the area simply isn't giving it to them. You aren't getting an hour long rest, when you took down the dining room and just hide in the food closet.
I love the counterspelling a counterspell rule. It helps use spellslots on magic users and if at least one other person knows counterspell you can have a chain of counterspelling. I think the rule most ignored at tables is treating charisma rolls as any other success/failure skill and not letting personal feelings about the persuasiveness of the player and the character decide if they succeed or not. This may just be a pet peeve of mine tho lol
1:28: I do! It's a holdover from the classic adventure module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, where the party was sent to investigate a sudden surge of weird monster activity that turned out to be the contents of an alien spacecraft that crashed and let its menagerie of captured xenofauna (and, in the case of the vegepygmies, xenoflora) loose. Old-school D&D emerged from a point in nerd culture where the lines between "science fiction" and "fantasy" weren't quite as firmly defined as they are these days.
We're on our 5th year of campaign, playing every weekend. About those rules : Jumping is pretty simple, usually at our table we allow a atheltism check if the player want to jump more than his jumping distance. Pet scaling is ok if the players actually work for it. Spending time training your pet, taking care of it and finding magical items for it should be rewarded. Fairies are not Pixies. If someone wants to play a Pixie character, I might allow it for a fun One Shot, but not for a long campaign. If your player abuse short rest, you can limit it to 2 short rest per long rest as advised in the DMG, and you can only take long rest at the end of the day. Falling was changed with Xanathar. Of course I use Counterspells on my players. Not every enemy mage has it prepared though. We track rations at our table. It makes long travel more important.
"Adventurers can take short rests in the midst of an adventuring day and a long rest to end the day." The 2 short rest per day is a Baldur's Gate 3 rule, not a D&D rule...
For the explosion, I would make the whole blast a perfect square, picture an imaginary circle within that square, and anyone on the boarder where it's half safety and half fire to have reduced damaged. Realisitically, explosions are more powerful in the epicenter, so I think I have the right idea.
The stuff in the DM's guide is more like suggestions for homebrew that you can build on. It gives you some examples of how to do laser guns so that you can make more laser guns.
The way I’ve always ruled fall damage at my tables, is that you free-fall at a rate of 200ft per round. The way I ruled this is that if fall damage caps out at 20d6, then that implies that the character hit terminal velocity while falling, since they’re not taking any more damage from falling further. And if the maximum damage is sustained after falling 200 feet, that would imply that any fall greater than 200 feet would take longer than 6 seconds
9:29 dude what, the two most counterspelled spells, are Misty step and counter spell. I did see a good way to make it more interesting and making a counterspell hitting another counterspell trigger a wild magic.
Thank you SO much for the "spheres=cubes" rule. It makes the game SO much faster and cuts 100% of AoE arguments. What's even better is when you apply the rules to cones, you realize you're just slicing a section out of a "square circle" and selecting 1 square 5ft from you, 2 squares 10ft, 3 squares 15ft from you, and so on. However a cone is just as tall as it is wide. If you aim your cone DOWNWARD from in the air, you're theoretically getting 1x1ft, 2x2ft, 3x3ft, etc... square on the end of your cone, making a cone breath weapon of a dragon (60ft cone = 60ftx60ft "circle") MASSIVELY deadly. Also keep in mind that falling timing was clarified in Xanathar's guide; you fall instantly 500ft when you start falling, and if you're still falling by the end of your next turn, you fall another 500ft instantly. Really, the 5e creators just hadn't fully considered how common it would become to fall from more than 500ft while still having options that could change the outcome from "dies and/or is no longer capable of contributing to the encounter" I've had numerous enemies counterspell and/or counterspell counterspells. The big thing everyone forgets about this is that there are limitations to USING counterspell; you have to be within 60ft, and also capable of seeing the person casting the spell. If the person casting is invisible or outside of that range, no counterspell. This is the number 1 reason people mistakenly believe counterspell is overpowered, when it's really pretty reasonable. Number 2 reason is because the DM announces what spell is being cast automatically instead of requiring a check. This is also clarified in Xanathar's as requiring a reaction to make an arcana check vs the 10+spell level, which would prevent the person identifying the spell from using counterspell because they used their reaction for the arcana check. I houserule that the reaction for identifying a spell can also be used to counterspell, whether you successfully identify the spell or not, but if they fail, they're counterspelling blind. I also houserule that if you have the same spell actively prepared, you automatically succeed identifying it upon seeing the spell cast. If it's only a spell you can potentially learn, you have advantage on identification.
The reason laser weapons are in the guide is because of one adventure from older editions "expedition to the barrier peaks" or something like that, in which the party finds an alien space craft with plasma grenades, laser weapons and power armor
Disarming is honestly a great feature and I am always blown away they shoved it into an optional rule of the DMG. It is really exciting when a player (or enemy) disarms someone with their action, then either kicks or picks up the weapon with their once a turn object interaction. Steal the villain's magic sword, or maybe the villain steals the player's magic weapon they were supposed to be guarding. It even works to disarm spell casters of their staff or wand. If you don't want every weapon to be able to use disarm, I recommend just stealing the rule wholesale and slapping it on as a property for certain weapons. I suggest things with a hook or prong shape (sickle, trident, war pick) or that can wrap around weapons (flail, whip). This also has the benefit of giving a niche to some underutilized weapons.
There's a 5e jump calculator that I use that even has all the modifiers like the jump spell, athlete, boots of striding and springing, ext. It also has some other features like how high you can reach when jumping based off of your height plus some other things. I don't use it every session but when it comes up its always super useful and quick.
If you play a rabbit folk you get Pro to Initiative and when playing rogue or bard can make it expertise (also when playing rogue and you get the pro skills cant be lower than 10 it applies there too)
08:16 there is a literal quick reference in Xanathar's Guide. If you fall you instantly descend up to 500 feet. Falling any greater distance will result in the fall taking more than one turn. Meaning you can act 10 rounds before hitting the ground falling from 5000 feet.
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Excuse me what is that image at 2:18
My problem with is you guys clearly wrote a "main character" for a D&D/TTRPG book when the "main character" is supposed to be the party. Maybe next time just... write a novel?
I always felt that the futuristic weapons were there as a baseline for any DM who wanted to run a 5e campaign but with a futuristic setting. If I remember correctly there was even a UA for spells that would fit into a modern setting. My guess is they added that stuff for later use, like maybe they were going to do a campaign book set in a futuristic version of Faerûn but then that probably got scrapped after Starfinder came out in 2017.
I am fully aware that the disarm rules exist, I just purposefully ignore them so my DM doesn’t learn they exist.
The best part is when you remember that you can interact with an object as PART of your action, costing no additional actions. Disarm using an attack action, and pick up their weapon as part of the same action. Bonus points if the DM one-ups you and does the same action in return, turning it into a game of keep-away.
Thats how I DM'd, we can add technical rules and make combat more interesting; but enemies will have the same rules. Generally, players don't want that.
one of the weapon addition PDFs I stumbled on adds stuff like grapple and disarm abilities as bonus actions to some weapon choices and it's something I REALLY wanna try at some point. Sadly probably whenever I get DMing going on my end but still!
@@MegaFrog I didnt use the disarm rules but I ran an encounter where the players faced a mirror match of themselves, except the mirrors didnt have thier magic items, but *did* have their attunements and prepared spells and abilities. The fighters mirror immediatly used disarming strike manuver, because it knew the fighter had a +2 magic sword with a special ability, picked up the sword in the same turn, and proceeded to action surge, plus spend every single charge the sword had, just because I decided I would play the mirrors with ruthless efficiency that the party lacked.
because no one cares about tactics. 5e is about throwing dices in encounter's face till it dies
"Nobody knows why the DMG has weapon details for laser pistols and laser rifles..." It's because laser guns have been part of D&D's canon lore since 1980, when they appeared in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks adventure module. They were considered non-busted because they rely on laser ammunition, and the crashed spaceship from that adventure is the only place in the setting where such ammo can be found (and there only in scarce+finite quantity) - the guns were deliberately overpowered as a "one time" toy that would generally be depleted of ammo either during the very same adventure, or shortly thereafter.
That’s pretty cool to know! Thanks for sharing the deets
^This. See also "Temple of the Frog". It has a dude with TWO laser weapons on the front cover, and also involves a crashed alien spaceship.
Bingo, thank you for telling everyone in such clear and comprehensive detail!
Rime of the Frostmaiden is the most recent module to utilize laser weapons with a laser pistol in the position of a gnome ceremorph in a crashed illithid spacecraft. The weapons has 50 charges initially and no way to reload it, so every time you use it (or the gnomithid uses it in the fight to acquire it) is one of finite ammunition.
Huh, basically the Alien Blaster from Fallout.
In Xanathar's Guide to Everything it says you instantly fall in a turn up to a maximum 500ft, instantly falling an additional 500ft on each subsequent turns.
Reading the rules explains the rules
Came here to say this. Dude moaned about people not using the DM's tools in the DMG and just ignored the same chapter in XGtE. lol
Yeah. Complaining about the max fall damage would've been fine, but there is a max falling speed per turn already 😅
Yup, was gonna say this also.
Actually did the math one time, and 500 feet in the first 6 seconds of falling is pretty accurate also.
The one thing i dont like about the rules for falling is that, instantly implies you literally do not get to make any action to try and prevent your fall. The only thing one could do is cast feather fall as the reaction but if your not a caster your quite literally shit out of luck.
"Track your rations"
Rangers and Druids: No *casts goodberry*
and then the DM says no to rations entirely inadvertently nerfing the main reason to run ranger over rogue
This one spell legitimately ruined part of the tension of one campaign I ran.
As a cleric, i will absolutely burn a spell slot daily for food and water just to not have to track rations.
@@NoGoodHandlesLeft Then it gets banned and the Ranger/Druids are like "oh yeah my background is Outlander, I can find food/water for up to 5 people a day" and the entire survival part of the game gets tossed lmao
@@PunknPixels In defence of the Druids/Rangers there is a spell component cost but in most campaigns I've been a part of any really common components are handwaved (which could be an addition to this video). I probably could have been a dick and asked if they had mistletoe but its a multi-DM campaign and none of the previous ones enforced this rule.
I've played Magic: The Gathering so the idea of counterspelling a counterspell is already known to me. Imagine a whole counterspell chain of the party versus the enemy encounter desperately trying to either force through or stop a different spell.
My suggestion for often ignored rules; Electrum coins.
We have a joke on our five- or six-year campaign where we sometimes get electrum, but nobody else has ever seen them and NPCs won't accept them.
All 5 of us Electrum enjoyers must rise.
Had a warlock I was in a party with who's patron was a crypto bro who made him exclusively use electrum
I'm also a mono blue player who believes there is a finite fun to be had, and I want all of it.
I use electrum to provide access to out of theme items such as a laser blade in a vampire adventure. There is a dedicated group of NPCs who trade exclusively in them.
8:20
Objection!
You fall 500ft per round, falling 1000ft into lava would give you a turn to do something, and falling 1001ft would give you two turns :)
E
Specifically, you fall 578 - lets round up to 600 - feet per turn. If you want to get serious, though, even if you fell 1200 feet you'd still hit the bottom before the second turn completes due to acceleration
@@Nazuiko You hit terminal velocity in 12 seconds or about 1500 feet of fall. So after 2 rounds, acceleration does not matter. I would guess the first round is about 600 feet while the second round is closer to 900 feet. Then, you would stay at approximately 900 ft per six seconds until you encounter and equal and opposite force. Fun fact... an actual immovable rod with a galaxy frame considered, would fly away from its position at no less than 2 million miles per hour. The heat from acceleration would decimate every living thing on the planet you foolishly used it on.
@@Nazuiko terminal velocity doesn't exist in DnD
@@ubergodofdewm Maximum fall damage exists and is meant to finagle terminal velocity into things.
Don't forget jack of all trades also applies to counterspell and dispel magic rolls as they are also checks, which makes bards some of the best at those spells in the game
Don’t you already add your proficiency bonus to it through your spellcasting modifier?
@@Ethan13371note it is spellcasting modifier not spell attack bonus, so you don't get your proficiency. Abjuration wizards get the ability to add their proficiency to rolls for counterspell/dispel magic at level 10, which wouldn't be necessary if you already did so
I played both these classes and never knew this. Thanks.
Likewise, if guidance is cast before combat, the target can use the d4 on their initiative check. Same with peace cleric's warding bond, luckstone... It's all just remembering that bonuses to ability checks apply to all ability checks, and remembering that all of these rolls are ability checks.
An initiative check can't fail, so sorcerer's magical guidance won't work on that, but if you fail a counterspell or dispel magic? Spend a sorcery point for a reroll.
@@winter945So if you were a multiclass Bard/Abjuration Wizard, in that order, you'd start off with your CHA+half your proficiency to counterspell, and then when you hit L10 Abjuration Wizard you'd get to add the other half?
Fun fact: the ruling that makes it so that squares are circles is actually a variant rule, because playing on a grid at all is a variant rule. This forced WOTC to publish *another* optional rule in the DMG that gives a more realistic way of determining distances
If playing on a grid is the variant rule, what is the default?
@@bodbyss a hexagonal board.
many wargames use those.
@@ericb3157 source that d&d's standard rule is hex grid?
@@bodbyss the default would be not even having a battlemap at all and going full theater of the mind.
What about just a ruler to simply measure distances. Instead of having a grid square be 5 ft, just use 1''/25mm for 5 ft.
So, I like adding stealth bonuses based on size so small and large creatures get a +2 and -2 respectively. Meanwhile, tiny creatures get a +5, and huge creatures get a -5 to stealth. Gargantuan creatures get a -10 to stealth because they're the size of an F'ing three story house and shake the ground when they move. I don't care if its an invisible tarrasque its not going to sneak up to the party in a dense forest because it'll knock over trees and create a clearing simply by existing.
3.5 rules, nice
I’d rather widen the scope of neutrality. I don’t think a player who’s a fairy or goblin should get such a high bonus so easily and oni that are built to be sneaky shouldn’t have such an innate disadvantage.
I hadn't thought about stealth bonuses, but as I was adding Large and Tiny races to my homebrewing work, I made it so Tiny gains +2 AC and reduces their hit die by 1 factor (faerie wizards living that 1d4 hit die meme) whereas large gets -2 AC and improve hit dies by 1 factor (d20 Minotaur Barbarian, ftw). Adding in stealth modifiers would make some sense as well in retrospect, even if it's not as big as yours.
funny enough, with a stealth bonus and a few lucky roles you can be sneaky while being gargantuan lol
But what about the sneaky frog giant?
in Palworld you are perfectly capable of creating a God-Level Chikipi.
1:28 I can totally explain why the DMG has stat blocks for futuristic guns in exactly 5 words: “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks“
You mean that module made by Gygax for AD&D in 1980s? What? No way! Get that 3rd party shit away! That loser shit had no place in the REAL game! Especially by a hoax by the name Gary Gygax who TOTALLY wasn’t the one who made AD&D!
Also my current campaign (popular campaign so not mentioning for spoilers) has a nautiloid with a laser gun as loot.
Aliens equal laser guns.
The 5e module Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden also has these.
I was waiting for someone to mention this.
See also "Temple of the Frog", where an adventurer is wielding not one, but TWO futuristic laser weapons ON THE FRONT COVER.
D&D was made by nerds from the 70s. _Of course_ they stuck Sci Fi into their Fantasy game.
Futuristic Guns: These are included because D&D is ultimately based on Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance (Heck, D&D spellcasting is called Vancian spellcasting for a reason). All the classic monsters and the like are based in a world of collapsing to barbarism as the universe collapses slowly on itself. Think like Thundarr the Barbarian. Mimics were made to protect belongings you stored inside them, Ioun stones act weird and orbit things because they are mined from the cores of collapsed stars and have weird rules with gravity, etc.
Faeries being Small: Or you're playing a Pixie, which are Size S. :)
E
Masters of the Universe is another example of futuristic weapons and technology working in a fantasy setting.
@@riotangel914 I enjoyed Final Fantasy 4 as well. :) I liked the automatic-crossbow. :> ...chainsaw, etc. :)
I’d also say that a common rule often ignored is keeping track of ammunition. Unless it’s special ammunition like enchanted ammo, most DMs I’ve played with ignore it because forcing a player’s build to be tied to a resource that could run out and constantly needs to be replenished isn’t very fun. Ranged martial characters already have to contend with being weaker than spellcasters in general, there’s no point in nerfing them further by making their main attack a limited number of uses that is dependent on being able to get back to someone who sells ammunition before they run out.
I keep track of it, but I've never been asked or questioned about it. Can't really blame the Dms, honestly, which is why I just don't bring it up and keep track of it quietly
"because forcing a player’s build to be tied to a resource that could run out and constantly needs to be replenished isn’t very fun" So spellcasters, Monks, Barbarians, Battlemaster fighters, Paladins arent fun to play then I assume :P
@@Malkuth-Gaming theres a difference, the arrows are tied to their most basic attack and being forced to go melee or just kinda sit and cry in combat is not fun
@@Malkuth-Gaming Warlocks, Spellcasters, Monks, Barbarians, etc. "I've run out of spells."
[Throw them a pillow and a blanket for a Short Rest]
"I've got all my spells!"
Archer "Wood grows on trees, but fletching doesn't! I don't magically regenerate arrows!"
Players are ideots, characters are not. Unless a resource is unavailable or specially expensive I tend to assume the character prepared enough for the adventure, or at least until the next resupply.
7:00 short rest spam is easy to fix:
As a short rest takes 1 hour, that's 1 hour of extra prep time the mobs get to fortify their positions, call for reinforcements, evacuate the area with the loot, and so on. And if the adventurers are in a time sensitive mission, these hours add up pretty quickly.
And some traps are pretty easy to set in just a couple of hours. Watch any video on Victor Charlie traps if you don't believe me.
If there's a Warlock in your party, you definitely should spam short rests so they can burn through spell slots more often. A short rest only has to be 1 hour, and you can always have someone stand watch or cast an alarm/ward. There's really no good reason not to, and if your DM objects to it, your Warlock should insist. Otherwise they're actively sabotaging one of their players.
I'd add that you need a minimum of comfort for the rest to work. Meaning you can't rest under harsh environnemental conditions without shelter for example
Another half decent way to upgrade your player’s pet companion is using the sidekick rules from Tasha’s. The martial sidekick specifically mentions it can be a wolf or other animal companion
Flee, Mortals! also has kickass companion rules. Started using them at my table and the players love it.
They are especially useful in games with only 1-2 players.
^This. I'm honestly surprised the Sidekick rules from Tasha's weren't mentioned. They literally exist to facilitate the exact "acquire NPC friends/animal companions" playstyle many groups gravitate towards.
The reason why futuristic weapons exist in the DMG is a holdover from the earliest days of the game. Specifically the adventure module "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks".
The adventure starts off as the typical dungeon-crawl, but you quickly discover that what you're exploring isn't a dungeon/labyrinth/Overlord's Hideaway but is a crashed starship. The weapons and stuff that folks could (and would) find on the dead crew, weapons lockers, etc. were seriously OP even back then, but were actually needed to beat some of the critters that were running around.
Edit:
Falling rules are covered in the PHB; you take 1d6 damage for every 10 feet that you fall with a cap of 20d6. A *VERY* common house rule does away with the damage cap however, especially when PCs are sitting in the triple-digit HP range.
Xanathar's covers the rate of falling, which is 500 feet per turn, which goes a really long way to explain why the vast majority of falls occur instantly.
TBH, tracking rations is forgotten because most parties have at least one character that can provide sustenance for the group pretty easily; whether it's through Skill (usually Survival) or Spells (Goodberry, Create Food & Water...), the necessity of keeping (let alone tracking) rations becomes a quaint idea pretty quickly.
Disarm - I had a enemy hero with a badass sword and special legendary actions that allowed him to grapple with a successful attack (to flex for story purposes)
The Paladin was grabbed around the throat and lifted into the air...he Commanded the enemy to drop his sword.
Badguy uses his turn to pick up the sword
Paladin commanded him to drop it.
This variant of Disarm went on for 4 turns...
On page 190 of the PHB it details that you get one free object interaction per round, so it wouldn't actually be an action to pick up the sword.
I imagine it like talking to a dog when they get something they're not supposed to, "Drop it. Drooop iiiiiit!!!"
@@SlopeOfTangent Correct, but dropping the sword would take an action because of the command spell, so it does still waste the enemy's turn at least. The funnier part is that with the rule of a free object interaction, the paladin could've picked up the enemy's sword and ran away with it XD
Seems your guy could use a legendary resistance or two
@@Magic-nx2fb Dropping or letting go of an item is free and does not cost anything.
I never forget the jumping rules, and it leads to endless suffering for me and me alone as I try to jump in game, and the DM scrambles to figure out how that works while I repeatedly tell them the rule and where they can find it if they want to double check me.
I actually am a bit curious, how often does jumping make a difference for you? I mean, if a stream is only 10 feet wide or even narrower, then I just expect everybody in the party to be able to make the jump. And no, I don't care if the wizard only has 8 or 9 strength, because what happens? He proably gets wet boots and that's it. You so rarely have something 15 feet wide, that some characters would auto-succeed while others have to make a check. Most of the time you sit at 20 feet or wider, in which case nobody can auto-succeed on the jump. And for high jumps, well, 5 feet high ledges are very uncommon as well, most are at least 10 feet, at which point everybody can reach up with their arms stretched out. Or at 20 feet everybody has to climb unless they have flying.
@Schilani movement is a valuable and limited resource in combat. Jumping over pits, hazards, or even just difficult terrain can help you move further when it matters.
One time, I saved multiple turns jumping onto a docked pirate ship instead of running all the way to the gangplank. This helped a lot because there were ranged attackers on the ship supporting melee fighters on the ground.
As for heigh jumping, it doesn't make sense to say that 10 foot ledges aren't common. (or any situation) That's completely dependent on who's running the game.
That said, jumping allows you to reach your jump height plus your standing height plus half your standing height if you use your arms.
It ends up being the same deal. Ot can save valuable movement in combat.
Plus, the rules say you can add 1.5 times your standing height to your vertical reach when jumping (that represents your arms reaching up too), so with a height of 6 feet and a modest strength modifier of 3, a running high jump lets you reach 15 feet with your hands. Might help you reach a window or a tree branch or a flying monster.
@@Allesef Well the pits and hazard come back to 10 feet being easily jumpable by pretty much everybody, and 15 or more being only jumpable by dedicated strength classes, because nobody else invests in strength.
The ship is a nice example of a jump actually mattering a lot, thanks for that. And I so like that idea of jumping up to a low flying enemy and grabbing it.
A thing I don't really like abou the high jump is, that pulling yourself up a 10 foot high ledge costs 10 foot of movement speed as a standing jump, while pulling yourself up a 15 foot ledge with a running high jump costs 25 foot of movement. And both don't count as an action at all, so you can climb up that ledge and still get all your actions. But that is something that I feel is off.
@@Schilani I don't see how it's a problem that only a character with high strength could jump bigger gaps. I think that's the mechanic operating as intended. characters have different abilities.
not everyone needs to be able to make significant use of jumping, and it doesn't need to always be the most efficient option. some people can use it, and it's often a good option or even the only option. that makes it useful.
(also, you can't climb everything. I'd argue you can't climb most things, but that's hard to quantify. you definitely can't climb a lot of things)
@@Allesef That definitely is the mechanic working as intended. It just feels so extremely niche.
The fact that dim-light and darkvision isn’t on this list makes this immensely funny
because darkvision was shown at 0:06 and then just stopped talking about it?
For some reason my table ALWAYS has one character that cares about dim light and/or no light. And in some cases I actually made encounters to straight up countering these characters, sometimes in the form of setting them on fire, just to prevent the teleportation of the shadow monk.
@@Schilani Just as a minor reminder, dunno if it applies to any groups that you run, but one easy way to nerf darkvsion for a puzzle or encounter is to demand something in color. Darkvision on all the base 5e races is written as viewing in greyscale, so doing a quest objective requiring seeing reds and greens is going to mess them up if noone brought a lantern.
@@gratuitouslurking8610 oh yeah, visual puzzles against darkvision can be quite amusing. Especially when you don't use them too often, so by the next time the party runs into one, they forgot about the gray scale aspect again.
reagents and arrows as well
Had a one-shot where every PC had counterspell... And it turned out that a number of the cultists we were fighting did too. We ended up having a counterspell duel during the BBEG fight where _everyone_ fired off a counterspell to try and stop the BBEG's spell. Good fun!
The pair to the Bard Init thing is Monk and Paladin Death Saving Throws.
Monks get proficiency in all saving throws and Paladins emit an aura giving everyone up to +5 to all their saving throws, and yes that includes death saves. Paladin is admittedly less useful as you lose the bonus if the Paladin is unconcious, which you would be if you're making death saving throws, but if the Paladin is up the rest of the party can get themselves up if the Paladin is out of lay on hands or something.
This would also apply to the Cloak of Protection and Stone of Good Luck, both of which grant a generic +1 to your saving throws.
The only bad part about this is that succeeding on death saving throws seldom matters. Rolling a natural 20 is what matters most (at best the dm is merciful and you survive being downed and are just unconsious for a few hours).
I don't think you ever get bonuses to death saves. It's a special thing all its own.
@@DarkBladeFury-xc8jh They're still "saving throws", they just aren't tied to any of the stats. Because the bonuses mentioned go towards *any* "saving throws", "death saving throws" thus gain the benefits of such features.
@azuredragoon2054 Mr. Google says you are correct. Thanks for not calling me an idiot. Have a wonderful weekend.
My favorite rule that I think makes a lot of sense that my DM has always used is making a healing potion a bonus action, but still using it as an action to feed it to a companion. It means you can stay in the fight, not waste your turn, and most importantly, heal up only to get smacked back down and need to heal again.
Faeries come in all sizes in traditional mythology
Tradicional mythology says more than half the races in dnd are faeries
Furthermore, the Monster Manual has faeries of all shapes and sizes. Since the race is just vague "fairy" and not a specific kind of fairy that is very smol - like a Pixie - it makes no sense to limit size for them, when even the game books themselves say that they come in a multitude of sizes. It's really hypocritical to say Oh our fae can big, but yours can ONLY be tiny.
@@MissOnana Pixie, the Faerie that D&D Claims is small in 5E is actually a Pixie from the earlier editions... they are size S. c.c Faeries are smaller and something different. c.c Like he said, us oldheads have to use logic from earlier editions because of 5E's... problems it has sometimes. :)
@@MissOnana Actually no.
Fairy is the category which combines Sprite, Pixie, Grig and Nixie, being the main residents of the Realm of the Faerie and by 5e all but the Nixie (being the size of a large rat/potted plant/baby cat as to not get eaten by fish) are tiny.
@@zephodb That's fine and all, but it still completely ignores the original comments point that I was in agreement with, and using the Monster Manual example to support it further. Classic folklore has faeries being all shapes and sizes. Fairy is a general term that just sort of means all Fair Folk. So saying a fairy can only be tiny is complete nonsense. Especially when the word fairy doesn't really mean any one specific thing.
Why would you EVER give someone that died a lower level then the party?!
There gonna die immediately again if it's 10+
E
The idea is that death should have consequences. And I get that, but it can definitely boot someone from a long campaign.
@@jamesdinius7769
The consequence is YOUR CHARACTER IS DEAD.
Most people I feel already would feel horrible because of that
But then you wanna punish the player too?
Honestly, unless your players are explicitly okay with it OR they maneuvered themselves into the position through repeated reckless or blatantly incompetent decisions, you've failed as a DM if any of your PC's die and can't be resurrected.
Note the particular wording, though: "You _have failed_ as a DM", implying a single instance of failure. NOT "you _are a failure_ as a DM", which would imply you're a bad DM in general. Everyone can mess up, it's important to try and learn from mistakes or even rectify them if possible.
My point is, you should avoid killing PC's until the party gets access to Revivify, and you should make sure they have ample opportunity to acquire diamonds to power the spell. Maybe even give them access to Revivify scrolls, just to be safe.
@@theuncalledfor Your point is that you don't like campaigns having stakes in your game and you think other people should play the same way. But unless the DM is intentionally putting people in such a position, it's not a failure of theirs if things don't go the right way before the safety net of revivify is gained.
You litterally can say non-magical laser guns exist in your world and call it a day tho, and that leads to one of the coolest things from pathfinder. The country of numeria which is a nation of barbarian tribes and space tech wizard as a ruling class of the structured society.
Magitek is just as valid a genre to bring into DND as any. I mean the most popular MMO currently is arguably FF14 and that's got more magitek than you can shake a chocobo leg at. It's also been done rather well in places, like Fool's Gold and it's Foreclaimers, or, well *gesticulates at Ebberon and Spelljammer*
Stuff like He-Man and other kids cartoons and movies often had this sort of set up with swords and sorcery and laser guns.
Perfectly legit setting for a fantasy game.
DnD lore has spaceships, dimensional warping, steampunk realms, etc. They even added a hi-tech rocket-chairwheel (which is honestly very distasteful, physically disabled ppl I know were very offended). There is no good reason not to add optional gun rules to the game. I once even ran a spaghetti western one-shot where guns could use paladin smites and other weapon spell boosts.
@@gratuitouslurking8610Omigosh I LOVE the foreclaimers!!!
I'm sick of the ""it clashes with the setting" argument. Have these people ever heard of juxtaposition?
2:41 - there are actually rules for scaling “pets”: the Sidekick system in XGTE.
Aren't those from TCE?
@@KonoLoserDa
Just read the rules on like a wiki or something lol. Don't give WotC money after all the [youtube] they pulled.
I played a Plasmoid once. I spent like 4 sessions using Disguise Self and the plasmoid's vaguely defined shape changing rules to role play as the party's dog so I could spy on the cult members traveling in the same caravan as us.
I'm now imagining someone trying to pet the dog and the entire party thinking of different excuses why they can't.
@@seasnaill2589 Pretty sure I growled at someone when the caravan first got together to indicate "dangerous, don't touch" kind of vibes.
I’m playing a soul knife rogue small sized Plasmoid who insists on having a coin sized bag of holding to store everything that isn’t small enough to squeeze into small places. Never takes humanoid form. Has bypassed traps in a dungeon by squeezing through a hole in a wall. His size also made sense when he fought an army alone in a snowstorm. The growing snowdrifts hid him effectively, though he was starting to freeze slowly, so he had to fight quickly. Invested in a ring of warmth after that.
A lot of 5e's rules honestly just seem like the system is at odds with itself. Like, 6:05 part of this is annoying cause the DMG and Xanathar's actually say to use a circle and measure out coverage, but that just defies the system of measurement for movement.
If you're gonna use a non-euclidian grid (diagonals are always 5ft), then use non-euclidian circles, aka squares. It's both easier to run, and you shouldn't be able to run out of a 30 ft circle by moving less than 30 ft diagonally anyway.
What if, hear me out, we took a line of paper or like a ruler with a hole or one of those.. uhm.. the things you use to draw circles on maps. Take it and start at however big the radius is. Draw a circle. I'd probably say something along the lines of "every square touching the line takes half damage, anyone fully inside the circle takes full damage". I believe the situation has been solved, and in a way that feels relatively legitimate. (On the other hand, you can just do that circle for full damage and the leftover cube edges as half damage, so you don't have to bring out the tools)
@@justanothergamer64Or, hear me out, just use a square because you're already using a non-euclidian system, so you don't need to draw anything and it's super easy to measure and already works within the logic of 5e's grid based system.
Pathfinder's approach of alternating 5-10-5-10 for diagonals provides you with fairly accurate circles for grid based combat, but that requires odd diagonal measurements that some players may not like and isn't as quick. If you don't want to do that and want to stick with 5e's (technically 4e's) diagonal system, then make the circles squares, because a circle is a shape where each point along its edge is equidistant from the center.
Compromises on this is just trying to use two different measurement systems simultaneously which is both more work for zero benefit, not even a logical or 'realistic' one. The only other time you'd use circular shapes/literal measurement is if playing gridless, which is definitely possible, but also not related to this topic.
@@Zedrinbot ...touche.
On page 86 of Xanathar's guide actually presents two methods for determining Area of Effects: Template & Token. The template method is the one that recommends creating templates to check if creatures are mostly within an area of effect. The token method recommends using some sort of tokens(like d6s) to figure out the affected spaces. Under the token method, spheres & cylinders are represented by squares with sides a long as the diameter.
@@Zedrinbot5e does have the alternating diagonals as an optional rule in the DMG as well.
Monsters of the multiverse and Wild beyond the Witchlight both state that the fairy race is Small. What you're stating is the pixie or the sprite monster type which is tiny. As a DM running Wild beyond the Witchlight this is something I have to know. Witchlight is also a survival game so have to keep up with rations, besides it's kinda fun when they roll on the table and find gingerbread cookies, cotton candy fog or flowers that literally ask to be eaten.
Here's that table for reference.
1) Three gingerbread cookies shaped like elves and stacked on a wooden plate
2) A minty, three-leaf clover (for the next 8 hours, any creature that eats a leaf plucked from the clover can communicate telepathically with another creature up to 100 feet away that has eaten a similar clover leaf)
3) A delicious orange flower that whispers, “Eat me” (the flower’s head is tart, while its stem is sweet)
4) A white and gray eldercap mushroom (any creature that eats more than half of the mushroom has its appearance magically changed so that it looks like an aged version of itself for the next 24 hours)
5) A wisp of sweet, candied mist (similar in consistency and taste to cotton candy)
6) A brilliantly colored sunrise flower, which, when plucked, sheds light like a lantern for 8 hours (it also tastes like spicy honey)
7) A small, flaky meat pie wrapped in a colorful cloth (the pie is hearty and delicious)
8) A gourd shaped like a plump little dragon (any creature that eats more than half of the gourd’s innards gains 2d4 + 2 temporary hit points)
I think he's saying that even though the rules lists the fairy player race as being small most tables ignore that rule and run it as tiny. I don't think that's true. I think HE runs it as tiny because he wants to be tinkerbell and assumes we all do the same, even though having a permanently tiny PC would be insane.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the most common rule I've always seen ignored, beyond stopping the most ridiculous of misuse. Inventory management. Aka, no one really does it, at all, beyond a list of what they're carrying. The ridiculous misuse rule is generally just there to keep people from grabbing massive statues and other such things and tossing it into their packs, since that makes no sense. Unless you have a bag of holding, in which case, pretty much all aspects of inventory management is just completely ignored and you absolutely can loot entire towns without a second thought, lol
Despite the fact that the Bag of Holding itself has quite reasonable weight and volume limitations, right there in its item text.
Meanwhile, the group I play with takes it so seriously we track coin weight, leave extremely valuable but quite heavy loot behind, and once took a whole session to make carts to move a bunch of gold coins to a far away town and set up a bank account. 😅
@@FentonHardyFan As long as everyone finds that fun, lol
@@jimmysthoughts8571 It definitely helps that we play on Roll20, so it does the constant weight calculations for us. And there are also weird quirks, such as candles not having weight, so our fighter is carrying around about 1000 candles in a comically oversized backpack. :P
*Ahem* 64 cubic feet 2 foot opening.
2:23 a way I’ve come to deal with this trouble is simple, if it meets the criteria of bring CR rating 1/2 or lower is to give the creature Sidekick levels, they now level up with you but not be as strong as you, an excellent compromise for early level creatures you can get like mastiffs.
4:55
Actually no. Harengon can add their proficiency bonus to initiative checks.
I don't know if that counts as proficiency though.
Edit, I can confirm that I've actually used the Jumping rules MANY times, and I've let one of my players start with a Laser Rifle once. Surprisingly they weren't even dealing the most damage out of everyone.
It's not 'proficiency in Initiative', since Initiative isn't a skill and you can't put Expertise on it, but basically the next best thing. Good catch though!
Ahhhhhhh, you beat me to it. Must be a Harengon.
IIRC the Futuristic weapons are like many homebrews for firearms, where you ignore DEX bonuses for damage rolls. Kinda the closest thing 5th Ed has to exotic weapons in the modern day. Meanwhile the average ranger will be dropping a couple dozen dice a turn with Hunter's Mark.
🤓 acktualy
Same, it makes no sense to roll for jumping. Roll to try to jump further sure, but rolling to jump makes no sense.
You don't roll for each step you take, and for battle hardened individuals like dnd characters, jumping is basically just another type of movement.
Bards also get a bonus to the ability check attached to dispel magic and counterspell.
So, the rules in the PHB presume that your character is never going to be in a situation where they're falling more than 200 feet (Max fall damage being 20d6). In Xanathars, there are rules for if a character is falling for extreme distances; in that case, then they fall 500 feet immediately when they fall, and then fall an additional 500 feet at the end of each turn they are still airborne.
I agree, that counterspell wars are probably my least favorite interaction in the game, and there's a few reason for this; First, the monsters don't have anything else to do today, so they're free to absolutely slot-dump if they want, while PCs have to be a bit more cautious with their resources. Second, the winner of a counterspell war is a forgone conclusion; whichever side has more casters that haven't burned their reaction on something else this round is the side that will win the war. Third, there's a certain kind of player who will one-hundred percent hit the sunk cost fallacy with this. Like... Okay, guys, you just burned five of the team's third level spell slots so that you could force that fireball through; was it really worth it? That's part of why I liked the new playtest version of counterspell from D&D'24.
Not just tracking rations, but the rules for traveling through the wilderness in general. One thing about the PHB ranger, if you read favored terrain and understand how it applies to the travel rules, when it applies, it is _actually_ busted. However, in my experience, most games don't really bother with those sort of housekeeping elements and just scoot by those scenes with the orchestral arrangement of the main theme playing over sweeping shots of New Zealand countryside.
Glad to hear someone else agrees that being winged gnome instead of an actual fairy is really freaking lame and makes it much more fun to be tiny compared to others.
Pixie, the Faerie that D&D Claims is small in 5E is actually a Pixie... they are size S. c.c Faeries are smaller and something different. c.c
You said that until your barbarian fairy is only 6 HP at level 1 without CON
@@justnoob8141you can’t have 6hp at level one as a barbarian, because you always start with the max of 12 excluding con. Hell even if you have a con of 0 you’d still have 7 hp because a con of 0 would be a -5.
@@ninjakirby777 you want to play NPC character, they don't use class for their HP, they use SIZE for their HP, which is 4 for TINY, so good luck playing Barbarian with only 4 HP
It's balance thing, a tiny character would bring with a whole slew of issues that they would need to make a whole bunch of rules for, like what weapons they can use, how much items for their size weight, how their carry capacity is calculated, not to mention that basically no adventures are designed with tiny creatures in mind so they would be able to get to lot of places your not supposed to be able to get to. Kind of reverse of the issue you would have with large size pcs, which is why the pc centaurs and minotaurs are only medium size. Because nothing is designed with large size pcs in mind either so they wouldn't be able to fit into lot of places.
The DMG has an optional rule for diagonal movement (the 5-10 one), AFAIK that is the default one used.
However sometimes, when a combat takes place in nature without those pesky square rooms I'll just flip the battlemap over and use hexagonals.
How do your players feel about switching back and forth between squares and hexes within the same campaign? Are they cool with it or do you get disputes sometimes?
@@Randoman590 it's fine, it's just a tool for combat. The "physics" aren't defined by the battle matt any more than monsters and PCs are defined by what minis look like. It's a way to keep track of position during combat.
Sometimes we just do theater of the mind
A perception check being an action in combat, never ever seen it used
Yeah man. I've never seen a use for it even while DMing. Maybe I should make an encounter where they attack, stealth and then move? Players would probably just run in though 🤷♂️
Loathe to use the example, but critical role does do this quite a lot
@@andishawjfac really? I've only watched the first campaign I don't think I've seen it used in combat there, not as as a whole action at least
@@Antimonium
I've seen it be used to (try to) counter stealthed enemies.
The only examples I can think of off the top of my head right now being in the PvP specials.
But I feel certain that rule has been used for that purpose and others in the actual campaigns.
Maybe it was a C2 thing.
Campaign 2 is much more RAW 5e than Campaign 1, of course.
@@andishawjfacMercer is actually pretty good at following the 5e rules about as closely as possible (aside from a few notable table rules like the revive mechanic) and he checks his players when they try to cut corners like this, especially in S2. On top of that, he runs a lot of honest-to-god dungeons, which most 5e podcasts sadly lack. Gotta give him props, he is running the game exactly how it was intended to be played.
Guidance, and Peace Clerics Emboldening bond also boost initiative
9:00 Xanathar's does add an optional rule that you can fall a mximum 500ft per turn.
1:40 Well... that's actually pretty classic since "Expedition to the barrier peaks" times.
But Some science fantasy exists even in modern D&D, courtesy of spelljammer, and this bleeds even on official adventures.
For example one specific area of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (pretty much the wet dream of any Arteficer) has several futuristic weapons
5:35 Diagonal movement rules exits, as an optional rule, in 5th edition DMG if you prefer more realistic distances.
8:45 Xanathar has specific "high altitude" rules including a "Rate of falling" rule that explicitly gives a maximum fall distance of 500 feet each round (that is actually a nearly realistic value math-wise)
My vote for the most forgotten/ignore rule: chase rules from the DMG.
While optional they are actually explicitely required in a few official adventures (such as Waterdeep: Dragon Heist) and most DMs have no idea how to run those chase scenes and often hadwave them.
I rule at my table that you can't cast counterspell if you are currently casting a spell that is getting countered. I do this because to do so, you'd have to stop casting the spell you are currently casting to cast another spell, then immediately somehow be right where you were in the previous casting.
I would only allow casting a counterspell yourself, if there is no component overlap. So either the main spell has no somatic component, or you actually use something like subtle spell to make your counterspell not have a somatic component.
That's actually a pretty good idea, and an interesting way to think about it. I hadn't thought about the component end.
I mean not really, you can cast a action spell and a bonus action spell. I feel like you could definitely cast an action spell and then a reaction spell. Technically you could cast an action spell, action surge spell, and reaction spell. So you could cast fireball counter the counter spell, then just cast it again.
What if it was just a cancellation of sorts? Even if you succeed in Caping the CP, the spell you initially used dies out as a result of
Another big one is the rules for dim light and darkness. I had been running my current campaign for over A YEAR before I finally looked at those rules and realized that dim light should have been imposing disadvantage on normal sight, and darkness doing it for darkvision. And of course, by then the precedent was already set. Because nobody actually looks at that rule and just assumes "oh, darkvision lets me see i the dark!"
reminds me of a scene in one of the Shanarra books, where someone had to explain that his Darkvision wouldn't really help in a deep cave with NO light at all.
And even when we do know how it's supposed to work, we ignore it anyway.
@@lorikeetrainwing That's becaue you're dumb.
2:41
In Tasha's there are sidekick classes that can be used to level animals and npc companions. You can be a Warrior, Mage, or Expert, but need a language to be a Mage or Expert. It is the most forgotten rule of DND, I would say.
It's also broken, just ask your DM if you can be a Stone Giant Statue Warrior Sidekick. Win every martial fight
@@DarkstarAshura I don't know the CR of the stone giant statue but the sidekicks have a maximum CR so that might not work
@@pedrogarcia8706 its a cr0
@@DarkstarAshura ok that's definitely a specific module monster. It has the stats of a cr 10 monster but it has cr 0 so that it awards no exp. Definitely a weird edge case but imo it should be ineligible.
While not as general as Jack of all trades, Champion Fighter's Remarkable Athlete get a bump in their Initiative too.
Wich make total sense. They're fighters, it's kinda normal they react faster in combat. Should be a core class trait if you ask me.
The counterspell graphic is genius, thank you.
I think the one that gets ignored the most is the rage a day limit.
Most people just do a certain number per short rest
I've never had a situation where someone even uses all their rages in a day as either a player or DM
@@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemon contrary to that, i've seen this happen a lot of times, i guess people just dont use dungeons anymore
It's at least in part because without rage barbarian is just so not fun to play.
@@fizhing Dungeon Camping
I'm dissapointed at half-assing the futuristic weapons because looting a crashed spaceship is a classic DND scenario
Counterspell chains are fun. You cast a spell, enemy cast counterspell, you reaction cast counterspell, enemy ally casts counterspell, your ally casts counterspell. Everyone waste a bunch of lvl 3 spell slots preventing a silence spell.
Make them more fun by rolling on the Wild Magic table every time a Counterspell is used!
Then the legendary actions kick in and one of the enemies has Counter Spell as a Legendary Action.
@@azuredragoon2054 Aren't Legendary Actions only at the end of someone's turn? They could use Dispel, but not Counterspell with a Legendary Action.
@@PikaPenny17 Had to double check because I was thinking of Sul Katesh, but you're right. What she does is have the ability to cast Counter Spell at will, not as a Legendary Action.
Making the arcane caster players feel really clever when they work out how many spells lots their enemies have left after forcing their hands with counterspell chains. Much like when you intentionally drain their legendary resistance.
The Playing on a Grid rules are a variant, and even if you use them they specify what the movement calculations apply to. (Movement and determining range.) Whether using the default, the Playing on a Grid variant or the more accurate Diagonal Movement rules in the DMG, spheres are never cubes RAW.
My tabletop group decided to ditch the square grid and use a hex grid instead. When every adjacent spot became one space without question, the debates surrounding mobility went out the door. What happened instead was a very creative use of swarm tactics by the DM lol
If you guys want some fun terrain, look up terragon hex tiles. Super fun magnetic, and modular as HECC😊
For mobility I just go with a fun rule of "Looks about right." My table already has templates for different spell patterns and ranges to tell if a square is being hit or not, I am not bothering with exact movement distances. Especially for the rogue going movement - dash action - dash bonus action. You get there, stop counting!
I’m very insistent on using the correct jumping rules and my DM is good with it. Makes having high strength very handy while exploring.
The falling rule is right and wrong as there is one in xanathar's guide that says you call 200 feet your first turn and 500 each turn after that.
ironically while explaining how everyone ignores the falling rules he also ignored the rule where you can take max 20d6 damage from falling.
you fall 500 feet every turn. But you only take up to 200 feet of damage, which I find silly. If 500 feet is going to be your terminal velocity then the max fall damage cap should be 50d6 not 20d6
@@jonathankonderla7989 "terminal velocity", meaning you're not falling any faster. So given the OP, it takes 200 ft of falling to reach terminal velocity. While something larger will take more damage (because mass is another factor in the equation), that much is hand waved because we're not here for super complicated math.
@@Nuggette The 20d6 is the funniest rule too because it means after a certain level some classes simply cannot die ever from fall damage at max health. Drop a barbarian from orbit and have them rage right before they hit the ground and they can survive absolute max damage at level 6 with 16 Con.
@MxChloeB42 Literally any Half-Orc can survive any single source of damage if you are not using optional rules.
A level 1 Half-Orc sorcerer with 1 Constitution can survive 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000+ damage.
On the topic of counterspells, our group actually chained it to 5.
Player spellcast, Badguy1, player 1, badguy 2, player 2. We went up 1 level each time with player 2 needing to roll because it was casted at the same level as badguy 2.
What's always funny about something like that: What if you just didn't go along the chain and also try to counterspell the original spell, instead of a counterspell?
@@Schilani it would basically be the same I think. If badguy 2 counterspells the spell caster, player 2 will just counterspell badguy 2.
@@elfireii328 well in your case player 2 could have instead counterspelled badguy1 with a level that they already knew wouldn't force a roll, because they wouldn't try to do it against the higher level of badguy2
The original UA for the fairy gives you Fey Passage, which lets you squeeze through a space as small as 1 inch. Doesn't this mean fairies were supposed to be able to change size from Small to Tiny at will? That's how I see it at least.
I assume they're like a rat and fit through any space the diameter of their whiskers
Don't get the furries going 😉🐀🐁🐿️😹🦊
Or they are semi-liquid like a cat.
I absolutely used the futuristic weapon rules. Only the enemies got them because it was powering the plasma gun with it's wierd energy core, but it was funny to hear the reaction to a plasma grenade being chucked at them.
The falling is in fact wrong, don't mean to sound like a rules lawyer but you fall 500ft each round of combat (every 6 seconds)
Looked into it more and you're right! Counter point though, the fact that a rule this important was published in an external rulebook means most people are still ignoring it lol
@@BlaineSimple that's totally fair
If you really want to have a roll for Jumping, instead of nerfing existing jump distance, I suggest allowing an Athletics roll to exceed it. Something like DC 10 for +1' on a long jump, and another +1' per +5 DC. I'd suggest DC 15 for +1' vertical, and +10 for every additional +1'.
To be fair, Icewind Dale: ROTF has the laser pistol/rifle/or both in it. However, yeah you aren't wrong.
my players absolutely loved that thing. | ROTF spoilers | It was used to fight Auril in the final battle.
2:45 - Pet rules are simple. Use the Sidekick rules from Tasha's.
The disarming rules are optional rules and battle master fighters can do it with a feature so there's a reason why a lot of people forget about it
I have an easy solution to the jump calculations. Just write it down ahead of time. You said you need to remember two jump distances, but actually it's four, depending on a 10 ft running start. It's still easy.
Example: STR 15 = 15 ft running longjump / 7 ft longjump & 5 ft running highjump / 2 ft highjump (can reach overhead 1/2 char height).
Shorthand on char sheet: longjump 15/7 ft, highjump 6/2 ft (reach 2 ft).
Takes five minutes, and you only have to do it once. It'll also keep things moving quickly at the table. Rolling is usually not necessary when jumping.
I feel like the jumping rules come up rarely enough anyway. How often do you get to a stream that is 15 feet wide, so that only half of the party can cross it without a skill check?
Cover gives you a bonus to Dexerity saving throws equivalent to the AC bonus.
Yeah, and some spells (like Sacred Flames) even indicate that "the target gets no benefit from cover" when rolling a saving throw specifically for this reason.
I honestly forget about this little bit for the most part. But most of the time it doesn't matter with my table anyway, because they either have full or no cover. They rarely stand behind a chest-high wall or something like that.
Every campaign we always wind up having at least one conga line of everyone counterspelling each other in one round of combat, so this time around I decided to play a divine soul sorcerer, and subtle counterspell will be my saving grace when the time comes.
2:18 dont make questions but the art is from a artist called DAGASI
I recognized the artist too and I will not be answering any questions
As i fellow Dagasi enjoyer i do have to say, that i recognized the art on first sight. I as well will Not answer any questions
I have also recognized him by a tenth of a second in this video. I will answer questions tho.
A rule that is ,,, not ignored but more-so completely unknown
"Casting from Over-leveled spell-scrolls" (Location Pg:200 of the 5e DMG)
in short: if a character level 1 spellcaster wanted to cast a "scroll of (spell Lv:3) Fireball" they can make a (in this case) "DC:13 INT ability check Without-Proficiency" where success casts the Fireball (& destroys the scroll) , or failure Destroys the scroll outright.
The Algebra of the DC = (Base 10 + Inscribed spells level, (even if the inscribing was an already upcast spell own its own))
this reminds me of an old sourcebook i read, with complex rules for making Wands, using an "Enchant Item" spell.
if i remember, it would take 24 hours, then you would cast the spell AT the wand.
odds of success were affected by character level, INT, and complexity, that is, trying to make a wand with two charges would require casting that spell twice.
if it failed, the wand would simply disintegrate.
that Enchant spell could also be used to make enchanted weapons and armor, if the PC also knew the "Permanency" spell.
BUT, if it failed, he would wind up with Cursed equipment, BUT would not KNOW that, until the party got into an actual battle!
only the DM knows for sure.
Falling is usually 500ft per round
Was surprised that the material components of spells weren’t here.
In every game I’ve played, always ignored material components cause for magic classes running around trying to gather a crap ton of various random objects just to hurl a spell is annoying as hell, and sometimes the components make no sense monetary wise
Ah, but if you cast misty step, and the enemy counterspells it, you can't counterspell that counterspell because counterspell is a spell that isn't a cantrip with a casting time of one action and you cast a spell using a bonus action on the same turn.
But that rule only applies to bonus action and action spells. It's not talking about reactions at all. It makes sense to also include reactions, especially when you consider components. You are casting a spell, then have to use your hands to cast the counterspell as well. If the main spell needed somatic components, you can't use somatic components for the counter spell without interrupting the main spell yourself.
@@Schilani RAW it is talking about spells cast on your turn. You can use a reaction to cast a spell on your turn.
@@matthewparker9276 Actually, RAW it goes like this
"A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action."
That's the only mention of not being able to cast two leveled spells on your turn. And funny enough, this also means that a bonus action cantrip still means you can't cast a fireball as an action.
So funny enough: RAW you can cast a leveled spell as your action and still cast counterspell. But you wouldn't be able to cast a spell as your bonus action and cast counterspell, even if that bonus action spell was a cantrip.
@@Schilani yes, that's what I said. Misty step is a bonus action spell.
@@matthewparker9276 oh, right. Sorry I misunderstood that completely somehow
How about body blocking as half cover against projectiles and reach weapons?
"A target can benefit from cover only when an attack or other effect originates on the opposite side of the cover. [...] A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, _or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend."_
The rules also say that multiple sources of cover don't add together, but personally, I like to think that two or more sources of half cover counts as three-quarters cover. Beyond that, the cover rules are comprehensive enough.
4:13 Ah yes, a true man of culture.
But actually though, it's such a fun show
Pets can be made sidekicks, which are basically simplified character classes. This allows pets to scale with the players. I've done this with at the table I DM for and it's worked really well so far.
The biggest ignored rule is the "gold silver copper coins"
Just have one unit of currency
Gold for everything, tavern costs 2 gold, copper does not exist, silver is just for weapons lmao
reminds me of an old D&D videogame i had, where your characters have a WEIGHT limit, and money has weight.
so, every time i visited town, i would "pool" my money and buy some extra arrows, and the game would change everything into Platinum coins, reducing my weight.
this was sort of rendered moot when i defeated some giants, who dropped 10,000 gold EACH.
It's fine to roll athletics to jump... (just a little farther than what their strength should allow or to also catch the ledge, etc).
3:55
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.
Oh... He explained it... Well...
1:40 It's just in case you ever decided, for whatever reason, have a UFO crash-land in your fantasy setting. It is likely a nod to the "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" adventure which was just that.
1:50.......(As a DM) so about that
My dm straight up didn't let us disarm narratively. This was before we knew there was rules for it- we looked it up, he saw it was optional and said "nu-uh". really took us out when we just *couldn't*
Point them at the "Improvise an Action" action in combat. That said, being that it is provided by a Battlemaster option or often the Heat Metal spell, a DM would be justified for making it unlikely to be successful when attempted without the use of one of those features.
my current dm actually keeps track of things like ammo, or rations, and even makes us aware of expiration. he also gives us levels of exhaustion if we don't stay hydrated and nourished in certain intervals. and tbh, it's not that hard to deal with.
For a moment that sounded like the DM would tell the players "You haven't touched your glass since the session started, you need to drink more!"
So we just gonna be chill about that ad like what? 🤨
Monster girl manual? Y’all are buying that?
The way I run my table with short rests is you can have 4 per long rest but there must be at least 4 hours between each rest, but how it really works is my players will ask for a short rest and I will tell them if they get the full benefit or not from a rest
I think the most times my party asked for a short rest between long rests was twice. Never did they ever try to take more than two shorts rests on a day. Mostly because the area simply isn't giving it to them. You aren't getting an hour long rest, when you took down the dining room and just hide in the food closet.
Who else clicked for the thumbnail
Me
I love the counterspelling a counterspell rule. It helps use spellslots on magic users and if at least one other person knows counterspell you can have a chain of counterspelling.
I think the rule most ignored at tables is treating charisma rolls as any other success/failure skill and not letting personal feelings about the persuasiveness of the player and the character decide if they succeed or not. This may just be a pet peeve of mine tho lol
1:40 guns are basically magic. They penetrate skin and kill stuff which is good and magic is also good.
1:28: I do! It's a holdover from the classic adventure module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, where the party was sent to investigate a sudden surge of weird monster activity that turned out to be the contents of an alien spacecraft that crashed and let its menagerie of captured xenofauna (and, in the case of the vegepygmies, xenoflora) loose. Old-school D&D emerged from a point in nerd culture where the lines between "science fiction" and "fantasy" weren't quite as firmly defined as they are these days.
We're on our 5th year of campaign, playing every weekend. About those rules :
Jumping is pretty simple, usually at our table we allow a atheltism check if the player want to jump more than his jumping distance.
Pet scaling is ok if the players actually work for it. Spending time training your pet, taking care of it and finding magical items for it should be rewarded.
Fairies are not Pixies. If someone wants to play a Pixie character, I might allow it for a fun One Shot, but not for a long campaign.
If your player abuse short rest, you can limit it to 2 short rest per long rest as advised in the DMG, and you can only take long rest at the end of the day.
Falling was changed with Xanathar.
Of course I use Counterspells on my players. Not every enemy mage has it prepared though.
We track rations at our table. It makes long travel more important.
"Adventurers can take short rests in the midst of an adventuring day and a long rest to end the day." The 2 short rest per day is a Baldur's Gate 3 rule, not a D&D rule...
@@Sephiroth517 You're right, it's not in the PHB. It's a proposed course of action in the DMG, not a rule.
1:38 an adventure time esk setting would be-
Perfect for that tho
(With the necessary nerfs)
I just wish that people would even remember that short rests exist
For the explosion, I would make the whole blast a perfect square, picture an imaginary circle within that square, and anyone on the boarder where it's half safety and half fire to have reduced damaged. Realisitically, explosions are more powerful in the epicenter, so I think I have the right idea.
The stuff in the DM's guide is more like suggestions for homebrew that you can build on. It gives you some examples of how to do laser guns so that you can make more laser guns.
I’m still learning how to DM and my players have no idea what to do properly so these rules can shove it
The way I’ve always ruled fall damage at my tables, is that you free-fall at a rate of 200ft per round.
The way I ruled this is that if fall damage caps out at 20d6, then that implies that the character hit terminal velocity while falling, since they’re not taking any more damage from falling further. And if the maximum damage is sustained after falling 200 feet, that would imply that any fall greater than 200 feet would take longer than 6 seconds
Thi is better than xanathar’s
9:29 dude what, the two most counterspelled spells, are Misty step and counter spell. I did see a good way to make it more interesting and making a counterspell hitting another counterspell trigger a wild magic.
Thank you SO much for the "spheres=cubes" rule. It makes the game SO much faster and cuts 100% of AoE arguments.
What's even better is when you apply the rules to cones, you realize you're just slicing a section out of a "square circle" and selecting 1 square 5ft from you, 2 squares 10ft, 3 squares 15ft from you, and so on.
However a cone is just as tall as it is wide. If you aim your cone DOWNWARD from in the air, you're theoretically getting 1x1ft, 2x2ft, 3x3ft, etc... square on the end of your cone, making a cone breath weapon of a dragon (60ft cone = 60ftx60ft "circle") MASSIVELY deadly.
Also keep in mind that falling timing was clarified in Xanathar's guide; you fall instantly 500ft when you start falling, and if you're still falling by the end of your next turn, you fall another 500ft instantly. Really, the 5e creators just hadn't fully considered how common it would become to fall from more than 500ft while still having options that could change the outcome from "dies and/or is no longer capable of contributing to the encounter"
I've had numerous enemies counterspell and/or counterspell counterspells. The big thing everyone forgets about this is that there are limitations to USING counterspell; you have to be within 60ft, and also capable of seeing the person casting the spell. If the person casting is invisible or outside of that range, no counterspell. This is the number 1 reason people mistakenly believe counterspell is overpowered, when it's really pretty reasonable.
Number 2 reason is because the DM announces what spell is being cast automatically instead of requiring a check. This is also clarified in Xanathar's as requiring a reaction to make an arcana check vs the 10+spell level, which would prevent the person identifying the spell from using counterspell because they used their reaction for the arcana check.
I houserule that the reaction for identifying a spell can also be used to counterspell, whether you successfully identify the spell or not, but if they fail, they're counterspelling blind. I also houserule that if you have the same spell actively prepared, you automatically succeed identifying it upon seeing the spell cast. If it's only a spell you can potentially learn, you have advantage on identification.
You can probably add arrows to the rations as keeping track of them becomes very tedious. Unless, there are special arrows that have unique effects.
The reason laser weapons are in the guide is because of one adventure from older editions "expedition to the barrier peaks" or something like that, in which the party finds an alien space craft with plasma grenades, laser weapons and power armor
Disarming is honestly a great feature and I am always blown away they shoved it into an optional rule of the DMG. It is really exciting when a player (or enemy) disarms someone with their action, then either kicks or picks up the weapon with their once a turn object interaction. Steal the villain's magic sword, or maybe the villain steals the player's magic weapon they were supposed to be guarding. It even works to disarm spell casters of their staff or wand.
If you don't want every weapon to be able to use disarm, I recommend just stealing the rule wholesale and slapping it on as a property for certain weapons. I suggest things with a hook or prong shape (sickle, trident, war pick) or that can wrap around weapons (flail, whip). This also has the benefit of giving a niche to some underutilized weapons.
There's a 5e jump calculator that I use that even has all the modifiers like the jump spell, athlete, boots of striding and springing, ext. It also has some other features like how high you can reach when jumping based off of your height plus some other things. I don't use it every session but when it comes up its always super useful and quick.
If you play a rabbit folk you get Pro to Initiative and when playing rogue or bard can make it expertise (also when playing rogue and you get the pro skills cant be lower than 10 it applies there too)
08:16 there is a literal quick reference in Xanathar's Guide. If you fall you instantly descend up to 500 feet. Falling any greater distance will result in the fall taking more than one turn. Meaning you can act 10 rounds before hitting the ground falling from 5000 feet.
Encumbrance. I have played D&D for 24 years and had encumbrance come up I think twice.