"...not everyone wants grim settings with high stakes...." Well if they did, they'd play this new Kickstarted campaign in a place called Drakkenheim. Can't wait!!!!
@@bobbyLNZ I ran mine through a one shot of the intro adventure. They headed to the southern outskirts then abruptly decided they were gonna head for the crater and the deep haze 😳
To be clear, we don't think it's a bad thing. No author creates without influences: even Shakespeare "borrowed" the plots for most of his plays from popular stories of the day or real-world history. Fundamentally speaking, D&D itself "ripped off" or "borrowed" numerous ideas from Lovecraft, Howard, Tolkien, Vance, and many other fantasy authors. After all, a huge appeal of the game itself is that we can play out our own fantasy stories based on the fiction which inspires us.
@@DungeonDudes Exactly. There’s nothing new under the sun, as they say, and Harry Potter isn’t exactly original to begin with. Besides, I’m not about to feel too sorry for a transphobic billionaire.
@@DungeonDudes I get it, you can't really take "wizards of the coast" to task too hard but privately you think the effort made here is underwhelming. Not much original thought and a lot of borrowing from Harry Potter and lazy NPC creation in general.
Honestly, I'm only through the first session and it's so much more Brakebills rather than Hogwarts. I know Hogwarts came first, but if you've read or watched The Magicians, you'll get what I mean. The university setting, the "houses" being divided by magic specialty rather than personality, not being put into "houses" right away, even the sport is closer to Welters than Quidditch as Quidditch has magical objects but you're not actually allowed to cast spells during it, whereas in Welters and Mage Tower spellcasting is a huge point of the game. This is fine with me, because Brakebills was the best part of that series and we don't get to explore it very much whereas we literally get a secret map of Hogwarts to uncover all the mysteries and take the fun out of things. (My character Willow is going to refer to Mage Tower as "the worst" in homage to The Magicians) I know you were going for the more common reference, but I wanted to point out to any fans who might have read or seen the series that it's got more in common with Brakebills, in case that's an incentive.
I had to blink 182 times while trying to read Kelly's hoodie. Having a campaign set in a dark and dangerous magical university could make for a fun campaign; a bit like a cross between Gormengast and Call of C'thulhu.
I lolled. :-) Gormengast/Lovecraft feel is the only way I would ever play a magical school game. I have never been a Potter fan, but this tone would win me over.
@@Tusitala1967 Thinking about it there is a rich vein of horrific academic tales (Frankenstein, the Student of Prague, MR James' antiquarian ghost stories) that could be mined for some plots and themes. 😎 I like the idea of a vast, sprawling, shadowy, crumbling complex (Fall of the House of Usher or The Castle of Otranto style), that is home to just a few mad tutors, sinister servants and anxious students. I seem to remember hearing a tale that the phrase, "The Devil Take The Hindmost" referred to an annual student race through the cellars of some ancient university (possibly Heidelberg); where the slowest student would go missing.
@@euansmith3699 It's about time Heidelberg exported something besides dueling scars. ;-) But seriously, I agree with tone and theme mining everything you mentioned. For some reason the references you made sent my mind to all of the 60's and early 70's movies which mined the same material. I'll have to brush up my Vincent Price imitation.
@@JaydenDimaio there is president for this with the deep gnome. I can see why they did it as the basic owl has 120ft darkvision with no sunlight sensitivity. Still 60ft darkvision would have been fine.
Rowling didn't invent the wizard school. See books A Wizard of Earthsea and The Worst Witch. Both of these are from the 1970s. Quidditch is heavily based on field hockey. I remember my first Karachi King Super. Blood Bowl was Games Workshop's take on American Football. TSRs War of Wizards was a battle between wizards on a gridiron.
By far one of the coolest sections of this book to me was the bit about the classmates, and how different your experience might be based on whether you're on good or bad terms with them. IMO these examples are prime fodder to be ripped out and applied to whatever campaign you may be running. I can imagine applying the relationship systems in this book to almost any organization that your PCs might be a party of, like a band of mercenaries or something. It's not whole cloth drag and drop, but with very little work I think a clever DM could fit these in to any setting.
I can't comment specifically on this book, but for those interested in a slightly different magical school campaign, Pathfinder Second Edition just released their own six-book Level 1-18 magic school campaign, "Strength of Thousands." Its school, the Magaambya, draws heavily from African cultural influences, rather than British boarding schools or American universities. Also, the PCs eventually go from new students to employees and teachers at the school. Strixhaven sounds fun, but for those who want a magical school experience that is less predictable to a Harry Potter fan, Strength of Thousands might be the thing to do.
I'm interested to see if Monty will use anything from here for the Amethyst Academy. Sebastien will definitely get the endless coffee magic item for sure.
I think that Veo and Pluto should club together to buy Sebastian a "Towel of Muffling". I sure that everyone in earshot of Sebastian's bed would be grateful for some nights of sleep; free from screams of, "MUUUMSIE!"
I want to note that Strixhaven Initiate also allows you to choose your spellcasting modifier for the spells in addition to the spell list expansion applying to all of your caster classes when multi-classed. This makes it quite a bit better than Magic Initiate because Magic Initiate doesn't let you pick the modifier you're using.
Strixhaven initiate also let’s you get find fimiliar with guidance, or goodberry on a cleric. It also adds the spell to your spell list automatically regardless of your class
I am ging to play this with my group and I think you missed one crucial thing: The andventure setting encourages you to place Strixhaven in an interplanar 'demiplane' or sth similar. This gives a HUGE opportunity to include beloved NPCs, creatures and even villains from other campaigns and universes and I think that's a great upside!
When the Unearthed Arcana came out I was really excited about how unique the school Subclasses were. You could play as a Lorehold student, for example, with your Ancient Companion in any campaign and feel like a student of the school. I was really disappointed when they removed all of it.... unfortunately, I didnt realize until after I bought it. What I wanted was a sourcebook to show you how to run a school campaign with schedules, and class progression systems. And it seems all of these systems they were exclaiming about during marketing are so deeply woven into the campaign (not to mention shallow and - use your imagination-ey) they cant help with what I wanted. I didnt want to rolepay a dress ball for my adult students. I didnt want to make a bestie.
I’m not saying I don’t like the content, but it feel like there’s so much stuff for casters, lately, and very little for martial characters. Could we please have a book with more weapons and armour(mundane and magical) and more options for martial characters, aside from just more maneuvers? Side note: does anyone else think it’s weird that they keep adding new maneuvers for Battlemasters? I can’t think of any other subclass that gets expanded feature options that are just for them alone.
Yeah I would love some extra work on the weapons. Whips for example, I think are super cool. In real life they can lasso people, disarm foes, strike with extreme precision from a farther distance and all they get in 5e is reach and finesse. I hate how limiting that feels. And there are so many more weapons out there too. Why no weirder weapons that only Monks and Fighters can use, like nunchucks or a Pike or Guan Dao. Have they ever expanded the weapons listings?
It's hard to add stuff for martials other than more magic items (though people HB so many items I can see why WoTC hasn't been adding many). Honestly, they should add more feats like Crusher, Slasher, Piercer but with abilities more inline with GWM / SS.
@@agilemind6241 I agree. The addition of those feats was helpful, but not enough. I expanded Fighting Styles in my game to encompass 4 levels of development (1st, 6th, 11th, and 16th levels). I also have a downtime training system which follows proficiency increase (5th, 9th, 13th, 17th), allowing 4 skills, tools, languages, styles, or talents to be developed. Fighting classes benefit a great deal from being able to choose additional styles with this system. I am still play testing some of the styles at various levels, but so far I am very pleased.
@@moocowofjustice525 You can always pull from other resources out there. I like to look through Griffon's Saddlebag and add some of the weapons / items from there as loot. You can also modify weapon's rules (or anything else) as you see fit, the books are more of a guideline ;).
Just had the fun idea of this being used for a campaign respec. Like your fighter wants to be an eldritch knight or something so they take a 1 year course to train in the arcane. Or your monk wants to become a wizard so they do a full 4 year course.
So I believe that when Strixhaven was gonna have the subclasses it was a sourcebook akin to Ravinca. But we all know what happened to that idea…… So what I want to know is why nobody at D&DBeyond took any amount of time to change the placement of Strixhaven from sourcebook to adventure. (Not saying it was easy to do so, just trying to ask why nobody apart of it thought to say “hey, this book isn’t a sourcebook anymore but rather an adventure so somebody should change that on D&Dbeyond.) Either way im buying the owlin solely for the purpose of making an owl NPC who knows exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. Will i tell my players if they ever ask? Hehe nope.
@@Vallinen92 You're right. And I didn't buy the book, I just bought the owlin race cause one of my players had made a character concept for it back when it was UA. In hindsight, could just play an Aaracokra (spelling?) and just call it an owl. but at least I only spent like 3 bucks instead of 50.
Me: Oh, I mostly wanna hear what they say about Silvery Barb. Dungeon Dudes: We’re doing a separate video because we’ve got a lot to say about them. Me: Clever dudes…
We had so much to say about the spells that we realized it was an extra 20 mins of footage so we are filming a subsequent video to really go in to details on them.
*Very minor spoilers for year one of the adventure* I was very interested in getting this as a possible campaign to run. I dig the magic school and I was really looking forward to how it was going to incorporate relationships and extracurricular activities. I've read through the first year of the four years of the adventure and so far I am deeply disappointed in it. The dudes weren't lying about rehashing the events of Harry Potter, so much so that it in order for scenarios to work as written both the party and npc students need to be behaving more like middle school kids than young adults. The relationship system is paper thin and they way it uses the npcs in the adventure feels lazy. There is a list of decently diverse student npcs with personality write ups but as soon as they are in the adventure every one of them is interchangeable. The plot hook for every incident in the first year is really just: Choose one of the npcs the party likes and they run up and say "Hey come over here!" Even if the scenario makes no sense for that NPC based on their personality. I'm gonna finish reading the adventure and hope it improves but my hopes are not high.
…it doesn’t get much better. I agree with you. While the story is interesting it is not nuanced in any way. I was hoping for a campaign featuring the MTG villain from the Strixhaven story. Looking over the story I think their goal was to be able to plop the campaign down in any groups world, both homebrew and module alike. Overall I enjoyed the book but was extremely underwhelmed.
@@TheDMNMOR I think this is a good book for a homebrew DM like me. It has stuff there to make my life easier, and fun systems, but the story is such a nothingburger that I don't feel bad creatively messing with stuff.
Though part of the campaign, this book also introduces new mechanics that can ported to other campaigns and games. In particular, the Relationship mechanic in the book represents a real development and expansion of the Social Interaction rules outside of the relatively sparse mechanics represented in the DMG. In a similar vein, the Extracurricular or Exams mechanics could probably be, with a little modification, used to introduce new interesting and attractive downtime options for your players to dive into.
No. No it does not. The relationship "mechanic" is just are you nice to a person? You gain one relationship point with them. Are you mean to them? You lose one point. This is the most pathetic attempt at "relationship mechanics." It's not a good system.
Love the comment in regards to reducing page count following creating your own book :) As someone who works in publishing... save the pages, save the cost!
Taken as a whole, I don't think Strixhaven is a good match for Mograve University at all. It's feels more like a closer match to Arcanix or the Twelve. However, there might be some good bits you can pull out and repurpose either way.
I always liked the novels back when I played MTG, though I was less interested in the overall story following the fall of Yawgmoth as the previous consistent narrative thread was replaced with aimlessly wandering around the planes.
I feel that Strixhaven suffers from what the old Birthright campaign did… lots of cool and interesting things to do, but not really in a group as a team. I can see a lot of players going off to do their own thing in this.
I've already decided that the amethyst academy in Drakkenheim will be replaced with Strixhaven when I play through so these backgrounds and feats will have a place.
I recently fell out of love with the Magic the Gathering card game due to some shenanigans involving overdoing proxies that kind of broke the game for me, and I don’t see myself ever going back. But I still absolutely adore the MTG lore, and since getting into D&D, took to the crossover modules like a fish to water. I know some people have certain opinions about the crossovers, but I personally can’t get enough of them. It’s my way of interacting with the IP that I love so much for the foreseeable future. I personally hope they come up with one for every major plane going forward.
I'm combining these books too, except I have Candlekeep and Strixhaven as rival organizations with vastly different views on magic and the world. GL with your campaign!
For me mtg was never a "Competition minded game" we held tournaments, sure. But where I lived at the time they weren't all too serious, so the lore was my main take away from a Literally beautiful card game 💖💁🏽♂️✨
Hey guys! Sound engineer here. You all could use a bit more compression and gain on your audio input settings. The volume difference between ads or other videos and your excellent reviews is quite large. All the best! Thanks for your hard work!💪
If you mention boarding school specifically I do think of Harry Potter but kids shows like dragon tales have really seeded this image of like a Dutch cottage with a water wheel and and a mote. Of course older films where the characters live in castles always had really ornate libraries and other temple like structures that's something that would fit in a magic school.
Maybe a new expansion is called for, "Rings of Drakkenheim". In which the PCs struggle to survive in the Amethyst Academy and compete for the converted Rings of Spell Storing.
Monty could make Strixhaven a branch of the Amethyst Academy and start a new campaign. Delirium has been shipped all over the world and that is cannon. 100% would watch.
so my campaign is a very high magic setting, where eventually my players learn spells from one of the elemental schools (starting with a cantrip and lvl 1 spell at lvl 5 ish) and it seems like the new background could be a great starting point to homebrew that
7:52 It only goes t level 10, though. I would guess that this is a "50/50" thing. Those first ten levels are the embedded adventure in the book, and it's on the DM to continue/finish out the campaign to level 20.
Great video, I do have a question as someone who already has the book, does the villain, not-Voldemort, have a stat block because I probably have went crazy looking for it as I don't believe he has an encounter in the adventure and yet he has lair actions. Not only that I don't think the secondary villains, the oriq aren't mentioned in the adventure but they have stat blocks for its members but not for the leader, which is mentioned in their stat block description
It’s interesting to hear that the setting as described in the book reminded them of Harry Potter when the setting as conveyed through the magic cards really had nothing to do with HP besides the basic concept
'Voldenot' is surely the name that Monty is looking for here ? Also - can you summon a demon to impress your wannabe girlfriend and have it all go horribly wrong ? If not, then is it even a real mage school ? :)
It sounds like Wizards took their cue from Paizo's "Strength of Thousands" adventure path. That one is a magic school adventure that gives all of the players a free magic casting multiclass archetype.
Quidditch definitely isn't the wizard equivalent of cricket. It's more like the equivalent of football (soccer) with a touch of capture the flag thrown in. 😁
Ah; they are color opposing! That makes so much sense now. I wish the schools' principles were a bit more open for customization; but given this is based off actual (albiet recently decided) lore, can't be too picky. Though I'd probably change the schools a bit if I were to ever run it.
I was wondering what in the world that sweatshirt was Kelly is wearing and then I saw "Yedd," and I just have to say, bravo for another amazing piece of clothing.
Silvery Barb is an absolutely broken spell, It basically invalidate multiple abilities (heightened spell, the grave cleric crit cancel, etc.) by being stronger and costing less. Heightened spell cost the equivalent of a 2nd level spell slot and need to be set up before while Silvery Barb is a 1st level reroll reaction ; it's absolutely broken when you start to get the big Save or Suck spells. In addition, that reroll can cancel crits better than Grave clerics (the attack may miss). It's also better than the 7th level Rune knight ability because rerolls are stronger than disadvantage (because they can stack with disadvantage) and you can get it at 1st level. (also, Aberrant mind sorcerers can cast it with only 1 sorcery point) (also, it gives a second opportunity to use up a legendary resistance of a monster) This spell that anyone can get with Fey touched or a 1 level dip in sorcerer/wizard/bard is the equivalent of "Portent(Div Wizard)" + "Sentinel at Death's door (grave cleric)" + "Heightened spell" + "Warding flare(light cleric)" + "Storm Rune(Rune Knight)" + (Giving advantage to the Rogue's next attack). I really hope they Errata it in some way because if they don't it's gonna be the first spell I'll ban in my campaigns
Correction guys, the Owlin flying speed isn't 30ft, it's whatever your walking speed is, so 30ft base, but an Owlin monk is gonna get broken real quick.
@@benry007 it was just a proof of concept character really, turned out great. 8 in gloom stalker, 6 in the others. Gives me 20ac, 60ft walking, climbing, swimming and flying (70ft on the first turn), dark vision to 150ft +10ft blindsight. Sneak attack, all kinds of darkness and invisibility, options, stunning strike and 5 expertise skills. As a nocturnal hunter type character, it synergies so well. Although Owlin would work great as any one of those subclasses.
I was pretty excited for potential spells in this book but man Silvery barbs is a first for me having to really think about restricting it at my table.
@@rbmore3 I think wither and bloom is fine for a wizard. Uses up the recipients hit dice. I think of it as more in the category of life transference or vampiric touch which the eizard has access to, ok in a pinch but by no means makes them a reliable healer.
@@calkailah2483 That has nothing to do with the balance of it in players hands. I have infinite number of tools to balance monsters to create a satisfying experience for my players to combat. Player balance and enemy balance are nowhere near close to each other. This is an asymmetric game and having a spell like this part of a player's constant repertoire with the capability of the synergies it has is the problem. It is immediately a must have for its level and one of the best spells and reactions in the game.
as you said depends on the dm and party. i mean in the campaign i am in i am a dragon born fighter who has magic initiate eldritch blast and daddy issues because dad is a red dragon who up and left when my character was still in the womb and that may or may not have destroyed a few villages and scared the hell out of some npcs. most if not all the party i have is magic users of some sort or another. so, it would not be catastrophic if our dm say hired us to track down a missing magister aka headmaster who was investigating something to with say a shapeshifting elf in our party. not original but dnd to me is all creating a world that you and your party can get into. and my dm is doing that quite well. except the main story villain is eldritch worms basically.
Bummed that they didn't turn the scrapped multi class subclasses into regular wizard subclasses and just left them out entirely, I loved the flavour of the spirit summoner
I'm also not into the dark hell has taken over setting, but don't knock those who do. I am big on the war campaign, though. Love to swing my sword. With that being said, I was waiting for a setting like this.
As somebody that moved from England and had to deal with every teeny bopper coming up to you and asking you if you've met Harry potter, this book gives me the willies. I was just getting comfortable with Potter mania no longer being in my face.
When I first seen the description of this book I thought it seems a lot like the Harry Potter series. Thanks for confirming my suspicions guys. It looks interesting so I’ll have to wait until you put out further videos on this book.
![[Part 1] ทารกน้อยถูกทิ้ง👶 หญิงชราเก็บขวดขายเลี้ยงดูเขาจนโต #โลกการละคร](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nPTDvFCExks/mqdefault.jpg)
You know it's a fantasy when Strixhaven doesn't saddle you with a dragon hoard-sized student debt.
This.
To be fair, you might get killed just by going to class, so it's more like an American highschool...
@@orwin5445 Instead of trenchcoats they’re wearing capes of billowing and dread helms
“Seriously consider apprenticing. I know liches who are still paying off their student loans.” -Tasha
Might not be fantasy. Might just be European.
"...not everyone wants grim settings with high stakes...."
Well if they did, they'd play this new Kickstarted campaign in a place called Drakkenheim.
Can't wait!!!!
I just started my group in Drakkenheim using the PDF. So far they are killing it, and nearly died twice!
@@bobbyLNZ I ran mine through a one shot of the intro adventure. They headed to the southern outskirts then abruptly decided they were gonna head for the crater and the deep haze 😳
@@TopTierKnees oh wow. You can plan for just about everything but players crazy ideas
@@TopTierKnees lol oh dear
Wizards: "We totally didn't rip off Harry Potter."
Dungeon Dudes: "They totally ripped off Harry Potter."
To be clear, we don't think it's a bad thing. No author creates without influences: even Shakespeare "borrowed" the plots for most of his plays from popular stories of the day or real-world history. Fundamentally speaking, D&D itself "ripped off" or "borrowed" numerous ideas from Lovecraft, Howard, Tolkien, Vance, and many other fantasy authors. After all, a huge appeal of the game itself is that we can play out our own fantasy stories based on the fiction which inspires us.
@@DungeonDudes Well said!
@@DungeonDudes Exactly. There’s nothing new under the sun, as they say, and Harry Potter isn’t exactly original to begin with. Besides, I’m not about to feel too sorry for a transphobic billionaire.
@@DungeonDudes I get it, you can't really take "wizards of the coast" to task too hard but privately you think the effort made here is underwhelming. Not much original thought and a lot of borrowing from Harry Potter and lazy NPC creation in general.
Harry Potter? You mean the boy from the movie 'Troll'?
One of the quotes i liked the most in magic the gathering was "zombies don't kill people they recruit".
It took me a second but I love Kelly’s shirt.
Wow… what a masterpiece 😂
Definitely spent half the video deciphering his shirt. Finally got it.
Ahhhahahaha. That took a hot minute to figure out.
WHERAR YOOOWWWUUUU?
Took me a bit to figure it out until i read it out loud
Honestly, I'm only through the first session and it's so much more Brakebills rather than Hogwarts. I know Hogwarts came first, but if you've read or watched The Magicians, you'll get what I mean. The university setting, the "houses" being divided by magic specialty rather than personality, not being put into "houses" right away, even the sport is closer to Welters than Quidditch as Quidditch has magical objects but you're not actually allowed to cast spells during it, whereas in Welters and Mage Tower spellcasting is a huge point of the game. This is fine with me, because Brakebills was the best part of that series and we don't get to explore it very much whereas we literally get a secret map of Hogwarts to uncover all the mysteries and take the fun out of things. (My character Willow is going to refer to Mage Tower as "the worst" in homage to The Magicians) I know you were going for the more common reference, but I wanted to point out to any fans who might have read or seen the series that it's got more in common with Brakebills, in case that's an incentive.
I had to blink 182 times while trying to read Kelly's hoodie.
Having a campaign set in a dark and dangerous magical university could make for a fun campaign; a bit like a cross between Gormengast and Call of C'thulhu.
I lolled. :-) Gormengast/Lovecraft feel is the only way I would ever play a magical school game. I have never been a Potter fan, but this tone would win me over.
@@Tusitala1967 Thinking about it there is a rich vein of horrific academic tales (Frankenstein, the Student of Prague, MR James' antiquarian ghost stories) that could be mined for some plots and themes. 😎
I like the idea of a vast, sprawling, shadowy, crumbling complex (Fall of the House of Usher or The Castle of Otranto style), that is home to just a few mad tutors, sinister servants and anxious students.
I seem to remember hearing a tale that the phrase, "The Devil Take The Hindmost" referred to an annual student race through the cellars of some ancient university (possibly Heidelberg); where the slowest student would go missing.
@@euansmith3699 It's about time Heidelberg exported something besides dueling scars. ;-) But seriously, I agree with tone and theme mining everything you mentioned. For some reason the references you made sent my mind to all of the 60's and early 70's movies which mined the same material. I'll have to brush up my Vincent Price imitation.
Wait... you understood that thing? What does it say? Translate for us, O mighty one!
@@EveryDayALittleDeath Don't waste your time on me, you're already
The voice inside my head
Worth noting that the Owlin gets Darkvision to 120ft. not just the basic 60ft.
With no sunlight sensitivity
Have you played the Frostemaiden campaign? Look up her first form and look at the stats🦉
@@JaydenDimaio there is president for this with the deep gnome. I can see why they did it as the basic owl has 120ft darkvision with no sunlight sensitivity. Still 60ft darkvision would have been fine.
The owlin are plainly unbalanced as a PC race. Not going to allow that in any game.
@@Vallinen92 do you also not allow Aarakocra?
New spells that you can combine with "force cage"!
The second you guys said that this campaign was roleplay heavy, I saw my players trying to flood the school cafeteria with coffee
Rowling didn't invent the wizard school. See books A Wizard of Earthsea and The Worst Witch. Both of these are from the 1970s.
Quidditch is heavily based on field hockey. I remember my first Karachi King Super. Blood Bowl was Games Workshop's take on American Football. TSRs War of Wizards was a battle between wizards on a gridiron.
By far one of the coolest sections of this book to me was the bit about the classmates, and how different your experience might be based on whether you're on good or bad terms with them. IMO these examples are prime fodder to be ripped out and applied to whatever campaign you may be running. I can imagine applying the relationship systems in this book to almost any organization that your PCs might be a party of, like a band of mercenaries or something. It's not whole cloth drag and drop, but with very little work I think a clever DM could fit these in to any setting.
I can't comment specifically on this book, but for those interested in a slightly different magical school campaign, Pathfinder Second Edition just released their own six-book Level 1-18 magic school campaign, "Strength of Thousands." Its school, the Magaambya, draws heavily from African cultural influences, rather than British boarding schools or American universities. Also, the PCs eventually go from new students to employees and teachers at the school.
Strixhaven sounds fun, but for those who want a magical school experience that is less predictable to a Harry Potter fan, Strength of Thousands might be the thing to do.
That sounds amazing!
That does sound very very cool
Additionally: Everyone owes it to themselves to play PF2e.
New rule in my campaigns: you can play a coffelock and never long rest, but you have to take two artificer levels to get INFINITE COFFEE!!!
In my head, Announcers Voice: "Lunch time made better by Dungeon Dudes"
Great way to decompress!
I'm interested to see if Monty will use anything from here for the Amethyst Academy. Sebastien will definitely get the endless coffee magic item for sure.
An Untold Tales with young Academy students would be extremely fun.
I think that Veo and Pluto should club together to buy Sebastian a "Towel of Muffling". I sure that everyone in earshot of Sebastian's bed would be grateful for some nights of sleep; free from screams of, "MUUUMSIE!"
I want to note that Strixhaven Initiate also allows you to choose your spellcasting modifier for the spells in addition to the spell list expansion applying to all of your caster classes when multi-classed. This makes it quite a bit better than Magic Initiate because Magic Initiate doesn't let you pick the modifier you're using.
The only downside is a much smaller selection of cantrips. I can still see people taking magic initiate for booming blade on some builds.
Strixhaven initiate also let’s you get find fimiliar with guidance, or goodberry on a cleric. It also adds the spell to your spell list automatically regardless of your class
I am ging to play this with my group and I think you missed one crucial thing:
The andventure setting encourages you to place Strixhaven in an interplanar 'demiplane' or sth similar. This gives a HUGE opportunity to include beloved NPCs, creatures and even villains from other campaigns and universes and I think that's a great upside!
When the Unearthed Arcana came out I was really excited about how unique the school Subclasses were. You could play as a Lorehold student, for example, with your Ancient Companion in any campaign and feel like a student of the school. I was really disappointed when they removed all of it.... unfortunately, I didnt realize until after I bought it.
What I wanted was a sourcebook to show you how to run a school campaign with schedules, and class progression systems. And it seems all of these systems they were exclaiming about during marketing are so deeply woven into the campaign (not to mention shallow and - use your imagination-ey) they cant help with what I wanted. I didnt want to rolepay a dress ball for my adult students. I didnt want to make a bestie.
I’m not saying I don’t like the content, but it feel like there’s so much stuff for casters, lately, and very little for martial characters. Could we please have a book with more weapons and armour(mundane and magical) and more options for martial characters, aside from just more maneuvers?
Side note: does anyone else think it’s weird that they keep adding new maneuvers for Battlemasters? I can’t think of any other subclass that gets expanded feature options that are just for them alone.
Yeah I would love some extra work on the weapons. Whips for example, I think are super cool. In real life they can lasso people, disarm foes, strike with extreme precision from a farther distance and all they get in 5e is reach and finesse. I hate how limiting that feels.
And there are so many more weapons out there too. Why no weirder weapons that only Monks and Fighters can use, like nunchucks or a Pike or Guan Dao. Have they ever expanded the weapons listings?
Alastar's guide to weapons and combat
It's hard to add stuff for martials other than more magic items (though people HB so many items I can see why WoTC hasn't been adding many).
Honestly, they should add more feats like Crusher, Slasher, Piercer but with abilities more inline with GWM / SS.
@@agilemind6241 I agree. The addition of those feats was helpful, but not enough. I expanded Fighting Styles in my game to encompass 4 levels of development (1st, 6th, 11th, and 16th levels). I also have a downtime training system which follows proficiency increase (5th, 9th, 13th, 17th), allowing 4 skills, tools, languages, styles, or talents to be developed. Fighting classes benefit a great deal from being able to choose additional styles with this system. I am still play testing some of the styles at various levels, but so far I am very pleased.
@@moocowofjustice525 You can always pull from other resources out there. I like to look through Griffon's Saddlebag and add some of the weapons / items from there as loot. You can also modify weapon's rules (or anything else) as you see fit, the books are more of a guideline ;).
Just had the fun idea of this being used for a campaign respec. Like your fighter wants to be an eldritch knight or something so they take a 1 year course to train in the arcane. Or your monk wants to become a wizard so they do a full 4 year course.
So I believe that when Strixhaven was gonna have the subclasses it was a sourcebook akin to Ravinca. But we all know what happened to that idea…… So what I want to know is why nobody at D&DBeyond took any amount of time to change the placement of Strixhaven from sourcebook to adventure. (Not saying it was easy to do so, just trying to ask why nobody apart of it thought to say “hey, this book isn’t a sourcebook anymore but rather an adventure so somebody should change that on D&Dbeyond.)
Either way im buying the owlin solely for the purpose of making an owl NPC who knows exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. Will i tell my players if they ever ask? Hehe nope.
You don't need PC rules for an NPC thou. Please don't spend your money on this.
@@Vallinen92 You're right. And I didn't buy the book, I just bought the owlin race cause one of my players had made a character concept for it back when it was UA. In hindsight, could just play an Aaracokra (spelling?) and just call it an owl. but at least I only spent like 3 bucks instead of 50.
A D&D themed MTG set was also released earlier this year.
Me: Oh, I mostly wanna hear what they say about Silvery Barb.
Dungeon Dudes: We’re doing a separate video because we’ve got a lot to say about them.
Me: Clever dudes…
Yes finally time to hear your thoughts on Silvery Ba.... Damnit. Maybe next video! 😂
Btw can't wait for your oneshot with Colby!
We had so much to say about the spells that we realized it was an extra 20 mins of footage so we are filming a subsequent video to really go in to details on them.
@@DungeonDudes That's fine, glad you're dedicating so much time to it!
@@DungeonDudes Looking forward to it. It's the spells that I'm most interested in.
*Very minor spoilers for year one of the adventure*
I was very interested in getting this as a possible campaign to run. I dig the magic school and I was really looking forward to how it was going to incorporate relationships and extracurricular activities. I've read through the first year of the four years of the adventure and so far I am deeply disappointed in it. The dudes weren't lying about rehashing the events of Harry Potter, so much so that it in order for scenarios to work as written both the party and npc students need to be behaving more like middle school kids than young adults. The relationship system is paper thin and they way it uses the npcs in the adventure feels lazy. There is a list of decently diverse student npcs with personality write ups but as soon as they are in the adventure every one of them is interchangeable. The plot hook for every incident in the first year is really just: Choose one of the npcs the party likes and they run up and say "Hey come over here!" Even if the scenario makes no sense for that NPC based on their personality. I'm gonna finish reading the adventure and hope it improves but my hopes are not high.
…it doesn’t get much better. I agree with you. While the story is interesting it is not nuanced in any way. I was hoping for a campaign featuring the MTG villain from the Strixhaven story. Looking over the story I think their goal was to be able to plop the campaign down in any groups world, both homebrew and module alike.
Overall I enjoyed the book but was extremely underwhelmed.
@@TheDMNMOR I think this is a good book for a homebrew DM like me. It has stuff there to make my life easier, and fun systems, but the story is such a nothingburger that I don't feel bad creatively messing with stuff.
*WoTC:* You're getting a bottle of endless coffee & DnD Hermione.
*My DnD Group:* Shut up and take our money!
I'm currently working on a campaign set in a Magical School, so this book came out at an appropriate time.
Though part of the campaign, this book also introduces new mechanics that can ported to other campaigns and games. In particular, the Relationship mechanic in the book represents a real development and expansion of the Social Interaction rules outside of the relatively sparse mechanics represented in the DMG. In a similar vein, the Extracurricular or Exams mechanics could probably be, with a little modification, used to introduce new interesting and attractive downtime options for your players to dive into.
No. No it does not. The relationship "mechanic" is just are you nice to a person? You gain one relationship point with them. Are you mean to them? You lose one point. This is the most pathetic attempt at "relationship mechanics." It's not a good system.
What is your alternative? Without distracting from the larger game.
Dungeon Dudes: "There better be owls"
Agent Cooper: "The owls are not what they seem"
Yeah, that silvery barbs spell deserves its own breakdown video. Its stronk
I wanna play a psi warrior in this campaign. Just take a background the feats and flavor the Psychic power as magic
I thought it was just a source book but you actually convinced me to get it knowing its an adventure in this vein.
Love the comment in regards to reducing page count following creating your own book :) As someone who works in publishing... save the pages, save the cost!
I like the idea of the students gathering together outside of class and playing their equivalent to Dungeons & Dragons. Businesses & Brokers?
Adults & Applications?
Meetings & Mortgages
Bunkers & Badasses.
Long as I can use it for Morgrave University in Eberron I'm all sweet. Was happy they've added some Artificer stuff!
Taken as a whole, I don't think Strixhaven is a good match for Mograve University at all. It's feels more like a closer match to Arcanix or the Twelve. However, there might be some good bits you can pull out and repurpose either way.
Keith baker, the creator of the Eberron setting, just posted an article on Strixhaven in Eberron that's worth checking out.
I always liked the novels back when I played MTG, though I was less interested in the overall story following the fall of Yawgmoth as the previous consistent narrative thread was replaced with aimlessly wandering around the planes.
Might pick this up just to see how the schools were divided and maybe use it as a baisis for home brewing a Krynn setting with the 3 robes of wizards.
I feel that Strixhaven suffers from what the old Birthright campaign did… lots of cool and interesting things to do, but not really in a group as a team. I can see a lot of players going off to do their own thing in this.
This is when the teacher forces the students into a group project
I actually read a couple magic the gathering novels as a kid and they were super cool
Some of them are good. Some of them are…not fit for human consumption lol
I've already decided that the amethyst academy in Drakkenheim will be replaced with Strixhaven when I play through so these backgrounds and feats will have a place.
This will make for a pretty big change, but let us know how it goes!
I recently fell out of love with the Magic the Gathering card game due to some shenanigans involving overdoing proxies that kind of broke the game for me, and I don’t see myself ever going back. But I still absolutely adore the MTG lore, and since getting into D&D, took to the crossover modules like a fish to water. I know some people have certain opinions about the crossovers, but I personally can’t get enough of them. It’s my way of interacting with the IP that I love so much for the foreseeable future. I personally hope they come up with one for every major plane going forward.
It took a while to understand the lyrics on Kelly's hoodie, then I had to restart the video because I missed the first 3 minutes lol
It’s Sardaukar throat-singing
I can’t get over how much I love Kelly’s sweater. Makes me happy to see blink182 merch in 2021. Now if he gets some sum41 I merch too….
I plan on getting it later this week, I also got Candlekeep Mysteries a few months ago. I really want to combine the two into an even bigger campus.
I'm combining these books too, except I have Candlekeep and Strixhaven as rival organizations with vastly different views on magic and the world. GL with your campaign!
Hello Dungeon Dudes,
Can you please do a video, or possibly 2-3, doing an in depth dive comparing the various Conjuration and Summoning Spells?
Hmmm. Shadow Monk owlin = showlin monk
For me mtg was never a "Competition minded game" we held tournaments, sure.
But where I lived at the time they weren't all too serious, so the lore was my main take away from a Literally beautiful card game 💖💁🏽♂️✨
I want to run this with Candle Keep and Wild, all woven together.
Hey guys!
Sound engineer here. You all could use a bit more compression and gain on your audio input settings. The volume difference between ads or other videos and your excellent reviews is quite large.
All the best! Thanks for your hard work!💪
If you mention boarding school specifically I do think of Harry Potter but kids shows like dragon tales have really seeded this image of like a Dutch cottage with a water wheel and and a mote.
Of course older films where the characters live in castles always had really ornate libraries and other temple like structures that's something that would fit in a magic school.
So if you’re looking for a dark, gritty fantasy D&D 5E setting with a magical academy, perhaps check out Dungeons of Drakkenheim…? 😏
Maybe a new expansion is called for, "Rings of Drakkenheim". In which the PCs struggle to survive in the Amethyst Academy and compete for the converted Rings of Spell Storing.
Monty could make Strixhaven a branch of the Amethyst Academy and start a new campaign. Delirium has been shipped all over the world and that is cannon. 100% would watch.
Sounds to me that it’s an campaign setting book that they got super into writing the adventure. But I guess I’ll have to wait till Christmas 🤷♂️
It sounds a lot like Waterdeep: Dragon Heist to me.
Info about a setting, a few new magic items and stat blocks, but mostly it's an adventure.
Tbf Magic had already done a Wizarding campus before Jk even started on hp, with the Tolarian academy. This is that taken to a planar level.
so my campaign is a very high magic setting, where eventually my players learn spells from one of the elemental schools (starting with a cantrip and lvl 1 spell at lvl 5 ish) and it seems like the new background could be a great starting point to homebrew that
I work at a library and we have a D&D group. I’m gonna have to get this
7:52 It only goes t level 10, though. I would guess that this is a "50/50" thing. Those first ten levels are the embedded adventure in the book, and it's on the DM to continue/finish out the campaign to level 20.
Great video, I do have a question as someone who already has the book, does the villain, not-Voldemort, have a stat block because I probably have went crazy looking for it as I don't believe he has an encounter in the adventure and yet he has lair actions. Not only that I don't think the secondary villains, the oriq aren't mentioned in the adventure but they have stat blocks for its members but not for the leader, which is mentioned in their stat block description
Just failed my save against Feeblemind trying to read that shirt haha
that can't be, or we wouldn't have seen the comment for another month, when you had a chance to make your saving throw again.
And now you have found enlightenment .
It’s interesting to hear that the setting as described in the book reminded them of Harry Potter when the setting as conveyed through the magic cards really had nothing to do with HP besides the basic concept
Finally going to run this campaign this weekend. I can’t wait to see how the table takes it
'Voldenot' is surely the name that Monty is looking for here ?
Also - can you summon a demon to impress your wannabe girlfriend and have it all go horribly wrong ? If not, then is it even a real mage school ? :)
It sounds like Wizards took their cue from Paizo's "Strength of Thousands" adventure path. That one is a magic school adventure that gives all of the players a free magic casting multiclass archetype.
Gonna have to rewatch the video..I spent the entire video trying to read Kelly's shirt to no success lol.
Translation: Dont waste your time on me, you're already the voice inside my head. Blink 182 - I Miss You
2:17 Hey, now, there's a whole term for Magic players who care deeply about the lore!
You Dudes are the best. Thanks for all you do. 👍
Is there something wrong with me, that I understood Kelly’s shirt at a glance?
You know, maybe it would be good if we put a community poll for the next crossover, something we can vote on and look forward to
Quidditch definitely isn't the wizard equivalent of cricket. It's more like the equivalent of football (soccer) with a touch of capture the flag thrown in. 😁
Ah; they are color opposing! That makes so much sense now. I wish the schools' principles were a bit more open for customization; but given this is based off actual (albiet recently decided) lore, can't be too picky. Though I'd probably change the schools a bit if I were to ever run it.
I was wondering what in the world that sweatshirt was Kelly is wearing and then I saw "Yedd," and I just have to say, bravo for another amazing piece of clothing.
11:51 this feat/background gives Wizard the ability to heal. Which i'm excited about. I know its really late about it.
Thanks for saving me money. LOL. I'll pick it up eventually someday, but I'm happier to wait.
Silvery Barb is an absolutely broken spell, It basically invalidate multiple abilities (heightened spell, the grave cleric crit cancel, etc.) by being stronger and costing less. Heightened spell cost the equivalent of a 2nd level spell slot and need to be set up before while Silvery Barb is a 1st level reroll reaction ; it's absolutely broken when you start to get the big Save or Suck spells. In addition, that reroll can cancel crits better than Grave clerics (the attack may miss). It's also better than the 7th level Rune knight ability because rerolls are stronger than disadvantage (because they can stack with disadvantage) and you can get it at 1st level.
(also, Aberrant mind sorcerers can cast it with only 1 sorcery point)
(also, it gives a second opportunity to use up a legendary resistance of a monster)
This spell that anyone can get with Fey touched or a 1 level dip in sorcerer/wizard/bard is the equivalent of "Portent(Div Wizard)" + "Sentinel at Death's door (grave cleric)" + "Heightened spell" + "Warding flare(light cleric)" + "Storm Rune(Rune Knight)" + (Giving advantage to the Rogue's next attack).
I really hope they Errata it in some way because if they don't it's gonna be the first spell I'll ban in my campaigns
They don't care about it being overpowered, to them it just means they'll sell more books and make more money
@@Nickelback8469 indeed. Sadly its quicker and easier to cobble some new OP mechanics rather than properly balancing it all.
You guys should review Jim Zubs Skullkickers Caster bastards campaign which also takes place in a magical academy.
dudes, your overview of this is perfect reflection. Sage advice as always fellas, cheers
Kelly, that sweater is EVERYTHING.
Have you considered the Strixhavens Mascots for Pact of the Chain familiars?
2:15 Idk about everyone else, but I am an MTG lore fanatic. I can recount all the lore that happened BEFORE I WAS BORN.
Kelly that shirt is incredible.
Sounds like Fantasy High from Dimension 20. If it's anything like that, it sounds like a blast to me!
Correction guys, the Owlin flying speed isn't 30ft, it's whatever your walking speed is, so 30ft base, but an Owlin monk is gonna get broken real quick.
Useful yes but was there anywhere the monk couldn't already get to on the map before being able to fly? Also to balance it out you have to be a monk..
@@benry007 Hey, monks are awesome. Just made a gloom stalker (8) way of shadow (6) assassin (6) Owlin, it fits so well.
@@JaydenDimaio thats a 20th level character. Are you just starting at that level? Why 6 levels in gloomstalker?
@@benry007 it was just a proof of concept character really, turned out great. 8 in gloom stalker, 6 in the others. Gives me 20ac, 60ft walking, climbing, swimming and flying (70ft on the first turn), dark vision to 150ft +10ft blindsight. Sneak attack, all kinds of darkness and invisibility, options, stunning strike and 5 expertise skills. As a nocturnal hunter type character, it synergies so well. Although Owlin would work great as any one of those subclasses.
Thanks for your honesty! Very helpful. I'll skip this one but happily throw WOTC $$ for MMotM but maybe when I can buy it without the set.
Yes, finally! I couldn't wait to hear your thoughts about this.
if i end up in a strixhaven game, im going to play an unarmed fighting eldritch knight. ready to fail some classes and deck some nerds.
You'll, at least, need to learn a couple of Bigby's spells, "Infernal Wedgie" and "Inescapable Locker".
I was pretty excited for potential spells in this book but man Silvery barbs is a first for me having to really think about restricting it at my table.
Barbs looks bad for sure, also wither and bloom is a wizard heal, not a great one but a heal none the less
@@rbmore3 I think wither and bloom is fine for a wizard. Uses up the recipients hit dice. I think of it as more in the category of life transference or vampiric touch which the eizard has access to, ok in a pinch but by no means makes them a reliable healer.
You do realize that monsters and enemies of the party can also use silvery barbs, right?
@@calkailah2483 That has nothing to do with the balance of it in players hands. I have infinite number of tools to balance monsters to create a satisfying experience for my players to combat.
Player balance and enemy balance are nowhere near close to each other. This is an asymmetric game and having a spell like this part of a player's constant repertoire with the capability of the synergies it has is the problem. It is immediately a must have for its level and one of the best spells and reactions in the game.
People are dissing this book but I love it!
Dang wizards be cranking out books like crazy recently, wild beyond witchlight, fizbans and strixhaven in just a few months
Still waiting for my admission to Breakbill's.
as you said depends on the dm and party. i mean in the campaign i am in i am a dragon born fighter who has magic initiate eldritch blast and daddy issues because dad is a red dragon who up and left when my character was still in the womb and that may or may not have destroyed a few villages and scared the hell out of some npcs. most if not all the party i have is magic users of some sort or another. so, it would not be catastrophic if our dm say hired us to track down a missing magister aka headmaster who was investigating something to with say a shapeshifting elf in our party. not original but dnd to me is all creating a world that you and your party can get into. and my dm is doing that quite well. except the main story villain is eldritch worms basically.
Bummed that they didn't turn the scrapped multi class subclasses into regular wizard subclasses and just left them out entirely, I loved the flavour of the spirit summoner
Took me a minute to get Kelly's shirt. 😂 Love that song!
8:43 is where I was in the video when I finally got Kelly's shirt.
I'm also not into the dark hell has taken over setting, but don't knock those who do. I am big on the war campaign, though. Love to swing my sword. With that being said, I was waiting for a setting like this.
You said the words "caffeine addiction" just as I openned my can of monster.
...I feel called out.
I'm very excited for this, and the bottomless coffee mug is gonna be a great gift to my coffee fanatic friend
As somebody that moved from England and had to deal with every teeny bopper coming up to you and asking you if you've met Harry potter, this book gives me the willies. I was just getting comfortable with Potter mania no longer being in my face.
I'd love to see a lot more support for tier 3 and 4.
Why would they release content for the 1%?
@@zera1266 you still CAN start a campaign at a higher level.
@@guyman1570 but most people won't
When I first seen the description of this book I thought it seems a lot like the Harry Potter series. Thanks for confirming my suspicions guys. It looks interesting so I’ll have to wait until you put out further videos on this book.